The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (296 page)

catholics, never ceased during the whole course of her reign; but the variety of revolutions which happened in all the neighbouring kingdoms, were the source sometimes of her hopes, sometimes of her apprehensions. This year the affairs of Scotland strongly engaged her attention. The influence, which the earl of Lenox, and James Stuart, who now assumed the title of earl of Arran, had acquired over the young king, was but a slender foundation of authority; while the generality of the nobles, and all the preachers, were so much discontented with their administration.

The assembly of the church appointed a solemn fast; of which one of the avowed reasons was the danger to which the king was exposed from the company of wicked persons:
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And on that day, the pulpits resounded with declamations against Lenox, Arran, and all the present counsellors.

When the minds of the people were sufficiently prepared by August 23.

these lectures, a conspiracy of the nobility was formed, probably with the concurrence of Elizabeth, for seizing the person of James at Ruthven, a seat of the earl of Gowry’s; and the design, being kept secret, succeeded without any opposition. The leaders in this enterprize were, the earl of Gowry himself, the earl of PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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Marre, the lords Lindesey and Boyd, the masters of Glamis and Oliphant, the abbots of Dunfermling, Paisley, and Cambuskenneth. The king wept when he found himself detained a prisoner; but the master of Glamis said, “No matter for his tears: Better that boys weep than bearded men.” An expression which James could never afterwards

forgive.r
But notwithstanding his resentment, he found it necessary to submit to the present necessity. He pretended an entire acquiescence in the conduct of the associators; acknowledged the detention of his person to be acceptable service; and agreed to summon both an assembly of the church and a convention of estates, in order to ratify that enter- prize.

The assembly, though they had established it as an inviolable rule, that the king, on no account and under no pretence, should ever intermeddle in ecclesiastical matters, made no scruple of taking civil affairs under their cognizance, and of deciding on this occasion, that the attempt of the conspirators was acceptable to all that feared God, or tendered the preservation of the king’s person, and prosperous state of the realm.

They even enjoined all the clergy to recommend these sentiments from the pulpit; and they threatened with ecclesiastical censures every man, who should oppose the

authority of the confederated lords.s
The convention, being composed chiefly of these lords themselves, added their sanction to these proceedings. Arran was confined a prisoner in his own house: Lenox, though he had power to resist, yet rather than raise a civil war, or be the cause of bloodshed,
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chose to retire into France, where he soon after died. He persevered to the last in the protestant religion, to which James had converted him, but which the Scottish clergy could never be persuaded that he had sincerely embraced. The king sent for his family, restored his son to his paternal honours and estate, took care to establish the fortunes of all his other children; and to his last moments never forgot the early friendship, which he had borne their father: A

strong proof of the good dispositions of that prince.u

No sooner was this revolution known in England, than the queen sent Sir Henry Cary and Sir Robert Bowes to James, in order to congratulate him on his deliverance from the pernicious counsels of Lenox and Arran; to exhort him not to resent the seeming violence committed on him by the confederated lords; and to procure from him permission for the return of the earl of Angus, who, ever since Morton’s fall, had lived in England. They easily prevailed in procuring the recall of Angus; and as James suspected, that Elizabeth had not been entirely unacquainted with the project of his detention, he thought proper, before the English ambassadors, to dissemble his resentment against the authors of it. Soon after,

La Mothe-Fenelon, and Menneville, appeared as ambassadors 1583.

from France: Their errand was to enquire concerning the

situation of the king, make professions of their master’s friendship, confirm the ancient league with France, and procure an accommodation between James and the queen of Scots. This last proposal gave great umbrage to the clergy; and the assembly voted the settling of terms between the mother and son to be a most wicked undertaking. The pulpits resounded with declamations against the French ambassadors; particularly Fenelon, whom they called the messenger of the bloody murderer, meaning the duke of Guise: And as that minister, being knight of the Holy Ghost, wore a white cross on his shoulder, they commonly denominated it, in contempt, the badge of Antichrist. The king endeavoured, though in vain, to repress PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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these insolent reflections; but in order to make the ambassadors some compensation, he desired the magistrates of Edinburgh to give a splendid dinner before their departure. To prevent this entertainment, the clergy appointed that very day for a public fast; and finding that their orders were not regarded, they employed their sermons in thundering curses on the magistrates, who, by the king’s direction, had put this mark of respect on the ambassadors. They even pursued them afterwards with the censures of the church; and it was with difficulty they were prevented from issuing the sentence of excommunication against them, on account of their submission to

royal, preferably to clerical, authority.w

What encreased their alarm with regard to an accommodation between James and Mary, was, that the English ambassadors seemed to concur with the French in this proposal; and the clergy were so ignorant as to believe the sincerity of the professions made by the former.

The queen of Scots had often made overtures to Elizabeth, which Letter of Mary to had been entirely neglected; but hearing of James’s detention, Elizabeth.

she wrote a letter in a more pathetic and more spirited strain than usual; craving the assistance of that princess, both for her own and her son’s liberty.

