John Knox and the Reformation

Knox, on June 28, asked leave to enter England for secret discourse; he had already written to the same effect from St. Andrews. [151 - Bain, i. 218; For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, 339. 340.] If Henri sends French reinforcement, Knox “is uncertain what will follow”; we may guess that authority would be in an ill way. Cecil temporised; he wanted a better name than Kirkcaldy’s – a man in the Regent’s service – to the negotiations (July 4). “Anywise kindle the fire,” he writes to Croft (July 8). Croft is to let the Reformers know that Arran has escaped out of France. Such a chance will not again “come in our lives.” We see what the chance is!

On July 19 Knox writes again to Cecil, enclosing what he means to be an apology for his “Blast of the Trumpet,” to be given to Elizabeth. He says, while admitting Elizabeth’s right to reign, as “judged godly,” though a woman, that they “must be careful not to make entrance and title to many, by whom not only shall the truth be impugned, but also shall the country be brought to bondage and slavery. God give you eyes to foresee and wisdom to avoid the apparent danger.” [152 - Knox, vi. 45.]

The “many” to whom “entrance and title” are not to be given, manifestly are Mary Stuart, Queen of France and Scotland.

It is not very clear whether Knox, while thus working against a woman’s “entrance and title” to the crown on the ground of her sex, is thinking of Mary Stuart’s prospects of succession to the throne of England or of her Scottish rights, or of both. His phrase is cast in a vague way; “many” are spoken of, but it is not hard to understand what particular female claimant is in his mind.

Thus Knox himself was intriguing with England against his Queen at the very moment when in his “History” he denies that communications were frequent between his party and England, or that any of the Regent’s charges are true. As for opposing authority and being rebellious, the manifest fundamental idea of the plot is to marry Elizabeth to Arran and deny “entrance and title” to the rightful Queen. It was an admirable scheme, and had Arran not become a lunatic, had Elizabeth not been “that imperial votaress” vowed to eternal maidenhood, their bridal, with the consequent loss of the Scottish throne by Mary, would have been the most fortunate of all possible events. The brethren had, in short, a perfect right to defend their creed in arms; a perfect right to change the dynasty; a perfect right to intrigue with England, and to resist a French landing, if they could. But for a reformer of the Church to give a dead lady the lie in his “History” when the economy of truth lay rather on his own side, as he knew, is not so well. We shall see that Knox possibly had the facts in his mind during the first interview with Mary Stuart. [153 - In Dr. Hay Fleming’s The Scottish Reformation (p. 57), he dates the Regent’s proclamation July 1. He omits the charge that, as proof of their disloyalty, “they daily receive Englishmen with messages, and send the like into England” (Knox, i. p. 364). “The narrative of the proclamation, Knox says, is untrue,” Dr. Hay Fleming remarks; but as to the dealing with England, the Reformer confessed to it in his “History,” Book III., when he could do so with safety.]

The Lords, July 2, replied to the proclamation of Mary of Guise, saying that she accused them of a purpose “to invade her person.” [154 - Knox, i. 365.] There is not a word of the kind in the Regent’s proclamation as given by Knox himself. They denied what the Regent in her proclamation had not asserted, and what she had asserted about their dealings with England they did not venture to deny; “whereby,” says Spottiswoode in his “History,” “it seemed there was some dealing that way for expelling the Frenchmen, which they would not deny, and thought not convenient as then openly to profess.” [155 - Spottiswoode, i. 282.] The task of giving the lie to the Regent when she spoke truth was left to the pen of Knox.

