Philosophy-RAG-demo/transcriptions/HoP 417 - To Kill a King - The Scottish Reformation.txt

 Hi, I'm Peter Adams, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the philosophy department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, To Kill a King, the Scottish Reformation. If you want to annoy a Scot, a good way to do it is to say England when you mean Britain. Far be it from me, then, to suggest that with my coverage of the English Reformation last time, we've sufficiently covered the British Reformation. Certainly, there were parallels between the story of reform north and south of the border. For instance, there were Hussites and Lollards in Scotland too, who already in the late medieval era anticipated the religious critique of the 16th century. In fact, the leading Scottish Protestant, John Knox, began his history of the Reformation by describing the martyring of a Hussite back in 1433. And, as in England, the Reformation led to violent repression. Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake at St. Andrews in the year 1528, followed by other martyrs like the iconoclast George Wisfart in 1546. The violence was just as counterproductive in the north as it had been in the south. Knox remarked of the burning that, the reek of Master Patrick Hamilton has infected as many as it blew upon. But there were major differences too, one of which was well captured by none other than King James VI of Scotland, who was also King James I of England, and make that James VII in total. He wrote that the Reformation in Scotland was a popular tumult and rebellion not proceeding from the prince's order as it did in England. Indeed, whereas the official religion in England swung back and forth between Protestantism and Catholicism, the rule Quios Regio, Oios Religio, the prevailing religion is that of the ruler, was not observed in Scotland. Mary Stuart, also known as Mary Queen of Scots, was a Catholic who reigned from 1542 to 1567. But for long stretches she ruled from France, and even when she was in Scotland, she said of the people there, I am their queen, and so they call me, but they use me not so. Smack in the middle of her reign in 1560, Scotland became the last place to adopt the Reformation as official doctrine when the Scottish Parliament approved a broadly Calvinist confession of faith. Knox put a positive spin on the divergence between the monarch and her people. That Parliament, we are bold to affirm, was more lawful and more free than any Parliament that they are able to produce for a hundred years before it, or any that hath since ensued, for in it the votes of men were free and given of conscience. In others they were bought, or given at the devotion of the prince. We shouldn't insist too much on the contrast between a top-down English Reformation and a bottom-up Scottish one. The leading Scots reformers were not peasants, they were educated men who often spent time abroad learning their dangerous ideas. Knox himself studied at St. Andrews, but spent time in England and in such continental cities as Frankfurt and the unofficial capital of Calvinism, Geneva. This helps to explain the parallels between Scottish and Huguenot thought, especially in the political arena, which I'll be focusing on in this episode. Still, Scottish Protestantism did have a distinct flavor. Another case of its bottom-up tendencies, the Scottish Church, or Kirk, adopted broadly a Presbyterian tendency, which as we saw last time means avoidance of hierarchy. I am glad to say though that they did have archbishops, if only so I can report the name of one of them, Patrick Adamson. It was not Adamson though, but John Knox, who deserved the title of Captain Kirk. His many detractors might have reached for a different pun, here was a man who put the Knox in obnoxious. He was a firebrand preacher whose style was so confrontational that to this day there is a cannon at Edinburgh Castle named after him. Knox's stance was based on the teachings of Calvin, and it was in no small part thanks to him that in Scotland this approach gradually won out over ideas closer to those of Luther and Sphingley. Knox was a firm believer in predestination of the elect, and denied that God's love of all humans would result in his offering them all grace and redemption. When it came to matters of liturgy and church practice, he was uncompromising in the true sense of the word. There was no room in his theology for the concept of indifference, which we saw being used to excuse Queen Elizabeth's candlesticks, the fancy clothes of priests, and so on. For Knox, any form of worship not explicitly required by scripture was idolatry, which he defined as whatever is done in God's service or honour, without the express commandment of his own word. During his time in England, he notoriously got the advice to kneel when receiving communion, eliminated from the Book of Common Prayer. As for the Catholic version of the Mass, it was idolatry pure and simple. In a rather ironic echo of the methods of the schoolmen, Knox made this point in syllogistic form. All worshipping, honouring, or service of God invented by the brain of man in the religion of