History of the Reformation in Scotland

THE FIRST BOOK.

CONTAINING THE MANNER AND BY WHAT PERSONS THE LIGHT OF CHRIST'S EVANGEL HAS BEEN MANIFESTED UNTO THIS REALM, AFTER THAT HORRIBLE AND UNIVERSAL DEFECTION FROM THE TRUTH, WHICH HAS COME BY MEANS OF THAT ROMAN ANTICHRIST.

In the scrolls of Glasgow, is found men- tion of one whose name is not expressed, that in the year of God 14-22, was burned for heresy ; but what were his opinions, or by what order he Avas condemned, it ap- pears not evidently ; * but our chronicles make mention, that in the days of king- James the First, about the year of God 1431, was deprehended [taken up] f in the university of Saint Andrews, one named Paul Craw, a Bohemian, who was accused of heresy, before such as then were called doctors of theology. His accusation con- sisted principally, that he followed John Huss and Wickliffe, in the opinion of the

* David Buchanan's edition commences thus : " In the records of Glasgow is found mention of one whose name was James Resby, an Eng- lishman by birth, scholar of Wickliffe, he was accused as a heretic by one Lawrence Lindors, and burnt for having said, that the pope was not the vicar of Christ; and that a man of a wicked life was not to be acknowledged for pope." Spotswood gives the name of the per- son, which perhaps both he and Buchanan had derived, together with the particulars of his heresy, from some other source. But Spotswood makes the date of his martyrdom 1407, the year following the death of Robert III, so that this must have happened during the regency, while James I, Robert's successor, was a prisoner in England, from which he was not restored to his kingdom till 1423. Resby, so far as appears, was the first in Scotland who suffered death on account of religion ; at least, I find nothing of

sacrament, who deny that the substance of bread and wine was chang-ed by virtue of any words, or that confession should be made to priests, or yet prayers to saints de- parted. While that God g-ave him grace to resist them, and not to consent to their im- piety, he was committed to the secular judge, (for our bishops follow Pilate, who both did condemn, and also wash his hands) who condemned him to the fire, in the which he was consumed in the said city of Saint Andrews, about the time before writ- ten. And to declare themselves to be the generation of Satan, who, from the begin- ning-, had been enemy to the truth, and he the kind in the previous twelve hundred years of her church history. The Culdees and other faithful pastors, if there were any other, must have been a great eye-sore to the luxurious dig- nified clergy, but they did not venture to murder them on that account. This was a custom im- ported from Italy, where it had been practised for more than two centuries, in a ferocious per- secution of the Waldenses. It was, it seems, twenty-four years before the Scotish prelates found another victim ; and he was a Bohemian, who had learned the truth from John Huss, who, like Resby, had learned it from Wickliffe, with whom he corresponded. Our first two martyrs, therefore, were foreigners. There was not at that period so much religion among the Scots themselves as to furnish a subject for the stake. — Ed.

t Deprehended is rather an English word than a Scotish, but is seldom used uow. — Ed.

that desired the same to be hid from the knowledge of men, they put a ball of brass in his mouth, to the end that he should not give confession of his faith to the people, neither yet that they should understand the defence which he had against their unjust accusation and con- demnation. But that their sires' practice did not greatly advance their kingdom of darkness, neither yet was it able utterly to extinguish the truth : For albeit, that in the days of king James the Second and Third, we find small question of religion moved within this realm, yet in the time of king James the Fourth, in the sixth year of his reign, and in the 22d year of his age, which was the year of 1494, were summoned before the king and his great council, by Robert Blackader, called arch- bishop of Glasgow; the number of thirty persons remaining, some in Kyle-stewart, some in King's-Kyle, and some in Cun- inghame : among whom were George Campbell of Cesnock, Adam Reid of Bar- skimming, John Campbell of Newmills, Andrew Shaw of Polkemat, Helen Chal- mer lady Pokely, [Isohel] Chaimer lady Stairs. These were called the Lollards of Kyle. * They were accused of the articles following, as we have received them forth of the register of Glasgow.

* A more ample account of the Lollards will be found in the Histories of England ; where probably tbey had their origin from persons who fled from persecution on the Continent in the twelfth century. " In the year 1160, some fo- reign Christians sought in Britain an asylum from the persecutions of Germany; but, alas! they found only a premature grave." " A coun- cil was called by the king, to meet at Oxford, to try these heretics, whose number, it seems, amounted to no more than thirty. They were not likely to meet with either mercy or justice from an assembly of haughty prelates. They were condemned, branded on the forehead, pub- licly whipt out of the town, and being turned into the fields in the depth of winter, when all were forbidden to relieve them, they perished. Even their enemies allow that they behaved with great calmness and moderation ; and when the inhuman sentence was executed upon them, they sang, Blessed are ye when men shall hate you and persecute you. Warner justly observes, that their conduct was wor- thy of the best and most righteous cause, and would incline one to think favourably of their doctrine.'' See more to the same pur- pose in The Protestant, volume i. pages 107 —109.— Ed.