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No tenet nor practice, no
influence nor power nor principality in the Scotland of the past has
outvied assassination in ascendency or in moment. Not theoretically,
indeed, but practically, it occupied for centuries a distinct, almost a
supreme, place in her political constitution—was, in fact, the
understood if not recognised expedient always in reserve should other
milder or more hallowed methods fail of accomplishing the desired
political or, it might be, religious consummation. To trace its rise
from opprobrium to honour, or fully to account for its predominance in
Scottish politics were perhaps a somewhat arduous task. Yet is it easy
to discern some of the principal causes of its influence. The turn for
it is in the Celtic blood, of which there was a strong infusion even in
the Lowland Scot; while there can be little doubt that the limited
nature of the king's prerogative, combined with the rivalries between
the almost monarchical nobles, secured it a certain immunity from
punishment, and also prepared a soil specially fitted for its
development. The respect for law and order was of very slow growth. For
centuries such justice as was exercised was haphazard and rude, and
practically there was no law but the will of the stronger. Few, if any,
of the great families but had their special feud; and feuds once
originated survived for ages: to forget them would have been treason
treason to the dead, and wild purposes of revenge were handed down from
generation to generation as a sacred legacy. To take an enemy at a
disadvantage was not deemed mean and contemptible, but—
"Of all the arts in which
the wise excel
Nature's chief masterpiece."
To do it boldly and
adroitly was to win a peculiar halo of renown; and thus assassination
ceased to be the weapon of the avowed desperado, and came to be wielded
unblushingly not only by so-called "men of honour," but by the so-called
religious as well. A noble did not scruple to use it against his king,
and the king himself felt no dishonour in resorting to it against a
dangerous noble. James I. was hacked to death in the night by Sir Robert
Graham; and James II. rid himself of the imperious and intriguing
Douglas by suddenly stabbing him while within his own royal palace under
protection of a safe conduct.
The leaders of the
Reformation discerned in assassination (that of their enemies) the
special "work and judgment of God." The martyr Wishart, described by
Knox as "of such graces as before him were never heard within this
realm," and by his pupil, Tylney, as "lowly, lowly," was more probably
than his cousin the Wishart who (in 1544) was an intermediary between
Henry VIII. and certain Scots conspirators in a plot against the life of
Cardinal Beaton; and when the assassination did take place in 1546, all
the savage details of it were set down by Knox with unbridled gusto
"These things we wreat mearlie," is his own ingenuous comment on his his
performance. The burden of George Buchanan's "De Jure Regni apud Scotos'
'is the lawfulness or righteousness of the removal—by assassination or
any other fitting or convenient means - of incompetent kings, whether
heinously wicked and tyrannical or merely unwise and weak of purpose;
and he cites, as a case in point and an "example in time coming," the
murder of James III., which, if it were only on account of the
assassin's hideous travesty of the last offices of the Church, would
deserve to be held in unique and everlasting detestation.
The bands or covenants of
the nobles to support each other in all their enterprises (for their own
aggrandisement) generally implied a sanction of assassination if all
else should fall; and a place once gained for it even by implication, it
not infrequently assumed the place of honour, till bands were formed
avowedly for the bare and sole purpose of assassination, when its
position as an influential factor in Scottish politics was assured. The
sanction or arrangement of any particular murder by a nobles' league was
a very sure guarantee of safety for the assassin; and, as matter of
fact, in the great political assassinations of Scotland immunity from
capital punishment has been the rule. Also they became so numerous that
in all probability the national destiny has been more powerfully and
permanently affected by them than by battles: always excepting, of
course, the battles of the early tunes and of the struggle for
independence. At least this was so in the sixteenth century, which,
after all, is by far the most pregnant in Scots history. Would the
reformation in Scotland have come when it did, or would it have come at
all, or when it did come would its form have been so radical and extreme
had not the purposes and schemes of Cardinal Beaton been brought to
nought by his removal? The most striking circumstance of the murder of
Riccio was the contrast between the Italian's physical contemptibility
and crouching terror and the abounding energy and tumultuous wrath of
his assailants; but politically considered, its far-reaching results can
scarce be exaggerated. It saved the lives or fortunes of the most
powerful of the Protestant nobles; it broke the power of the queen; it
prevented the establishment of Catholicism and it was the prelude of one
of the strangest dramas in history, for its direct and almost inevitable
consequence was the tragedy at Kirk-o'-Field. Darnley was disqualified,
intellectually and morally, from being aught but a political
shuttlecock; but the effects of his assassination sealed the destiny
both of Catholicism in Scotland and of Queen Mary. Excepting Knox, the
next victim, the Regent Moray, was perhaps in Scotland the most
powerfull personality of his time. His removal failed of the direct and
special consequences anticipated, but there can be little doubt that it
greatly affected the tenor of events. It came at a critical period of
his career; a few years longer and the final aims of his ambition, good
or bad, wise or unwise, must have declared themselves; and his
character, with its strangely contrasting features, would have been less
of an enigma than it is.
These four murders have a
peerless preeminence; but the old influence may he traced in Scottish
history to a much later period. The haunting terror of assassination was
largely responsible for many of the eccentricities, moral and political,
of the "Scottish Solomon"; and not till the union of the crowns did the
practice begin to show decided symptoms of being on the wane. No trace
its indirect results is of course impossible; but among them may he
reckoned the solemn leagues and covenants, which might never have been
thought of but for the old assassination bands. |
