THE DOWNCASTING OF THE FRIARS IN ST JOHNSTON.

37

and see it used in despite." The priest, hereat offended, gave the child a great blow; who in anger took up a stone, and casting at the priest did hit the tabernacle and break down an image; and immediately the whole multitude that were about cast stones, and put hands to the said tabernacle, and to all other monuments of idolatry; which they dispatched, before the tent' man in the town were advertised (for the most part were gone to dinner), which noised abroad, the whole multitude convened, not of the gentlemen, neither of them that were earnest professors, but of the rascal multitude, who finding nothing to do in that church, did run without deliberation to the Grey and Black Friars; and notwithstanding that they had within them very strong guards kept for their defence, yet were their gates incontinent burst up. The first invasion was upon the idolatry; and thereafter the common people began to seek some spoil; and in very deed the Greyfriars was a place so well provided, that unless honest men had seen the same, we would have feared to have reported what provision they had. Their sheets, blankets, beds, and covertors were such as no earl in Scotland hath the better: their napery was fine. They were but eight persons in convent, and yet had eight puncheons of salt beef (consider the time of the year, the eleventh day of May"), wine, beer, and ale, besides store of victuals effeiring' thereto. The like abundance was not in the Blackfriars; and yet there was more than became men professing poverty. The spoil was permitted to the poor; for so had the preachers before threatened all men, that for covetousness' sake none should put their hand to such a reformation, that no honest man was enriched thereby the value of a groat. Their conscience so moved them that they suffered those hypocrites' take away what they could of that which was in their places. The prior1o of Charter-house was permitted to take away with him even so much gold and silver as he was well able to carry. So was men's consciences before beaten with the Word, that they had no respect to their own particular profit, but only to abolish idolatry, the places and monuments thereof; in which they were so busy and so laborious, that within two days, these three great places, monuments of idolatry, to wit the Grey and Black Thieves and Charter-house monks (a building of a wondrous cost and greatness11), was so destroyed, that the walls only did remain of all these great edifications. Which

1 This probably means the calling out of every tenth man to assist in puting down quarrels. 3 i. e., the images.

2 i.e., immediately.

This monastery lay on the south of Perth, just outside the walls. 5 i. e., coverlets. 6 It was customary in those days to kill, at the end of autumn, most of the cattle, and salt them for winter provisions; in the month of May, however, there was abundance of grass, and fresh provisions might soon be expected; hence the surprise expressed at the quantity still in the monastery. i.e, belonging. This monastery lay on the north of Perth. In it, as will be remembered, James I. was murdered. 9 Viz., the friars.

7

10 Adam Forman was then prior, and on the destruction of his monastery retired to Errol.

11 This abbey was erected by James I. in 1429; it belonged to the White Friars, and was said to be the fairest and best-built abbey of any in Scotland.

reported to the queen,' she was so enraged that she did avow? utterly to destroy Saint Johnston,3 man, woman, and child, and to consume the same by fire, and thereafter to salt it, in sign of a perpetual desolation." We, suspecting nothing such cruelty, but thinking that such words might escape her in choler, without purpose determinate, because she was a woman set afire by the complaints of those hypocrites who flocked unto her, as ravens to a carrion: We (we say) suspecting nothing such beastly cruelty, returned to our own houses; leavings in Saint Johnston John Knox to instruct, because they were young and rude in Christ. But she, set afire, partly by her own malice, partly by commandment of her friends in France, and not a little by bribes, which she and Monsieur D'Oysel received from the bishops and priests here at home, did continue in her rage. And first she sent for all the nobility, to whom she complained that we meaned nothing but a rebellion. She did grievously aggreage the destruction of the Charter-house, because it was a King's foundation; and there was the tomb of King James the First and by such other persuasions she made the most part of them grant to pursue us.

2. DISPUTE BETWEEN KNOX AND LETHINGTON.— HISTORY," BOOK IV.) "Will ye," said Lethington, "make subjects to control their princes and rulers ?"

"And what harm," said Knox, "should the commonwealth receive, gif" that the corrupt affections of ignorant rulers were moderated, and so bridled by the wisdom and discretion of godly subjects, that they should do wrong nor violence to no man?"