God, without his own express commandment, is idolatry. The Mass is invented by the brain of man without any commandment of God, therefore it is idolatry. The question was what to do about it. Knox's answer was effectively, whatever it takes. Outraged by the Catholic rule of Mary Tudor in England, Knox composed a treatise with a title as subtle as its author, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. The Regiment of Women was not a battalion of ladies, of course. What Knox meant was that it was monstrous for a woman to hold political power. In the text, he actually goes further and says that this is more than a monster in nature. It's interesting to note that he appeals to nature like this, to support his central thesis, rather than just citing scripture, though he does plenty of that, too. He says, for example, that, Nature doth paint women forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish, and he even deigns to quote Aristotle as being in agreement with this opinion. The dominance of males over females among animals shows the natural inferiority of women. In particular, they lack prudence and are so fickle that they cannot exert consistent governance. Today's readers will, of course, find The First Blast repellent for its misogyny. At the time, the objection was more that it was impolitic. Though the screed was aimed at Mary Tudor, it made for awkward background when Knox dealt directly with Mary Stuart, and also her mother, Mary Gies, who ruled Scotland on her behalf as regent. Actually, in this period, if Knox had only argued that people named Mary shouldn't hold political power, that would almost have amounted to the same thesis. But not quite, because of Elizabeth the First. When she came to the throne, Knox's earlier diatribe against the rule of women made it more or less impossible for him to engage with English politics. He himself admitted, My first blast hath blown from me all my friends in England. Nor was it only queens and queen mothers who had reason to be offended. Knox stated that anyone put in a position of authority by a female ruler was holding their office fraudulently, since, from a corrupt and venomed fountain, can spring no wholesome water. This goes together with a more general tendency on Knox's part to see subordinates as tainted by association with unacceptable rulers, and thus as obligated to do something to remove those rulers. We find this stated explicitly in his Appellation, or Call for Action, printed in Geneva in 1558, but aimed at the nobility of Scotland. Here, Knox argued, with his customary forcefulness, that the nobles have no excuse if they fail to remove irreligious, in other words, Catholic authority figures from their posts. That includes bishops, who should be compelled by the Scottish nobles to stop engaging in idolatry. Whereas Calvin had argued for patience in the face of wicked rule, Knox urges his readers to take active steps. This is something we've already seen in Huguenot treatises. Lesser magistrates may be morally permitted, even required, to move against their superiors. But in Knox's Appellation, we see hints of a more radical idea, namely that everyone should be prepared to rise up. He says that all are commanded to seek justice according to their possibility, and that God rightfully sends collective punishments against those who let evil go on without stopping it. Thus, in the case of England, it had been the duty of the nobility, judges, rulers, and people of England to resist Mary Tudor, and even to kill her. Knox made his radicalism still more explicit in another call to action, this one aimed at commoners. No less than the nobles, even humble folks, should compel bishops and clergy to cease their tyranny. The same logic of collective responsibility reappears, now applied explicitly to the lower classes. You don't have to be an author of iniquity to be at fault. Mere tacit consent is enough, and makes the people criminal and guilty with princes and rulers of the same crimes. This would be an extreme view even today. We don't normally think that private citizens are effectively permitted to declare war on the head of state in their country. Knox seems to have been carried to his shocking view more by political circumstances than by a well-thought-out political theory. He did write in the summary of a prospective second blast against idolatrous rule that if the people have appointed an idolater to rule over them, then most justly may the same men depose and punish him that unadvisedly before they did nominate, appoint, and elect. But Knox's preferred mode was that of the Old Testament prophet calling down fire and brimstone on his enemies, not that of the cool-headed philosopher arguing from first principles. Another Scotsman was ready to supply a more cerebral argument leading to the same conclusions. This was George Buchanan. Born in 1506, he studied first in St. Andrews and then in Paris at a time when another important Scottish intellectual was there, John Mair, who will come into focus in a later episode. Buchanan also spent time in Italy, where he may have encountered Republican political ideas. As far as religion goes, Buchanan