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 MEMOIRS 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 FRENCH AND SCOTS, 
 
 AND 
 
 The Privileges of the Scots in France. 
 
 FAITHFULLY TRANSLATED 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 ©rtgtttal IfottirtfS x>{ t$t i&utgtom ot tfxmct. 
 
 By Mr. THOMAS MONCRIEFF. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 PRINTED BY W. CHEYNE. 1751 . 
 
 HEPRINTED FOR j. WVLIE & CO. 
 By Robert Chapman, 
 
 1819. 
 
LC Control Number 
 
 2008 277744 
 
THE 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 *AGK 
 
 The alliance of France and Scotland, 1 
 
 Treaty of alliance between Charles IV. surnamed 
 die Fair, king of France, and Robert L king 
 of Scotland, concluded in 1326, - - 4 
 
 Renewals of that alliance, - • • - 10 
 
 Contracts of marriage between the royal families 
 
 of France and Scotland, - - - 11 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 Services done to France by the Scots, ~ - If 
 
 CHAR III. 
 
 Rewards of services granted by the kings of France 
 
 to the Scots, - - - - 16 
 
 Sect. 1. Dignities, offices, honours and lands, 
 
 conferred upon the Scots in France, - -17 
 
 Sect. 2. Of the Scots guards, - - 19 
 
 Sect. 3. Letters of naturalization for all Scots, 
 men granted or confirmed by the kings of 
 France, ...... -23 
 
 Sect. 4. Letters-patents containing the privileges 
 of the Scottish merchants trading in France, 
 &c 25 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letters of general naturalization for the whole 
 Scottish nation in France, by king Lewis 
 XII. in 1513, - - - - 25 
 
 Letters-patents of king Henry II. containing the 
 
 privileges of the Scots, in the year 1558, - 31 
 
 Extract of the registers of the parliament of Paris, 35 
 
 Letters-patents of king Henry IV. bearing con- 
 firmation of the privileges of the Scots in 
 France, in 1599, 36 
 
 Extract of the records of parliament, - - 41 
 
 Letters-patents of Lewis XIII. to confirm the pri- 
 vileges of the Scots in France, in the year 
 1612, 42 
 
 Extract of the registers of the parliament of Paris, 46 
 
 Act of king Lewis XIV/s council of state, in fa- 
 vour of the Scots in France, - - - 47 
 
 Privileges of the Scottish merchants trading in 
 
 France, granted by king Francis I. in 1518, 49 
 
 Privileges of the Scottish merchants trading in 
 
 France, granted by king Henry II. in 1554, 51 
 
 Confirmation of the privileges of the Scottish mer- 
 chants trading in France, granted by king 
 Henry IV, in 1599, 52 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 THE ANCIENT ALLIANCE 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 FRENCH AND SCOTS, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PRIVILEGES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SCOTS IN FRANCE. 
 
 AS the privileges of the Scots in France are a 
 consequence of the union and alliance which sub- 
 sisted so many ages between the two crowns, it is 
 necessary, in the first place, to treat what regards 
 that alliance, in order to come afterwards to the 
 privileges granted by the Kings of JFrance to the 
 Scots. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 THE ALLIANCE OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 It is the general opinion of all the Scottish his- 
 torians, that the alliance of the French and Scots is 
 
 A 
 
2 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 as ancient as Charlemagne. * Some French histo- 
 rians have related the same fact ; and so undoubted 
 did it appear in France under Henry II. that in 
 the -f- contract of marriage between Francis the 
 Dauphin his son, and Mary Queen of Scotland, it 
 is expressly said, that the friendship of the two 
 kingdoms had subsisted eight hundred years ; 
 which carries it up to the reign of Charlemagne. 
 And the ancient author of Chronicon Normaniae, J 
 speaking of Charles the Bald in the year 848, seems 
 to insinuate this alliance in these terms: " Rex 
 Scotorum ad Carolum, pads et amicitice gratia, le- 
 gates cum viuneribus mittit> #c." [The King of 
 Scotland to Charles, for peace and friendship's 
 sake, sendeth ambassadors with presents, &c] 
 
 David Chamber, one of the lords of council and 
 session at Edinburgh, in his history dedicated to 
 Henry III. King of France, in 1579, produces a 
 series of treaties of alliance between the Kings of 
 France and Scotland, which he pretends to have 
 taken from ancient Scottish historians no longer to 
 be found. 
 
 Such are the treaties of alliance between Philip I. 
 King of France, and || Malcolm III. King of Scot- 
 land ; between Lewis VII. and § Malcolm IV. and 
 between the same Lewis VII. and ^[ William King 
 of Scotland ; between Philip II. and ** Alexan- 
 der II. ; between St. Lewis and ff Alexander III. 
 
 But whatever be in those first alliances, of which 
 
 * Jo. Fordun. lib. 3, cap. 48. Boeth. 1. 10. p. 185, &c. 
 Jo. Major. 1. 2. c. 13. Paul. JEmU. — f Printed by Leonard. 
 
 $ Chron. Norman, edit. Duchesne, p. 525 — 1| David Cham- 
 
 brehist. f. 129— § lb. f. 140.— % lb. f. 141.—** lb. £ 149.— 
 tflb. f. 153. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 3 
 
 we can vouch neither certain documents, nor au- 
 thentic copies, it is unquestionable, that, to begin 
 from Philip the Fair, there runs an uninterrupted 
 train of alliances between the Kings of France and 
 of Scotland, down to Henry IV. and James VI. 
 Even in the year 1326, the treaty of Charles the 
 Fair and Robert I. shows that there had been " a 
 friendship or alliance of long standing between our 
 predecessors Kings of France, and our kingdom, 
 on one part, and the Kings of Scotland, and the 
 said kingdom of Scotland, on the other. 4 " These 
 are King Charles's own words in the treaty, which 
 clearly supposes that the alliance between France 
 and Scotland is far more ancient than his time, 
 though we have not now extant any authentic 
 copy of such treaties prior to that of Philip the 
 Fair and John Baliol, in 1295. 
 
 Here follows the series of those treaties of which 
 any copies remain, and of which the originals 
 were actually amongst the charters of France in 
 Henry II.'s time, according to an inventory made 
 of them, together with the treaties of France and 
 England, by Mr. Du. Tillet, clerk of parliament, 
 and printed in folio, 1588. 
 
 Treaty of alliance between Philip the Fair, * 
 King of France, and John Baliol, King of Scot- 
 land, concluded at Paris, the 23d of October, 1295. 
 
 Treaty of alliance between Charles IV. sur- 
 named the Fair, King of France, and Robert L 
 King of Scotland, concluded in 1326. 
 
 Charles, by the Grace of God, King of France 
 
 * Rymer foedera Angliae, torn. II. p. 680,. &<\ 
 2 
 
* MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 and Navarre, to all who shall see and hear these 
 presents, greeting. As amongst other things 
 whereby kings reign, and kingdoms are governed, 
 a meet and necessary thing it is, that princes 
 should ally themselves together by bond of friend- 
 ship and good-will, in order, the grievances of 
 those who desire to grieve them, more forcibly to 
 restrain ; and the tranquillity of them, and of their 
 subjects, more peaceably to secure ; we, having 
 this in regard, are willing to renew by treaty the 
 friendship and good-will, which have long sub- 
 sisted between our predecessors Kings of France 
 and our kingdom, on one part, and the Kings of 
 Scotland and the said kingdom of Scotland on the 
 other, with the noble Prince Robert, by the grace 
 of God, King of Scotland, our special friend, 
 against the King of England, whose predecessors 
 have often laboured to aggrieve the said kingdoms 
 of France and Scotland in many and sundry ways, 
 And this we do by these envoys, namely, 
 Thomas Ranulph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Walls, 
 Annand, and Man, Mr. James Dun, Archdeacon 
 of St. Andrews, doctor of laws, Adam Moray, 
 doctor in canon law, and Walter Tyntham, canon 
 of Glasgow, all vested with special power in form 
 following : " Universis praesentes literas inspectu- 
 ris, Robertus Dei gratia rex Scotorum, salutem. 
 Noverit universitas, quod nos facimus, constitui- 
 mus, et per praesentes ordinamus, dilectos et fide- 
 les nostros Thomam Ranulphi comitem Moraviae, 
 dominum Vallis, Annandi et Manni, nepotem nos- 
 trum carissimum, Robertum de Keth marischallum 
 Scotiae, magistros Jacobum Dun archidiaconum 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. S 
 
 Sancti Andreae, legum professorem, Adamum de 
 Moravia decretorum doctorem, et Walterum de 
 Tintham canonicura ecclesiae Glascoensis, procu- 
 ratores nostros et nuncios speciales, ad tractandum 
 cum serenissimo principe domino Carolo, Dei gra- 
 tia Franciae et Navarrae regi illustri, super quibus- 
 cumque confcederationibus inter ipsum, haeredes 
 suos, proceres et regnicolas regni sui, ex parte una, 
 et nos, haeredes nostros, proceres et regnicolas 
 regni nostri, ex altera, ineundis ; dantes iisdem, et 
 dicto comiti, cum quatuor, tribus, duobus, aut uno 
 eorumdem, plenariam, generalem et liberam potes?- 
 tatem, ac speciale mandatum, cum eodem serenis- 
 simo principe, seu quibuscumque ejus potestatem 
 ad haec habentibus, cujuscumque status, condi- 
 tionis aut dignitatis, existant, tractandi, paciscendi, 
 firmandi, et wallandi, nomine nostro et regni nos- 
 tri, quascumque confoederationes, obligationes, et 
 facta, quibus inter eumdem regem illustrem, hae- 
 redes suos, et proceres et regnicolas regni nostri, 
 perpetuae confcederationis et amicitiae secura firmi- 
 tas poterit concordari ; ratum et gratum habentes 
 et habituri pro nobis et haeredibus nostris, proce- 
 ribus et regnicolis nostris regni, quicquid iidem, 
 aut dictus comes, cum quatuor, tribus, duobus, 
 aut uno eorumdem, cum eodem domino rege, vel 
 ejus potestatem habentibus, faciendum duxerint 
 vel duxerit in praemissis. In cujus rei testimonium, 
 prassentibus iiteris sigillum nostrum praecipimus 
 apponi. Datum apud Donde vigesimo die Aprilis, 
 annogratiae millesimotrecentesimovicesimoquinto; 
 et anno regni nostri vicesimo." [To all who shall 
 behold these presents, Robert, by the grace of 
 
 3 
 
b MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 God, King of Scots, greeting. Be it known to all 
 men, that we make, constitute, and by these pre- 
 sents appoint, our trusty and well-beloved Thomas 
 Ranulph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Walls, Annand, 
 and Man, our most dear nephew, Robert of Keith, 
 Marischal of Scotland, Masters James Dun, Arch- 
 deacon of St. Andrews, professor of laws, Adam 
 of Moray, doctor in canon law, and Walter of 
 Tyntham, canon of the church of Glasgow, our 
 procurators and special envoys, to treat with the 
 most serene Prince Charles, by the grace of God, 
 of France and Navarre illustrious King, concern- 
 ing any alliances or engagements whatsoever to be 
 made between himself, his heirs, his nobles, and 
 his people, on one part, and us, our heirs, our 
 nobles, and our people, on the other; granting to 
 the same, and to the said Earl, together with any 
 four, three, two, or one of the same, full, general, 
 and free power, and special warrant, to treat, sti- 
 pulate, confirm, and corroborate with the same 
 most serene Prince, or any persons vested with his 
 power for this purpose, of what station, condition, 
 or dignity soever, in our name, and in name of our 
 kingdom, any alliances, obligations, and deeds, 
 whereby the perpetual alliance and friendship be- 
 tween the same illustrious King, his heirs, and 
 his nobles, and the inhabitants of our kingdom, 
 may be firmly and securely cemented ; holding 
 and to hold valid and valuable, for ourselves and 
 our heirs, our peers, and our people, whatsoever 
 the same, or the said Earl, with any four, three, 
 two, or one of the same, shall judge meet to be 
 done in the premises, with the same king or his 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. / 
 
 plenipotentiaries. In testimony whereof, we com- 
 mand our seal to be appended to these presents. 
 Given at Dundee, on the twentieth day of April, 
 in the vear of grace one thousand three hundred 
 and twenty-five, and in the twentieth year of our 
 reign.] 
 
 We have made alliance in manner following, to 
 wit, that we, our heirs, our successors Kings of 
 France, our kingdom, and our whole community, 
 are bound and obliged to the said King of Scot- 
 land, his heirs, his successors Kings of Scotland, 
 his kingdom, and his whole community, in good 
 faith, as loyal allies, whenever they shall have oc- 
 casion for aid or advice, in time of peace or war, 
 against the King of England and his subjects : 
 that we shall aid and advise them, whereinsoever 
 we honestly can as loyal allies ; and if we, our 
 heirs, our successors Kings of France, our king- 
 dom, or our community, shall make peace or truce 
 with the King of England, his heirs Kings of Eng- 
 land, or his subjects, that the King of Scotland, 
 his heirs, his successors Kings of Scotland, his 
 kingdom, and his community, shall be excepted ; 
 so that such peace or truce shall be null, whenso- 
 ever war is waged between the aforesaid Kings of 
 Scotland and of England : and, if the King of 
 Scotland, his heirs, his successors Kings of Scot- 
 land, his kingdom, and his community, shall make 
 peace or truce with the King of England and his 
 subjects, that we, our heirs, our successors Kings 
 of France, our kingdom, and our whole commu* 
 nity, shall be excepted ; so that such peace or 
 truce shall be null, whensoever war is waged be- 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 tween us and the said King of England : and the 
 said King of Scotland, his heirs and successors 
 Kings of Scotland, shall be bound and obliged to 
 us, our heirs, our successor Kings, and our king- 
 dom, to make war upon the kingdom of England 
 with all their force, whensoever war is waged be- 
 tween us and the King of England ; the truces 
 between the said Kings of England and Scotland, 
 already made and pending, in what manner soever 
 concluded, all and every part of them firmly pre- 
 served and faithfully performed. We promise, in 
 good faith, to the said procurators, in name pro- 
 curatorial of the said King of Scotland, both for 
 him, ourselves, our heirs, and our successor Kings, 
 our kingdom, and our whole community, in terms 
 of the abovesaid, inviolably obliging, all and every 
 one of the said articles firmly to observe, faithfully 
 to perform, and fully to accomplish. AH this we 
 promise in good faith, as it concerns us, our heirs, 
 our successor Kings, and our kingdom ; and all 
 this hath our beloved and trusty counsellor, Guy- 
 chender, sworn in our presence, and on our soul 
 upon the holy gospels, at our command ; and 
 this oath, on the soul of the King of Scotland, for 
 him, his heirs, his successors, and his kingdom, 
 hath the Earl of Moray, nephew to the King of 
 Scotland, taken according to special commission, 
 whereof the form is this : " Universis Christi fide- 
 libus, ad quorum novitiam praesentes literae per- 
 venerint, Robertus Dei gratia rex Scotorum, 
 salutem in Dcmino sempiternarn. Noveritis nos, 
 per proesentes literas, dedisse plenariam potesta- 
 temet speciale mandatum Thomae Ranulphi comiti 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. V 
 
 Moraviae, el domino Vallis, Annandi et Manni, 
 nepoti nostro carissimo, ad jurandum in animara 
 nostram super quibuseunque confoederationibus, 
 obligationibus, seu pactis, inter serenissimura prin- 
 cipem dominum Carolum Dei gratia regem Fran- 
 ciae et Navarrae illustrem, haeredes suos, proceres 
 et regnicolas regni sui, ex parte una, et nos, hae- 
 redes nostros, proceres et regnicolas regni nostri, 
 ex altera, firmius ineundis ; et quicquid dictus 
 comes, jurando in animam nostram, in dicto nego- 
 tio, firmaverit, nos ratum et firmum perpetuo habi- 
 turi promittimus bona fide. In cujus rei testimo- 
 nium, praesentibus Uteris sigillum nostrum praeci- 
 pimus apponi. Datum apud Donde vicesimo die 
 Aprilis, anno gratiae millesimo trecentesimo vice- 
 simo quinto, et anno regni vicesimo." [To all the 
 faithful in Christ, unto whose knowledge these 
 presents shall come, Robert, by the grace of God, 
 King of Scots, sendeth eternal health in the Lord. 
 Be it known to you, that we, by these presents, 
 have given full power and special mandate to 
 Thomas Ranulph, Earl of Moray, and Lord of 
 Walls, Annand, and Man, our most dear nephew, 
 to swear upon our soul to the more firmly estab- 
 lishing any alliances, obligations, or conventions, 
 whatsoever, between the most serene Prince Charles, 
 by the grace of God, of France and Navarre illus- 
 trious King, his heirs, his nobles, and his people, 
 on one part, and us, our heirs, our nobles, and 
 our people, on the other ; and whatsoever the 
 said Earl, by swearing upon our soul, shall in the 
 said negotiation establish, we promise, in good 
 faith, to hold ratified and confirmed for ever. In 
 
10 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 testimony whereof, we command our seal to be ap- 
 pended to these presents. Given at Dundee on 
 the twentieth day of April, in the year of grace 
 one thousand three hundred twenty-five, and in 
 the twentieth year of our reign.] 
 
 And, to the end that this thing may be firm and 
 stable in all time coming, we have caused our seal 
 tojbe affixed to these presents. Given at Courbeny, 
 in the year of grace one thousand three hundred 
 and twenty-six, in the month of April. 
 
 Renewal of the alliance of France and Scotland, 
 between Charles, Dauphin of France, (King John 
 his father being prisoner inEngland,) and David II. 
 King of Scotland, at Paris, June 29, 1359. * 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between the Kings 
 Charles V. of France, and Robert II. of Scotland, 
 at Vincennes, June 3, 1371. + 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between Charles VI. 
 King of France, and Robert III. King of Scot- 
 land, March 3, 1390. J 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between the said 
 Charles VI. King of France, and Robert Duke of 
 Albany, Regent of Scotland during the captivity 
 of King James I. in 1407. 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between Charles VII. 
 King of France, and Murdoch Duke of Albany, 
 Regent of Scotland, in 1423. § 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between Charles 
 VII. King of France, and James I. King of Scot- 
 land, in 1428. || 
 
 * Du Tillet's collection of treaties, p. 80 — t P« 98 — + P- ] 1 6 ' 
 — § p. 137.— 1| p* 135. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 11 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between the same 
 Charles VII- King of France, and James II. King 
 of Scotland, in 1448. * 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between Charles 
 VIII. King of France, and James IV. King of 
 Scotland, in 1491. f 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between Lewis XII. 
 King of France, and the same James IV. King of 
 Scotland, in 1512. J 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between Francis I. 
 King of France, and James V. King of Scotland, 
 in 1515. § 
 
 Renewal of the said alliance between Francis I. 
 King of France and Mary Queen of Scotland, in 
 1543. || 
 
 This same alliance was again renewed between 
 Henry II. King of France, and Mary Queen of 
 Scotland, and between the succeeding Kings. 
 
 To strengthen these alliances by stricter ties, 
 the royal families of France and Scotland have 
 been several times united by marriage. 
 
 The contracts are extant of the following. 
 
 Contract of marriage between Edward Baliol, 
 son and heir to John King of Scotland, and Joan 
 daughter to Charles de Valois, brother of King 
 Philip the Fair, in 1235. «f[ 
 
 Contract of marriage between Lewis Dauphin 
 of France, afterwards Lewis XI. and Margaret 
 daughter to James I. King of Scotland, in 1436. ** 
 
 * P. 140 — fp. 149 — i Collection »f the treaties of France 
 and Scotland — § Du Tillet's collection, p. 164 — 1| Collection of 
 treaties between France and Scotland. — % Rymer, feed. Angl. 
 torn. 2, p. 697, and 698.—** Du Tillet's col. p. 137. 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 Contract of marriage between James V. King of 
 Scotland, and Magdalen daughter to King Francis 
 I. in 1536. 
 
 Contract * of marriage between Francis Dauphin, 
 afterwards Francis II. King of France, and Mary 
 Queen heiress of Scotland, in 1558, -f* 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 SERVICES DONE TO FRANCE BY THE SCOTS. 
 
 ONE of the principal effects of this ancient alli- 
 ance was the mutual succour which the two nations 
 engaged to give each other against the English 
 their common enemy ; and it was in consequence 
 of this engagement that the Scots rendered so great 
 services to France, especially in the fourteenth 
 century, whither by sending the flower of their 
 bravest men into France, to succour its inhabi- 
 tants against the English, almost masters of the 
 kingdom, or by attacking England with all their 
 force, on the side of Scotland, as oft as the English 
 passed the sea to attack France. 
 
 In 1346, after the fatal battle of Crecy, (or Cres- 
 si,) in order to check the victorious English, to pre- 
 vent their pushing their conquests in France, and 
 to make a diversion there, David II. King of Scot- 
 land, attacked England, and ravaged all the north 
 of it, where, losing a bloody battle, he was defeated 
 and taken, and, after ten years captivity, obliged 
 to find a ransom, t 
 
 * Printed by Leonard. — f Mem. Scot. torn. 1, p. 37. 
 — ± Froissard. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 13 
 
 This did not hinder the kings his successors from 
 continuing to attack England, in order to stop the 
 irruptions of the English into France. But it 
 was chiefly at the time when the French monarchy, 
 within a hairbreadth of its overthrow, when the 
 English, through the weakness of King Charles VI. 
 and the help of the Burgundians, were masters of 
 almost the whole kingdom, and when their Henry 
 VI. was crowned at Paris King of France; it was, 
 I say, chiefly in this extremity, that the Scots sent, 
 time after time, of their first nobility, with the 
 flower of the troops of Scotland, to support the just 
 right of the Dauphin of France, sole lawful heir of 
 the crown, but then proscribed and abandoned by 
 the greater part of his French subjects, and by 
 almost all the other allies of the crown. 
 
 For, in 1420, Robert Duke of Albany, Regent 
 of Scotland, sent to the Dauphin's assistance John 
 Earl of Buchan, his son, with Archibald Douglas 
 Earl of Wigtoun, John Stewart of Darnly, and 
 other nobility, at the head of a considerable body 
 of troops, by whose aid the English were defeated 
 at Beauge, in a bloody battle, where the Earl of 
 Clarence, brother to the King of England, the 
 Earl of Kent, and a great number of the English 
 nobility were killed, and many others made pri- 
 soners. * 
 
 In the year 1422, the Earl of Douglas, at the 
 he&d of a new reinforcement of five thousand Scots, 
 arrived in France to the aid of the Dauphin, ac- 
 
 * Hist. D'Alait. chart, p. 49. David Cham. 177. Tillet's 
 Treaties of Trance and England, p. 126. 
 
 B 
 
14 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 knowledged King, since the death of his father, 
 by the name of Charles VII. and after most of his 
 troops had been cut off in the battle of Devreuil. * 
 
 In 1424, their came again fresh troops from 
 Scotland to the succour of Charles VII. under the 
 command of Robert Petilloch, (or perhaps Pat- 
 tulloh,) a great captain in those days, -f- 
 
 In 1428, the same King Charles VII. pressed 
 on all sides by the English and other enemies of 
 the French monarchy, sent, to seek new aid of 
 King James I. of Scotland, the Archbishop of 
 Rheims, with* John Stewart of Aubigny, and to 
 ask in marriage the Princess Margaret, King 
 James's eldest daughter, for his son Lewis, Dau- 
 phin of France. All was granted him; the an- 
 cient alliances were renewed, and the Lord of 
 Aubigny repassed into France with fresh troops. 
 But the Princess being yet too young, as well as 
 the Dauphin, she went to France only in 1436, 
 well attended by nobility and reinforcements. 
 
