History Of Scotland Vol. 2 - Part 13

( Originally Published 1909 )

Queen Mary's Death the Subject of Rejoicing England—But of affected Surprise and Sorrow to Elizabeth—She sends Carey to apologize to James—He is not received, but forwards the Queen's Excuses—She throws the Blame on Davidson, who is ruined—James harbors Thoughts of Vengeance; but is soon led to abandon them—Sir William Stewart impeaches Gray, who is convicted and banished—Scotland distracted with deadly Feuds—James endeavors to reconcile them—An Entertainment given by the City of Edinburgh on the Occasion—His Purpose in a great Measure fails—Feud of Mar with the Bruces and other Gentlemen of the Carse of Stirling—Statute respecting Church Lands, and concerning the Representation of the Barons in Parliament—Spanish Armada—Offers from Spain—Advice of Maitland—Fate of the Armada—Embassy of Sir Henry Sidney—Insurrection of the Catholic Lords in Scotland—Embassy from Denmark insulted by the Earl of Arran, and the Envoys pacified by the Wisdom of Sir James Melville—A Treaty of Marriage between James and a Princess of Denmark—It is traversed by Elizabeth, but in vain—Finally concluded—James sails for Denmark—Justifies his doing so by a singular Proclamation—Is married at Upsal, and returns to Scotland with his Bride

ELIZABETH was no sooner made acquainted with the death of Mary than it seemed that the life or non-existence of that unfortunate lady was alike to be the subject of distress and anxiety to her sister sovereign. The people of England, indeed, received the tidings with the acclamations usually attendant upon some event intimating great national prosperity. Bonfires and illuminations, and other demonstrations of joy, attended the news that Mary, nineteen years a prisoner, was now a corpse.

But the queen was aware that these appearances of joy were delusive; and that, besides, she had Europe to answer to as well as England. She had no sooner received the report of the execution than she evinced every symptom of the greatest surprise and indignation, pausing, faltering, and bursting into exclamations of regret and astonishment. or did she confine herself to these expressions of grief : she put herself into mourning; and denying all accession to or knowledge of the execution, rebuked her privy council, and dismissed them, in wrath, from her sight. She wrote to the king of Scots a letter with her own hand, in which, forgetting that she had refused, at the intercession of his envoy, to delay the execution even an hour, she affected the most inconsolable grief for the lamentable accident, as she termed it, which had happened contrary to her meaning and intention. This letter was despatched by Sir Robert Carey, a kinsman of Queen Elizabeth, who was understood to be personally acceptable to King James.

In this posture of affairs, Paulet and Drury had reason to rejoice that they had not been induced by the sugared words of Elizabeth to embark in the dark project of assassinating their prisoner, either for the purpose of sparing the queen's feelings, or displaying the fulness of zeal for her person; for the hard measure which the queen dealt toward Burleigh, and especially toward Davidson, who had authorized the execution in a legal manner, and by a formal warrant, plainly showed that had they fallen into the trap laid for them, or taken their prisoner's life by any secret practice, she would have disavowed the action to which she had herself instigated them, and left them to atone for their credulity with the loss of their heads.

James, incensed himself, and inflamed by the passions of all around him, breathed at first nothing save war and vengeance. Carey was not permitted to cross the boundary of the kingdoms, nor would the king of Scots admit him to his presence. This affront Queen Elizabeth was obliged to digest. By her order, Carey sent to the Scottish council the letters designed for the king, with a statement of what she was pleased to represent as the real circumstances of the case. Carey protested in her name that it never once entered into her thoughts to put the queen of Scots to death, not-withstanding the daily persuasions of her council, her houses of parliament, and the almost hourly outcries of her whole people. Nevertheless, as daily reports were abroad of the landing of foreign armies, the escape of Mary from Fotheringay, and similar occurrences of an alarming nature, the queen, merely by way of precaution, thought it best to de-liver a signed warrant to her secretary Davidson, not intending that it should go out of his hands except in case of invasion from abroad or insurrection at home. Such being her purpose, Davidson having, nevertheless, contrary to her intention, shown to one or two of her statesmen the warrant for Mary's execution, the privy council thereupon held a meeting, and sent a mandate for putting the warrant in force, which "she protests to God," says Carey, "was done before she knew of it. The secretary, however," he added, "was committed to prison, and would not escape his sovereign's high displeasure. This is the tenor of my mistress's message," concluded Carey, "which if I could express as it was delivered to me, with a heavy heart and a sorrowful countenance, I think the king of Scots would rather pity the grief which she endures than in any respect blame her for a fact in which she had no share."

To suit the queen of England's actions to her prfessions, Davidson was brought to trial in the Star Chamber, where it was agreed to lay upon him the fault of the whole proceeding. Burleigh, who was indispensable to her majesty's councils, had insinuated something as if what Davidson reported of her majesty's wishes and intentions had induced him and the rest of the council to despatch the warrant. The unfortunate secretary was therefore accounted guilty of a high misdemeanor, as having misrepresented the queen's intentions, and misled the privy council in a matter of so much importance, and was therefore fined in ten thousand pounds, and imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. Even Burleigh himself became uncertain how far his own ruin might not be determined by Elizabeth, in order to convince James of the reality of his mistress's pretended innocence. He was, however, restored to favor; and the total ruin of Davidson was held a sufficient atonement for the death of Mary.

