CHAP. burgh it had been agreed, that a parliament or XXXVIII. convention should soon be assembled; and the 1560. leaders of the Congregation, not waiting till the

rage

queen of Scots should ratify that treaty, thought themselves fully entitled, without the sovereign's authority, immediately to summon a parliament. The reformers presented a petition to this assembly; in which they were not contented with desiring the establishment of their doctrine; they also applied for the punishment of the catholics, whom they called vassals to the Roman harlot; and they asserted, that, among all the rabble of the clergy, such is their expression, there was not one lawful minister; but that they were, all of them, thieves and murderers; yea, rebels and traitors to civil authority; and therefore unworthy to be suffered in any reformed commonwealth.P The parliament seem to have been actuated by the same spirit of and persecution. After ratifying a confession of faith agreeable to the new doctrines, they passed a statute against the mass, and not only abolished it in all the churches, but enacted, that whoever, any where, either officiated in it, or was present at it, should be chastised, for the first offence, with confiscation of goods and corporal punishment, at the discretion of the magistrate; for the second, with banishment; and for the third, with loss of life.9 A law was also voted for abolishing the papal jurisdiction in Scotland: The presbyterian form of discipline was settled, leaving only at first some shadow of authority to certain ecclesiastics, whom they called Superintendants. The prelates of the ancient faith appeared, in order to complain of great injustice committed on them by the invasion of their property, but the parliament took no notice of them: till, at last, these ecclesiastics, tired with fruitless

p Knox, p. 237, 238.

9 Ibid. p. 254.

XXXVIII.

fruitless attendance, departed the town. They CHAP. were then cited to appear; and as nobody presented himself, it was voted by the parliament, that 1560. the ecclesiastics were entirely satisfied, and found no reason of complaint.

SIR James Sandilands, prior of St. John, was sent over to France to obtain the ratification of these acts; but was very ill received by Mary, who denied the validity of a parliament summoned without the royal consent; and she refused her sanction to those statutes. But the protestants gave themselves little concern about their queen's refusal. They immediately put the statutes in execution: They abolished the mass; they settled their ministers; they committed every where furious devastations on the monasteries, and even on the churches, which they thought profaned by idolatry, and deeming the property of the clergy lawful prize, they took possession, without ceremony, of the far greater part of the ecclesiastical revenues. Their new preachers, who had authority sufficient to incite them to war and insurrection, could not restrain their rapacity; and fanaticism concurring with avarice, an incurable wound was given to the papal authority in that country. The protestant nobility and gentry, united by the consciousness of such unpardonable guilt, alarmed for their new possessions, well acquainted with the imperious character of the house of Guise, saw no safety for themselves but in the protection of England; and they dispatched Morton, Glencarne, and Lidington, to express their sincere gratitude to the queen for her past favours, and represent to her the necessity of continuing them.

ELIZABETH, on her part, had equal reason to French maintain a union with the Scottish protestants; and affairs. soon found that the house of Guise, notwithstanding their former disappointments, had not laid aside the design of contesting her title, and subverting

her

CHAP. her authority. Francis and Mary, whose counsels XXXVIII. were wholly directed by them, refused to ratify the 1560. treaty of Edinburgh; and shewed no disposition to give her any satisfaction for that mortal affront, which they had put upon her, by their openly assuming the title and arms of England. She was sensible of the danger attending such pretensions; and it was with pleasure she heard of the violent factions which prevailed in the French government, and of the opposition which had arisen against the measures of the duke of Guise. That ambitious prince, supported by his four brothers, the cardinal of Lorraine, the duke of Aumale, the marquis of Elbeuf, and the grand prior, men no less ambitious than himself, had engrossed all the authority of the crown; and as he was possessed of every quality which could command the esteem or seduce the affections of men, there appeared no end of his acquisitions and pretensions. The constable, Montmorency, who had long balanced his credit, was deprived of all power: The princes of the blood, the king of Navarre, and his brother, the prince of Condé, were entirely excluded from offices and favour: The queen-mother herself, Catherine de Medicis, found her influence every day declining: And as Francis, a young prince, infirm both in mind and body, was wholly governed by his consort, who knew no law but the pleasure of her uncles, men despaired of ever obtaining freedom from the dominion of that aspiring family. It was the contests of religion which first inspired the French with courage openly to oppose their unlimited authority.

THE theological disputes, first started in the north of Germany, next in Switzerland, countries at that time wholly illiterate, had long ago penetrated into France; and as they were assisted by the general discontent against the court and church of Rome, and by the zealous spirit of the age, the proselytes to the

new

!

XXXVIII.

1560.

new religion were secretly increasing in every pro- CHAP. vince. Henry II. in imitation of his father Francis, had opposed the progress of the reformers; and though a prince addicted to pleasure and society, he was transported by a vehemence, as well as bigotry, which had little place in the conduct of his predecessor. Rigorous punishments had been inflicted on the most eminent of the protestant party; and a point of honour seemed to have arisen, whether the one sect could exercise, or the other suffer, most barbarity. The death of Henry put some stop to the persecutions; and the people, who had admired the constancy of the new preachers, now heard with favour their doctrines and arguments. But the cardinal of Lorraine, as well as his brothers, who were possessed of the legal authority, thought it their interest to support the established religion; and when they revived the execution of the penal statutes, they necessarily drove the malcontent princes and nobles to embrace the protection of the new religion. The king of Navarre, a man of mild dispositions, but of a weak character, and the prince of Condé, who possessed many great qualities, having declared themselves in favour of the protestants, that sect acquired new force from their countenance; and the admiral, Coligni, with his brother Andelot, no longer scrupled to make open profession of their communion. The integrity of the admiral, who was believed sincere in his attachment to the new doctrine, and his great reputation both for valour and conduct, for the arts of peace as well as of war, brought credit to the reformers; and after a frustrated attempt of the malcontents to seize the king's person at Amboise, of which Elizabeth had probably some intelligence," every place was full of distraction,

r Forbes, vol. i. p. 214. Throgmorton, about this time, unwilling to entrust to letters the great secrets committed to him, obtained leave, under some pretext, to come over to London,

XXXVIII.

CHA P. distraction, and matters hastened to an open rupture between the parties. But the house of Guise, 1560. though these factions had obliged them to remit their efforts in Scotland, and had been one chief cause of Elizabeth's success, were determined not to relinquish their authority in France, or yield to the violence of their enemies. They found an opportunity of seizing the king of Navarre and the prince of Condé; they threw the former into prison; they obtained a sentence of death against the latter; and they were proceeding to put the sentence into execution, when the king's sudden death saved the noble prisoner, and interrupted the pros4th Dec. perity of the duke of Guise. The queen-mother was appointed regent to her son Charles IX. now in his minority: The king of Navarre was named lieutenant-general of the kingdom: The sentence against Condé was annulled: The constable was recalled to court: And the family of Guise, though they still enjoyed great offices and great power, found a counterpoise to their authority.

1561.

ELIZABETH was determined to make advantage of these events against the queen of Scots, whom she still regarded as a dangerous rival. She saw herself freed from the perils attending a union of Scotland with France, and from the pretensions of so powerful a prince as Francis; but she considered at the same time, that the English catholics, who were numerous, and who were generally prejudiced in favour of Mary's title, would now adhere to that princess with more zealous attachment, when they saw that her succession no longer endangered the liberties of the kingdom, and was rather attended with the advantage of effecting an entire union with Scotland. She She gave orders, therefore, to her ambassador, Throgmorton, a vigilant and able minister, to renew his applications to the queen of Scots, and to require her ratification of the treaty of Edin

burgh.