Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (20 page)

We are unable to comprehend the hereditary right of one not born in
wedlock. The Queen of Scots claims the crown, as the nearest
legitimate descendant of Henry VII. However, my daughter, if you show
yourself willing to submit the controversy to our arbitration, we will
show every indulgence to your ladyship which justice would permit.

He sprinkled sand across the wet ink, feeling as mighty as Saint
George.

Shortly thereafter, he found himself obliged to issue a bull directly
to the daughter of darkness in England. Sitting at the same desk,
puzzled over her prompt reply which was not even directly to him, but
to her ambassador at the Vatican, recalling him the former head of the
Italian Inquisition did what needed to be done.

January 12, 1559.

We hereby decree that heretical sovereigns are incapable of reigning
and must not be recognized as legitimate sovereigns by any members of
the True Church. Neither allegiance nor obedience is to be shown them,
under pain of mortal sin.

There. The battle lines had been drawn. There must be no
accommodation. The bull, Cum Ex Apostolatus, would be published all
over Europe.

Elizabeth had her coronation on January 15, 1559, and it was, from all
reports, a glittering diamond of a winter day. Mary eagerly read all
the descriptions of it, of the long procession through London, the
solemn ceremony in Westminster Abbey, followed by the resounding "God
save the Queen!" bellowed out by the people.

I wish I could remember my own coronation, she thought. I must ask my
mother to write me a long description of it, for I would cherish
knowing all the details.

If my mother has time, she had to add.

For Marie de Guise's time was increasingly spent in trying to govern
the ever-more-unruly kingdom of Scotland. The Protestants had issued a
"Beggars' Summons" ordering all friars to surrender their properties to
the poor by May twelfth. Marie had in turn ordered all heretical
preachers to return to Catholicism by Easter. The battle lines were
being drawn in Scotland, as well as everywhere else.

In the meantime, Mary dutifully followed her father-in-law's orders,
wearing mourning for Queen Mary Tudor at a banquet, where her entrance
was announced by a herald proclaiming, "Place! Place'. Pour la Reine
d' Angletene. And as she entered the dining hall, the whole company
chorused, "Vwe la. Reine d'Angleterre!" Upon being seated, she was
served off freshly engraved plates showing the arms of England
quartered with those of France and Scotland.

She hoped her cousin Elizabeth would overlook this. Or, she assured
herself, if it was true that these empty gestures were the expected
thing to do, then such an astute politician as the new Queen of England
would surely understand.

FOURTEEN

The noise was deafening, and the glass shrieked as it crashed on the
stone floor of the church almost like a living thing, thought John
Knox. A living thing that hated to yield up its spirit.

But the spirit was evil, and had to die. It was the spirit of
idolatry, the demon that had plagued God's people since first He had
made a covenant with them in Moses' time nay, in Abraham's. It was
written in the First and Second Commandments, spelled out explicitly:

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the
earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.

How much plainer could it be? But the response of the Israelites had
been the Golden Calf and our response has been this! he thought, as he
kicked the broken head of a Virgin statue that lay a few feet away from
her torso. We made graven images and worshipped them: virgins and
saints and pretty coloured pictures in glass to entertain people, to
set them to daydreaming and amusing themselves in God's house, as at a
holiday pageant.

The mob had thrown a rope around the stone shoulders of a Saint Peter
in his niche, and were yanking him down. They yelled and laughed as
the statue hit the floor and exploded in fragments. Saint Andrew in
the neighbouring niche followed, and a cheer went up. Dust motes
filled the air.

"Careful of the glass splinters!" Knox cried, and they turned to him
like obedient children. The shards were everywhere, and could easily
slice open a foot or cut a face. He would feel responsible if anyone
was hurt.

But the mob was growing, taking on a character of its own, almost
feeding on the fallen statues and ruined church. How literally they
had taken his words in the sermon about idolatry two days ago here in
Perth! How hungry they were for reform, and action! Would Calvin have
been proud of him?

At the thought of Calvin and Geneva, a wave of affectionate
homesickness swept through him. It would have been so easy to remain
there, learning from Calvin, exulting in the experience of actually
living in a city dedicated to God, totally purged of idolatry and
filled with living saints. I was the least among them, he thought.
Only a pupil of Calvin's and Earel's, only a disciple. It was like
that first Pentecost in Jerusalem, when the flames of the Holy Spirit
came down and enveloped the disciples. To be there, to be partaking of
it! That was almost heaven.

But even that there's a danger of making an idol even of Geneva, he
thought with despair. The devil turns even our best things against us,
uses them on our weak spots. Uses my hunger for righteousness and
order and freedom to try to ensnare me. For had I remained in Geneva,
I would have been turning my back on my own country, instead of helping
to liberate her from the bondage of strangers.

