Page images
PDF
EPUB

unequal as Mysore and its neighbours. "But everything now is done by moderation and conciliation; at this rate, we shall be all Quakers in twenty years more. I am still of the old doctrine, that the best method of making all princes keep the peace, not excepting even Tippoo, is to make it dangerous for them to disturb your quiet." During all this dangerous and harassing period, the young officer's letters home continued to be of the most minute, playful, and affectionate character. His sister had advised him to get married, but he judged on the whole that such a step would add but little to his happiness. "Would it not be a very comfortable matter, about the end of the century, to read in the 'Glasgow Courier'— 'Yesterday was married Lieutenant Munro, the eldest subaltern in the East India Company's service, to Miss-, one of the eldest maiden ladies of this place. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Mr, in the Ramshorn, and immediately after the happy couple,' &c. I have no relish, I suspect, for what is called domestic felicity. I could not endure to go about gossiping, and paying formal visits with my wife, and then coming home and consulting about a change in our furniture, or physicking some of the squalling children that Providence might bless us with. You will say 'You will be a more respectable character at home, settled with your family, than wandering about India like a vagabond.' But I cannot perceive that the one situation is more creditable than the other. In a place like Glasgow I should be tired in all companies with disputes about the petty politics of the town, of which I know nothing; and anecdotes of families, in whose concerns I am in no way interested. Among the merchants I should be entertained with debates on sugar and tobacco, except when some one touched upon cotton, which would give me an opportunity of opening my mouth, and letting the company know that I had been in India, and seen one species growing on bushes, and another on trees taller than any that adorn the Green. After thus expending all my knowledge, I should not again venture to interrupt the conversation." After the fall of Seringapatam and the final overthrow of Tippoo's power (1799), Captain Munro was raised to the rank of Major and made Governor, as mentioned above, of

[ocr errors]

the disturbed district of Canara, ceded by the Nizam in commutation of subsidy. He was in frequent communication with Colonel Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington), who forwarded to Munro a long account of one of his earliest successes in India-the defeat and death of the daring usurper known as Dhoondee, "King of the Two Worlds," near Yepulpurry, in the Kistra country. In 1808, after an absence of 28 years, Major Munro obtained leave of absence on a visit to his native country, and renewed acquaintance with his early haunts at and around North Woodside. A notice of his reference to them in a letter to his sister has already been given. He was at this time also examined by a Commitee of the House of Commons regarding a renewal of the Company's Charter, and the judicial as well as the commercial features of recent Indian legislation. After a sojourn here of about six years, Munro, then enjoying the full rank of Colonel, re-embarked for India, having shortly before, in oblivion of his early diatribes against matrimony, been united to Jane, daughter of Richard Campbell of Craigie, Ayrshire, a lady whose society formed the comfort and delight of his after life. Colonel Munro distinguished himself in the Pindaree and Maharatta wars (1817-19), and led Mr. Manning to express in the House of Commons his warm appreciation of the plans carried out by him for the subjugation of these troublesome neighbours. Europe, it was said, never had produced a more accomplished statesman, nor India, so fertile in heroes, a more skilful soldier--words, Munro wrote in a private letter, making it "worth while to be a Governor to be spoken of in such a manner by such a man." At the conclusion of the Maharatta War, Colonel Munro resigned his military command, and, accompanied by his family, again visited England, where he arrived in 1819. In November of that year he was invested with the insignia as a Knight Companion of the Bath. In 1820, with the rank of Major-General, he returned to Madras as Governor of that Presidency in succession to the Hon. Hugh Elliot; and, as a farther reward for his distinguished services, he was created a Baronet of the United Kingdom, June 30, 1825. The Burmese war prevented him from retiring from India so early as he wished; and, sacrificing

his personal wishes and convenience to the public service, he retained office till its conclusion. At length, in 1827, Sir Thomas made every arrangement for returning to enjoy well-earned honours in his native land, but before his departure proceeded to pay a farewell visit to the people of the ceded districts, for whom he had continued to feel a strong interest, but was attacked with cholera on 5th July, then prevalent in the country, and expired next day at Putteecondah, near Gooty, where he lies buried. Sir Thomas was then in his sixty-sixth year. He left a family of two sons (1) Thomas of Lindertis, Forfar county, second and present Baronet, some time a Captain in the 10th Hussars, born 1819; and (2) Campbell Munro of Fairfield, Lyme Regis, late a Captain of the Grenadier Guards, married, with issue sons and daughters. Lady Thomas Munro survived her illustrious husband twenty-three years, dying in September, 1850. Concerning the property of North Woodside, so intimately, and-as has been shown-so affectionately, associated with the memory of Sir Thomas Munro, a few sentences will be given in another chapter.

