NUMBER AND POWER OF CATHOLICS IN 1692—THE KIRK OBTAINS A CHARTER—NO TOLERATION—CATHOLIC WORSHIP PUT DOWN BY LAW— QUEEN ELIZABETH’S INTRIGUES AGAINST THE CATHOLICS—CATHOLICS SEEK THE AID OF SPAIN—THEIR AGENT ARRESTED—THE “SPANISH BLANKS”—KING JAMES OPPOSES THE ENGLISH FACTION—HIS LENIENCY TO THE BARONS—THE KIRK DISSATISFIED—THE PURPOSE OF THE MINISTERS TO PERSECUTE RESISTED BY THE KING—THEY, IN CONSEQUENCE, REFUSE ALL AID IN PRESERVING ORDER-FEARFUL ANARCHY—THE “REFORMED NOBILITY.”

About the time of the extinction of the Hierarchy Catholics were still numerous and powerful in Scotland. “The Roman Catholic Party,” says Mr. Fraser Tytler, “although apparently subdued and silent, were still powerful in the Kingdom. There was no reason why this large and powerful body of men should despair of success, but rather the contrary.” As proof of this, Mr. Tytler refers to a remarkable paper in the hand of Lord Burghley, drawn up apparently for his own guidance, which brings forward in clear contrast the comparative strength of the Catholic and Protestant parties in Scotland. We learn from this paper that “all the Northern part of the Kingdom, including the counties of Inverness, Caithness, Sutherland and Aberdeen, with Moray, and the Sheriffdoms of Buchan, of Angus, of Wigtown and of Nithsdale, were, either wholly or for the greater part, in the interest of the Roman Catholic Party, commanded mostly by noblemen who secretly adhered to that Faith, and directed in their movements by Jesuits and Priests, who were concealed in various parts of the country, especially in Angus. On the other hand, the counties of Perth and Stirling, the populous Shire of Fife and the counties of Lanark, Dumbarton and Renfrew, including the rich district of Clydesdale, were, with few exceptions, Protestant, whilst the counties of Ayr and Linlithgow were dubious and could not be truly ranged either on one side or the other.” (Fraser Tytler hist. of Scot. vol. 7. p. 160.) Hence, there was between the parties a drawn battle which King James was unable to bring to an end, so uncertain, at the time, was his policy. He deemed it impossible to attempt anything serious against either party, and so judged it prudent to temporize and keep up the two factions, balancing the one against the other.

In 1592 the faction of the Kirk were determined to obtain a solemn legislative establishment of the Presbyterian system of Church government. Their assembly accordingly presented to Parliament the following articles or requests to the King:

I. That the Acts of Parliament passed in 1584 against the discipline and liberty of the Kirk should be repealed, and the present discipline be ratified.

II. That the Act of Annexation should be abolished, and the patrimony of the Kirk restored.

III. That abbots, priors and other prelates pretending to ecclesiastical authority, and giving their votes in matters, without any delegated authority from the Kirk, should not be permitted to vote in parliament or any other convention; and, lastly,

IV. That the land, which was polluted by fearful idolatry and bloodshed, should be purged. The King was well aware that any concession in this direction, would increase the power of the ministers, and much danger was to be apprehended from the turbulence and independence of these bold and able men. Moved, however, by the advice and influence of Chancellor Maitland, he, from policy rather than affection, assented to the odious measure. The Act is still known as “the charter of the liberties of the Kirk.”

The ministers might now have been satisfied. For. in addition to the advantage which they had gained, the Catholics were inclined to remain at peace and refrain from all practices against the religion of the State, on the one condition that they should not be persecuted on account of their adherence to the ancient Faith. The divine principle of toleration was not yet recognized. Everything that Catholics did was, in the estimation of the Kirk, anti-Christian and idolatrous. “A single case of Catholic worship, however secret, was strictly prohibited; the attendance of a solitary individual at a single Mass in the remotest district of the land, at the dead hour of night, in the most secluded chamber and where none could come but such as knelt before the altar for conscience sake, and in all sincerity of soul, was a crime against the State and the Kirk. Such worship and its toleration for an hour, was considered an open encouragement of Antichrist and idolatry.” (Fraser Tytler.) It was not only praiseworthy—but a high point of religious duty to extinguish the Mass forever, and to compel its supporters to embrace what the fanatics of the Kirk so absurdly called the purity of Presbyterian truth. In order to accomplish this impossible iniquity, every criminal appliance was had recourse to,—imprisonment, banishment, forfeiture. The wild fanaticism of the time stopped not short even at the taking of life. In order to enforce these penalties the whole apparatus of the Kirk, now supported by the State, and all the machinery of detection and persecution, were ruthlessly employed.

