duals, by whom they were respectively conducted, the fierce and unconquerable Knox and the mild and conceding Cranmer. But the grand cause of the great reduction of the ecclesiastical establishment of Scotland was the exorbitant power of the aristocracy. Hostile to the clergy on account of the support which that body had given to the royal power, and eager to possess themselves of the great property with which it had been endowed, the nobles cordially united with the people in constituting a presbyterian system of government, and resisted every subsequent effort of the crown to provide a liberal revenue for the church.

The ancient system of religion † has indeed been considered as having prepared the Scotchfor the reception of a presbyterian establishment. Columba, a native of Ireland, who landed in Iona in the year 563, founded there a society of monks distinguished by the name of Culdees, such as he had already instituted in his own country in the year 546. This society extended its influence throughout Scotland, and even throughout England as far as the Thames, though from the latter country it was speedily driven back by the influence of Rome. Comparatively (k) pure in their doctrines, the Culdees opposed the errors together with the en

Millar's Hist. View, vol. 3. p. 69.

Jamieson's Hist. Account of the ancient Culdees, p. 328. Edinb. 1811.

croachments of Rome; and though each monastery contained a bishop, who was occasionally deputed to the neighbouring district for ecclesiastical purposes, this bishop appears to have been subject to the monks, who formed a body of a presbyterian character. The supremacy of Rome was formally acknowledged by the Scotish church in the year 1176, to avoid the pretensions of the archbishop of York, a nearer, and therefore a more formidable master: the Culdees however continued to exist generally in Scotland to the beginning of the fourteenth century, in which century Wicliffe was the harbinger of the English Reformation and in the two districts of Kyle and Cunningham, in which the reformation of religion was first embraced, great numbers of them appeared so late as in the reigns of James the third and the fourth, or even to the very age of that great revolution.

The doctrines of the Reformation* were introduced into Scotland probably before the year 1525, as the books of Luther appear to have been imported before that time; and Patrick Hamilton, who embraced the new tenets in the following year, and went to Luther and Melancthon for more perfect information, was for his abandonment of the religion of Rome, committed to the flames in the year 1528. From

* M'Crie's Life of Knox, vol. 1. p. 28-31. Edinb. 1818.

this time the cause of the Reformation made continual progress notwithstanding the violence of persecution, which raged during ten years from the year 1530, the truth being made known by the dissemination of the scriptures, though there were yet no public teachers of the reformed religion. A leader however soon afterwards appeared, the occurrences of whose life determined him to attach himself to that form of the protestant religion, which had been established at Geneva. John Knox* declared himself a Protestant in the year 1542, the same in which James V. lost his life in an unsuccessful expedition undertaken against the English. Five years afterwards he was taken prisoner by a French force, which had reduced the castle of St. Andrews, and after a captivity of nineteen months on board the French gallies, he repaired (1) to England, where Edward was then king. In this country he continued during the remainder of the short reign of that prince; but soon after the accession of Mary he fled to France, and proceeding to Swisserland, visited Geneva, where Calvin had then established his system of doctrine and discipline. In the year 1555, having returned from Geneva to Scotland, he effected the formal commencement of the Reformation in his native country, by inducing its friends to discontinue that attend

• M'Crie, vol. 1. p. 14, 67–245.

ance on the worship of the church of Rome, which they had hitherto practised for their security. In the following year he again quitted Scotland, having received an invitation to be the pastor of the English congregation at Geneva; and his biographer has remarked that by returning at this time he not only preserved his own life, but averted from his brethren the storm of persecution. He returned a second time to his country in the year 1559, when his efforts had become indispensable to the support of the Reformation, the princes of Loraine, brothers of the queen-regent of Scotland, having then formed (m) a plan for suppressing the reformed religion in both the British kingdoms, by first crushing it in Scotland, and then by establishing the Scotish Mary on the throne of England in the place of Elizabeth. In frustrating this vast and ruinous project Knox was serviceable as a politician, and not merely as an ecclesiastic, for he first pressed upon the court of England the importance of affording support to the Protestants of Scotland.

The Reformation, which at the death of James V. had been almost suppressed in Scotland, was restored by the operation of two political events; one of these was the elevation of the queen dowager to the dignity of regent, the other was the accession of Mary to the

* M'Crie, vol. 1. p. 169, 170.

throne of England. The queen dowager of Scotland, though the sister of the princes of Loraine, had found it her interest to conciliate the favour of the Protestants, that she might be enabled to wrest the regency from the earl of Arran, by whom they had been persecuted; and when she had succeeded in attaining the object of her ambition, she judged it necessary to avail herself of their support in opposition to the clergy, who adhered to the party of her rival. The queen of England on the other hand, by connecting herself with Spain, the political rival of France, naturally alienated the queen-regent of Scotland from the measures, which she was herself pursuing in regard to religion, and even disposed that princess to favour and protect the refugees, who fled from persecution. If the two queens had heartily cooperated, it seems probable that the Reformation would have been at this time exterminated from Britain; but the causes which have been specified, hindered a coalition so baneful, and the violence of the queen of England served to send preachers into Scotland, who under the connivance of the regent reanimated the zeal of the Scotish Protestants.

The dissmulation of the queen-regent was in its duration remarkably accommodated to the interest of the Reformation, for it was not

*

⚫ M'Crie, vol. 1. p. 247, 248.