 In fine, King Lewis XII. in his letters-patents J 
 of the privileges of the Scots in France, extols the 
 service which the Scots did in the expulsion of the 
 English, in these terms. * Lastly, and in the life- 
 time of our late most dear lord and cousin King 
 Charles VII. (whom God absolve*,) several princes 
 of the said kingdom of Scotland, with a great num- 
 ber of people of the said nation, came over to help 
 to cast and expel forth of this kingdom, the English, 
 who held and occupied most part of the realm, and 
 
 * Al. chart, histof Charles VII. p. 85. David Cham. p. 177. 
 — f Da. Cham. p. 178. — J See these letters in the sequel. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 15 
 
 so valorously exposed their persons against the said 
 English, that these were driven out, and the said 
 realm restored to his obedience, &c." And, after 
 the reduction of France to the obedience of its law- 
 ful sovereign, the Scots continued to send succours 
 into France, and to attack England, in order to 
 make a diversion, as often as the kings of France 
 should require it; besides that, there were some of 
 the best families of Scotland destined solely to the 
 service of France. Thus we see the lords of Au- 
 bigny, Stewart, John, Robert, Bernard, (called 
 also Berald,) and others of that family, in the ser- 
 vice of France, under Charles VIII. Lewis XII. 
 and in the following reigns ; especially in the wars 
 of Italy, where they distinguished themselves at 
 the battle of Fornova, and in the kingdom of 
 Naples. 
 
 -In 1507, by the relation of Claud Seysil, Arch- 
 bishop of Turin, a contemporary author, King 
 James IV. on occasion of the wars of King Lewis 
 XII. in Italy, sent to him, and offered to come in 
 person to serve him with ten or twenty thousand 
 fighting men. * And the sameKmg James,in 1513, 
 having learned that France was attacked by the 
 Emperor and the King of England conjunctly, in 
 order to make a diversion, (as the same King Lewis 
 XII. observes, -f-) attacked on his side England 
 with all his force, though King Henry VIII. was 
 his brother-in-law, and obliged him to send back 
 part of his troops into England ; whereupon fol- 
 
 * SeysiL hist, of Lewis XII. p. 142.— f In his let. pat. as 
 after. 
 
16 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 lowed the fatal battle of Plowden between the 
 English and Scots, in which King James lost his 
 life, with the flower of the Scots, solely in the quar- 
 rel of France. 
 
 Lastly, in 1548, the preference which the Scots 
 made of the alliance of France to that of England, 
 for the marriage of the young Queen Mary, heiress 
 of Scotland, involved that kingdom in a war of 
 about twenty years with England, which was fol- 
 lowed by an infinity of mischiefs, and ended at last 
 in the ruin of the Roman catholic religion in Scot- 
 land. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 REWARDS OF SERVICES GRANTED BY THE KINGS OF 
 FRANCE TO THE SCOTS. 
 
 IT was by reason of the ancient alliances be- 
 tween the two kingdoms, and as it were in compen- 
 sation of the services done to France, and of the 
 losses in consequence sustained by the Scots, that 
 the kings of France behaved to the Scots as if they 
 had been their own native subjects. 1. To par- 
 ticular persons, by promoting or admitting them 
 to &11 manner of dignities, honours, and offices, 
 military, civil, and ecclesiastical. 2. By commit- 
 ing to the Scots the guard of their own royal per- 
 sons with singular prerogatives. 3. By granting 
 to all Scots, in general, letters of naturalization, 
 and regarding them as real denizens of their king- 
 dom. 4. By granting particular exemptions of 
 duties to all the Scottish merchants in France. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 17 
 
 £ution tfitzt 
 
 DIGNITIES, OFFICES, HONOURS, AND LANDS, CONFERRED 
 UPON THE SCOTS IN FRANCE. 
 
 In 1422, John Stewart, Earl of Buchan, was 
 made Constable of France, after the battle of 
 Beauge, by King Charles VII. and lost his life in 
 his service at the battle of Verneuil. * 
 
 In 1423, Archibald Earl of Douglas was crea- 
 ted Duke of Tourain by the same king, and sacri- 
 ficed his life in the same battle, -f* 
 
 In 1424, the same king gratified John Stewart 
 of Darnly, Constable of the Scots in France, with 
 the lordship of Aubigny, J which continued down 
 to our days, in his descendants dukes of Lennox, 
 until the very extinction of the family. Charles 
 VII. gave him also the county of Dreux, and made 
 him a Marshal of France. § His descendants lords 
 of Aubigny, John and Bernard, (known by the 
 name of Berald,) merited like honours by their 
 services, and the lords of that family were in a 
 manner hereditary captains of the Scots guards. |j 
 
 In 1428, Charles VII. gave to James I. King 
 of Scotland, the county of Xaintonge and Roch- 
 fort in peerage. ^[ 
 
 About the same time the same king made the 
 Laird of Monypenny his chamberlain, and gave 
 him the lordship of Concressant. 
 
 * Al. Chart, hist, of Charles VII. p. 53 + p. 59. Du Till. 
 
 .coll. p. 135 — + Ibid — § p. 137 || Hist, of Charles VIII. edit. 
 
 Godfrey, p. 384, 385.—^ Du Till. coll. p. 137. 
 
 3 
 
18 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 In 1495, the Lord of Aubigny was made Gover- 
 nor of Calabria by King Charles VIII. * 
 
 In 1524, John Stewart Duke of Albany, had a 
 seat in the parliament of Paris, by command of 
 Francis I. before the dukes and peers, -f- He was 
 appointed Viceroy of Naples, General of fhe gal- 
 leys of France, and Governor of the Bourbonese, 
 of Auvergne, and of other provinces. J 
 
 About the same time, Robert Stewart of Au- 
 bigny, was made a Marshal of France. 
 
 In 1548, King Henry I. gave the duchy of 
 Chatelherault to James Hamilton Earl of Arran, 
 Regent of Scotland, and presented him with the 
 collar of his order, which that king sent also to the 
 Earls of Huntly, Argyll, and Angus. § 
 
 With regard to offices, the Scots have exercised 
 some of the most considerable in France. || Mr. 
 Servien, a famous advocate under Henry III. in 
 his pleading before the parliament of Paris, relates 
 that Mr. Turnbull, a Scotsman, was a judge in 
 the same parliament, and afterwards first president 
 of the parliament of Rouen : Adam Blackwood 
 was a judge on the bench of Poitiers, and others 
 in courts of justice. 
 
 The Scots have also possessed in France some 
 of the first dignities of the church. Andrew Fore- 
 man was Archbishop of Bourges, David Bethune, 
 Bishop of Mirepoix, David Panter, (or perhaps 
 Panton,) and after him James Bethune Bishop of 
 
 * Daniel's hist, of France, Lond. edit. 2d. p. 134.— + Ba- 
 luze hist, de la tour d' Auvergne, vol. ii. p. 688. — J Same hist, 
 vol. i. p. 353, 354, &c — § Tit. du duche' de Chat. p. 1, 3. 2d. 
 edit. p. 10 || Serv. plead, printed in 1586, p. 21. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 19 
 
 Glasgow, were successively Abbots of L' Absie, be- 
 sides a great number of priors, canons, curates, 
 and other beneficed persons in France. And it is 
 remarkable, that, in the year 1586, the cure of St, 
 Come at Paris, conferred by the university upon 
 John Hamilton, having been disputed him by a 
 French ecclesiastic, who protested against Hamil- 
 ton as being a Scotsman, Hamilton^ cause was 
 pleaded, in the parliament of Paris, by Mr. Ser- 
 vien advocate in parliament, who proved that the 
 Scots enjoyed the right of denizens, and in conse- 
 quence, by decree of the court, the provisional 
 possession of the cure was adjudged to Hamilton. * 
 And, in the university of Paris, the Scots made 
 formerly so considerable a figure, that one of the 
 four nations, of whom the faculty of arts is compo- 
 sed, which is now called the German nation, was 
 formerly styled " natio Germanorum et Scotorum ;" 
 and besides a great number of doctors and profes- 
 sors in all the faculties, we find still, upon the re- 
 cords of the university, that there have been thirty 
 rectors of the university all Scotsmen, in times 
 when the office of rector was much more considera- 
 ble, both in church and state, than it is at present. 
 
 &tttUm ^etottif* 
 
 OF THE SCOTS GUARDS. 
 
 Nothing shows better the consideration which 
 the kings of France had for the Scots, and the en- 
 tire confidence they placed in their fidelity, than 
 
 *Serv. plead. 1580. 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 the choice they made of them for the guard of 
 their sacred persons. 
 
 With regard to the establishment of the Scots 
 guards, Scottish writers refer its beginning to the 
 reign of St. Lewis, others to King Charles V. But 
 it is allowed that it was King Charles VII. who 
 gave them the form in which they have since pre- 
 served themselves. King Lewis XII. in his letters- 
 patents * of naturalization to the Scots, speaks of 
 this establishment in the following manner : after 
 having set forth, in terms the most honourable to 
 the nation, the service which the Scots did to King 
 Charles VII. in the expulsion of the English out of 
 France, and in the reduction of the kingdom to his 
 obedience, he adds, " Since which reduction, and 
 for the service the Scots rendered to Charles VII. 
 upon that occasion, for the great loyalty and vir- 
 tue which he found in them, he selected two hun- 
 dred of them for the guard of his person, of whom 
 he made an hundred men at arms, and an hundred 
 lifeguards. And the said hundred men at arms 
 are the hundred lances of our ancient ordinances; 
 andlhe lifeguard-men are those of our guard, who 
 still are near and about our person." 
 
 With respect to the fidelity of the Scots in that* 
 honourable post, take here the testimony bore them 
 by Claud Seysil, Master of Requests to the same 
 I ewis XII. and afterwards Archbishop of Turin, 
 in his history of that prince where speaking of 
 Scotland, he says, " The French have so ancient a 
 friendship and alliance with the Scots, that, of four 
 
 * "Which see after. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 21 
 
 hundred men appropriated for the king's lifeguard, 
 there are an hundred of the said nation who are 
 the nearest to his person, and in the night keep 
 the keys of the apartment where he sleeps. There 
 are, moreover, an hundred complete lances, and 
 two hundred yeomen of the said nation, beside 
 several that are dispersed through the companies : 
 and for so long a time as they have served in France, 
 never hath there been one of them found that hath 
 committed or done any fault against the kings or 
 their state ; and they can make use of them as of 
 their own subjects." 
 
 The ancient rights and prerogatives of the Scot- 
 tish lifeguards were very honourable. Here fol- 
 lows the description which those same Scots guards 
 give of the functions and prerogatives of their com- 
 pany, and especially of the 24 first guards ; to 
 whom the first Gendarme of France being added, 
 they make up the number of 25, commonly called 
 " Gardes de Manche," sleeve-guards, who were all 
 Scots by nation. 
 
 Two of them assisting at mass, sermon, vespers, 
 and ordinary meals ; on high holidays at the cere- 
 mony of the royal touch, and the erection of 
 knights of the king's order, at the reception of ex- 
 traordinary ambassadors, and public entries of 
 cities, there must be six of their number next to 
 the king's person, three on each side of his majesty ; 
 and the body of the king must be carried by these 
 only, wheresoever ceremony requires, and his effigy 
 must be attended by them. They have the keep- 
 ing of the keys of the king's lodging at night, the 
 keeping of the choir of the church, the keeping of 
 
22 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 the boats when the king passes the rivers, the ho- 
 nour of bearing the white silk fringe in their arms, 
 which is the coronal colour in France ; the keys of 
 all the cities where the king makes his entry given 
 to their captain in waiting or out of waiting. He 
 has the privilege in waiting, or out of waiting, at 
 ceremonies, such as coronations, marriages, funerals 
 of the kings, baptisms and marriages of their chil- 
 dren, to take duty upon him ; the coronation-robe 
 belongs to him ; and this company by the death or 
 change of a captain, never changes its rank, as do 
 the three others. 
 
 This company was heretofore wholly composed 
 of Scotsmen. But as, in the reign of Henry II. 
 several French, or others than Scots, had been ad- 
 mitted there, as well as among the Scots Gendarmes, 
 that prince, at the solicitation of the deputies of 
 the states of Scotland, gave a breviate, of which the 
 original is extant, signed by the king's own hand, 
 bearing date June 28, 1558, whereby his majesty 
 promises that he shall not allow any person to en- 
 ter there, who is not a gentleman of the said nation 
 of Scotland, and sprung from a good family, &c. * 
 
 This regulation did not hinder afterwards others 
 than Scots from being sometimes admitted, as ap- 
 pears by the remonstrances made upon that sub- 
 ject, from time to time, by the queen-mother, and 
 her son James VI. and by the privy council of 
 Scotland, in the roll of the year 1599, given in by 
 the captain of the Scots guards to the chamber of 
 accounts. Three fourths of the yeomen, as well of 
 the body as of the sleeve, were still, however, Scots. 
 
 * Mem. Scot. torn. 1, p. 78. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 23 
 
 It was but afterwards, and by degrees, that this 
 company became filled with French, to the exclu- 
 sion of Scotsmen : so that at last there remained no 
 more than the name, and the answer, when called, 
 / am here. 
 
 gtttion Cfctrtr. 
 
 LETTERS OP NATURALIZATION FOR ALL SCOTSMEN GRANTED 
 OR CONFIRMED BY THE KINGS OF FRANCE. 
 
 The first letters known of naturalization to the 
 Scots, were granted by King Lewis XII. at the 
 instance of Andrew Foreman, Bishop of Moray in 
 Scotland, and Archbishop of Bourges. They were 
 given at Amiens in the month of September, 1513. 
 A copy will be found in the sequel. 
 
 In 1547, Henry II. granted letters of naturaliza- 
 tion to the Scots guards in particular, given at 
 Fontainebleau in the month of November, 1548, at 
 the exchequer-chamber, on the 12th of February, 
 
 The same King Henry II granted new letters- 
 patents of naturalization for all Scotsmen, at the 
 instance of James Bethune, Archbishop of Glas- 
 gow, and other deputies of the states of Scotland, 
 for the marriage of Queen Mary and the Dauphin. 
 The letters are given at Villiers-couterets, in June, 
 1558, registered, with some modifications, in the 
 parliament of Paris July the 1 1th, at the exchequer- 
 chamber the 13th of July, and in the grand council 
 the 19th of the said month of July. The copy 
 here afterwards inserted, was made from an authen- 
 tic duplicate signed by the hand of Mr Du Tillet, 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 clerk of parliament. The charter is also printed in 
 the Scots acts of parliament. 
 
 King Henry IV. confirmed, at the instance of 
 the same James Bethune, Archbishop of Glasgow, 
 ambassador from Scotland, the right of naturaliza- 
 tion to all Scots, by his letters-patents, given at 
 Fontainebleau in the month of March, 1599, regis- 
 tered in the parliament of Paris, with some modi- 
 fications, the 31st of July, in the said year. The 
 copy, to be found in the sequel, is done from a 
 copy collated before notaries. 
 
 In 1612, the same privileges were confirmed to 
 the Scots by King Lewis XIII. in his letters-pa- 
 tents, given at Paris in the month of October, 1612, 
 registered in parliament, with some modifications, 
 December 15th, and in the treasury-books the 20th 
 of the said month. 
 
 The copy we shall afterwards give is taken from 
 a copy collated before notaries. 
 
 It appears also by an act of Lewis XIV.'s coun- 
 cil of state, that his majesty had confirmed the an- 
 cient privileges of the Scots since his accession to 
 the crown, and, in consequence, he discharged 
 them of the taxes imposed upon foreigners. 
 
 This act was issued, at Fontainebleau, the 19th 
 of September, 1646. A copy of it will be found 
 in the sequel. 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 25 
 
 &tttion tftmvfi); 
 
 LETTERS-PATENTS CONTAINING THE PRIVILEGES OF THE 
 SCOTTISH MERCHANTS TRADING IN FRANCE, GRANTED OR 
 CONFIRMED BY THE KINGS OF FRANCE, AND OF WHICH 
 THE COPIES ARE IN THE SEQUEL. 
 
 1. Letters-patents of King Francis I. contain- 
 ing the privileges of the Scottish merchants, given 
 at Amboise in the month of May, 1518. 
 
 2. Letters-patents of King Henry II. to con- 
 firm the same privileges, given at Paris the 3d of 
 February, 1554. 
 
 Confirmation of the privileges by King Henry 
 IV. in his letters-patents given at Fontainebleau 
 in the month of March, 1599. This copy is done 
 from a copy collated with the original in parch- 
 ment. 
 
 Letters of general naturalization for the whole 
 Scottish nation in France, by King Lewis XII. in 
 1513. 
 
 Lewis, by the grace of God, King of France, 
 Be it known to all present and to come, that as 5 
 in all time and antiquity, between the kings of 
 France and Scotland, and the princes and subjects 
 of the two kingdoms, a most strict friendship, con- 
 federacy, and perpetual alliance, have subsisted 
 and by these are both the kings bound to succour 
 each other, towards and against all, and so against 
 their ancient enemies the English, which they have 
 done several times ; and, latterly, during the life 
 our late most dear lord and cousin King Charles 
 VII. (whom God absolve,) several princes of the 
 
 C 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 said kingdom of Scotland, with a great number of 
 the said nation, came over to help to cast and ex- 
 pel forth of the kingdom the English, who held 
 and occupied great part thereof; which friends ex- 
 posed their persons so valourously against the 
 English, that they were driven out, and the said 
 kingdom reduced unto his obedience ; since which 
 reduction, and for the service they did him upon 
 that occasion, the great loyalty and virtue he found 
 in them, he selected two hundred of them for the 
 guard of his person, of whom he made an hundred 
 men at arms, and an hundred lifeguard-men ; and 
 the said hundred men at arms are the hundred 
 lances ofour ancient ordinances ; and the lifeguard- 
 men are those of our guard, who still are near and 
 about our person. And forasmuch as our beloved 
 and trusty counsellor the Archbishop of Bourges, 
 Bishop of Moray, now ambassador with us, from 
 our most dear and most beloved brother, cousin, 
 and ally, the King of Scotland still reigning, and 
 our beloved and trusty counsellor and chamber- 
 lain, Sir Robert Stewart Lord of Aubigny, Cap- 
 tain of our Scottish guard, and of the hundred 
 lances of our said ancient ordinances of the said 
 nation, have remonstrated to us how much it hath 
 been always desired, that the Scots, when called to 
 our said kingdom of France, and our subjects who 
 might go to live in that of Scotland, or might de- 
 cease there, on the account of trade or otherwise, 
 should be enabled to testate and dispose of their 
 effects to their respective heirs, and so indeed hath 
 this been hitherto observed in the said kingdom of 
 Scotland : as to our subjects, however, those of 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 27 
 
 the said nation of Scotland are obliged, as well 
 such as are in our service of our said guard, as 
 men at arms, and others whatsoever of that nation 
 who are on this side, to take out particular letters 
 of naturalization, and leave to testate and dispose 
 of their effects, which they must have verified in 
 our exchequer-chamber at Paris, by our commis- 
 sioners of the treasury of France, and other our 
 officers, with great pain and labour, otherwise their 
 wives, children, or heirs, would be frustrated of 
 their effects, and we make gifts of them as of foreign 
 property, to their great grievance, prejudice, and 
 damage : requiring us, by the said ambassadors 
 and the Sieur d'Aubigny, that having this in re- 
 gard, as well as the perpetual fellowship, con- 
 federacy, and alliance, between us and the said 
 king of Scotland, our kingdoms and subjects, 
 which hath been lately confirmed and sworn, our 
 pleasure may be to grant general letters to all those 
 of the said nation, and thereby to declare, that we 
 hold, deem, and repute them in all things as true 
 and original natives of our said kingdom, and fully 
 impowered to testate and dispose of their effects ; 
 as also that, in case of their dying intestate, their 
 children and other heirs may succeed them, and be 
 enabled to hold all estates, offices, benefices, as any 
 others in our said kingdom, and hereupon to im- 
 part unto them our grace. 
 
 Whereby we, the abovesaid things considered, 
 and the good and indissoluble fellowship, confedera- 
 cy and perpetual alliance which hath always sub- 
 sisted, and doth still subsist between us and the 
 said kings of Scotland, our respective kingdoms 
 
 2 
 
28 MEMOIRS OP THE ALLIANCE 
 
 and subjects, inviolably to be kept and observed, 
 having regard to the signal services which the said 
 kings of Scotland have heretofore done to our said 
 predecessors, in the expulsion of our said enemies, 
 to the great loyalty and fidelity which hath been 
 always and invariably found in them, and those of 
 their said nation, towards us, and particularly to 
 the most signal, laudable and commendable service 
 which our said good brother, cousin and ally, the 
 present king of Scotland, is actually doing us, as it 
 is notorious, that, in pursuance of our said friend- 
 ship, fellowship, confederacy and alliance, he hath 
 voluntarily declared for us against the king of 
 England his brother-in-law, who is at present in 
 our said kingdom \ and, moreover, hath sent us 
 succours and arms by gea, of great numbers of 
 ships and men of war, which is so timely a service, 
 as well requires that his subjects be for ever re- 
 commended and favoured in our said kingdom. 
 For these, and other just and reasonable causes 
 thereunto us moving, we have resolved to declare 
 and ordain, and, by the tenor of these presents, do 
 will, declare, ordain, and please, from our own 
 knowledge, proper motion, special grace, full power 
 and royal authority, that henceforth, perpetually, 
 and for ever, all those of the said kingdom of Scot- 
 land, who shall reside, or come to reside, and shall 
 hereafter decease in our said kingdoms, countries 
 and seignories, of what station soever they be, 
 or supposing they should be neither residents nor 
 inhabitants in our said kingdom, countries and 
 seignories, they shall be capable of acquiring there- 
 in all estates, seignories and possessions which they 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 29 
 
 may lawfully acquire ; and of them, together with 
 those which they may have already acquired, to 
 testate and dispose, by testament and order of latter- 
 will, living donation, or otherwise, at their will and 
 pleasure ; and that their wives and children, if 
 they have any, or other their heirs, in what place 
 soever they be residing, whether in our kingdom, 
 or elsewhere, may, by testament or otherwise, take 
 and inherit their estates and successions, as if they 
 were natives of our said kingdom : and to those of 
 the said nation, disposed to the church, shall be 
 open all benefices and dignities secular or regular, 
 with which they may be justly and canonically 
 invested, by titles, collations, or provisions, (not 
 derogating from the holy decrees of Basle, the 
 pragmatic sanction, and the privileges of the Galli- 
 cian church,) and they shall, in like manner, be 
 able to dispose of their said property, as said is ; 
 and that in all things those of the said nation be 
 treated, favoured, held, deemed, and reputed, for 
 ever, as true originals of our said kingdom : and 
 to this end we have enabled, and do enable them, 
 we have dispensed, and do dispense our grace, by 
 these said presents, and that without their being 
 obliged, for the abovesaid things, either now or 
 hereafter, to take out particular letters of natu- 
 ralization, and leave to testate, other than these 
 presents, nor therefore to pay us any finances, 
 which finances we have given and discharged, and 
 do give and discharge them of our said grace, by 
 these said presents signed under our hand, to what- 
 ever value they do or may amount : provided al- 
 ways that the said king of Scotland, and his suc- 
 
 3 
 
30 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 cessors, shall grant and allow such and like privi- 
 leges to our subjects in their said kingdom. And 
 that this they may enjoy in form and manner as 
 above, we do therefore give command, by these 
 same presents, to our beloved and trusty the mem- 
 bers of our courts of parliament at Paris, bailiffs, 
 seneschals, and provosts of our kingdom, and to 
 all our other justiciaries and officers, and to their 
 substitutes, present and to come, to each and every 
 one of them, that our present graces, privileges, 
 ordinances, edicts, declarations and vouchsafement, 
 they cause, suffer, and allow, those of the said na- 
 tion of Scotland, plenarily and peaceably, as afore- 
 said, to enjoy and use ; ceasing, or causing to cease 
 all lets and hinderances that may be made, given or 
 offered to the contrary whatsoever. For such is 
 our pleasure. Notwithstanding that the said finan- 
 ces of the said letters of naturalization are not here 
 declared, let no discharge be levied by the cashier 
 of our treasury, any ordinances, restrictions, com- 
 mands or prohibitions whatsoever to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. And whereas there may be oc- 
 casion for these presents in divers and several 
 places, it is our will, that, upon sight thereof, un- 
 der the seal royal, credit be given as to this present 
 original ; whereunto, that it may be a deed sure 
 and stable for ever, we have caused our seal to be 
 affixed, saving in all else our right, and that of 
 others in all. Given at Amiens, in the month Sep- 
 tember, of the year one thousand five hundred and 
 thirteen, and of our reign the thirteenth. Signed 
 Lewis. And upon the fold, by the king, the Car- 
 dinal de Prie, the Bishop of Paris, Mr. Pierre de 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 31 
 
 la Vernade master of the ordinary requests * of 
 the household, and by others present. Signed 
 Gedoyn, and sealed with a great seal of green 
 wax, pendant to a string of red and green silk. 
 