Need it be wondered at that the Catholics, under the lash of such savage persecution, were roused to opposition? or that they plotted for the overthrow of the Government which patronized it? The Kirk availed itself of the aid of a foreign power in forwarding its evil purposes. And the Queen of England was only too glad to have their co-operation in the base intrigues which she was constantly carrying on for the extirpation of the Catholic religion in Scotland through her ambassador and other agents at the Scottish Court. The Catholic Party in Scotland, seeing that the Kirk scrupled not to employ against them the influence of a foreign court, resolved on a similar policy. As their adversaries obtained the support of the powerful patroness of Protestantism, the Queen of England, they thought it no wrong to seek the assistance of Catholic Spain. They sent an Envoy, most injudiciously, it cannot but be said, to negotiate with the King of that country and induce him to send an armed force to aid them. This Envoy was Mr. George Kerr, a Catholic gentleman and brother of the Abbot of Newbottle. Mr. Kerr had reached the Cumrays, two small islands in the estuary of the Clyde, when he was overtaken by a warlike minister who, at the head of an armed band, had started in search of him from Paisley, and arrested him in the night as he had stepped on board the vessel which was to convey him to Spain. His luggage was searched, packets of letters found, and he himself carried a prisoner to Edinburgh. At first he denied everything, and, as he had many friends, was likely to escape, when an order was given that, according to the barbarous usage of the time, he should be put to the torture. On the second stroke of the cruel boots, he made a full confession, from which it appeared that the main object of his mission was to obtain the descent of a Spanish force on the coast of Scotland. This armament was to be joined by the Earls of Huntly, Errol and Angus, with Sir Patrick Gordon of Auhendown, uncle to Huntly and other Catholic barons. In the letters seized there were found several signatures of the Earls of Huntly, Errol and Angus. These signatures were at the bottom of blank sheets of paper, having the seals of the three barons attached to them, and were to be filled up by Mr. Kerr according to verbal instructions. They were, on his arrival at Madrid, to be delivered to the King of Spain. The plot is known in history by the name of the “Spanish blanks.” There was an air of mystery about this discovery which gave occasion to much terror and exaggeration. The Kirk was greatly excited, and communicated the excitement to its adherents. The first result was a proclamation that all Jesuits, seminary priests, and “excommunicates,” should within three hours leave the city on pain of death. A convention of the Protestant nobility and gentry was held, and with the ministers at their head, proceeded to the palace and demanded instant prosecution of the traitors. Mr. Kerr was spared through the powerful intervention of the Queen of Scotland and the influential House of Seton. He finally escaped. But Graham, of Fintray was committed to prison, and the trial and forfeiture of Angus were considered certain. In return for the vigorous prosecution of all concerned in the “Spanish blanks,” King James required that his traitorous enemy, the Earl of Bothwell, who was at the time plotting against him and the Catholics in concert with Queen Elizabeth, should be attacked and punished on account of treasons even more flagrant than those of the Catholic Earls. This could not be refused. The King, now confident in his power to overthrow Earl Bothwell and Queen Elizabeth’s faction, discharged the vials of his wrath on Mr. Bowes, the intriguing English ambassador, who, no less than his Royal Mistress, was an accomplice of Bothwell. The King now raised an army and marching against the Spanish Barons, who had withdrawn to their strongholds in the north, defeated them without a battle; but dealt leniently with them to the great vexation of Queen Elizabeth and her friends, the ministers of the Kirk. Their persons were safe in the fastnesses of Caithness. Their patrimonial interest and rights of succession were considered to be still entire, and part of their estates were in friendly hands. Lord Burgh, an English agent at the court of Scotland, wrote to Burghly, a minister of Queen Elizabeth, that the King “dissembled a confiscation,” and would leave the rebels in full strength.

The members of the Kirk were greatly dissatisfied with the leniency shown by the King to the rebel Barons. They went so far as to attack him in the pulpit, and even threw out surmises of his secret inclination to “Popery.” Notwithstanding all this, the party of the ministers of the Kirk was the only one on which King James could rely, with the exception of some of the lesser Barons and the Burghs. The higher nobles were at variance with one another, and some of them at deadly enmity with the King. The ministers required as a condition of their support, that His Majesty should labour with them for the destruction of the Catholic Earls and the entire extirpation of the Catholic Faith. To such a cruel and sweeping act of persecution, King James decidedly refused to consent.