The king of Scots was for some time unwilling and probably ashamed to accept the patched and fabricated account presented by Carey, irreconcilable as it was with truth and with itself, as an apology for the death of his mother. He held a parliament, the members of which unanimously professed their readiness to support him in revenging the death of their late queen, an injury which they justly regarded as affecting the people of Scotland as well as their king. But time brought calmer counsels; and a number of prudential motives reconciled James to remaining at peace, where war, always a destructive, might actually prove a ruinous, expedient. The perilous state of the Protestant religion to which he professed himself sincerely attached peremptorily forbade a breach with Queen Elizabeth. The difference of force between the two countries was greatly in favor of England; and such aid as he might procure from France or Spain was neither of a certain nor of a safe description. The holy league was directed against Scotland as well as against other heretical nations; and, however ready the Catholic princes might be to avenge the death of the Catholic Mary, they could not be supposed to entertain much zeal in the cause of the Protestant James. A high sense of filial affection and regal dignity would not indeed have stopped to weigh these circumstances with accuracy, and was likely to have impelled a, son and a sovereign prince, whose mother had been thus cruelly murdered, into a conflict, in which, at every risk, he might secure either vengeance or death. But such an affection James had never entertained toward Mary. He had never known his mother : he had been placed upon her throne while a child, and when grown up to youth, he had, with cold prudence, declined to interfere in her behalf ; his grief and resentment for her death were not likely, therefore, to he of an ardent character.

At any rate, the grand excuse for inactivity in such cases was open to James. The evil was done, and could not be repaired; and the question only remained whether it was wise to run the risk of ruin in endeavoring to avenge it. In the annual pension allowed him, which was almost the only fund he could dedicate to the necessary maintenance of his royal state, Queen Elizabeth had shown herself a generous godmother; and now, when he was deprived of a mother by her means, she might, probably, feel a disposition to supply, by even augmented liberality, the place of the parent of whom he had been deprived by her means. Above all, a war between Scotland and England was likely to become fatal to the hopes of the rich English succession, the right of which, by the death of his mother, had now devolved upon him, and no possible success in war could have made up to James so great a loss. These considerations acted powerfully upon cold feelings and a spirit naturally averse from warfare, and induced the king of Scots, after a decent time, to dissemble his resentment of his mother's death, to receive the exculpations of Elizabeth as if he gave credit to a story in itself so improbable, and to permit the amicable relations between the countries gradually to resume their ordinary course.

Some subjects of Scotland were impatient of their sovereign's inactivity and tameness, and declared fiercely for war. The Earl of Argyle, when the court were commanded to assume mourning for Queen Mary, intimated his sense of the ordinance by appearing in full armor, as the dress which best suited the occasion; but this and other hints to arms were suffered to pass unnoticed, and Mary occupied her grave in the cathedral of Peterborough forgotten and unrevenged.

One victim, however, besides the scapegoat Davidson, paid the debt due to his perfidy upon this occasion. The versatile Master of Gray, who, charged with the task of negotiating for Queen Mary's safety, had encouraged and hastened her execution, was now called to account for his perfidy. Gray was even at this time plotting a change of court, to be effected by putting to death some of the persons who then stood highest in the king's council; but his schemes were interrupted by his own dependent, Sir William Stewart, a brother of the upstart Earl of Arran, whom Gray had formerly deserted and betrayed. By this gentleman the Master was bluntly impeached of having betrayed and abused the confidence reposed in him as a public ambassador, by writing, while on his embassy in England, a letter, in which he encouraged the English ministry in the execution of the king's mother: it was further added by the accuser that he had privately corresponded with the king of France and the Duke of Guise, for the purpose of obtaining toleration to Catholics in Scotland; a species of machination accounted by the age as being equally treasonable with his breach of public faith and abuse of his power as an ambassador. Lastly, he was charged with the purpose of assassinating some of James's present ministers.

Gray made no defence, but submitted to the king's mercy; confessing that he had trafficked for toleration of Catholics further than he had license to do; and admitting that he entertained resentment against some of the persons in office, but denying that he nourished any thoughts of violence against them. Lastly, he confessed that having, when ambassador in England, perceived Queen Elizabeth determined to take Queen Mary's life, he had given his advice, with a view to the prevention of war between the countries, that she liad better be put to death by private practice than by public execution; and he admitted having used the phrase, Mortui non mordent, though in a different sense from that which the accuser put upon it.

For these misdemeanors the Master of Gray was banished from Scotland, and resided in Italy for several years, though he afterward returned to his native country.

Captain James Stewart, formerly the Earl of Arran, the brother of Gray's accuser, Sir William, had expected that upon these changes in the Scottish court he himself might recover some favor : he was disappointed, however, for Maitland, now Lord Thirlstane, was declared chancellor, a title which the fallen statesman had hitherto retained, though without exercising the office.

