liament to give the matrimonial crown to the dauphin; but with this condition, that the duke's right should not be impaired by it.

"When all this was obtained, the queen forgot all her promises; she began with the greatest of the Scottish lords then in office, the earl of Huntley, who was then lord chancellor, and the duke's particular friend; she took the great seal from him, and gave it to one Rubay, a French advocate; she also put the earl of Huntley in prison, and set a great fine on him, and left him only the name of chancellor. She made another Frenchman comptroller, who had the charge of the revenue of the crown and she put all Scotchmen out of the secrets of the council, committing these only to Frenchmen. She kept in several places garrisons of Frenchmen, who lived on discretion. She gave them no pay. She sent the revenue of the crown to France, and brought over some base money that was decried in France, and made it current in Scotland. She also set up a mint for coining base money, with which she paid the soldiers. She tried to get the castle of Edinburgh into her hands, but that failed her. She gave such abbeys as fell void to Frenchmen, as to her brother the cardinal of Guise, and others and for the space of three years she kept all that fell void in her own hands, except such as were of any value, and these she bestowed on Frenchmen. Nor did she ever follow the advice of those lords, who upon her first entering upon the government were named to be of the council. Many intercessions were made to her upon these proceedings by the nobility: sometimes companies of them joined together; and sometimes they applied to her more privately, for they foresaw that they could not be borne long.

The queen dowager set herself next to a practice, which of all others was both the most dangerous and the most dishonourable, to set aside the duke and his house: pains were taken to engage the Lord James, and other lords, in it, who had no friendship for the duke; to whom the queen dowager promised, that she would bear with their devotion in religion, if they would join with her against the duke, in favour of the French. This encouraged them to do those things by which they incurred the censures of the church; and were, by reason of a law not much known, brought in danger of the guilt of treason: so process was ordered against them and upon that the queen dowager tempted them to engage in the French interest; but that not prevailing, they were declared traitors. The rest of the nobility being alarmed at this, the queen dowager brought out her

French garrisons, and disposed of their estates, and entered into St. John's Town in a warlike manner: she changed the magistrates, and left a garrison in the town. The whole nation was alarmed at this, and were coming together in great numbers. But she, not having force enough to conquer the nation, sent for the duke, and the earl of Huntly, and employed them to quiet the country; promising that every thing should be redressed in a parliament that should be held next spring, with many other more particular promises upon this assurance, these lords quieted the country: while this was a doing, the duke's eldest son, being then in France, was sent for to court, but he had secret advertisements sent him, that it was resolved to proceed against him to the utmost extremity for heresy: upon which he kept out of the way, till an order was sent to bring him in dead or alive upon that he made his escape: but they seized on a younger brother of his, of the age of fifteen, and put him in prison.

The

In Scotland the nobility had separated themselves, trusting to the faith that the duke had given them, that all things should be kept quiet till the parliament. But some companies coming out of France to Leith, the queen dowager ordered that town to be fortified, and put twentytwo ensigns of foot with one troop of horse in it. nobility upon that charged the duke with breach of faith, who could do no more but press the queen to forbear to give such cause of jealousy; but all was to no purpose. The town was fortified; all the ammunition she had was carried into it, and the French continued still to be sending over more forces. The duke, with the nobility, represented to the queen dowager, that it was now plain she designed a conquest: but she despised all their requests, for by this time the French thought they were so strong, that they reckoned it would be a short work to subdue Scotland. There were but two or three mean lords, Bothwell and Seaton, that kept company with the queen dowager; yet even these signified to their friends, that their hearts were with their countrymen: upon all this, the duke, with the rest of the nobility, and with the barons and burgesses of the realm, seeing an imminent danger to the whole nation, and no hope of remedy at her hands, began deeply to consider the state of the kingdom: their sovereign lady was married to a strange prince out of the realm, and wholly in the hands of Frenchmen; without any council of her own natural people; and they considered the mortality of her husband, or of herself without issue. The queen dowager, sister to the house that ruled all in France, persisted in ruining the

liberties of her daughter the queen's subjects, on design to knit that kingdom for ever to France; and so to execute the old malice of the French on the crown of England, of which they had already assumed the title.

66 They, upon all these grounds, were constrained to constitute a council for the government of the kingdom, and for the use of their sovereign, to whom they had signified the suspension of the queen dowager's authority; maintaining, that being sore oppressed with French power, they had, as natural subjects, sufficient strength for that; though they are not able to stand against the power of France; but partly for the right of their sovereign, and partly for the ancient rights of the crown, they have been forced to spend their whole substance; yet they cannot longer preserve themselves from being conquered by the power sent over from France; a greater force being promised to be sent next spring. They therefore lay the whole matter before the queen of England's ministers, then upon their borders; and commit their cause to her protection; desiring nothing but that their country may be preserved from France, together with the rights of their sovereign, and the whole nation."