"All this reasoning," said Lethington, "is not of the purpose; for we reason as gif the Queen1o should become such an enemy to our religion, that she should persecute it, and put innocent men to death, which I am assured she never thought, nor never will do. For gif I should see her begin at that end, yea, gif I should suspect any such thing in her, I should be also far forward in that argument as ye or any other within this realm. But there is not such a thing. Our question is, Whether that we may and ought to suppress the Queen's mass?12 or whether her idolatry shall be laid to our charge ?" "What ye may," said the other, "by force, I dispute not; but what ye may and ought to do by God's express commandment, that I can tell. Idolatry ought not only to be suppressed, but the idolater ought to die the death, unless that we will accuse God."

i.e., Mary of Guise, Queen Regent; the event happened A.D. 1559. 2 i. e., vow.

3 So Perth was then called.

4 i. e., to sow it with salt.

5 This passage (and many more occur in the history) is either an interpolation, or a proof that Knox was not the author of the "History of the Reformation." 6 The French ambassador.

7 i. e., aggravate, exaggerate.
9 for if.
11 i. e., as far.

8 See previous note on the Charter-house. 10 Queen Mary is of course meant here. 12 i.e., the private mass which the Queen attended in the chapel royal; this was exceedingly offensive to the more violent Reformers, who repeatedly tried to put it down by force, and declared in general terms, as Knox does in the next sentence, that for so doing Mary should be put to death.

DISPUTE BETWEEN KNOX AND LETHINGTON.

39

"I know," said Lethington, "the idolater is commanded to die the death, but by whom?"

"By the people of God," said the other; "for the commandment was given to Israel, as ye may read-'Hear, Israel,' says the Lord, 'the statutes and the ordinances of the Lord thy God,' &c. Yea, a commandment was given, that if it be heard that idolatry is committed in any one city, inquisition shall be taken; and if it be found true, that then the whole body of the people shall arise and destroy that city, sparing in it neither man, woman, nor child."

"But there is no commandment given to the people," said the secretary, "to punish their king gif he be an idolater."

“I find no more privilege granted unto kings," said the other, “by_God, more than unto the people, to offend God's majesty.” "I grant," said Lethington, but yet the people may not be judges unto their king to punish him, albeit he be an idolater."

"God," said the other, "is the Universal Judge, as well unto the king as to the people; so that what His Word commands to be punished in the one, is not to be absolved in the other."

"We agree in that," said Lethington, "but the people may not execute God's judgment, but must leave it unto Himself, who will either punish it by death, by. war, by imprisonment, or by some other plagues."

"I know the last part of your reason," said John Knox, "to be true; but for the first, to wit, that the people, yea, or a part of the people, may not execute God's judgments against their king, being an offender, I am assured you have no other warrant except your own imagination, and the opinion of such as more fear to offend princes than God."

"Why say ye so?" said Lethington; "I have the judgments of the most famous men within Europe, and of such as ye yourself will confess both godly and learned."

And with that he called for his papers, which, produced by Mr Robert Maitland, he began to read with great gravity the judgments of Luther, Melancthon, the minds of Bucer,' Musculus, and Calvin, how Christians should behave themselves in time of persecution.

"As for my argument," said the other, "ye have infirmed it nothing; for your first two witnesses speak against the Anabaptists,3 who deny that Christians should be subject to magistrates, or yet that is lawful for a Christian to be a magistrate; which opinion I do no less abhor than ye do, or any other that lives do. The others speak of Christian subjects unto tyrants and infidels, so dispersed that they have no other force but only to sob to God for deliverance. That such indeed should hazard any farther than these godly men wills them, I can not hastily be of counsel. But my argument has

1 Bucer was an eminent Reformer; he was invited by Cranmer to visit England, and was made professor of theology in Cambridge. Musculus was professor of divinity at Berne, and wrote valuable commentaries on Scripture; the others mentioned are too well known to need description.

2 i. e., weakened.

A turbulent religious sect at the time of the Reformation.

another ground: for I speak of the people assembled together in one body of a commonwealth, unto whom God has given sufficient force, not only to resist, but also to suppress all kind of open idolatry and such a people, yet again I affirm, are bound to keep their land clean and unpolluted. When our poor brethren before us gave their bodies to the flames of fire, for the testimony of the truth, and when scarcely could ten be found into a country that rightly knew God, it had been foolishness to have craved either of the nobility, or of the mean subjects, the suppressing of idolatry; for that had been nothing but to have exponed the simple sheep in a prey to the wolves. But since that God has multiplied knowledge, yea, and has given the victory to His truth, even in the hands of His servants, gif ye suffer the land again to be defiled, ye and your princes shall both drink the cup of God's indignation, she for her obstinate abiding in manifest idolatry, in this great light of the Evangill of Jesus Christ, and ye for your permission and maintaining her in the same!"