The kingdom of Scotland about this period enjoyed some temporary repose ; and a parliament was appointed to be held at Edinburgh upon the 29th of July, 1586, the king having now attained the years of majority. It is to the credit of James that he endeavored to solemnize his accession to manhood by what would have, indeed, proved the greatest boon which could be bestowed on the country over which he was called to reign. Not only the nobility of Scotland, but their gentry and barons, claimed and exercised; in the most frightful extent, the privilege of making war upon each other for the slightest causes, and with the most fatal and deadly effects. What greatly augmented this national evil was that whatever injury had been received by either party in those domestic quarrels, or in the skirmishes to which they gave rise, was handed down as a debt of vengeance, for which the family who sustained the loss were bound to exact vengeance to the latest period of time. It frequently happened that persons of consequence were reciprocally slain on the side of both contending parties, and it was then held indispensable to the honor of those tribes concerned that the retaliation on each side should be full and complete; for which purpose the feuds, as they were termed, were transmitted from father to son, and, in spite of the denunciations of religion and law, were, by the the obstinacy of popular prejudice, accounted inexpiable. Thus neighboring families and clans throughout the greater part of Scotland, but particularly in the highlands and borders, were engaged in endless and multiplied wars, of which the custom was so inveterate that it seemed as if no interposition of the civil authority, though repeatedly and anxiously attempted, had power to preserve the peace f. the kingdom. This had been from all generations the prevailing evil in Scotland, even in the reign of firm and powerful princes, such as Robert I., James I, II., IV., and V. The practice had been somewhat checked by the severe exertion of royal authority, when cases of peculiar importance compelled its interference; nor was this done without such an effusion of blood as to leave a stigma of severity at least, if not of cruelty, upon monarchs who were otherwise accounted the benefactors of their country, and were, perhaps, chiefly so in the strictness with which they repressed breaches of the general peace.

But the civil wars in Queen Mary's time had given more ample scope to the currency of general violence than during the more severe administration of her father, James V. ; the habits of war were become general through Scotland; the farmer left the cultivation of the ground to follow his land-lord, sometimes to wars of a public, sometimes to those of a private, character; bondmen and cottagers were the only laborers who were expected to toil for raising the food by which the population was to be supported. By every man superior to a mere serf or bondager defensive armor was worn as a part of his ordinary attire, and offensive weapons as a protection, without which it was unsafe to stir abroad. Every province of Scotland, every neighborhood, was distracted by the quarrels of the nobles and gentry, which broke out from time to time when they were least expected, and frequently in retaliation of injuries which liad been long ago sustained.

No time, place, or circumstance could limit the exercise of a deadly feud, or restrict the evils which its recollection excited. The streets of the metropolis resounded with quarrels fought out by armed men, which, though they some-times lasted for hours together, the utmost exertions of the civil power were unequal either to put an end to or to punish. In the ante-chamber of the court, and even in the presence of the king himself, defiances were exchanged and insults given in the most brutal language; and the parties hardly gave themselves the trouble to go further than the palace-yard to bring the matter to deadly arbitrament.

To give one instance out of many, Sir William Stewart, the brother of the Earl of Arran, whom we have just mentioned as the accuser of the Master of Gray, happened to revive in the presence-chamber some ancient dispute with Francis Stewart, earl of Bothwell, a man as choleric as himself. In the process of their quarrel receiving a contra-diction from the earl, he replied in such affronting language as the lowest of the rabble in the present day might bestow on his opponent in a drunken quarrel. Shortly after, Both-well, a haughty and choleric man, encountered Stewart in the public street, and repeating the words which had been applied to him, killed him dead on the spot at a single thrust. The earl left the town for a few days, but soon returning, was never questioned for the action.

These bloody brawls took place without the delicacies of formal challenges,- equal arms, impartial witnesses, or the other requisites with which the modern code of honor limits, or endeavors to limit, the indulgence of private revenge. On the contrary, if the barons of the sixteenth century did not, as was frequently the case, absolutely lie in wait for their enemies, and assail them with every advantage of numbers, their factions at least fought where they met, without regarding which was best armed, or backed by most friends or retainers; and the stronger party thought no more of laying aside any part of his superiority than a modern general would dream of equalizing his army with the weaker battalions of an adversary. They accounted feud to be equivalent to a state of open war, which each party endeavors to prosecute by every advantage in his power.

The legislature had done their part to restrain an evil so, intolerable, in which public peace gave little breathing space to the country, since violence and slaughter continued yet to ravage Scotland under the pretence of private war. The temper and habits of James, naturally averse to blood and violence, and disposed to the extension of lawful rule and royal supremacy, was peculiarly dissatisfied with this growing and continued national evil; but though his temperament inclined the sovereign to be sensible of the mischief, both that and his circumstances deprived him of the power of curing it. A just and strict administration of the laws, begun at first with a certain degree of lenity, but maintained more severely when the nation had become accustomed to such wholesome restraint, would have been the natural and evident course of remedy for this wasting pest. However, the king had not strength to enforce a remedy, far more obvious to be discovered than easy to be pursued. The royal domains, wasted and dilapidated during the civil wars, were so little able to maintain a force sufficient to assert the royal authority, even in the comparatively civilized parts of Scot-land, that, with the help of James's pension of five thousand pounds from Elizabeth, he had hardly the funds necessary for maintaining his household; and in his disposition possessed neither the turn for economy nor the audacity of enterprise, which render small means adequate to achieving great purposes. On the other hand, the same good-natured indolence which rendered James improvident in money concerns, and unwilling to lead troops, made him also incapable of the power of refusing the petitions for pardon and remission which thronged upon him when crimes of slighter or deadlier dye were committed, so that a perpetual impunity encouraged the repetition of these constant offences.

Yet James had the sincere desire to put an end to this general rage for war and slaughter, and attempted it by a species of reconciliation to be accomplished under his own eye, and to be sanctioned by his own authority, which was meant to close at once and forever the deadly feuds which existed among the Scottish nobles.

