|
 HAMILTON,
JOHN, archbishop of St Andrews, and the last Scottish primate of the
Roman catholic faith, was the natural son of James, earl of Arran, by a
gentlewoman of Ayrshire. No nearer approximation seems to have been made
to the period of his birth, than that it must have happened some time
during the reign of James V. The early education of a person so situated
is not likely to have attracted much attention, and we may, with a
pretty equal chance of arriving at the truth, either receive or reject
the statement of M’Kenzie, made with the laudable desire of biographers,
to afford complete and minute information, that he studied the belles
lettres and philosophy at Glasgow, and theology in France, where he
entered into holy orders. It is, however, sufficiently ascertained, that
he returned in the year 1543, from some residence or journey in France,
and found himself abbot of Paisley, a situation within the limits of the
extensive church patronage of his father, to which the son was nominated
in 1541. [M’Kenzie’s Lives of Scots Writers, iii. 102.—The accurate
authors of the History of the Senators of the College of Justice, have
referred this presentation to so early a period as 1525. These authors
are usually extremely minute in their references, but here the authority
is omitted. We presume it to be that of Crawford, who in his Officers of
State refers the event to the same period. The latter is certainly the
more veracious authority of the two, yet, admitting that we have not
undergone the labour of an investigation among the original records
which might clear up so wide a divergence, we are inclined in this
instance to believe the dictum of M’Kenzie. The authors of the late work
alluded to falsify the statement of M’Kenzie, that Hamilton was on the
continent for some years previously to 1543, by a reference to the
records of parliament, in which the abbot of Paisley is mentioned in two
sederunts, that of 1534, and that of 1540. If Hamilton was not appointed
till 1541, this must have been the previous abbot. If he was appointed
in 1545, we can only accede to M’Kenzie a statement of his absence on
the continent, on the supposition that he had taken advantage of the act
3d. James I. chap. 52, which entitled prelates, earls, &c. to appear by
their procurators, on producing proof of a necessary cause of absence—a
privilege which, if it was ever taken advantage of, fell soon after into
disuse.] The circumstance of his journey through England in his return
from France introduced this ambitious man to the commencement of his
restless career. He was graciously received by Henry VIII., and either
in duplicity, or ignorance of the scene of action about to open to him,
he entered into the views of the English monarch with regard to a
matrimonial alliance with Scotland, which he was afterwards to use his
best endeavours to frustrate. On his arrival in Scotland he found the
path of distinction just opened to his view, by the recent advancement
of his vacillating brother to the regency of the kingdom, and may have
conceived those high projects which the weakness of his unhappy relative
fostered, while it interfered with their consummation. He joined
cardinal Beaton in that opposition which the primate’s fears for the
safety of the church prompted him to exhibit towards the matrimonial
alliance with England, and the enemies of Hamilton have not been
backward in attributing to him an unhesitating application to the most
ungenerous and infamous means for the achievement of his ends,
throughout the heart-burning and unfortunate progress of that renowned
conference. The change produced in the regent’s policy by the persuasion
of the abbot, and the something more than persuasion of the cardinal,
assisted by the insults of the English monarch, is well known, with all
its calamitous consequences. The perseverance of Hamilton was rewarded
by the offices of privy seal, and of high treasurer, in which latter he
succeeded Kirkaldy of Grange. In 1545, he was further rewarded by the
wealthy bishopric of Dunkeld. With much modesty he wished to retain,
after his elevation, both the dignity and emolument of his abbacy, but
was prompted to resign them on his brother James being nominated his
successor, with the moderate reservation of the fruits of the benefice
during his lifetime, and the power to re-enter, in the event of
surviving his brother. On the death of cardinal Beaton, Hamilton was
translated to the archbishopric of St Andrews. Unmindful of the fate of
his predecessor, he commenced his inauspicious career with blood. A man
of the name of Adam Wallace, was tried before him in a synod, in the
Blackfriars’ church of Edinburgh, and being found guilty of acting as a
vagrant preacher, baptizing his own children, and of inability to
discover the term "mass" in the Holy Scriptures, he was delivered over
to the civil judge, and burnt at the stake. But the archbishop was not
one of those who welcomed the rising strength of the Reformation with
fire and sword. He was a strong thinking and acute man, with a mind
conversant in the weaknesses and prejudices of men, and well adapted to
hold the balance firmly and cautiously between, contending parties. He
was not of those spirits framed to be the scourges of the earth, but
fate had cast him in evil days on an unhappy land, where men were not
accustomed to scruple at the measures by which they gratified their
passions or prejudices, and the minds formed in more peaceful times for
the best things, burst the regulating power, which might have restrained
them in a period of less temptation.
