...on Scots Education and Reformation & on Sweden

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On yahoo boards 05/20/03 02:40 pm - 2003-05-20 22:13 and 05/20/03 04:19 pm

On Antimodernism 10/20/2003 6:39 PM - Sent: 10/20/2003 6:43 PM and Sent: 10/20/2003 6:44 PM

On Scots Reformation, quote from Catholic Encyclopedia

In 1525 the Lutheran opinions seem first to have appeared in Scotland, the parliament of that year passing an act forbidding the importation of Lutheran books. James V was a staunch son of the Church, and wrote to Pope Clement VII in 1526, protesting his determination to resist every form of heresy. Patrick Hamilton a commendatory abbot and connected with the royal house, was tried and condemned for teaching false doctrine, and burned at St. Andrews in 1528; but his death, which Knox claims to have been the starting-point of the Reformation in Scotland, certainly did not stop the spread of the new opinions. James, whilst showing himself zealous for the reform of ecclesiastical abuses in his realm, resisted all the efforts of his uncle Henry VIII of England to draw him over to the new religion. He married the only daughter of the King of France in 1537, much to Henry's chagrin; but his young wife died within three months. Meanwhile his kingdom was divided into two opposing parties — one including many nobles, the queen-mother (sister of Henry VIII), and the religiously disaffected among his subjects, secretly supporting Henry's schemes and the advance of the new opinions; the other, comprising the powerful and wealthy clergy, several peers of high rank, and the great mass of his still Catholic and loyal subjects. Severe measures continued against the disseminators of Lutheranism, many suffering death or banishment; and there were not wanting able and patriotic counsellors to stand by the king, notable among them being David Beaton, whom we find in France negotiating for the marriage of James to Mary of Guise in 1537, and himself uniting the royal pair at St. Andrews. Beaton became cardinal in 1538 and Primate of Scotland a few weeks later, on the death of his uncle James Beaton, and found himself the object of Henry VIII's jealousy and animosity, as the greatest obstacle to that monarch's plans and hopes. Henry's anger culminated on the bestowal by the pope on the King of Scots of the very title which he had himself received from Leo X; open hostilities broke out, and shortly after the disastrous rout of the Scotch forces at Solway Moss in 1542 James V died at Falkland, leaving a baby daughter, Mary Stuart, to inherit his crown and the government of his distracted country.

James V's death was immediately followed by new activity on the part of the Protestant party. The Regent Arran openly favoured the new doctrines, and many of the Scottish nobles bound themselves, for a money payment from Henry VIII, to acknowledge him as lord paramount of Scotland. Beaton was imprisoned, a step which resulted in Scotland being placed under an interdict by the pope, whereupon the people, still in great part Catholic, insisted on the cardinal's release. Henry now connived at, if he did not actually originate, a plan for the assassination of Beaton, in which George Wishart, a conspicuous Protestant preacher was also mixed up. Wishart was tried for heresy and burned at St. Andrews in 1546, and two months later Beaton was murdered in the same city. Arran, who had meanwhile reverted to Catholicism, wrote to the pope deploring Beaton's death, asking for a subsidy toward the war with England. The Protestants held the Castle of St. Andrews, among them being John Knox; and the fortress was only recovered by the aid of a French squadron. Disaffection and treachery were rife among the nobles, and the English Protector Somerset, secure of their support, led an English army over the border, and defeated the Scottish forces with great loss at Pinkie in 1547.

A few months later the young queen was sent by her mother, Mary of Guise, to France, which remained her home for thirteen years. The French alliance enabled Scotland to drive back her English invaders; peace was declared in 1550, Mary of Guise appointed regent in succession to the weak and vacillating Arran, entering on office just as a Catholic queen, Mary Tudor, was ascending the English throne. Arran's half-brother, John Hamilton, succeeded Beaton as Archbishop of St. Andrews, James Beaton soon after being appointed to Glasgow, while the See of Orkney was held by the pious, learned, and able Robert Reid, the virtual founder of Edinburgh University. The primate convoked a provincial national council in Edinburgh in 1549, at which sixty ecclesiastics were present. A series of important canons was passed at this council, as well as at a subsequent one assembled in 1552, one result being the publication in the latter year of a catechism intended for the instruction of the clergy as well as of their flocks. From 1547 to 1555 John Knox was preaching Protestantism in England, Geneva, and Frankfort, and the new doctrines made little headway in Scotland. In 1555, however, he returned to Edinburgh, and started his crusade against the ancient Faith, meeting with little molestation from the authorities. He went back to Geneva in the following year; but his Scottish friends and supporters, emboldened by his exhortations, subscribed in December, 1557, the Solemn League and Covenant, for the express object of the overthrow of the old religion. Angered by the execution of Walter Mylne for heresy in 1558, the lords of the Congregation (as the Protestant party was now styled) demanded of the Queen Regent authorization for public Protestant service.

