FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 52: George Dunbar, Earl of March, must be carefully distinguished from the child, Edmund Mortimer, the English Earl of March, grandson of Lionel of Clarence, and direct heir to the English throne after Richard II.]

[Footnote 53: In the summer of 1405 the English ravaged Arran, and the Scots sacked Berwick. There were also some naval skirmishes later in the year.]

[Footnote 54: Cf. App. B.]

[Footnote 55: The Clan Donald, vol. i, p. 154. The Mackenzies were also against the Celtic hero.]

[Footnote 56: There is great doubt as to whether these events belong to the year 1448 or 1449. Mr. Lang, with considerable probability, assigns them to 1449.]

[Footnote 57: James's army contained a considerable proportion of Islesmen, who, as at Northallerton and at Bannockburn, fought against "the Saxons farther off".]

[Footnote 58: He had married, in 1469, Margaret, daughter of Christian I of Denmark. The islands of Orkney and Shetland were assigned as payment for her dowry, and so passed, a few years later, under the Scottish Crown.]

[Footnote 59: Cf. The Days of James IV, by Mr. G. Gregory Smith, in the series of "Scottish History from Contemporary Writers".]



CHAPTER VII

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE

1500-1542

When, in 1501, negotiations were in progress for the marriage of James IV to Margaret Tudor, Polydore Virgil tells us that the English Council raised the objection that Margaret or her descendants might succeed to the throne of England. "If it should fall out so," said Henry, "the realm of England will suffer no evil, since it will not be the addition of England to Scotland, but of Scotland to England." It is obvious that the English had every reason for desiring to stop the irritating opposition of the Scots, which, while it never seriously endangered the realm, was frequently a cause of annoyance, and which hampered the efforts of English diplomacy. The Scots, on the other hand, were separated from the English by the memories of two centuries of constant warfare, and they were bound by many ties to the enemies of England. The only King of Scots, since Alexander III, who had been on friendly terms with England, was James III, and his enemies had used the fact as a weapon against him. His successor had already twice refused the proffered English alliance, and when he at length accepted Henry's persistent proposal and the thrice-offered English princess, it was only after much hesitation and upon certain strict conditions. No Englishmen were to enter Scotland "without letters commendatory of their own sovereign lord or safe conduct of his Warden of the Marches". The marriage, though not especially flattering to the dignity of a monarch who had been encouraged to hope for the hand of a daughter of Spain, was notable as involving a recognition (the first since the Treaty of Northampton) of the King of Scots as an independent sovereign. On the 8th of August, 1503, Margaret was married to James in the chapel of Holyrood. She was received with great rejoicing; the poet Dunbar, whom a recent visit to London had convinced that the English capital, with its "beryl streamis pleasant ... where many a swan doth swim with wingis fair", was "the flower of cities all", wrote the well-known poem on the Union of the Thistle and the Rose to welcome this second English Margaret to Scotland. But the time was not yet ripe for any real union of the Thistle and the Rose. Peace continued till the death of Henry VII; but during these years England was never at war with France. James threatened war with England in April, 1505, in the interests of the Duke of Gueldres; in 1508, he declined to give an understanding that he would not renew the old league with France, and he refused to be drawn, by Pope Julius II, into an attitude of opposition to that country. Even before the death of Henry VII, in 1509, there were troubles with regard to the borders, and it was evident that the "perpetual peace" arranged by the treaty of marriage was a sheer impossibility.

Henry VIII succeeded to the throne of England in April, 1509; three years and five months later, in September, 1513, was fought the battle of Flodden. The causes may soon be told. They fall under three heads. James and Henry were alike headstrong and impetuous, and they were alike ambitious of playing a considerable part in European affairs. They were, moreover, brothers-in-law, and, in the division of the inheritance of Henry VII, the King of England had, with characteristic Tudor avarice, retained jewels and other property which had been left to his sister, the Queen of Scots. In the second place, the ancient jealousies were again roused by disputes on the borders, and by naval warfare. James had long been engaged in "the building of a fleet for the protection of our shores"; in 1511, he had built the Great Michael, for which, it was said, the woods of Fife had been wasted. The Scottish fleet was frequently involved in quarrels with Henry's ships, and in August, 1511, the English took two Scottish vessels, which they alleged to be pirates, and Andrew Barton was slain in the fighting. James demanded redress, but, says Hall, "the King of England wrote with brotherly salutations to the King of Scots of the robberies and evil doings of Andrew Barton; and that it became not one prince to lay a breach of a league to another prince, in doing justice upon a pirate or thief".[60] These personal irritations and petty troubles might have proved harmless, and, had no European complications intervened, it is possible that there might have "from Fate's dark book a leaf been torn", the leaf which tells of Flodden Field. But, in 1511, Julius II formed the Holy League against France, and by the end of the year it included Spain, Austria, and England. The formation of a united Europe against the ancient ally of Scotland thoroughly alarmed James. It was true that, at the moment, England was willing to be friendly; but, should France be subdued, whither might Scotland look for help in the future? James used every effort to prevent the League from carrying out their project; he attempted to form a coalition of Denmark, France, and Scotland, and wrote to his uncle, the King of Denmark, urging him to declare for the Most Christian King. He wrote Henry offering to "pardon all the damage done to us and our kingdom, the capture of our merchant ships, the slaughter and imprisonment of our subjects", if only Henry would "maintain the universal concord of the Church". He made a vigorous appeal to the pope himself, beseeching him to keep the peace. His efforts were, of course, futile, nor was France in such extreme danger as he supposed. But the chance of proving himself the saviour of France appealed strongly to him, and, when there came to him, in the spring of 1513, a message from the Queen of France, couched in the bygone language of chivalry, and urging him, as her knight, to break a lance for her on English soil, James could no longer hesitate. Henry persevered in his warlike measures against France, and James, after one more despairing effort to act as mediator, began his preparations for an invasion of England. His wisest counsellors were strongly opposed to war: most prominent among them was his father's faithful servant, Bishop Elphinstone, the founder of the University of Aberdeen. Elphinstone was a saint, a scholar, and a statesman, and he was probably the only man in Scotland who could influence the king. During the discussion of the French alliance he urged delay, but was overborne by the impetuous patriotism of the younger nobles, whose voice was, as ever, for war. So, war it was. Bitter letters of defiance passed between the two kings, and, in August, 1513, James led his army over the border. Lowlanders, Highlanders, and Islesmen had alike rallied round his banner; once again we find the "true Scots leagued", not "with", but against "the Saxons farther off". The Scots took Norham Castle and some neighbouring strongholds to prevent their affording protection to the English, and then occupied a strong position on Flodden Edge. The Earl of Surrey, who was in command of the English army, challenged James to a pitched battle, and James accepted the challenge. Meanwhile, Surrey completely outmanoeuvred the King of Scots, crossing the Till and marching northwards so as to get between James and Scotland. James seems to have been quite unsuspicious of this movement, which was protected by some rising ground. The Scots had failed to learn the necessity of scouting. Surrey, when he had gained his end, recrossed the Till, and made a march directly southwards upon Flodden. James cannot have been afraid of losing his communications, for his force was well-provisioned, and Surrey was bound by the terms of his own challenge to fight immediately; but he decided to abandon Flodden Edge for the lower ridge of Brankston, and in a cloud of smoke, which not only rendered the Scots invisible to the enemy but likewise concealed the enemy from the Scots, King James and his army rushed upon the English. The battle began with artillery, the superiority of the English in which forced the Scots to come to close quarters. Then

"Far on the left, unseen the while, Stanley broke Lennox and Argyle";

on the English right, Sir Edmund Howard fell back before the charge of the Scottish borderers, who, forthwith, devoted themselves to plunder. The centre was fiercely contested; the Lord High Admiral of England, a son of Surrey, defeated Crawford and Montrose, and attacked the division with which James himself was encountering Surrey, while the archers on the left of the English centre rendered unavailing the brave charge of the Highlanders. With artillery and with archery the English had drawn the Scottish attack, and the battle of Flodden was but a variation on every fight since Dupplin Moor. Finally the Scots formed themselves into a ring of spearmen, and the English, with their arrows and their long bills, kept up a continuous attack. The story has been told once for all:

"But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Though charging knights as whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where their comrade stood The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight; Link'd in the serried phalanx tight Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well; Till utter darkness closed her wing O'er their thin host and wounded king."