Meanwhile, at Dunbar, Mary of Guise was in evil case. She had sounded Erskine, the commander of the Castle, who, she hoped, would stand by her. But she had no money to pay her French troops, who were becoming mutinous, and d’Oysel “knew not to what Saint to vow himself.” The Earl of Huntly, before he would serve the Crown, [156 - Teulet, i. 331. The Regent’s instructions to Du Fresnoy.] insisted on a promise of the Earldom of Moray; this desire was to be his ruin. Huntly was a double dealer; “the gay Gordons” were ever brave, loyal, and bewildered by their chiefs. By July 22, the Scots heard of the fatal wound of Henri II., to their encouragement. Both parties were in lack of money, and the forces of the Congregation were slipping home by hundreds. Mary, according to Knox, was exciting the Duke against Argyll and Lord James, by the charge that Lord James was aiming at the crown, in which if he succeeded, he would deprive not only her daughter of the sovereignty, but the Hamiltons of the succession. Young and ambitious as Lord James then was, and heavily as he was suspected, even in England, it is most improbable that he ever thought of being king.

The Congregation refused to let Argyll and Lord James hold conference with the Regent. Other discussions led to no result, except waste of time, to the Regent’s advantage; and, on July 22, Mary, in council with Lord Erskine, Huntly, and the Duke, resolved to march against the Reformers at Edinburgh, who had no time to call in their scattered levies in the West, Angus, and Fife. Logan of Restalrig, lately an ally of the godly, surrendered Leith, over which he was the superior, to d’Oysel; and the Congregation decided to accept a truce (July 23-24).

At this point Knox’s narrative becomes so embroiled that it reminds one of nothing so much as of Claude Nau’s attempts to glide past an awkward point in the history of his employer, Mary Stuart. I have puzzled over Knox’s narrative again and again, and hope that I have disentangled the knotted and slippery thread.

It is not wonderful that the brethren made terms, for the “Historie” states that their force numbered but 1500 men, whereas d’Oysel and the Duke led twice that number, horse and foot. They also heard from Erskine, in the Castle, that, if they did not accept “such appointment as they might have,” he “would declare himself their enemy,” as he had promised the Regent. It seems that she did not want war, for d’Oysel’s French alone should have been able to rout the depleted ranks of the Congregation.

The question is, What were the terms of treaty? for it is Knox’s endeavour to prove that the Regent broke them, and so justified the later proceedings of the Reformers. The terms, in French, are printed by Teulet. [157 - Teulet, i. 334, 335, citing Archives Etrangéres, Angleterre, xiv. (xv.?), f. 221 (see the English translation), For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, 406, 407; Keith, i. 220, 221; Spottiswoode, i. 285, 286.] They run thus: —

1. The Protestants, not being inhabitants of Edinburgh, shall depart next day.

2. They shall deliver the stamps for coining to persons appointed by the Regent, hand over Holyrood, and Ruthven and Pitarro shall be pledges for performance.

3. They shall be dutiful subjects, except in matters of religion.

4. They shall not disturb the clergy in their persons or by withholding their rents, &c., before January 10, 1560.

5. They shall not attack churches or monasteries before that date.

6. The town of Edinburgh shall enjoy liberty of conscience, and shall choose its form of religion as it pleases till that date.

7. The Regent shall not molest the preachers nor suffer the clergy to molest them for cause of religion till that date.

8. Keith, Knox, and Spottiswoode, add that no garrisons, French or Scots, shall occupy Edinburgh, but soldiers may repair thither from their garrisons for lawful business.

The French soldiers are said to have swaggered in St. Giles’s, but no complaint is made that they were garrisoned in Edinburgh. In fact, they abode in the Canongate and Leith.

Now, these were the terms accepted by the Congregation. This is certain, not only because historians, Knox excepted, are unanimous, but because the terms were either actually observed, or were evaded, on a stated point of construction.

1. The Congregation left Edinburgh.

2. They handed over the stamps of the Mint, Holyrood, and the two pledges.

3. 4, 5. We do not hear that they attacked any clerics or monastery before they broke off publicly from the treaty, and Knox (i. 381) admits that Article 4 was accepted.

6. They would not permit the town of Edinburgh to choose its religion by “voting of men.” On July 29, when Huntly, Chatelherault, and Erskine, the neutral commander of the Castle, asked for a plébiscite, as provided in the treaty of July 24, the Truth, said the brethren, was not a matter of human votes, and, as the brethren held St. Giles’s Church before the treaty, under Article 7 they could not be dispossessed. [158 - Extracts from Edinburgh Town Council Records, July 29, 1559; Keith, i. 487-489.] The Regent, to avoid shadow of offence, yielded the point as to Article 6, and was accused of breach of treaty because, occupying Holyrood, she had her Mass there. Had Edinburgh been polled, the brethren knew that they would have been outvoted. [159 - Cf. Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. 30.]

