CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE

HE Genevan Bible soon after its publication came into general use in Scotland. Knox follows Tyndale's version in some of his earliest works, but after 1560 he adopts the Genevan, and so do the other divines and polemics, as Bruce, Rollock, and Ferguson-the last giving the words a Scottish form and spelling, as "quhilk" for which, "gif" for if, "behauld" for behold, "tiends" for tithes. Chapman and Millar were established as printers in Edinburgh about 1507 in the reign of James IV, but there were then no English Bible to put to press. Lekprevik was specially appointed king's printer, and was licensed to print Bibles in 1564, and the Genevan Bible in 1568; but he never printed a copy of the Scriptures. The people, however, were well supplied by importation from England and from the Continent. Tyndale's translation was never printed in Scotland, though it was extensively used. Lewis indeed says that a quarto edition of Tyndale was "very probably" printed in Scotland in 1536;1 but the peculiar spelling of the edition to which he apparently refers seems to have led him to the baseless conjecture.2 Some writers apparently translated for themselves, as Chaucer had done, and he is in this respect followed by Lyndsay in the "Complaynt of Scotland," 1548, and by Balnavis, one of the Lords of Session, in his "Confession of Faith," compiled the tame year and printed in 1584.

The leading reformers or Protestant nobles in Scotland held a meeting at Stirling in March, 1557, the year of the publication of the first Genevan Testament, and agreed

1

1 History, p. 85, 2nd edition.

* See vol. I, page 234.

to send a letter to Knox, who was then in Geneva. Another consultation was held in Edinburgh, and a "common band was made" on the 3rd of December, 1557-its central point being "with all diligence continually to apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives to maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed Word of God." They agreed also on two heads of policy, (1) "That the English Book of Common Prayer should be read publicly in the parish kirks on Sundays and other festivals, with the lessons of the New and Old Testament; and if the curates of the parishes be qualified, to cause them to read the same, and if they be not, or if they refuse, that the most qualified in the parish use and read them. (2) That doctrine, preaching, and interpretation of Scriptures be had and used privately in quiet houses, without great conventions of the people thereto, till afterward God shall move the prince to grant public preaching by faithful and true ministers." The Primate of St. Andrews longed for vengeance against these evangelical agitators, and summoned before him Argyle's preacher, who, secure in Inverary, and surrounded by Highland claymores and targets, laughed him to scorn. So foiled, he then fell upon a frail old man of eighty-two years of age, who read and preached his Bible, and sentenced him on the 20th April, 1558, to the fire. This doom pronounced on Walter Mill so stirred the city of St. Andrews that not a man would sell or lend a rope to bind him, or a tar-barrel to burn him. His martyrdom made such an impression against his prosecutors that he was the last victim of the Popish period. The nation was roused, images were torn away, and the great idol of St. Giles was first drowned in the Nor' Loch and then burned.

The reformers, well aware where their great strength lay, presented a petition to the Regent in 1558, and asked especially for these things—(1) "That as they were already allowed by law to read the Scriptures in their common tongue, it should also be made lawful to them to convene publicly or privately to our common prayers in our vulgar tongue. (2) That it should be lawful, if in their meetings any hard place of Scripture should be read, that any qualified persons in knowledge, being

XXXVI.]

SCOTTISH REFORMERS AND SCHOLARS.

41

present, should interpret and open up the said hard places, to God's glory and the profit of the auditory. (3) That the holy sacrament of baptism should be used in the vulgar tongue, and the god-fathers and church then assembled should be instructed in their duties. (4) That the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper should likewise be ministered in the vulgar tongue, and in both kinds." The Regent-Dowager was French, and she at length replied in broken English, "Me will remember," she exclaimed, "what is protested, and me will put good order after this to all things that now be in controversy." Such an answer from a daughter of the House of Guise was only a pretext.2

"1

Knox was not

It seems surprising at first sight that no Scottish scholars or divines of that time or the period succeeding it set themselves to the work of Biblical revision or translation. There were men at that epoch quite qualified for the work. without erudition, but his high vocation was one of public activity and national enterprise. His keen spirit was kept in a state of perpetual anxiety and excitement, for he believed his struggle to be with "spiritual wickedness in high places," and he was denied the privacy and leisure, without which the higher regions of scholarship cannot be reached. Andrew Melville was declared on leaving college to be the "best Grecian of any young master in the land," and at the age of twenty-one he was appointed regent in a foreign seminary. He was wont to travel with a Hebrew Bible "slung from his belt "; he studied Syriac at Geneva; and rose to be the learned reformer and principal of two native universities. It is matter of regret that he should have spent his varied and masculine powers in composing Latin verses to rival those of Buchanan and Beza. George Buchanan translated the Psalms into Latin, and spent

3

1 Lorimer's Scottish Reformation, James V at St. Andrews in June, pp. 204, &c. Walter Mill had been 1538. arrested and condemned in 1538, but escaped to Germany, where he remained twenty years.

