HISTORY OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN SCOTLAND.* THE new volume of
this work is in some respects, not in all, an improvement on the two that preceded it. Dealing with subjects that come closer to the quick of feelings and interests still throbbing with vitality, it carries a more vivid concern to a wider circle, tending to excite stronger likes and dislikes, more of gratified assent and of vehement demur. The period it covers, though brief, was the fruitful seed-plot of many notable traits in Scottish character and history. It starts from what is named the Revolution of 1560,—i.e., the move- ment which dislodged Roman Catholicism from its pride of place as the recognised national religion. It comes down to the death of King James in 1625. Dr. Belieshiem is a tem- perate and painstaking narrator, who makes it evident he is never wilfully unfair. He was moved to his task by access to some hitherto undivalged information, curious, though not supremely important. The Benedictine monk who has become his translator is a cadet of a good Scottish family, who in the old days of Bible monopoly enhanced their fortune as the King's printers. He has discharged his func- tion with a double zest, the zeal of a convert being added to the attraction of the subject. His performance is marked by aptitude and clearness. It is impossible, however, to grant him all the merit he claims for "such impartiality as made it a duty for him to endeavour to steer clear of such bias as would result in misrepresenting either the motives or the actions of the persons with whom he has to deal." This commendable design has palpably miscarried in some of his notes.
Amid the many events recounted and discussed in the seven well-arranged chapters the volume contains, three subjects stand out with prominence :—The easy overthrow of the ancient Church, which fell at a touch, like a house of cards, and how that came about ; the endless controversy concerning Mary Stuart; and the character, the policy, the intentions of her son James. The middle topic we shall avoid, as still too fervid for handling with any satisfactory result. Suffice it to say, the evidence of prepossession relatively to the two chief persons is unmistakably revealed. Mary is vindicated at all points. Knox is pictured as surly, malignant, and un- scrupulous. Take only two examples. The accusation that Knox was "at the death of Rizzio or privy thereunto," is repeated. The sole evidence in support of this charge consists of a scrap of paper containing a list of names, and a black pin by which it was fastened to a letter of Randolph, the English envoy. The paper is anonymous, undated, unsub- scribed, unreferred to, and at variance not only with four separate lists of the murderers and their accessories which were accepted and founded on, but without an atom of support
• History of the Catholic Church of Scotland. from the Introduction of Christian•ty to the Present Ilay. By Alphonao Belieshiem, D.D., Canon of Ai:- la-Chapelle. Translated, with Notes and additions, by D. Oswald Hunter Blair, 0.B.B., Monk of Fort Augustus. Vol. TIL Edinburgh and London : W. Black- wood and Scns,
in any letter, journal, or contemporary history that has been discovered. Take the other side. Before Mary wedded Bothwell, he had to get his existing marriage declared void.. This was accomplished on the ground that his wife and he were within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, and were united without the barrier having been removed by a Papal dispensation. The fact is, a dispensation was granted by the Papal legate. It was found a few years since in the charter- chest at Dunrobin, the separated Countess having become wife to the Earl of Sutherland. That Mary knew of the cireum,- stances, is shown by her letter to the Pope in 1571, when she was anxious to wed the Duke of Norfolk. Therein she speaks of "the pretended divorce" of Bothwell. The divorce had the same validity as the dispensation, for it was granted by the same man. Dr. Belieshiem gets over the difficulty by sup- posing the "dispensation may have been discovered, for some canonical reasons, to be invalid : in which case there could be no lawful marriage " !
The downfall of the Church is described with candour. Na attempt is made to hide that before the Reformation she was in a shockingly corrupt state. The testimony of Ninian Winset, one of her most learned and able defenders, is cited in proof. He was unsparing in his denunciations of the profli- gacy which disgraced priests and nobles. "Did we not know," says the author, "that the abuses of which he complains existed, we should be disposed to accuse him of exaggeration. But sharp. and bitter as are his words, no one acquainted with the state of the Scottish Church will venture to say they shot beyond the mark." Here Father Blair interposes something of a caveat. "It was their lives," he said, "not their teaching, against which his indignation was directed." What says Winzen,. writing satirically ?—" Whether we shall begin our praise of your holy lives or your healthful doctrine, we are dubious.
