John Knox | Page 7

with the Church in 1543, and Beaton, the able but worldly Archbishop of St Andrews, and as such Knox's diocesan, became once more the leader of Scotland. He had already instituted the Inquisition throughout his see; he was now advanced to be Papal Legate; and he was fully prepared to press into execution the Acts which a few years before he and the King had persuaded the Parliament to pass. Not to be a member of the Church had always meant death. But now it was death by statute to argue against the Pope's authority; it was made unlawful even to enter into discussion on matters of religion; and those in Scotland who were merely suspected of heresy were pronounced incapable of any office there. And, lastly, those who left the country to avoid the fatal censure of its Church on such crimes as these, were held by law to be already condemned. The illustrious Buchanan was one of those who thus fled. Knox remained, and suddenly becomes visible.
[1] Knox's later biographer, Dr Hume Brown, has given to the world a letter from Sir Peter Young to Beza, transmitting a posthumous portrait of Knox, which is thus no doubt the original of the likeness in Beza's Icones, and makes the latter our only trustworthy representation of him. The letter adds, 'You may look for (expectabis) his full history from Master Lawson'; and this raises the hope that Beza's biography, founded upon the memoir of Knox's colleague, James Lawson, as the icon probably was upon the Edinburgh portrait, would be of great value. In point of fact Beza's biography does give great prominence to Knox's closing pastorate and last days, as his newly-appointed colleague might be expected to do. But about his early years it is hopelessly inaccurate, to say the least.
[2] So, in Shakespeare, Sir Hugh, who is 'of the Church'; Sir Topas the curate, whose beard and gown the clown borrows; Sir Oliver Martext, who will not be 'flouted out of his calling;' and Sir Nathaniel, who claims to have 'taste and feeling,' and whose female parishioners call him indifferently the 'Person' or the 'Parson.'
[3] Rashdall's 'Universities of Europe,' i. 525.
[4] The Act of Appeal of the University lays down principles which apply far beyond the bounds of Gallicanism; that 'the Pope, although he holds his power immediately from God, is not prevented, by his possession of this power, from going wrong'; that 'if he commands that which is unjust, he may righteously be resisted'; and 'if, by the action of the powers that be, we are deprived of the means of resisting the Pope, there remains one remedy, founded on natural law, which no Prince can take away--the remedy of appeal, which is competent to every individual, by divine right, and natural right, and human right.' And, accordingly, the University, protesting that the Basle Council's decrees of the past have been set aside, Appeals to a Council in the future.--Bulaeus' 'Hist. of the University of Paris,' vol. viii. p. 92.
[5] This uncompromising preface took the place of one in which Major, on his arrival in Scotland in 1518, praised the same Archbishop, then in Glasgow, for his many-sided and 'chamaelon-like mildness.' It is generally recognised that the stern policy latterly carried on under the nominal authority of James Beaton was really inspired by his nephew and coadjutor, David Beaton, the future cardinal.
[6] 'Expositio Matt.' fol. 71. (Paris.)
[7] 'I tell the truth to thee, there's nought like Liberty!'--Major's 'History of Greater Britain.'
[8] Hume Brown's 'Knox,' i. 44.
[9] See Scots Acts, A.D. 1471, c. 43.
[10]
An Petrus Romae fuerit, sub judice lis est: Simonem Romae nemo fuisse negat.
CHAPTER II
THE CRISIS: SINGLE OR TWO-FOLD?
On this dark background Knox for the first time appears in history. But we catch sight of him merely as an attendant on the attractive figure of George Wishart. At Cambridge Wishart had been 'courteous, lowly, lovely, glad to teach, and desirous to learn'; when he returned to Scotland, Knox and others found him 'a man of such graces as before him were never heard within this realm.' He had preached in several parts of Scotland, and was brought in the spring of 1546 by certain gentlemen of East Lothian, 'who then were earnest professors of Christ Jesus,' to the neighbourhood of Haddington. On the morning of his last sermon in that town he had received (in the mansion-house of Lethington, 'the laird whereof,' father of the famous William Maitland, 'was ever civil, albeit not persuaded in religion') a letter, 'which received and read, he called for John Knox, who had waited upon him carefully from the time he came to Lothian.' And the same evening, with a presentiment of his coming arrest, he 'took his good-night, as it were for ever,' of all his acquaintance, and
'John Knox pressing