2 She was the widow of the Duke of Longueville, and was married to

3 His Carmen Mosis and his Stephaniskion are well known, and of the second of these poems Scaliger said nos talia non possumus.

In

many years abroad lingering on the heights of Parnassus rather than on the hill of God. There were others, like Ales, Rollock, Gillespie, and Cameron, who delighted in Biblical study, but did not engage in the production of a vernacular Bible. apology, however, it may be said that the pastorate in Scotland is an office of constant labour and travel, and that there are no rich benefices, prebendal stalls, or colleges with wealthy clusters of fellowships; and that in other days ministers had often to seek places of concealment, “rocks, dens, and caves,” which were more in request than library or study; and that edicts and proclamations concerned them more than Greek or Hebrew; for the hand that might have turned over with busy care the pages of a lexicon or grammar had sometimes to apply itself to pike and musket.

During the reign of James V, and the minority of his daughter, there was a close connection between Scotland and France; and many Scotchmen, both Catholic and Protestant, studied at foreign universities. The Swiss States came also into friendly intercourse with Caledonian divines and reformers, and the name and fame of Calvin and his compeers were as great in Scotland as in his own country. The French tongue was familiarly spoken at the Scottish court, and was also well known by the better classes through the country. Therefore a Bible prepared and published at Geneva was sure to find a ready welcome, especially north of the Tweed, and the republication of it formed an epoch in Scottish ecclesiastical history.1

The Genevan version was originally published in the very year in which there met at Edinburgh the first Protestant General Assembly of the Kirk-in 1560. As it was the first

1 The conversations which John Knox had with Queen Mary at Holyrood, and which are told by him in his history in broad Scotch, must have been conducted in French. Indeed many French terms are still preserved in the common speech of Scotland, as dour, obstinate; douce,

quiet; aumrie, cupboard; braw, fine; bein, well-to-do (bien); gou, taste; ashet, meat-dish; jigot, leg of mutton; grozets, gooseberries; caraffe, a crystal water-jug; fashious, troublesome; ghean, a wild cherry; and haggis (hachis).

XXXVI.]

ARBUTH NOT AND BASSANDYNE.

43

Bible issued in Scotland, the interesting story of the printing of it in the "antient kingdom" may be allowed to occupy a few pages. In March, 1575, Alexander Arbuthnot, merchant burgess of Edinburgh, and Thomas Bassandyne, printer, presented a petition to the General Assembly, containing a proposal to print the English Bible. The Assembly at once assented to the request, and "anent this godly proposition it is agreed betwixt this present Assembly and the said Alexander and Thomas, that every Bible which they shall receive advancement for shall be sold in albes (sheets) for £4 13s. 4 pennies Scottis, keeping the volume and character of the said proofs delivered to the clerk of the Assembly." Application was ordered to be made "to the Lord Regent's grace" that the necessary ratification for printing be given, and that a reasonable "gratitude" be appointed to such "as should be employed for correcting of the said Bible, at the cost of the said Alexander and Thomas"; "the Kirk promesing to deliver the authentick copy, which they shall follow, to them, betwixt and the last day of April." Cautioners were found and solemnly pledged on behalf of the printers that the work should be "perfected betwixt and the last day of March, 1576." The "perfervidum ingenium" soon displayed itself, bishops, superintendents," commissioners are "taken bound" at once to "do utter and exact diligence to raise the necessary funds at the hands of the lords, barons, and gentlemen of every parish "; and it is enjoined, "that every person that is provided of old, as well as of new, be compelled to buy a Bible to their parish kirk, and to

1 The old Scottish currency was only the twelfth in value of sterling money, a pound Scots being only one shilling and eightpence, or twelve pounds Scots equal to one pound sterling.

* James Douglas, Earl of Morton, was elected Regent, 24th November, 1572, on the death of the Earl of Mar.

3 The superintendents are distinguished from bishops, as their office

was only a matter of " temporary expedience" to fill up vacant parishes. They could not act of their sole authority in admitting ministers; and if they fell into sin, they were liable to the same sentences as their brethren. They were admitted themselves as other ministers were, their jurisdiction was wholly regulated by the synods, and they were responsible to the General Assembly for all parts of their conduct.