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If you want, I can scan the section on Knox and paste it into a post.
Posted on 05/14/2005 8:13:49 AM PDT by gobucks
The Beggar's Summons was a document that appeared on New Years Day Morning, 1559, on every church door in Scotland. It basically told the Roman Catholic Church, (in Scotland, as most of Europe, the RC church was the only legal chruch for hundreds of years), that their days were over and to get out by Easter.
John Knox returned from exile shortly thereafter, and within 1.5 years, which saw the defeat of French Roman Catholic armed invasion, the Priests were evicted and the Pope disavowed.
The Presbryterians took over. Scotland was utterly transformed. All RC Churches became 'Kirks'.
But, the Beggar's Summons document ... that is a puzzle. Where did it come from? Who wrote it? What organization, evidently secret, was in place such that all RC institutions found nailed to their gates this document on the same date? Why on the internet is their virtually nothing about this?
And why care? Well, the answer is connected to the word 'Covenant', which is connected to the word 'Federal', which is disconnected from just about everything in our government that still carries the label 'Republic'. I'm just seeking a bit of additional orientation, and the origin of this Beggar's Summons ... it is just about as odd as the Peasant's Revolt in England for some of its details...
Any thoughts about this are welcome, but especially the origin of the Beggar's Summons (or Summonds, aka 'Warning').
There's a little information here, with a link to the text of the actual document. Looks like the mystery will continue:
http://www.st-johns-kirk.co.uk/reformation%20main.htm
Many thanks for the link...; Elizabeth becoming queen is certainly a pivotal event in all this.
This event surely was pivotal in the taking of Mary Queen of Scots' baby James, who had been baptised Catholic but raised Protestant. Many Scots remained loyal Catholics, but they had to practice their faith in private. Mary thought that the Catholic Lairds would rescue her from prison, but it never happened.
I saw a program once on all the secret hiding places that are built into some of the Scottish castles and great homes of the Lairds who remained Catholic. These were places to hide a priest and his sacred tools for saying Mass. There was a particular craftsman (I've forgotten the name) who was especially clever about designing these secret places where the priest could hide and never be detected.
The overthrow of the RC church in Scotland appears to have taken a few decades. As in other countries, there was a mix of domestic and international political intrigue, as well as the religous impulse, at work.
From http://www.americanpresbyterianchurch.org/the_church_of_scotland.htm
The Covenanters:
The Scotch Presbyterians developed a unique habit of making National Covenants with God. As a New Testament Israel they wanted to be in covenant with God as a nation. The first covenant was made with Knox and the Lords of the Congregation (Protestant nobles opposed to Roman Catholicism) to support the Reformation in Scotland. Over the years almost thirty covenants were transacted by Scotch Presbyterians. The First National Covenant was when the nation subscribed to the Second Scots Confession of 1580. The two most significant ones for church history were the Second National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant. The National Covenant of 1638 recommitted the nation to the Reformation and the Presbyterianism that it established and to oppose all innovations in religion since the First National Covenant of 1580. It was signed by over 300,000 Scots and passed by the General Assembly the same year. The Solemn League and Covenant was a Covenant that committed the three nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Then ruled by England) to establish Presbyterianism as the true religion. It was entered into to induce the Scots to assist England in their war against Charles I. The Westminster Assembly, already working to revise the 39 Articles of the Church of England was redirected to develop the doctrinal standards for the implementation of this covenant in the three nations.
related information.
From BBC - History - Scottish History
-snip-
The Scottish Reformation 1559-1560.
Within a year, events changed everything. The accession of the Protestant Elizabeth I to the throne of England gave the reformers renewed confidence. Only about 10% of the population, mostly lairds and townsfolk, were Protestant, but their numbers included some very important nobles: the Duke of Châtelherault (head of the Hamiltons), and the Earls of Argyll, Glencairn and Morton, to name a few. Known collectively as the ‘Lords of the Congregation’, they were led by James Stewart, the illegitimate half brother of Mary, Queen of Scots. The Lords were the real power behind Protestantism and in May 1559 they unleashed it that power.
