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On Robert Lloffat Gillon, 59 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh THESIS on JOHN DAVIDSON OF PRESTONPAUS (1549? - 1604) Robert Lloffat Gillon, 59 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh. CONTENTS. Page Introduction 1. Chapter I. The Period in which Davidson lived and worked. II. Early Life and Literary Efforts . 25 " III. Davidson at Liberton (1579 -1584) 53, IV. Activities of Davidson from 1584 to his settlement at Canongate in 1590 82, " V. Activities of Davidson from 1591 to his call to Prestonpans in 1595 113 VI. Davidson at Prestonpans (1596 - 1604} . 142 Tt VII. Davidson and the Revival of 1596. 160 " VIII. Davidson and the King's New Scheme for establishing Prelacy 182. Tt IX. Later Publications. (A) Poem on Two Worthy Christians 215. (B) Catechism . 232. X. Last Days. 253. XI. Character and Influence 265. Appendices . 283-301. Bibliography 302. *NO I INTRODUCTION. The object of this thesis is to describe arid evaluate the life and work of John Davidson of Prestonpans, a prominent leader of the early Reformed Church in Scotland. It is not intended to set forth a history of the times in which he lived or even to give anything like an exhaustive account of the Church's story in those eventful years, but only to relate the episodes and events in which he was concerned. After having investigated through a long period of study the available data from original sources, printed and manuscript, including public Records, and having seen the man amid his varied activities, I am convinced that no one perhaps is en­ titled to a more revered place in the national memory than Davidson. He deserves to be better known and it is surprising that before now, no effort has been made to give some adequate account of so eminent a man. Apart from a very brief sketch by Rogers in his "Three Scottish Reformers," a short article in the Dictionary of National Biography and some scattered references in IvlcCrie, there has been no attempt to give a detail­ ed narrative of his labours and influence. That he has failed to receive due recognition is possibly owing to the outstanding brilliance of one or two of his contemporaries. Although far behind Knox or Melville as an ecclesiastical statesman and pro­ bably / 2. probably inferior to Robert Bruce as a preacher, yet he was no less truly a Reformer than any of them. Here it is sought to rescue the man from comparative ob­ scurity by communicating full and authentic details of his history, and in doing so it will be possible to show how import­ ant a part he played in the great ecclesiastical controversies of his day, to describe the contents and consequences of his literary efforts in poetry and prose, and to exhibit his worth and greatness. CHAPTER I. THE PERIOD IN WHICH DAVIDSON LIVED AND WORKED CHAPTER I. The Period in which Davidson lived and worked. The sixteenth century was a period of expansion. It witnessed a new flowering of the human spirit, and great person­ alities, destined to influence the whole world, were constantly appearing on the scene. Predominant in its history, however, is the greatest religious upheaval of all times. For it was s then that Martin Luther nailed his thesis / to the door of ,/itten- berg Church and became the great guiding spirit of the Reforma­ tion movement. Somewhat later Calvin published his "Institutes" and gave to the Reformed Church a basis and a banner. It was a time of revolution, political and religious, - the birthday of light and freedom. The second half of this century is one of the most inter­ esting and epoch-making periods, as it is one of the stormiest, in the history of Europe. Everywhere men were sternly resist­ ing the menace to their liberty both civil and religious, and their sincerity gave life to a movement in which they were pre­ pared to struggle and suffer, and, if need be, die for their convictions. The upheaval had different results in different countries according to the circumstances in each. In the Netherlands, for example, the period marked a crisis in the long struggle of the Protestants with their Spanish oppressors. Against / 4. Against the absolute government of Phillip II. was set the resistance of William of Orange which resulted in securing the independence of the Dutch people and the triumph of Calvinism in the Church of Holland. Then the struggle of the Huguenots in France ran concurrently with less happy results, as the French monarchy was growing strong, and the Protestant tide rolled back in Germany owing to unhappy divisions between the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Elizabeth was on the throne of England though with dubious title and for a time there was much uncertainty as to the religious future of that