 Letters-patents of King Henry II. containing the pri- 
 vileges of the Scots in France, in the year 1558. 
 
 Henry, by the grace of God, King of France, 
 unto all present and to come, greeting. 
 
 Whereas, since the marriage heretofore pro- 
 posed between our most dear and most beloved 
 son the King Dauphin, and our most dear and most 
 beloved daughter the Queen of Scotland Dauphi- 
 ness, his consort, contracted, concluded, and con- 
 firmed, the deputies of the states of the said king- 
 dom have, for and in the name of the said states, 
 taken to our said son the oath of fidelity, as to their 
 true and natural lord, which he is ; in virtue 
 whereof, being subjects of both kingdoms, (which 
 have hitherto, and of a long time, cultivated a 
 social communication, lived in mutual friendship 
 and intelligence, favoured and assisted each other) 
 by the union of the houses of France and Scotland, 
 so closely connected that we esteem them as one 
 and the same, and desire, for this cause, the better 
 to establish, entertain, and invigorate this friend- 
 ship between our said subjects, and those of the 
 said kingdom of Scotland, and to give the said 
 inhabitants of the latter kingdom the more oppor- 
 tunity of visiting their king and queen, when they 
 
 * Answering nearly to the English court of Greencloth, 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 shall be on this side, of residing near them, attend- 
 ing and serving them, as to good and faithful sub- 
 jects belongs, to indulge and favour them with the 
 graces and privileges which our own proper sub- 
 jects enjoy : be it known that we, these things con- 
 sidered, and for several other great and reasonable 
 causes thereunto us moving, have to all the inha- 
 bitants of the said kingdom of Scotland, subjects 
 of our said son the King Dauphin, and of our said 
 daughter his consort, permitted, granted, and 
 vouchsafed, and do, by these presents, permit, 
 grant, and vouchsafe, that they may at their ease, 
 as oft as to them shall seem good, come, inhabit, 
 and abide in this our kingdom, and therein accept, 
 hold, and possess all and every the benefices, dig- 
 nities, and offices ecclesiastical, with which they 
 may be justly and canonically invested by due 
 title, not derogating from the holy decrees, con- 
 cordates, privileges, franchises, and liberties of the 
 Gallican church, and thereof to take and seize 
 possession and enjoyment, and to reap and receive 
 the fruits, profits, and revenues, unto what sum 
 soever they do or may amount : and, moreover, to 
 acquire in this kingdom, country, lands, and seig- 
 nories in our allegiance, all and every of the estates, 
 moveable and immoveable, which they shall see 
 meet, to have and to hold them, together with 
 such as may devolve, redound, and belong to them, 
 whether by succession, donation, or otherwise, and 
 to order and dispose of them by testament, settle- 
 ment of latter will, living donation, or in what 
 other manner soever. And that their heirs, or 
 others to whom they shall have disposed of them, 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 33 
 
 may be able to succeed to them, to take and seize 
 possession and enjoyment of their said estates, just 
 as they would and might do if they were originally 
 natives of our said kingdom and country, without 
 our solicitor-general, or other our officers having 
 power henceforth to claim the estates as acquired 
 to us by right of escheat, or the subjects of the 
 said kingdom of Scotland, being in the enjoyment 
 of those estates, brought to any molestation or 
 trouble. And to all, as above, we have capaci- 
 tated and dispensed, and do, by these presents, 
 capacitate and dispense them, whether they have 
 habituated in our said kingdom, country, lands, 
 and seignories of our obedience, or in the said 
 kingdom of Scotland, without their being bound 
 on account thereof to pay unto us, or our succes- 
 sors, any finance or indemnity whatever ; where- 
 from, unto what sum, value, and estimation soever 
 it doth or may amount, we have, in consideration 
 of the above, acquitted and discharged, and do 
 hereby acquit and discharge them, and thereof, in 
 favour of our said daughter, have made, and do 
 make a gift, by these presents under our hand ; 
 upon condition, that if, by reason of the said bene- 
 fices, any law-suit should be raised, they shall 
 cause none of our subjects to be brought or con- 
 vened, except before such of our judges unto 
 whom the cognisance shall belong. We do there- 
 fore give in command, by these same presents, 
 unto our beloved and trusty the persons holding 
 our courts of parliament, great council and ex- 
 chequer at Paris, and to all those our bailiffs, 
 seneschals, provosts, and other our justiciaries, or 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 their deputies, present and to come, and to every 
 one whom it may concern, that our present grace, 
 leave, licence, and permission, and all contained in 
 these said presents, they make, suffer, and allow 
 the said subjects and inhabitants of the said king- 
 dom of Scotland, plenarily and peaceably to enjoy 
 and use ; ceasing and causing to cease all lets and 
 hindrances to the contrary whatsoever. For such 
 is our pleasure. Notwithstanding that the value 
 of the said finance is here neither specified nor de- 
 clared, that such gifts v/e have been wont to make 
 only for the half or third of the regulations by us 
 or our predecessors made in the order and distri- 
 bution of our finances, and even that of the month 
 of December last, wherein it is said, that all gifts, 
 benefits, and rewards shall be paid by the treasurer 
 of our exchequer ; from which we have, by our 
 full power and royal authority, derogated, and do 
 derogate, and in the derogatories, by these pre- 
 sents, do abide, what other ordinances, restrictions, 
 commands, and prohibitions soever to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. And, forasmuch as there may 
 be occasion for these presents in divers and several 
 places, we will, that, upon sight thereof made 
 under the seal royal, or duly collated by one of 
 our beloved and trusty notaries and secretaries, 
 credit be given as the present original ; where- 
 unto, that it may be a deed firm and stable for 
 ever, we have caused our seal to be put and an- 
 nexed ; saving in all else our right, and that of 
 others in all. Given at Villiers-courterets in the 
 month of June of the year of grace one thousand 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 35 
 
 five hundred fifty-eight, and of our reign the 
 twelfth. 
 
 Extract of the registers of the parliament of Paris. 
 
 The court having seen the king's letters- 
 patents, in form of charter, given at Villiers-cou- 
 terets in the month of June last past, subscribed 
 by the hand of the said lord, and on the fold by 
 the king de TAubespine ; for the which, and the 
 causes therein contained, the said lord vouchsafes, 
 permits, and grants unto all the inhabitants of the 
 said kingdom of Scotland, subjects of the King, 
 Dauphin of France, son to the said lord the king, 
 and of the Queen of Scotland, Dauphiness his 
 consort, that they may with full liberty inhabit, 
 come, reside, and remain in this kingdom, and 
 therein hold and possess benefices and offices 
 ecclesiastical, and there acquire whatever estates, 
 moveable and immoveable, they shall see meet, as 
 if they were originally natives of this kingdom, as 
 is more fully set forth, in the said letters of the 
 decree of the said court, communicated to the 
 king's solicitor-general ; his conclusions thereupon, 
 and every thing considered, the said court hath 
 ordained, and doth ordain, that the said letters- 
 patents shall be read, published, recorded in the 
 registers of this court, in order for the patentees to 
 enjoy the effect hereof, so long as the kingdom 
 shall be in the obedience, confederacy, and friend- 
 ship of the king ; provided always that the sub- 
 jects of this kingdom shall be capable, as such, of 
 enjoying like rights, privileges, goods, lands, and 
 possessions, and of holding benefices and dignities 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 in the kingdom of Scotland. Done in parliament 
 the eleventh day of July, in the year one thousand 
 five hundred and fifty-eight. " Lecta, similiter 
 publicata et registrata in camera compulorum do- 
 mini nostri regis, audito procuratore generali prout 
 in registro, 13tii Julii anno suprascripto." Signed 
 Le Maitre. 
 
 Read, published, and recorded in the register 
 of the king's great council, the solicitor-general of 
 the said lord, requiring it under the modifications 
 contained in the register, and with the proviso, 
 that the draught be renewed by those who shall 
 be willing to avail themselves of the grant con- 
 tained in these presents. Done at Paris, in council, 
 the nineteenth of July, one thousand five hundred 
 and fifty-eight. Signed Faure. 
 
 In consequence of these letters-patents, and this 
 act of registration, the three estates of Scotland in 
 parliament, assembled, in the month of November 
 1558, passed an act for naturalizing and granting 
 the same privileges to all the French in Scotland ; 
 and a copy of those letters-patents* was registered 
 in the acts of the parliament of Scotland. 
 
 Letters-patents of King Henry IV. bearing confir- 
 mation of the privileges of the Scots in France, 
 in the year 1599. 
 
 Henry, by the grace of God, King of France 
 and Navarre, unto all present and to come, greet- 
 ing. 
 
 Whereas, since it hath pleased God to call us 
 unto the sucession of this crown, we have }iad 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 37 
 
 nothing more at heart than to maintain the alli- 
 ances and correspondences which we found that 
 the kings our predecessors had made with the 
 princes and potentates of Christendom for the pub- 
 lic weal of our kingdom : we have taken especial 
 care of the ancient confederacy and alliance long 
 since contracted and religiously observed between 
 our predecessor Kings, and the Kings of Scotland, 
 for the mutual aid and assistance which they have 
 got from each other upon occasions that have offered 
 for the good of their respective states, people and 
 subjects ; and being that we have, moreover, a par- 
 ticular inclination to love our most dear and most 
 beloved good brother and cousin James the VI. of 
 the name reigning over the said country of Scot- 
 land, in consideration whereof, desiring, after the 
 example of our other kings our predecessors, to 
 make appear to our said good brother and cousin 
 the said King of Scotland, that the continuance of 
 his friendship is unto us dear and desirable, and to 
 indulge those of the said nation with every instance 
 of good-will, by imparting to them the graces and 
 privileges whereof they have rendered themselves 
 worthy, through the affection and fidelity which 
 they have borne this crown : be it known, that, 
 for the considerations abovesaid, and of our special 
 grace, full power and royal authority, we have 
 said, declared, and commanded, and do, by these 
 presents, say, declare, and command, it is our will 
 and pleasure, that the subjects of our said good 
 brother and cousin the King of Scotland, who do 
 inhabit, or shall hereafter reside in this our king- 
 dom, be capacitated to accept, hold, and possess 
 
38 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 all and every the benefices, dignities, and ecclesi- 
 astical offices with which they may be justly and 
 canonically invested by sufficient title, nothing de- 
 rogating from the decrees and concordates, privi- 
 leges, franchises, and liberties of the Gallican 
 church, thereof to take and seize the possession 
 and enjoyment, and to reap and receive the said 
 fruits and revenues, to what sums soever they do 
 or may amount. And, moreover, to acquire for 
 the future, in our said kingdom, countries, lands, 
 and seignories of our said obedience, all and every 
 the estates, moveable and immoveable, that they 
 shall see meet, to hold and possess them, together 
 with those that may fall, redound, or belong to 
 them, whether by succession, donation, or other- 
 wise, and to order and dispose of them by testa- 
 ment, destination, latter-will, living conveyance, 
 or in what manner soever # , and that their heirs, 
 or others, to whom they shall fall ab intestat, or 
 otherwise, whether they be residing in our said 
 kingdom, or whether they be in the said kingdom 
 of Scotland, when the said succession or donation 
 shall fall, may succeed to them, take and seize 
 possession and enjoyment of their said estates, just 
 as they would or might do, were they original na- 
 tives of our said kingdom and country ; provided 
 always, that they who shall testate, or decease in- 
 testate, be denizons ; without our solicitor-general, 
 or other our officers, having any power to claim 
 their said estates as our acquest by right of escheat, 
 or the said subjects of the said kingdom of Scot- 
 land, meeting in the enjoyment of such estates 
 with any sort of molestation ; without also the acts 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 39 
 
 and judgments heretofore passed contrary to the 
 tenor of the said presents, being able for the future 
 to hinder the effect hereof, or there being any oc- 
 casion for the subjects of the country of Scotland 
 to obtain any other dispensation or declaration 
 than these presents ; and, as above, we have 
 enabled and dispensed, and do, by these presents, 
 enable and dispense them, without their being 
 obliged, on account thereof, to pay us, or our suc- 
 cessors, any finances or indemnity, from which, 
 unto what sum, value, or estimation soever it doth 
 or may amount, we have, in consideration of the 
 above, acquitted and discharged, and do acquit 
 and discharge them, by these presents, signed with 
 our own hand ; upon condition, that if, by reason 
 of the said benefices with which the said Scots 
 may be provided, there arise any suit or conten- 
 tion, they shall not cause any of our subjects to be 
 brought or convened, but before such of our judges 
 unto whom the cognizance shall belong. We do 
 therefore give in command, to our beloved and 
 faithful the persons holding our court of parliament, 
 great council, and chamber of accompts at Paris, 
 treasurers general of France, and all our bailiffs, 
 seneschals, provosts, and other our justiciaries and 
 officers, or their deputies, present and to come, and 
 unto every one of them as it shall respectively 
 concern him, that our present grace, leave, licence, 
 and permission, and all in these said presents con- 
 tained, they cause, suffer, and allow the said sub- 
 jects and inhabitants of the said kingdom of Scot- 
 land to enjoy and use, plenarily and peaceably, 
 ceasing and causing to cease all hinderances and 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 molestations to the contrary whatsoever. For suck 
 is our pleasure. Notwithstanding that the value 
 of the said finance is not there specified and de- 
 clared, that such gifts have been wont to be made 
 only for the half, or the third of the ordinances by 
 us, or our predecessors, issued upon the order and 
 distribution of our finances ; from which we have, of 
 our full power and royal authority, derogated, and 
 do derogate, and from the derogatories therein con- 
 tained, and the ordinances, restrictions, commands, 
 and prohibitions to the contrary whatsoever. And, 
 forasmuch as these presents may be wanted in divers 
 and several places, it is our will, that, upon sight 
 hereof under our seal royal, or duly collated, credit 
 be given as to the present original ; unto which, 
 that it may be a deed firm and stable for ever, 
 we have caused our seal to be affixed : saving in 
 all else our right, and that of others in all. Given 
 at Fontainebleau in the month of March, and year 
 of grace one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, 
 and of our reign the tenth. Signed Henry. And 
 upon the fold, By the king from Neufville, on one 
 side visa, and sealed in a lace of red and green silk, 
 with the great seal in green wax, registered in 
 presence of the king's solicitor-general j provided 
 always that the Scots, who are not denizons, shall 
 have no power to succeed those who shall reside 
 in this kingdom ; and the said Scots, residing in 
 this kingdom, shall not be deprived of the said 
 letters upon quitting the said residence. At Paris, 
 in parliament, the last day of July, one thousand 
 five hundred and ninety-nine. Signed Du Tillet. 
 A collated extract from the registers and royal 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 41 
 
 ordinances registered in parliament. Signed Voisin, 
 with a paraph. 
 
 Extract of the records of parliament. 
 
 This day the court having seen the letters given 
 at Fontainebleau in the month of March last, signed 
 Henry, and upon the fold, from Neufville, and 
 sealed with the great seal in green wax, in a lace 
 of red and green silk, whereby, for the causes there 
 contained, the said lord wills, that the subjects of 
 the King of Scotland, who inhabit and reside, or 
 shall hereafter inhabit and reside in this kingdom, 
 have power to accept, hold, and possess all and 
 every the benefices, dignities, and offices ecclesias- 
 tical with which they may be lawfully invested, 
 not derogating from the holy decrees, privileges, 
 and liberties of the Gallican church ; and, more- 
 over, in this said kingdom, to acquire all and every 
 the estates, moveable and immoveable, to hold and 
 possess them, together with those that may fall and 
 pertain to them whether by succession, donation, 
 or otherwise ; and to order and dispose of them by 
 testament, settlement, and latter-will, and other- 
 wise, in what manner soever ; and that their rela- 
 tions, and others to whom they shall have disposed 
 of them, and to whom they shall fall ab intestate or 
 otherwise, whether they be resident in this king- 
 dom, or in the said country of Scotland, when the 
 said donation or succession shall fall, may be able 
 to succeed to them, take and seize the enjoyment 
 of their said estates, just as though they were ori- 
 ginally natives of the said kingdom ; provided that 
 
 3 
 
42 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 the testators, or those who shall decease intestate, 
 be denizons, as is more at large contained in the 
 said letters and conclusions of the king's solicitor- 
 general. The matter being taken into deliberation, 
 the said court hath decreed and ordained, that the 
 said letters shall be here registered in presence of 
 the king's solicitor-general, without the Scots who 
 are not denizons having any power to succeed to 
 those who shall reside in this kingdom. And the 
 said Scots residing in this kingdom shall not be 
 deprived of the benefit of the said letters upon 
 quitting the said residence. Done in parliament 
 the last day of July, in the year one thousand five 
 hundred and ninety-nine. Signed Voisin, with a 
 paraph. 
 
 Letters-patents of Lewis XIIL to confirm the privi- 
 leges of the Scots in France, in the year 1612. 
 
 Lewis, by the grace of God, King of France 
 and Navarre, unto all present and to come, greet- 
 ing. Our predecessor kings, even the late King 
 Henry the Great, our .most honoured lord and 
 father, (whom God absolve) by his letters-patents 
 of the year one thousand five hundred and ninety- 
 nine, verified in our court of parliament at Paris, 
 willed and commanded, for several weighty con- 
 siderations therein contained, that those of the 
 Scotish nation, who should inhabit and reside here- 
 after in this our kingdom, should have power to 
 accept, hold, and possess all and every the bene- 
 fices, dignities, and offices ecclesiastical, with which 
 they might be justly invested, to take the posses- 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 43 
 
 sion, fruits and revenues of them, to acquire in the 
 said kingdom, country, and lands, and seignories 
 of our obedience, all estates, moveable and im- 
 moveable, to have and to hold them, together with 
 those that might fall to them by testament, dona- 
 tion, or otherwise, just as they might do, were they 
 original natives of our said kingdom, upon such 
 conditions, and in such sort as is more at length 
 set forth and specified by the said letters and veri- 
 fication thereof. In consequence whereof, our most 
 dear and well beloved William Morison, a Scots- 
 man, son to John Morison and Elizabeth Gray, 
 also Scots, his father and mother, resident, during 
 their life, in the city of Glasgow, having afterwards 
 retired from the said country, and dwelt thirty 
 years in our cities of Rouen and Dieppe, hath 
 caused most humble petition and request to be 
 made unto us, that he may be enabled to enjoy the 
 tenor of the said letters, under the benefit and 
 grace of which he hath quitted the said country, 
 in order to live and die in this our kingdom : BE 
 IT KNOWN, that, willing to preserve and main- 
 tain the subjects of the kingdom of Scotland, in 
 the franchises, privileges, and liberties to them con- 
 ceded by our said predecessors, and, after their 
 example, favourably to treat them, unto this same 
 William Morison, for these and other causes there- 
 unto us moving, in consequence of the said first 
 letters, the copy whereof, extracted by the recorder 
 of our said court of parliament at Paris, is here an- 
 nexed under the great seal of our chancery, we 
 have permitted and granted, of our special grace, 
 full power and royal authority, we do permit and 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 grant, it is our will and pleasure, that, conformably 
 to the said letters and verifications thereof, he may 
 resort and reside in this our kingdom, country, 
 lands, and seignories of our obedience, there to 
 acquire all and every such estates, moveable and 
 immoveable, as he shall see meet, to hold and pos- 
 sess them,togetherwith those that may fall,redound, 
 and pertain to him, whether by succession, dona- 
 tion, or otherwise; and to order and dispose of 
 them by testament and destination of latter-will, 
 living donation, or in what manner soever : and 
 that his heirs, or others to whom they shall fall 
 ab intestat, or otherwise, whether they be resident 
 in our said kingdom, or whether they be in the 
 said country of Scotland, when the said succession 
 or donation shall fall, may be able to succeed to 
 him, to take and seize possession and enjoyment of 
 the said estates, just so as they would or could do, 
 if they were original natives of our said kingdom 
 and country, provided they shall be denizons ; and 
 that without our solicitor-general, or other our 
 officers, having power henceforth to claim their 
 said estates to us acquired by right of escheat ; nor 
 likewise shall any thing, done to the contrary of the 
 tenor of these presents, have power for the future 
 to hinder the effect hereof, or shall there be any 
 need for him to obtain any dispensation or declara- 
 tion, other than these presents ; and to all, as above, 
 we have enabled and dispensed, and do, by these 
 said presents, enable and dispense him, without 
 his being obliged, on account thereof, to pay unto 
 us, or our successors, any finance or indemnity ; 
 from which, unto whatever value or estimation it 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 45 
 
 doth or may amount, we have, in consideration 
 thereof, as above, acquitted and discharged, and 
 do, by these presents, acquit and discharge him : 
 we do therefore give in command, to our beloved 
 and trusty councillors the persons holding our 
 courts of parliament, commissioners of our accompts 
 at Paris and Rouen, treasurers general of France, 
 at Paris and Rouen, or their deputies, or to each 
 of them in their right, themselves first hereto re- 
 quired, and to all other our bailiffs, seneschals, 
 provosts, and other our justiciaries and officers, or 
 their deputies, present and to come, and to each 
 of thern whom it shall respectively concern, to cause 
 these presents to be registered, and the tenor 
 thereof to be. enjoyed and used plenarily and 
 peaceably by the said William Morison and his 
 successors ; ceasing and cause to cease all moles- 
 tation and hinderances to the contrary whatsoever. 
 For such is our pleasure. And to the end that it 
 may be a thing firm and stable for ever, we have 
 caused our seal to be put to these said presents, 
 saving in all else our right, and that of others. 
 Given at Paris, in the month of October, the year 
 of grace one thousand six hundred and twelve, and 
 of our reign the third. Signed Lewis. And 
 counter-signed by the King, the Queen-regent his 
 mother present : and this our copy, signed Potier, 
 in paraph ; on the side, contents signed Poulsepin, 
 in paraph, and below visa; and sealed with the 
 great seal of green wax in fillet of red and green 
 silk. 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 Extract of the registers of the parliament of Paris. 
 
 Registered in presence of the king's solici- 
 tor-general, towards the patentee's enjoying the 
 effect and tenor hereof, with proviso that the said 
 patentee shall be bound to obtain and procure, for 
 the said lord paramount, a brief from our holy 
 father the Pope, within six months next coming, 
 whereby his holiness shall grant, that, upon the 
 falling of any vacancy by death, resignation, or 
 otherwise, of the benefices with which he may be 
 invested in this kingdom and country, being in the 
 nomination and presentation of the said lord para- 
 mount, there shall be no investiture thereunto by 
 his said holiness, without the nomination, request 
 or consent of the said lord the king ; and, that on 
 account of the said benefices, he shall not cause any 
 of the king's subjects to be brought or convened 
 before the court of Rome, so if, by reason thereof, 
 any law-suit commence, he shall prosecute them in 
 this said kingdom, before the judges to whom the 
 cognizance shall belong : and, moreover, with pro- 
 viso that the patentee shall not be capable of being 
 invested with any bishopric, archbishopric, or abbey 
 of chief order, nor other vicarages, in form of the 
 said benefices with which he may be invested in 
 this kingdom as a natural subject of France. At 
 Paris, in parliament, the fifteenth day of December, 
 one thousand six hundred and twelve. Signed 
 Du Tillet ; a seal and paraph. And, upon the 
 said fold is also wrote, recorded in the register of 
 the treasury, the king's solicitor-general thereunto 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 47 
 
 consenting, in order for the patentee to enjoy the 
 effect and tenor hereof, upon the terms and condi- 
 tions set forth by the act of court. Done at Paris, 
 the twentieth of December, one thousand six hun- 
 dred and twelve. Signed L'Annier in paraph. 
 