Lethington said, "In that point we will never agree and where find ye, I pray you, that ever any of the prophets or of the apostles taught such a doctrine, that the people should be plagued for the idolatry of the prince; or yet, that the subjects might suppress the idolatry of their rulers, or punish them for the same?"

"What was the commission given to the apostles," said he; "my lord, we know it was to preach and plant the evangill of Jesus Christ, where darkness afore had dominion; and therefore it behoved them first to let them see the light before that they should will them to put to their hands to suppress idolatry. What precepts the apostles gave unto the faithful in particular, other than that they commanded all to flee from idolatry, I will not affirm: but I find two things which the faithful did; the one was, they assisted their preachers, even against the rulers and magistrates;* the other was, they suppressed idolatry wheresoever God gave unto them force, asking no leave at the emperor,5 nor at his deputies. And as to the doctrine of the prophets, we know they were interpreters of the law of God; and we know they spake as well to the kings as to the people. I read that neither of both would hear them; and therefore came the plague of God upon both. God's laws pronounces death, as before I have said, to idolaters, without exception of any person. Now, how the prophets could reprove the vices, and not show the people their duty, I understand not. For the probation, I am ready to produce the fact of one prophet: for ye know, my lord," said he, "that Eliseus sent one of the children of the prophets to anoint Jehu, who gave him in commandment to

1 i.e., exposed.

2 i. e., gospel; evangill is the Greek form of the word, from which evangelist, &c., are formed.

3 i. e., to apply; the phrase is still current in Scotland.

4 Knox must be understood here to refer to events not recorded in Scripture, which expressly forbids any such action.

5 i.e., the Roman emperor.

destroy the house of his master Ahab for the idolatry committed by him; which he obeyed, and put in full execution."

"There is enough," said Lethington, "to be answered thereto : for Jehu was a king before he put anything in execution; and besides this, the fact is extraordinary, and ought not to be imitated."

VIII. JOHN FOX.

JOHN FOX, the martyrologist, was born at Boston in Lincolnshire, in 1517. He received his education at the University of Oxford, where he was distinguished for his industrious prosecution of his studies, but having become a Protestant he was expelled from his college as a heretic. For some time he suffered much hardship, and was even in danger of starvation; but at last he obtained employment as tutor in the family of the Duchess of Richmond. The persecution in the reign of Mary compelled him to take refuge on the Continent, where he supported himself by correcting for the press at Basle. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to his native country, and was appointed to a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Salisbury, the peculiar views which he had adopted on the Continent preventing his receiving any higher ecclesiastical promotion. He died in 1587. Fox wrote many works, but he is best known by his "Acts and Monuments," or an account of "The Great Persecutions and Horrible Troubles that have been wrought and practised by the Romish Prelates, especially in this Realm of England and Scotland, from the Year of our Lord a Thousand, unto the Time now present." In compiling this work he occupied eleven years, and he availed himself of all the means in his power to acquire accurate information. His statements have been sometimes called in question,1 and some few of them may be erroneous, but his work as a whole is characterized by extreme fidelity and truth. He frequently indulges in coarse language, but allowance must be made for the excitement of the times, and the personal feelings of one who had himself been a sufferer. His narrative, from the copiousness of detail in which he indulges, and its unaffected simplicity, has a depth of pathos which has seldom been equalled.

1. LIFE AND STORY OF BISHOP RIDLEY.

Among many other worthy and sundry histories and notable acts of such as of late days have been turmoiled, murdered, and martyred for the gospel of Christ in Queen Mary's reign, the tragical story and life of Dr Ridley I thought good to commend to chronicle, and leave to perpetual memory; beseeching thee, gentle reader, with care and study well to peruse, diligently to consider, and deeply to print the same in thy breast, seeing him to be a man beautified with such excellent qualities, so ghostly inspired and godly learned, 1 One Roman Catholic styled it a "Dunghill of Stinking Martyrs." 2 i.e., spiritually.