Now, Knox’s object, in that part of Book II. of his “History,” which was written in September-October 1559 as a tract for contemporary reading, is to prove that the Regent was the breaker of treaty. His method is first to give “the heads drawn by us, which we desired to be granted.” The heads are —

1. No member of the Congregation shall be troubled in any respect by any authority for the recent “innovation” before the Parliament of January 10, 1560, decides the controversies.

2. Idolatry shall not be restored where, on the day of treaty, it has been suppressed.

3. Preachers may preach wherever they have preached and wherever they may chance to come.

4. No soldiers shall be in garrison in Edinburgh.

5. The French shall be sent away on “a reasonable day” and no more brought in without assent of the whole Nobility and Parliament. [160 - Knox, i. 376-379. The italicised articles are not in the other versions of the terms as finally settled; cf. “Historie,” Wodrow Miscellany, i. 55-57.]

These articles make no provision for the safety of Catholic priests and churches, and insist on suppression of idolatry where it has been put down, and the entire withdrawal of French forces. Knox’s party could not possibly denounce these terms which they demanded as “things unreasonable and ungodly,” for they were the very terms which they had been asking for, ever since the Regent went to Dunbar. Yet, when the treaty was made, the preachers did say “our case is not yet so desperate that we need to grant to things unreasonable and ungodly.” [161 - Ibid., i. 379.] Manifestly, therefore, the terms actually obtained, as being “unreasonable and ungodly,” were not those for which the Reformers asked, and which, they publicly proclaimed, had been conceded.

Knox writes, “These our articles were altered, and another form disposeth.” And here he translates the terms as given in the French, terms which provide for the safety of Catholics, the surrender of Holyrood and the Mint, but say nothing about the withdrawal of the French troops or the non-restoration of “idolatry” where it has been suppressed.

He adds, “This alteration in words and order was made” (so it actually was made) “without the knowledge and consent of those whose counsel we had used in all cases before” – clearly meaning the preachers, and also implying that the consent of the noble negotiators for the Congregation was obtained to the French articles.

Next day the Congregation left Edinburgh, after making solemn proclamation of the conditions of truce, in which they omitted all the terms of the French version, except those in their own favour, and stated (in Knox’s version) that all of their own terms, except the most important, namely, the removal of the French, and the promise to bring in no more, had been granted! It may be by accident, however, that the proclamation of the Lords, as given by Knox, omits the article securing the departure of the French. [162 - Knox, i. 380.] There exist two MS. copies of the proclamation, in which the Lords dare to assert “that the Frenchmen should be sent away at a reasonable date, and no more brought in except by assent of the whole nobility and Parliament.” [163 - Sloane MSS., British Museum, 4144, 177b, 4737f, 100b. For. Cal. Eliz. 1558-59, 411.]

Of the terms really settled, except as regards the immunity of their own party, the Lords told the public not one word; they suppressed what was true, and added what was false.

Against this formal, public, and impudent piece of mendacity, we might expect Knox to protest in his “History”; to denounce it as a cause of God’s wrath. On the other hand he states, with no disapproval, the childish quibbles by which his party defended their action.

On reading or hearing the Lords’ proclamation, the Catholics, who knew the real terms of treaty, said that the Lords “in their proclamation had made no mention of anything promised to them,” and “had proclaimed more than was contained in the Appointment;” among other things, doubtless, the promise to dismiss the French. [164 - Knox, i. 381.]

The brethren replied to these “calumnies of Papists” (as Calderwood styles them), that they “proclaimed nothing that was not finally agreed upon, in word and promise, betwixt us and those with whom the Appointment was made, whatsoever their scribes had after written, [165 - My italics.] who, in very deed, had altered, both in words and sentences, our Articles, as they were first conceived; and yet if their own writings were diligently examined, the self same thing shall be found in substance.”