No defeat had ever less in it of disgrace. The victory of the English was hard won, and the valour displayed on the stricken field saved Scotland from any further results of Surrey's triumph. The results were severe enough. Although the Scots could boast of their dead king that

"No one failed him; he is keeping Royal state and semblance still",

they had lost the best and bravest of the land. Scarcely a family record but tells of an ancestor slain at Flodden, and many laments have come down to us for "The Flowers of the Forest". But, although the disaster was overwhelming, and the loss seemed irreparable at the time, though the defeat at Flodden was not less decisive than the victory of Bannockburn, the name of Flodden, notwithstanding all this, recalls but an incident in our annals. Bannockburn is an incident in English history, but it is the great turning-point in the story of Scotland; the historian cannot regard Flodden as more than incidental to both.

When James V succeeded his father he was but one year old, and his guardian, in accordance with the desire of James IV, was the queen-mother, Margaret Tudor. Her subsequent career is one long tale of intrigue, too elaborate and intricate to require a full recapitulation here. The war lingered on, in a desultory fashion, till May, 1515. Lord Dacre ravaged the borders, and the Scots replied by a raid into England; but there is nothing of any interest to relate. From the accession of Francis I, in 1515, the condition of politics in Scotland, as of all Europe, was influenced and at times dominated by his rivalry with the Emperor. The unwonted desire of France for peace and alliance with England placed the Scots in a position of considerable difficulty, and the difficulty was accentuated by the more than usually distracted state of the country during the minority of the king. In August, 1514, Margaret (who had in the preceding April given birth to a posthumous child to James IV) was married to the Earl of Angus, the grandson of Archibald Bell-the-Cat. It was felt that the sister of Henry VIII and the wife of a Douglas could scarcely prove a suitable guardian of a Stewart throne, and the Scots invited the Duke of Albany, son of the traitor duke, and cousin of the late king, to come over to Scotland and undertake the government. Despite some efforts of Henry to prevent him, Albany came to Scotland in May, 1515. He was a French nobleman, possessed large estates in France, and, although he was, ere long, heir-presumptive to the Scottish throne, could speak no language but French. When he arrived in Scotland he found against him the party of Margaret and Angus, while the Earls of Lennox and Arran were his ardent supporters. The latter nobleman was the grandson of James II, being the son of the Princess Mary and James, Lord Hamilton, and he was, therefore, the next heir to the throne after Albany. The interests of both might be endangered should Margaret and Angus become all-powerful, and so we find them acting together for some time. Albany was immediately made regent of Scotland, and the care of the young king and his brother, the baby Duke of Ross, was entrusted to him. It required force to obtain possession of the children, but the regent succeeded in doing so in August, in time to defeat a scheme of Henry VIII for kidnapping the princes. The queen-mother fled to England, where, in October, she bore to Angus a daughter, Margaret, afterwards Countess of Lennox and mother of the unfortunate Darnley. She then proceeded to pay a visit to Henry VIII. Meanwhile, in Scotland, Albany was finding many difficulties. Arran was now in rebellion against him, and now in alliance with him. In May, 1516, Angus himself, leaving his imperious wife in England, made terms with the regent. The infant Duke of Ross had died in the end of 1515, and only the boy king stood between Albany and the throne. In 1517 Albany returned to France to cement more closely the old alliance, and remained in France till 1521. Margaret immediately returned to Scotland, and, had she behaved with any degree of wisdom, might have greatly strengthened her brother's tortuous Scottish policy. But a Tudor and a Douglas could not be other than an ill-matched pair, and Margaret was already tired of her husband. In 1518, she informed her brother that she desired to divorce Angus. Henry, whose own matrimonial adventures were still in the future, and to whom Angus was useful, scolded his sister in true Tudor fashion, and told her that, alike by the laws of God and man, she must stick to her husband. A formal reconciliation took place, but, henceforth, Margaret's one desire was to be free, and to this she subordinated all other considerations. In 1519, she came to an understanding with Arran, her husband's bitterest foe, and in the summer of the same year we find Henry marvelling much at the "tender letters" she sent to France, in which she urged the return of Albany, whose absence from Scotland had been the main aim of English policy since Flodden. While Francis I and Henry VIII were on good terms, Albany was detained in France; but when, in 1521, their relations became strained, he returned to Scotland to find Angus in power. Scotland rallied round him, and in February, 1522, Angus, in turn, retired to France, while Henry VIII devoted his energies to the prevention of a marriage between his amorous sister and the handsome Albany. The regent led an army to the borders and began to organize an invasion, for which the north of England was ill-prepared, but was outwitted by Henry's agent, Lord Dacre, who arranged an armistice which he had no authority to conclude. Albany then returned to France, and the Scots, refusing Henry's offer of peace, had to suffer an invasion by Surrey, which was encouraged by Margaret, who was again on the English side. When Albany came back in September, 1523, he easily won over the fickle queen; but, after an unsuccessful attack on Wark, he left Scotland for ever in May, 1524.

No sooner had Albany disappeared from the scene than Margaret entered into a new intrigue with the Earl of Arran; it had one important result, the "erection" of the young king, who now, at the age of twelve years, became the nominal ruler of the country. This manoeuvre was executed with the connivance of the English, to whose side Margaret had again deserted. For some time Arran and Margaret remained at the head of affairs, but the return of the Earl of Angus at once drove the queen-mother into the opposite camp, and she became reconciled to the leader of the French party, Archbishop Beaton, whom she had imprisoned shortly before. Angus, who had been the paid servant of England throughout all changes since 1517, assumed the government. The alliance between England and France, which followed the disaster to Francis I at Pavia, seriously weakened the supporters of French influence in Scotland, and Angus made a three years' truce in 1525. In the next year, Arran transferred his support to Angus, who held the reins of power till the summer of 1528. The chief event of this period is the divorce of Queen Margaret, who immediately married a youth, Henry Stewart, son of Lord Evandale, and afterwards known as Lord Methven.

The fall of Angus was brought about by the conduct of the young king himself, who, tired of the tyranny in which he was held, and escaping from Edinburgh to Stirling, regained his freedom. Angus had to flee to England, and James passed under the influence of his mother and her youthful husband. In 1528 he made a truce with England for five years. During these years James showed leanings towards the French alliance, while Henry was engaged in treasonable intrigues with Scottish nobles, and in fomenting border troubles. But the truce was renewed in 1533, and a more definite peace was made in 1534. Henry now attempted to enlist James as an ally against Rome, and, by the irony of fate, offered him, as a temptation to become a Protestant, the hand of the Princess Mary. James refused to break with the pope, and negotiations for a meeting between the two kings fell through—fortunately, for Henry was prepared to kidnap James. The King of Scots arranged in 1536 to marry a daughter of the Duc de Vendome, but, on seeing her, behaved much as Henry VIII was to do in the case of Anne of Cleves, except that he definitely declined to wed her at all. Being in France, he made a proposal for the Princess Madeleine, daughter of Francis I, and was married to her in January, 1536-37. This step naturally annoyed Henry, who refused James a passport through England, on the ground that "no Scottish king had ever entered England peacefully except as a vassal". So James returned by sea with his dying bride, and reached Scotland to find numerous troubles in store for him—among them, intrigues brought about by his mother's wish to obtain a divorce from her third husband. Madeleine died in July, 1537, and the relations between James and Henry VIII (now a widower by the death of Jane Seymour) were further strained by the fact that nephew and uncle alike desired the hand of Mary of Guise, widow of the Duke de Longueville, who preferred her younger suitor and married him in the following summer. These two French marriages are important as marking James's final rejection of the path marked out for him by Henry VIII. The husband of a Guise could scarcely remain on good terms with the heretic King of England; but Henry, with true Tudor persistency, did not give up hope of bending his nephew to his will, and spent the next few years in negotiating with James, in trying to alienate him from Cardinal Beaton—the great supporter of the French alliance,—and in urging the King of Scots to enrich himself at the expense of the Church. As late as 1541, a meeting was arranged at York, whither Henry went, to find that his nephew did not appear. James was probably wise, for we know that Henry would not have scrupled to seize his person. Border troubles arose; Henry reasserted the old claim of homage and devised a scheme to kidnap James. Finally he sent the Earl of Angus, who had been living in England, with a force to invade Scotland, and this without the formality of declaring war. Henry, in fact, was acting as a suzerain punishing a vassal who had refused to appear when he was summoned. The English ravaged the county of Roxburgh in 1542; the Scottish nobles declined to cross the border in what they asserted to be a French quarrel; and in November a small Scottish force was enclosed between Solway Moss and the river Esk, and completely routed. The ignominy of this fresh disaster broke the king's heart. On December 8th was born the hapless princess who is known as the Queen of Scots. The news brought small comfort to the dying king, who was still mourning the sons he had lost in the preceding year. "'Adieu,' he said, 'farewell; it came with a lass and it will pass with a lass.' And so", adds Pitscottie, "he recommended himself to the mercy of Almighty God, and spake little from that time forth, but turned his back unto his lords, and his face unto the wall." Six days later the end came. With "a little smile of laughter", and kissing his hand to the nobles who stood round, he breathed his last.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: Gregory Smith, p. 123.]