She said, that the account of the prince’s captivity had excited her most tender concern; and the experience, which she herself, during so many years, had of the extreme infelicity attending that situation, had made her the more apprehensive, lest a like fate should pursue her unhappy offspring: That the long train of injustice which she had undergone; the calumnies to which she had been exposed; were so grievous, that, finding no place for right or truth among men, she was reduced to make her last appeal to Heaven, the only competent tribunal between princes of equal jurisdiction, degree, and dignity: That after her rebellious subjects, secretly instigated by Elizabeth’s ministers, had expelled her the throne, had confined her in prison, had pursued her with arms, she had voluntarily thrown herself under the protection of England; fatally allured by those reiterated professions of amity which had been made her, and by her confidence in the generosity of a friend, an ally, and a kinswoman: That not content with excluding her from her presence, with supporting the usurpers of her throne, with contributing to the destruction of her faithful subjects, Elizabeth had reduced her to a worse captivity than that from which she had escaped, and had made her this cruel return for the unlimited confidence, which she had reposed in her: That though her resentment of such severe usage had never carried her farther than to use some disappointed efforts for her deliverance, unhappy for herself, and fatal to others, she found the rigours of confinement daily multiplied upon her; and at length carried to such a height that it surpassed the bounds of all human patience any longer to endure them: That she was cut off from all communication, not only with the rest of mankind, but with her only son; and her maternal fondness, which was now more enlivened by their unhappy sympathy in situation, and was her sole remaining attachment to this world, deprived even of that melancholy solace, which letters or messages could give: That the bitterness of her sorrows, still more than her close confinement, had preyed upon her health, and had added the insufferable weight of bodily infirmity to all those other calamities, under which she laboured: That while the daily experience of her maladies opened to her the comfortable prospect of an approaching deliverance into a region where pain and sorrow are no more, her enemies envied her that last consolation; and having secluded her from every joy on PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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earth, had done what in them lay to debar her from all hopes in her future and eternal existence: That the exercise of her religion was refused her; the use of those sacred rites in which she had been educated; the commerce with those holy ministers, whom Heaven had appointed to receive the acknowledgment of our transgressions, and to seal our penitence by a solemn re-admission into heavenly favour and forgiveness: That it was in vain to complain of the rigours of persecution exercised in other kingdoms; when a queen, and an innocent woman, was excluded from an indulgence, which never yet, in the most barbarous countries, had been denied to the meanest and most obnoxious malefactor: That could she ever be induced to descend from that royal dignity in which Providence had placed her, or depart from her appeal to Heaven, there was only one other tribunal, to which she would appeal from all her enemies; to the justice and humanity of Elizabeth’s own breast, and to that lenity, which, uninfluenced by malignant counsel, she would naturally be induced to exercise towards her: And that she finally intreated her, to resume her natural disposition, and to reflect on the support, as well as comfort, which she might receive from her son and herself, if, joining the obligations of gratitude to the ties of blood, she would deign to raise them from their present melancholy situation, and reinstate them in that

liberty and authority, to which they were entitled.x

Elizabeth was engaged to obstruct Mary’s restoration, chiefly because she foresaw an unhappy alternative attending that event. If this princess recovered any considerable share of authority in Scotland, her resentment, ambition, zeal, and connections, both domestic and foreign, might render her a dangerous neighbour to England, and enable her, after suppressing the protestant party among her subjects, to revive those pretensions, which she had formerly advanced to the crown, and which her partizans in both kingdoms still supported with great industry and assurance. If she were reinstated in power, with such strict limitations as could not be broken, she might be disgusted with her situation; and flying abroad, form more desperate attempts than any sovereign, who had a crown to hazard, would willingly undertake. Mary herself, sensible of these difficulties, and convinced by experience, that Elizabeth would for ever debar her the throne, was now become more humble in her wishes; and as age and infirmities had repressed those sentiments of ambition, by which she had formerly been so much actuated, she was willing to sacrifice all her hopes of grandeur, in order to obtain a little liberty; a blessing to which she naturally aspired with the fondest impatience. She proposed, therefore, that she should be associated with her son in the title to the crown of Scotland, but that the administration should remain solely in him: And she was content to live in England, in a private station, and even under a kind of restraint; but with some more liberty, both for exercise and company, than she had enjoyed, since the first discovery of her intrigues with the duke of Norfolk. But Elizabeth, afraid lest such a loose method of guarding her would facilitate her escape into France or Spain, or, at least, would encourage and encrease her partizans, and enable her to conduct those intrigues, to which she had already discovered so strong a propensity, was secretly determined to deny her requests; and though she feigned to assent to them, she well knew how to disappoint the expectations of the unhappy princess. While Lenox maintained his authority in Scotland, she never gave any reply to all the applications made to her by the Scottish queen:
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At present, when her own creatures had acquired possession of the government, she was resolved to throw the odium of refusal upon them; and pretending, that nothing farther was required to a PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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perfect accommodation, than the concurrence of the council of state in Scotland, she ordered her ambassador, Bowes, to open the negociation for Mary’s liberty, and her association with her son in the title to the crown. Though she seemed to make this concession to Mary, she refused her the liberty of sending any ambassador of her own; and that princess could easily conjecture, from this circumstance, what would be the result of the pretended negociation. The privy council of Scotland, instigated by the clergy, rejected all treaty; and James, who was now a captive in their hands, affirmed, that he had never agreed to an association with his mother, and that the matter had never gone farther than some loose proposals for that purpose.
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The affairs of Scotland remained not long in the present situation. James, impatient of restraint, made his escape from his keepers; and flying to St. Andrew’s, summoned his friends and partizans to attend him. The earls of Argyle, Marshal, Montrose, and Rothes, hastened to pay their duty to their sovereign; and the opposite party found themselves unable to resist so powerful a combination. They were offered a pardon, upon their submission, and an acknowledgment of their fault, in seizing the king’s person, and restraining him from his liberty. Some of them accepted of the terms: The greater number, particularly Angus, Hamilton, Marre, Glamis, left the country; and took shelter in Ireland or England, where they were protected by Elizabeth. The earl of Arran was recalled to court; and the malcontents, who could not brook the authority of Lenox, a man of virtue and moderation, found, that, by their resistance, they had thrown all power into the hands of a person, whose counsels were as violent