For this purpose the king invited to a public banquet the Scottish nobility, and, in particular, all those who were known to nourish deadly feud against each other. Previous to this banquet he read them a lecture upon the disloyalty to himself, and public danger to the country, incurred by their taking into their own hands the decision of their controversies, and persuaded them to consent to remit their differences to his decision. This could not, in words, or appearance at least, be decently refused. They consented, accordingly ; and James, having made them take hands, each with his mortal enemy, led them himself in procession from the palace of Holyrood House to the Cross of Edinburgh, where they were regaled with a splendid collation at the expense of the city, the magistrates and citizens looking on with great joy, while the lords, who had lately been in discord, drank pledges to each other, and his majesty quaffed peace and happiness to them all. It is remarkable that the Lord Yester, the ancestor of the family of Tweedale, more vindictive or less complaisant than the rest, refused to be reconciled with the Earl of Traquair, and was sent prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh. It was obvious, indeed, that this apparent reconciliation was only the closing by emolients an unhealed abscess, which required the severer treatment of steel and cautery; yet it evinced the king's goodwill to his subjects, and might perhaps have the effect of furnishing an honorable opportunity of dropping feuds among such of the nobles as had maintained them solely because a point of honor prevented their suffering them to fall asleep. If to the arguments with which he had recommended peace to his nobles he had or could have added a strict and severe execution of justice toward those who infringed the laws and disturbed the peace of the country, James would have conferred a real benefit on his subjects. As it was, the reconciliation feast passed off as a piece of theatrical effect; and most of the nobles who had joined hands at the king's command drew their swords upon each other shortly after-ward, as if it had never taken place.

Of this we shall quote an individual instance, which happened a few years after this supposed reconciliation, and which may give the reader some idea of the extent of this complicated pest, by which the nobility were not only obliged to engage in wars with each other; but were involved in every dispute and affray among their vassals, whose quarrels they were obliged to maintain upon all occasions, however unreasonable or however trifling; thus it frequently happened that an idle brawl between two persons of no distinction or consequence involved a considerable province in all the horrors of a civil war.

Thus, in the month of July, 1595, a person named Forrester, and another called Bruce, both families residing in the Carse of Stirling, and what were then called clanned men, paid their addresses to the same lady, and quarrelling together, Bruce received a hurt a sufficient injury to provoke that spirit of revenge which was then the most active passion in the bosom of the natives of Scotland. The Bruces could not, it seems, obtain an opportunity of discharging their rage on the person who had wronged their kinsman; but as they understood that another person of the same name, a magistrate in Stirling, was to travel from thence to Edinburgh on a particular day, they waylaid and slew him, although he was no way connected with the original quarrel. The slain man being a retainer of the Earl of Mar, that nobleman next took up the quarrel: he caused the corpse of Forrester to be brought from Linlithgow to Stir-ling in solemn procession : he himself attended with his banner displayed, and a great body of horse; a flag was also borne in the procession, on which was represented the picture of the deceased mangled and bloody, with the wounds which he had received. In this guise the body of the murdered man was conveyed through the territory of the Bruces and the Livingstons, and so to Stirling, where he was finally buried. The contemporary historian adds, that he inserts this form of defiance for the rarity thereof, and because he expects that some signal revenge is likely to ensue.

The parliament of 1587 passed some acts against missionary Jesuits and seminary priests, who at this time visited Scotland in numbers, with the view of making proselytes.

Two other remarkable laws were passed: the first annexed to the crown such lands of the Church as had not been inalienably bestowed upon the nobles or landed gentry; these were still considerable, and were held either by the titular bishops who possessed the benefices, or were granted to laymen by rights merely temporary. The only fund re-served for the clergy who were to serve the cure was the principal mansion-house, with a few acres of glebe land. The fund from which their stipends were to be paid was limited to the tithes. By this sweeping enactment all the former alienations of Church benefices acquired by the laity received a parliamentary ratification, and the king was put in possession of what, prudently managed, would have been the source of an adequate royal income. But James, though, like misers of a particular temper, he was unwilling to part with money which was actually realized and in his power, was improvidently lavish of such funds as were only expected to become valuable in course of time. It cost his greedy courtiers scarce more than the trouble of asking to obtain from the thoughtless king the reversion of property, which, although, for the present life, rented by annuitants, was sure upon their death to have added largely to the royal income. The crown, therefore, was little benefited by an enactment which, detaching the Church lands from all connection with ecclesiastical persons, totally ruined the order of bishops, for the restoration of whom, with some dignity and authority, King James, and his successor afterward, expressed considerable anxiety.

Another institution of the parliament, 1587, respected the representation of the people in parliament. James VI. perceived the superiority which the nobles had obtained in the national councils by the non-attendance of the lesser barons or freeholders. He endeavored, with considerable ingenuity, to balance this, by reviving the ancient statute of 1427, by which the lesser freeholders, or minor barons, as they were called, had a dispensation from giving personal attendance on parliament, where, properly, they were all entitled, or rather obliged, to give attendance, on condition of sending two freeholders from each county to represent them in parliament. The policy of King James's addition was to render the attendance of such representatives compulsory, and thereby to secure their presence in parliament, which had hitherto been precarious and uncertain, thus establishing a regular and constant barrier against the power of the nobility. This was a great step to diminish the authority of the aristocracy. It could not, however, be opposed by the nobles, because, by the constitution of the nation, the king had the right to call to the great council of the people the whole or any number of the lesser barons whom he might choose to summon; and, in limiting this power to a representation of two from each county, he seemed to lessen the importance of these smaller freeholders, while he was in fact enlarging it. Left to their own choice, and considering their duty in parliament as a burden rather than a privilege, they had seldom chosen to give attendance; whereas, by this edict of the king, a considerable number were positively required to be present. This in some degree replaced an equiponderance between the king and his peers when convened in parliament, which had been much destroyed since the fall of the spiritual estate, by which the Scottish crown had been usually supported before the reformation.

