.
 |
If you want, I can scan the section on Knox and paste it into a post.
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
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.
Ping
.
|
If you want, I can scan the section on Knox and paste it into a post.