This is most complicated quibbling! Knox uses his ink like the cuttle-fish, to conceal the facts. The “own writings” of the Regent’s party are before us, and do not contain the terms proclaimed by the Congregation. Next, in drawing up the terms which the Congregation was compelled to accept, the “scribes” of the Regent’s party necessarily, and with the consent of the Protestant negotiators, altered the terms proposed by the brethren, but not granted by the Regent’s negotiators. Thirdly, the Congregation now asserted that “finally” an arrangement in conformity with their proclamation was “agreed upon in word and promise”; that is, verbally, which we never find them again alleging. The game was to foist false terms on public belief, and then to accuse the Regent of perfidy in not keeping them.

These false terms were not only publicly proclaimed by the Congregation with sound of trumpets, but they were actually sent, by Knox or Kirkcaldy, or both, to Croft at Berwick, for English reading, on July 24. In a note I print the letter, signed by Kirkcaldy, but in the holograph of Knox, according to Father Stevenson. [166 - (Kyrkcaldy to Croft.)“Theis salbe to certiffy you vpon monday the xxiii of Jully the quene and the lordis of the congregation are agreit on this maner as followeth. The armies beying boythe in Syghte betuix Eddingburght and Lietht or partye adversaire send mediatoris desyring that we sall agree and cease frome sheddinge of blude yf we wer men quhilkis wold fulfill in deid that thing quhilk we proffessit, that is the preachyng of godis worde and furth settyng of his glorye. Me lordis of the congregation movet by thare offres wer content to here commonyng. So fynallye after long talke, It is appointted on this maner. That the Religion here begoon sall proceid and contenew in all places wt owt impedement of the quenes authoretie, thare minesters sall neyther be trubillit nor stopped and in all places whare ydolletre is put downe sall not be cett vp agane. And whill the parlement be haldin to consele vpon all materes wch is fixit the x day of Januarye nixt, every man sall leive to his conscience not compellit be authoretye to do any thyng in religion yt his conscience repugnes to. And to this said parlement ther sall no man of or congregation be molested or trobillit in thair bodeis landis goodis possessions what someevir. Further wt all dilligent spede ther frenche men here present salbe send awaye. And sall no other cum in this Realme w owt consent of the hole nobilite. The towne of Eddingburght salbe keipit fre by the inhabitantes thairof and no maner of garnission laid or keip thair In, neyther of frenche nor scottis. For our part we sall remove of Eddingburght to or awne houssis, yt the quene may come to hir awne palyce, wch we tuke of before and hathe left it voyde to hir G. We have delyvered the prentyng yrunes of the coyne agayne wch we tuke becaus of the corruption of monye agaynst our laws and commonwealthe. Off truthe we believe nevir worde to be keipit of thir promises of her syde. And therfore hath tane me lord duke the erll of Huntlye and the rest of the nobillitye beying vpon hir syde bound to the performance hereof wt this condition yf sche brekkes any point heirof they sall renunce hir obeysance and joyne them selfis wt vs. In this meane-tyme we contenew or men of warr to gydder wt in or boundis of Fyfe, Angus, Stretherin and Westland, in aduenture the appointtment be broken, and dowtes not to mak vs daily stronger for by the furthe settying of religion and haittred of the frenche men we gett the hartis of the hole commonalties. Nowe to conclude yf it had not bene for some nobillmens causis who hes promised to be owres we hade not appointted wt the quene at this tyme. From hens forwardis send to the lard of Ormiston who will se all saifly conveyed to me. Thvs I commit you to god from Eddingburght the xxiiii of Jully yoris at power(W. KYRKCALDY).” [405 - MS. Record Office; cf. For. Cal. Eliz., 1558 59, 408, 409.]] It will be remarked that the genuine articles forbidding attacks on monasteries and ensuring priests in their revenues are here omitted, while the false articles on suppression of idolatry, and expulsion of the French forces are inserted, and nothing is said about Edinburgh’s special liberty to choose her religion.