JOHN KNOX AND THE ABBOT OF
CROSSRAGUEL AT MAYBOLE.

CONNECTED, it is thought not very remotely, with the Renfrewshire Knoxes of Ranfurly and Craigends, it is only in a secondary degree the aim of this paper to give local significance to that remarkable passage in the life of the Reformer generally described as the "Crossraguel Disputation"-the only debate of the kind known to have taken place in Scotland during the great strife between the Churches. The aim of the writer is twofold, and on the whole wider in purpose than anything merely local. He desires, in the first place, to show how such a discussion became possible through the condition of the Church in Scotland

immediately prior to the Reformation; second, to give some account of the discussion itself, known only in a general way to other than special students in Church history. That the Roman Church in Scotland was in the early part of the sixteenth century corrupt and inefficient beyond all precedent at home, indolent and ignorant beyond anything heard of in either Italy or Spain, requires little argument beyond the plain statement of fact that, when her fall came, she fell almost without a struggle, and with hardly the honour of a dissolution. Had the old Church not reformed herself in a degree second only to what was pressed for by the Reformers, she would have died and made no sign-crumbled away to forgetfulness under the pressure of her own incompetence. But she did reform herself, and won through poverty and persecution a spirit of toleration and a wealth of learning to which for generations earlier she had either been a stranger or a remorseless foe. This made the Romanism of later years something altogether different from the Romanism by which it was preceded-different in character as well as different in influence—and the good change has been carried on with ever-increasing force till our own day. A like "revival," but on a more gigantic scale, took place in the south of Europe after the preaching of Luther. Almost at the moment when "Friar" Martin was challenging Romish doctrine at Worms (1521) under protection afforded by the Elector, there passed out from the Theatine Convent of Venice that Ignatius Loyola, in early life a Spanish hidalgo, but now poor, lame, and obscure, yet destined to found an Order famous in the histories of Churches as well as of States, for infusing new zeal into every department of knowledge-the pulpit, the press, the confessional, and the academies. As scholars, physicians, merchants, and missionaries, the Jesuits came to be found everywhere and under every disguise, uniting philosophy, literature, and science to the early orthodox teaching in religious belief and personal subjection to the will of the Church. Loyola was born 1491, eight years after Luther, and died 1556, when Knox was preaching the reformed doctrines in Geneva.

Long before the year last mentioned the fair ecclesiastical system built up by King David was tottering to ruin. Nor can it be said that the foundation of

[ocr errors]

even such seats of learning as St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen could either save it or vindicate its existence. The later Provincial Councils of the Church appeared heartless in procedure or divided in council-sometimes both-and thus sounds of only an uncertain kind came to be given out for the guidance of the faithful. With one half of the land in possession of the Church, prelates had naturally become arrogant and indolent, and lay nobles discontented, while the rapidly rising middle class, strongly favouring for the most part the "new learning from Germany, were severely hostile. This unhappy state of matters was but ill compensated for by swarms of wandering friars, who usurped the place of parochial priests without discharging any duty to the common people. In the higher ranks of the clergy immorality had become so common that it ceased to be spoken of as a vice, and the illegitimate children of archbishops, as well as of the lesser dignitaries, ranked so high among the nobility as to make even Royal alliances, of which descendants boasted. It is not quite correct to say that this corrupt system was overthrown by the influence of a rapacious nobility. In the unjust division made of Church property at the Reformation most of them no doubt exhibited all the greed of sacrilegious zealots, eager to share the spoil; but the reforming lords were few in number-not more than half-a-dozen-the most notable being Argyll, Glencairn, Cassillis, and Rothes. The Hamiltons, Gordons, Douglases, and Athols-the Regent himself till the eve of the Reformation-all remained on the side of the old Church, or were identified in only a remote degree with the establishment of Presbytery. In Scotland the Reformation was in the main effected through a few resolute scholars, backed by the lesser barons, gentry, burghers, and the great body of the common people a degree or two above mere serfdom, whose rising power the Church so blindly failed to recognise. It was to such classes the keen satires of Lindsay and Dunbar specially appealed. Failing to assimilate itself to the new complicated conditions of life, and remorselessly as she put forth her power early in the struggle, Romanism fell in Scotland when the weapons of carnal warfare were withdrawn from its grasp. Blind enough herself, but full of suspicion towards the people, she sought in a hesitating way at first to

« PreviousContinue »