Henry Buckley - History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3

All this was done in seven weeks from the breaking out of the first riot. Both parties were now willing to negotiate, with the view of gaining time; the queen-regent expecting aid from France, the Lords expecting it from England. 186But the proceedings of Elizabeth being tardy, the Protestants, after waiting for some months, determined to strike a decisive blow before the reinforcements arrived. In October, the principal peers, headed by the Duke of Chastelherault, the Earl of Arran, the Earl of Argyle, and the Earl of Glencairn, assembled at Edinburgh. A great meeting was held, of which Lord Ruthven was appointed president, and in which the queen-regent was solemnly suspended from the government, on the ground that she was opposed to ‘the glory of God, to the liberty of the realm, and to the welfare of the nobles.’ 187

In the winter, an English fleet sailed into the Frith, and anchored near Edinburgh. 188In January 1560, the Duke of Norfolk arrived at Berwick, and concluded, on the part of Elizabeth, a treaty with the Lords of the Congregation, by virtue of which the English army entered Scotland on the 2nd of April. 189Against this combination, the government could effect nothing, and in July, was glad to sign a peace, by which the French troops were to evacuate Scotland, and the whole power of administration was virtually consigned to the Protestant Lords. 190

The complete success of this great revolution, and the speed with which it was effected, are of themselves a decisive proof of the energy of those general causes by which the whole movement was controlled. For more than a hundred and fifty years, there had been a deadly struggle between the nobles and the Church: and the issue of that struggle, was the establishment of the Reformation, and the triumph of the aristocracy. They had, at last, carried their point. The hierarchy was overthrown, and replaced by new and untried men. All the old notions of apostolic succession, of the imposition of hands, and of the divine right of ordination, were suddenly discarded. The offices of the Church were performed by heretics, the majority of whom had not even been ordained. 191Finally, and to crown the whole, in the summer of the same year, 1560, the Scotch parliament passed two laws, which utterly subverted the ancient scheme. By one of these laws, every statute which had ever been enacted in favour of the Church, was at once repealed. 192By the other law, it was declared that whoever either said mass, or was present while it was said, should, for the first offence, lose his goods; for the second offence be exiled; and, for the third offence, be put to death. 193

Thus it was, that an institution, which had borne the brunt of more than a thousand years, was shivered, and fell to pieces. And, from its fall, great things were augured. It was believed, that the people would be enlightened, that their eyes were opening to their former follies, and that the reign of superstition was about to end. But what was forgotten then, and what is too often forgotten now, is, that in these affairs there is an order and a natural sequence, which can never be reversed. This is, that every institution, as it actually exists, no matter what its name or pretences may be, is the effect of public opinion far more than the cause; and that it will avail nothing to attack the institution, unless you can first change the opinion. In Scotland, the Church was grossly superstitious; but it did not, therefore, follow, that to overthrow the establishment, would lessen the evil. They who think that superstition can be weakened in this way, do not know the vitality of that dark and ill-omened principle. Against it, there is only one weapon, and that weapon is knowledge. When men are ignorant, they must be superstitious; and wherever superstition exists, it is sure to organize itself into some kind of system, which it makes its home. If you drive it from that home, it will find another. The spirit transmigrates; it assumes a new form; but still it lives. How idle, then, is that warfare which reformers are too apt to wage, in which they slay the carcass, and spare the life! The husk, forsooth, they seek out and destroy; but within that husk is a seed of deadly poison, whose vitality they are unable to impair, and which, shifted from its place, bears fruit in another direction, and shoots up with a fresh, and often a more fatal, exuberance.

The truth is, that every institution, whether political or religious, represents, in its actual working, the form and pressure of the age. It may be very old; it may bear a venerated name; it may aim at the highest objects: but whoever carefully studies its history, will find that, in practice, it is successively modified by successive generations, and that, instead of controlling society, it is controlled by it. When the Protestant Reformation was effected, the Scotch were excessively ignorant, and, therefore, in spite of the Reformation, they remained excessively superstitious. How long that ignorance continued, and what its results were, we shall presently see; but before entering into that inquiry, it will be advisable to trace the immediate consequences of the Reformation itself, in connexion with the powerful class by whose authority it was established.

The nobles, having overthrown the Church, and stripped it of a large part of its wealth, thought that they were to reap the benefit of their own labour. They had slain the enemy, and they wished to divide the spoil. 194But this did not suit the views of the Protestant preachers. In their opinion, it was impious to secularize ecclesiastical property, and turn it aside to profane purposes. They held, that it was right, indeed, for the lords to plunder the Church; but they took for granted that the proceeds of the robbery were to enrich themselves. They were the godly men; and it was the business of the ruling classes to endow them with benefices, from which the old and idolatrous clergy were to be expelled. 195

In accordance with these opinions, Knox and his colleagues, in August 1560, presented a petition to Parliament, calling on the nobles to restore the Church property which they had seized, and to have it properly applied to the support of the new ministers. 196To this request, those powerful chiefs did not even vouchsafe a reply. 197They were content with matters as they actually stood, and were, therefore, unwilling to disturb the existing arrangement. They had fought the fight; they had gained the victory, and shared the spoil. It was not to be supposed that they would peaceably relinquish what they had won with infinite difficulty. Nor was it likely that, after being engaged in an arduous struggle with the Church for a hundred and fifty years, and having at length conquered their inveterate enemy, they should forego the fruits of their triumph for the sake of a few preachers, whom they had but recently called to their aid; low-born and obscure men, who should rather deem it an honour that they were permitted to associate with their superiors in a common enterprise, but were not to presume on that circumstance, nor to suppose that they, who only entered the field at the eleventh hour, were to share the booty on anything approaching to terms of equality. 198

But the aristocracy of Scotland little knew the men with whom they had to deal. Still less, did they understand the character of their own age. They did not see that, in the state of society in which they lived, superstition was inevitable, and that, therefore, the spiritual classes, though depressed for a moment, were sure speedily to rise again. The nobles had overturned the Church; but the principles on which Church authority is based, remained intact. All that was done, was to change the name and the form. A new hierarchy was quickly organized, which succeeded the old one in the affections of the people. Indeed, it did more. For, the Protestant clergy, neglected by the nobles, and unendowed by the state, had only a miserable pittance whereupon to live, and they necessarily threw themselves into the arms of the people, where alone they could find support and sympathy. 199Hence, a closer and more intimate union than would otherwise have been possible. Hence, too, as we shall presently see, the Presbyterian clergy, smarting under the injustice with which they were treated, displayed that hatred of the upper classes, and that peculiar detestation of monarchical government, which they showed whenever they dared. In their pulpits, in their presbyteries, and in their General Assemblies, they encouraged a democratic and insubordinate tone, which eventually produced the happiest results, by keeping alive, at a critical moment, the spirit of liberty; but which, for that very reason, made the higher ranks rue the day, when, by their ill-timed and selfish parsimony, they roused the wrath of so powerful and implacable a class.