 Act of King Lewis XIV* $ council of state, in favour 
 of the Scots in France, 
 
 Whereas it hath been represented to the King 
 in his council, the Queen-regent his mother pre- 
 sent, that, in the year seven hundred fourscore 
 and nine, Charlemagne reigning in France, and 
 Achaius in Scotland, the alliance and confederacy 
 having been made between the two kingdoms, 
 offensive and defensive, of crown and crown, king 
 and king, people and people, as is set forth by the 
 charter called the Golden Bull, it should have, 
 until this present, continued without any inter- 
 ruption, and been ratified by all the Kings succes- 
 sors of the said Charlemagne, with advantages and 
 prerogatives so peculiar, that not only are the Scots 
 in capacity of acquiring and possessing estates, 
 moveable and immoveable, and benefices in France, 
 and the French in Scotland, without taking out any 
 letters of naturalization ; but also it should have 
 been granted to the said Scots, to pay only the 
 fourth part of the duties upon all goods which 
 they transport to the said country of Scotland ; a 
 privilege which they have ever enjoyed, and do 
 enjoy at this day : that even whatever rupture 
 there may have been between the crowns of France 
 and England, since the union of the kingdom of 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 » ■ 
 
 England with that of Scotland, the French have 
 been nevertheless still treated by the Scots as 
 friends and confederates, and particularly in the 
 year one thousand six hundred twenty-six, when 
 the French in Scotland, and the Scots in France, 
 had a reciprocal replevy of their merchandises, 
 while those of the French in England, and those 
 of the English in France were confiscated ; and 
 that there never hath been made any difference or 
 distinction in this kingdom, between his Majesty's 
 natural subjects and the said Scots : wherefore the 
 late King of happy memory, having, by his declara- 
 tion in the month of January, one thousand six 
 hundred thirty-nine, commanded that taxes should 
 be laid upon all foreigners of his said kingdom, 
 his Majesty should have, by an act of his council 
 of the eleventh of May in the said year, exempted 
 and discharged all Scots residing therein, their 
 children, descendants, and heirs, from all taxes 
 laid, or to be laid upon the said foreigners. In 
 consequence of the said declaration, acts and rolls 
 of taxes expeded thereupon, willing that, if any 
 Scot had been there comprehended, whether in the 
 city of Paris, or in others of this kingdom, they 
 should be freed without difficulty in virtue of the 
 said acts ; the said letters of declaration, a^ts, or 
 ought else, to the contrary notwithstanding In 
 prejudice whereof, those who have raised the taxes 
 ordained to be laid upon all foreigners residing in 
 this said kingdom, in virtue of the letters of de- 
 claration of the month of January last, had not 
 forborn to comprehend, in the rolls which they 
 caused to be expeded in execution thereof, some 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 49 
 
 individuals of the Scottish nation amongst other 
 foreigners, without expressing their country and 
 quality; which being absolutely contrary to the 
 intention of his Majesty, who wills and means to 
 entertain inviolably the said confederacy and alli- 
 ance with the said Scots, and to maintain them in 
 all the rights, privileges, and prerogatives, unto 
 them granted by the kings his predecessors, and 
 which he hath ratified since his accession to the 
 crown : the king being in council, the queen-re- 
 gent his mother present, hath discharged, and doth 
 discharge, all the Scottish gentlemen residing in his 
 said kingdom, from the tax laid upon them in qua- 
 lity of foreigners : their majesties give prohibition 
 to all bailiffs and sergeants to constrain them on ac- 
 count thereof, on pain of a thousand livres of fine, 
 and of all costs, damages, and interests. And for 
 the other Scots, his majesty hath superseded pay- 
 ment of the said taxes for three months, during 
 which time his majesty prohibits their being con- 
 strained, if there is not some private stipulation 
 made by them to the contrary. Done in the king's 
 council of state, his majesty being there, and the 
 queen-regent his mother present, held at Fontaine- 
 bleau, the nineteenth of September, one thousand 
 six hundred and forty-six. Signed Le Tellier. 
 
 Privileges of the Scottish merchants trading in France, 
 granted by King Francis I. in 1518. 
 
 Francis, by the grace of God, King of France. 
 Be it known to all present and to come, that we 
 mean to treat favourably the subjects of our most 
 
 E 
 
SO MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 dear and most beloved brother, cousin, and ally, 
 the king of Scotland, in favour of the great and 
 ancient alliance subsisting between us and him, and 
 of the great and commendable services which those 
 of the Scottish nation have done to the crown of 
 France : for these causes, and in order to give 
 them greater occasion to persevere therein, and for 
 other considerations thereunto us moving, in token 
 also of our inclination to the request of our most 
 dear and most beloved cousin the duke of Albany, 
 regent and governor of Scotland, we have all and 
 every the Scottish merchants, who are and shall be 
 hereafter trading, frequenting and conversing in 
 this our kingdom, freed, acquitted, exempted, and 
 do, of our special grace, full power and royal au- 
 thority, free, acquit, and exempt, by these presents, 
 signed with our hand, in perpetuity and for ever, 
 from the new impost of twelve French deniers per 
 livre, raised in the city of Dieppe upon foreign 
 merchandise, beside the sum of four French deniers 
 per livre, which hath been anciently collected and 
 raised upon the said foreign merchandise. We 
 do therefore give in command, by these same pre- 
 sents, to our beloved and trusty the commissioners 
 of our exchequers and treasurers of France, and 
 to all our other justiciaries and officers, or to their 
 deputies present and to come, and to every one of 
 them, so as it shall concern him, that our present 
 grace, immunity, discharge, and exemption, they 
 cause, suffer, and allow, the said Scottish mer- 
 chants, and their successors, whoare and shall be 
 trading and frequenting in our said kingdom, to 
 enjoy and use, plenarily and peaceably, perpetu- 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 51 
 
 ally and for ever, without giving, or suffering 
 to be given them, any manner of disturbance or 
 impediment ; for such is our pleasure ; whatsoever 
 enactions, restrictions, commands, or prohibitions 
 to the contrary notwithstanding. And to the eftd 
 that this be a deed firm and stable for ever, we 
 have caused our seal to be put to these said pre- 
 sents, saving in all else our right, and that of others 
 in all. Given at Amboise in the month of May, 
 and year of grace, one thousand five hundred 
 and eighteen, and of our reign the fourth. 
 
 Privileges of the Scottish merchants trading in France, 
 granted by King Henry S I I. in 1554. 
 
 Henry, by the grace of God, King of France, 
 to our beloved and trusty counsellors the persons 
 holding our court of parliament at Rouen, the 
 commissioners of our exchequer at Paris, the in- 
 spectors general of our finances and supplies, port- 
 masters at the said Rouen, and to all our other 
 justiciaries and officers, or their deputies, whom it 
 shall concern greeting. We liberally inclining to 
 the request which hath been made us by our dearest 
 and most beloved daughter the queen of Scotland, 
 for her subjects in the said country, and several 
 other considerations thereunto us moving, in order 
 to remove all the difficulties which you and every 
 one of you might make, of causing the subjects of 
 our said daughter in the said country of Scotland, 
 to enjoy our letters of exemption and ampliation 
 here annexed under our counter-seal, and to put a 
 final end thereunto, we have, by amplifying and 
 
 2 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 interpreting the same, said, declared and ordained, 
 and do, of our own accord, certain knowledge, 
 special grace, full power, and royal authority, say, 
 declare and ordain, that, by our said letters here- 
 unto annexed, as said is, we have intended, and do 
 intend, that the subjects of the said country oi 
 Scotland shall not be bound to pay for the commo- 
 dities which they shall take and carry out of our 
 country and duchy of Normandy, the cities, towns, 
 and havens thereof, whatsoever they be, if designed 
 for the said country of Scotland, other or greater 
 subsidies and duties than they have heretofore 
 been wont to pay, and did pay in our city of 
 Dieppe, at the time of the edicts by us issued con- 
 cerning the collection of our foreign duties : and, 
 so long as trade is, or shall be, we have exempted, 
 acquitted, and freed them, and do, of our grace 
 and authority, as above, exempt, acquit, and free 
 them from the surplusage of the said duties, and 
 unto what sum soever they may amount, over and 
 above what they have anciently been wont to pay 
 our city of Dieppe, although they be not above 
 specified by these said presents ; whereby we com- 
 mand you, and every one of you respectively, as 
 it shall concern him, we give commission and ex- 
 press injunction to cause these our said letters and 
 presents to be read, published and registered, and 
 the contents thereof, our said daughter's subjects, 
 plenarily and peaceably to enjoy, without, on occa- 
 sion of our-said edicts, causing, or suffering to be 
 caused, made, or given them any molestation, dis- 
 turbance, or impediment, to the contrary whatso- 
 ever ; according to what, by our said letters here 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 53 
 
 annexed, as said is, you are commanded to ob- 
 serve ; for such is our pleasure ; notwithstanding 
 the said edicts, by us and our predecessors made 
 about the receipt of the said duties, from which, 
 this purpose, and without prejudicing them in other 
 respects, we have derogated, and do derogate, and 
 from thence exempted, and do exempt the said 
 subjects of Scotland, by these said presents, which 
 to this end we have signed with our hand. Given 
 at Paris, the third day of February, in the year of 
 grace one thousand five hundred and fifty-two, and 
 of our reign the eighth. 
 
 Ratified and approved wherever it hath been 
 necessary. 
 
 Confirmation of the privileges of the Scottish merchants 
 trading iii France, granted by King Henry IV* 
 in 1599. 
 
 Henry, by the grace of God, King of France 
 and Navarre, unto all present and to come, greet- 
 ing. Whereas the late King Francis I. our most 
 honoured sire and grandfather, by his letters-pa- 
 tents, in charter-form, of the month of May one 
 thousand five hundred and eighteen, desiring, for 
 several good considerations, well and favourably to 
 treat the subjects of the kingdom of Scotland, in 
 favour of the great and ancient friendship and al- 
 liance which subsisted between the two kingdoms, 
 and of the great and commendable services which 
 those of the Scottish nation had done to the crown 
 of France, should have freed, quitted and exemp- 
 ted all the Scottish merchants, trading, frequent- 
 
 3 
 
54 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 ing and dealing in this kingdom, from the foreign 
 impost of twelve French deniers for each livre, then 
 raised in our city of Dieppe upon merchandise, 
 besides four French deniers for each pound of an- 
 cient foreign demesne : and since, upon the com- 
 plaint that the said Scottish merchants had'made 
 to the late King Henry II. our most honoured 
 sire and father, (whom God absolve,) that, under 
 pretext of a new edict upon foreign duties, the 
 officers thereof in our city of Rouen had con- 
 strained them to pay twenty deniers a livre for the 
 new foreign impost, he should have, by other let- 
 ters-patents in charter-form, of the month of Oc- 
 tober, in the year one thousand five hundred 
 fifty-four, by amplifying the said first exemption, 
 ordained that the said Scottish merchants should 
 not be obliged tapay, on account of the commodi- 
 ties which they should bring and carry out of our 
 said country of Normandy, or any towns whatso- 
 ever thereof, designed for the said country of Scot- 
 land, any other duties and subsidies than they had 
 been of old wont to do, and did at the time of issu- 
 ing the said new edicts made concerning the re- 
 ceipt of foreign duties and demesnes ; as is con- 
 tained more at large in the said letters verified 
 where need hath been : and also, by other letters- 
 patents, he should have declared to have meant, 
 that the subjects of the said country of Scotland 
 should not be bound to pay for the goods they 
 should bring and carry out of our said country of 
 Normandy, cities, towns, and harbours thereof, de- 
 signed for the said country of Scotland, other or 
 greater subsidies and duties than they had before 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND. 55 
 
 been wont to pay, and did pay in our city of Dieppe, 
 at the time of the edicts by us made relating to 
 the receipt of our duties of foreign impost. But 
 whereas, on occasion of the troubles which have 
 prevailed in this kingdom, especially within these 
 ten or twelve years past, things have been so alter- 
 ed, and the privileges of the Scottish merchants 
 so enervated, that, if we were not pleased to con- 
 tinue and confirm the same to them, they feared 
 therein to find obstacles and difficulties which 
 might deprive them of the benefit of the grace that 
 hath been unto them granted and continued by the 
 said kings our predecessors : be it known, that we 
 desire no less favourably to treat the said Scottish 
 merchants, than the said kings our predecessors 
 have done, as well in consequence of the ancient 
 alliance and confederacy which subsists between 
 this kingdom and that of Scotland, as for the 
 friendship and good correspondence which sub- 
 sisteth between us and the king of Scotland, James 
 VI. of the name, our most dear and most beloved 
 good brother and cousin, now reigning in the said 
 country ; we have, of our special grace, full power 
 and royal authority, said, declared, and ordained, 
 do, by these presents, say, declare, and ordain, it 
 is our will and pleasure, that the said Scottish 
 merchants, trading, frequenting, and conversing, 
 in this our said kingdom, enjoy for the future, in 
 our whole said country and duchy of Normandy, 
 the same franchises, privileges, and immunities* 
 from foreign customs and imposts, and after the 
 same sort and manner that they enjoyed them in 
 the days of the Kings Francis and Henry, our 
 
56 MEMOIRS OF THE ALLIANCE 
 
 most honoured grandfather and brother-in-law, 
 until the renewal of the said last troubles, that, by 
 the injury of the times, their enjoyment of them 
 hath been impeded : the which franchises, privi- 
 leges and immunities, for the considerations above- 
 said, and of our grace, power, and authority, as 
 above, we have confirmed, and do confirm to them, 
 by these said presents, therefore signed by our 
 hand, for the commodities which they shall bring 
 and carry out of our said country and duchy of 
 Normandy, cities, towns, and harbours thereof 
 whatsoever, designed for the said country of Scot- 
 land. We do therefore give in command, to our 
 beloved and trusty the persons holding our court 
 of parliament at Rouen, commissioners of our ac- 
 compts and supply in the said country, treasurers 
 general of France in the said Rouen, port-masters 
 in the said place, or their deputies, and to all 
 other our justiciaries and officers, or their substi- 
 tutes, whom it shall concern, that the tenor of 
 these presents they cause, suffer, and allow, the 
 said subjects, Scottish merchants, to enjoy and use, 
 plenarily and peaceably ; ceasing, and causing to 
 cease, all molestations and impediments to the con- 
 trary whatsoever; and to cause this to be suffered, 
 and to return and restore to them hereafter their 
 effects and commodities, if any on account thereof 
 should be taken or arrested, that they constrain, 
 and cause to be constrained, our officers of foreign 
 trade, by all due and lawful methods, any opposi- 
 tions or appeals whatsoever notwithstanding ; and 
 producing these presents, or a vidimus thereof, 
 made under the seal royal for once only, we will, 
 
BETWEEN FRANCE AND SCOTLAND, 57 
 
 that our receivers of the said foreign duties be 
 held acquitted and discharged thereof by the com- 
 missioners of our said accompts in Normandy, 
 whom we warrant so to do, without difficulty or 
 hesitation. And whereas there may be occasion 
 for these presents in several different places, it is 
 our will, that to the copy thereof, duly collated, 
 credit be given as to the present original, where- 
 unto, in witness hereof, and to the end that it be 
 a deed firm and stable for ever, we have caused 
 our seal to be put and affixed, saving in all else 
 our right, and that of others in all. For such is 
 our pleasure. Given at Fontainebleau in the 
 month of March, of the year of grace one thousand 
 five hundred and ninety-nine, and of our reign the 
 tenth. Signed Henry; countersigned, by the 
 king at Neufville, and sealed in a silk string with 
 the great seal of green wax. 
 
 From a copy collated with the original on parch- 
 ment, by a clerk of the court of parliament of 
 Rouen, the 27th of April, 1599. 
 
AN 
 
 ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EXPEDITION 
 
 OF 
 
 William the Ninth Earl of Glencairn, 
 
 AS 
 
 GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 IN THE YEARS 1653 AND 1654. 
 WRITTEN 
 
 BY JOHN GRAHAM OF DEUCHRIE, 
 
 Who was Eye and Ear-witness to all that passed from first to last. 
 
 CONTAINING A VARIETY OF PARTICULARS 
 
 NOT TAKEN NOTICE OF BY ANY HISTORIAN. 
 
AN 
 
 ACCOUNT, &c. 
 
 THE earl of Glencairn went from his own 
 house of Finleston in the beginning of the month 
 of August, 1653, to Lochearn, where several of 
 the clans did meet him, viz. the earl of Athol, Mac- 
 Donald of Glengarie, Cameron of Lochyell, ordi 
 narily called MacEldney, John Graham of Deuch- 
 rie, Donald MacGregour, tutor of MacGregour 
 Farquharson of Inverey, Robertson of Strowan, 
 MacNachtane of MacNachtane, Archibald lord 
 Lorn, afterwards earl of Argyle, colonel Blackader 
 of Tullyattan. 
 
 These gentlemen, after some few days consulta- 
 tion with his lordship, did promise to bring out 
 what forces they could with all expedition. 
 
 My lord, notwithstanding, did lie to and from 
 the hills, not having any with him but the writer 
 of this, and three servants, for the space of six 
 weeks. 
 
 The first forces that came to him here, were 
 brought by John Graham of Deuchrie : they were 
 forty footmen. Within two or three days after 
 came Donald MacGregour the tutor, with eighty 
 footmen • 
 
 F 
 
62 glencatrn's expedition 
 
 My lord general with this force came to John 
 Graham of Deuchrie's house, where, within some 
 few days, ray lord Kenmure came with forty horse- 
 men from the west : colonel Blackader also came, 
 with thirty horsemen, which he had gathered to- 
 gether in Fifeshire. The laird of MacNachtane 
 came with twelve horsemen : there was between 
 sixty and eighty of the Lowlandmen that were not 
 mounted on horses, but were very well provided 
 in their arms : they were commanded by captain 
 James Hamilton, brother of the laird of Milntown, 
 and were called to a nickname Gravats. 
 
 Colonel Kidd, governor of Stirling, being in- 
 formed that the king^s forces were come so near 
 him, did march with the most part of his regiment 
 of foot, and troop of horse, to a place called Aber- 
 foyle, within three miles of the place where my 
 lord general did lie, who having intelligence there- 
 of, did march with the small force he had, to the 
 pass of Aberfoyle ; and drawing up his forces 
 within the pass, did distribute his footmen on both 
 sides thereof, very advantageously ; and the horse 
 which were commanded by lord Kenmure, were 
 drawn up on the wings of the foot. He gave or- 
 ders that captain Hamilton, who commanded the 
 Lowlandmen, called Gravats, with Deuchrie^s men, 
 should receive the first charge, which they did very 
 gallantly; and at the very first encounter, the 
 enemy began to retire back. The general per- 
 ceiving the same, did command the Highland 
 forces to pursue, as also lord Kenmure with the 
 horse he had. The enemy began, upon this, down- 
 right to run ; they were pursued very hard \ they 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 63 
 
 lost on the spot about sixty, and about eighty 
 were killed in the pursuit : no prisoners were ta- 
 ken. 
 
 My lord general having succeeded so well, from 
 all places men did daily come in to him. We then 
 marched to Lochearn, and from that to Loch- 
 Rannoch, where, at the hall in the isle of Loch- 
 Rannocb, the clans met him. In the mean while, 
 he was very busy in dispatching men to the Low- 
 lands, giving them commission for taking horses, 
 for raising men, and for carrying off all the arms 
 they could find. 
 
 The clans who met him at Loch-Rannoch 
 brought their forces with them : the laird of Glea- 
 garie brought three hundred very pretty men: 
 the laird of Lochyell brought four hundred Locha- 
 ber-men : the tutor of MacGregour had then 
 about two hundred men with him. 
 
 Sir Arthur Forbes, and Gerard Irvine his lieu- 
 tenant-colonel, with several other officers, came 
 with about eighty men on horseback. The earl 
 of Athol came with a hundred horse, and with a 
 regiment of brave foot, consisting of near one 
 thousand two hundred men, commanded by An- 
 drew Drummond, brother german of Sir James 
 Drummond of Machany. He was the earl of 
 Athol's lieutenant-colonel. 
 
 These noble persons were ordered to give com- 
 mission to captains, and other inferior officers, to go 
 to the Lowlands, for levying what men they could. 
 We then marched down to the skirts of the Low- 
 lands, near the Marquis of Huntly's bounds, where 
 several gentlemen joined us. 
 
64 glencairn's expedition 
 
 The laird of Inverey rendezvoused in Cromar, 
 for the raising of a regiment. General-major 
 Morgan, who was lying at Aberdeen, being in- 
 formed of the day of rendezvous in Cromar, did 
 draw out of several garrisons two thousand foot, 
 and one thousand horse and dragoons, with which 
 he marched day and night before the day of ren- 
 dezvous ; and we not having intelligence of his 
 march, he fell upon our outer guards, and that so 
 hotly, that our forces had much ado to get drawn 
 up ; and if it had not been for John Graham of 
 Deuchrie, with about forty men who fired upon 
 the enemy, some of our own men being amongst 
 them, and having killed the officer who commanded 
 the party of the enemy who had entered the glen 
 before us, this put them into some confusion, and 
 made them stand a little. 
 
 In the mean time lord Kenmure, who command- 
 ed the van, marched at a great rate. Our foot 
 took the glen on both sides. This glen leads to 
 the laird of Grant's ground of Abernethy wood. 
 Morgan now having got up his foot, ordered them 
 to march on both sides of the glen after our foot, 
 he himself charging at the mouth of the glen. My 
 lord general, who was in the rear, was desired to 
 change his horse, but he would not, though the 
 nag he rode on was not worth d&lOO Scots. The 
 gentlemen who attended on my lord general, were 
 the laird of MacNachtane, Sir Mungo Murray, 
 who killed one of the enemy's officers as they en- 
 tered the pass, Nathaniel Gordon, a brave gentle- 
 man, major Ogilvie, captain Ochtrie Campbell, 
 captain John Rutherford, who wants the leg, colo- 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 65 
 
 nel Blackader, the laird of Glengarie, with several 
 other gentlemen of repute, whose names I cannot 
 now remember. The glen was so strait for the 
 horses, that only two could march a-breast, and 
 sometimes only one. The enemy pursued so hot- 
 ly, that they fought on foot as often as on horse- 
 back. We had eight miles to travel through the 
 glen, before we could reach the laird of Grant's 
 ground, and the enemy did not give over the fight, 
 till night parted us. 
 
 Morgan lay in the glen all that night ; and the 
 next morning he marched down through the Cro- 
 mar, and from thence to Aberdeen. 
 
 After this we lay in that country and in Baden- 
 och, for near five weeks. Lord Kenmure was sent 
 with a hundred horse to the shire of Argyle, to 
 bring up what forces lord Lorn had gathered. He 
 had mustered one thousand foot, and about fifty 
 horse, who marched and joined us in Badenoch, 
 where he remained with us about a fortnight ; but 
 being some how discontented, he marched home 
 with his men on the 1st day of January, 1654*. 
 
 My lord general having intelligence of his deser- 
 tion, ordered the laird of Glengarie, with Lochyell, 
 and so many horse as could be conveniently spared, 
 to pursue him, and bring him back with his men, 
 or otherwise to fight him. Lorn marched straight- 
 way for the castle of Ruthven in Badenoch, a 
 house belonging to the marquis of Huntly, wherein 
 there was a garrison of English so.diers ; but Glen- 
 garie being very eager in the pursuit, overtook 
 him before he got within half a mile of the castle. 
 Lord Lorn seeing this, slipped oft' with what horse 
 
 3 
 
60 glencairn's expedition 
 
 he had, leaving his foot to the mercy of Glengarie 
 and his men. He presently commanded a party 
 of horse to follow Lorn, who could not overtake 
 him ; but they brought back about twenty of his 
 horsemen. His footmen were drawn up on a hill, 
 where they beat a parley, and engaged to serve 
 the general for behalf of his majesty. 
 
