Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles Read Online Free PDF Page B

on. They were on their way from Longniddry to the larger town of Haddington; there George Wishart would preach as the Spirit called him, in spite of the warning he had received from the lord of the area, Patrick Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. As they made their way in the dull January afternoon, they kept alert for any suspicious movement. It might be the friendly lords who had promised to meet them here or it might be their enemies.
     
    Out in front of the party was a slim, straight-backed figure whose eyes swept the road and whose hands clutched a two-handed sword. He was a young man about thirty years old, who acted as tutor to the two young sons of Sir Hugh Douglas of Longniddry and who also served as a public notary in the district. His name was John Knox and he no longer knelt in front of crucifixes or begged God to reveal why He had abandoned Scotland. The answer had come, by way of George Wishart: it was Scotland who had abandoned God, led astray by the "puddle of papistry." Knox had in turn abandoned his priestly calling and embraced the Reformed Faith. It was a dangerous decision.
     
    Outside the walls of the self-contained castle on Stirling Rock where the
     
    Queen resided, and beyond the equally self-contained castle at St. Andrews where Cardinal Beaton presided, reformers slipped from house to house, carrying their smuggled Bibles and their outlawed messages. Safe from the vigilant eyes and ears of the Queen and Cardinal, they made their converts in a population that, if it did not actually "hunger and thirst after righteousness," at least was eager to try to find new pathways to God. The feeling was abroad in the air, in all Christendom, like an undercurrent, a siren song: Come drink at the waters of this well. People came to drink for all the reasons people come to forbidden waters some out of genuine thirst, others out of curiosity, still others out of daring and rebellion. Henry VIII's Trojan horse was not the bribed and bullied nobles he had sent north, but the reformers who followed in their wake on missions of their own.
     
    George Wishart, steeped in the new brew of Protestant theology from Europe, taught and preached loudly enough that the Cardinal's ears pricked up, and like a hunting dog spotting an otter, he tried to track him down. Wishart continued his bold preaching to large congregations, eluding the Cardinal for a time. Now he was headed for an area very near Edinburgh, in spite of warnings from the faithful that the Queen and her henchman, the Earl of Bothwell, were prepared to capture him.
     
    At the very least, his partisans begged him, do not appear so publicly.
     
    "What, shall I lurk like a gentleman ashamed of his business?" the missionary had answered. "I will dare to preach if others will dare to hear!"
     
    Now, across the fields of Lothian, they were making their way in expectation of meeting their supporters from the western part of Scotland. For this they had left the safety of life, where the largest numbers of converts were.
     
    John Knox drew up the coarse wool collar of his mantle and peered out across the landscape. By God, let any enemies appear and he'd mow them down! He clenched the sword.
     
    Men of the cloth were not supposed to carry weapons, that he knew. But am I still a man of the cloth? he asked himself. No, by the blood of Christ! That mockery of a ceremony I went through in my ignorance, creating me a priest, was nothing, was worse than nothing! No, unless I hear a clear call, direct from God, I'm not a man of the cloth.
     
    Wishart preached twice in Haddington, in the church that was the largest in the area. Only a very few showed up to hear him after the thousands who had thronged to attend all his sermons elsewhere.
     
    "It's the Earl of Bothwell," said Wishart afterwards, as they took a small evening meal at the home of John Cockburn of Ormiston. "He's the lord of this area; he must have warned people to stay away." He chewed his brown bread carefully. He