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The earl of Angus had acquired the entire ascendant in Scotland; and having gotten possession of the king’s person then in early youth, he was able, by means of that advantage, and by employing the power of his own family, to retain the reins of government. The queen dowager, however, his consort, bred him great disturbance. For having separated herself from him on account of some jealousies and disgusts, and having procured a divorce, she had married another man of quality, of the name of Stuart; and she joined all the discontented nobility who opposed Angus’s authority. James himself was dissatisfied with the slavery to which he was reduced, and by secret correspondence he incited first Walter Scot, then the earl of Lenox, to attempt by force of arms the freeing him from the hands of Angus. Both enterprises failed of success: but James, impatient of restraint, found means at last of escape *ing to Stirling, where his mother then resided; and having summoned all the nobility to attend him, he overturned the authority of the Douglases, and obliged Angus and his brother to fly into England, where they were protected by Henry. The king of Scotland, being now arrived at years of majority, took the government into his own hands; and employed him self with great spirit and valor in repressing those feuds, ravages, and disorders, which, though they disturbed the course of public justice, served to support the martial spirit of the Scots, and contributed by that means to maintain national independency. He was desirous of renewing the ancient league with the French nation; but finding Francis in close union with England, and on that account somewhat cold in hearkening to his proposals, he received the more favorably the advances of the emperor, who hoped, by means of such an ally, to breed disturbance to England, He offered the Scottish king the choice of three princesses, his own near relations, and all of the name of Mary; his sister, the dowager of Hungary; his niece, a daughter of Portugal; or his cousin, the daughter of Henry, whom he pretended to dispose of unknown to her father. James was more inclined to the latter proposal, had it not, upon reflection, been found impracticable; and his natural propensity to France at last prevailed over all other considerations. The alliance with Francis necessarily engaged James to maintain peace with England. But though invited by his uncle Henry to confer with him at Newcastle, and concert common measures for repressing the ecclesiastics in both kingdoms, and shaking off the yoke of Rome, he could not be prevailed on, by entering England, to put himself in the king’s power. In order to have a pretext for refusing the conference, he applied to the pope, and obtained a brief, forbidding him to engage in any personal negotiations with an enemy of the holy see. From these measures Henry easily concluded that he could very little depend on the friendship of his nephew. But those events took not place till some time after our present period.
1534.
The ancient and almost uninterrupted opposition of interests between the laity and clergy in England, and between the English clergy and the court of Rome, had sufficiently prepared the nation for a breach with the sovereign pontiff; and men had penetration enough to discover abuses which were plainly calculated for the temporal advantages of the hierarchy, and which they found destructive of their own. These subjects seemed proportioned to human understanding; and even the people, who felt the power of interest in their own breasts, could perceive the purpose of those numerous inventions which the interested spirit of the Roman pontiff had introduced into religion. But when the reformers proceeded thence to dispute concerning the nature of the sacraments, the operations of grace, the terms of acceptance with the Deity, men were thrown into amazement, and were, during some time, at a loss how to choose their party. The profound ignorance in which both the clergy and laity formerly lived, and their freedom from theological altercations, had produced a sincere but indolent acquiescence in received opinions; and the multitude were neither attached to them by topics of reasoning, nor by those prejudices and antipathies against opponents, which have ever a more natural and powerful influence over them. As soon, therefore, as a new opinion was advanced, supported by such an authority as to call up their attention, they felt their capacity totally unfitted for such disquisitions; and they perpetually fluctuated between the contending parties. Hence the quick and violent movements by which the people were agitated, even in the most opposite directions: hence their seeming prostitution, in sacrificing to present power the most sacred principles: and hence the rapid progress during some time, and the sudden as well as entire check soon after, of the new doctrines. When men were once settled in their particular sects, and had fortified themselves in an habitual detestation of those who were denominated heretics, they adhered with more obstinacy to the principles of their education; and the limits of the two religions thenceforth remained fixed and unchangeable.
Nothing more forwarded the first progress of the reformers, than the offer which they made of submitting all religious doctrines to private judgment, and the summons given every one to examine the principles formerly imposed upon him. Though the multitude were totally unqualified for this undertaking, they yet were highly pleased with it. They fancied that they were exercising their judgment, while they opposed to the prejudices of ancient authority more powerful prejudices of another kind. The novelty itself of the doctrines; the pleasure of an imaginary triumph in dispute; the fervent zeal of the reformed preachers; their patience, and even alacrity, in suffering persecution, death, and torments; a disgust at the restraints of the old religion; an indignation against the tyranny and interested spirit of the ecclesiastics; these motives were prevalent with the people, and by such considerations were men so generally induced, during that age, to throw off the religion of their ancestors.
But in proportion as the practice of submitting religion to private judgment was acceptable to the people, it appeared in some respects dangerous to the rights of sovereigns, and seemed to destroy that implicit obedience on which the authority of the civil magistrate is chiefly founded. The very precedent of shaking so ancient and deep-founded an establishment as that of the Romish hierarchy, might, it was apprehended, prepare the way for other innovations. The republican spirit which naturally took place among the reformers, increased this jealousy. The furious insurrections of the populace, excited by Muncer and other Anabaptists in Germany,[*] furnished a new pretence for decrying the reformation. Nor ought we to conclude, because Protestants in our time prove as dutiful subjects as those of any other communion, that therefore such apprehensions were altogether without any shadow of plausibility. Though the liberty of private judgment be tendered to the disciples of the reformation, it is not in reality accepted of; and men are generally contented to acquiesce implicitly in those establishments, however new, into which their early education has thrown them.
* Sleidan, lib. iv. and v.
No prince in Europe was possessed of such absolute authority as Henry, not even the pope himself, in his own capital, where he united both the civil and ecclesiastical powers; [*] 9 and there was small likelihood, that any doctrine which lay under the imputation of encouraging sedition could ever pretend to his favor and countenance.
