Part 2

It was so--_and yet_--for every picture of noble humanity has its reverse--it is forced upon us that the Scots were, at this very time, a fearfully rude and ignorant people. As usual, they were so without having the least consciousness of it: their greatest author of that age, George Buchanan, speaks in perfect earnest of the _refinement_ of his own time, in comparison with the barbarism of former days.[4] But, whatever the age might be relatively to past ages, it was rude in itself. The Scotland of that day was ruder than the England of that day, ruder than many other European states. Few persons could read or write. Few knew aught beyond their daily calling. Men carried weapons, and were apt to use them on light occasion. The lords, and the rich generally, exercised enormous oppression upon the poor. The government was a faction of nobles, as against all the rest. When a man had a suit at law, he felt he had no chance without using ‘influence.’ Was he to be tried for an offence?--his friends considered themselves bound to muster in arms round the court to see that he got fair-play; that is, to get him off unharmed if they could. Men were accustomed to violence in all forms, as to their daily bread. The house of a man of consideration was a kind of castle: at the least, it was a tall narrow tower, with a grated door and a wall of defence. No one in those days had any general conceptions regarding the processes of nature. They saw the grass grow and their bullocks feed, and thought no more of it. Any extraordinary natural event, as an eclipse of the sun or an earthquake, still more a comet, affected them as an immediate expression of a frowning Providence. The great diseases, such as pestilence, which arose in consequence of their uncleanly habits and the wide-spread famines from which they often suffered, appeared to them as divine chastisements; not perhaps for the sins of those who suffered--which would have been comparatively reasonable--but probably for the sins of a ruler who did not suffer at all. The ruling class knew no more of a just public economy than the poor. Through absurd attempts to raise the value of coin by statute, the Scotch pound had fallen to a fraction of its original worth. By ridiculous endeavours to control markets, and adjust exportation and importation, mercantile freedom was paralysed, and penury and scarcity among the poor greatly increased. The good plant of Knowledge not being yet cultivated, its weed-precursor, Superstition, largely prevailed. Bearded men believed that a few muttered words could take away and give back the milk of their cattle. An archbishop expected to be cured of a deadly ailment by a charm pronounced by an ignorant countrywoman. The forty-six men who met as the first General Assembly, and drew from the Scriptures the Confession of Faith which they handed down as stereotyped truth to after-generations, were every one of them not more fully persuaded of the soundness of any of the doctrines of that Confession, than they were of the reality of sorcery, and felt themselves not more truly called upon by the Bible to repress idolatry than to punish witches. They were good men, earnest, and meaning well to God and man; but they were men of the sixteenth century, ignorant, and rough in many of their ways.

While, then, we shall see great occasion to admire the hardy valour with which this people achieved their deliverance from bondage, we must also be prepared for finding them full of vehement intolerance towards all challenge of their own dogmas and all adherence to alien forms of faith. We shall find them utterly incapable of imagining a conscientious dissent, much less of allowing for and respecting it. We must be prepared to see them--while repudiating one set of superstitious incrustations upon the original simple gospel--working it out on their own part in creeds, plats, covenants, and church institutions generally, full of mere human logic and device, but yet assumed to be as true as if a divine voice had spoken and framed them, breathing war and persecution towards all other systems, and practically operating as a tyranny only somewhat less formidable than that which had been put away.

REIGN OF MARY: 1561-1565.

The regent, Mary de Guise, having died in June 1560, while her daughter Mary, the nominally reigning queen, was still in France, the management of affairs fell into the hands of the body of nobles, styled Lords of the Congregation, who had struggled for the establishment of the Protestant faith. The chief of these was Lord James Stuart, an illegitimate son of James V., and brother of the queen--the man of by far the greatest sagacity and energy of his age and country, and a most earnest votary of the new religion.

Becoming a widow in December 1560, by the death of her husband, Francis II., Mary no longer had any tie binding her to France, and consequently she resolved on returning to her own dominions. When she arrived in Edinburgh, in August 1561, she found the Protestant religion so firmly established, and so universally accepted by the people--there being only some secluded districts where Catholicism still prevailed--that, so far from having a chance of restoring her kingdom to Rome, as she, ‘an unpersuaded princess,’ might have wished to do, it was with the greatest difficulty that she could be allowed to have the mass performed in a private room in her palace. The people regarded her beautiful face with affection; and, as she allowed her brother, Lord James, and other Protestant nobles to act for her, her government was far from unpopular.

