LIFE AND TIMES OF ARCHBISHOP HAMILTON, THE LAST ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF ST. ANDREW'S. A.D. 1546-1571.

(Concluded from p. 289.)

IN 1566 we find Archbishop Hamilton officiating at the baptism of the infant James VI., at Stirling, on which occasion, to oblige the Queen, a sort of compromise was entered into, by which the ceremonies of the Romish Church were permitted to be used, "the spittle excepted, which the Queen did inhibit." The Primate was assisted by his brethren the Bishops of Dunkeld, Dunblane, and Ross, and the few Scotch noblemen who still adhered to the ancient faith were present. Several ambassadors from foreign courts were also in attendance, but those only of the Papal creed went into the church, while the Protestants remained at the door. The Countess of Argyll (half-sister to Queen Mary, and Protestant godmother to the Prince, on behalf of Queen Elizabeth) for merely holding the child in her arms at this Popish solemnity, was afterwards compelled to do open penance, clothed in a white sheet, in the church of this very town of Stirling! Such were the times, and such, we may add, was the power of the Protestant party, even at this early period of the Reformation. The Archbishop himself little thought, at the time he was officiating, that in five years afterwards he was to be hanged on a common gibbet in the same town, and dressed, out of mockery, in his canonical robes: yet so it was!

Towards the close of the same year, the churches of Geneva, Berne, and Basle, with other reformed churches of Germany and France, sent to the Kirk of Scotland their confession of Faith, " desiring to know if they agreed in uniformity of doctrine; alleging that the Kirk of Scotland was dissonant in some articles from them. Wherefore the superintendents, with a great part of the other most qualified ministers, convened in St. Andrew's, and, reading the said letters, made answer, and sent word again, that they agreed in all points with those churches, and differed in nothing from them; albeit in the keeping of some festival days our church assented not, for only the Sabbath day was kept in Scotland." In respect

1 Knox, p. 399.

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to the non-observance of these days, the Presbyterian establishment of Scotland stands unhappily distinguished from any Reformed church in Christendom. This is a reproach which many of her own members would wish to see effaced. The Reformers could not plead "the inclinations of the people" in this instance; for so much attached had the people become to the observance of the said days, from long usage, that their new spiritual guides rather found a difficulty in abolishing them. As a proof of this, the records of the General Assembly, for the year 1577, show the following question and answer: 'Q. What shall be done to ministers and readers that at such times in Lent, or upon Saints' days, as they call them, or Yule and Pasch, and such superstitious times, read, preach, or minister the communion, to retain the people in blindness? A. The visitor, with the Synodal Assembly, ought to admonish such minister or reader to desist and abstain therefrom, under pain of deprivation; and, if they disobey, to deprive them." Strange that a church calling itself Christian should punish its members for commemorating the birth, crucifixion, and nativity of their Saviour!

The battle of Langside was fought in May, 1568, which, it is well known, ended in the defeat of the unfortunate Queen Mary. Archbishop Hamilton was with her on this occasion: and when, after the loss of the day, they had ridden to Dundrennan Abbey, and she was considering of taking refuge from her enemies by throwing herself into the hands of Elizabeth, he earnestly entreated her, though without effect, not to trust herself with one who had often before deceived her. He accompanied her to the edge of the Solway, and, seeing her determination to leave her own kingdom, he followed her into the boat, and conjured her to return by every argument which his agitated mind could suggest. Finding his efforts vain, he took a final and melancholy leave, as if he had had a presentiment of the violent death which awaited both her and himself. His next concern was his own personal safety, which he had no means now left of providing for but by seeking shelter among his friends, who, though depressed by their recent defeat, were still numerous and powerful.

The same month in which the Regent Moray had gained this victory over the Queen his sister, "he maid progress first to Stirling, whare four priests of Dumblayne war condemnit to the death for saying of mass aganis the act of Parliament; but he remittit their lyvis, and causit thayme be bound to the mercat croce, with their vestments and chalices in derisioun, whare the people caist eggis and other villaine at their faces be the space of ane hour, and thereafter their vestments and chalices war brynt to ashes. From this he past to Sanctandrois, whare a notabill sorceress, callit Nicneville, was condemnit to the death, and brynt; and a Frenchman, callit Paris, who was ane of the devysers of the King's (Darnley's) death, was hangit in Sanctandrois, and with him (Sir) William Stewart, Lyon King of Arms, for dyvers points of witchcraft and necromancie."1 The common name of the sorceress here alluded to was "Mother Nicniven." She is the person who is mentioned by Sir W. Scott, in "The Abbot," as having assisted Queen Mary in making her escape from Lochleven Castle. The Sir W. Stewart mentioned above had been engaged in a plot against Moray's life. The latter, to make a show of

1 Historie of King James the Sext, p. 40, 41.

mercy, pardoned him for that offence, but immediately after got him hanged for witchcraft! Birrel, in his diary, states that in July, the same year, the Regent "raid to St. Androis, and caused drown a man named Alexander Mackie, and six more for piracie."