A great national crisis now approached. The Catholic sovereigns, who had united in the holy league, had obtained eminent success in France, and driven Henry III. from his own capital. The utmost exertions were made by Philip II., a prince equally ambitious and bigoted, to assemble the most powerful fleet and army which the world had yet seen, for the purpose of accomplishing the conquest of England. To the throne of that kingdom he raised a claim upon two pretences, of which it is impossible to tell which was the more frivolous the first being his descent from the House of Lancaster, and the second, a liberal donation from Pope Pius V. With this view the celebrated armada, called the Invincible, was assembled at Lisbon. The object of this tremendous expedition was not made public, but no one doubted its destination. The soldiers of England had supported the quarrel of the insurgents in the Netherlands; the navy of England had insulted the coasts of Spanish South America; above all, Elizabeth was the principal support of the Protestant religion in Europe, and the object at whose life and power the purposes of the holy league induced them to aim their most formidable blows. No one questioned that the present was intended for a mortal one.

The accession of James was, in case it could be gained, of the utmost consequence to the Spanish enterprise ; and Philip sought it with more anxiety than consisted with the haughty superiority which the House of Austria usually assumed over less powerful sovereigns. He applied for James's friendship with the most flattering assiduity; he reminded him of his mother's wrongs, and urged him to seize an opportunity so favorable for vengeance; and he offered him, in token of intimate alliance, the hand of his daughter Isabella in marriage. Queen Elizabeth was no less-anxious than Philip to secure the friendship of James, who, by his power to open or close the ports of Scotland, might so greatly facilitate or impede the invasion of England. She could not feel at ease when reflecting upon the execution of Mary, nor did she know what spirit of vengeance, suppressed by a sense of inferiority, might be yet slumbering in the bosom of the Scottish monarch. She sent an ambassador, named Ashby, to labor by every means in his power to attach King James to her interests at the present crisis. He appears to have been a plausible man, insinuating in his manners, and in no degree sparing of the most liberal promises. He undertook that James's succession to the English crown should be formally acknowledged in parliament; that an English dukedom, with a competent revenue, should be conferred upon him, and that he should even be admitted into some share of the English government.

On such promises made in Elizabeth's name, at such a period, James did not probably greatly rely. He himself described, an ambassador as an honorable person sent abroad to tell lies for the benefit of his country; but sounder views led him to the conclusions, which Ashby's flattering proposals were qualified to recommend. He consulted his statesmen and the parliament of his kingdom; and fortunate it was for Britain and for the Protestant religion that James's mind was not then under the dominion of any of those extravagant partialities which formerly, in the case of Arran and Gray, and afterward in that of similar rash, giddy, and profligate young men, subjected his counsels to their wild and often interested pilotage. Maitland the chancellor, with whom he chiefly consulted, was a man of mature sense and steady character, who, with a mind as acute as that of his brother, the celebrated secretary, possessed more practical judgment and more sound moral principle. He was, according to Spottiswoode, a man of rare parts, deep wit, learned, full of courage, and most faithful to the king. In the present crisis, the most important, perhaps, which the world had for a long time seen, James acquainted his parliament with his sentiments. "The intention of Spain," he said, "is for the present against England alone. To England I am lawful heir; and should I now suffer the Spaniard to possess himself of that kingdom, what likelihood is there that he would afterward give place to my right, when he is settled in possession of a conquered province? The pretext of religion which the Spaniard uses to justify his invasion would turn him as naturally against Scotland as against England; nor do I desire to enjoy either regal right or life itself separated from the cause of the Protestant faith. I am not ignorant that many persons are of opinion that this would be a proper opportunity to revenge myself for the unkind and unfriendly treatment which I received in my mother's death. But whatever resentment I may feel upon that account, or whatever I may think of the excuses which have been made upon the subject, I do not incline for such personal cause of resentment to put in peril the fate of my kingdom, my country, and my religion."

The wise and patriotic views of the king were almost unanimously felt, applauded, and adopted by his parliament; and universal preparations were made for resistance, in case the Spaniards should attempt to land in Scotland. There was a general muster through the realm. Watches were placed at all the seaports; beacons erected; and every means taken to prepare the most effectual defence against the apprehended invasion. In the meantime, love of the old religion, or desire for new changes by which they might profit, had associated a few of the Scottish lords into a faction favorable to Spain, and formidable from the rank and power of those whom it included. The Earls of Huntley, Errol, and Crawford, were all Catholics; the first by hereditary descent, the two last by recent conversion from the faith of their fathers. Lord Maxwell, also, whom we have already seen make an important figure at the Raid of Stirling, held the same faith. He had been subsequently discontented on account of his losing the title of Morton, to which, on the attainder and execution of the regent, he made pretence in right of his mother.