Mary’s conduct towards the Protestant cause appeared as that of one who submits to what cannot be resisted. Before she had been fifteen months in the country, she accompanied her brother (whom she created Earl of Moray) on an expedition to the north, where she broke the power of the Gordon family, who boasted they could restore the Catholic faith in three counties. What is still more remarkable, she dealt with the patrimony of the church, accepting part of the spoils for the use of the state. It is believed, nevertheless, that she designed ultimately to act in concert with the Catholic powers of the continent for the restoration of the old religion in Scotland. One obvious motive for keeping on fair terms with Protestantism for the present, lay in her hopes of succeeding to the English crown, in the event of the death of Elizabeth, whose next heir she was.

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[Sidenote: 1561.]

A custom, dating far back in Catholic times, prevailed in Edinburgh in unchecked luxuriance down almost to the time of the Reformation. It consisted in a set of unruly dramatic games, called _Robin Hood_, the _Abbot of Unreason_, and the _Queen of May_, which were enacted every year in the floral month just mentioned. The interest felt by the populace in these whimsical merry-makings was intense. At the approach of May, they assembled and chose some respectable individuals of their number, very grave and reverend citizens perhaps, to act the parts of Robin Hood and Little John, of the Lord of Inobedience, or the Abbot of Unreason, and ‘make sports and jocosities’[5] for them. If the chosen actors felt it inconsistent with their tastes, gravity, or engagements, to don a fantastic dress, caper and dance, and incite their neighbours to do the like, they could only be excused on paying a fine. On the appointed day, always a Sunday or holiday, the people assembled in their best attire and in military array, and marched in blithe procession to some neighbouring field, where the fitting preparations had been made for their amusement. Robin Hood and Little John robbed bishops, fought with pinners, and contended in archery among themselves, as they had done in reality two centuries before.[6] The Abbot of Unreason kicked up his heels and played antics like a modern pantaloon. The popular relish for all this was such as can scarcely now be credited. ‘A learned prelate [Latimer] preaching before Edward VI., observes, that he once came to a town upon a holiday, and gave information on the evening before of his design to preach. But next day when he came to the church, he found the door locked. He tarried half an hour ere the key could be found, and instead of a willing audience, some one told him: “This is a busy day with us; we cannot hear you. It is Robin Hood’s day. The parish are gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood. I pray you let [hinder] them not.” I was fain (says the bishop) to give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet should have been regarded, though I were not; but it would not serve. It was fain to give place to Robin Hood’s men.’[7]

[Sidenote: 1561.]

Such were the Robin Hood plays of Catholic and unthinking times. By and by, when the Reformation approached, they were found to be disorderly and discreditable, and an act of parliament was passed against them.[8] Still, while the upper and more serious classes frowned, the common sort of people loved the sport too much to resign it without a struggle. It came to be one of the first difficulties of the men who had carried through the Reformation, how to wrestle the people out of their love of the May-games.

In April 1561, one George Durie was chosen in Edinburgh as Robin Hood and Lord of Inobedience, and on Sunday the 12th of May, he and a great number of other persons came riotously into the city, with an ensign and arms in their hands, in disregard of both the act of parliament and an act of the town-council. Notwithstanding an effort of the magistrates to turn them back, they passed to the Castle Hill, and thence returned at their own pleasure. For this offence a cordiner’s servant, named James Gillon, was condemned to be hanged on the 21st of July.

[Sidenote: 1561.

JULY 21.]

‘When the time of the poor man’s hanging approachit, and that the [hangman] was coming to the gibbet with the ladder, upon which the said cordiner should have been hangit, the craftsmen’s childer[9] and servants past to armour; and first they housit Alexander Guthrie and the provost and bailies in the said Alexander’s writing booth, and syne came down again to the Cross, and dang down the gibbet, and brake it in pieces, and thereafter passed to the Tolbooth, whilk was then steekit [shut]; and when they could not apprehend the keys thereof, they brought fore-hammers and dang up the same Tolbooth door perforce, the provost, bailies, and others looking thereupon; and when the said door was broken up, ane part of them past in the same, and not allenarly [only] brought the same condemnit cordiner forth of the said Tolbooth, but also all the remanent persons being thereintill; and this done they past down the Hie Gait [High Street], to have past forth at the Nether Bow, whilk was then steekit, and because they could not get furth thereat, they past up the Hie Gait again; and in the meantime the provost, bailies, and their assisters being in the writing-booth of Alexander Guthrie, past to the Tolbooth; and in their passing up the said gait, they being in the Tolbooth, as said is, shot forth at the said servants ane dag, and hurt ane servant of the craftsmen’s. That being done, there was naething but tak and slay; that is, the ane part shooting forth and casting stanes, the other part shooting hagbuts in again; and sae the craftsmen’s servants held them [conducted themselves] continually fra three hours afternoon while [till] aucht at even, and never ane man of the town steirit to defend their provost and bailies. And then they sent to the masters of the craftsmen to cause them, gif they might, to stay the said servants; wha purposed to stay the same, but they could not come to pass, but the servants said they wald have ane revenge for the man whilk was hurt. And thereafter the provost sent ane messenger to the constable of the Castle to come to stay the matter, wha came; and he with the masters of the craftsmen treated on this manner, that the provost and bailies should discharge all manner of actions whilk they had against the said craftschilder in ony time bygane, and charged all their masters to receive them in service as they did of before, and promittit never to pursue them in time to come for the same. And this being done and proclaimit, they skaled [disbanded], and the provost and bailies came furth of the Tolbooth.’--_D. O._