Mary laid the petition before a provincial council which met in 1559, and which, while declining to give way to the Protestant demands, passed many excellent and salutary enactments, chiefly directed against the numerous and crying abuses which had too long been rampant in the Scottish Church. But no conciliar decrees could avert the storm about to burst over the realm.

Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, and inaugurated the work of destruction by a violent sermon which he preached at Perth. There and elsewhere churches and monasteries were attacked and sacked. Troops arrived from France to assist the regent in quelling the insurgent Protestants, while in April, Elizabeth, invaded Scotland both by land and sea in support of the Congregation. The desecration and destruction of churches and abbeys went on apace; and in the midst of these scenes of strife and violence occurred the death of the queen regent, in June, 1560. Less than a month later, a treaty of peace was signed at Edinburgh, the King and Queen of Scots (Mary had married in 1558 Francis, Dauphin of France), granting various concession to the Scottish nobles and people. In pursuance of one of the articles of the treaty, the parliament assembled on 1 August, though without any writ of summons from the sovereign. Although the treaty had specially provided that the religious question at issue should be remitted to the king and queen for settlement, assemblage voted for adoption, as the state religion, of the Protestant Confession of Faith; four prelates and five temporal peers alone dissenting. three further statutes respectively abolished papal jurisdiction in Scotland, repealed all former statutes in favour of the Catholic Church, and made it a penal offense, punishable by death on the third conviction, either to say or to hear Mass. All leases of church lands granted by ecclesiastics subsequent to March, 1558, were declared null and void; and thus the destruction of the old religion in Scotland, as far as the hand of man could destroy it, was complete. No time or opportunity was given to the Church to carry out that reform of prevalent abuses which was foreshadowed in the decrees of her latest councils. As in England the greed of a tyrannical king, so in Scotland the cupidity of a mercenary nobility, itching to possess themselves of the Church's accumulated wealth, consummated a work which even Protestant historians have described as one of revolution rather than of reformation.

On Cardinal James Beaton, quote from Catholic Encyclopedia

The stormy period in which Beaton's public life was cast, with France and England both intriguing for the alliance of Scotland, and the independence of the kingdom trembling in the balance, has made him, perhaps inevitably, appear to posterity more prominent as a statesman (in which quality there is no room for doubt as to his ability or his patriotism) than as a churchman and a prelate. There is, however, evidence that during both his thirteen years' tenure of the See of Glasgow and the seventeen years during which he held the primacy, he concerned himself closely with both the material and spiritual interests of the two dioceses, and in particular with the advancement of learning. In Glasgow he added and endowed altars in his cathedral, made additions also to the episcopal palace, which he encircled with a wall, and he erected stone bridges in various parts of the diocese. He was, moreover, as sedulous as his predecessors had been in safeguarding the ancient privileges of the archiepiscopal see. On his translation to St. Andrews he proved himself a constant benefactor to the university of that city, and he founded there a new college (St. Mary's) for the study of divinity, civil and canon law, medicine, and other subjects. The new college was confirmed by Pope Paul III in February, 1538, and was extended and completed by Beaton's successor, Archbishop Hamilton, sixteen years later. It still exists as the divinity college of the university. Finally, Beaton showed himself ever zealous for the preservation of the unity of the Faith in Scotland. Under the direct orders of the pope (Clement VII) and unhesitatingly supported by the king, he caused many of those engaged in propagating the new doctrines to be arrested, prosecuted, and in some cases put to death. Modern humanity condemns the cruel manner of their execution; but such severities were the result of the spirit of the age, for which Archbishop Beaton cannot be held responsible. There is no reason to doubt that his motive in sanctioning the capital punishment of notorious heretics were simply to avert the miseries which religious schism could not but entail on a hitherto united people.