Your dumb doctrine in exalting ceremonies without declaration of the same, and, far more, keeping in silence the true Word of God necessary to all men's salvation, and not resisting manifest errors, to the world is known." The last Canon of the last Council in 1559, provided for reassembling on Septuagesima Sunday next year. In August, a Parliament, not altogether regularly summoned, yet not wholly self- constituted, abrogated the authority of the Pope, proscribed the mass, and adopted the Reformed Confession of Faith,— that symbol Edward Irving never ceased to extol as superior- to what came later from the Westminster Assembly. The Primate, two Bishops, and an Abbot, with two temporal Peers,, opposed the first move. The laymen said they desired to believe as their fathers believed. The prelates said nothing to the purpose. The Earl Marischal twitted them for their dumbness. "Seeing," he said, "the Bishops here present speak nothing to the contrary of the doctrine proposed, I cannot but hold it to be the very truth of God, and the contrary to be' deceivable doctrine." The Church was disestablished without a struggle. In such bad repute was the hierarchy, that Father- Thomas Innes declined any effort at exculpation, save in the- case of Archbishop Beaton, who held the See of Glasgow.
There is more of novelty and food for thought in the narrative of events that took place in James's time, and in the portrait given of that whimsical though acute person. " The. wisest fool in Christendom" was what Sully called him, and he has been persistently gibed at it ever since, though of late a modified opinion has come into vogue. Mark Pattison, in- his study of Casaubon, expressly declares that those who. know most of James will find their estimate of his abilities. raised. To the like purpose write both Von Ranke and Mr. Gairdner. Even David Hume ascribes the contemptible esti- mate entertained of his talents to his attempts at literary excellence, which he was unable to reach. He suffered,. however, from other formidable drawbacks. He had an un- couth person and coarse manners, though a shrewd and nimble mind. He was a craven physically, and a consciousness of his weakness, with his inability to kindle enthusiasm, seems to have sapped his mental robustness, urging him to.a course of wile and craft, rather than one intrepid and manly. When in Scotland, he for the most part spoke and wrote as a Scots- man, and pretended, however much it may have gone against his grain, to think as one. He could not do otherwise among a people who were delighted to hear preachings levelled at. him, and scrupled not to call him "God's silly vassal." When he arrived in England, he put away the semblance of Scottish feeling, and listened only to those who called him the Solomon of riders, the divine representative before the nation,—albeit he probably saw through their sycophantish flattery. A vivid light is thrown on his situation in Scotland, and on the hopes the Roman Catholic Church entertained, by a report in the appendix which was drawn up in 1596 by a Papal agent in Brussels. How the King writhed under the dictation of the Protestant clergy, yet felt himself powerless to withstand it, partly because of their popularity, partly because of the pro- tection vouchsafed them by Queen Elizabeth, whose Ambas- sador, as well as other agents, maintained a careful espionage, is tellingly recounted. Encouragement is given to the belief that when he obtained power he would profess himself a Catholic. This hope is fortified by the assertion that his Queen was one, though secretly. It is said that in her youth she learned the tenets of the Church from a companion, an Austrian Princess ; that in Scotland she came under the spell of Father Robert Abercromby, by whom she was received into the communion of the faithful ; that James tacitly consented to this arrangement, and to the Jesuit Father going with the Court to England, where he continued his ministrations, a disguise being provided by his appointment as superintendent of the Royal falconry. All this, it is added, is related by him- self in a letter to the Prior of St. James's, Ratisbon. It is a strange story, which finds its proper place in a book that is always interesting and instructive ; even when one may rightly deem it erroneous.
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