[Illustration: An Edinburgh Hammerman, 1555.[10]]

[Sidenote: 1561.]

This was altogether an unprotestant movement, though springing only from a thoughtless love of sport. We may see in the attack on the Tolbooth a foreshadow of the doings of the Porteous mob in a later age. It appears that the magistrates, though reformers, were unpopular; hence the neutrality of the citizens, who, when solicited to interfere for the defence of the city-rulers, went to their four hours penny,[11] and returned for answer: ‘They will be magistrates alone; let them rule the multitude alone.’--_Cal._ Thirteen persons were afterwards ‘fylit’ by an assize for refusing to help the magistrates.--_Pit._

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On its being known that Queen Mary was about to arrive in Scotland from France, there was a great flocking of the upper class of people from all parts of the country to Edinburgh, ‘as it were to a common spectacle.’

[Sidenote: AUG. 19.]

The queen arrived with her two vessels in Leith Road, at seven in the morning of a dull autumn-day. She was accompanied by her three uncles of the House of Guise--the Duc d’Aumale, the Grand Prior, and the Marquis d’Elbeuf; besides Monsieur d’Amville, son of the constable of France, her four gentlewomen, called the _Maries_, and many persons of inferior note. To pursue the narrative of one who looked on the scene with an evil eye: ‘The very face of heaven, the time of her arrival, did manifestly speak what comfort was brought unto this country with her;’ to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness, and all impiety; for in the memory of man, that day of the year, was never seen a more dolorous face of the heaven, than was at her arrival, which two days after did so continue; for beside the surface weet and corruption of the air, the mist was so thick and so dark, that scarce might any man espy ane other the length of twa butts. The sun was not seen to shine two days before nor two days after. That forewarning gave God unto us; but, alas, the most part were blind.

[Sidenote: 1561.]

‘At the sound of the cannons which the galleys shot, the multitude being advertised, happy was he and she that first might have presence of the queen.... [At ten hours her hieness landed upon the shore of Leith.] Because the palace of Holyroodhouse was not thoroughly put in order ... she remained [in Andrew Lamb’s house] in Leith till towards the evening, and then repaired thither. In the way betwixt Leith and the Abbey, met her the rebels of the crafts ... that had violated the authority of the magistrates and had besieged the provost; but because she was sufficiently instructed that all they did was done in despite of the religion, they were easily appardoned. Fires of joy were set forth all night, and a company of the most honest, with instruments of music, and with musicians, gave their salutations at her chalmer window. The melody, as she alleged, liked her weel; and she willed the same to be continued some nichts after.’--_Knox._

The magistrates of Edinburgh, although all of them zealous for the reformed religion, resolved to give their young sovereign a gallant reception, taxing the community for the expenses. It was likewise thought good that, ‘for the honour and pleasure of our sovereign, ane banquet sould be made upon Sunday next, to the princes, our said sovereign’s kinsmen.’

[Sidenote: SEP. 2.]

The queen ‘made her entres in the burgh of Edinburgh in this manner. Her hieness departed of Holyroodhouse, and rade by the Lang Gate[12] on the north side of the burgh, unto the time she came to the Castle, where was ane yett [gate] made to her, at the whilk she, accompanied by the maist part of the nobility of Scotland, came in and rade up the castle-bank to the Castle, and dined therein.’

[Sidenote: 1561.]

