Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

wealth, and personal consideration could give, they both had abundantly, beyond their utmost wishes; anything they could desire beyond that must lie in a larger sphere of action than mere society, in the world of political power. She herself had had dreams, and entertained them still of founding some great institution of charity, of doing something for her poorer fellows. But she learned by degrees that Giovanni looked further than to such ordinary means of employing power, and that there was in him a great ambition to bring great forces to bear upon great questions for the accomplishment of great results. The six months of her engagement to him had not only strengthened her love for him, already deep and strong, but had implanted in her an unchanging determination to second him in all his life, to omit noth

ing in her power which could assist him in the career he should choose for himself, and which she regarded as the ultimate field for his extraordinary powers. It was strange that, while granting him everything else, people had never thought of calling him a man of remarkable intelligence. But no one knew him as Corona knew him; no one suspected that there was in him anything more than the traditional temper of the Sarracinesca, with sufficient mind to make him as fair a representative of his race as his father was.

There was more than mere love and devotion in the complete security she felt when she saw him attacked by Donna Tullia; there was already the certainty that he was born to be above small things, and to create a sphere of his own in which he would move as other men could not.

THE SCOTLAND OF MARY STUART.

NO. V.

THE REVOLUTION.

"THE greatest glory of a building is not in its stones nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength which, through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and birth of dynasties, and the changing of the face of the earth, and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of nations; it is in that golden stain of time that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been intrusted with the fame and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess of language and of life."

So far Mr Rankin.

Scotland was singularly rich in early masterpieces of Christian art. Thirteen cathedrals, as well as a vast number of churches attached to the monastic establishments,

had been erected between Kirkwall and Whithorn, between Iona and St Andrews. Scotland might be the poorest and rudest country in Europe, but its churches were as spacious, as massive, as splendidly decorated, as the temples of Italy or France; and the nation was justly proud of these noble buildings. The medieval minster was not built in a day; the solid walls had been slowly raised while generation after generation of pious worshippers passed away like the leaves; architect had succeeded architect-each impressing his own personality, the genuine artistic feeling of his own time, upon tower and column, upon arch and buttress. The variety, the intricacy, the subtle contrasts of the majestic pile, upon which, after so many years, the last carven stone had been laid, could not but stir such feelings as are experienced in the presence of great natural. marvels; for here too the hand of man had ceased to be felt. The Cathedral of Elgin was "noble and beautiful, the mirror of the land and the fair glory of the realm;" but the cathedrals of St Andrews and Aberdeen, of Glasgow and Dunblane, were just as famous. In the Abbey of Dunfermline "three sovereign princes with all their retinue" could be lodged; yet Melrose, Paisley, and Aberbrothick were, we are told, second to none. The sound of the great bells of Kirkwall could be heard across the stormy firth by the dwellers on the mainland; Chanonry was the northern Wells,--an

66

His

architectural gem of extraordinary month of his coming, many of purity and finish. Nor was their the noblest churches in Scotland impressive beauty of design and had been utterly wrecked. execution their only title to regard. progress was marked by ruin and In a rude age, the sanctity which devastation; it was like the track attached to the monastic buildings of an avenging angel. The zigzag served in a measure to protect them of the lightning is not more defrom violence; and they had be- structive. From Perth to Cupar ; come in course of time the public from Cupar to Crail, St Andrews, museums and the public libraries, and Lindores; then by Scone, where the most venerable relics Stirling, and Linlithgow to Edinthe historical records and title- burgh, the fiery besom" which deeds of the nation-had been had been seen in the sky, and deposited. Many of them, besides, which had presaged ruin and dishad been intimately associated aster, swept across the land. The with the most memorable events slighter and more delicate fabrics in the national history. The were cast down; when the timeScottish kings had been crowned stained, weather-beaten mass of at Scone; they had been buried lichened stone-rising like a natat Melrose and Iona. Before the ural rock above the surrounding high altar of Cambuskenneth the hovels-successfully defied pick Scottish nobles had sworn fealty and axe, crowbar and hammer, to Bruce. There, too, the first the windows were smashed, the Scottish Parliament had been held. statues defaced, the interior The Charterhouse of Perth had gutted. It cannot be said, perbeen founded by the accomplished haps, that much was taken away, author of The King's Quair'; -vandalism rejoices rather in Dunfermline was the shrine of the havoc than in spoil; and on the sainted Margaret. On their in- fires which they kindled with the ternal decoration, moreover, the precious wood whereon the pains wealth of priest and noble had of hell and the glories of paradise been freely spent. The sacra- had been carved with untiring mental vestments were marvels of devotion and illimitable industry, rich embroidery; the most delicate manuscripts of unknown antiquity, art of the workers in silver and missals illuminated by Flemish gold had been lavished upon the and German artists, the registers sacred vessels. Articles of price- of the Church, the records of the less value-reliquaries, albs, chas- State, the sacred vestments, the ubles, copes, cibories, crosses, holy vessels, were indiscriminately chandeliers, lamps, censers, or- heaped. A blind rage and fury gans, pictures, statues-had been had taken possession of the deungrudgingly devoted to the service stroying army; and a handful of of God. With much that was fanatics-on the march from meretricious and much that was Perth to Edinburgh, Spottiswoode puerile, it might yet be said with says, "they passed not three hunconfidence that in these august dred men in all "-destroyed in a sanctuaries of the medieval Cathol- month the most precious heirlooms icism, the deepest and most imag- of a people. Among the churches inative expression of the national that were wrecked or defaced life was to be found. while the iconoclastic fever lasted were those of St Andrews, Edinburgh, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Dun