To this they add a petition, that the number of French soldiers then within the kingdom might be removed speedily; that so they might live quietly, and be suffered to offer to the king and queen such articles as were necessary for the peace and good government of the kingdom, without alteration of their ancient liberties." This was signed by the earl of Arran, as he was then called, but that was his father's title, for he had no higher title in Scotland: the son therefore signed James Hamilton. It was also signed by the earls Argyle and Glencairn; by Lord James, afterwards created earl of Murray; and by the Lords Boyd, Uchiltry, Maxwell, and Ruthen and by a son of the earl of Huntly's, and a son of the earl of Athol's; both these families being at that time papists. And thus by the tenor of this whole paper it appears, that religion was not pretended to be the cause of the war.

Upon the suspending the authority of the queen regent, I will here add a particular reflection, which will show what Archbishop Spotswood's sense was when he first wrote his history of that transaction. He gives an account of the opinion that Willock and Knox delivered, when they were called and required to give it, which they did in favour of that suspension: for which he censures the opinion itself, in these words: "Howbeit the power of the magistrate be limited, and their office prescribed by God, and that they may likewise fall into great offences; yet it is nowhere permitted to subjects to call their princes in question; or to

make insurrection against them, God having reserved the punishment of princes to himself." Yet in a fair manuscript of that history, written with great care, as for the press, this whole period was first penned quite in another strain: "allowing the states of the kingdom a right to restrain their prince, when he breaks through rules; only censuring clergymen's meddling in those matters." This is scored through, but so that it is still legible, and Spotswood interlined with his own hand the alteration; according to which, his book was printed. The manuscript belonged to me, and forty-two years ago I presented it to the duke of Lauderdale, and showed him that passage, on which he made great reflection. I cannot find out in whose hands that manuscript is fallen but whosoever has it will, I hope, justify me in this particular; for though I am not sure as to the words, yet I am very sure they are to this purpose.

When this representation and petition was brought to the queen, Cecil drew up a state of the matter, which will be found in the Collection (No. liv); putting this as the question, Whether it was meet that England should help Scotland to expel the French or not? For the negative he says, "It was against God's law to aid any subjects against their natural prince or their ministers it was also dangerous to do it: for an aid secretly given would be to no purpose and an aid publicly given would draw on a war: and in that case the French would come to any composition with the Scots to join with them against England; since they will consent to any thing, rather than suffer Scotland to be united to the crown of England. He adds, It may also be apprehended that the emperor, the king of Spain, the pope, and the duke of Savoy, with the potentates of Italy, will join with the French king, rather than suffer these two kingdoms to be joined in one manner of religion; and many within both kingdoms will not approve of this. But in opposition to all this, he concludes for assisting the Scots.

"He lays it down for a principle, that it is agreeable to the laws of God and of nature, that every prince and state should defend itself; not only from perils that are seen, but from those that may probably come after: to which he adds, that nature and reason teach every person, politic or other, to use the same manner of defence that the adversary useth of offence. Upon these grounds he concludes, that England might and ought to assist the Scots to keep out the French; and so earnest was that great statesman in this matter, that he prosecutes it very copiously.

"His first reason is that which the Scots would never

admit, but he might think it proper to offer it to an English council; that the crown of England had a superiority over Scotland, such as the emperor had over Bohemia or Milan. He next shows, that England must be in great danger from the French, if they became the absolute masters of Scotland. Upon this he runs out to show, that the French had been long enemies to England; that they had been false and double in all their treaties with them these seven hundred years; and that the last peace was forced from them by their poverty. That France could not be poor above two years; nor could it be long without war; beside the hatred that the house of Guise, who then governed the French councils, bore to England. They call in question the queen's title, and set up their own against it; and at the treaty of Cambray they set that pretension on foot; but it was then stopped by the wisdom of the constable; yet they used means at Rome to get the queen to be declared illegitimate; upon which the bull was brought into France and at the solemnities, in which the king was killed, the arms of England and Ireland were joined with the queen of Scots' arms. The present embroilment in Scotland is the stop that now restrains them from carrying these pretensions further: but as soon as they can, they will certainly set them on foot: and the assaulting England by the way of Scotland is so easy, that it is not possible to avoid it but by stopping the progress of that conquest. A war by the way of Scotland puts France in no danger, though it should miscarry; but England is in the utmost danger if it should succeed. He concludes, that as the matter was of the last importance, so no time was to be lost, since the prejudice, if too long delayed, would be irrecoverable."

What further steps were made in the secret debating of this point does not appear to me, but by the conclusion of the matter. For the queen sent forces, under the command of the duke of Norfolk, to the borders of Scotland: what followed upon that is set out fully in the common historians, and from them in my former work.

But a copy of the bond of association, into which the lords and others in Scotland entered (the original of which remains still in the possession of the duchess of Hamilton), will set out more particularly the grounds that they went

on.

It is in the Collection (No. Iv); and it sets forth, "that they promised faithfully, and in the presence of God, that they would, to the utmost of their power, set forward the reformation of religion, according to God's word; that the true preaching of it might have a free passage through the whole kingdom, together with the admi