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arising from that rich benefice. It was soon discovered, however, that he had views far beyond so comparatively humble a rank. Even when a boy, it was his ambition to collect around him associates who were devoted to his service and desires. He went over with Mary to France in 1548, but remained there only a very short time; and, at the age of twenty-one, he was already looked up to by the Scottish Reformers as their chief. His knowledge was extensive, and considerably in advance of the times in which he lived. His personal bravery was undoubted, and his skill in arms so great, that few of his military enterprises were unsuccessful. His passions, if they were strong, seem also to have been deep, and entirely under his own command. Whatever may be thought of the secret motives which actuated him, he was seldom betrayed into any symptoms of apparent violence. He thus contrived to hold a steady course, amidst all the turbulence and convulsions of the age in which he lived; whilst the external decorum and propriety of his manners, so different from the ill-concealed dissoluteness of many of his cotemporaries, endeared him the more to the stern followers of Luther. It is curious to observe the very opposite views which different historians have taken of his character, more especially when they come to speak of him as the Earl of Murray and the Regent of Scotland. It would be improper and unnecessary to anticipate these discussions at present, since it is hoped the reader will be able to form his own estimate upon this subject, from the facts he will find recorded in these Memoirs.

It must be evident, that with two such men,

each at the head of his own party, the country was not likely to continue long in a state of quietness. The Queen Regent soon found it necessary, at the instigation of the French Court, to associate herself with the Archbishop of St Andrews, in opposition to which coalition, a bond was drawn up in 1557, by some of the principal Reformers, in which they announced their resolution to form an independent congregation of their own, and to separate themselves entirely from the "congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof. Articles, or Heads of a Reformation, were soon afterwards published, in which it was principally insisted, that on Sunday and other festival days, the Common-Prayer should be read openly in the parish churches, along with the lessons of the Old and New Testaments; and that preaching and interpretation of the Scriptures in private houses should be allowed.

In the following year, one of the first outrages which the Reformers committed in Scotland, took place in Edinburgh. On occasion of the annual ргоcession through the city, in honour of the tutelar Saint-St Giles, the image of that illustrious personage, which ought to have been carried by some of the priests, was amissing,-the godly having, beforehand, according to John Knox, first drowned the idol in the North Loch, and then burned it. It was therefore necessary to borrow a smaller saint from the Gray-Friars, in order that this " great solemnity and manifest abomination" might proceed. Upon the day appointed, priests, friars, canons, and "rotten Papists, assembled, with tabors, trumpets, banners, and bagpipes. At this sight,

the hearts of the brethren were wondrously inflamed; and they resolved, that this second dragon should suffer the fate of the first. They broke in upon the procession; and though the Catholics made some slight resistance at first, they were soon obliged to surrender the image into the hands of the Philistines, who, taking it by the heels, and knocking, or, as the reformed historian says, dadding its head upon the pavement, soon reduced it to fragments, only regretting, that "the young St Giles" had not been so difficult to kill as his father. The priests, alarmed for their personal safety, sought shelter as quickly as possible, and gave Knox an opportunity of indulging in some of that austere mirth which is peculiarly remarkable, because so foreign to his general style. "Then might have been seen," says he, 66 so sudden a fray as seldom has been seen among that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the cross, off go the surplices, round caps, and cornets with the crowns. The Gray-Friars gaped, the BlackFriars blew, and the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first got the house; for such a sudden fray came never among the generation of Antichrist within this realm before." The magistrates had some difficulty in prevailing upon the mob to disperse, after they had kept possession of the streets for several hours; and the rioters escaped without punishment; for "the brethren assembled themselves in such sort in companies, singing psalms, and praising God, that the proudest of the enemies were astounded. *

* Keith, p. 68-Knox's History, p. 94-6.

The Commissioners who, about this time, were sent into France, and the motives of their embassy, will be spoken of afterwards. But the remarkable circumstance, that four of them died when about to return home,-one at Paris, and three at Dieppe, had a considerable influence in exciting the populace to still greater hatred against the French party,-it being commonly suspected that they had come by their death unfairly. The Congregation now rose in their demands; and among other things, insisted that "the wicked and scandalous lives of churchmen should be reformed, according to the rules contained in the New Testament, the writings of the ancient fathers, and the laws of Justinian the Emperor. For a while, the Queen Regent temporized; but finding it impossible to preserve the favour of both parties, she yielded at length to the solicitations of the Archbishop of St Andrews, and determined to resist the Reformers vigorously. In 1559, she summoned all the ministers of the Congregation, to appear before her at Stirling. This citation was complied with, but not exactly in the manner that the Queen wished; for the ministers came not as culprits, but as men proud of their principles, and accompanied by a vast multitude of those who were of the same mode of thinking. The Queen, who was at Stirling, did not venture to proceed to Perth; and the request she made, that the numbers there assembled should depart, leaving their ministers to be examined by the Government, having been refused, she proceeded to the harsh and decisive measure of declaring them all rebels.

The consternation which this direct announce

ment of hostilities occasioned among them, was still at its height, when the great champion of the Scottish Reformation, John Knox, arrived at Perth. This celebrated divine had already suffered much for "the good cause ;" and though his zeal and devotion to it were well known, it was not till latterly that he had entertained much hope of its final triumph in his native country. He had spent the greater part of his life in imprisonment or exile; he had undergone many privations, and submitted to many trials. But these were the daily food of the Reformers; and, whilst they only served to strengthen them in the obduracy of their belief, they had the additional effect of infusing a morose acerbity into dispositions not naturally of the softest kind. Knox had returned only a few days before from Geneva, where he had been solacing his solitude by writing and publishing that celebrated work, which he was pleased to entitle, "The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women. This treatise, directed principally against Mary of England, not forgetting Mary Queen of Scots and her mother of Guise, rather overshot its own purpose, by bringing the Reformer into disrepute with Elizabeth, who came to the crown soon after its appearance. To pacify that Queen, for it appears even Knox could temporize occasionally, he gave up his original intention of blowing his trumpet thrice, and his first blast was his last. *

The day after the ministers and their friends, had been declared rebels, Knox delivered at Perth what Keith terms " that thundering Sermon a

M'Crie's Life of Knox, vol. i. p. 222.