Knox landed at Leith on the 2d of May 1559; and within a

Kelso, fessors sought only to abolish the places and monuments of idolatry, in which they were so busy and labourious that, within two days, only the bare walls of these great religious foundations remained.

fermline, Aberbrothick, Kilwinning, Lesmahagow, Lindores, Perth, Balmerino, Cupar, Crossraguel, Paisley, Stirling, Cambuskenneth, St Ninians, and Scone. It was pitiful wastefulness,-hardly to be justified by the plea that it was only a reprisal, or by that other plea urged by the Reformers, -"We, perceiving how Satan in his members, the antichrist of our time, cruelly doth rage," and resolute that no deceitful truce be patched up with "dumb dogges and horned bishops," here-once and for all make any terms of accord, which "politic heads" might devise, now and in all time coming, impossible

Knox arrived at Perth on the 10th of May, and on the 11th the devastation began. After a sermon by the Reformer in St John's Church" that thundering sermon against idolatry"-a priest, "to declare his malapert presumption," opened up a glorious tabernacle that stood upon the high altar. Such a proceeding was, of course, intolerable; and certain godly men who had remained behind-the rest had gone to dinner-having first stoned the priests, proceeded "to put hands to the said tabernacle, and to all other monuments of idolatry." This they did with such dispatch, that before the "rascal multitude" had dined, the business was finished. The rascal multitude finding themselves anticipated at St John's, proceeded "without deliberation" to the Black and Grey Friars, and then to the Charterhouse-a building of "a wondrous cost and greatness." Thereafter the common people began to seek some spoil" (which they found in abundance such scandalous puncheons of salt beef such sheets, blankets, and beds as no Earl in Scotland had better!); but the earnest pro

At Crail, at Anstruther, and at St Andrews, the Reformation repeated itself in exactly the same fashion. Knox's sermon at Crail, in which he invited his hearers either to die as men or to live victorious, was followed by an attack upon the church-the audience being so moved that they immediately pulled down all the altars and images in the town. At St Andrews, in like manner, the discourse on the purgation of the Temple being finished, the provost and bailies did thereupon agree to remove all monuments of idolatry, "which also they did with expedition." The Cathedral Church was sacked, and the monasteries of the Black and Grey Friars razed to the ground. The "reformation" of the monks of Lindores took place about the same time," their altars overthrown, their idols, vestments of idolatry, and mass-books burnt in their ain presence," to the great contentment of the Reformer. "O that my heart could be thankful for the superexcellent benefit of my God! The long thirst of my wretched heart is satisfied in abundance; for now forty days and more hath my God used my tongue to the manifestation of His glory.

[ocr errors]

Emboldened by the support they had received, the Congregation, with Knox in their midst, began their march upon Edinburgh. They paused for a day at Perth,-the scene of the earliest reformation,and spent their leisure not unprofitably. The Abbey and Palace of Scone, the most venerable monuments in Scotland, were within

easy reach. By a curious fatality, the rascal multitude, in spite of the restraint of Knox's presence, were again in the mood for mischief. "So was the Abbey and Palace appointed to saccage; in the doing whereof they took no long deliberation, but committed the whole to the merciment of fire." At Stirling the churches were purged, the monasteries wrecked, the Abbey of Cambuskenneth cast down. The like was done the third day after at Linlithgow. At Edinburgh, where Lord Seton was provost, “а man without God, without honesty, and often times without reason, some preparation had been made for the protection and defence of the monasteries; but on the approach of the Congregation Seton deserted his charge, leaving, as Knox remarks, "the spoil to the poor, who had," he continues," made havoc of all such things as was moveable before our coming, and had left nothing but bare wall, yea, not so much as door or window; wherethrough," he concludes, "we were the less troubled in putting order to such places."

the monuments of idolatry were defaced, any risk of reconciliation with "the pestilent prelates and their shavelings" would be averted. That was his policy, and it was the policy which, long after the occurrence of the first violent outbreak of popular passion, was deliberately adopted by the responsible leaders of the movement. The Charterhouse was sacked on 11th May 1559; the Act for the demolition of cloisters and abbey churches was the work of the Convention which met at Edinburgh in May 1561. The execution of the Act was intrusted to the lay Lords; and, while neither Argyll nor the Prior of St Andrews can be accused of slackness, the Earl of Glencairn, by the prompt destruction of Paisley, Crossraguel, and Kilwinning, appears to have secured the honours, of the day. The main incidents of the campaign of 1561 have been very vividly described by Spottiswoode : "Thereupon ensued a pitiful vastation of churches and church-buildings throughout all the parts of the realm; for every one made bold to put to their hands, the meaner sort imitating the example of the greater and those who were in authority. No difference was made, but all the churches were either defaced or pulled to the ground. The holy vessels, and whatever else men could make gain of-timber, lead, and bells were put to sale. The very sepulchres of the dead were not spared. The registers of the church and bibliotheques were cast into the fire. In a word, all was ruined; and what had escaped in the time of the first tumult, did now undergo the common calamity; which was so much the worse, that the violences committed at this time were coloured with the warrant of public au

It has been maintained that the Congregation was not responsible for these excesses. Neither Knox nor the Lords, it appears, were to blame,-the "rascal multitude," whom they were unable to control, being the real culprit. Though it is true that the Reformer professes on one occasion to be ashamed of his followers, the plea is not tenable, and cannot be admitted. The connection between a sermon by Knox and an act of destructive vandalism was as invariable as a natural law. The devastation, indeed, was the logical development of his policy of "Thought." If the nests were pulled down, the rooks would not return. If the religious houses were dismantled, if the churches were desecrated, if thority."

« ПредишнаНапред »