The Catholics were still numerous and powerful. They counted in their ranks thirteen of the higher nobility of Scotland and a large proportion of the people in the Northern counties. To destroy them was no easy task. The ministers, nevertheless, were bold enough to undertake it; and they spared no pains in order to force the King to give them his countenance and aid. That he refused to do so will not appear astonishing when it is considered what the measures were for the carrying out of which they desired his co-operation. The cruelty and intolerance of the ministers’ demands will be best learned from their own words. They represented “that seeing the increase of ‘Papistry’ daily within the realm, it was craved of His Majesty and his Council and his nobility, at the time assembled, that all ‘Papists’ within the land may be punished according to the laws of God and of the kingdom. That the Act of Parliament might strike upon all manner of men, landed or unlanded, in office or not, as it at present strikes against beneficed persons. That a declaration be made against all Jesuits, Seminary Priests and trafficking ‘Papists,’ pronouncing them guilty of treason; and that the penalties of the Act may be enforced against all persons who conceal or harbour them, not for three days, as it now stands, but for any time whatsoever; that all such persons as the Kirk had found to be ‘Papists,’ although they be not excommunicated, should be debarred from occupying any office within the realm, as also from access to His Majesty’s company, or enjoying any benefit of the laws; that, upon this declaration the pains of treason and other civil pains should follow, as upon the sentence of excommunication; and that an Act of Council should be passed to this effect, which in the next Parliament should be made law.” In order to induce the King to comply with these extravagant demands, they offered, in return for his compliance, to place “their bodies, goods, friends, allies, servants and possessions wholly at his service in any way in which he should be pleased to employ them.” They offered, moreover, to provide a body guard for the Royal person and to pay the same; but, from funds levied from the possessions of Catholics.

To such cruel persecution King James would by no means consent. As was to be expected, the ministers resented his refusal; and shewed their animus by withdrawing all their aid and co-operation in maintaining law and order. The people, adherents of the Kirk, were now left without any other guide than such principles of morality as the Calvinistic ministers were accustomed to inculcate. The consequence was a near approach to anarchy and a total disorganization of society.

“The capital,” says Mr. Fraser Tytler, “presented almost daily scenes of outrage and confusion. The security and sanctity of domestic life were invaded and despised; ruffians, under the command of, and openly protected by the nobles, (such as adhered to the Kirk), tore honourable maidens from the bosom of their families and carried them off in open day.” The violent and criminal conduct of James Gray, a brother of the notorious master of Gray, may be quoted as shewing how the patrons of the new or reformed religion set an example of obedience to the ten commandments. This hopeful disciple of the Kirk, seized a young lady named Carnegie, who was an heiress, and, at the time, living in her father’s house, and hurried her, by force, down a close or narrow street to the North Loch. He then delivered her to a band of armed men, who dragged her into a boat, her hair hanging about her face and her clothes almost torn from her person. Meanwhile, Gray’s associate, Lord Hume, kept the streets with his retainers, beat off the Lord Provost, who in the execution of his duty attempted a rescue. In the melee which took place, some citizens who presumed to interfere with the noble proceeding of nobility were slain. This was not all. The Lord Provost carried his complaint before the King in presence of his courtiers. Said His Majesty to the Provost “Do you see here any of my nobles whom you can accuse?” Lord Hume was standing close to King James, and looked so savagely at the Provost that the magistrate encountering his fierce eye did not dare to impeach him, but retired terror-struck, silent and abashed. The Gray here mentioned was a member of the King’s household. He was assisted in his exploit by Sir James Sandilands and other courtiers. The Duke of Lennox and the Earl of Mar were playing tennis near the scene of the outrage, but abstained from interfering. So much for the reformed nobility.

Such an atrocious insulting of the laws and the inability of the King and the Chief Magistrate of the capital to punish criminals made a deep and unfavorable impression on Queen Elizabeth’s minister, Burghley, and induced him to write: “A miserable state that may cause us to bless ours and our governess.” Such remarks came well from parties who murdered citizens every other day according to law, for religion’s sake.

And what are we to think of ministers of peace, for such they pretended to be, who contrary to what they believed, or affected to believe to be their duty, refused to obey their sovereign, who required of them that they should concur with him in maintaining peace and order in a community so seriously disturbed by their innovations.