first flirted with Protestantism, then became a Catholic priest, and then finally joined the reform cause for good. He was among those who helped build a case for deposing Mary Stuart from the Scottish throne and wrote a work on her crimes that appeared in 1571. About a decade later, he published A History of Scotland, which drew on rather fanciful ideas about earlier Scottish monarchs put forward in an earlier history by Hector Boucet. There was also useful and reliable information in Buchanan's history, for instance on Scottish geography and language. This project suggests a connection between Protestantism and Scottish nationalism, or at least national pride. Actually, the Bible was not translated into Scots in this period, or indeed until the 20th century, so the Protestants' focus on spreading literacy in order to read the Bible actually may have helped anglicize the country. But a contemporary witness speaks of how the Bible was studied and discussed in Scots in almost every private house. So again, it seems fair to speak of a separate and distinctive Scottish Reformation, not just a smaller version of the English Reformation being replayed up north. Buchanan's History of Scotland claims that the monarchy in this nation was always elective. We read there, The authority of Scottish kings derived from the law. The kingdom was not accustomed to be ruled by the whims of one person, but according to the written law and the consent of the nobility. Any kings who attempted to overthrow this practice had paid dearly for their rashness. So, much like Francois Hautman in France, Buchanan wove constitutionalist convictions into his work as a historian. But it was in another work that Buchanan argued most directly for constitutionalism, and unflinchingly followed that premise to state openly the conclusions Knox only hinted at. Buchanan's Dialogue on the Law of Kingship among the Scots was written in the late 1560s, in defense of the deposition of Mary Stuart, but then published only in 1579. In 1584, it was banned in Scotland, for reasons that will be pretty obvious as we go on. Rather surprisingly, given that it was written to justify toppling a monarch, Buchanan's Dialogue is dedicated to James VI, King of Scotland. Buchanan, by this time a famous humanist, was a tutor to James. One contemporary said that in this, James was more fortunate than Alexander the Great, whose teacher was merely Aristotle. And the reader has to stick with the text for quite some time before reaching material that might cause a king or queen to shift uncomfortably on the throne. The text is built around a fundamental contrast between the king and his opposite, the tyrant. This leads Buchanan to devote a long section to the nature and virtues of true kings before he comes to the more contentious issue of tyranny and how it may be opposed. His treatment of kingship fits squarely into the tradition of mirrors for princes, in which scholars gave advice to rulers on how best to carry out their office. We get such predictable points as the metaphor of the king as the head of the body politic, the urgent need for kings to acquire virtue, and the pivotal role of education in that process, the kind of education, of course, that someone like James could get from someone like Buchanan. Having said that, even in this section, Buchanan stresses the importance of binding the king to abide by the law. The monarch is not the ultimate lawmaking authority, as often claimed in medieval political tracts. Rather, the king is appointed by the people, who, for the sake of establishing a commonwealth under a single leader, choose some virtuous man to lead them. Buchanan stresses the freedom of the people in this process. They can bestow authority on whomever they wish, and he stresses their continued authority over the laws and the king. The people cede authority only for the sake of their own interests, so by definition, there can be no legitimate political arrangement that does not serve those interests. For example, Buchanan thinks the people may consent to hereditary monarchy, since this helps to ensure stability, which is good for them. But he adds that the unpredictable qualities of those who inherit the throne would mean that there's even more reason to shackle the king with the instrument of law. As for kingly absolute power over the law, as we saw being defended by Jean Baudin, Buchanan dismisses this out of hand. To give a king license to change or defy the laws would be tantamount to eliminating law altogether, and the people would surely never grant such a power, since it could be used to oppress them. It is, of course, precisely such oppression that marks rulers as tyrants, who are enemies of God and man, and have no bond of civility or common humanity with the rest of the people. Buchanan continues, even while talking about the tyrant, to stress that what ought to happen is that the tyrant is brought to heel by the law. With an illegal framework, a ruler can be put on trial, and they should submit to this treatment, a prescient description of what would happen in a few generations when Charles I would be tried and executed as an outcome of