 Glengarie was not quite satisfied with their an- 
 swer, but was inclined to fall upon them, for he 
 had still a grudge against them, since the wars of 
 the great Montrose. My lord general by this 
 time coming up, and hearing of the offer they had 
 made, ordered one to go to them, and inform 
 them, that he would accept of no offer from them, 
 till they lay down all their arms ; upon which they 
 immediately gave them up. 
 
 The general then went up to them, with several 
 of his officers, and they all declaring they were wil- 
 ling to engage in his majesty 's service, under his 
 lordship, he caused both officers and soldiers, 
 each of them, to take an oath to be faithful to his 
 majesty ; which they very readily did, and then 
 their arms were restored to them : but within a 
 fortnight thereafter, neither officers nor soldiers 
 of them were to be seen with us : and we heard 
 no more of lord Lorn, nor any of his men since 
 that time. 
 
 There was one colonel Vaughan, or Wagan, 
 who came from England by Carlisle, and joined 
 us with near a hundred gentlemen on horseback, 
 well mounted and armed. The colonel himself 
 was unfortunately killed in a rencounter he had 
 with the brazen-wall regiment of horse ; but not- 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 67 
 
 withstanding of the deadly wounds he had re- 
 ceived, he rooted the troop, and killed the com- 
 mander thereof, though it was said, that in all the 
 civil wars they never had been heat. This brave 
 gentleman had his wounds healed over : but from 
 what cause I know not, they broke out again, and 
 occasioned his death, to the great regret of all 
 who knew him. 
 
 We being now a considerable body, both of 
 hor*e and foot, by reason of the great numbers of 
 new levied men that came in daily to us, the gene- 
 ral, with advice of the officers, thought it fit to 
 march down to the Lowlands, in the shire of Aber- 
 been : so we went by Balvenie, and from thence to 
 a place called Whitelums, near to which was a 
 garrison of the enemy in the castle of Kildrummie, 
 a house belonging to the Earl of Mar. Morgan 
 not daring to come out to us, knowing our army 
 was full as good as his own ; after that we had 
 been in this country a fortnight, we marched for 
 the shire of Murray, where we remained near a 
 month. Our head quarters was at Elgin. 
 
 The English had two garrisons in Murrayshire, 
 one in Burgie castle, and the other in Calder ; but 
 notwithstanding of both, we got no hurt from them, 
 but had very good quarters, and made ourselves 
 merry all the time we were there. We had wasted 
 the Highlands by reason of our long tarrying there. 
 The marquis of Montrose, son of the great Mon 
 trose, joined the general at Elgin, with near thirty 
 gentlemen ; also the lord Forrester, with a few men, 
 and one little major Strachan. 
 
 The general having received letters from my 
 
68 glencairn's expedition 
 
 lord Middleton, advising him of his arrival in 
 Sutherland, with several other officers sent by his 
 majesty, viz. Major-General Monro, to command 
 as lieutenant-general of horse and foot, Dalziel, to 
 command as major-general of horse and foot, and 
 Drummond, as major-general of foot : lord Napier 
 was to have a regiment. There were several other 
 gentlemen who came over as officers in the same 
 ship. 
 
 The lord general immediately ordered the army 
 to march to Sutherland. Morgan having intelli- 
 gence, marched upon our rear, and as we marched 
 we had many hot skirmishes with him. Our ge- 
 neral was always present and in action ; and always, 
 when necessary, ordered fresh parties to relieve 
 those that stood in need of assistance. This skir- 
 mishing lasted for the space of two days and two 
 nights. 
 
 We sat down before the house of the laird of 
 Lethen, whose name was Brodie, who held it out 
 for the English. Our general sent and ordered 
 him to deliver up the house for the king's service* 
 which he refused ; and on the approach of our 
 men, he fired out on them, and killed four or five 
 of them. The general being incensed at this, or- 
 dered the soldiers to pull down several stacks of 
 corn, with which he filled the court and gates of 
 the house, which being set on fire, he judged the 
 smoke would stifle them, the wind blowing it into 
 the house : but it took not the effect he expected ; 
 for they still held out the house, and we lost 
 other three or four men more ere we marched the 
 next morning. 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 69 
 
 The general ordered all Letherfs land and stack- 
 yards to be burnt, which was accordingly done ; 
 and these were the only orders he gave for burn- 
 ing during all his command. 
 
 We then marched straightway for a pass that 
 lay eight miles above Inverness ; and having got to 
 that pass, our army crossed the water of Inverness : 
 the whole horses were made to swim, and the men 
 passed in boats. Here we kept a strong guard, 
 and our army lay for the space of six weeks quite 
 safe up and down the country of Sutherland, the 
 English having no garrison in that country. 
 
 The lord general immediately set out for Dor- 
 noch, to receive lord Middleton's commands, who 
 was to be general in chief; and, after five or six 
 days rest, lord Middleton ordained that there 
 might be a general rendezvous of the whole army, 
 that so he might see what the men were, both as 
 to their arms, mounting and numbers. 
 
 The army was accordingly mustered upon a 
 Saturday in the middle of March ; their number 
 amounted to 3500 footmen, and 1300 horsemen. 
 Of the horsemen there would have been about 
 300 that were not well horsed nor well armed. 
 
 There was an English pink cast in by stress of 
 weather, on the coast of Sutherland ; she was 
 loaded with near forty tons of French wine. Ge- 
 neral Middleton distributed this among the officers 
 of the army ; and he gave to the earl of Glencairn 
 one ton thereof. 
 
 The army being drawn up again, according to 
 the former order, the earl of Glencairn passed 
 along the front of all the regiments of horse and 
 
70 glencairn's expedition 
 
 foot, and informed all the officers and men as he 
 went along, that he had no further command novr 
 but as a private colonel, and that he hoped they 
 should be very happy in having so noble a com- 
 mander as the present general, and the officers 
 under him ; and so he wished them all well. Those 
 who saw this could easily perceive how very un- 
 satisfied the soldiers were, by their looks and coun- 
 tenance ; for several, both officers and soldiers, 
 shed tears, and vowed that they would serve with 
 their old general in any corner of the world. 
 
 When this ceremony was over, the earl of Glen- 
 cairn invited the general with all the general offi- 
 cers and colonels, to dine with him. His quarters 
 were at the laird of Kettle's house, four miles south 
 from Dornoch, the head quarters. They were as 
 well entertained byhis lordship as it was possible in 
 that country. The grace said, and the cloth with- 
 drawn, his lordship called for a glass of wine, and 
 then addressed the general in these words : " My 
 lord general, you see what a gallant army these 
 worthy gentlemen here present and I have gathered 
 together, at a time when it could hardly be expected 
 that any number durst meet together; these men 
 have come out to serve his majesty, at the hazard 
 of their lives, and of all that is dear to them : I 
 hope therefore you will give them all the encour- 
 agement to do their duty that lies in your power.' 
 On this, up started Sir George Munro from his 
 seat, and said to lord Glencairn, " By G — , my 
 lord, the men you speak of are nothing but a num- 
 ber of thieves and robbers ; and ere long I will 
 bring another sort of men to the field." On which 
 
IN THE HIGHLANBS OF SCOTLAND. 71 
 
 Glengarie started up, thinking himself most con- 
 cerned ; but lord Glencairn desired him to for- 
 bear, saying, " Glengarie, I am more concerned 
 in this affront than you are ;" then addressing 
 himself to Monro, said, " You, Sir, are a base 
 liar ; for they are neither thieves nor robbers, but 
 gallant gentlemen, and good soldiers." 
 
 General Middleton commanded them both to 
 keep the king's peace, saying, " My lord, and you 
 Sir George, this is not the way to do the king ser- 
 vice ; you must not fall out among yourselves ; 
 therefore I will have you both to be friends ;" and 
 immediately calling for a glass of wine, said, M My 
 lord Glencairn, I think you did the greatest wrong 
 in giving Sir George the lie ; you shall drink to 
 him, and he shall pledge you.'" The noble and 
 good lord Glencairn accordingly took his glass, as 
 ordered by the general, and drank to Sir George ; 
 who, in his old surly humour, muttered some words, 
 which were not heard, but did not pledge his lord- 
 ship. 
 
 The general gave orders to sound to horse ; and 
 lord Glencairn went out in order to accompany 
 him to the head-quarters ; but the general would 
 not allow him to go above a mile of the way. His 
 lordship then returned back, having none in his 
 company but colonel Blackader and John Graham 
 of Deuchrie. When arrived, he became exceed- 
 ing merry, causing the laird's daughter play on 
 the virginals, and all the servants about the house 
 to dance. Supper being now ready and on the 
 table, as my lord was going to set down, one of 
 the servants told him, that Alexander Munro, Sir 
 
72 glencairn's expedition 
 
 George's brother, was at the gate. My lord im- 
 mediately commanded to let him in, and met him 
 at the hall-door, where he saluted him, and made 
 him very welcome, saying, " You see, Sir, the 
 meat is on the table, and will spoil if we sit not 
 down to it." He placed Monro at the head of the 
 table, next the laird's daughter. All present were 
 very merry. My lord told Munro, he would give 
 him a spring if he would dance ; which accord- 
 ingly he did with the rest, the laird's daughter 
 playing. While the rest were merry, his lordship 
 and Monro stepped aside : they did not speak a 
 dozen of words together, as all thought ; and after 
 drinking a little longer, Munro departed. My 
 lord then called for candles, and went to bed. 
 There were two beds in his room, in one of which 
 he lay, and in the other lay Blackader and Deu- 
 chrie. The whole family in a little went to bed. 
 None knew any thing of his lordship's design but 
 one John White, who was his trumpeter and valet 
 de chambre. The night being very short, and my 
 lord being to meet Munro half way between his 
 quarters and Dornoch, their meeting was to be as 
 soon as they could perceive daylight ; so that his 
 lordship got not two hours rest before he rose, and, 
 notwithstanding the two aforesaid gentlemen lay 
 in the room with him, he went out and returned 
 from the encounter without the knowledge of any 
 one in the house, except John White his servant, 
 who accompanied him. Munro came accompanied 
 with his brother. They were both well mounted ; 
 each of the parties were to use one pistol, after dis- 
 charging of which they were to decide the quarrel 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 73 
 
 with broad swords. Their pistols were fired with- 
 out doing any execution, and they made up to 
 each other with their broad swords drawn. After 
 a few passes his lordship had the good fortune to 
 give Sir George a sore stroke on the bridle-hand ; 
 whereupon Sir George cried out to his lordship that 
 he was not able to command his horse, and he hoped 
 he would allow him to fight on foot. My lord re- 
 plied, " You base carle ! I will show you that I 
 will match you either on foot or horseback." Then 
 they both quitted their horses, and furiously at- 
 tacked each other on foot. At the very first bout 
 the noble earl gave him so sore a stroke on the 
 brow, about an inch above his eyes, that he could 
 not see for the blood that issued from the wound. 
 His lordship was then just going to thrust him 
 through the body ; but his man John White, forced 
 up his sword, saying, " You have enough of him, 
 my lord, you have got the better of him." His 
 lordship was very angry with John, and in a great 
 passion gave him a blow over the shoulder. He 
 then took horse and came back to his quarters. 
 Munro came straight away to the head-quarters , 
 and his brother had much ado to get him conveyed 
 there, by reason of the blooding both of his hand 
 and head. 
 
 The general being acquainted of this meeting, 
 immediately sent captain Ochtrie Campbell with a 
 guard, to secure the earl of Glencairn in his quar- 
 ters; which accordingly was done before six in 
 the morning. The general had ordered captain 
 Campbell to take his lordship's sword from him, and 
 G 
 
74 glencairn's expedition 
 
 to commit him to arrest in his chamber, taking his 
 parole. This affair happened on Sunday morning. 
 In the week ensuing, there fell out an accident 
 which made the breach still wider betwixt his lord- 
 ship and Munro. One captain Livingston, who 
 came over with Monro, and a gentleman called 
 James Lindsay, who came over with lord Napier, 
 had some hot words together. Livingston al- 
 ledged Munro was in the right, and Lindsay in- 
 sisted in the contrary. They challenged each 
 other, and went out early in the morning to the 
 links of Dornoch, where, at the very first bout, 
 Lindsay thrust his sword through Livingston's 
 heart, so that in a short time he expired. Lind- 
 say was immediately after unfortunately taken ; 
 which when lord Glencairn heard, he dealt very 
 earnestly with the general, and caused other officers 
 to do the same for Lindsay 's release ; but nothing 
 could prevail with him : he immediately called 
 a council of war, who gave sentence that Lindsay 
 should be shot to death at the cross of Dornoch, 
 before four that afternoon, which was accordingly 
 done. Lord Glencairn was exceedingly troubled 
 at this gentleman's death : but all this must be 
 done, forsooth, to please Sir George. Lord 
 Glencairn took care that nothing should be want- 
 ing for burying this unfortunate gentleman with 
 decency : and as there was no prospect of making 
 up the breach which gave occasion to this mischief, 
 his lordship, on that day fortnight after his 
 encounter with Munro, marched away for the 
 south country. He was accompanied with none 
 other save his own troop, and some gentlemen 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 75 
 
 volunteers that were waiting for command. They 
 were not in all a hundred horse. We marched 
 straight for the laird of Assint's bounds. When 
 the general had notice of our departure, he sent 
 a strong party to bring us back, or otherwise to 
 fight us. When his lordship had got safely to As- 
 sint, the laird thereof came to him, and offered 
 to serve him, promising to secure the passes, so 
 that the whole army should not be able to reach 
 him that night, though they were to come in pur- 
 suit of him. His lordship was under the neces- 
 sity of accepting this offer, though it was said that 
 this very gentleman had betrayed and delivered 
 up the great Montrose; yet most part believed 
 that it was his father-in-law who betrayed that 
 great nobleman, and not himself, who was young 
 at that time. 
 
 The next day his lordship marched to Kintail, 
 where he was very genteelly received by the gen- 
 tleman who commanded there for lord Seaforth, 
 to whom the house belonged. Here he stayed some 
 days to refresh both men and horses ; from that 
 he marched to Lochbroom ; from Lochbroom to 
 Lochaber ; from thence to Lochrannoch ; thence 
 to the head of Loch Tay, to a church town called 
 Killinn. He rested here for the space often days, 
 till Sir George Maxwell came and joined him with 
 near an hundred horsemen. 
 
 Earl William of Selkirk also joined him with 
 sixty horsemen ; and lord Forrester, with littk 
 major Strachan, and one who went under the name 
 of captain Gordon ; they brought with them about 
 eighty horsemen. This Gordon was an English* 
 
76 GLENCAIRN^S EXPEDITION 
 
 man — his real name was Portugus— he was hanged 
 at the cross of Edinburgh after our capitulation, 
 for running away from them with several troopers 
 that he had persuaded to follow him. There 
 joined us several more of our captains, and some 
 of their men also. His lordship finding, that by 
 the addition of these noblemen and gentlemen, 
 with their troopers, his numbers were increased to 
 near 400 horsemen, he thought it proper to send 
 them to general Middleton, that so they might 
 not be wanting in their duty to the king's service 
 where occasion might offer. Accordingly they 
 went and joined the general. Lord Glencairn 
 contracted a violent flux, by which he was in great 
 danger, so that we all thought he would have 
 died. This obliged us to make but short journeys. 
 There were none with him but a few gentlemen 
 and his own servants. We came at last to Leven, 
 and staid at the castle of Rosedoe, belonging to 
 the laird of Luss. His lordship was still careful 
 in sending officers to different places, to levy men 
 out of the Lowlands ; and, within a month's time, 
 he had got together about two hundred horse. 
 
 We had left Middleton, the general, in Suther- 
 land, in the month of April, toward the latter end 
 thereof; he immediately after marched to Caith- 
 ness, where he expected more forces to join him, 
 both from lord Seaforth and lord Reay, as also 
 others, which Munro assured him of; but he was 
 disappointed of them all. 
 
 He then marched towards the south country to 
 avoid general Monk, who now had the command 
 in Scotland, and had ordered Morgan to march 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 77 
 
 with what forces could be spared out of the garri- 
 sons. Monk marched his army north, and joined 
 Morgan in the shire of Aberdeen. They then 
 marched to the Highlands, but in different bodies, 
 yet so as they should always be within a day's 
 march of each other. 
 
 Middleton, with the king's army, came to the 
 side of Lochgarie, where, at a small village, he 
 was resolved to encamp all night ; but Morgan, 
 by his good fortune, reached the same place be- 
 fore the king's army, who had no intelligence 
 where their enemies were, till the van-guard was 
 fired upon by Morgan's outer guard. The Eng- 
 lish troop were the van of the king's army : there 
 was no ground there on which they could draw up ; 
 for on the one hand was the loch, and on the 
 other it was so marshy, that no horse was able to 
 ride it ; and on the way by the loch, two or three 
 at most were all that could ride a-breast. The 
 general Middleton finding this, ordered the army 
 to face about ; so that the van, who were the Eng- 
 lish gentlemen, became the rear. They behaved 
 themselves very gallantly, but were very hard 
 pressed by Morgan, who fell upon the general's 
 baggage, where was his commission and all his 
 papers. 
 
 Morgan pursued so hotly, that at last he obliged 
 Middleton's army to run as fast as they could. 
 There was no great slaughter ; for, before they 
 had passed the loch, night came on. Every man 
 then shifted for himself, and went where he best 
 liked. The general went off with a few ; where 
 he went to I can give no account ; only he no more 
 
78 glencairn's expedition 
 
 took the field, but shortly went over to his majesty 
 in Flanders. 
 
 Many of the earl of Glencairn's men who had 
 been at Lochgarie, came and offered their services 
 to him at Rosedoe : but he said to them, " Gen- 
 tlemen, I see the king's interest in Scotland is now 
 broken, the king's army being so shamefully lost 
 as it hath been : and as I am now in a very bad 
 state of health, I am resolved to capitulate with 
 the enemy, for myself and those that are with me ; 
 and, if you please, you shall be included in the 
 capitulation. Consider of this, gentlemen, and 
 give me your answer to-morrow, that I may know 
 for how many I am to capitulate ; in the mean 
 time you may go to the quarters I have appointed 
 for you." 
 
 The officers the next day waited on his lordship, 
 and told him, that as they had at first joined him 
 to serve the king, and as they understood from 
 him, that they could not at present do his majesty 
 any service, they were all willing to accept of 
 whatever terms his lordship should make for them. 
 
 His lordship immediately sent commissioners 
 to capitulate with Monk, who at that time resided 
 at Dalkeith ; and it was a full month before the 
 business was closed. The treaty was once entirely 
 broken off ; on which his lordship, who was 
 informed that a party of horse and dragoons 
 were quartered in Dunbarton, resolved to beat 
 up their quarters. We had an outer guard at a 
 ford within four miles of Dunbarton, which we 
 kept in possession during the month that we lay 
 in those parts. My lord ordered two hundred of 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 79 
 
 his best horse, under the command of Sir George 
 Maxwell of Newark, his lieutenant-colonel, to cross 
 the river where the said outer guard was, and, as 
 soon as he should cross, to ride on at a gallop to 
 the town. This was to be done about one in the 
 afternoon, when the enemy were judged to be at 
 dinner. This was accordingly done to good pur- 
 pose : those of the enemy that could, fled to the 
 castle ; between thirty and forty of them were 
 killed, and above twenty were made prisoners. 
 
 All the horses belonging to both horsemen and 
 dragoons were taken : we likewise brought away 
 with us two hundred loads of corn out of the 
 town. 
 
 As soon as the news of this defeat came to gene- 
 ral Monk's knowledge, he immediately brought on 
 the capitulation again ; which was soon happily 
 concluded on, and he agreed to much more fa- 
 vourable terms than before this he would conde- 
 scend to grant. 
 
 The conditions were, that all the officers and 
 soldiers should be indemnified as to their lives and 
 fortunes, and that they should have passes deliver- 
 ed to each to secure their safety in travelling 
 through the country to their own respective homes, 
 they doing nothing prejudicial to the present go- 
 vernment. The officers were to be allowed all their 
 horses and arms, to be disposed of as they pleased ; 
 they were also to have the liberty of wearing their 
 swords when they travelled through the country. 
 The common soldiers were allowed to sell their 
 horses ; they were obliged to deliver up their arms, 
 but it was ordained that they were to receive the 
 
80 glencairn's expedition, &c. 
 
 full value for them, as it should be fixed by two 
 officers of lord Glencairn's, and two of general 
 Monk's. All which particulars were punctually 
 performed by the general. Two long tables were 
 placed upon the green below the castle, at which 
 all the men received their passes, and the common 
 soldiers the money for their arms. 
 
 This happened upon the 4th day of September, 
 1654. The earl of Glencairn that same night 
 crossed the water, and came to his own house of 
 Finlayston. 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 OF 
 
 KING JAMES THE FIFTH 
 
 OF 
 
 SCOTLAND; 
 
 IN WHICH 
 
 IS THE BEGINNING OF THE REFORMATION 
 IN THAT KINGDOM : 
 
 AN ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE SUFFERINGS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Renowned Lady Jean Douglas, 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH, PRINTED AT PARIS, 1612. 
 
 <&las£xito : 
 
 Printed by i?. Chapman, 
 FOR JOHN WYLIE, AND CO. 
 
 1819. 
 
THE 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE reader will not be surprised if he find a 
 variety of matters touched in this general Preface 
 or introduction to the following tracts; this could 
 not be well avoided in an account of Miscellaneous 
 papers. 
 