The sending of this false intelligence was not the result of a misunderstanding. I have shown that the French terms were perfectly well understood, and were observed, except Article 6, on which the Regent made a concession. How then could men professionally godly venture to misreport the terms, and so make them at once seem more favourable to themselves and less discouraging to Cecil than they really were, while at the same time (as the Regent could not keep terms which she had never granted) they were used as a ground of accusation against her?

This is the point that has perplexed me, for Knox, no less than the Congregation, seems to have deliberately said good-bye to truth and honour, unless the Lords elaborately deceived their secretary and diplomatic agent. The only way in which I can suppose that Knox and his friends reconciled their consciences to their conduct is this:

Knox tells us that “when all points were communed and agreed upon by mid-persons,” Chatelherault and Huntly had a private interview with Argyll, Glencairn, and others of his party. They promised that they would be enemies to the Regent if she broke any one jot of the treaty. “As much promised the duke that he would do, if in case that she would not remove her French at a reasonable day.. ” the duke being especially interested in their removal. But Huntly is not said to have made this promise – the removal of the French obviously not being part of the “Appointment.” [167 - Knox, i. 379, 380.]

Next, the brethren, in arguing with the Catholics about their own mendacious proclamation of the terms, said that “we proclaimed nothing which was not finally agreed upon, in word and promise, betwixt us and those with whom the Appointment was made… ” [168 - Ibid., i. 381.]

I can see no explanation of Knox’s conduct, except that he and his friends pacified their consciences by persuading themselves that non-official words of Huntly and Chatelherault (whatever these words may have been), spoken after “all was agreed upon,” cancelled the treaty with the Regent, became the real treaty, and were binding on the Regent! Thus Knox or Kirkcaldy, or both, by letter; and Knox later, orally in conversation with Croft, could announce false terms of treaty. So great, if I am right, is a good man’s power of self-persuasion! I shall welcome any more creditable theory of the Reformer’s behaviour, but I can see no alternative, unless the Lords lied to Knox.

That the French should be driven out was a great point with Cecil, for he was always afraid that the Scots might slip back from the English to the old French alliance. On July 28, after the treaty of July 24, but before he heard of it, he insisted on the necessity of expelling the French, in a letter to the Reformers. [169 - Knox, vi. 53.] He “marvels that they omit such an opportunity to help themselves.” He sent a letter of vague generalities in answer to their petitions for aid. When he received, as he did, a copy of the terms of the treaty of July 24, in French, he would understand.

As further proof that Cecil was told what Knox and Kirkcaldy should have known to be untrue, we note that on August 28 the Regent, weary of the perpetual charges of perfidy anew brought against her, “ashamed not,” writes Knox, to put forth a proclamation, in which she asserted that nothing, in the terms of July 23-24, forbade her to bring in more French troops, “as may clearly appear by inspection of the said Appointment, which the bearer has presently to show.” [170 - Ibid., i. 397-412. The Proclamation, and two Replies.]

Why should the Regent have been “ashamed” to tell the truth? If the bearer showed a false and forged treaty, the Congregation must have denounced it, and produced the genuine document with the signatures. Far from that, in a reply (from internal evidence written by Knox), they admit, “neither do we here[171 - My italics.] allege the breaking of the Appointment made at Leith (which, nevertheless, has manifestly been done), but” – and here the writer wanders into quite other questions. Moreover, Knox gives another reply to the Regent, “by some men,” in which they write “we dispute not so much whether the bringing in of more Frenchmen be violating of the Appointment, which the Queen and her faction cannot deny to be manifestly broken by them in more cases than one,” in no way connected with the French. One of these cases will presently be stated – it is comic enough to deserve record – but, beyond denial, the brethren could not, and did not even attempt to make out their charge as to the Regent’s breach of truce by bringing in new, or retaining old, French forces.

Our historians, and the biographers of Knox, have not taken the trouble to unravel this question of the treaty of July 24. But the behaviour of the Lords and of Knox seems characteristic, and worthy of examination.