Hamilton saw the coming
enemy, and the moderation and firmness with which he defended the
church, protracted for a short period the fall of the crumbling fabric.
He used his utmost endeavours to put to rest a fiery controversy, which
inflamed his district, on the subject of addressing the Lord’s prayer to
the saints; a heterodox English priest having maintained that it should
be addressed to the Deity alone, while an orthodox friar of St Andrews
proved, by a syllogistic examination of each department of the prayer,
that there were good reasons why it ought to be addressed to the saints,
because there were no references in it which would not apply to their
situation, excepting towards the end, where requests were made which it
was entirely beyond the power of saints to grant, and in which their
intercession only should be presumed to be requested. Out of the
discussions on this matter, arose disputes on the exact mental value of
the appeal to the saints, some maintaining it to be made to the saints
materialiter, while it was made to the Deity formaliter—others,
that while it was addressed to the Deity principaliter, it
came before the saints minus principaliter: and the grades of
distinction being too numerous for the consideration of the primate, who
was never a casuist without having some purpose in view, he remitted
them to a provincial synod, which duly attended to the interest of the
saints. At this synod the archbishop performed one of those prudent acts
of reconciliation, by which he sought to avert the fall of his order. He
had prepared a catechism containing an exposition in English of the
commandments, the creed, and the Lord’s prayer, which was formally
approved of by the synod, and ordered to be read to the people on
Sundays and holidays, by the curates of the respective churches, and
which was afterwards circulated through the country at such a small
price, as might remunerate the hawkers by whom it was vended. In the
year 1551, the days of this ambitious priest appeared to be nearly ended
by a stubborn asthmatic complaint, which defied the skill of the
Scottish physicians, who pronounced his recovery as hopeless. The
celebrated Cardan was induced, by a magnificent remuneration, to visit
him, and the disease yielded either to the medicines of the empyric or
to nature. M’Kenzie has taken much pains to prove that, in calling for
the assistance of this singular individual, the primate did not appeal
to the powers of magic, as Buchanan and others have accused him of
having done; but it is much to be doubted whether, from the character of
both parties, the patient did not suppose he was receiving, and the
physician that he was administering, the aid of unholy powers. The
influence of Hamilton’s mind over that of his brother, is shown by the
advantage taken of his sickness. The queen mother seized the opportunity
which her own ambitious views, and the instigations of her family had
prepared her to use, and extracted from the feeble regent a resignation
of his authority into her own hands. The archbishop on his recovery felt
the indignation natural to a fierce and ambitious spirit, compelled by
his situation to depend on a person whose facile mind required to be
kept at its purpose by the firmness of his own. According to Sir James
Melville, the convalescent priest received the intelligence with a burst
of rage; "he cursed, and cried out that the governor was a very beast
for quitting the government to her," bestowing an epithet not very
decorous on the princess who stood between his brother and the throne.
