When Mary Tudor ascended to the English throne in 1553, after the death of Edward VI, she was driven by the desire to reverse all of the Protestant activity of her teenage step-brother, and bring the nation full throttle back to Rome. Within a few years she was...
In 1596 a delegation sought a private audience with King James VI. Despite their polite warning of the dangers of allowing avowed Romanist subversives back into Scotland, the king interrupted them, accusing the delegates of sedition. At this point Andrew Melville took...
One day as I was addressing a tour group outside St Giles’ in Edinburgh, a tall man joined at the back. After giving my usual information about the Scottish Reformation and John Knox, we moved on. The tall man sidled up to me as we left and said, ‘It’s a pity you did...
During the Reformation the watchword was Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone, as the authority for belief and practice. If the reformers were active in denouncing the pope of the Vatican, they were also vigorous in challenging ‘the pope of philosophy’, Aristotle. For the...
Most people today believe that our modern democratic system came from the Greeks in Athens. It is true that the Athenians pioneered an early form of democratic government centuries before Christ, but it was only semi-democratic: women and slaves were not allowed to...
As far back as the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 the bishops discussed the vision ‘of the hospital to be established in every city’. Right from the beginning Jesus sent out his disciples to heal people through prayer, and the apostle Paul also took the Greek medical...
Part 3: Welfare When the Jewish people were thrust into exile in Babylon, God spoke to them through the prophet Jeremiah, that they should ‘seek the welfare of the city’ where he had sent them. The church had sought to do this before the Reformation, particularly...
Part 1: Restoring Biblical Authority The watchword cry of the reformers throughout Europe was Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone as the authority for belief and practice, rather than the authority of the Vatican. This was the very heart of the Reformation in Scotland...
On 4th September 1561, an extraordinary discussion was going on at Holyrood House in Edinburgh. Some scholars have said that this was the beginning of Scotland’s democratic process when a man could speak his mind and not be killed for it. The conversation between John...
In November 1558 two unexpected friends from Scotland came knocking on John Knox’s door. They had travelled far to deliver a letter from the Earl of Glencairn, John Erskine of Dun, and Lord James Stewart, requesting that Knox should return home to preach and lead the...