CHAPTER VII

REFORMATION AND RENASCENCE IN SCOTLAND

IN the year 1528, three events occurred in Scotland, which, as the near future was to prove, were fraught with pregnant consequences alike for the state and for the national religion and national literature. In that year, James V, after a long tutelage, became master of his kingdom; Patrick Hamilton, the "protomartyr" of the Scottish reformation, was burnt; and Sir David Lyndsay published his first work, The Dreme. Taken together, these three events point to the fact that Scotland was entering on a new phase of her national life, and at the same time indicate the character of the coming revolution. From the transformation thus to be wrought in the national aims and ideals the chief Scottish literature of the period received its distinctive stamp, and we have but to recall its representative productions-those of the anonymous authors of The Gude and Godlie Ballatis, of John Knox and of George Buchanan-to realise the gulf that separates it from the period immediately preceding.

From James I to Gavin Douglas, Scottish literature had been mainly imitative, borrowing its spirit, its models and its themes from Chaucer and other sources. The characteristic aim of this literature had, on the whole, been pleasure and amusement; and, if it touched on evils in the state, in the church or in society, it had no direct and conscious purpose of assailing the institutions under which the nation had lived since the beginning of the Middle Ages. Totally different were the character and aim of the representative literature of the period which may be dated from the publication of Lyndsay's Dreme in 1528 to the union of the crowns in 1603. The literature of this period was in the closest touch with the national life, and was the direct expression of the convictions and passions of that section of the nation which was eventually to control its destinies and to inform the national spirit. Not pleasure or amusement but strenuous purpose directed to practical results was the motive and note of this later period; its

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aim was to reach the heart of the people, and the forms which it assumed were exclusively determined by the consideration of this end.

Between the years 1520 and 1530, there were already indications that a crisis was approaching in the national history which would involve a fundamental change in traditional modes of thought on all the great questions concerning human life. The problem which the nation had to face was whether it would abide by its ancient religion or adopt the teaching of Luther, the writings of whose followers were finding their way into the country at every convenient port. But this question involved another of almost equally far-reaching importance-was France or England to be Scotland's future ally? Should the old alliance with France be maintained, the country must hold fast to existing institutions ; there would be no change of religion and no essential change in hereditary habits of thought and sentiment. Throughout the period now opening, these were the great issues that preoccupied the nation, and it was from the conflict between them that the most important literary productions of the age received their impulse, their tone and their characteristic forms.

The literature produced under these conditions was essentially a reformation literature, and its relation to the movement of the reformation is its predominating characteristic. Nevertheless, though Scotland received her most powerful impulse from the reformation, the renascence did not leave her wholly untouched, though conditions peculiar to herself prevented her from deriving the full benefit of that movement. Her scanty population and her limited resources were in themselves impediments to the expansion of the spirit which was the main result of the revival of learning. The total population of Scotland in the sixteenth century cannot have been much over 500,000, of whom only about half used a Teutonic form of speech. Out of such a total there could be but a small proportion who, by natural aptitude and by fortunate circumstances, were in a position to profit by the new current that was quickening the other nations of western Europe. The poverty of the country, due to the nature of the soil rather than to any lack of strenuousness on the part of its people, equally hindered the development of a rich and various national life. Scotland now possessed three universities; but to equip these in accordance with the new ideals of the time was beyond her resources, and the same difficulty stood in the way of maintaining great schools such as the renascence had originated

in other countries. Finally, the renascence was checked in Scotland, more than in any other country, by the special conditions under which the reformation was here accomplished. From the beginning to the end of the struggle, the Scottish reformers had to contend against the consistent opposition of the crown, and it was only as the result of civil war that the victory of their cause was at length assured. Thus, at the period when the renascence was in full tide, Scotland was spending her energies in a contest which absorbed the best minds of the country; and a variety of causes debarred her from an adequate participation in that humanism which, in other countries, was widening the scope of thought and action, and enriching literature with new forms and new ideas. Nevertheless, though the renascence failed in any marked degree to affect the general national life, it found, both in literature and in action, distinguished representatives who had fully imbibed its spirit.

It is from the preaching of Patrick Hamilton in 1527, followed by his execution in 1528, that Knox dates the beginning of the reformation in Scotland; and it is a production of Hamilton, Patrikes Places, that he adduces as the first specimen of its literature. 'Literature,' however, this document can hardly be called, as it is merely a brief and bald statement of the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, originally written in Latin, and translated into Scoto-English by John Frith. Associated with Hamilton in the beginnings of the Scottish reformation is a more voluminous writer, Alexander Alane (for this and not Aless was his real name, as appears from the registers of the university of St Andrews), but better known by his Latin designation, Alesius. Born in Edinburgh in 1500, Alesius was trained for the church in the university of St Andrews. In an attempt to convince Hamilton of the error of his ways, he was shaken in his own faith, and suspicions soon arose regarding his own orthodoxy. A Latin oration delivered against the vices of the clergy left no room for doubt regarding his religious sympathies, and he was thrown into prison, whence, with the aid of friends, he escaped to the continent (1532). Alesius never returned to Scotland, but, both in England and Germany, he played an important part in forwarding the cause of the reformation. He is the author of at least twenty-eight works, all written in Latin, partly consisting of commentaries on Scripture, but mainly of tracts and treatises on the theological controversies of the time. Of his controversial writings, three have special

Plays.