CHAPTER VIII

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

1542-1568

Mary of Guise, thus for the second time a widow, was left the sole protector of the infant queen, against the intrigues of Henry VIII and the treachery of the House of Douglas. Fortunately, Margaret Tudor had predeceased her son in October, 1541, and her death left one disturbing element the less. But the situation which the dowager had to face was much more perplexed than that which confronted any other of the long line of Scottish queen-mothers. During the reign of James V the Reformed doctrines had been rapidly spreading in Scotland. It was at one time possible that James V might follow the example of Henry VIII, and a considerable section of his subjects would have welcomed the change. His death added recruits to the Protestant cause; the greater nobles now strongly desired an alienation of Church property, because they could take advantage of the royal minority to seize it for their private advantage. The English party no longer consisted only of outlawed traitors; there were many honest Scots who felt that alliance with a Protestant kingdom must replace the old French league. The main interest had come to be not nationality but religion, and Scotland must decide between France and England. The sixteenth century had already, in spite of all that had passed, made it evident that Scots and English could live on terms of peace, and the reign of James IV, which had witnessed the first attempt at a perpetual alliance, was remembered as the golden age of Scottish prosperity. The queen-mother was, by birth and by education, committed to the maintenance of the old religion and of the French alliance. The task was indeed difficult. Ultimate success was rendered impossible by causes over which she possessed no kind of control; a temporary victory was rendered practicable only by the folly of Henry VIII.

The history of Henry's intrigues becomes at this point very intricate, and we must be content with a mere outline. On James's death he conceived the plan of seizing the Scottish throne, and for this purpose he entered into an agreement with the Scottish prisoners taken at Solway Moss. They professed themselves willing to seize Mary and Cardinal Beaton, and so to deprive the national party of their leaders. Then came the news that the Earl of Arran had been appointed regent in December, 1542. He was heir-presumptive to the throne, and so was unlikely to acquiesce in Henry's scheme, and the traitors were instructed to deal with him as they thought necessary. But the traitors, who had, of course, been joined by the Earl of Angus, proved false to Henry and were falsely true to Scotland. They imprisoned Beaton, but did not deliver him up to the English, and they came to terms with Arran; nor did they carry out Henry's projects further than to permit the circulation of "haly write, baith the new testament and the auld, in the vulgar toung", and to enter into negotiations for the marriage of the young queen to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VI. The conditions they made were widely different from those suggested by Henry. Full precautions were taken to secure the independence of the country both during Mary's minority and for the future. Strongholds were to be retained in Scottish hands; should there be no child of the marriage, the union would determine, and the proper heir would succeed to the Scottish throne. In any case, no union of the kingdoms was contemplated, although the crowns might be united. These terms were slightly modified in the following May. Beaton, who had escaped to St. Andrews, did not oppose the treaty, but made preparations for war. The treaty was agreed to, and the war of intrigues went on, Henry offering almost any terms for the possession of the little queen. Finally, in September, Arran joined the cardinal, became reconciled to the Church, and left Henry to intrigue with the Earl of Lennox, the next heir after Arran.

Hostilities broke out in the end of 1543, when the Scots, enraged by Henry's having attacked some Scottish shipping, declared the treaty annulled. In the spring of 1544, the Earl of Hertford conducted his expedition into Scotland. The "English Wooing", as it was called, took the form of a massacre without regard to age or sex. The instructions given to Hertford by Henry and his council read like quotations from the book of Joshua. He was to leave none remaining, where he encountered any resistance. Hertford, abandoning the usual methods of English invaders, came by sea, took Leith, burned Edinburgh, and ravaged the Lothians. Lennox attempted to give up Dumbarton to the English, but his treachery was discovered and he fled to England, where he married Margaret, the daughter of Angus and niece of Henry VIII, by whom he became, in 1545, the father of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, who thus stood within the possibility of succession, in his own right, to both kingdoms. Angus and his brother, Sir George Douglas, seized the opportunity given them by the misery caused by the English atrocities to make a move against Arran and Beaton, and seized the person of the queen-mother. But their success was brought to an end by the meeting of a Parliament, summoned by Arran, in December, 1544, and the Douglases were reconciled and restored to their estates, deeming this the most profitable step for themselves. Their breach with Henry was widened by the events of the next two months. A body of Englishmen, under Sir Ralph Eure, defeated Arran at Melrose, and desecrated the abbey, the sepulchre of the Douglas family. In revenge, Angus, along with Arran, fell upon the English at Ancrum Moor in Roxburghshire, and inflicted on them a total defeat. This was followed by a second invasion of Hertford (this time by land). He ravaged the borders in merciless fashion. A counter-invasion by an army of Scots and French auxiliaries had proved futile owing to the incompetence or the treachery of Angus, who almost immediately returned to the English side. About the same time a descendant of the Lord of the Isles whom James IV had crushed made an agreement with Henry, but was of little use to his cause. Beaton, after some successful fighting on the borders, in the end of 1545, went to St. Andrews in the beginning of 1546. On the 1st March, George Wishart, who had been condemned on a charge of heresy, was hanged, and his body was burned at the stake. On May 29th the more fierce section of the Protestant party took their revenge by murdering the great cardinal in cold blood. We are not here concerned with Beaton's private character or with his treatment of heretics. His public actions, as far as foreign relations are concerned, are marked by a consistent patriotic aim. He represented the long line of Scottish churchmen who had striven to maintain the integrity of the kingdom and the alliance with France. He had shown great ability and tact, and in politics he had been much more honest than his opponents. But for his support of the queen-dowager in 1542-43, and but for his maintaining the party to which Arran afterwards attached himself, it is possible that Scotland might have passed under the yoke of Henry VIII in 1543, instead of being peacefully united to England sixty years later. With him disappeared any remaining hope of the French party. "We may say of old Catholic Scotland", writes Mr. Lang, "as said the dying Cardinal: 'Fie, all is gone'."

Though Beaton was dead, the effects of his work remained. He had saved the situation at the crisis of December, 1542, and the insensate cruelty of Henry VIII had made it impossible that the Cardinal's work should fall to pieces at once. It seemed at first as if the only difference was that the castle of St. Andrews was held by the English party. Ten months after Beaton's death, the small Protestant garrison was joined by John Knox, who was present when the regent succeeded, with help from France, in reducing the castle in July, 1547. Its defenders, including Knox, were sent as galley-slaves to France. Henry VIII had died in the preceding January, but Hertford (now Protector Somerset) continued the Scottish policy of the preceding reign. In the summer of 1547 he made his third invasion of Scotland, marked by the usual barbarity. In the course of it, on 10th September, was fought the last battle between Scots and English. Somerset met the Scots, under Arran, at Pinkiecleuch, near Edinburgh, and by the combined effect of artillery and a cavalry charge, completely defeated them with great slaughter. The English, after some further devastation, returned home, and the Scots at once entered into a treaty with France, which had been at war with England since 1544. It was agreed that the young queen should marry the dauphin, the eldest son of Henry II. While negotiations were in progress, she was placed for safety, first in the priory of Inchmahome, an island in the lake of Menteith, and afterwards in Dumbarton Castle. In June, 1548, a large number of French auxiliaries were sent to Scotland, and, in the beginning of August, Mary was sent to France. The English failed to capture her, and she landed about 13th August. The war lingered on till 1550. The Scots gradually won back the strongholds which had been seized by the English, and, although their French allies did good service, serious jealousies arose, which greatly weakened the position of the French party. Finally, Scotland was included in the peace made between England and France in 1550.

