All words Any words Exact phrase

Elizabeth after her accession, and did not serve to raise the apostle
of Scotland in her estimation.

The Protestant lords, undeterred by the absence of Knox, decided to go
forward with their programme. In December 1557 the Earl of Argyll, his
son Lord Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, Erskine of Dun, and others, met at
Edinburgh and signed a bond or covenant, by which they bound
themselves solemnly to establish the "Blessed Word of God," to
encourage preachers, to defend the new doctrines even with their
lives, and to maintain the Congregation of Christ in opposition to the
Congregation of Satan. They pledged themselves to introduce the Book
of Common Prayer, to insist on the reading of portions of the
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue on Sundays and holidays, and to
appoint preachers wherever the Catholic clergy were unable or
unwilling to undertake this work.[14] In many districts, where the
lords of the Congregation held sway, measures were taken at once to
enforce these resolutions. Confronted with this revolutionary step,
the regent and the bishops should have had recourse to strong action,
but the former was so interested in the approaching marriage of her
daughter to the Dauphin of France (1558) that she did not wish to
offend the lords, while the primate, as one of the Hamiltons, disliked
the regent because she had supplanted his brother, and contented
himself with gentle admonitions. The lords, confident in their
strength, met in November 1558, and presented a petition to the
regent, in which they demanded that the members of the Congregation
should be allowed to meet in the churches, and to follow their own
ritual in the vulgar tongue, that Communion should be administered
under both kinds, that private individuals should be at liberty to
explain difficult passages of the Sacred Scriptures, and that the
clergy should be reformed. The regent after consultation with the
primate consented to these requests, at least in regard to private
religious assemblies, but refused to yield to another petition
demanding the abolition of all laws against heresy.[15]

The religious controversies became more and more embittered during the
year 1559. The lords of the Congregation denounced the abuses of the
clergy, demanded permission to use the vulgar tongue in all public
religious services as well as in the administration of the sacraments,
and insisted on the admission of the lower nobles and of the people to
a voice in the appointment of bishops and of pastors. To put an end to
the abuses that were proving such a useful weapon in the hands of the
adversaries of the Church, and at the same time to give public and
formal expression to the faith of the Scottish nation, a national
synod[16] met at Edinburgh (April 1559). It denounced once again the
awful scandal of concubinage among the clergy, laid down useful
regulations regarding preaching and the appointment of bishops,
condemned plurality of benefices, nonresidence, and demands on the
part of the clergy for excessive fees. To raise the standard of
education among the clergy it ordained that those presented to
benefices should be examined, and that each monastery should maintain
some of its members at the universities. In its profession of faith
the synod emphasised the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist,
Transubstantiation, the propitiatory character of the sacrifice of the
Mass, the sufficiency of Communion in one kind, the existence of a
real priesthood, and purgatory, prayers for the dead, invocation of
the saints, fasting, and holidays. In response to the demands of the
Congregation the synod pointed out that it had not the power to change
the rites and ceremonies that had been handed down for centuries, that
as the Church was the definitely appointed guardian and interpreter of
the Scriptures private individuals were not permitted to expound them
at their will, and that in the appointment of bishops and pastors the
rules laid down in canon law were quite sufficient to prevent abuses
if only they were followed.

About the same time Quintin Kennedy, Benedictine Abbot of Crossraguel,
conferred an immense service on religion by his written apology[17]
for the Catholic Church. Starting with the Bible and its relation to
ecclesiastical authority, he undertook to show that from the very
nature of the case such a book required the presence of a divinely
appointed official interpreter, that the reading of the Scriptures was
not necessary for salvation though in many cases it might be useful,
and that the authority of the Church should not be overthrown even
though the existence of scandals among churchmen could not be denied.
Turning to his adversaries, he demanded what was the source of all the
abuses and scandals which they charged against the Church? Was it not,
he asked, the unwarrantable interference of the nobles in the