The Gude and Godlie Ballatis

141 reference to religious opinion in Scotland-Epistola contra Decretum quoddam Episcoporum in Scotia, quod prohibet legere Novi Testamenti Libros lingua vernacula (1533); Responsio ad Cochlaei Calumnias (1533); and Cohortatio ad Concordiam (1544). The question discussed in all these productions is the liberty of reading the Scriptures in the original-a liberty which was first granted by the Scottish parliament in 1543, and to which Alesius may have. materially contributed. To Alesius, also, we owe the earliest known description of his native city of Edinburgh, which he contributed to the Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster (1550).

More interesting for the literary history of the period is Knox's mention of Kyllour's play, The History of Christ's Passion, to which reference has already been made1. Of Kyllour and his play we know nothing beyond the casual reference of Knox. It is matter for greater regret that two plays, mentioned by the church historian, Calderwood, have not come down to us. The subjects of the two plays point to the preoccupations of the age-the one being a tragedy on John the Baptist, a favourite handle for satirical attacks on the evils of church and state, and the other a comedy on Dionysius the Tyrant. Scanty as these references are, they lead to the conclusion that dramatic representations furnished the means by which the champions of the new religion first sought to communicate their teaching to the people. But scenic displays were not the most effectual vehicles for spreading their tenets throughout the nation; only a comparatively small public could be reached by them, and the state had it always in its power to prohibit them, when they overstepped the limits prescribed by the law. Another form of literature, therefore, was required, at once less overt and of wider appeal, if the new teaching was to reach the masses of the people ; and such a vehicle was now to be found.

It was about the year 1546 that there appeared a little volume which, after the Bible itself, did more for the spread of reformation doctrines than any other book published in Scotland. As no copy of this edition has been preserved, we can only conjecture its contents from the first edition of which we possess a specimen-that of 1567, apparently an enlarged edition of the original. The book generally known in Scotland as The Gude and Godlie Ballatis is, next to Knox's Historie of the reformatioun, the most memorable literary monument of the period in vernacular Scots. The chief share in the production of this volume, also known as The Dundee Book, may, almost with certainty, be assigned to three brothers, James, John and Robert Wedderburn, sons of a rich

1 See ante, p. 122.

Dundee merchant, all of whom had studied at the university of St Andrews, and were for a time exiled for their attachment to the reformed doctrines. Besides a metrical translation of the Psalms, the book contained a number of Spirituall Sangis and Plesand Ballatis, the object of which was to convey instruction in points of faith, to stimulate devotion and to stigmatise the iniquities and errors of the Roman church. Of both songs and ballads, fully one half are more or less close translations from the popular German productions which had their origin in the Lutheran movement. But the most remarkable pieces in the book are those which adapt current secular songs and ballads to spiritual uses, appropriating the airs, measures, initial lines or choruses of the originals. This consecration of profane effusions was not unknown in the medieval church, and for the immediate object in view a more effective literary form could not have been devised. At a time when books were dear and were, in general, little read, these Godly Ballads, set to popular tunes, served at once the purpose of a pamphlet and a sermon, conveying instruction, while, at the same time, they roused to battle. What amazes the reader of the present day in these compositions is the grotesque blending of religion with all the coarseness and scurrility of the age. Yet this incongruity is only a proof of the intense conviction of their authors in the message they had to proclaim they believed there was an effectual safeguard against all evil consequences, and that in the contrast between the flesh and the spirit the truth would only be made more manifest. Moreover, there is an accent and a strain in the Ballads which is not to be found in Lyndsay even in his highest mood. Even when he is most in earnest, Lyndsay never passes beyond the zeal of the social reformer. In the Ballads, on the other hand, there is often present a yearning pathos as of soul speaking to soul, which transmutes and purifies their coarsest elements, and transfuses the whole with a spiritual rapture. And the influence that the Ballads exercised-mainly on the inhabitants of the towns, which almost universally declared for the reformation-proves that the writers had not misjudged their readers. For fully half a century, though unsanctioned by ecclesiastical authority, the Ballads held their place as the spiritual songs of the reformation church.

To the year 1548 belongs the first production of John Knox who was to be at once the chief leader of the Scottish reformation and its chief literary exponent. The work is entitled An Epistle to the Congregation of the Castle of St