All the time, the Reformed faith was rapidly gaining adherents, and when, in April, 1554, the queen-dowager succeeded Arran (now Duke of Chatelherault) as regent, she found the problem of governing Scotland still more difficult. The relations with England had, indeed, been simplified by the accession of a Roman Catholic queen in England, but the Spanish marriage of Mary Tudor made it difficult for a Guise to obtain any help from her. She continued the policy of obtaining French levies, and the irritation they caused was a considerable help to her opponents. Knox had returned to Scotland in 1555, and, except for a visit to Geneva in 1556-57, spent the rest of his life in his native country. In 1557 was formed the powerful assembly of Protestant clergy and laymen who took the title of "the Congregation of the Lord", and signed the National Covenant which aimed at the abolition of Roman Catholicism. Their hostility to the queen-regent was intensified by the events of the year 1558-59. In April, 1558, Queen Mary was married to the dauphin, and her husband received the crown-matrimonial and became known as King of Scots. Scotland seemed to have passed entirely under France. We know that there was some ground for the Protestant alarm, because the girl queen had been induced to sign documents which transferred her rights, in case of her decease without issue, to the King of France and his heirs. These documents were in direct antagonism to the assurance given to the Scottish Parliament of the maintenance of national independence. The French alliance seemed to have gained a complete triumph, while the shout of joy raised by its supporters was really the swan-song of the cause. Knox and the Congregation had rendered it for ever impossible.

Nor was it long before this became apparent. In November, 1558, Mary Tudor died, and England was again Protestant. Henry II ordered Francis and Mary to assume the arms of England, in virtue of Mary's descent from Margaret Tudor, which made her in Roman Catholic eyes the rightful Queen of England, Elizabeth being born out of wedlock. The Protestant Queen of England had thus an additional motive for opposition to the government of Mary of Guise and her daughter. It was unfortunate for the queen-regent that, at this particular juncture, she was entering into strained relations with the Reformers. Hitherto she had succeeded in satisfying Knox himself; but, in the beginning of 1559, she adopted more severe measures, and the lords of the congregation began to discuss a treasonable alliance with England, which proved the beginning of the end. The Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis set the French government free to pay greater attention to the progress of Scottish affairs, and Mary of Guise forthwith denounced the leading Protestant preachers as heretics. It was much too late. The immediate result was the Perth riots of May and June, 1559, which involved the destruction of the religious houses which were the glory of the Fair City. The aspect of affairs was so threatening that the regent came to terms, and promised that she would take no vengeance on the people of Perth, and that she would not leave a French garrison in the town. The regent kept her word in garrisoning the town with Scotsmen, but her introduction of a French bodyguard, in attendance on her own person, was regarded as a breach of her promise. The destruction of religious buildings continued, although Knox did his endeavour to save the palace of Scone. The Protestants held St. Andrews while the regent entered into negotiations which they considered to be a mere subterfuge for gaining time, and, on the 29th June, they marched upon Edinburgh. In July, 1559, occurred the sudden death of Henry II; Francis and Mary succeeded, and the supreme power in France and in Scotland passed to the House of Guise. The Protestants who had been making overtures to Cecil and Elizabeth declared, in October, that the regent had been deposed. This bold step was justified by the help received from England, and by the indignation caused by the excesses of the regent's French troops in Scotland. So far had religious emotion outrun the sentiment of nationality that the Protestants were willing to admit almost any English claim. The result of Elizabeth's treaty with the rebels was that they were enabled to besiege Leith, by means of an English fleet, while the regent took refuge in Edinburgh Castle. The English attack on Leith was unsuccessful, but the dangerous illness of the queen-mother led to the conclusion of peace. A truce was made on condition that all foreign soldiers, French and English alike, should leave Scotland, and that the Scottish claim to the English throne should be abandoned. On the 11th June, 1560, Mary died. The wisdom of the policy of her later years may be questioned, but her conduct during her widowhood forms a strange contrast to that of her Tudor mother-in-law in similar circumstances. It is probable that her intentions were honest enough, and that the Protestant indignation at her "falsehoods" was based on invincible misunderstanding. Her gracious charm of manner was the concomitant of a tolerance rare in the sixteenth century; and she died at peace with all men, and surrounded by those who had been in arms against her, receiving "all her nobles with all pleasure, with a pleasant countenance, and even embracing them with a kiss of love".

Her death set the lords of the congregation free to carry out their ecclesiastical programme. In August Roman Catholicism was abolished by the Scottish Parliament and the celebration of the mass forbidden, under severe penalties. There remained the question of the ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh, the final form of the agreement by which peace had been made. The young Queen of Scots objected to the treaty on the ground that it included a clause that "the most Christian King and Queen Mary, and each of them, abstain henceforth from using the title and bearing the arms of the kingdom of England or of Ireland".[61] She interpreted the word "henceforth" as involving an absolute renunciation of her claim to the English throne, and so prejudicing her succession, should she survive Elizabeth. Cecil had suggested to the Scots that it might be advisable to raise the claim of the Lord James Stewart, an illegitimate son of James V, and afterwards Earl of Moray, to the throne, or to support that of the House of Hamilton. The Scots improved on this suggestion, and proposed that Elizabeth should marry the Earl of Arran, the eldest son of the Duke of Chatelherault, who might succeed to the throne. There were many reasons why Elizabeth should not wed the imbecile Arran, and it may safely be said that she never seriously considered the project although she continued to trifle with the suggestion, which formed a useful form of intrigue against Mary.

The situation was considerably altered by the death of Francis II, in December, 1560. That event was, on the whole, welcome to Elizabeth, for it destroyed the power of the Guises, and Mary Stuart[62] had now to face her Scottish difficulties without French aid. She was not on good terms with her mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, who now controlled the destinies of France, and it was evident that she must accept the fact of the Scottish Reformation, and enter upon a conflict with the theocratic tendencies of the Church and with the Scottish nobles who were the pensioners of Elizabeth. On the other hand, although Francis II was dead, his widow survived, young, beautiful, charming, and a queen. The dissolution of her first marriage had removed an actual difficulty from the path of the English queen, but, after all, it only meant that she might be able to contract an alliance still more dangerous. As early as December 31st, 1560, Throckmorton warned Elizabeth that she must "have an eye to" the second marriage of Mary Stuart.[63] The Queen of England had a choice of alternatives. She might prosecute the intrigue with the Earl of Arran, capture Mary on her way to Scotland, and boldly adopt the position of the leader of Protestantism. There were, however, many difficulties, ecclesiastical, foreign, and personal, in such a course. Arran was an impossible husband; Knox and the lords of the congregation made good allies but bad subjects; and the inevitable struggle with Spain would be precipitated. The other course was to attempt to win Mary's confidence, and to prevent her from contracting an alliance with the Hapsburgs, which was probably what Elizabeth most feared. This was the alternative finally adopted by the Queen of England; but, very characteristically, she did not immediately abandon the other possibility. On the pretext that Mary refused to confirm the Treaty of Edinburgh, her cousin declined to grant her request for a safe-conduct from France to Scotland, and spoke of the Scottish queen in terms which Mary took the first opportunity of resenting. "The queen, your mistress," she remarked to the English ambassador who brought the refusal, "doth say that I am young and do lack experience. Indeed I confess I am younger than she is, and do want experience; but I have age enough and experience to use myself towards my friends and kinsfolk friendly and uprightly; and I trust my discretion shall not so fail me that my passion shall move me to use other language of her than it becometh of a queen and my next kinswoman."[64]

When, in August, 1561, Mary did sail from France to Scotland, Elizabeth made an effort to capture her. It was characteristically hesitating, and it succeeded only in giving Mary an impression of Elizabeth's hostility. Some months later Elizabeth imprisoned the Countess of Lennox, the mother of Darnley, for giving God thanks because "when the queen's ships were almost near taking of the Scottish queen, there fell down a mist from heaven that separated them and preserved her".[65] The arrival of Mary in Scotland effectually put an end to the Arran intrigue, but the girl-widow of scarcely nineteen years had many difficulties with which to contend. As a devout Roman Catholic, she had to face the relentless opposition of Knox and the congregation, who objected even to her private exercise of her own faith. As the representative of the French alliance, now but a dead cause, she was confronted by an English party which included not only her avowed enemies but many of her real or pretended friends. Her brother, the Lord James Stewart, whom she made Earl of Moray, and who guided the early policy of her reign, was constantly in Elizabeth's pay, as were most of her other advisers. Her secretary, Maitland of Lethington, the most distinguished and the ablest Scottish statesman of his day, had, as the fixed aim of his policy, a good understanding with England. Furthermore, she was disliked by all the nobles who had seized upon the property of the Church and added it to their own possessions. Up to the age of twenty-five she had, by Scots law, the right of recalling all grants of land made during her minority, and her greedy nobles knew well that the victory of Roman Catholicism meant the restoration of Church lands. Her relations with France were uncertain, and the Guises found their attention fully occupied at home. As the next heir to the throne of England, she was bound to be very careful in her dealings with Elizabeth. United by every tie of blood and sentiment to Rome and the Guises, she was forced, for reasons of policy, to remain on good terms with Protestantism and the Tudor Queen of England. The first years of Mary's reign in Scotland were marked by the continuance of good relations between herself and her half-brother, whom she entrusted with the government of the kingdom. In 1562 she suppressed the most powerful Catholic noble in Scotland, the Earl of Huntly. The result of this policy was to raise an unfounded suspicion in England and Spain that the Queen of Scots was "no more devout towards Rome than for the sustentation of her uncles".[66] The indignation felt at Mary's conduct among Roman Catholics in England and in Spain may have been one of the reasons for Elizabeth's adopting a more distinctly Protestant position in 1562. In the Act of Supremacy of that year the first avowed reference is made to the authority used by Henry VIII and Edward VI, i.e. the Supreme Headship of the Church. It at all events made Elizabeth's position less difficult, because Spain and Austria were not likely to attack England in the interests of a queen whose orthodoxy was doubtful.

