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

The minister and the people had now done their work, and, so far as they were concerned, had done it well. 231But the same circumstances which made them desire equality, made the upper classes desire inequality. 232A collision, therefore, was inevitable, and was hastened by this bold proceeding of the Church. Indeed, the preachers, supported by the people, rather courted a contest, than avoided it. They used the most inflammatory language against episcopacy; and, shortly before abolishing it, they completed, and presented to Parliament, the Second Book of Discipline, in which they flatly contradicted what they had asserted in their First Book of Discipline. 233For this, they are often taunted with inconsistency. 234But the charge is unjust. They were perfectly consistent; and they merely changed their maxims, that they might preserve their principles. Like every corporation, which has ever existed, whether spiritual or temporal, their supreme and paramount principle was to maintain their own power. Whether or not this is a good principle, is another matter; but all history proves that it is an universal one. And when the leaders of the Scotch Church found that it was at stake, and that the question at issue was, who should possess authority, they, with perfect consistency, abandoned opinions that they had formerly held, because they now perceived that those opinions were unfavourable to their existence as an independent body.

When the First Book of Discipline appeared, in 1560, the government was in the hands of the nobles, who had just fought on the side of the Protestant preachers, and were ready to fight again on their side. When the Second Book of Discipline appeared, in 1578, the government was still held by the nobles; but those ambitious men had now thrown off the mask, and, having effected their purpose in destroying the old hierarchy, had actually turned round, and attacked the new one. The circumstances having changed, the Church changed with them; but in the change there was nothing inconsistent. On the contrary, it would have been the height of inconsistency for the ministers to have retained their former notions of obedience and of subordination; and it was perfectly natural that, at this crisis, they should advocate the democratic idea of equality, just as before they had advanced the aristocratic idea of inequality.

Hence it was, that, in their First Book of Discipline, they established a regularly ascending hierarchy, according to which the general clergy owed obedience to their ecclesiastical superiors, to whom the name of superintendents was given. 235But, in the Second Book of Discipline, every vestige of this was swept away; and it was laid down in the broadest terms, that all the preachers being fellow-labourers, all were equal in power; that none had authority over others; and that, to claim such authority, or to assert preëminence, was a contrivance of man, not to be permitted in a divinely constituted Church. 236

The government, as may be supposed, took a very different view. Such doctrines were deemed, by the upper classes, to be anti-social, and to be subversive of all order. 237So far from sanctioning them, they resolved, if possible, to overthrow them; and, the year after the General Assembly had abolished episcopacy, it was determined that, upon that very point, a trial of strength should be made between the two parties.

In 1581, Robert Montgomery was appointed archbishop of Glasgow. The ministers who composed the chapter of Glasgow refused to elect him; whereupon the Privy Council declared that the King, by virtue of his prerogative, had the right of nomination. 238All was now confusion and uproar. The General Assembly forbad the archbishop to enter Glasgow. 239He refused to obey their order, and threw himself upon the support of the Duke of Lennox, who had obtained the appointment for him, and to whom he, in return, had surrendered nearly all the revenues of the see, reserving for himself only a small stipend. 240This was a custom which had grown up within the last few years, and was one of many contrivances by which the nobles plundered the Church of her property. 241

This, however, was not the question now at issue. 242The point to be decided was one, not of revenue, but of power. For the clergy knew full well, that if they established their power, the revenue would quickly follow. They, therefore, adopted the most energetic proceedings. In April 1582, the General Assembly met at St. Andrews, and appointed Melville as Moderator. 243The government, fearing the worst, ordered the members, on pain of rebellion, to take no steps respecting the archbishopric. 244But the representatives of the Church were undaunted. They summoned Montgomery before them; they ratified the sentence by which he had been suspended from the ministry; and they declared that he had incurred the penalties of despotism and of excommunication. 245

A sentence of excommunication was, in those days, so ruinous, that Montgomery was struck with terror at the prospect before him. To avoid the consequences, he appeared before the Assembly, and solemnly promised that he would make no further attempt to possess himself of the archbishopric. 246By doing this, he probably saved his life; for the people, siding with their clergy, were ripe for mischief, and were determined, at all hazards, to maintain what they considered to be the rights of the Church, in opposition to the encroachments of the State.

The government, on the other hand, was equally resolute. 247The Privy Council called several of the ministers before them; and Dury, one of the most active, they banished from Edinburgh. 248Measures still more violent were about to be taken, when they were interrupted by one of those singular events which not unfrequently occurred in Scotland, and which strikingly evince the inherent weakness of the Crown, notwithstanding the inordinate pretensions it commonly assumed.

This was the Raid of Ruthven, which happened in 1582, and in consequence of which the person of James VI. was held in durance for ten months. 249The clergy, true to the policy which now governed them, loudly approved of the captivity of the king, and pronounced it to be a godly act. 250Dury, who had been driven from his pulpit, was brought back to the capital in triumph; 251and the General Assembly, meeting at Edinburgh, ordered that the imprisonment of James should be justified by every minister to his own congregation. 252

In 1583, the king recovered his liberty, and the struggle became more deadly than ever; the passions of both parties being exasperated by the injuries each had inflicted on the other. The Ruthven conspiracy, having been declared treason, as it undoubtedly was, Dury preached in its favour, and openly defended it; and although, under the influence of momentary fear, he afterwards withdrew what he had said, 253it was evident, from other circumstances, that his feelings were shared by his brethren. 254A number of them being summoned before the king for their seditious language, bad him take heed what he was about, and reminded him that no occupant of the throne had ever prospered after the ministers had begun to threaten him. 255Melville, who exercised immense influence over both clergy and people, bearded the king to his face, refused to account for what he had delivered in the pulpit, and told James that he perverted the laws both of God and of man. 256Simpson likened him to Cain, and warned him to beware of the wrath of God. 257Indeed, the spirit now displayed by the Church was so implacable, that it seemed to delight in venting itself in the most repulsive manner. In 1585, a clergyman, named Gibson, in a sermon which he preached in Edinburgh, denounced against the king the curse of Jeroboam, that he should die childless, and that his race should end with him. 258The year after this happened, James, finding that Elizabeth was evidently determined to take his mother's life, bethought him of what was valued in that age as an unfailing resource, and desired the clergy to offer up prayers on behalf of Mary. This, they almost unanimously refused. 259And not only did they abstain from supplication themselves, but they resolved that no one else should do what they had declined. The archbishop of Saint Andrews being about to officiate before the king, they induced a certain John Cowper to station himself in the pulpit beforehand, so as to exclude the prelate. Nor was it until the captain of the guard threatened to pull Cowper from the place he had usurped, that the service could go on, and the king be allowed to hear his own mother prayed for, in this sad crisis of her fate, when it was still uncertain whether she would be publicly executed, or whether, as was more generally believed, she would be secretly poisoned. 260