 The author of the life and death of king James 
 V. was a French gentleman, and no wonder that 
 he gives a more full account of several matters 
 than other historians ; because that king had two 
 queens from France, and many of their coun- 
 trymen had considerable posts in the government 
 of Scotland. Our author gives no account of af- 
 fairs during the minority of that prince, which is 
 generally the weakest part of a reign, and affords 
 only the history of the intrigues and practices of 
 ambitious politicians, who involve their country in 
 blood and confusion, for the sake of ingrossing the 
 whole power, or a considerable share thereof. The 
 state of affairs in Scotland during this king's mi- 
 nority was this; first, queen Margaret had the 
 keeping of the young prince her son, and the go- 
 vernment of the kingdom committed to her du- 
 ring her widowhood : her brother Henry VIII. of 
 
84 THE PREFACE. 
 
 England had gained her to endeavour what she 
 could to lessen the inclination of the leading men 
 of Scotland to the French their old confederates ; 
 but she by her marriage with Archibald Douglas, 
 earl of Angus, lost the administration. To bal- 
 ance the English party in Scotland, the French 
 king, upon the desire of the estates of the kingdom, 
 sent over John duke of Albany, earl of Marche, 
 Mar, and Garioch, lord of Annandale and the Isle 
 of Man, count of Boulogne and Auvergne, by his 
 marriage with the heiress Anne de La Tour and 
 Auvergne. The French king did not openly dis- 
 cover what share he had in that affair, because 
 then he was forming a league with England; and 
 notwithstanding all the endeavours of Henry VIII. 
 to hinder the duke to come to Scotland, he 
 landed in that kingdom, March 27th, 1515, his 
 great misfortune was his ignoriance of the language, 
 and customs, and parties there; this made him 
 rely too much on the advice of John Hepburn, 
 prior of St. Andrews, who in all the counsels he 
 gave him, had more in his view to be revenged of 
 his own enemies than the public good. The king 
 of England used all methods to make the duke of 
 Albany uneasy, and to possess those of most power 
 in Scotland with jealousies of him, as being the son 
 of a traitor, who was outlawed for levying war 
 against his sovereign, and designing to dispossess 
 him of the crown : that the duke was entirely in 
 the interests of the French king, and had a greater 
 regard to the service of that monarch than to the 
 advantage and prosperity of Scotland. Queen 
 Margaret, on the other hand, when there was wars 
 
THE PREFACE. 85 
 
 betwixt England and Scotland, discovered all the 
 duke's designs that she could come to the know- 
 ledge of. This queen, upon some misunderstand- 
 ing betwixt her and her husband, became at last 
 weary of him, and sued for a divorce, because, as 
 she said, he kept a mistress when she was in Eng- 
 land : this made her live in better friendship with 
 the duke than formerly. Whilst the duke was in 
 France, which was from June, 1517, to September, 
 1523, the earl of Angus did what he could to 
 strengthen his own party, and exclude the Go- 
 vernor from the administration, upon whose return 
 the earl fled to England, where he was kindly re- 
 ceived by Henry VIII. and was entirely gained 
 to that king's interest. Henry used all means pos- 
 sible to get the earl restored to his possessions in 
 Scotland, but in vain ; and both by letters from 
 himself, and from some eminent divines in Eng- 
 land, persuaded his sister to be reconciled to her 
 husband, and amongst other things reproached her 
 with too great familiarity with the duke of Albany : 
 though he could not get the peace made up betwixt 
 her husband and her, yet she was gained to follow 
 her old practice, of being a spy upon the duke, 
 discovering his designs to her brother, or to his 
 ministers, which in a great measure defeated all 
 his purposes to invade England. At that time a 
 faction began, which at last obliged the duke to 
 leave Scotland, to which he never after returned, 
 though he kept all his titles there : he died in his 
 castle of Mirefleur, 1536, and was a prince of great 
 courage ; he had the command of considerable 
 forces both by sea and land, under Francis I. of 
 
 3 
 
 
S6 THE PREFACE v 
 
 France, in which posts he always behaved himself 
 honourably ; he governed Scotland with great 
 equity. When the news of his departure came to 
 England, king Henry acquainted the earl of Angus 
 with it, and desired him to go to Scotland, for then 
 he was in France, where he had been three years. 
 In the next parliament, the authority of the go- 
 vernor was abrogated ; the keeping of the young 
 king was intrusted to four bishops, and four noble- 
 men ; who were the archbishops of St. Andrews 
 and Glasgow, of Aberdeen and Dunkeld, the earls 
 of Arran, Angus, Lennox, and Argyll, who were 
 to be the king's tutors by turns ; but Angus at 
 last got the young king into his own keeping, and 
 excluded the rest. Buchanan tells us, that the 
 earl of Angus encouraged the king too much in 
 his youthful pleasures, either to make him easy 
 under his present restraint, or to engage him so 
 deep in pleasures that he might be careless of the 
 government, which he thought would turn to his 
 own advantage : at last the king got free from the 
 earl and his party, and banished them ; the earl 
 retired to England, and did not return till after 
 the king's death. 
 
 In the minority of this king, Henry VIII. by 
 his ambassadors in Scotland, used all means to 
 dispose him to prefer an alliance with England 
 before one with France ; and for that end he sent 
 him presents of fine horses and arms, which he knew 
 would most readily take with the martial genius of 
 this young prince ; but several noblemen, and the 
 popish clergy, many of whom had benefices in 
 France, persuaded him to the contrary : those 
 
THE PREFACE. 87 
 
 who were for the antient league with France, al- 
 ways reminded him of the strait alliance of his an- 
 cestors with that nation. Because there is men- 
 tion of the league in the following history, I shall 
 give here a short account of it : 
 
 All the Scotch historians agree, that it began in 
 the time of Charlemagne, cotemporary with Achai- 
 us king of Scotland ; it is certain that this league 
 is very ancient, for in the * contract of marriage 
 betwixt Francis, dauphin of France, and Mary, 
 queen of Scots, April the 19th, 1558, it is said to 
 be of eight hundred years' standing. The ho- 
 nourable Sir James Dalrymple, in his learned his- 
 torical collections thinks this a good argument of 
 its antiquity. -J- Hilarion de Coste, in his Eloges 
 et les vies des Dames Illustres, torn. 2, in the char- 
 acter of Magdalen de France, king James Ws first 
 queen, says the same. In the original instructions 
 given November 15th, 1570, by the duke of Chat- 
 telherault, the earls of Huntly and Argyll, Mary 
 queen of Scots' lieutenants, to the bishops of Ross 
 and Galloway, and the lord Livingston, to treat 
 with queen Elizabeth, for queen Mary's restoration, 
 in the third article it is said, < ; that the old league 
 has been inviolably kept betwixt France and Scot- 
 land for eight hundred years and more." Egin- 
 hardus, secretary to Charlemagne, gives us an ac- 
 count of the assistance the Scots gave to Charles 
 in his wars. Paulus iEmilius, in his second book 
 de Rebus Gestis Francorum, says, < fc Honores, 
 Magistratusq ; Saxoniae, Gentibus alienigenis, et 
 
 * Traite de paix — f Caligula, c. 2, p. 296. 
 
88 THE PREFACE. 
 
 imprimis Scotis mandabat Carolus, quorum egre- 
 gia fide virtuteq ; utebatur," Belleforestus, in lib. 
 1, Hist. Carol. Mag. confirms this; and adds, 
 €i Scotorum fideli opera non parum adjutus in Bello 
 Hispanico fuerat." The occasion of the league, 
 was according to Buchanan, Lesley, " Conseus de 
 duplici statu Religionis apud Scotus," David Cham- 
 bers, and others, that the English Saxons had in- 
 vaded France and plundered the seacoast ; whilst 
 Charles was absent in his wars against the Sara- 
 cens, he thought it adviseable to enter into a per- 
 petual alliance with the Scots, who by their near- 
 ness to England, were most capable to give a di- 
 version to his enemies. Achaius, who knew that 
 quarrels with neighbouring princes were unavoida- 
 ble, was glad of the assistance of the French. The 
 articles of this league were the same with those of 
 other alliances, viz. " That the French and 
 Scotch were to have common friends and enemies, 
 that they were to assist each other in their wars, 
 and that none of the kings of the two nations were 
 to make a separate peace with England." And it 
 may be said, that never a treaty was more inviola- 
 bly kept than this. Lesly tells us, Achaius sent 
 his brother William to France with four thousand 
 men to assist Charles in his wars in Italy, and in 
 his absence William commanded the army. Co- 
 naeus, who lived long in Italy, informs us, that 
 many of William's soldiers settled there, and were 
 founders of several families, as of the Barones, of 
 the Mariscotti in Bononia and Siena, the Scoti in 
 Placentia and Mantua. Sansovino and other 
 
THE PREFACE. 
 
 89 
 
 genealogists say, that those families began in the 
 reign of Charlemagne. 
 
 We do not believe what some historians affirm, 
 that as a memorial of this league the crown of 
 Scotland, which was before only a plain circle of 
 gold, had another of flower de lis raised about it ; 
 for the learned Mabillon, whose testimony in this 
 matter is much to be depended upon, tells us, * 
 that the first French kings who had the flower de 
 lis on their crowns, were Philip I. and his father. 
 Some also say, that upon this league, the arms of 
 Scotland were inclosed in a double tressure, flowered 
 and counter-flowered with flowers de lis, which is 
 not probable, seeing Mabillon assures us, who is 
 best acquainted of any with the seals of the French 
 kings, that -f* Philip the August, who died about 
 1223, was the first who had one flower de lis in 
 his counter-seal ; Lewis VIII. and IX. had some- 
 times one, and sometimes many, which was ob- 
 served by the following kings, till the reign of 
 Charles V. who reduced the flowers de lis to three : 
 neither till a long time after that, did the kings of 
 Scotland use their arms on their seals, as we are 
 informed by that learned and judicious antiquary 
 Mr. Anderson, £ who is a great judge of the an- 
 tiquities of Scotland, and has had better occasions 
 than any to know what belongs to the seals, char- 
 ters, and coins of his country. 
 
 At this time, as Buchanan says, barbarity and 
 ignorance had not overspread Scotland so much 
 
 * De re diplomatics, p. 424 — f Page 139. — J Independen- 
 cy of Scotland, p. 66. 
 
90 THE PREFACE. 
 
 as other countries ; for there were still in that na- 
 tion some monks remarkable for the ancient piety 
 and learning. Charles was a prince who favoured 
 and encouraged men of letters, therefore he in- 
 vited some of them to France. Buchanan ex- 
 presses that well in his admirable poem upon the 
 marriage of Mary Queen of Scots with the dau- 
 phin of France. 
 
 " Haec quoque cum Latium quateret Mars barbarus Orbera, 
 Sola prope expulsis fuit Hospita terra Camaenis, &c" 
 
 When barbarous foes the Roman bounds o'erspread, 
 Thither the muses for protection fled : 
 Hence Greek and Roman learning in full store, 
 By Charlemagne to France was wafted o'er. 
 
 Bede, lib. 3, Hist. chap. 27, tells us, that many 
 of the noblemen's sons of England, were sent to 
 Scotland to be educated, where they were enter- 
 tained kindly, and had maintainance and learning 
 given them gratis ; for at that time the monasteries 
 were schools of learning, and not as afterwards, 
 privileged places for impurity, laziness, and igno- 
 rance. Before this time flourished Bonifacius a 
 Scotchman, according to Marianus Scotus, lib. 2, 
 ad annum, 741, and Trithemius, lib. 2, cap. 24. 
 Dempster, in a dissertation concerning the coun- 
 try of this Bonifacius, has nine arguments to 
 prove him a Scotchman ; he was called the apostle 
 of Germany, preached the gospel in many places 
 of that country, and was the first archbishop of 
 Mentz. Those who came to France upon Charles' 
 desire, were Joannes Albinus, or Alcuinus, Charle- 
 magne's preceptor, he founded the university of 
 
THE PREFACE. 
 
 91 
 
 Paris. In his 26th epistle, he calls himself Ver- 
 nacwlum Scotorum, i. e. a native of Scotland. 
 Bozius, torn. 2, lib. 2, cap. 9, is of the same 
 opinion ; as also Boterus, &c. Buchanan says, 
 he saw a book of rhetoric of which he was the 
 author. At this time came also Clemens Scotus, 
 who founded the university of Padua. 
 
 The Scotch guards in France began upon this 
 occasion, when Alexander III. heard that St. 
 Lewis designed an expedition to the holy land, he 
 sent to his assistance seven thousand soldiers, 
 Lewis chose twenty-four out of that number, who 
 were to have the constant keeping of his person ; 
 his example was followed by his successors ; Charles 
 V. added seventy-six to the former number ; 
 Charles VII. besides the hundred foot guards, 
 added a troop of cuirassiers of that nation, who 
 were to take place of all the horse of his army. 
 An * original paper, containing instructions from 
 queen Mary of Scotland, to her ambassador the 
 bishop of Ross, &c, at a treaty with queen Eliza- 
 beth, informs us of the state of those guards in 
 1570. They then consisted of a hundred men of 
 arms, a hundred archers of the guards, and twenty- 
 four archers of the corps, keepers of the king's 
 body : after the reformation the privileges of those 
 guards were greatly lessened. This is remarkable, 
 that never any of those gentlemen was found guilty 
 of treason, or carelessness in the defence of the 
 French kings. Philip de Comines, lib 11, cap. 
 12, of the life of Lewis XI. tells us, that the citi- 
 
 * Cotton Library, Calig. c. 2, fol. 323. 
 
92 THE PREFACE. 
 
 zens of Liege broke in upon the lodgings of that 
 king, and had certainly killed him, had it not 
 been for the valour of his Scotch guards, who 
 stood about him like a wall, and with their arrows 
 drove them and the Burgundians away. At the 
 battle of Pavia, Francis I. was not taken till there 
 were only four alive of his one hundred Scotch 
 guards. It would be too tedious to give a long 
 account of the privileges the Scotch nation had in 
 France by that league, especially the merchants 
 and students. 
 
 Several things contributed to the weakening of 
 the alliance with France; first, Henry VIII. by 
 means of his sister, queen Margaret, stirred up a 
 party in Scotland against those who were for the 
 old league. Herbert, in the life of that king, 
 tells us, that he loved interviews because he was a 
 handsome prince, and n|ijde a great appearance at 
 jousts and tournaments ; yet the great reason of 
 his desire to meet with king James, was to alienate 
 him from the friendship with France,, and to per- 
 suade him to make a breach with Rome, as the 
 most likely way to, attain that end : but king 
 James rejected the offers of his uncle, who per- 
 suaded him to a match with his daughter Mary, 
 and afterwards .married with France. Francis I. 
 who had heard of the danger of losing the friends 
 ship of Scotland by the solicitations of Henry VIII. 
 and that king James was come to France to court 
 his daughter Magdalen^ he received him with all 
 possible solemnity. King James entered Paris, 
 December 3, 1536. Hilarion de Coste tells us, 
 from the records of the parliament of Paris, that 
 
THE PREPACK. 93 
 
 Francis commanded the parliament to do James 
 the same honours they did himself. The senators 
 objected, " that it was never their custom to at- 
 tend foreign princes in their red robes/' The 
 French king answered, " that he could grant king 
 James no less, seeing he was his old ally, and was 
 come in person to marry his daughter. " The 
 marriage was solemnized the next day. * When 
 Henry heard of it, he wrote to Francis, then at 
 peace with him, and told him, " that his alliance 
 with the Scotch king, vexed him no less than it 
 would do a violent lover to see his mistress em- 
 brace his mortal enemy." After the death of king 
 James, Henry proposed to the estates of Scotland, 
 a match betwixt his son Edward and the young 
 queen Mary ; one of the conditions of it was, 
 "that they should renounce their league with 
 France, and that the young queen should be car- 
 ried into England." They could not be brought 
 to that, because Mary of Lorrain, the queen dowa- 
 ger, many of the nobility, and the whole clergy, 
 were against it. Upon this, Henry made war 
 with Scotland, in 1543, but missed of his design, 
 which was to oblige the Scotch nobility to consent 
 to the match, as the only way to unite the two 
 nations. After his death, the duke of Somerset, 
 the protector, continued the war to the fourth 
 year of Edward VI. -j* That war cost England 
 one million, four hundred and thirty-two thousand, 
 nine hundred and ninety-seven pounds, eleven shil- 
 lings and tenpence : a great sum in those days. 
 
 * Herbert, 444 — f 0tho > E - M- 
 I 
 
94- THE PREFACE. 
 
 After queen Mary was carried into France, the 
 protector made peace with Scotland in 1550. 
 
 The second thing which made many in Scotland 
 averse to the friendship of the French, was the 
 change of religion in that kingdom in the minority 
 of queen Mary, upon this they became jealous of 
 France, and thought an alliance with them would 
 be dangerous to their religion ; they were afraid 
 of the power of the house of Guise, for the queen 
 dowager had then six brethren, viz. the duke of 
 Guise, the cardinal of Lorrain, the duke d'Aumale, 
 grand captain, the cardinal of Guise, the marquis 
 d'Elbeuf, and the grand prior, four of them were 
 remarkable for their military bravery, and had 
 gained the reputation of excellent soldiers, all over 
 Europe, besides that family managed the whole 
 affairs of France. The protestant lords of Scot- 
 land thought it their interest to seek the assistance 
 of queen Elizabeth ; Lethington and Robert Mel- 
 vill were sent to the court of England in 1559. 
 Lethington, when he was admitted to his audience, 
 in an eloquent * oration, complained, H that since 
 queen Mary was married to the dauphin of France, 
 the government of the kingdom was changed; 
 Frenchmen had engrossed all posts of trust and 
 profit, had got the strong holds of the kingdom 
 into their hands, and although Scotchmen had 
 titular offices, yet the French had the power : 
 upon those and many other accounts, they had 
 reason to believe they designed a conquest of Scot- 
 land." Queen Elizabeth, who saw it was not for 
 
 * Cambd. Hist. Q. Eliz.page 35. 
 
THE PREFACE. 95 
 
 her interest that the French should settle so near 
 her, and besides, longing to be revenged upon 
 Francis II. and queen Mary, for their taking the 
 style and arms of the kingdom of England, at 
 length resolved to send forces to assist the lords of 
 the congregation, to drive the French out of Leith. 
 The relief which was sent them from France in 
 the fleet commanded by the grand prior, was ship- 
 wrecked, which obliged the French to capitulate. 
 Upon the news of this, the queen dowager, an ex- 
 cellent and prudent princess, died with grief. So 
 the French were obliged to leave Scotland, by 
 which queen Elizabeth established a party there, 
 which ^was ever afterwards willing to be directed 
 by her. When queen Mary returned to Scotland 
 after her husband's death, queen Elizabeth always 
 maintained that party to embroil all her affairs. 
 Queen Mary at last was obliged to flee from Scot- 
 land, and came to England, being invited by 
 queen Elizabeth, who promised always to do what 
 she could towards her restoration, provided she 
 did not seek aid from France, which queen Mary 
 observed, till sbe saw it was in vain to expect help 
 from her cousin, during her imprisonment in all 
 the unsuccessful treaties for her liberty. Queen 
 Elizabeth always made that an article, 4< that the 
 league with France should be dissolved." Queen 
 Mary and the lords of her party declared, S € that 
 seeing the Scotch nation had so great benefit by it, 
 they could not well consent to renounce it, unless 
 some equivalent advantage were proposed by queen 
 Elizabeth ; and the most they could do in that 
 
 2 
 
96 THE PREFACE. 
 
 case, was to suspend that league during the lives 
 of the two queens.'" 
 
 3. But what above all ruined the French in- 
 terest in Scotland, was the massacre of Paris in 
 1572, which will be an everlasting reproach to 
 that nation : at that time queen Mary's party was 
 very strong. Upon the news of this, queen Eliza- 
 beth, who knew well hdw to improve every thing 
 to her own advantage, sent an ambassador to Scot- 
 land, who told the protestant lords, and considera- 
 ble gentlemen of queen Mary's party, " that by 
 that bloody cruelty, they might understand the 
 genius of popery." So by degrees they made 
 their peace with the regent ; Grange would not 
 acknowledge the regent's authority, but held out 
 the castle against him : but queen Elizabeth sent 
 artillery and forces, which obliged Grange to 
 surrender. Lethington died the same year. This 
 was the end of a long civil war. Cambden tells 
 us, that upon this several officers and soldiers of 
 both parties went over to Sweden, France, and 
 the Netherlands, where they gained a great repu- 
 tation for their military bravery. 
 
 In this king's reign the protestant religion be- 
 gan to be professed in Scotland, which alarmed the 
 popish clergy, who by it foresaw the ruin of their 
 absolute power over the consciences of the people, 
 and that they were now in danger to lose those 
 blessed times, when they could persuade kings and 
 other rich persons, that what lands were made over 
 to religious houses, as they called them, would 
 certainly purchase salvation to the donor, and to 
 his predecessors and successors. Scotland had one 
 
THE PREFACE* 97 
 
 king, viz. king David I. who founded fourteen 
 monasteries, and erected four bishoprics •, the 
 priests in gratitude got him sainted, which signi- 
 fied no more, but an easy bigotted prince. King 
 James I. of Scotland, called him u a sad saint to 
 the crown " If we consider the extent of Scot- 
 land, no kingdom had more religious places than 
 it, and some of them of magnificent architecture. 
 At length the government began to be sensible 
 that the priests, seeing they had a foreign de- 
 pendance on Rome, were bad subjects ; to prevent 
 the consequences of which, we find several acts of 
 parliament forbidding them to go to Rome without 
 license from the king, or the chancellor of the 
 kingdom ; neither were they to go thither to ob- 
 tain the collation of benefices in Scotland, as 13 
 evident from James I. pari. 7, act 106 ; James III. 
 pari. 6, act 42; James III. pari. 11, act 84; 
 king James IV. pari. 4, act 38; king James IV. 
 pari. 5, act 53. The popish authors, as Lesly, 
 Camerarius, Conaeus and others, own, that when 
 the change of religion began, many things contri- 
 buted to the contempt of their clergy, of which 
 these were most remarkable, viz. that by the am- 
 bition of the nobility, children were made bishops 
 and abbots ; that if any of their sons, by reason 
 of imperfections either of body or mind, were in- 
 capable of civil business, they were made priests ; 
 that many of the rich abbots neglected their 
 charge, and committed the management of their 
 offices to others, whilst they in the meantime aban- 
 doned themselves to luxury and idleness ; that the 
 clergy at that time were deeply engaged in whore*. 
 
 3 
 
98 THE PREFACE. 
 
 dom, for common harlots were frequently their 
 domestics ; and those who had solemnly devoted 
 themselves to religion, spent most of their time 
 both night and day in taverns, &c. : and even the 
 nuns, those christian vestals, were often debauched 
 by their priests. These things lessened the re- 
 gard formerly paid to their order, bred discon- 
 tents amongst the people, which prepared them to 
 shake off their yoke. No doubt but in this change, 
 as well as in other revolutions, interest and other 
 passions had their share. To prevent that storm 
 which threatened them, the popish clergy per- 
 suaded king James to persecute the protectants, 
 as the way to atone for all his sins, and to secure 
 the peace of his kingdom ; they had but too much 
 power over this prince, for when his uncle invited 
 him to an interview, they represented how wicked 
 a thing it was to have any conference with an ex- 
 communicated person, which in great measure 
 hindered it. * The pope, to secure the obedience 
 of this king, who was still a dutiful son of the 
 church, sent over his legate Antonio Campeggio 
 in 1535, who, with many ceremonies and apostoli- 
 cal benedictions, delivered him a cap, and a sword, 
 consecrated the night of the nativity of our Saviour, 
 that it might breed a terror in the heart of a 
 wicked neighbouring prince, against whom the 
 sword was sharpened. The pope in his letter to 
 him complained of the affronts that Henry of Eng- 
 land had done to the church of Rome by his di- 
 vorce, the executing of cardinal Fisher, the bishop 
 
 * Dr ummond's history of this king. 
 
THE PREFACE. 99 
 
 of Rochester, &c. and that by patience she receiv- 
 ed more wrongs, and that now she was obliged to 
 use a searing iron, for the application of which she 
 had recourse to his majesty, whose aid she im- 
 plored, seeing Henry deserved to be dethroned ; 
 therefore the pope desired the king of Scotland to 
 undertake something for the defence of the church, 
 worthy of a christian king, and himself. King 
 James dissuaded the pope to excommunicate his 
 uncle, and promised to endeavour what he could 
 by letters or messages to reclaim him. * King 
 James at that tim'e took the title of " Defender of 
 the Christian Faith," which offended his uncle 
 Henry, because it was his title. The protestant 
 religion made no great progress in this king's reign ; 
 but, in the minority of queen Mary, the protestants 
 became a considerable body, and what above all 
 things made the popish religion odious in Scotland, 
 was the cruelty of the clergy : the cardinal of Lor- 
 rain and the duke of Guise were for violent perse- 
 cuting methods, D'Oysel was recalled because he 
 was suspected of Calvinism, and was succeeded by 
 the bishop of Amiens, the pope's nuncio, after- 
 wards a cardinal, and la Brosse, the ambassador, 
 who complained to the queen regent that she used 
 too much moderation to the heretics, who deserved 
 to be punished with death and loss of their pos- 
 sessions. Mary of Lorrain, who knew the un- 
 daunted and fierce temper of the Scots, saw the 
 danger of such proceedings, but she was gained 
 over at last to those severe methods ; and when- 
 
 * Herbert, 519. 
 
100 THE PREFACE. 
 
 ever she began to persecute, the lords of the con- 
 gregation disowned her authority. 
 
 In this king's reign * gold mines were found in 
 Crawfurd moor by the Germans, which afforded 
 him great sums ; they would not refine it in Scot- 
 land, but after they had bargained with the king, 
 they carried over the ore with them to Germany. 
 Besides those mines in Crawfurd moor, we have 
 an account of others not far from it. f In king 
 James IWs reign, the Scots did separate gold 
 from sand by washing. In king James V.'s time, 
 three hundred were employed for several summers 
 in washing of gold, of which they got above a 
 hundred thousand pounds of English money ; by 
 the same way the laird of Marchestone got gold 
 in Pentland-hills ; great plenty has been got in 
 Langham water, fourteen miles from Leadhill- 
 house, in Crawfurd moor, and in Megget water, 
 twelve miles, and over Phinland, sixteen miles from 
 that house; and in many other places, where pieces 
 of gold of thirty ounces weight have been found, 
 which were flat mixed with hie spar, some with 
 keel, and some with brimstone. 
 