‘When she had dined at twelve hours, her hieness came furth of the Castle ..., at whilk departing the artillery shot vehemently. Thereafter, when she was ridand down the Castle Hill, there met her hieness ane convoy of the young men of the burgh, to the number of fifty or thereby, their bodies and thies covered with yellow taffetas, their arms and legs frae the knee down bare, coloured with black, in manner of Moors; upon their heads black hats, and on their faces black visors; in their mouths rings garnished with untellable precious stanes; about their necks, legs, and arms, infinite of chains of gold: together with saxteen of the maist honest men of the town, clad in velvet gowns and velvet bonnets, bearand and gangand about the pall under whilk her hieness rade; whilk pall was of fine purpour velvet, lined with red taffetas, fringed with gold and silk. After them was ane cart with certain bairns, together with ane coffer wherein was the cupboard and propine [gift] whilk should be propinit to her hieness. When her grace came forward to the Butter Tron, the nobility and convoy procedand, there was ane port made of timber in maist honourable manner, coloured with fine colours, hung with sundry arms; upon whilk port was singand certain bairns in the maist heavenly wise; under the whilk port there was ane cloud opening with four leaves, in the whilk was put ane bonnie bairn. When the queen’s hieness was coming through the said port, the cloud openit, and the bairn descended down as it had been ane angel, and deliverit to her hieness the keys of the town, together with ane Bible and ane Psalm-buik coverit with fine purpour velvet.[13] After the said bairn had spoken some small speeches, he delivered also to her hieness three writings, the tenour whereof is uncertain. That being done, the bairn ascended in the cloud, and the said cloud steekit.’

‘Thereafter the queen’s grace came down to the Tolbooth, at the whilk was ... twa scaffats, ane aboon, and ane under that. Upon the under was situate ane fair virgin called Fortune, under the whilk was three fair virgins, all clad in maist precious attirement, called ... , Justice, and Policy. And after ane little speech made there, the queen’s grace came to the Cross, where there was standand four fair virgins, clad in the maist heavenly claithing, and frae the whilk Cross the wine ran out at the spouts in great abundance. There was the noise of people casting the glasses with wine.’

‘This being done, our lady came to the Salt Tron, where there was some speakers; and after ane little speech, they burnt upon the scaffat made at the said Tron the manner of ane sacrifice. Sae that being done, she departed to the Nether Bow, where there was ane other scaffat made, having ane dragon in the same, with some speeches; and after the dragon was burnt, and the queen’s grace heard ane psalm sung, her hieness passed to the abbey of Holyroodhouse, with the said convoy and nobilities. There the bairns whilk was in the cart with the propine made some speech concerning the putting away of the mass, and thereafter sang ane psalm. And this being done, the ... honest men remained in her outer chalmer, and desired her grace to receive the said cupboard, whilk was double over-gilt; the price thereof was 2000 merks; wha received the same and thankit them thereof. And sae the honest men and convoy come to Edinburgh.’--_D. O._

The Sunday banquet to the queen’s uncles duly took place in the cardinal’s lodging in Blackfriars’ Wynd. The entire expenses on the occasion of this royal reception were 4000 merks.

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[Sidenote: 1561.

OCT. 8.]

Before the queen had been settled for many weeks in her capital, the new-born zeal of the people against the old religion found vent in a way that shewed in how little danger she was of being spoilt by complaisance on the part of her subjects. The provost of Edinburgh, Archibald Douglas, with the bailies and council, ‘causit ane proclamation to be proclaimit at the Cross of Edinburgh, commanding and charging all and sundry monks, friars, priests, and all others papists and profane persons, to pass furth of Edinburgh within twenty-four hours, under the pain of burning of disobeyers upon the cheek and harling of them through the town upon ane cart. At the whilk proclamation, the queen’s grace was very commovit.’--_D. O._ She had, after all, sufficient influence to cause the provost and bailies to be degraded from their offices for this act of zeal.

* * * * *

The autumn of this year, the weather was ‘richt guid and fair.’ In the winter quarter, the weather was still fair, and there was ‘peace and rest in all Scotland.’--_C. F._

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[Sidenote: DEC. 16.]

William Guild was convicted, notwithstanding his being a minor and of weak mind, of ‘the thieftous stealing and taking forth of the purse of Elizabeth Danielstone, the spouse of Niel Laing, hinging upon her apron ... she being upon the High Street, standing at the krame of William Speir ... in communing with him, the time of the putting of ane string to ane penner and inkhorn, whilk she had coft [bought] fra the said kramer, of ane signet of gold, ane other signet of gold set with ane cornelian, ane gold ring set with ane great sapphire, ane other gold ring with ane sapphire formit like ane heart, ane gold ring set with ane turquois, ane small double gold ring set with ane diamond and ane ruby, ane auld angel-noble, and ane cusset ducat.’--_Pit._ This account of the contents of Mrs Laing’s purse, in connection with the decorations of the fifty young citizens who convoyed the queen in her procession through the city, raises unexpected ideas as to the means and taste of the middle classes in 1561.

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[Sidenote: 1561.

DEC. 24.]