The history of Scotland from the Reformation assumes a character not only unlike that of preceding times, but to which there is no parallel in modern ages. It became a contest, not between the crown and the feudal aristocracy, as before, nor between the asserters of prerogative and of privilege, as in England, nor between the possessors of established power and those who deemed themselves oppressed by it, as is the usual source of civil discord, but between the temporal and spiritual authorities, the crown and the churchthat in general supported by the legislature, this sustained by the voice of the people. Nothing of this kind, at least in anything like so great a degree, has occurred in other Protestant countries-the Anglican church being, in its original constitution, bound up with the state as one of its component parts, but subordinate to the whole; and the ecclesiastical order in the kingdoms and commonwealths of the Continent being either destitute of temporal authority or at least subject to the civil magistrate's supremacy.-HENRY HALLAM.

THE REGENCY OF MORAY (1567-1570 A.D.)

MARY STUART, like Baliol, disappears personally from the field of Scottish history; but her life in exile, unlike his, was spent in busy plots to recover her lost throne. It became clear as time went on that she placed her whole reliance on the Catholic minority and foreign aid; even in prison she was a menace to Elizabeth and ready to plot against her as an enemy. But the Protestant party increased in Scotland until it became a majority almost representative of the whole nation; even her own son when he came to hold the sceptre, little inclined as he was to accept the Presbyterian principles, regarded her as a revolutionary element fortunately removed. By her will, confirmed by her last letters, she bequeathed the crown of Scotland and her claim to that of England to Philip II. The letters contain this modification

[1565-1568 A.D.]

at first a love-match as well as a triumph of state-craft, but her love speedily died in the face of his viciousness and weakness. She refused to grant him the royal title, and gave the Italian musician Rizzio, or Riccio, the post of chief adviser, and as Darnley claimed, of lover as well.

With Darnley's encouragement, a plot against Rizzio's life was entered into by Moray, Lennox, Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay, and others, and Rizzio was dragged from the very presence of Mary and slain March 9th, 1566. Moray and other exiles returned now, but the queen patching up a temporary truce with her cowardly husband fled to Dunbar where she gathered strength enough to frighten the exiles back to retirement. June 19th, 1566, the queen gave birth to a son who became James I of England after a series of dramatic

events.

Mary had naturally nothing but contempt and hatred for her weak and vicious husband, and her impressionable heart fell under the sway of the even more vicious yet bold and resolute earl of Bothwell, who had befriended her at the time of Rizzio's murder. The assassination of Darnley on February 10th, 1567, and Mary's marriage with Bothwell, May 15th (though Bothwell was openly accused of her husband's murder), horrified all Scotland, and the degree of Mary's complicity still constitutes one of the mysteries of history. As both sides of the case have been fully recounted in our history of England it need not be reopened here.

So great was the revulsion of feeling in Scotland that Mary and her husband fled and raised an army which was met by the troops of the lords to whom Mary surrendered June 15th, 1567, on condition that Bothwell be allowed to escape. Bothwell left the country forever. Mary, brought back to Edinburgh a captive, was hooted and jeered by her subjects, and compelled to abdicate in favour of her son, James VI, with the earl of Moray as regent, July 24th, 1567. He returned from England to take control. The Hamiltons, however, so hated him that they took up Mary's cause and enabled her to demand the restoration of her crown. The issue was decided with finality in the battle of Langside, May 13th, 1568. Mary hopelessly defeated and in despair of her very life determined to seek refuge with her arch-enemy, the queen of England. Her subsequent detention, the conference concerning her guilt in the murder of Darnley in which her brother Moray appeared as her accuser, and her long imprisonment are all to be found at length in the record of Elizabeth's reign. We shall concern ourselves now only with the affairs. of Scotland after the election of Moray to the regency."

The history of Scotland from the Reformation assumes a character not only unlike that of preceding times, but to which there is no parallel in modern ages. It became a contest, not between the crown and the feudal aristocracy, as before, nor between the asserters of prerogative and of privilege, as in England, nor between the possessors of established power and those who deemed themselves oppressed by it, as is the usual source of civil discord, but between the temporal and spiritual authorities, the crown and the churchthat in general supported by the legislature, this sustained by the voice of the people. Nothing of this kind, at least in anything like so great a degree, has occurred in other Protestant countries-the Anglican church being, in its original constitution, bound up with the state as one of its component parts, but subordinate to the whole; and the ecclesiastical order in the kingdoms and commonwealths of the Continent being either destitute of temporal authority or at least subject to the civil magistrate's supremacy.-HENRY HALLAM.

THE REGENCY OF MORAY (1567-1570 A.D.)

MARY STUART, like Baliol, disappears personally from the field of Scottish history; but her life in exile, unlike his, was spent in busy plots to recover her lost throne. It became clear as time went on that she placed her whole reliance on the Catholic minority and foreign aid; even in prison she was a menace to Elizabeth and ready to plot against her as an enemy. But the Protestant party increased in Scotland until it became a majority almost representative of the whole nation; even her own son when he came to hold the sceptre, little inclined as he was to accept the Presbyterian principles, regarded her as a revolutionary element fortunately removed. By her will, confirmed by her last letters, she bequeathed the crown of Scotland and her claim to that of England to Philip II. The letters contain this modification

[1567-1569 A.D.] only, that her son was to have an opportunity of embracing the Catholic faith under the guardianship of Philip to save his own throne. There was no such reservation as regards that of England. The Armada, from whose overthrow date the fall of Spain and the rise of Britain as the chief European power, was due to the direct instigation of Mary Stuart.