Meanwhile Elizabeth was directing all her efforts to prevent Mary from contracting a second marriage, and, at all hazards, to secure that she should not marry Don Carlos of Spain or the Archduke of Austria. Her persistent endeavours to bribe Scottish nobles were directed, with considerable acuteness, to creating an English party strong enough to deter foreign princes from "seeking upon a country so much at her devotion".[67] She warned Mary that any alliance with "a mighty prince" would offend England[68] and so imperil her succession. Mary, on her part, was attempting to obtain a recognition of her position as "second person" [heir presumptive], and she professed her willingness to take Elizabeth's advice in the all-important matter of her marriage. The English queen made various suggestions, and found objections to them all. Finally she proposed that Mary should marry her own favourite, Leicester, and a long correspondence followed. It was suggested that the two queens should have an interview, but this project fell through. Elizabeth, of course, was too fondly attached to Leicester to see him become the husband of her beautiful rival; Mary, on her part, despised the "new-made earl", and Leicester himself apologized to Mary's ambassador for the presumption of the proposal, "alleging the invention of that proposition to have proceeded from Master Cecil, his secret enemy".[69] While the Leicester negotiations were in progress, the Earl of Lennox, who had been exiled in 1544, returned to Scotland with his son Henry, Lord Darnley, a handsome youth, eighteen years of age. As early as May, 1564, Knox suspected that Mary intended to marry Darnley.[70] There is little doubt that it was a love-match; but there were also political reasons, for Darnley was, after Mary herself, the nearest heir to Elizabeth's throne, and only the Hamiltons stood between him and the crown of Scotland. He had been born and educated in England, as also had been his mother, the daughter of Angus and Margaret Tudor, and Elizabeth might have used him as against Mary's claim. That claim the English queen refused to acknowledge, although, in the end of 1564, Murray and Maitland of Lethington tried their utmost to persuade her to do so.

On the 29th July, 1565, Mary was married to Darnley in the chapel of Holyrood. Elizabeth chose to take offence, and Murray raised a rebellion. There are two stories of plots: there are hints of a scheme to capture Mary and Darnley; and Murray, on the other hand, alleged that Darnley had entered into a conspiracy to kidnap him. It is, at all events, certain that Murray raised a revolt and that the people rallied to Mary, who drove her brother across the border. Elizabeth received Murray with coldness, and asked him "how he, being a rebel to her sister of Scotland, durst take the boldness upon him to come within her realm?"[71] But Murray, confident in Elizabeth's promise of aid, knew what this hypocritical outburst was worth, and the English queen soon afterwards wrote to Mary in his favour. The motive which Murray alleged for his revolt was his fear for the true religion in view of Mary's marriage to Darnley, nominally a Roman Catholic; but his position with regard to the Rizzio Bond renders it, as we shall see, somewhat difficult to give him credit for sincerity. It is more likely that he was ambitious of ruling the kingdom with Mary as a prisoner. About Elizabeth's complicity there can be no doubt.[72]

Mary's troubles had only begun. On the 16th January, 1566, Randolph, the English ambassador, wrote from Edinburgh: "I cannot tell what mislikings of late there hath been between her grace and her husband; he presses earnestly for the matrimonial crown, which she is loth hastily to grant". Darnley, in fact, had proved a vicious fool, and was possessed of a fool's ambition. Rizzio, Mary's Italian secretary, who had urged the Darnley marriage, strongly warned Mary against giving her husband any real share in the government, and Darnley determined that Rizzio should be "removed".[73] He therefore entered into a conspiracy with his natural enemies, the Scottish nobles, who professed to be willing to secure the throne for this youth whom they despised and hated. The plot involved the murder of Rizzio, the imprisonment of Mary, the crown-matrimonial for Darnley, and the return of Murray and his accomplices, who were still in exile. The English government was, of course, privy to the scheme.[74] The murder was carried out, in circumstances of great brutality, on the night of the 9th March. Mary's condition of health, "having then passed almost to the end of seven months in our birth", renders the carrying out of the deed in her presence, and while Rizzio was her guest, almost certainly an attempt upon the queen's own life. There were numberless opportunities of slaying Rizzio elsewhere, and the ghastly details—the sudden appearance of Ruthven, hollow, pale, just risen from a sick bed, the pistol of Ker of Faudonside,—are so rich in dramatic effect that one can scarcely doubt what denouement was intended. The plot failed in its main purpose. Rizzio, indeed, was killed, and Murray made his appearance next morning and obtained forgiveness. The queen "embracit him and kisset him, alleging that in caice he had bene at hame, he wald not have sufferit her to have bene sa uncourterly handlit". But the success ended here. Mary won over her husband, and together they escaped and fled to Dunbar. Darnley deserted his accomplices, proclaimed his innocence, and strongly urged the punishment of the murderers. They, of course, threw themselves on the hospitality of Queen Elizabeth, who sent them money, and lied to Mary,[75] who did not put too much faith in her cousin's assurances. On June 19th, a prince was born in Edinburgh Castle, but the event brought about only a partial reconciliation between his unhappy parents. Mary was shamefully treated by her worthless husband, and in the following November her nobles suggested to her the project of a divorce. Darnley, however, was not doomed to the fate which overtook his descendants, the life of a king without a crown. He had awakened the enmity of men whose feuds were blood-feuds, and the Rizzio conspirators were not likely to forgive the upstart youth whose inconstancy had foiled their plan for Mary's fall, and whose treachery had involved them in exile. Darnley had proved useless even as a tool for the nobles, he had offended Mary and disgusted everybody in Scotland, and there were many who were willing to do without him. At this point a new tool was ready to the hands of the discontented barons. The Earl of Bothwell, whether with Mary's consent or not, aspired to the queen's hand, and devised a plan for the murder of Darnley. On the night of the 10th February, 1566-67, the wretched boy, not yet twenty-one years of age, was strangled,[76] and the house in which he had been living was blown up with gunpowder. Public opinion accused Bothwell of the murder; he was tried and found innocent, and Parliament put its seal upon his acquittal. On the 24th April he seized the person of the queen as she was travelling from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, and Mary married him on the 15th May. Mense malum Maio nubere vulgus ait. The nobles almost immediately raised a rebellion, professedly to deliver the queen from the thraldom of Bothwell. On June 15th she surrendered at Carberry Hill, and the nobles disregarded a pledge of loyalty to the queen given on condition of her abandoning Bothwell, alleging that she was still in correspondence with him. They now accused her of murdering her husband, and imprisoned her in Lochleven Castle. The whole affair is wrapped in mystery, but it is impossible to give the Earl of Morton and the other nobles any credit for honesty of purpose. There can be little doubt that they used Bothwell for their own ends, and, while they represented the murder as the result of a domestic conspiracy between the queen and Bothwell, they afterwards, when quarrelling among themselves, hurled at each other accusations of participation in the plot, and their leader, the Earl of Morton, died on the scaffold as a criminal put to death for the murder of Darnley. This, of course, does not exclude the hypothesis of Mary's guilt, and while the view of Hume or of Mr. Froude could not now be seriously advanced in its entirety, it is only right to say that a majority of historians are of opinion that she, at least, connived at the murder. The question of her implication as a principal in the plot depends upon the authenticity of the documents known as the "Casket Letters", which purported to be written by the queen to Bothwell, and which the insurgent lords afterwards produced as evidence against her.[77]