But Sir James Melville mentions the intelligence as having been received
by him when abroad, and from the information of captain Ninian Cockburn,
"a busy meddler,"—and however certainly we may judge of the ambitious
prospects of the archbishop, it is not likely that he would have uttered
them in a situation which would have admitted their being reported to
such a person. The effect of his recovery is a farther evidence of his
powerful mind. The resignation not duly and formally completed was
revoked, and with all the advantage of possessing the dignity, the
powerful princess was compelled to submit for a time. After a protracted
conference, the queen mother, aided by the influence of those whom her
polished manners had secured, and of the protestant party in general,
whom she affected to protect, seconded by the will of her daughter, no
longer an infant, obtained her end; but the advantages stipulated for by
the archbishop on the part of his brother, were the same as those which
had been held out to him as a bait at the commencement of the contract,
acknowledging, as a principal article, the ex-regent’s right of
succession, failing the young queen, which seems to have presented to
the archbishop golden views of ambition which it were difficult to
fathom. Hitherto the primacy of Hamilton had been marked by but one act
of persecution, with which he was but indirectly connected; but just
after the period of the last incident described, he appalled the nation
by the perpetration of an act, for which neither religious bigotry,
opposition to the regent, nor the alleged influence of the abbot of
Kilwinning, are sufficient satisfactorily to account, in a man who knew
so well the advantage of moderate counsels. Walter Mill, an aged
protestant minister, was tried at St Andrews, before the archbishop,
found guilty of heresy, and condemned to death by the flames. Men looked
with such deep horror on the act, that an individual possessing the
requisite powers could hardly be found to add the supplementary
authority of the civil judge - no one would furnish a rope to bind him
to the stake, and the archbishop had to provide with his own sacred
hands the necessary implement. The people of the country marked the spot
of the reputed martyr’s death by rearing over it a heap of stones, and
so often as these were removed, the sullen memorial was restored by the
patient and unyielding people. This was one of the marked acts which
either terrify, or give impulse to a slowly approaching enemy—it had the
latter effect—Knox preached soon after in the pulpit of his cathedral
church, and the usual destruction attended his presence. The archbishop,
who, whatever he might be in politics, was no bigot in religion, strove
to compromise with the arch-reformer, admitting that there were many
evils in the church which should be remedied, but that "he should do
wisely to retain the old policy, which had been the work of many
ages, or then put a better in its place, which his new model was far
from,"—but the proffer was unnoticed. He made a last and daring effort
in the committee of estates in 1560, which gave the sanction of law to
the doctrines and government of the protestant faith. He there objected
to his own brother, the bishop of Argyle, and to the bishop of Galloway
being admitted as lords of the articles, to prepare the measure for the
adoption of the house, according to the constitution of the parliament
of Scotland; because they had embraced presbyterianism, and were
therefore disqualified by the constitution they were about to alter:
and, along with the bishops of Dunkeld and Dumblane, gave an unavailing
opposition to the measures.
Three years after this
convention, he became amenable to one of its provisions, which
prohibited the celebration of mass, and was committed to the castle of
Edinburgh, whence he was released through the reiterated tears and
intercessions of queen Mary. Royal favour still beamed on the
archbishop, but it was clouded by popular hatred. In 1566, at the
imprudent request of the queen, he baptized the young prince with the
ceremonies of the church of Rome, and with still more imprudence,
if not with a design of aiding the perpetration of deep wickedness, he
was, on the 23d of September, of the same year, personally re-invested
by the queen’s signature, in the consistorial jurisdiction, of which the
clergy in general had been deprived by the legislature. Whitaker, with
the purposes of a special pleader before him, maintains this not to have
been a revival of the jurisdiction, but the special gift of an authority
which had not been discontinued. Not to argue on the improbability, that
a jurisdiction belonging to the body of right, should be bestowed on one
particular member by favour, the act of parliament which transfers to
the commissaries the consistorial authority of the church, is as plain
as a Scottish act usually is. The dangerous and invidious jurisdiction
thus bestowed, was used on one great occasion, and history has preserved
no other instance of its application: he granted a commission to judges,
who severed the inconvenient bonds betwixt earl Bothwell and his wife,
which interfered in some respects with the formality of a marriage with
the queen, and this act, coupled with the circumstance that the
archbishop was one of those who prepared the account of the murder of
Darnley, so hastily transmitted to the French court, originated
in the minds of his enemies suspicions of deep guilt, the justice of
which we do not pretend to judge.
