Knox to Sir William Cecill
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him, maters will frame the better in the incountrey.
I had no sufficient leasour to wryte to A. [the D. of Norf ] to this end.
From the Castle of Edinbourg, the xx of Septembre [1569].
LXXXVIII.
Knox to Sir William Cecill.
Benefittes of Goddes hands receaved, crave that men be thank fuU, and daunger knowen wold be avoided.
Yf ye strik not att the roote, the branches that appear to be brocken will liudd againe (and that nior quicklye then men can belee) with greatter
' forse then we wolde wyshe.
Turn your eie unto your God, forgett your self and ycures when consultation is to be had in materis of such weght as presently lye upon you.
Albeit 1 have bein fremmedly handilled, yet was
never enemy to the quietnes of Englond.
God grant you wisdome.
In haist, of Edinburgh, the 2 of Januar 1569[-70].
Youres to commaund in God, John Knox, with his one foote in the grave.
Mo dales then one wold not suffice to express what I think.
To the ryght worschipfull Sir Williame Cicill, knyght, principall Secretary to the Queues Majestic and Consall of Englonde.
Deliver these.
LXXXIX.
Prayer used by John Knox after the Eegent Murray's Death.
The heart of Mr. Knox (says Calderwood)^ was so heavie and dolorous after the murther of the Eegent, that the day following (being the Lord's Sabboth), in the closure of his sermon, hee publiklie bewailed the great losse that the Church and State had by the death of that vertuous nobleman, and declared, that as God in his mercie giveth good and wise rulers, so hee taketh them away from a people in his wraith : Yea, in a most mourn- '
Hiatory, MS. 1636.
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full maner he poured forth the griefe aud sorrow of his soule, by fervent supplication before the Lord, as foUowes
Lord ! what we shall adde to the former petitions we know not ; yea, alace, Lord, our owne consciences bear us record that we are unworthie that thou should either encreass or yet continue thy graces with us, be reason of our horrible ingratitude.
In our extreme miseries we called, and thou in the multitude of thy mercies heard us
; and first thou delivered us from the tyrannic of mercieless strangers, next, from the bondage of idolatry, and last, from the yoak of that wretched Woman, the mother of all mischief, and in her place thou didst erect her Sonne, and to supply his infancie thou didst appoynt a Eegent endued with such graces as the Divell himself cannot accuse or justly convict him, this only excepted that foolish pity did so farre prevaill in him, concerning execution and punishment wliich thou commanded to have been executed upon her, and upon her complices, the murtherers of her husband.
Lord, in what miserie and confusion found he this realme !
And to what rest and quietnesse now be his labours suddanlie he brought the same, all Estates, but speciallie the poor Commons, can witness.
Thy image, Lord, did so clearlie shyiie in that personage, that the divell, and the wicked to whom he is prince, could not abyde it.
And so to punish our sinnes and ingratitude, who did not ryghtlie esteem so pretious a gift, thou lies permitted him to fall, to our great griefe, in the hands of cruell and traterous murtherers.
He is at rest, Lord, and we are left in extreme miserie ! Be mercifull to us, and suffer not Satan utterly to prevaill against thy little flocke within this realme, neither yet,
Lord, let bloode thirsty men come to the end of their wicked enterprises.
Preserve, Lord, our young King ; although he be ane infant, give unt^^bim the spirit^ of sanctification, with enQreasae_.Q£ the same as he groweth in yeares.
Let his raigne, Lord, be such as thou may be glorified, and thy little flock comforted by it.
Seeing that we are now left as a flock with-
570,
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out a pastor in civill policie, and as a sliippe without a rudder in the midst of the storm, let thy providence watch, Lord, and defend us in these dangerous dayes, that the wicked of the world may see that as weill without the help of man, as with it, thou art able to rule, maintain, and defend the little flock that dependeth upon thee.
And because, Lord, the shedding of innocent bloode lies ever been, and yet is odious in thy presence, yea, that it defyleth the whole land where it is shed and not punished, we crave of thee, for Christ thy sonnes sake, that thou wilt so try and punish the two treasonable and cruell murthers latelie committed, that the inventars, devysers, authors, and maintainers of treasonable crueltie, may be either thoroughlie converted or confounded.