"Master Knox! Master Knox!" They were motioning to him.

He crossed over the nave, picking his steps with care through the
rubble. The mob, armed with mallets and iron bars, stood at the ready
before the intricately carved rood screen, which separated the high
altar from the rest of the church.

"Bless our first stroke!" they demanded.

He did not like the Papist sound of that.

"Am I a bishop?" he argued. "To sprinkle things with holy water or
smoke them with incense or mumble spells over them? Nay, either a
thing is of God or it is not."

Now they fell silent. He had them under his control, and could direct
their actions as he pleased.

"And I say this altar is not of God!" he roared. "It is an
abomination, an adornment to grace a pagan ritual .. . the mass! For
what is the mass but a superstitious magic rite, so secret and
blasphemous that the people cannot even be allowed to look upon it
whilst it is being enacted?"

He swept his arms out. "Down with it! Destroy it! Let not one stone
remain standing upon the other!"

The leaders began swinging their clubs and stakes, opening holes in the
delicate lacy carving, knocking down struts.

"Let the daylight into that dark cavern of evil and superstition! Open
it up for the people!" he screamed, and his words rose above the
hammering and destruction.

That night he had a sore throat from his preaching and from inhaling
the stone-dust, and had to submit to the ministrations of his wife,
Marjory. She concocted a drink of chamomile and honey and insisted on
his sipping it slowly. He liked the taste of it, but Calvin had taught
him to guard against that particular snare; even eating and drinking
should yield no pleasure beyond the natural satisfying of hunger and
thirst. So, to combat the pleasure of the sweet, warm posset and the
nearness of his young wife he forced himself to listen to a report by
Patrick, Lord Ruthven, one of the Lords of the Congregation. The man
himself was unpleasant enough to act as an effective counterweight to
both Marjory and the drink he was rough, wild, and reported to be a
warlock even if his news had been more palatable.

"The Queen Regent has vowed to bring French troops to crush us," he
said. "That's the word from Edinburgh." He shook his bushy head, and
stroked his claymore the five-foot-long, two-handed sword he carried
everywhere. "We'll give her such a breakfast, she and her froggies
we'll split them, and spit them, and serve 'em for dinner like they do
in her beloved France."

"Please." Knox winced. He found the idea of eating frogs' legs
repulsive. "How many troops?" he whispered.

"Two thousand or so. Don't worry, we will stand. "If God be for us,
who can be against us?" Romans eight, thirty-one," he said proudly.

Knox smiled. That this uncouth fighting lord, who could barely read,
should have memorized Scripture! Ah, Calvin, if only you could share
this moment! he thought.

"That is true," he said softly. "But even the Lord is helped by good
equipment. Remember the conquest of Canaan? "And the Lord was with

Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not
drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of
iron." Judges one, nineteen."

Immediately he was sorry he had said it, because Ruthven's face fell.
Was I using my knowledge wrongly? Knox wondered. Intimidating my
brother, instead of acting in love? It is all so difficult to know!
Every action can lead to sin. Pride lurks everywhere.

"The Old Testament has not been widely spoken of here," Knox assured
him. "We studied it much in Geneva. And you will see, soon there will
be a translated Bible in every church, available and" his throat stung
"preached freely." He stopped and coughed. "But back to the matter at
hand. We will need weapons to combat the Queen and her foreign
troops."

"I command and can supply many," said Ruthven. He smiled, a jagged one
that showed large teeth lurking just the other side of his thick, fur
like beard. "I'll warrant help will come from south of the border,
good master. From the English Queen, good Protestant that she is."

"Have you word of this?" In his excitement, Knox raised his voice.
Immediately he regretted it.

"Rumours, and something stronger than rumour. Tis done; the Parliament
has repealed the Catholicism of Bloody Mary; England is Protestant once
again. Officially, as of five days ago. You've a sure ally in England
now, instead of an enemy."

"The Reformed Church has an ally," Knox corrected him. "The English
Queen has never forgiven me for writing The First Blast of the Trumpet.
She took it so personally" this genuinely puzzled him "she even refused
to let me set foot in England on my way back here. Ah, well. As long
as she supports the Faith."

"That she does. Waved away the monks waiting in procession to escort
her to Parliament with their ceremonial torches. "Away with these
torches, for we see well enough!" " Ruthven laughed.

"Good." Knox hated monks. Tonsured, interfering fools.

So Elizabeth was on the Reformers' side. Let her join them, then, in
ousting the French and the Catholic Church from Scotland.

The Queen Mother, old Marie de Guise the French cow, as Knox thought of
her had ordered all the Reformed preachers to return to Catholicism by
Easter; when they refused, she commanded them to appear before her on
May tenth.