country. During her reign, however, England became a great Protestant power, standing with Holland against Spain and the Pope, al­ though Tudor despotism was growing. In England the Reformation was thus imposed by a strong Crown whereas in Scotland it was quite different; there it was brought about by "ministers of religion, not ministers of state." By this time Scotland had sprung into significance in the religious life of Europe. Hitherto her contribution to that life had been of little or no account but now, through the tangle of dynastic successions, most of the countries were looking on at her struggle and were concerned in her success or failure. This was the period of what is known as the Counter-Refor­ mation. Besides the drive for absolute monarchy, the Reformers had to contend also with the el forts of the Church of Rome to recover / 5. recover the ground lost to the Reformation and her challenge to the Reformed Faith wherever it supplanted mediaeval dogmas and practices. Scotland had to face an intensive counter-propaganda. The greatest menace of the movement was Spain where Philip II. had political ambitions to annex Britain to his dominion and consequently bring her under that universal Romanism and absol­ utism which he so much desired. Many were the plots and in­ trigues toward that end and, although these constituted a real menace to the Reformed Faith through many years, yet the Reform­ ers eventually triumphed. AS a well-known Romanist writer has admitted, "Scottish Catholicism seemed hopelessly destroyed and in effect never rose again." As time passed the Reformers came to regard their Protest­ antism less as a revolutionary achievement than as a part of the nature of things. What mattered supremely to them was the sanction of the Spirit. In later years entrance to the ministry may have become more formal but at this stage faith and a sense of vocation meant everything. The faith had spread until, in the lowlands at least it had gripped the minds of most thinking people. The earlier years up to the time of Morton had been years of distracting civil war in which Q,ueen Mary and her foreign advisers had played a prominent part, and yet years, despite all, in which the Reformation had made wonderful pro­ gress. / 1. Pollen, Counter-Reformation p. 17. 6. progress. The ministers by their sturdy preaching were train­ ing their people to think sturdily and independently. The parish schools were growing in numbers and were spreading educa­ tion and intelligence. The people came to know their rights and in consequence felt their strength. The middle classes were rising in importance. Public opinion had been born and had grown into power. The Church of Scotland, however, instead of being given freedom to do the work for which God had called her into being, was constantly on the defensive. She had to fight on two fronts, political and religious, resisting efforts to make her a mere department of the State, and attempts to rob her of the Presbyterian liberty which she had chosen to enjoy, and force upon her the Episcopal system. This last persisted through almost the whole period and at the beginning it seemed doubtful what exactly the new Church was to be like. It has sometimes been maintained that at the be­ ginning the Reformed Church was really Episcopal but it is not difficult to see that that is an entirely mistaken view. Doubt­ less it is due partly to a misunderstanding of the office of superintendent as instituted by the first Reformers and partly to an erroneous construction put upon a concordat settled at Leith in 1572. We must look at each of these in turn. The people had gradually thrown off the Papal yoke in the first half of the century and the cause of Rome was lost when in / 7. in 1560 the Scottish Parliament adopted almost with unanimity, a Confession framed on substantially the same lines as the later Westminster one and drawn up by six notable men, to abolish the Papal jurisdiction, to forbid the celebration of the Mass and to rescind all the laws formerly made in favour of the Roman Catholic religion and against the Reformation. Much, however, had still to be done for extending and consolidating the work of the Reformed Church. A new ecclesiastical system had to be organized, and for that end a Book of Discipline was prepared at the request of the Privy Council by a committee of ministers, Knox being the controlling mind. Row declares that its prin­ ciples were not taken from the teaching of any Church but from the tford of God alone. itfhile that may be, in the main, ad­ mitted, nevertheless it may be inferred that Knox must have brought to it some influences from his intercourse with the * greatest English and Continental thinkers of his time.
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