Maxwell had retreated to Spain in discontent; and at this crisis returned with the purpose of assisting the Spanish king's enterprise, by making an insurrection in Scotland. He went suddenly, therefore, to the west border, and began to assemble his forces; but James, placing himself at the head of a body of troops, made a rapid movement into Nithsdale, where he dispersed the forces of Maxwell, took him prisoner, and seized upon his castles.

With the exception of these popish nobles, Scotland in general showed the firmest determination to support the king. A bond of association was entered into for the maintenance of true religion and defence of their lawful sovereign. This association was signed with emulous alacrity by subjects of every rank, and was the model upon which the celebrated League and Covenant in the reign of Charles I. was afterward founded, though for very different purposes.

The fate of the Invincible Armada, in 1588, as it was proudly termed, is generally known. Persecuted by the fury of the elements, and annoyed by the adventurous gallantry of the English seamen, it was driven around the island of Britain, meeting great loss upon every quarter, and strewing the wild shores of the Scottish highlands and isles with wreck and spoil. James, though in arms to resist the Spaniards, had such resistance been necessary, behaved generously to considerable numbers whom their misfortunes threw upon his shores. Their wants were relieved, and they were safely restored to their own country. The fate of one body of these unfortunate men is strikingly told by the Rev. James Melville, whose diary has been lately published. (He was a clergyman, and must he carefully distinguished from Sir James Melville, the statesman often quoted. His diary bas been published by the Bannatyne Club of Edinburgh.) He describes at some length the alarm caused by the threatened invasion, and its effects. "Terrible," he says, "was the fear, piercing were the preachings, earnest, zealous, and fervent were the prayers, sounding were the sighs and sobs, and abounding were the tears at the fast and general assembly at Edinburgh, where we were credibly told sometimes of their landing at Dunbar, sometimes at St. Andrew's, and again at Aberdeen and Cromarty." On a sudden these rumors were dispelled by the account that a shipful of Spaniards were arrived in Melville's own harbor of Anstruther. The minister hastened to meet them, and found himself in presence of Don Juan de Medina, a commodore of twenty vessels. He was a reverend man of tall stature, a grave and silent countenance, great beard, and so humbled by his condition, that in bowing to the clergyman he swept his shoe with his sleeve. His tale was most melancholy. They had been shipwrecked upon the Fair Isle between Orkney and Zetland, had experienced the utmost extremity of hunger and cold, had, after some weeks of misery, hired a bark from Orkney, and were now come to entreat protection from the king of Scotland. Melville replied that, though there could exist but small friendship between them, considering their being at war with their friends and neighbors of England, yet he and the townsmen were determined to show that they were men moved with compassion for the distress of men, and were Christians of a better persuasion than their own. Juan Gomez de Medina and his men were accordingly treated with honorable kindness by the people of Anstruther. Melville procured for the Spaniard's information a printed account of the dispersion of the armada, and their numerous losses in the North Seas. He burst into tears and wept bitterly. Having set forth on his return to his own country, the noble Castilian found a ship belonging to the town of Anstruther under arrest at Cadiz. He instantly undertook a journey to court to labor for her discharge, and reported to his monarch his high sense of the Scottish hospitality. The vessel being liberated, he showed great kindness to the crew, and dismissed them with many commendations to the good people of Anstruther. "But," concludes Melville, very naturally, "we thanked God with our hearts that we had seen them among us in that form."

Thus passed over in Britain that dreadful period of 1588, which the astrologers, whom chance had for once guided to a veracious prediction, had distinguished as the "marvellous year."

When the danger was over, Elizabeth no longer evinced any thought of making good the liberal promises made to the king of Scots by her envoy while matters were yet doubtful. Ashby, conscious of having exceeded his commission in the hopes which he had excited, or commanded to act as if he were so, left Scotland privately, and without taking leave. Sir Robert Sidney, an ambassador of higher rank and greater responsibility, was sent instead, to congratulate King James on the issue of the great naval struggle, and on his firm and steadfast good offices in behalf of England, and to get clear of Ashby's engagements as well as he could.

Sidney was well received by the king, who frankly assured him that he regarded the fair language and prfuse offers of Philip in the light of the promise of the Cyclops, that Outis should be the last devoured. At the same time, he mentioned the liberal promises of Ashby. Sidney replied generally that nothing could be so dear to the queen as the welfare and honor of her beloved James, whom she regarded as her own son. Nevertheless, he disclaimed the explicit offers made by Ashby as relating to matters exceeding that person's commission, who by secretly leaving Scotland had shown a consciousness that he stood engaged for more than was likely to be made good. Sidney also pressed King James, on the part of his ally, to seize the present favorable opportunity to subdue and punish those Catholic nobles who were well known to have held themselves in readiness to have abetted the attempt of Philip had his forces come to a landing in Scotland.