Lord, if thy mercie prevent us not, we cannot escape just condemnation, for that Scotland hath spared, and England hath maintained, the lyfe of that most wicked woman.
Oppone thy power, Lord, to the pryde of that cruell murtherer of her owne husband
; confound her faction and their subtile enterprises of what estate and condition soever they be ; and let them and the world know, that thou art a God that can deprehend the wise in their own wisdome, and the proud in the imagination of their wicked hearts, to their everlasting confusioun.
Lord, retain us that call upon thee in thy true fear.
Let us grow in the same.
Give thou strength to us to fight our battell, yea, Lord, to fight it lawfuUie, and to end our lives in the sanctification of thy holy name.
XC.
Kandolph to Sik William Cecill.
I DOWTE not but your Honour desirethe to knowe with what sollemnitie the Kegent was buryed, which I could not wryte in my other lettres for lacke of tyme.
He was broughte from bysyde Lythcowe te Leethe by water, and from thens secretlie to the Abbaye, untyll the morninge, that he was brought by the Noble men to St. Giles Churche.
The bourgessis of Edenbourge and Leethe wente before hyni ; nexte them gentlemen of
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the countrie, and divers Lordes ; then followed the Corse, caried by the Earles of Morton, Marre, Glancarne, and Cassels,
Lordes Lindesaye, Glanimes, Ocletrie, and Euthen ; ther caried his standarde before hym the Larde of Grayuge, and his coate armour the Larde of Clysshe, master of his housholde, bothe upon horsbacke ; his servants followed hym in their murninge apparell, with as greate sorrowe as ever I sawe.
Ther preachede Mr. Knox upon thys theme, Beati Mortui qui in Domino Moriuntur} This is all that I can wryte hereof At Edenbourge, the xxiith of Februarie 1569 [-70].
Your Honours to commande, Tho. Eandolphe.
To the right honorable Sir William Cecill, knight, Principall Secretar to the Queues Majestie.
XCL— Letters to Knox from England, after the Death of THE Regent Earl of Murray.^ In tyme of a public Conventioune of the Estates which was holden shortly thereafter [in March 1570], Mr. Knox receaved letteris out of England, from diverse worthie learned and godlie divines, declaring their great inward griefe for the untimelye death of such a greatlie renowned and truelie religious Eegent.
Lawrence Humfrie,^ doctore of divinitie of England, desyred him * Calderwood's account of the KeComiti, Scotiae Proregi, viro setatis suae gent's funeral (MS. 1636) may be quotlonge optimo, ab inimicis omnis memoed :—" Upon Tuesday, the 14th of Ferise deterrimis ex insidiis extincto, ceu bruar, the Regent's corpse was caried patri communi Patria moerens posuit." from the Abbey of Holyroodhouse to the — (Proceed, Soc. Antiq. vol. i. p. 196) greatKirkof Edinburgh, and was buried " From Richard Bannatyne's Memoin the South He.
Mr. Knox made a serrials, compared with Calderwood's MSS. mon before the buriall, upon these words,
^ In Calderwood's MS., " Umfride."
' Blessed are they that die in the Lord.'
—Dr. Lawrence Humphrey, an eminent Manie of the Nobilitie wer present. He scholar and divine, was Queen's Profesmoved three thousand persons to shedd sur of Divinity at Oxford, and succesteares for the losse of such a good and sively Dean of Gloucester and Dean godlie governour.
The epitaph followof Winchester.
He died in February ing, made be Mr. George Buchanan, was 1589-90.—See account of his life and engraven in brasse, and set above his writings in Wood's Athense Oxonienses, tombe Jacobo Stovarto, Moravi.'e by Bliss, vol. i. pp. 5.57-561.
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to put in memorie the death and lyfe of the Regent, laitlie and shamefuUie murthered.