Meantime, in Scotland four regencies rapidly succeeded each other during the minority of James. The deaths by violence of two regents, Moray and Lennox, the suspicion of foul play in the death of the third, Mar, and the end scarcely less violent because preceded by a trial of the fourth, Morton, mark a revolutionary period and the impossibility of the attempted solution by

placing the government in the hands of the most powerful noble. Hereditary royalty, not the rule of the aristocracy, was still dominant in Scottish politics, and a regency was an experiment already disparaged in the preceding reigns.

Moray, said Sir J. Melville, "was and is called the good regent," mingling with this praise only the slight qualification that in his later years he was apt to be led by flatterers, but testifying to his willingness to listen to Melville's own counsels. This epithet bestowed by the Protestants, whose champion he was, still adheres to him; but only partisans can justify its use. He displayed great promptness in baffling the schemes of Mary and her party, suppressed with vigour the border thieves, and ruled with a firm hand, resisting the temptation to place the crown on his own head. His name is absent from many plots of the time. He observed the forms of personal piety-possibly shared the zeal of the reformers, while he moderated their bigotry.

But the reverse side of his character is proved by his conduct. He reaped the fruits of the conspiracies which led to Rizzio's and Darnley's murders. He amassed too great a fortune from the estates of the church to be deemed a pure reformer of its abuses. He pursued his sister with a calculated animosity which would not have spared her life had this been necessary to his end or been favoured by Elizabeth. The mode of production of the casket letters and the false charges added by Buchanan,d "the pen" of Moray, deprive Moray of any reasonable claim to have been an honest accuser, zealous only to detect guilt and to benefit his country. The reluctance to charge Mary with complicity in the murder of Darnley was feigned, and his object was gained when he was allowed to table the accusation without being forced to prove it. Mary remained a captive under suspicion of the gravest guilt, while Moray returned to Scotland to rule in her stead, supported by nobles who had taken part in the steps which ended in Bothwell's deed.

Moray left London on the 12th of January, 1569. During the year between his return and his death several events occurred for which he has been censured,

[1569-1570 A.D.]

but which were necessary for his security-the betrayal of the duke of Norfolk and of the secret plot for the liberation of Mary to Elizabeth; the imprisonment in Lochleven of the earl of Northumberland, who after the failure of his rising in the north of England had taken refuge in Scotland; and the charge brought against Maitland of Lethington of complicity in Darnley's murder. Lethington was committed to custody, but rescued by Kirkcaldy of Grange, who held the castle of Edinburgh, and while there "the chameleon," as Buchanand named Maitland in his famous invective, contrary to the nature of that animal, gained over those in the castle, including Kirkcaldy. Moray was afraid to proceed with the charge on the day of trial, and Kirkcaldy and Maitland became partisans of the queen. The castle was the stronghold of the queen's party-being isolated from the town and able to hold out against the regent who governed in the name of her son.

It has been suspected that Maitland and Kirkcaldy were cognisant of the design of Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh to murder Moray, for he had been with them in the castle. This has been ascribed to private vengeance for the ill-treatment of his wife; but the feud of the Hamiltons with the regent is the most reasonable explanation. As he rode through Linlithgow Moray was shot (the 23rd of January, 1570) from a window by Hamilton, who had made careful preparation for the murder and his own escape. Moray was buried in the south aisle of St. Giles cathedral, Edinburgh, amid general mourning. Knox preached the sermon, and Buchanan furnished the epitaph, both unstinted panegyrics.

His real character is as difficult to penetrate as that of Mary. It is easy for the historian to condemn the one and praise the other according to his own religious or political creed. It is nearer truth to recognise in both the graces and talents of the Stuart race, which won devoted followers, but to acknowledge that times in which Christian divines approved of the murder of their enemies were not likely to produce a stainless heroine or faultless hero, indeed necessitated a participation in deeds which would be crimes unless they can be palliated as acts of civil war. Let us absolve, if we can, Moray and Mary of Darnley's blood. It remains indisputable that Mary approved of Moray's assassination, and that Moray would have sanctioned Mary's death."

e

Hume Brown says: "The work accomplished by Moray has in large degree been overshadowed by the work of Knox, whose character and achievement were of a kind to make a wider appeal to the popular imagination. Yet of the two men it was Moray who indubitably did the most to insure the success of the Scottish Reformation."

Froude says of Moray: "When the verdict of plain human sense can get itself pronounced, the good regent will take his place among the best and greatest men who have ever lived. His lot had been cast in the midst of convulsions where, at any moment, had he cared for personal advantages, a safe and prosperous course lay open to him; but so far as his conduct can be traced, his interests were divided only between duty to his country, duty, as he understood it, to God, and affection for his unfortunate sister. France tried in vain. to bribe him, for he knew that the true good of Scotland lay in alliance and eventual union with its ancient enemy. When his sister turned aside from the pursuit of thrones to lust and crime, Moray took no part in the wild revenge which followed. He withdrew from a scene where no honourable man could remain with life, and returned only to save her from judicial retribution. Only at last when she forced upon him the alternative of treating her as a public enemy or of abandoning Scotland to anarchy and ruin, he took his