former was settled in Geneva with his wife. There
is no fear either that he will be dull; even if the chaste, thrifty,
patient Marjorie should not altogether occupy his mind, he need not go
out of the house to seek more female sympathy; for behold! Mrs. Bowes is
duly domesticated with the young couple. Dr. M'Crie imagined that
Richard Bowes was now dead, and his widow, consequently, free to live
where she would; and where could she go more naturally than to the house
of a married daughter? This, however, is not the case. Richard Bowes did
not die till at least two years later. It is impossible to believe that
he approved of his wife's desertion, after so many years of marriage,
after twelve children had been born to them; and accordingly we find in
his will, dated 1558, no mention either of her or of Knox's wife.[102]
This is plain sailing. It is easy enough to understand the anger of
Bowes against this interloper, who had come into a quiet family, married
the daughter in spite of the father's opposition, alienated the wife
from the husband and the husband's religion, supported her in a long
course of resistance and rebellion, and, after years of intimacy,
already too close and tender for any jealous spirit to behold without
resentment, carried her away with him at last into a foreign land. But
it is not quite easy to understand how, except out of sheer weariness
and disgust, he was ever brought to agree to the arrangement. Nor is it
easy to square the Reformer's conduct with his public teaching. We have,
for instance, a letter addressed by him, Craig, and Spottiswood, to the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, anent "a wicked and rebellious
woman," one Anne Good, spouse to "John Barron, a minister of Christ
Jesus, his evangel," who, "after great rebellion shown unto him, and
divers admonitions given, as well by himself as by others in his name,
that she should in no wise depart from this realm, nor from his house
without his licence, hath not the less stubbornly and rebelliously
departed, separated herself from his society, left his house, and
withdrawn herself from this realm."[103] Perhaps some sort of licence
was extorted, as I have said, from Richard Bowes, weary with years of
domestic dissension; but setting that aside, the words employed with so
much righteous indignation by Knox, Craig, and Spottiswood, to describe
the conduct of that wicked and rebellious woman, Mrs. Barron, would
describe nearly as exactly the c