 In this king's reign the order of the thistle was 
 in great splendour ; for he being honoured with 
 the order of the garter from England, that of St. 
 Michael from France, and the golden fleece from 
 the emperor, he sent also his own order to those 
 princes ; he celebrated the festivals of them all, 
 and set the arms of each prince, with their orders 
 about them, over the gate of his palace of Lithgow, 
 
 * Lesly, Druramond.— t 0tho > E * la 
 
THE PREFACE. 101 
 
 and erected his own in the midst, with the order 
 of St. Andrew. May 29, 1687, at Windsor, king 
 James VII. of Scotland renewed it : in the act for 
 the reviving it, we have the account of its original ; 
 (but when the statutes of that order were first 
 made, and the cognizances of the knights appoint- 
 ed, is not so certain). The records give this fur- 
 ther account of that order, <c that it consisted of 
 twelve knights brethren, and a sovereign, in imi- 
 tation of our Saviour and the twelve apostles, un- 
 der the protection of St. Andrew and the holy 
 virgin, for the defence of the christian religion ; 
 that it was evident from ancient histories, authen- 
 tic proofs, records, and documents of that kingdom, 
 that it continued in splendour for many hundred 
 years, was worn by several foreign princes and 
 kings, and honoured in all places of Christianity 
 till the reign of Mary queen of Scotland, when 
 the splendour both of the church and monarchy 
 fell into contempt ; then the order with its cere- 
 monies was extinguished ; some of the knights, in 
 rebellious contempt of queen Mary, laid the en- 
 signs of that order aside, others of them fled to 
 foreign countries." But in her majesty's patent 
 for the reviving of it, December 31, 1703, the ac- 
 count of the disuse of it is not so reflecting upon 
 the reformers ; the words of the records are as 
 follows : w the order of the thistle was very hon- 
 ourable all over Europe ; but by the continued 
 wars, and intestine troubles, after king James V.'s 
 death, and two long successive minorities, the 
 splendour of the crown was in many things, and 
 
102 THE PREFACE. 
 
 by many ways, clouded, and amongst others, the 
 regard to this order lessened." 
 
 The oath of this order, in king James VII.'s 
 time, was, " I shall fortify and defend the true 
 christian religion to the utmost of my power ; I 
 shall be loyal and true to my sovereign the king, 
 sovereign of this most ancient, and most noble 
 order of the thistle, and the brethren of the order. 
 I shall maintain the statutes, privileges, and hon- 
 ours, of the said order. I shall never bear treason 
 about in my heart against our sovereign the king, 
 but I shall discover the same to him : so help me 
 God and the holy church." This oath was a 
 little reformed by her majesty, for instead of the 
 true christian religion, it is now the true protestant 
 religion ; and the holy church, at the end, was left 
 out. 
 
 In king James V.'s life, our author has given a 
 large account of the sufferings, bravery, and chas- 
 tity, of the famous lady Jean Douglas, sister of 
 the earl of Angus ; we have in the Scotch history 
 another instance of the courage and loyalty of a 
 lady of the same family. In the reign of king 
 James I. some wicked subjects had conspired 
 against the life of the king, who was one of the 
 best of princes : this lady, then one of the maids 
 of honour, when she saw these murderers coming 
 to assassinate the king, did run to the king's cham- 
 ber door to shut it ; but finding the bar taken 
 away, thrust her arm in the place of it, and kept 
 the door shut till the conspirators broke her arm 
 in pieces, and entered the chamber, where they 
 killed the king : so that family, which has had so 
 
THE PREFACE. 103 
 
 many men remarkable for bravery, has also had 
 women, who, in spite of their sex, have been re- 
 markable for their courage. 
 
 The second treatise amongst those miscellanies, 
 is the navigation of king James V.round Scotland; * 
 the author of it was Nicholas d'Arfeville, chief 
 cosmographer of the French king. In 1546, the 
 lord Dudly, the English admiral, invited him to 
 England; Mr. John Ferrier, who continued Hector 
 Boethius' > history, assisted him to translate it into 
 French, after which he presented it to Henry II. 
 of France ; the author, by the command of the 
 French king, afterwards, in 1547, went with six* 
 teen galleys commanded by the Sieur Leon Stroza, 
 prior of Capua, and admiral of all the galleys of 
 France, to besiege the castle of St. Andrews, which 
 then held out, being garrisoned by those who had 
 killed cardinal Beatoun. -f- Drummond gives this 
 account of that voyage, u that king James sailed 
 with five well-manned ships, and gave out that he 
 designed to steer his course to France ; but it is 
 more likely he designed to try the behaviour of the 
 great men of the kingdom in his absence ; he ar- 
 rived at Orkney, placed garrisons in some forts, 
 and sailed about the islands of Sky and the Lewis ; 
 he surprised the chief of the clans of those high- 
 land islanders, whom he sent as hostages to the 
 castles of Dunbarton and Edinburgh : and when, 
 by the skill of one Alexander Lindsay his pilot, he 
 had sounded the remotest rocks of his kingdom, he 
 was driven by storms to land at St. Ninians, near 
 
 * See vol. iii. of this Collection.— -J* Drummond, page 309. 
 
s 104 THE PREFACE. 
 
 Whitehorn in Galloway.*" This voyage did so 
 terrify those islanders, that it brought long peace 
 and quietness to those places afterwards. This ac- 
 tive and brave prince, not only ventured his life in 
 pursuing and apprehending robbers and highway- 
 men, which had been neglected in his minority, 
 but his care extended to the most remote islands 
 and rocks of his kingdom ; by this voyage he hum- 
 bled those leaders who thought they might set up 
 for themselves, and exercise tyranny over their 
 vassals and tenants. No doubt he had the advan- 
 tage of the fishing of herrings and other fish in his 
 view, which was made more easy, when the safest 
 harbours amongst those dangerous rocks were dis- 
 covered, the dangers and the way to avoid them 
 shown, and a full account given of the distances 
 and courses, and the points to which the tides 
 flowed, and the times of full sea. This may be of 
 considerable use to those who sail about those islands 
 for fishing or otherways : it cannot fail to please 
 the curious, being the navigation of a king, and 
 never before published in the English tongue. 
 
 The third treatise in these miscellanies is the 
 Chamaeleon, * written by the famous Mr. George 
 Buchanan against Lethington, and never before 
 published : that he is the author of it, is evident 
 from the testimony of Cambden his cotemporary, 
 who -f- gives us this account of the matter, " that 
 in 1573, Lethington was sent to Leith, where he 
 died of sickness, yet not without suspicion of poi- 
 son : a man amongst the Scots of greatest expe- 
 
 * $ee vol. ii. of this Collection.— f Hist, of queen Eliz. p. 198. 
 
THE PREFACE. 105 
 
 rience, and of an excellent wit, had it been less 
 wavering." Upon which account George Buchanan 
 his emulator, in a paper of his which he intituled 
 the Chamaeleon, sets him forth in his lifetime as 
 one more mutable than the Chamaeleon, and sharp- 
 ly taxeth him as a fickle colour changing enemy 
 to the king's grandmother, his mother, Murray, 
 the king himself, and to his country. The learned 
 Sir Robert Sibbald, in his commentary on the 
 life of Buchanan, says, Buchanan is the author of 
 Chamaeleon, but had not seen that paper. Their 
 is a passage in it which determines this matter ; 
 for the author speaks of his being at the conference 
 at York and Hamptoncourt ; now it is certain that 
 Buchanan was there, where Murray and his party 
 had need of his eloquence and wit to accuse queen 
 Mary. The lives and characters of great men are 
 always instructing, when written by those who 
 were capable of such a work : none doubt of Buch- 
 anan's ability, if we were equally certain of his 
 impartiality ; but to do him justice, he is not sin- 
 gular in giving that character of inconstancy and 
 shifting parties to Lethington, for * Spotswood 
 gives the same account of him : 4 * Lethington," 
 says he, 4< was displeased with the advancement of 
 David Rizio to be secretary to queen Mary, be- 
 cause his credit was thereby impaired ; yet being 
 one that could put on any disguise on his nature, 
 of all others he most fawned on this Italian." Page 
 196, he says, " that Lethington had a great hand 
 in the discords betwixt queen Mary and her hus- 
 
 • Page 189. 
 
 K 
 
106 THE PREFACE. 
 
 band, and persuaded her to a divorce ;" for says 
 Spotswood " by his subtle flatteries he had got 
 again into favour with the queen." * In another 
 place, he says, c < that Lethington had often changed 
 his party." When he gives an account of his 
 death in 1573, he says, f " that he was a man of 
 a deep wit, great experience, and one whose coun- 
 sels was held in that time for oracles ; but variable 
 and unconstant, turning and changing from one 
 faction to another, as he thought it to be most for 
 his interest : this greatly lessened his reputation, 
 and failed him at the last." The author of the 
 memoirs of the affairs of Scotland, published by 
 Mr. Crawfurd, says, J "that Morton was no 
 stranger to Lethington's shifting temper, who was 
 out of his element, but when his hand was in a 
 plot." Though Buchanan makes Lethington a bad 
 man, yet by the account he gives of him, we may 
 easily see he has been a very great man ; and in 
 the sixteenth book of his history he owns, ** that 
 Lethington was a youth of a vast genius, and great 
 learning." Queen Elizabeth, in an original letter || 
 to the earl of Sussex, August 12, 1570, gives a 
 very great character of Lethington ; she is admira- 
 bly well pleased with a letter that Sussex had 
 written to him, and that in the affairs he had to 
 negotiate with Lethington he had escaped his cun- 
 ning, who says she, t6 is accounted the flower of 
 the wits of Scotland. " Randolph and others, who 
 at that time wrote to Sussex, warned him to be 
 cautious in his transactions with Lethington : and 
 
 * Page 244— f Pa £ e 272-— t Pa S e 273 — II Cal « c - 2 > fol « 225 « 
 
THE PREFACE. 107 
 
 queen Elizabeth, by her ambassador in Scotland, 
 used all possible means to bring him off from queen 
 Mary's party which he managed; because she 
 knew that his wit was still a source of new contri- 
 vances to make her uneasy. Buchanan in this 
 paper tell us, " that it was Lethington who dis- 
 covered all Murray's and his party's secrets to the 
 bishop of Ross, queen Mary's ambassador, at the 
 conference at York, for Murray durst not leave 
 him behind him ;" which is probable enough, see- 
 ing he went there against his will. The duke of 
 Norfolk was blamed for this, the suspicion of which 
 was the first reason why queen Elizabeth hated 
 him, and it was one of the articles of his impeach- 
 ment. 
 
 Buchanan was the first who reduced resistance 
 of kings and queens to a system ; his book, de 
 Jure Regni apud Scotos, was written about the 
 year 1567, which is clear both from the preface of 
 it, as also by the dialogue itself, where it appears 
 that then queen Mary was prisoner in Lochleven 
 castle ; for after he had spoken of Darnley's death, 
 he says " si Reginam in Ordinem Redigi moleste 
 ferunt, &c." Blackwood, who was his contempo- 
 rary, in his Apologia pro Regibus, which he wrote 
 to confute the dialogue de Jure Regni, &c. assures 
 us, that it was in manuscript long before it was 
 published. After this time many books were 
 printed upon the same subject, as Stephani Junii 
 Bruti vindiciae contra Tyrannos, which was never 
 published till the year 1581, though to conceal the 
 author, in the title page it is said to be printed at 
 Edinburgh, in 1579, but the true author was Hu- 
 
 2 
 
108 THE PREFACE. 
 
 bert Languet, a French protestant, as we are in- 
 formed by Joannes Petrus Ludovicus, who wrote 
 his life, printed in 1700. Bayle in his dictionary 
 is of the same opinion. Hottomanni Franco Gallia, 
 was also printed in 1581, and Mariana's book, de 
 Regis et Regum Institutione, was not published 
 till long after. 
 
 Buchanan's pen has procured him a great many 
 enemies : no wonder that all the popish authors 
 hate him, because both in his history and his poems 
 he has exposed that party. Camerarius is his most 
 bitter enemy, he always calls him a " profane per- 
 son;" and in page 269 of his book de Fortitudine 
 Scotorum, &c. says, « that he fled from Scotland 
 because he was accused of Judaism, and had eaten 
 the paschal lamb." Spondanus has the same story, 
 ad anmim 1539, and quotes Camerarius for it, who 
 has given no vouchers to induce us to believe him. 
 Lesly who had better opportunities to be acquain- 
 ted with this, tells us nothing of it. Blackwood 
 tells us, H that he fled from Scotland, because he 
 was suspected to be guilty of treason," but not 
 one word of his Judaism ; for at that time he had 
 disobliged the Franciscans by a poem of his, and 
 they stirred up a great many enemies against him : 
 if that story had been true, he had not been suffered 
 to have lived three years at Bourdeaux ; nor had 
 got out of the prisons of the inquisition at Portu- 
 gal : the ground of that scandal has been no other 
 than this, he and some of his friends had been eat- 
 ing lamb before Easter, the malice of the priests 
 could easily turn it into a paschal lamb, and make 
 Judaism out of it. Garasse, Doctrine Curieuse, 
 
THE PREFACE. 109 
 
 page 50, makes an atheist of him, and that a little 
 before his death he refused to pray to God, and 
 said, * he knew no other prayer but a profane ode 
 of Propertius's, which he repeated, and so died." 
 We have more reason to believe Sir James Melvill, 
 who frequently conversed with Buchanan, and was 
 no great friend of his, who in his Memoirs, page 
 125, gives Buchanan the character of being a re*- 
 ligious man. His dialogue, de Jure Regni, has 
 made all that are for passive obedience and non-re- 
 sistance his enemies ; because there he treats sove- 
 reign princes with very little ceremony ; and his 
 Detectio Mariae has displeased those who have any 
 regard for the memory of Mary queen of Scots : 
 his best friends have wished that he had written 
 with more temper, and had given vouchers for 
 what he asserts in his history. The Chamaeleon 
 was written originally in English, we have changed 
 nothing. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 The Life and Death 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES THE FIFTH, 
 
 KING OF SCOTLAND; 
 
 TOGETHER 
 
 Wtfb tie Craijtart W&ov$ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 RENOWNED LADY JEAN DOUGLAS, &c. 
 
 WHEN king James V. was twenty-four years 
 old, his subjects addressed him, that now it was 
 necessary for him to marry, because nothing would 
 more effectually contribute to the safety of his 
 person, the breaking the force of the present fac- 
 tions, and the settling the public peace, than chil- 
 dren. Upon the report of this, four of the greatest 
 princes of Europe most earnestly desired his alli- 
 ance. Henry VIII. king of England, who had 
 the same inclinations with his predecessors to an- 
 nex Scotland to England, offered him the princess 
 
112 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 Mary, his daughter by queen Catherine ; and for 
 that end he sent William Howard, brother to the 
 duke of Norfolk, to the court of Scotland, to nego- 
 tiate an interview betwixt the two kings, that they 
 might confer together about affairs that concerned 
 their own peace, and that of their subjects ; he as- 
 sured the king, that upon the consummating of 
 that marriage, his master would declare him his 
 successor to the crown of England ; and as a tes- 
 timony of the sincerity of his intention, king James 
 should immediately be created duke of York, and 
 lieutenant-general of England. Nothing could be 
 more desirable than this, which certainly would 
 have put an end to the inveterate hatred betwixt 
 the two kingdoms, which had occasioned so great 
 expense of blood and treasure, in room of which a 
 sincere amity would have followed. But unluckily 
 at that time two kinds of persons had an ascendant 
 over the spirit of that prince, who dissuaded him 
 both from the match, and the interview. In the 
 first place, the churchmen were afraid if that mar- 
 riage had been concluded, the king would easily 
 be persuaded to a change of religion, seeing al- 
 ready he was sufficiently displeased with the ava- 
 rice of several of the pope's legates in Scotland, 
 and according to the example of his uncle Henry 
 VIII. he might be brought to establish the pro- 
 testant religion, and abolish popery ; so to pre- 
 vent those consequences, they represented to the 
 king, *' that his mortal enemy, Henry VIII. had 
 no other view, in desiring so earnestly that con- 
 ference, but to ensnare him, and had a design 
 upon his liberty ; that it would be an instance of 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 113 
 
 extreme easiness and rashness, to endanger his 
 crown, life, and liberty, for the sake of those amu- 
 sing promises. They reminded him how barbar- 
 ously his predecessor king James I. had been 
 treated by Henry II. who, though he landed in 
 England even in the time of a truce, was there de- 
 tained prisoner eighteen years, and at last his 
 subjects were forced to pay eighteen thousand 
 crowns for his ransom ; and seeing we are to mea- 
 sure mankind more by what has been, than what 
 ought to be, it was needful to remember that king's 
 never fail to improve all opportunities against their 
 enemies ; and that they have always a greater re- 
 gard to satisfy their ambition, than to avoid the 
 reproaches due to infamous and unjust actions. 
 
 "And from the time he fell into his uncle's power, 
 he may expect to be entirely determined by his 
 pleasure and humours, Further, that Henry not 
 only intended to seize his person, and invade his 
 kingdom ; but above all, he designed to ruin his 
 soul, and poison it with his own heresy, to which 
 he was proselyted by the sinful liberty it allowed 
 him to live according to his lusts ; so it is no won- 
 der that sensual princes are easily perverted to 
 that error : and in fine, seeing his person, con- 
 science, and kingdom, would be in visible danger, 
 it was no ways safe for him to enter into any con- 
 ference with such a politic and designing prince, 
 who would use all possible means to seduce 
 him from that faith, which was professed and 
 taught in Scotland earlier than in any other king- 
 dom in Christendom." On the other hand, James 
 Hamilton, earl of Arran, next heir to the crown, 
 
114 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 used all his interest and endeavours to disappoint 
 that interview, and defeat the designed alliance ; 
 so to disguise his true motive, he insinuated, " that 
 the match with the princess Mary would not an- 
 swer the end of it, which was, to have an heir to 
 the crown as soon as possible ; for because of her 
 childhood she would not be marriageable for a 
 long time, and that the marriage of an infant was 
 not at all adviseable, in the case of a prince, who 
 was already weary of a single life. It would be 
 seen that his uncle's promises and performances 
 were as contrary as falsehood and truth; in a 
 word, that it was evident to a}l thinking people, 
 that the king of England (was chiefly moved to 
 that match, that by it he might at any time more 
 easily enter Scotland, to embroil the kingdom, and 
 to contrive his pernicious designs." King James 
 was so sensibly moved by those reasons, that he 
 was over-persuaded to dismiss the English ambas- 
 sadors, with acknowledgments of the great thanks 
 he owed to his uncle Henry VIII. though in the 
 mean time he did not give a positive refusal. 
 
 Immediately after, the emperor Charles V. dis- 
 patched his ambassador, Henry Godscallo, secretly 
 from Toledo, to Edinburgh; the emperor had 
 nothing more at heart at that time than to weaken 
 France, which was the greatest obstacle to the 
 progress of his victories, towards the compassing 
 of which, it was most adviseable to endeavour to 
 break the old alliance betwixt France and Scot- 
 land. 
 
 When Godscallo was admitted to the king's 
 presence, he began his harangue thus : "This is 
 
OP KING JAMES V. 115 
 
 the peculiar advantage of illustrious virtue, that it 
 engages even those who have not the happiness to 
 be witnesses of it, to admire and love it ; the re- 
 putation of your abilities has reached the ears of 
 my master the emperor, though unacquainted with 
 your person, which has induced him to send me to 
 you, as a proof of the great esteem he has of your 
 merit ; upon that consideration he designs to ho- 
 nour you with his alliance, which he refused to 
 other kings not inferior to you in power and va- 
 lour, and for you he has reserved that favour. He 
 offers you the choice of two persons, very dear to 
 him, viz. madam Mary of Austria, his sister, wi- 
 dow of Lewis king of Hungary, or of madam 
 Mary of Portugal, his niece, the daughter of his 
 own sister, the lady Eleanor of Austria, both de- 
 scended from the imperial eagle, who disdained 
 alliance with any but with invincible hearts, such 
 as yours is. Consider, Sir, that none of your pre- 
 decessors had ever such an honour done them, 
 that a triumphant emperor, who by his numerous 
 and victorious armies, is a match for all the po- 
 tentates of the earth, should court your alliance ; 
 not that he expects any aid from you by this mar- 
 riage, but his only inducement is, to satisfy the 
 great inclination he has to love and oblige you." 
 
 This haughty and insolent speech had cer- 
 tainly provoked the king to answer him in his 
 own way, if reasons of state and prudence had riot 
 hindered him ; so he practised that modesty, which 
 a great prince ought to observe in all his actions, 
 and excused Godscallo's behaviour, and imputed 
 
116 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 it either to the genius of the nation, or to his edu- 
 cation. 
 
 The king answered him very courteously, and 
 told him, " that his interest and that of his people 
 were inseparably united, so that it was no wonder 
 if he could determine nothing in a matter, on which 
 the happiness or misery of his subjects very much 
 depended, without the advice of his nobility and 
 chief ministers of state ; but would so soon as pos- 
 sible convene them, to know their minds in that 
 matter." 
 
 After this the king set out for Stirling, where 
 he summoned the estates of parliament to meet 
 him ; when they were assembled, he communica- 
 ted to them the emperor's proposals, which were 
 debated publicly in parliament. The king then 
 observed many, but chiefly the churchmen, to be 
 very inclinable to that match, as the best expe- 
 dient to preserve the peace of the kingdom. 
 Amongst whom the archbishop of Glasgow, a man 
 of experience and piety, being warmed with zeal 
 for the public good, made the following speech : 
 M Sir, it is criminal for us, next to the worship of 
 God, to account any thing dearer than the person 
 of our king, and the good of our country ; upon 
 which two, turns the small happiness this mortal 
 life of ours is capable of; the relation betwixt 
 which is such, that we cannot watch for the safety 
 of the one, unless we provide for the preservation 
 of the other, whence it comes that we are sharers 
 in the good or evil that befals our kings ; and on 
 the other hand, our calamities impairs the strength 
 of our sovereigns, and disarms their courage. Upon 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 117 
 
 this consideration, when in the time of your minori- 
 ty, we your subjects felt so sensibly the wrath of 
 heaven, and suffered both by foreign and domestic 
 wars, which so dispirited us, that we were upon 
 the point of leaving our native country, and the 
 sepulchres of our forefathers, and to travel toother 
 nations, where we might die in peace, if we had 
 not been restrained by the hopes we conceived, 
 that your being of age, would put an end to our 
 troubles, and that then you would strengthen your 
 self with some honourable alliance, whereby we 
 might be rescued from ruin. Now when we are 
 possessed of that blessing which we so long wished 
 for, and when such a victorious and powerful 
 prince as the emperor Charles V. is desirous of 
 your friendship, and offers you the choice of two 
 fair and virtuous princesses of his family ; what 
 can now hinder that happiness, on which depends 
 your glory, and our safety ? Your neighbour, 
 Henry VIII. is the declared enemy of your king- 
 dom, and your consciences, and waits for an occa- 
 sion to embroil the affairs of Scotland ; and seeing 
 he has miscarried in his designs to subdue our 
 country : the prospect he has to sow his heresy 
 amongst us, is some comfort to his malicious spirit. 
 But so soon as he shall see you allied with the 
 house of Austria, he will abandon all his enter- 
 prises against you, and turn his designs another 
 way. We observe many families in this nation 
 already infected with this heresy, who upon this 
 marriage will think of returning to the church, 
 or of retiring to England. In a word, seeing this 
 match is so visibly necessary for the support of 
 
 L 
 
118 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 your kingdom, and the cause of religion, therefore 
 why should the discourses of those prevail upon 
 you, who dissuade you from that alliance, either 
 out of hatred to the Austrian family, or to promote 
 their particular interests ? How vain is it to be 
 jealous, that the emperor designs to invade Scot- 
 land, and thinks by that match he shall have a 
 pretence for such a design, seeing he has work 
 enough nearer home for his victorious arms ? If 
 you delay the the embracing of those offers, Henry 
 VIII. waits for an occasion to defeat that treaty, 
 being enraged that you refused to marry his daugh- 
 ter ; whose resentment may be dangerous at this 
 time, when the kingdom is much weakened by a 
 long minority, and former wars, and by the present 
 parties and factions : do not therefore, Sir, delay 
 that work, which is so much for the glory of God, 
 the advancement of religion, the support of your 
 crown, and the peace of your subjects." 
 