Moray had left Scotland in the end of April. When he returned in the beginning of August he found that the prisoner of Lochleven, to whom he owed his advancement and his earldom, had been forced to sign a deed of abdication, nominating himself as regent for her infant son. On the 15th August he went to Lochleven and saw his sister, as he had done after the murder of Rizzio, when she was a prisoner in Holyrood. Till an hour past midnight, Elizabeth's pensioner preached to the unfortunate princess on righteousness and judgment, leaving her "that night in hope of nothing but of God's mercy". It was merely a threat; Mary's life was safe, for Elizabeth, roused, for once, to a feeling of generosity, had forbidden Moray to make any attempt on that. Next morning he graciously accepted the regency and left his sister's prison with her kisses on his lips.[78]

On the 2nd May, 1568, Mary escaped from Lochleven, and her brother at once prepared a hostile force to meet her. Her army, composed largely of Protestants, marched towards Dunbarton Castle, where they desired to place the queen for safe keeping. The regent intercepted her at Langside, and inflicted a complete defeat upon her forces. Mary was again a fugitive, and her followers strongly urged her to take refuge in France. But Elizabeth had given her a promise of protection, and Mary, impelled by some fateful impulse, resolved to throw herself on the mercy of her kinswoman.[79] On the 16th day of May, her little boat crossed the Solway. When the Queen of Scots, the daughter of the House of Guise, the widow of a monarch of the line of Valois, set foot on English soil as a suppliant for the protection which came to her only by death, the last faint hope must have faded out of the hearts of the few who still longed for an independent Scotland, bound by gratitude and by ancient tradition to the ally who, more than once, had proved its salvation.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: Cf. the present writer's "Mary, Queen of Scots" (Scottish History from Contemporary Writers).]

[Footnote 62: The spelling "Stuart", which Queen Mary brought with her from France, now superseded the older "Stewart".]

[Footnote 63: Foreign Calendar: Elizabeth, December 31st, 1560.]

[Footnote 64: Cabala, Sive Scrinia Sacra, pp. 345-349.]

[Footnote 65: Foreign Calendar, May 7th, 1562.]

[Footnote 66: Foreign Calendar, June 8th, 1562.]

[Footnote 67: Foreign Calendar, March 31st, 1561.]

[Footnote 68: Foreign Calendar, 20th August, 1563.]

[Footnote 69: Sir James Melville's Memoirs, pp. 116-130 (Bannatyne Club).]

[Footnote 70: Laing's Knox, vi, p. 541.]

[Footnote 71: Laing's Knox, vol. ii, p. 513. Melville's Memoirs, p. 134.]

[Footnote 72: Foreign Calendar, July-December, 1565.]

[Footnote 73: The evidence for the scandal which associated Mary's name with that of Rizzio will be found in Mr. Hay Fleming's Mary, Queen of Scots, pp. 398-401. It is very far indeed from being conclusive.]

[Footnote 74: Foreign Calendar, March, 1566.]

[Footnote 75: Mary to Elizabeth, July, 1566. Keith's History, ii, p. 442.]

[Footnote 76: It is almost certain that Darnley was murdered before the explosion.]

[Footnote 77: Mary's defenders point out that her 25th birthday fell in November, 1567, and that it was necessary to prevent her from taking any steps for the restitution of Church land; and they look on the plot as devised by Bothwell and the other nobles, the latter aiming at using Bothwell as a tool to ruin Mary. On the question of the Casket Letters, see Mr. Lang's Mystery of Mary Stuart.]

[Footnote 78: Keith's History, ii, pp. 736-739.]

[Footnote 79: In forming any moral judgment with regard to Elizabeth's conduct towards Mary, it must be remembered that Mary fled to England trusting to the English Queen's invitation.]



CHAPTER IX

THE UNION OF THE CROWNS

1568-1625

When Mary fled to England, Elizabeth refused to see her, on the ground that she ought first to clear herself from the suspicion of guilt in connection with the murder of Darnley. In the end, Mary agreed that the case should be submitted to the judgment of a commission appointed by Elizabeth, and she appeared as prosecuting Moray and his friends as rebels and traitors. They defended themselves by bringing accusations against Mary, and produced the Casket Letters and other documents in support of their assertions. Mary asked to be brought face to face with her accusers; Elizabeth thought the claim "very reasonable", and refused it. Mary then asked for copies of the letters produced as evidence against her, and when her request was pressed upon Elizabeth's notice by La Mothe Fenelon, the French ambassador, he was informed that Elizabeth's feelings had been hurt by Mary's accusing her of partiality.[80] Mary's commissioners then withdrew, and Elizabeth closed the case, with the oracular decision that, "nothing has been adduced against the Earl of Moray and his adherents, as yet, that may impair their honour or allegiances; and, on the other part, there has been nothing sufficiently produced nor shown by them against the queen, their sovereign, whereby the Queen of England should conceive or take any evil opinion of the queen, her good sister, for anything yet seen". So Elizabeth's "good sister" was subjected to a rigorous imprisonment, and the Earl of Moray returned to Scotland, with an increased allowance of English gold. Henceforth the successive regents of Scotland had to guide their policy in accordance with Elizabeth's wishes. If they rebelled, she could always threaten to release her prisoner, and, once or twice in the course of those long, weary years, Mary, whose nature was buoyant, actually dared to hope that Elizabeth would replace her on her throne. While Mary was plotting, and hope deferred was being succeeded by hope deferred and vain illusion by vain illusion, events moved fast. In November, 1569, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland raised a rebellion in her favour, which was easily suppressed. In January, 1570, Moray was assassinated at Linlithgow, and the Earl of Lennox, the father of Darnley, and the traitor of Mary's minority, succeeded to the regency, while Mary's Scottish supporters, who had continued to fight for her desperate cause, were strengthened by the accession of Maitland of Lethington, who, with Kirkaldy of Grange, also a recruit from the king's party, held Edinburgh Castle for the queen. Mary's hopes were further raised by the rebellion of the Duke of Norfolk, whose marriage with the Scottish queen had been suggested in 1569. Letters from the papal agent, Rudolfi, were discovered, and, in June, 1572, Norfolk was put to death. Lennox had been killed in September, 1571, and his successor, the Earl of Mar, was approached on the subject of taking Mary's life. Elizabeth was unwilling to accept the responsibility for the deed, and proposed to deliver up Mary to Mar, on the understanding that she should be immediately killed. Mar, who was an honourable man, declined to listen to the proposal. But, after his death, which occurred in October, 1572, the new regent, the Earl of Morton, professed his willingness to undertake the accomplishment of the deed, if Elizabeth would openly acknowledge it. This she refused to do, and the plot failed. It is characteristic that the last Douglas to play an important part in Scottish history should be the leading actor in such a plot as this.

The castle of Edinburgh fell in June, 1573, and with its surrender passed away Mary's last chance in Scotland. Morton held the regency till 1578, when he was forced to resign, and the young king, now twelve years old, became the nominal ruler. In 1581, Morton was condemned to death as "airt and pairt" in Darnley's murder, and Elizabeth failed in her efforts to save him. Mary entered into negotiations with Elizabeth for her release and return to Scotland as joint-sovereign with James VI, and the English queen played with her prisoner, while, all the time, she was discussing projects for her death. The key to the policy of James is his desire to secure the succession to the English crown. To that end he was willing to sacrifice all other considerations; nor had he, on other grounds, any desire to share his throne with his mother. In 1585, he negotiated a league with England, which, however, contained a provision that "the said league be without prejudice in any sort to any former league or alliance betwixt this realm and any other auld friends and confederates thereof, except only in matters of religion, wheranent we do fully consent the league be defensive and offensive". As we are at the era of religious wars, the latter section of the clause goes far to neutralize the former. Scotland was at last at the disposal of the sovereign of England. Even the tragedy of Fotheringay scarcely produced a passing coldness. On the 8th February, 1587, Elizabeth's warrant was carried out, and Mary's head fell on the block. She was accused of plotting for her own escape and against Elizabeth's life. It is probable that she had so plotted, and it would be childish to express surprise or indignation. The English queen, on her part, had injured her kinswoman too deeply to render it possible to be generous now. Mary had sent her, on her arrival in England, "a diamond jewel, which", as she afterwards reminded her, "I received as a token from you, and with assurance to be succoured against my rebels, and even that, on my retiring towards you, you would come to the very frontiers in order to assist me, which had been confirmed to me by divers messengers".[81] Had the protection thus promised been vouchsafed, it might have spared Elizabeth many years of trouble. But it was now too late, and the relentless logic of events forced her to complete the tale of her treachery and injustice by a deed which she herself could not but regard as a crime. But while this excuse may be made for the deed itself, there can be no apology for the manner of it. The Queen of England stooped to urge her servants to murder her kinswoman; when they refused, she was mean enough to contrive so as to throw the responsibility upon her secretary, Davison. After Mary's death, she wrote to King James and expressed her sincere regret at having cut off the head of his mother by accident. James accepted the apology, and, in the following year, made preparations against the Armada. Had the son of Mary Stuart been otherwise constituted, it would scarcely have been safe for Elizabeth to persevere in the execution of his mother; an alliance between Scotland and Spain might have proved dangerous for England. But Elizabeth knew well the type of man with whom she had to deal, and events proved that she was wise in her generation. And James, on his part, had his reward. Elizabeth died in March, 1603, and her successor was the King of Scots, who entered upon a heritage, which had been bought, in the view of his Catholic subjects, by the blood of his mother, and which was to claim as its next victim his second son. Within eighty-five years of his accession, his House had lost not only their new kingdom, but their ancestral throne as well. In all James's references to the Union, it is clear that he regarded that event from the point of view of the monarch; had it proved of as little value to his subjects as to the Stuart line there would have been small reason for remembering it to-day. The Union of England and Scotland was one of the events most clearly fore-ordained by a benignant fate: but it is difficult to feel much sympathy for the son who would not risk its postponement, when, by the possible sacrifice of his personal ambition, he might have saved the life of his mother.