But we must now return to the unfortunate Primate, and trace his history to its tragical termination. It will be remembered that the Regent Moray had been the prior of Hamilton's archiepiscopal monastery at St. Andrew's, and owed him, therefore, canonical obedience before the Reformation; and though that tie was now dissolved, yet no changes should have made him forget the respect due to his ecclesiastical superior. Notwithstanding, one of his first acts, after the battle of Langside, was to proclaim the Archbishop a traitor, on account of his adherence to the cause of the Queen: and he would no doubt have been too happy to get him into his power, from his well known hatred of the whole family of the Hamiltons, had not a fate similar to that which awaited the Primate previously overtaken the Regent himself. He was shot at Linlithgow, in January, 1570, by one the Hamiltons, a nephew of the Archbishop, out of revenge for a wanton injury done to his family by order of the Regent.

Hamilton, in the mean time, after lurking for two or three years among his friends, at length fled for security to the stronghold of Dumbarton, at the taking of which fortress he fell into the hands of as cruel an enemy as Moray himself, namely the new regent, Leunox; "for, (says Skinner) he was immediately carried to Stirling under a strong guard; and there, without any formal trial, but barely upon the forfeiture laid against him in one of their own parliaments, he was publicly hanged upon a gibbet erected for that purpose, on the 1st of April, 1571. This was a silly and unmanly stroke of family revenge in Lennox, who had the execution hurried on in such an unbecoming manner, lest the Queen of England should have interceded for the unhappy Primate. There is some ground to suspect that the Earl of Morton, who had been gaping for the revenues of St. Andrew's, and who managed Lennox as he pleased, had been the chief promoter of the Primate's hasty fate: for immediately upon his death he solicited so strongly for the rich temporalities of that see, and, by threatening to leave the court in case of a refusal, so overawed Lennox, who could not do without him, that he obtained a gift of them, which, through all the various forms of polity that ensued, he took care not to part with." I may here add, that Lord Claud Hamilton, in revenge for the murder of his uncle the Archbishop, killed the Regent Lennox a few months after, in this same town of Stirling! We have seen a reformation of religion, but cannot as yet discover any improvement in morals.

It is astonishing how little sympathy historians have expressed for the fate of Archbishop Hamilton, and, may we not add, of his predecessor, Cardinal Beaton. It is true, they were Roman Catholic prelates; but so were their illustrious predecessors, Lamberton, Wardlaw, and Kennedy. They were also adherents of their legitimate sovereign, Queen Mary, and so were half the nobility of Scotland. Their greatest crime was their having been accessary to the burning of men for being guilty of what was then deemed heresy. But we ought to do justice even to our enemies. No one, in the present times will venture to defend such sanguinary proceedings; but we should remember that these men were tried and executed for breaking the existing laws of their country, and that they suffered no

more than those laws directed: and there can be no doubt that those who executed them believed they were doing God service. Nor ought it to be forgotten that their Protestant successors enacted the penalty of death for being present a third time at the celebration of mass; and, though prevented by circumstances from inflicting this sentence, yet they often inflicted punishments nearly as severe, such as, standing in the pillory, banishment, confiscation of goods, imprisonment, and excommunication with all its cruel civil disabilities and privations-giving over the excommunicated person "into the hands and power of the devil, to the destruction of his flesh, straitly charging all that profess the Lord Jesus, to whose knowledge this our sentence shall come, to repute the said person accursed, and unworthy of the familiar society of Christians; declaring unto all men that such as hereafter, before his repentance, shall haunt or familiarly accompany with him, are partakers of his impiety, and subject to the like condemnation." In short, the reformers looked upon the frequenters of the mass as idolaters, and thought themselves justified, by the examples of the Old Testament, to punish the former in the same manner that the Jews were commissioned to punish the latter; overlooking the totally different circumstances of the two cases. But the truth is, there were as bad or worse men than Hamilton and Beaton even among the Reformers themselves. Their assassins were worse men, zealous Protestants though they were. Crichton of Brunstone, was a worse man; so was Henry Balnevis, the Regent Moray, Sir George Douglas, and some others that might be named. As to the private faults of the two primates, that could be no justification of their murder: and besides, their liberal endowment of St. Mary's college St. Andrew's, should alone have exempted them from so ignominious a fate.