Knox was roused from exile and returned to Scotland, preaching a sermon against idolatry in Perth which unleashed a seething Protestant mob. Iconoclasm (the destruction of religious images) swept the nation. In St Andrews the army of the Lords of the Congregation stripped the altars, smashed the icons, destroyed the relics and whitewashed the walls of its churches over night. People would no longer be distracted from God's glory by the glitter and rich hangings of the Catholic Church. For the men who 'cleansed the altars’ this was direct action against the iconography of Catholicism. Its abbeys and great cathedrals, irrelevant to the new godly society they envisioned, were left to decay. A great deal of Scotland’s Renaissance artistic legacy was lost forever.
The message, however, didn't inspire widespread support across Scotland. Mary of Guise successfully portrayed the group as rebels. The Lords of Congregation answered with the printing press, justifying their rebellion as an attempt to free Scotland from French domination rather than a religious revolution. Luck didn’t
Mary Queen of Scots & John Knox desert them either. Their greatest foe, Mary of Guise, died in June 1560 and the English sent support to counter her French troops. By 1560 the majority of the nobility supported the rebellion; a provisional government was established, the Scottish Parliament renounced the Pope’s authority, and the mass was declared illegal. Scotland had officially become a Protestant country.
In 1561 the unexpected return of Mary, Queen of Scots re-ignited the whole issue. It seemed that power wouldn't change hands so easily and that Scotland would have to sail the troubled waters of the Reformation for a while yet.
see also http://www.scotlandspast.org/religion3.cfm
In 1557 Erskine, Argyll and Morton led a group, called the Lords of the Congregation, who drew up the First Covenant which was to 'establish the most blessed word of God' and to 'forsake and renounce the congregation of Satan'. In effect this meant to break completely with Rome and set up a new national Church. The Reformation of 1559 began with riots in Perth when nine religious houses were sacked. The Lords of the Congregation then 'purged' several towns including St Andrews and Dundee and entered Edinburgh where Knox was its first Protestant minister.
Untold in all this is that fact that, in Scotland, a large percent of useable land (I forgot the percentage, I think it was something like 30-40%), was owned by the Church or religious orders. While I'm sure some of the local nobility may have been motivated by sincere religious belief, also keep in mind that the local nobility may also have taken into account the great wealth to be gained by confiscating all this land for themselves.
I noticed that.
ping
I think it was more like 50% - 60%. Large numbers of the nobility in the Lowlands were motivated to support the reformation by accepting bribes of the Church lands from the Lords of the Congregation.
The L O C were basically the Red Douglases allied with most of the Stewarts. They were by far the strongest faction in the land.
Ping
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If you want, I can scan the section on Knox and paste it into a post.
Thank you for this interesting post; it would make sense that many scots would remain loyal to the priests; but the secret room stuff for them ... interesting details...
I've not heard of the Isles ... I'll get the whole book I think. What started all this for me was a book called the 'Scotch Irish', and it has been a real eye opener.
This issue of 'covenant' is clearly central. I am only 41, but evidently, I'm way out on the fringe for even thinking about this topic. I've heard reports that where Covenant marriage is an option as opposed to traditional 'contract' marriage, only 3 percent of the folks take the Covenant marriage option (no fault is not available for folks who take this road).
(Btw, the Solemn League evidently failed pretty miserably given the mess of natural rationalism running amok in the UK today...)
Many thanks for the link and info..
Incredible. I didn't have a clue about any of this. Thanks.
Excellent link. Thank you. This is the story I was remembering from a TV program that I saw several years ago. I may be mistaken about these holes being constructed in Scotland, because this reference mentions the practice only England. However, I'm certain that something similar was constructed in castles and grand homes in Scotland because many there remained true (secretly) to the Catholic Church. Unfortunately most of the Catholic Lairds were defeated when they attempted to rescue Mary Queen of Scots. Mary, it seems, had quite a talent for getting herself in trouble of the romantic type and that may be why she ultimately lost her head. She certainly picked the wrong men. They all betrayed her -- even her son.
The program that I saw credited one man for building most of the priest holes, but I don't remember him described as a Jesuit. Just a fiendishly clever craftsman!
Saint Nicholas Owen
http://www.gunpowder-plot.org/people/nickowen.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_hole
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