The fidelity of the
archbishop towards the queen, however much party spirit may account for
it on ambitious grounds, is, by a charitable interpretation, a pleasing
part of his character. He was the heart and head of the party which
associated for her cause, during her confinement in Lochleven. He aided
her escape, and boldly urged on the battle, so unfortunate to the queen,
which followed. He now bid a perpetual adieu to the state and pomp he
had so long sustained, and seems to have for more than a year wandered
through the country in search of a roof to protect him. On the capture
of Dumbarton castle in 1571, the governor of which had bestowed on him
temporary protection, he was tried on an accusation of four several acts
of treason. First, "That he knew, and was participant or accomplice in
the murdering of king Henry, the queen’s husband. 2d, That he conspired
against the king’s person at the murdering of the first regent,
intending to have surprised the castle of Stirling, and to have been
master thereof at his pleasure. 3d, That he knew, or was participant in
the murder of James, earl of Murray, the late regent. 4th, That he lay
in wait at the wood of Calendar, for the slaughter of Matthew, earl of
Lennox, the present regent." With a candour which ought to weigh much
with the world, in the consideration of the other atrocities of which he
has been accused, he confessed with contrition a participation in the
third crime laid to his charge: and confusion and mystery attend the
accounts of this trial which have reached our time, but it would appear
that some difficulties, either in form or evidence attending the proof
of the crimes laid to his charge, prompted recourse to a fiction
convenient on such occasions, and disgraceful to the law in which it
found a place—an act of forefaulture in absence had been passed
against the archbishop in the first parliament of regent Murray, and in
terms of that act he was hanged on the common gibbet of Stirling, in his
pontificial robes, on the 5th April, 1571. The law of that period, like
a weapon of war, was used by party against party, and was a protection
to none but those who could wield it, a terror to none but those against
whom some powerful adversary could direct it; and hence even those
punishments, which, as abstract rewards of guilt, might be looked on as
equitable, became unjust—because they were the offspring of malignity,
and not dealt for the prevention of farther crimes. The archbishop had
committed the crime of religious intolerance, which is a crime
under what-ever form it appears, however casuists may vindicate it by
the arguments which may be used in vindication of any crime
whatever—prejudice and conviction of the mind—and a crime which mankind
may be said never to forgive or forget, but to treasure for the
indignation of future ages. Yet those crimes which are perpetrated by
the assistance of the law, are not fit for receiving punishment from
that instrument: public opinion, and the weight of the public voice are
the restraints which men and legislatures should feel under such
temptations; for the punishment of persecution, being always bestowed by
the party which has been persecuted, is a repetition of the crime, and a
re-opening of the wounds of party rancour. The ignominy gratuitously
bestowed on the reverend head of their party and religion was not soon
forgot by the adherents of the Hamiltons, and long after his haughty
indomitable spirit had ceased to oppose the progress of the reformation,
his name, and the memory of his fate, were bonds of union to the
papists, and dreaded by the protestants. Like that of all violent
partizans, the memory of Hamilton has been coloured with much blame, and
with much praise. Buchanan has wasted good Latin both in prose and verse
in ascribing to him all the vices of which poor human nature is
susceptible—nor does he hesitate to charge him with accession to two
deliberate murders, from the punishment consequent on one of which, his
influence protected the principal perpetrator, the father of his
mistress. His incontinence is a charge which circumstances have, to a
considerable extent, justified.
His open and received
mistress was a female of the name of Semple, whom his defenders maintain
he had married early in life, and before he had entered into holy
orders; but the proof is insufficient to meet the contrary presumptions.
An article of the treaty of Perth has been discovered, restoring the son
of the archbishop to the possessions of his father, forfeited through
treason. It appoints "that the heirs and successors of persons
forfeited, properly comprehended under this pacification, and now
departed this life, shall be restored, and made lawful to enter by
brieves to their lands and possessions, notwithstanding of the
forfeitures laid against their fathers or predecessors, and as giff they
had died at our sovereign Lord’s faith and peace, and especially of
John, archbishop of St Andrews," &c. The circumstance is rather
unintelligible; if the son was in law illegitimate, the restoration
could not without legitimation admit his suing forth a brief of service
to his father, and the circumstance of the father having been a priest,
was sufficient to establish the illegitimacy, whether a marriage had
taken place before his advancement to the priesthood or not. It would
appear that the female in question was the wife of another man, while
she was the mistress of the archbishop. "But supposing," says M’Kenzie,
"that the bishop had made this slip in his youth, it is not a sufficient
ground to stain the whole course of his after life with." |