James permitted the proposals of Ashby to pass out of memory without further notice, persuaded, doubtless, that there would be more loss than gain in putting Elizabeth in remembrance of that which she desired to forget. The Catholic lords themselves, though much disconcerted by the failure of the armada, continued to negotiate with the Prince of Parma, soliciting him for a body of six thousand auxiliaries, by means of whom, added to their own followers, they proposed to make him master of Scotland, and enable him to enter England with a triumphant army. Huntley, Crawford, and Errol were the chief persons in this conspiracy; but they were joined by Francis, earl of Bothwell, a turbulent and ambitious man, who alone of the Scotch Protestant nobility had advised a war with England, and even engaged soldiers to follow him in it at his own expense. Their correspondence with the Prince of Parma being discovered to Elizabeth, she commanded Sidney to lay the letters before the king of Scotland. The guilty noblemen were condemned to imprisonment; but King James, who was not willing to encounter the odium of the Catholic party lest it should interfere with his claim of succession to the throne of England, and who might in his heart desire to reserve some power in Scotland itself to balance the violent Protestant party acting under the instigation of preachers always unfavorable to him and his family, released the rebellious earls after a short confinement.

They testified their thankfulness for his clemency, first, by an attempt to seize his person, which was disconcerted by the precautions of the chancellor ; secondly, by an open rebellion in the north of Scotland. The king marched against them with an army hastily collected; and the rebels, unable to withstand the royal forces, dispersed their troops, and submitted to James's clemency. Once more they were committed to prison, once more to experience the lenity of their sovereign, who took an opportunity again to release them, in consequence of a joyful event which shortly after took place at the court, and which we are next to narrate.

James was now of full age, the last of his race; and his subjects, who had more frequently than any other nation in Europe suffered from disputed claims to the kingdom, and from long minorities, were naturally desirous to see the royal family free from the uncertainty which attended its dependence upon the life of one man. Yet the choice of a royal bride was attended with much embarrassment.

A Catholic princess would have increased the dread which, not without reason, was entertained for the predominance of that communion. A Protestant bride might have been found in England; but this would have thrown into the management of Queen Elizabeth the power of completing or disconcerting a match which she of all persons in the world least desired to see accomplished. It remained only to seek in the northern courts a princess of the Protestant religion, fit, by birth and manners, to wed with the young king of Scotland.

So early as 1584 ambassadors came from the king of Denmark for the avowed purpose of treating for the redemption of the Orkney Islands, which, as formerly mentioned, were pledged to Scotland in security of a sum of money which Christian of Denmark was bound to pay as the dowry of his daughter, espoused to James III. of Scotland. The ambassadors had, however, a more private commission, the union, namely, of the young king of Scots to the eldest daughter of Frederick II. of Denmark, being esteemed a fitting mode of accommodating the question between the kingdoms. Stewart, earl of Arran, was at this time in full favor; and he had recently pledged himself to Queen Elizabeth that King James should not be married for the space of three years. To break, therefore, the purpose of the Danish match, in all other respects fit and desirable, the ambassadors, through the influence of the insolent favorite, had been treated with every species of neglect and insult, until they were obliged to leave the court, in high indignation at the treatment they had met with. As a parting insult, they were informed that the king was to send them horses to convey them from Dunfermline to St. Andrew's, at which last place they were appointed to receive their despatches. The ambassadors accordingly booted themselves for the occasion, and waited long for the palfreys which were never to arrive. Concluding themselves laughed at and insulted, they took their departure on foot, with such feelings, respecting the hospitality of James, as this treatment was like to occasion. James, informed by Sir James Melville, immediately despatched horses for their use, which only overtook them after they had made a considerable part of their journey, high booted as they were, and in mortal indignation at such usage.

But Arran continued his intrigues to disgust them further. In St. Andrew's they were treated with the like insolence; and the populace, always uncivil to strangers, were encouraged to offer them every species of mockery and ridicule. The wisdom of Sir James Melville found a partial remedy for these evils. He was able to make the angry ambassadors sensible that the insults of which they complained were not to be imputed to the king himself, but to the insolence of his arrogant favorite. It was time there should be some interposition or explanation. The gravest of the embassy already threatened war ; and Dr. Theophilus, a dignitary, declared that their king was insulted, and would be revenged. They were, at length, with difficulty persuaded to make such a report as should not breed debate between the two countries, who had many reasons for remaining friends, and none which should make them enemies to each other. Negotiations were accordingly entered into for a marriage between James and one of the Danish princesses. But powerful efforts continued to be made to thwart, disconcert, and interrupt the treaty.

Queen Elizabeth was earnest in disconcerting a match which was likely to prolong for another generation the claim of succession to the English crown, which she had hoped, perhaps, to bury in Mary's bloody grave, so that by the influence she used with Arran, Gray, and the other Scottish ministers with whom she had interest, so many delays and obstacles were thrown in the way of the match, that Frederick, conceiving himself trifled with, gave his eldest daughter, who had been the object of James's suit, in marriage to the Duke of Brunswick.

James's pride and his passions were now seriously roused. He plainly saw that unless he made some decisive advances on his own part, Queen Elizabeth, directly or indirectly, would be able to baffle every attempt he might make toward marriage, and condemn him for life to a state of barren celibacy.

No sooner, therefore, was the match proposed with the eldest daughter of Denmark rendered impossible by her espousals, than King James, now freed from the baleful influence of Arran and Gray, and guided by the wise and sound counsels of his chancellor, Maitland, paid his addresses to Anne, the second daughter of the king of Denmark. Here again the malign influence of Elizabeth interfered : she recommended to James, in preference, a match with Catherine, sister of the king of Navarre; and she prevailed, by the secret agency which she still retained among the Scottish statesmen, upon the privy council of Scotland to enter into a resolution disapproving of the Danish match. But the populace of Edinburgh had caught an opinion, which seemed warranted by what had happened, that Elizabeth, through whose practices Queen Mary had lost her life, was now laboring to prevent all succession in the royal family of Scotland, and was like to be again successful in her views. They became furious, as is usual with a multitude under the influence of such feelings; and their violence was adopted by the king as an excuse for hastening the match, which some of his counsellors would have still delayed.