There are certain aspects of James's life in Scotland that explain his future policy, and they are, therefore, important for our purpose. In the first place, he spent his days in one long struggle with the theocratic Church system which had been brought to Scotland by Knox and developed by his great successor, Andrew Melville. The Church Courts, local and central, had maintained the old ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and they dealt out justice with impartial hand. In all questions of morality, religion, education, and marriage the Kirk Session or the Presbytery or the General Assembly was all-powerful. The Church was by far the most important factor in the national life. It interfered in numberless ways with legislative and executive functions: on one occasion King James consulted the Presbytery of Edinburgh about the raising of a force to suppress a rebellion,[82] and, as late as 1596, he approached the General Assembly with reference to a tax, and promised that "his chamber doors sould be made patent to the meanest minister in Scotland; there sould not be anie meane gentleman in Scotland more subject to the good order and discipline of the Kirk than he would be".[83] Andrew Melville had told him that "there is twa kings and twa kingdomes in Scotland. Thair is Chryst Jesus the King and his Kingdom the Kirk, whase subject King James the Saxt is: and of whase Kingdom nocht a King, nor a lord, nor a heid, bot a member."[84] James had done his utmost to assert his authority over the Church. He had tried to establish Episcopacy in Scotland to replace the Presbyterian system, and had succeeded only to a very limited extent. "Presbytery", he said, "agreeth as well with a king as God with the Devil." So he went to England, not only prepared to welcome the episcopal form of church-government and to graciously receive the episcopal adulation so freely showered upon him, but also determined to suppress, at all hazards, "the proud Puritanes, who, claining to their Paritie, and crying, 'We are all but vile wormes', yet will judge and give Law to their king, but will be judged nor controlled by none".[85] "God's sillie vassal" was Melville's summing-up of the royal character in James's own presence. "God hath given us a Solomon", exulted the Bishop of Winchester, and he recorded the fact in print, that all the world might know. James was wrong in mistaking the English Puritans for the Scottish Presbyterians. Alike in number, in influence, and in aim, his new subjects differed from his old enemies. English Puritanism had already proved unsuited to the genius of the nation, and it had given up all hope of the abolition of Episcopacy. The Millenary Petition asked only some changes in the ritual of the Church and certain moderate reforms. Had James received their requests in a more reasonable spirit, he might have succeeded in reconciling, at all events, the more moderate section of them to the Church, and at the very first it seemed as if he were likely to win for himself the blessing of the peace-maker, which he was so eager to obtain. But just at this crisis he found the first symptoms of Parliamentary opposition, and here again his training in Scotland interfered. The Church and the Church alone had opposed him in Scotland; he had never discovered that a Parliament could be other than subservient.[86] It was, therefore, natural for him to connect the Parliamentary discontent with Puritan dissatisfaction. Scottish Puritans had employed the General Assembly as their main weapon of offence; their English fellows evidently desired to use the House of Commons as an engine for similar purposes. Therefore said King James, "I shall make them conform themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse". So he "did worse", and prepared the way for the Puritan revolution. If the English succession enabled the king to suppress the Scottish Assembly, the Assembly had its revenge, for the fear of it brought a snare, and James may justly be considered one of the founders of English dissent.

A violent hatred of the temporal claims of the Church also affected James's attitude to Roman Catholicism. His Catholic subjects in Scotland had not been in a position to do him any harm, and the son of Mary Stuart could not but have some sympathy for his mother's fellow-sufferers. Accordingly, we find him telling his first Parliament: "I acknowledge the Roman Church to be our Mother Church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruption". But, after the Gunpowder Plot, and when he was engaged in a controversy with Cardinal Perron about the right of the pope to depose kings, he came to prove that the pope is Antichrist and "our Mother Church" none other than the Scarlet Woman. His Scottish experience revealed clearly enough that the claims of Rome and Geneva were identical in their essence. There is on record an incident that will serve to illustrate his position. In 1615, the Scottish Privy Council reported to him the case of a Jesuit, John Ogilvie. He bade them examine Ogilvie: if he proved to be but a priest who had said mass, he was to go into banishment; but if he was a practiser of sedition, let him die. The unfortunate priest showed in his reply that he held the same view of the royal supremacy as did the Presbyterian clergy. It was enough: they hanged him.

Once more, James's Irish policy seems to have been influenced by his experience of the Scottish Highlands. He had conceived the plan which was afterwards carried out in the Plantation of Ulster—"planting colonies among them of answerable inland subjects, that within short time may reforme and civilize the best-inclined among them; rooting out or transporting the barbarous or stubborne sort, and planting civilitie in their roomes".[87] Although James continued to carry on his efforts in this direction after 1603, yet it may be said that the English succession prevented his giving effect to his scheme, and that it also interfered with his intentions regarding the abolition of hereditary jurisdictions, which remained to "wracke the whole land" till after the Rising of 1745.

On the 5th April, 1603, King James set out from Edinburgh to enter upon the inheritance which had fallen to him "by right divine". His departure made considerable changes in the condition of Scotland. The absence of any fear of an outbreak of hostilities with the "auld enemy" was a great boon to the borders, but there was little love lost between the two countries. The union of the crowns did not, of course, affect the position of Scotland to England in matters of trade, and beyond some thirty years of peace, James's ancient kingdom gained but little. King James, who possessed considerable powers of statesmanship, if not much practical wisdom, devised the impossible project of a union of the kingdoms in 1604. "What God hathe conjoyned", he said, "let no man separate. I am the Husband, and all the whole Isle is my lawful wife.... I hope, therefore, that no man will be so unreasonable as to think that I, that am a Christian King under the Gospel, should be a Polygamist and husband to two wives." He desired to see a complete union—one king, one law, one Church. Scotland would, he trusted, "with time, become but as Cumberland and Northumberland and those other remote and northern shires". Commissioners were appointed, and in 1606 they produced a scheme which involved commercial equality except with regard to cloth and meat, the exception being made by mutual consent. The discussion on the Union question raised the subject of naturalization, and the rights of the post-nati, i.e. Scots born after James's accession to the throne. The royal prerogative became involved in the discussion and a test case was prepared. Some land in England was bought for the infant grandson of Lord Colvill, or Colvin, of Culross. An action was raised against two defendants who refused him possession of the land, and they defended themselves on the ground that the child, as an alien, could not possess land in England. It was decided that he, as a natural-born subject of the King of Scotland, was also a subject of the King of England. This decision, and the repeal of the laws treating Scotland as a hostile country, proved the only result of the negotiations for union. The English Parliament would not listen to any proposal for commercial equality, and the king had to abandon his cherished project.