the English Civil War. But Buchanan goes further still, by asking what should happen if a tyrant is unwilling to answer for his crimes. There's only one remedy, violence, which may be rightfully pursued by any individual, not just by the lower magistrates as more cautiously proposed in Huguenot treatises of the period. So now we have a philosophical rationale for the conclusion also reached by John Knox. Because sovereignty has a popular constitutional basis, the people have the right to depose an unjust monarch, even to kill them if necessary. Any member of the people can carry out that task if the circumstances demand. Buchanan's interlocutor in the dialogue makes a couple of obvious objections to this breathtaking declaration, which are then duly answered. Haven't the people taken an oath of obedience to the ruler? Yes, but that oath is part of a two-way agreement, and if the ruler breaks the deal first by wielding power tyrannically, then this releases the people from their duty. So a more pressing concern, won't Buchanan's advice lead to political chaos? You can't have a situation where every individual in a country thinks they have the right to engage in regicide on the grounds that in their opinion, it is tyrannicide. To this Buchanan responds, I am explaining what legitimately may or should be done. I am not issuing a call to action. Which is a fair point. To say that a private citizen would be justified when taking matters into his own hands to defy a tyrant who cannot be brought to heel in any other way, whether by the law or by the magistracy, is not to throw the door open to just any political assassination. An action that is righteous in one context might be monstrous in another. Still, given the times in which it was written and the immediate context of Mary's deposition, it's equally clear that Buchanan was far from making an abstract point about moral permissibility. A curious thing about these daring defenses of tyrannicide is that they seem to have grown out of Christian fervor on the one hand, and an antiquarian fascination with non-Christian literature on the other hand. We needn't further belabor the religious context, though it would be worth adding that in a situation of tyranny, there was still a genuine ruler to whom the people could look, namely, the one in heaven. A colleague of both Knox and Buchanan named Christopher Goodman wrote a work entitled, How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyed. Here, he said that the people are allowed to act against injustice when the magistrates do not, because, God giveth the sword into the people's hand, and he himself is become immediately their head. When subjects bring their monarchs to account, they do so in the name of a higher divine justice. After all, the monarch is just as much a subject of God as anyone else, a point made by Buchanan's friend Andrew Melville, who observed that, There are two kinds and two kingdoms. There is Christ Jesus the king, and his kingdom the church, whose subject is King James, and of whose kingdom he is neither king nor lord, but member. This brings us to the part about antiquarian fascination. Melville was, like Buchanan, a highly skilled philologist who helped spread that other revolution of the 16th century to Scotland, the Humanist Revolution. Knox might have been taking his chief inspiration from the Old Testament, but Buchanan's key source was Cicero. He cites this Roman author explicitly in favor of the ideas that laws are introduced to keep kings under control, and also echoes Cicero in his treatment of tyranny. In particular, Cicero had already set out the key idea that a lawless tyrant has abandoned any relationship of fellowship with the people, thus subjecting himself to violent retribution. Then too, ancient political conceptions lie behind Buchanan's understanding of citizens not just as dutiful subjects, but as moral agents in their own right, who can display virtue, both by showing fealty to a good king, and showing defiance to a bad one. When we think of humanism in this period, our thoughts typically go to the discovery of old texts, and the painstaking editorial and translation efforts that were lavished upon them, and rightly so. But for a man like Buchanan, there was an intimate connection between that scholarly life of the mind, and the life lived well in political community. Soon, I'll be exploring that topic in greater depth. Having offered this survey of political and religious turmoil in both England and Scotland, we'll be looking at the apparently more sedate development of learned scholarship in both countries across the 15th and 16th centuries. That will take us into other related issues, like the changes in university life on the island in this period, and the connections between philology and science. But to make sure you have a firm grip on the historical setting of all these intellectual developments, I want to share with you my conversation with one of the foremost historians of the Reformation, Darmad McCulloch. He'll join us next time to talk about the tumult and rebellion in Britain, not just England, here on The History of Philosophy, without any doubts.