The earl mareschal, with a splendid retinue and full powers, was sent over to Denmark to conclude the marriage definitively; and the terms being accepted by her father Frederick, the princess embarked, with the purpose of repairing to Scotland. The weather being stormy, and the winds adverse, the royal bride was encountered by a storm which drove her back to Norway, and so much damaged the vessels which conveyed her with her suite, that there remained no hopes of their being repaired and made once more fit for the voyage before the next spring.

King James must have felt deep disappointment upon this occasion, since it led him to a feat of chivalrous adventure rather inconsistent with his pedantic habits and cold passions. He determined, suddenly, that, since his bride could not come to Scotland, he would, in person, repair to the northern regions to seek her. The winds which were contrary to her voyage must necessarily be favorable to his; and he no doubt possessed an inward fear that any interval which might be interposed between the contract and the nuptials would give Elizabeth an opportunity to abrogate the former, and to prevent the latter. He vindicated his resolutions in a proclamation addressed to his subjects, which is too characteristic to be suppressed, although it is difficult to forbear smiling at some parts of it.

It sets forth, on James's part, that, being king of Scot-land and heir-apparent of England, he was blamed by all men for the delay of his marriage, because a single man was as no man, and that the want of succession bred contempt, "as if he were a barren stock" : these and other important causes moved him, he said. to hasten the treaty of his marriage : for without urgent reasons of state, he assured his subjects that his personal temperance could have delayed the union for any length of time that the welfare of the country permitted. When he had heard of the impossibility of the princess's pursuing her voyage, although neither rash, passionate, nor unreasonable in the decision of weighty affairs, he became strongly, he says, impressed with the idea of going to Denmark, since the princess of Denmark could not come to Scotland. This resolution, he solemnly protests, was formed upon his own meditation, and without the suggestion of others, by the same token that Craigmillar Castle was the place in which he first adopted the resolution. He appears very jealous that his people would scarcely give him credit for exerting so much will of his own; and reiterates,. at considerable length, "I took this resolution only of myself, as I am a true prince; and with myself only I consulted which way to follow forth the same." He intended at first to have gone privately in a squadron of ships, commanded by the Earl of Bothwell, lord high admiral; but the expense which Bothwell had already bestowed in preparation for James's approaching marriage had been so great as to render it impossible for him to rig out a royal navy for the proposed expedition. The difficulty of finding funds for this equipment obliged the king on this proclamation to admit the whole council into his secret; and in order to make them earnest in aiding his purpose he was compelled to threaten them, with great vehemency, that if no man of rank could be found to accompany him he would himself, nevertheless, go, were it but in a single ship. On this the chancellor offered his person to attend him, and that, says the king, upon three respects, first, to remove the general suspicion which upbraided him with a desire to postpone the royal nuptials; secondly, out of zeal to the royal service; and, lastly, from his extreme fear that the king might make good his threat of going alone. "These things," says King James, "I had hitherto concealed from the chancellor, until they were laid before the whole council, lest he should undergo the odium of putting such a hazardous enterprise into my head, which had not been his duty, since it becomes not subjects to give princes advice in such high matters. Therefore, remembering what envious and unjust burden he daily bears for leading me by the nose, as it were, to all his humors, as if I were a creature without reason, or a help-less infant, that could do nothing for myself, I was unwilling to be the occasion at this time of heaping further unjust scandal on his head. These truths," continues his majesty, "I speak in behalf of the chancellor, as also for my own honor's sake, that I may not be unjustly slandered as an irresolute ass, who can do nothing of his own motion."

Having thus afforded to the nation an admirable example of a man who knew his own frailty, and was afraid of being upbraided with it, James, by another proclamation, recommended to all authorities the regular discharge of their duties during his absence, with special appointments of guardians or governors for particular provinces. He required the ministers to remember him and his estate in their prayers, and to exhort the people to peace and loyalty during his absence.

Having made these arrangements, James sailed north-ward in person, attended by the chancellor, some nobles, and a retinue of three hundred men. The king was received in Denmark with all the hospitality which the frank confidence of his visit merited : the severity of the northern winter rendered his immediate return a matter of some danger; therefore, when his marriage was solemnized at Upsal, in Norway, where he found his bride residing, James accepted an invitation from his father-in-law to Copenhagen; and repairing to the Danish court with his new married wife, spent the remainder of the winter season in mirth and festivity with the royal family, and then returned to his native kingdom.

The time spent in this expedition, which lasted from the 22d of October, 1589, till the 1st of May, 1590, was a period of unusual tranquillity in Scotland. The people appeared to have felt as if the absence of James was, in fact, a committing of the royal authority to the loyalty of the subject, which they should dishonor themselves in misusing. Each order of men in their rank strove to show themselves worthy of trust. The great abstained from their factions, the populace from their tumults, the clergy desisted from the habit, which some had contracted, of hatching jealousies of the king's motives, and infusing them into the minds of their hearers; and answered the king's hopes so well in aiding the preservation of peace and good order as to merit, on his return, his peculiar thanks and gratitude. In a word, there was no era of Scottish history more orderly and peaceful than this short period.