James had boasted to his English Parliament that, if they agreed to commercial equality, the Scottish estates would, in three days, adopt English law. It is doubtful if the acquiescence even of the Scottish Parliament would have gone so far; but there can be no doubt that the English succession had made James more powerful in Scotland than any of his predecessors had been. "Here I sit", he said, "and governe Scotland with my pen. I write and it is done, and by a clearke of the councell I governe Scotland now, which others could not doe by the sword." The boast was justified by the facts. The king's instructions to his Privy Council, which formed the Scottish executive, are of the most dictatorial description. James gives his orders in the tone of a man who is accustomed to unswerving obedience, and he does not hesitate to reprove his erring ministers in the severest terms of censure. The whole business of Parliament was conducted by the Lords of the Articles, who represented the spiritual and temporal lords, and the Commons. All the bishops were the king's creatures, and by virtue of their position, entirely dependent on him. It was therefore arranged that the prelates should choose representatives of the temporal lords, and they took care to select men who supported the king's policy. The peers were allowed to choose representatives of the bishops, and could not avoid electing the king's friends, while the representatives of the spiritual and temporal lords choose men to appear for the small barons and the burgesses. In this way the efficient power of Parliament was completely monopolized, and none dared to dispute the king's will. Even the Church was reduced to an unwilling submission, which, from its very nature, could only be temporary. He forbade the meeting of a General Assembly; and the convening of an Assembly at Aberdeen, in defiance of his command, in 1605, served to give him an opportunity of imprisoning or banishing the Presbyterian leaders. He had to give up his scheme of abolishing the Presbyterian Church courts, and contented himself with engrafting on to the existing system the institution of Episcopacy, which had practically been in abeyance since 1560, although Scotland was never without its titular prelates. Bishops were appointed in 1606; presbyteries and synods were ordered to elect perpetual moderators, and the scheme was devised so that the moderator of almost every synod should be a bishop. The members of the Linlithgow Convention, which accepted this scheme, were specially summoned by the king, and it was in no sense a free Assembly of the Church. But the royal power was, for the present, irresistible; in 1610 an Assembly which met at Glasgow established Episcopacy, and its action was, in 1612, ratified by the Scots Parliament. Three of the Scottish bishops[88] received English orders, to ensure the succession; but, to prevent any claim of superiority, neither English primate took any part in the ceremony. In 1616, the Assembly met at Aberdeen, and the king made five proposals, which are known as the Five Articles of Perth, from their adoption there in 1618. The Five Articles included:—(1) The Eucharist to be received kneeling; (2) the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to sick persons in private houses; (3) the administration of Baptism in private houses in cases of necessity; (4) the recognition of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost; and (5) the episcopal benediction. Scottish opposition centred round the first article, which was not welcomed even by the Episcopalian party, and it required the king's personal interference to enforce it in Holyrood Chapel, during his stay in Edinburgh in 1616-17. His proposal to erect in the chapel representations of patriarchs and saints shocked even the bishops, on whose remonstrances he withdrew his orders, incidentally administering a severe rebuke to the recalcitrant prelates, "at whose ignorance he could not but wonder". Not till the following year were the articles accepted at Perth, under fear of the royal displeasure, and considerable difficulty was experienced in enforcing them.

The only other Scottish measures of James's reign that demand mention are his attempts to carry out his policy of plantations in the Highlands. As a whole, the scheme failed, and was productive of considerable misery, but here and there it succeeded, and it tended to increase the power of the government. The end of the reign is also remarkable for attempts at Scottish colonization, resulting in the foundation of Nova Scotia, and in the Plantation of Ulster.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 80: Fenelon, i, 133 and 162.]

[Footnote 81: Mary to Elizabeth, 8th Nov., 1582. Strickland's Letters of Mary Stuart, i, p. 294.]

[Footnote 82: Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, v, 341-42.]

[Footnote 83: Ibid, pp. 396-97.]

[Footnote 84: James Melville's Autobiography and Diary, p. 370.]

[Footnote 85: Basilikon Doron.]

[Footnote 86: Cf. the present writer's Scottish Parliament before the Union of the Crowns.]

[Footnote 87: Basilikon Doron.]

[Footnote 88: The old controversy about the relation of the Church of Scotland to the sees of York and Canterbury had been finally settled, in 1474, by the erection of St. Andrews into a metropolitan see. Glasgow was made an archbishopric in 1492.]



CHAPTER X

"THE TROUBLES IN SCOTLAND"

The new reign had scarcely begun when trouble arose between King Charles and his Scottish subjects. On the one hand, he alienated the nobles by an attempt, partially successful, to secure for the Church some of its ancient revenues. More serious still was his endeavour to bring the Scottish Church into uniformity with the usage of the Church of England. James had understood that any further attempt to alter the service or constitution of the Church of Scotland would infallibly lead to serious trouble. He had given up an intention of introducing a new prayer-book to supersede the "Book of Common Order", known as "Knox's Liturgy", which was employed in the Church, though not to the exclusion of extemporary prayers. When Charles came to Edinburgh to be crowned, in 1633, he made a further attempt in this direction, and, although he had to postpone the introduction of this particular change, he left a most uneasy feeling, not only among the Presbyterians, but also among the bishops themselves. An altar was erected in Holyrood Chapel, and behind it was a crucifix, before which the clergy made genuflexions. He erected Edinburgh into a bishopric, with the Collegiate Church of St. Giles for a cathedral, and the Bishops of Edinburgh, as they followed in rapid succession, gained the reputation of innovators and supporters of Laud and the English. Even more dangerous in its effect was a general order for the clergy to wear surplices. It was widely disobeyed, but it created very great alarm.

In 1635, canons were issued for the Church of Scotland, which owed their existence to the dangerous meddling of Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury. James, who loved Episcopacy, had dreaded the influence of Laud in Scotland; his fear was justified, for it was given to Laud to make an Episcopal Church impossible north of the Tweed. Although certain of the Scottish bishops had expressed approval of these canons, they were enjoined in the Church by royal authority, and the Scots, whose theory of the rights of the Church was much more "high" than that of Laud, would, on this account alone, have met them with resistance. But the canons used words and phrases which were intolerable to Scottish ears. They spoke of a "chancel" and they commended auricular confession; they gave the Scottish bishops something like the authority of their English brethren, to the detriment of minister and kirk-session, and they made the use of a new prayer-book compulsory, and forbade any objection to it. Two years elapsed before the book was actually introduced. It was English, and it had been forced upon the Church by the State, and, worse than this, it was associated with the hated name of Laud and with his suspected designs upon the Protestant religion. When it came it was found to follow the English prayer-book almost exactly; but such changes as there were seemed suspicious in the extreme. In the communion service the rubric preceding the prayer of consecration read thus: "During the time of consecration he shall stand at such a part of the holy table where he may with the more ease and decency use both his hands". The reference to both hands was suspected to mean the Elevation of the Host, and this suspicion was confirmed by the omission of the sentences "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving", and "Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee, and be thankful", from the words of administration. On more general grounds, too, strong objection was taken to the book, and on July 23rd, 1637, there occurred the famous riot in St. Giles's, which has become connected with the name of Jennie Geddes. The objection was not, in any sense, to read prayers in themselves; the Book of Common Order had been read in St. Giles's that very morning. The difficulty lay in the particular book, and it is notable that the cries which have come down to us as prefacing the riot are all indicative of a suspected attempt to reintroduce Roman Catholicism. "The mass is entered upon us." "Baal is in the Church." "Darest thou sing mass in my lug."

The Privy Council was negligent in punishing the rioters, and it soon became evident that they had public opinion behind them. Alexander Henderson, who ministered to a Fifeshire congregation in the old Norman church of Leuchars, and whom the king was to meet in other circumstances, issued a respectful and moderate protest, in which he did not deal with the particular points at issue, but asserted the ecclesiastical independence of Scotland. Riots continued to disturb Edinburgh, and Charles was impotent to suppress them. He refused Henderson's "Supplication"; its supporters drew up a second petition boldly asking that the bishops should be tried as the real authors of the disturbances, and, in November, 1637, they chose a body of commissioners to represent them. These commissioners, and some sub-committees of them, are known in Scottish history as The Tables, the name being applied to several different bodies. Charles replied to the second petition in wrathful terms, and it was decided to revive the National Covenant of 1581, to renounce popery. It had been drawn up under fear of a popish plot, and was itself an expansion of the Covenant of 1557. To it was now added a declaration suited to immediate necessities. On the 1st and 2nd March, 1638, it was signed by vast multitudes in the churchyard of Greyfriars, in Edinburgh, and it continued to be signed, sometimes under pressure, throughout the land. Hamilton, Charles's agent in Scotland, was quite unable to meet the situation. In the end Charles had to agree to the meeting of a General Assembly in Glasgow, in November, 1638. Hamilton, the High Commissioner, attempted to obtain the ejection of laymen and to create a division among his opponents. When he failed in this, he dissolved the Assembly in the king's name. At the instance of Henderson, supported by Argyll, the Assembly refused to acknowledge itself dissolved, and proceeded to abolish Episcopacy and re-establish the Presbyterian form of Church government.