Answering firhillfan, msg Msg 25291 on yahoo boards

firhillfan

The schools created before the Reformation were controlled by the RCC.

The schools introduced well after the Reformation were not exclusively for Presbyterian children but for all, who could afford to attend.

hglundahl

True, Catholic Priests controlled pre-reformation schools, at least indirectly, so that even secular teachers were not allowed to teach heresy. As far as the law was concerned. In practise compulsory schooling was part of a humanist programme, which involved some moral heterodoxy or heresy, like stoicism, if not downright dogmatic heresy as yet.

firhillfan

This fulfilled the long held dream and intention of the Presbyterians to have their people educated so that all would be able to read, write and understand enough of the affairs of church and state to be able to discuss and vote on the various issues that had to be addressed.

hglundahl

Which is as much as to say: the uneducated were excluded. Which in the absence of a monarch meant simply oligarchy.

firhillfan

The early strides in universal access to education which were made in Scotland, provided the impetus for the Scottish Enlightenment, which has benefitted all mankind, in the fields of engineering, medicine, economics and rational thought.

hglundahl

Do you call Hume a rational thinker? Or banking and industrial revolution economic benefits to mankind? I am totally unable to homologate the sentiments of the previous writer!!!

firhillfan

The Covenant was signed as an alliance against the mass murder of Protestants wishing nothing more than to worship their god, as they saw fit.

hglundahl

You worship God in your way - I'll worship him in His!

Mass murder indeed! According to the Covenanters' version!

firhillfan

The Lords of the Congregation were simply the leadership of the local nobles who banded together to protect their serfs and kinfolk from the vile abuses of the RCC.

hglundahl

And who had enticed their serfs to heresy? Other serfs? Or the lairds of the later Covenant? Or do you by "abuses" refer to the exacting of tithes before the laird got his share? Oh, I bet every greedy Scots laird was willing eneuch to protect his serfs agin sickle abuses!

firhillfan

They had to operate in some degree of secrecy as they were being hounded to death by Dundee in the east and Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh in the west.

hglundahl

Cheers for Dundee and Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh then!

If ye want to remember people really hunted to death though innocent as small childer, remember the Jesuits!

firhillfan

You can still drive through small towns abd villages in Scotland, especially the western counties, and see hotels and public houses called "The Covenanter's Arms".

hglundahl

Brewing badly may not have been one of the Covenanters' vices - Cromwell was a Covenanters' ally - but they had enough other vices!

firhillfan

The Lords of the Congregation finally led the Scottish people to religious and intellectual freedom in 1568, when they defeated Mary Stuart's army at the Battle of Langside and Mary fled south leaving Scotland to move forward, to take up a leadership role for the entire world.

hglundahl

Religious and intellectual freedom? What a joke! Catholicism was severely repressed in Scotland throughout the centuries to follow. Lies and brainwashing had a role to play. And the pretention to take up as a nation a leadership role for the entire world.

The first racist was a Scotsman and Scotist at Sorbonne.*

Hans Georg Lundahl

*First racist = i e first man in Europe to theorise about radically different worth between the races. But I forgot his name even back then, and I have not found it again, lately. It may have been John Mair I was referring to. Though I cannot now find the reference to him introducing racial biological inequality into European thought. He did defend human rights of the savages. It could also be his pupil George Lokert. Even Hector Boece would be the right epoch. But I think he left Paris too early (1500).

Answering firhillfan, Msg 25302 on yahoo boards

firhillfan

Thankfully Sweden threw off the yoke of oppression many years ago, as did Scotland, and they have prospered in mind and body, ever since.

hglundahl

Sweden had its Pilgrimage of Faith - many times over. Only Gustavus Wasa had the money to pay for the arms and the mercenaries. He got it by pillaging Churches and Monasteries. With lots of cruelty.

The Catholic Swedes who rose to protect their Church paid for it with their lives.

Prospered in mind and body? Do you consider socialist interference in the privacy of poor men's homes prospering? I cannot homologate the sentiments of the previous writer.

Hans Georg Lundahl