But we must now return, and observe the progress of the Reformation, more especially at St. Andrew's.

Those of the Romish priests who adopted the tenets of Protestantism, and such other preachers as could be got, without the least regard to their having been ordained or not, provided only they were thought qualified, were distributed in different parts of Scotland, to supply the spiritual wants of the people: but, for the present, only eight of the principal towns could be supplied with one minister each: the rest being irregularly provided with an inferior class of functionaries called Exhorters and Readers, who were empowered to preach and read prayers, but not to administer the sacraments. The minister who was appointed to St. Andrew's was the Rev. Christopher Goodman. This ecclesiastic happened to be of English orders, and had met with John Knox at Geneva, whither they had both fled to avoid the Marian persecution. He afterwards accompanied Knox to Scotland, and assisted him in bringing about the Reformation; and more particularly in drawing up what was called "The Book of Common Order," a liturgy on the Genevan model, which was adopted by the Church of Scotland in the year 1564, that of the reformed church of England having been in use from 1557 up to that date.1

1 A new edition of this "Book of Common Order" has lately been published by a Scotch minister in London, of the name of Cumming. In his preface he says, "The parity and succession of our Presbyters I hold to be the primitive and scriptural polity." No one disputes the parity of Presbyters, but what does Mr. C. mean by the "succession of Presbyters?" Is he not aware, first, that there never was any other

Here then was a singular change for St. Andrews's in the course of a few months. In June, 1559, there were in the city an archbishop, and various church dignitaries connected with the cathedral, thirty or forty chaplains of private altarages, a prior and subprior, and thirty-four canons, belonging to the Augustinian monastery, the provost and twelve prebendaries of Kirkheugh, the friars of the Dominican and Franciscan monasteries, and the numerous clergy connected with the three colleges—in all, probably, exceeding one hundred and sixty ecclesiastics and monks: and now, Mr. Christopher Goodman was the only ordained Protestant minister, to whom a population of 12 or 13,000 people could apply for religious instruction, and the administration of the sacraments! Nor do they seem to have had more for several years afterwards. At the same time, it should be observed that Goodman was under the spiritual superintendence of Winram, who had been made superintendent of Fife. He may also have had under him an exhorter or a reader, and possibly one or two converted canons of the priory; though, if he had, they were not in holy orders, and, from their recluse habits, must have been very indifferently qualified to perform the duties of parish ministers.1

I may here remark concerning Goodman, before I part with him, that he had, in the time of Queen Mary, published a book, entitled, "How supreme powers ought to be obeyed of their subjects, and wherein they may, by God's word, be lawfully disobeyed and resisted." In this work he had, in common with his friend Knox, condemned the "monstrous regiment of women." When he subsequently returned to England, the jealousy of Elizabeth's government obliged him, as it had done Knox, to recant his democratic opinions as publicly as he had proclaimed them. During his abode at St. Andrew's, he contributed his utmost efforts to promote the cause of the Reformation; but, as he had more work laid upon him than he could easily perform, and as he was often sent by the General Assembly to distant parts of the country to supply the deficiency of others, he seems to have grown tired of his situation, for he retired to England in the year 1565. After making his peace with the English government, and being exposed to some trouble in consequence of his puritannical opinions, he finally died at Chester in 1601.

than episcopal ordination in the Christian Church till the Reformation? And, secondly, that the whole body of the Scotch reformed preachers, with four or five exceptions, were laymen, and that for the thirty-two following years they never used any form of ordination at all? If there had been a "succession of Presbyters," this chasm alone would have broken it: for when the imposition of hands was resumed in 1592, they were merely the hands of lay-preachers, which of course could convey no spiritual authority or commission to any one. It follows from this, that Mr. Cumming, and all his brethren, are only laymen; and, yet, such is his ignorance or presumption that, in the above preface, he calls the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, whose episcopal consecration is unbroken, his co-presbyters!!

1 Even in the year 1572 there were only 252 ministers, 157 exhorters, and 508 readers (all layman except three or four), for the whole of Scotland; Mr. Robert Hamilton, minister, and Mr. George Black, exhorter, being all that could be afforded for St. Andrew's. In a 66 register of ministers, exhorters, and readers," published by the Maitland club. It is there stated that so scarce was the first class of instructors, that one individual was appointed to "minister the sacraments to the haill schyre" of Peebles! To these facts it may be added that when Andrew Melville came to St. Andrew's in 1580 there were only five ministers in that presbytery, though when he left it there were sixteen. M'Crie's Life, i. 342. There ought to have been twenty. It was many years before the country could adapt itself to the new state of things, and in the interval great disorder ensued.