Me. John Willock,^ preacher, writis as followes against the murther, word be word :
It grieveth me so to write, that I can not write ony thing as I think, twiching the crneltie of these bloudie beastes (the Hammiltounes, he meanes), that devised and practised that abhominable and bloudie fact.
The Lord revenge it !
And I put no doubt but that filthie fact hes so fillet thair coupe of the jugmentis of the eternall God, that their restis nothing for thame but the drinking up of the same, to thair everlasting schame and confusioune ; for the whole Clmrche of God called and cryed, besydis the voce of the bloud itself, Vindica Domine
Dcus smigvAnem innocentis !
And lykas, hj the just judgment of God, the Benjamites wer in ane maner. routed out, so hath this cruell fact craved (not only in my judgment, but in the judgment of all upricht myndit men heir) the lyke judgment.
God work in thaine trew repentance, gif it be possible, when the servantis of God doe so agrie in threatning of the wicked !
The wicked, be thai never so proude, thai have cause to feir • ^ In the biographical notice of Wilhis protracted residence in Scotland.
LOCK, prefixed to his correspondence Knox's letter to him in the name of with the Abbot of Crossraguell in 1559, the Assembly had the effect of bringin the Wodrow Miscellany, p. 264, and ing him back to this country in June also supra, p. 446, I conjectured that 1568 (see p. 445).
He was chosen Mohe died about the year 1574.
From derator of the two following meetings letters in the State Paper Ofiice, I oftheGeneral Assembly in July and Defind that Willock had been connected cember that year ; but he appears soon with the church of Loughborough, in after to have returned to England. From the county of Leicester; having obtained the Parish Kegisters, we learn that the living from the patron, Henry Duke "Master John AVillocke, preacher and of Suffolk, to whom he had been chapparson of this parish church of Loughlain.
The Duke was succeeded by the borough, departed this life the 4th day of December, and was buried the 5th, Hastings family, Earls of Huntingdon and Willock was probably advanced to being Sonday, in the year of God 1585." be Rector on the death of the former —Nichols's History and Antiquities of incumbent, in August 1561.
He seems Leicestershire, vol. iii. p. ii., pp.
892to have retained this living during 900.
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Mr. Christopher Goodmaj^,^ whose lyfe and learning the verie wicked can not hot praise, after his dolorous complaint, writteth thus anent the Eegentis deathe :
The floure of Scotland, the crowne of nobilitie, the pillar of peace, the patrone of a godlie governement, and signe of Godis favour, hes taken his leave, and gone (I doubt not) to our mercifuU God, whom he served
; hut woe to those devilish heidis which this foul devilish murther have devysit !
Woe to that unnaturall monster, enemie to God and his countrey, and fullie possessit with Satlian, that hes beine the instrument !
And woe to the whole nobilitie, and to all that profess the name of Godis peopill, gif this be uocht extremlie sought fourth, and revenged ; as was the abused wife of the Levite amongis the Benjameitis !
Lat yit the devysaris of the murther take held, for God sieth thame, and his ser\^antis smellis thame furth
The Conventioune dissolving without resolutioune, the Erie of Mortone, bewitched also be the Secretar, left Edinburgh and past to Abirdeine, of purpose (as some alledgit) to consult with the Secretaris band ; and spake with Huntlie and Athole in Drymmen ; whairof the faithfuU conceaved no small jelosie.
The Secretare and the Capitane of the Castell, named Sir William Kirkcaldie of Grange, knycht, a man sometymes of most honest fame and credite within this realme among the faithful, but now wrapped in factione and treasone, with that most treasonabill traytour, whome the Lord sail confound, and all that in his impietie mainteanis him !
Theise two, I say, as thai raiset the trouble upoun the Bordoure, be these tuo fyrebraindis, Pherniherst and Balcleuche, so thai travellit with all diligence to alienat the hartis of all Scottismen fra the Queine of England; and spaired nocht to speike, that gif we seik England for maintenance of the King and punishment of the murther, they sail seik France and Spaine for the restoiring of the Queine, murtherer,
* He was Knox's colleague at Geneva.
See supra, vol. iv. pp. 556-560.