 This discourse made some impression upon the 
 kings the rest of the counsellors observing the 
 king's inclination, were upon the reserve, and de- 
 clined giving their opinion, either because they 
 would not discover that their sentiments differed 
 from his, or that it is dangerous to give advice to 
 young kings in the affairs of their marriage ; for 
 if every thing do not answer their expectation, 
 those who recommended that match are sure to 
 bear the blame ; though frequently their pretended 
 disappointment is rather to be attributed to their 
 own inconstancy and fickle humour, than the un- 
 faithfulness of their ministers. This reset vedness 
 displeased the king, who expected that their zeal 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 119 
 
 for the good of their country, would have made 
 them speak their minds freely ; and having shown 
 his displeasure at their conduct, he peremptorily 
 commanded Mr. Thomas Erskine, the master of 
 requests, a person of great experience, and can- 
 dour, to declare his opinion about the matches pro- 
 posed by the emperor. In obedience to the king's 
 command, Mr. Erskine made the following speech. 
 " If the regard due to your majesty had not 
 hindered me to speak upon this affair without your 
 express commands, you should have known my 
 sentiments before this time. The proposed alliance 
 with the emperor is extremely dangerous, and 
 that the rather, because the bad consequences of 
 it are not foreseen. None can deny that those 
 offers by so great a prince are very much for your 
 honour, notwithstanding which, you ought to con- 
 sider the issue ; for frequently pernicious designs 
 lie hid under the colour of marriage. It is a long 
 time, Sir, since ambition has banished true love 
 and sincerity from the marriages of kings ; for we 
 see daily, that most princes have chiefly in their 
 view, by such treaties, either their own interest, or 
 the ruin of their new allies. You may be assured 
 the emperor is not so disinterested in this matter 
 as he pretends. His design is to draw you off 
 from the French, your old allies, that he may the 
 more easily attack you, when you are engaged by 
 articles to give them no assistance. It is visible to 
 every body, that these many years he has had no- 
 thing more at heart than the destruction of France, 
 the greatest hinderance of the universal monarchy 
 he has projected : his exorbitant ambition has no 
 
120 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 bounds ; for the end of one conquest is but a 
 plausible pretext to begin another. And if desart 
 and barren places, and the very distant rocks of the 
 sea are not safe from his arms, you have no reason 
 to think, but that he will also pretend some quarrel, 
 that he may begin a war with you : for ambition 
 is a savage beast which spares none ; and frequent- 
 ly the nearest relations are most exposed to its 
 fury. This obliges the father to have a watchful 
 eye over the son, and frequently the tie of nature 
 is not strong enough to restrain the son from rob- 
 bing his father of his crown ; and what may then 
 be expected in the case of a more remote relation ? 
 Therefore you have no reason to trust in that al- 
 liance with the emperor ; for reasons of state, and 
 his own convenience, will certainly determine him 
 more than alliances, or any other considerations. 
 His pretended love to you is not so much the 
 reason of that proposal (which he would be glad 
 to have you believe) as his design to make a party 
 in your kingdom, to entice your officers to desert 
 your service, to disunite you from your ancient 
 friends, and to sow the seeds of faction and divi- 
 sion amongst your subjects, that when a fit oppor- 
 tunity shall offer, he may wrest the sceptre out of 
 your hands ; which he would never have attemp- 
 ted, if you had not entered into treaties and alli- 
 ances with him. And suppose his designs are not 
 so bad, his conduct in this matter shows, that he 
 is afraid least you should reject his alliance, seeing 
 he gives you the choice of two princesses, both of 
 his blood, that you may be the less excusable if 
 you refuse his offers. What treatment may you 
 
DP KINO JAMES V. 
 
 121 
 
 expect from him after the marriage, when already, 
 though their is no tie or treaty betwixt you, his 
 ambassadors propose that affair with such haughty 
 insolence, as if that you alone, and not the emperor, 
 were to have honour by that alliance ? we all know 
 that eagle which Godscallo boasts of is the arms 
 of the empire, which, being elective, if merit and 
 valour gave as good a title to it as intrigue, soli- 
 citation, and cabals, you might bid as fair for it 
 as himself. It is sufficiently apparent, that mar- 
 riage, instead of being advantageous to you, will 
 make all your neighbours jealous of you, and your 
 allies suspicious, without any real assurance of as- 
 sistance from him in your greatest necessity ; and 
 when you are attacked by your enemies, any aid 
 you can expect from him will always come too 
 late, whatever timely notice you give ; his troops 
 would no sooner land in your kingdom, but you 
 must expect the same plunderings and ravages 
 from them as from an enemy's. And how ridicu- 
 lous is it to fancy, that the catholic faith professed 
 in Scotland shall receive any support from that 
 alliance ? as if the Scots wanted to learn religion 
 from them, who received the christian religion 
 long before the Spaniards. Their lives are neither 
 so exemplary, nor their eloquence so persuading, 
 that we are in any want of their instructions: 
 there are many princes in Europe whose alliance 
 is more for your interest, for which, I hope, Sir, 
 you will reserve yourself; the emperor's proposals 
 flowing from such a selfish principle, can never ad- 
 vance the honour of God ; and how can you ex- 
 pect any advantage by it, seeing it will infallibly 
 
 3 
 
122 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 engage your person in constant dangers ? and little 
 satisfaction can your subjects reap from it ; because 
 your marriage will be so far from putting an end 
 to their miseries, as they hoped it would, that it 
 will only serve to increase them.'' 
 
 This discourse pleased the king so well that he 
 was resolved immediately to give an audience of leave 
 to the imperial ambassador, wherein he told him in a 
 few words, You may acquaint your master the em- 
 peror, that I am very sensible of his affection by the 
 offers he has made me ; and that he conquers as 
 much by his civilities as by his arms : the kind of- 
 fers of his alliance has so gained upon me, that none 
 of the princes of his own house can be more 
 ready to please him than I am ; but I hope he 
 will excuse me, if I do not presently embrace 
 these obliging offers ; because I am not yet disen- 
 gaged from the match proposed by the king of 
 England before your coming to this country. I 
 desire you to assure the emperor, that upon all 
 occasions I shall testify, the sense I have of this 
 great favour. 
 
 Scarcely had Godscallo left the kingdom, when 
 Christiern II. king of Denmark, sent to him, to 
 know if he were content to marry either the lady 
 Dorothy his eldest daughter, or the lady Elizabeth 
 of Austria, the emperor Charles V.'s sister; not- 
 withstanding she had been pre-contracted to Fred- 
 eric, elector palatine of the Rhine ; for this king 
 had more regard to his interest than to his promise. 
 The beauty, and other accomplishments of this 
 lady were such, that king James had certainly 
 consented to marry her, if he had not been unwil- 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 123 
 
 ling to displease the emperor who was guarrantee 
 of the treaty of marriage betwixt her and the elec- 
 tor. 
 
 Whilst those designs, which heaven blasted, 
 were contriving against France, Francis I. on his 
 part neglected nothing that was necessary to pre- 
 serve the ancient alliance with Scotland ; and king 
 James on his part, to show the affection he had to 
 France, resolved at last to match with some of the 
 royal family of that kingdom, from whence he 
 could expect the surest assistance when his affairs 
 wanted it. For this end he sent his ambassadors 
 to France, viz. James earl of Murray, his bastard 
 brother, William Stuart, bishop of Aberdeen, 
 John Erskine, and Robert Reists, to negotiate a 
 marriage betwixt him and the lady Magdalen of 
 France ; the French king received them courteous- 
 ly, but was greatly at a loss what to do in that 
 matter, seeing the design of the marriage was to 
 tie the two kingdoms together by a more close al- 
 liance : he was afraid that both their enemies 
 would make use of that match as a handle to disu- 
 nite them, because king James could not promise 
 himself any children by his daughter, who was a 
 sickly lady, so in the end would rather prove the 
 occasion of indifference betwixt them : Francis 
 therefore proposed to the ambassadors a match be- 
 twixt their master and the lady Mary of Bourbon, 
 the daughter of Charles duke of Vendosme ; the 
 ambassadors refused to treat about it without in- 
 structions from king James, so desired time to ac- 
 quaint him with the proposal, and to know his 
 pleasure. 
 
124 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 Now whilst king James waited for news from 
 his ambassadors, his kingdom being then in per- 
 fect peace, this active prince not loving to stay 
 long in one place, resolved* under colour of visit- 
 ing his ports and havens, to sail round his king- 
 dom, even to the Western Isles, that he might con- 
 strain some gentlemen there to be better subjects, 
 who living at a great distance from the court, and 
 that in places naturally fortified and strong, thought 
 they might be dispensed with as to any obedience 
 to their sovereign. Upon his arrival he ordered 
 the building of two forts, the one upon his own 
 charge, the other at the expense of the bishop of 
 the isles, to curb the violent and ungovernable 
 temper of the inhabitants; after that he obliged 
 the principal men of those isles to come and swear 
 allegiance to him ; those who had continued in 
 their duty had liberty to return home, only they 
 were to pay yearly some small taxes to the king ; 
 those who had been rebels, were either forced to 
 give hostages for their good behaviour for the fu- 
 ture, or to follow his majesty, who sent some of 
 them to the castle of Edinburgh, and the rest to 
 Dunbarton, which John Stuart, lord d'Aubigny, 
 had delivered to him a little time before by order 
 of the king of France ; for till then it was garri- 
 soned by Frenchmen. 
 
 This voyage being happily concluded, when 
 the king was come to Edinburgh, he received 
 letters from his ambassadors, in which they ac- 
 quaint him with the kind reception they had re- 
 ceived at the court of France ; for the French 
 king told them, that he should be glad of the ho- 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 125 
 
 nour of that alliance, but only was sorry that his 
 eldest daughter was sickly, his other daughters 
 were too young, and at present there were none 
 of his relations that were worthy of that honour, 
 except the lady Mary of Vendosme, an admira- 
 ble and charming princess of the blood royal. 
 They said, they could not give any answer to 
 that proposal, because they were limited by their 
 instructions. This account of affairs made the 
 king very melancholy ; sometimes he doubted lest 
 some selfish views in the earl of Murray, and the 
 bishop of Aberdeen, might incline them to em- 
 barrass that match ; at another time, the confi- 
 dence he had in John Erskine, and Robert Heists, 
 made him easy ; because he was sure they would 
 not betray the trust reposed in them, but would 
 use all possible application towards the accom- 
 plishing the desired match: notwithstanding, to 
 prevent delays, and considering that the great 
 reason why the matches of most princes are so un- 
 happy, is, because they never see their queens be- 
 fore marriage, he determined to go over to France, 
 and to court in person : but the great heats at 
 that time obliged him to defer his voyage till they 
 were a little abated. 
 
 In the mean time, he observed that the opinion 
 of Luther increased extremely in Scotland, and 
 believed it was his duty utterly to extirpate the 
 protestant religion, lest if he delayed that necessa- 
 ry work, as he supposed, it might in the end sup- 
 plant and banish popery, which he accounted the 
 foundation of his authority ; some took the free- 
 dom to tell him, « that heresy was a scourge sent 
 
126 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 from heaven upon the souls of men for the punish- 
 ment of their sins, and that all persecution was in 
 vain, seeing the distemper was within the soul, 
 which could not be reached by any human means ; 
 for it belonged only to God to move and convert 
 the mind : so that methods of arguments, and 
 gentleness, were more likely to gain upon the 
 spirits of men, than those of persecution, rage and 
 fury, seeing error was the effect of human frailty ; 
 that after he had used rational means of conviction, 
 he ought to wait for the blessing of God upon 
 such laudable endeavours : so that the least he 
 could do in that case was to grant a toleration to 
 the protestants." Others on the contrary spake 
 thus to the king : H that it was impious to suffer 
 a plurality of religions, which was contrary to the 
 unity of the divine nature ; that God would be 
 worshipped with one heart, and after the same uni- 
 form manner ; the tranquillity and peace of king- 
 doms could not be firmly established, where the 
 true way of worshipping God was not fixed and 
 determined, without any toleration granted to 
 heretics ; otherwise the persons of kings would be 
 in perpetual danger : for when the quarrel of re- 
 ligion has divided your subjects into factions, and 
 enraged them against each other, bigotry shall so 
 prevail upon them, that they shall be regardless 
 even of death itself, every day your sacred person 
 shall be in danger from some desperate devotee, 
 who shall think it his duty to be your sworn ene- 
 my, because you are not of his belief. What is 
 more frequent than murder and assassinations 
 where different sects prevail ? For each is per- 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 127 
 
 suaded that the truth is only to be found with 
 their party, they think that the cause of religion 
 will bear them out, in killing those whom they ac- 
 count blasphemers of God : but on the contrary, 
 where the same religion is unanimously professed, 
 the subjects are more governable and peaceable, 
 and more observing and obedient to the* laws of 
 their sovereigns. Nothing can so effectually unite 
 the affections of your subjects, or so forcibly dis- 
 pose them to a continuance in their duty to your 
 majesty, and prevent rebellion, than an uniformity 
 in worship and doctrine ; this should oblige you 
 to defend the catholic religion, seeing the crown 
 and it have inseparably been conveyed to you from 
 your ancestors: and if kings will not allow that 
 any should share in their dignities but themselves, 
 neither is it tolerable that the service and worship 
 of God should be prophaned and deserted. In 
 fine, though it is reasonable to make serious ad- 
 dresses to heaven, that God may be pleased to 
 root out heresy out of the hearts of men ; yet 
 whilst we wait for that blessing from above, it is 
 necessary, in the mean time, to make use of the 
 secular arm to chastise the ringleaders of heresy, 
 that the fear of punishment may preserve the 
 minds of your people from the infection of error." 
 Those reasons prevailed upon the king, upon 
 which he published severe and rigorous laws 
 against all protestants within his dominions, and 
 established a court of inquisition, the judges where- 
 of were to make strict search for all those that 
 professed the new religion ; many were discovered, 
 who were cruelly put to death, the king hoping 
 
128 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 that those severe measures would certainly extir- 
 pate the protestant religion. 
 
 During those cruelties, Henry VIII. who had 
 renounced all obedience to the pope, and had em- 
 braced the doctrines of Luther, sent the bishop 
 of St. Davids to his nephew king James, with 
 books printed in England, which contained an 
 accouut of the principles of the religion then esta- 
 blished there. He hoped that by the reading of 
 them king James would be persuaded to disown 
 the pope's authority. In his letters he earnestly 
 intreated his nephew to read those books carefully 
 without prejudice, which he refused to do, till he 
 had first got them to be examined by learned and 
 religious men, who upon perusing them, reported 
 that they contained nothing but lies and impos- 
 tures, and heartily thanked God that his majesty 
 had escaped that snare which his uncle had laid 
 for him, and that he would not pollute his eyes 
 with the reading such dangerous books. 
 
 At this time robberies were so frequent upon 
 the highways, that all business and trade was at a 
 stand ; this w&s owing to the negligence of the 
 sheriffs, who suffered robbers and thieves to es- 
 cape unpunished. To put an end to those disor- 
 ders, the king established a justiciary court at 
 Jedburgh. 
 
 The king now being uneasy with impatience, 
 because his ambassadors were not like to conclude 
 the marriage with that despatch he wished for, 
 notwithstanding the inconveniencies of the season, 
 resolved to sail for France, and having given or- 
 ders that a fleet should be ready, he went a-board 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 129 
 
 at Leith, together with the great ministers of his 
 court, without owning whither he was bound; 
 many thought he designed to go into England to 
 visit his uncle, and now repented, that the former 
 year he refused an interview with that king; 
 they were scarcely got out of the haven, when a 
 storm began to rise, and the wind turned contra- 
 ry : upon this the pilot asked the king which way 
 they should steer their course ? he answered, 
 « whither you please except to England." This 
 convinced them all that the king designed for 
 France, which was impracticable at that time, be- 
 cause of the contrary winds ; which, when the king 
 understood, he chose rather to sail round the coasts 
 of his kingdom, and try if they could have better 
 passage by St. George's channel, than to put in 
 again at Leith ; neither did that succeed, for still 
 the storm increased, which made those who at- 
 tended him bethink that it was safest to return 
 home, and not expose their king's and their own 
 life to visible danger ; and that it was fool-hardiness 
 to struggle with the unrelenting winds and waves ; 
 that there was no need for such haste, and that 
 they might lie in some harbour till the storm was 
 over, without any prejudice to the king's affairs : 
 so whilst the king was asleep they tacked about, 
 and sailed for the coasts of Scotland: when the 
 king awakened he was in a great rage, and never 
 pardoned those who advised the sailing back to 
 Scotland ; he blamed Sir James Hamilton chiefly 
 for this, whom he hated before, because he killed 
 the earl of Lennox. Sir James' enemies, to in- 
 flame the king the more against him, suggested, 
 
 M 
 
130 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 that he was very far from being a dutiful subject ; 
 that all his pretences of loyalty were only hypo- 
 crisy ; for his only design in accompanying his 
 majesty was to defeat the design of the voyage. 
 
 When the bad weather was over, the nobility 
 who were with the king, in complaisance to his 
 majesty, desired him to think of sailing with the 
 first fair wind, which he did, and setting sail from 
 
 Scotland on the first day of September, , he 
 
 landed at Dieppe ten days after, and went incog- 
 nito to Vendosme, to see the lady Mary of Ven- 
 dosme, where he was satisfied that she was an ex- 
 cellent and well accomplished princess, and that 
 fame had not been too favourable to her ; but see- 
 ing he had had the choice of three princesses, al 
 daughters of kings, he thought he could not in 
 honour marry one of a lower degree ; so he left 
 Vendosme, and had still the disposing of his own 
 heart, notwithstanding the charms of that fair lady, 
 and went straight for Paris to meet with the French 
 king, whose coming was a surprisal to the court. 
 The king, who knew nothing of it till about two 
 hours before he saw him, immediately went to 
 meet him and welcome him to Paris, being accom- 
 panied with all the nobility then at court, and re- 
 ceived him with all that grandeur and honour that 
 king James could desire. He had not been long 
 at Paris before the lady Magdalen owned that she 
 loved him : he desired the king her father to agree 
 to the match, and said, he hoped that the change 
 of air, and more years, would confirm her in per- 
 fect health, and doubted not but he should have 
 children by her. The French king consented to 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 131 
 
 the match, and told him, there was nothing that 
 he could deny the king of Scotland : so the mar- 
 riage was solemnized with all the pomp and cere- 
 mony imaginable. 
 
 Some days after, the present posture of affairs 
 obliged the two kings to take leave of each other ; 
 at parting they gave all possible assurances of mu- 
 tual and perpetual affection and friendship, for at 
 that time the Imperialists ravaged Piedmont and 
 Picardy, and king James was afraid lest Henry 
 VIII. might embroil his affairs in his absence: 
 so king James and his queen set out for Scotland, 
 having with them a great number of French ships. 
 When they arrived in Scotland, they were received 
 with the universal joy of their subjects, but as m 
 human life our gladness is still allayed with sor- 
 row, so this joy was short lived, and was inter- 
 rupted by the great grief occasioned by the death 
 of the young queen, who lived only six months 
 after her landing in Scotland ; for the sea air, and 
 the fatigue of the voyage, had occasioned her sick- 
 ness. There was such an universal and real grief 
 over all the kingdom, upon the news of her death, 
 that to testify the sense the court, and other per- 
 sons of note, had of the great loss, they went into 
 mourning, which was the first time that ever that 
 custom was used in Scotland. 
 
 After the funeral ceremonies were over, king 
 James was more desirous than ever of children, 
 and was unwilling to live any time a widower; he 
 cast his eyes upon the lady Mary of Lorrain, 
 sister to Francis duke of Guise, a famed general, 
 and the widow of the duke of Longueville ; for 
 
132 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 the charming virtues of that lady had made a. 
 mighty impression upon his heart during his stay 
 in France. 
 
 Whilst the ambassadors were a-going to France 
 to desire the lady Mary of Lorrain in marriage 
 for the king, he was alarmed with many false ac- 
 cusations of innocent persons, as if guilty of plots 
 against his life ; the first remarkable person who 
 suffered by the villany of those informers was one 
 John Forbes, a young gentleman of great courage, 
 and of a good family, but had always lived a vi- 
 cious and scandalous life, which made people be- 
 lieve the more easily, that one of his character 
 would stick at no crime : he had been managed 
 of a long time by one Strachan, a wicked fellow 
 of a mean birth, who was a sharer in all his de- 
 baucheries. Forbes found by experience, how dan- 
 gerous the society of villains is. This Strachan, 
 besides his other vices, was a covetous wretch, he 
 demanded from Mr. Forbes some gift which he 
 could not conveniently grant ; upon which refusal, 
 Strachan was so displeased that he meditated re- 
 venge, became his enemy, and to compass his ma- 
 licious designs more effectually, he went to the 
 earl of Huntly, Mr. Forbes' mortal enemy, where 
 they jointly contrived his ruin. They accused Mr. 
 Forbes that of a long time he had a design to 
 murder the king ; they hired knights of the post, 
 who were evidences against him, who swore, that 
 then he waited only for a fit opportunity to assas- 
 sinate his majesty. Though those witnesses were 
 men of bad characters, and their evidence did not 
 prove the impeachment, nevertheless he was found 
 
OP KING JAMES Y. 133 
 
 guilty, and condemned to death ; for the judges 
 thought that the very intention to kill the king 
 deserved it. But God permitted him to come to 
 that untimely end, as a punishment for his former 
 sins ; " for though iniquities are not immediately 
 chastised, yet at length men's sins find them out, 
 and when they are most secure, and least expect 
 the wrath of heaven, they fall into snares which 
 complete their ruin." 
 
 The judges found Strachan guilty of misprision 
 of treason, because he had so long concealed such 
 a horrid crime, which they thought he would not 
 have done if he had not been equally guilty in the 
 plot ; but though he deserved death more than 
 Mr. Forbes, yet all his punishment was only ban- 
 ishment : he retired to Paris, where he followed 
 still the same dissolute debauched way of living. 
 King James, for reasons best known to himself, 
 was sorry for Mr. Forbes** death when it was too 
 late, because he thought he might be useful in 
 some secret services ; for bad men are as necessary 
 in the body-politic, as bad humours are in the 
 body-natural : to testify his concern, he made his 
 second brother a gentleman of his bedchamber, 
 and married the third to a great fortune, and gave 
 him back his brother's estate which was forfeited. 
 
 This punishment was immediately followed by 
 another very lamentable one, if we either consider 
 the quality of the persons accused, or the nature 
 of their pretended crimes ; but most of all deplora- 
 ble for the too great severity of the punishment. 
 
 Jean Douglas, the sister of Archibald earl of 
 Angus, who then lived an exile in England, was 
 
 3 
 
134 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 the most renowned beauty of Britain, at that time ; 
 she was of an ordinary stature, not too fat, her mien 
 was majestic, her eyes full, her face was oval, and 
 her complexion was delicate and extremely fair. 
 Besides all these perfections, she was a lady of a 
 singular chastity ; as her body was a finished piece, 
 without the least blemish, so heaven designed that 
 her mind should want none of those perfections a 
 mortal creature can be capable of; her modesty 
 was admirable, her courage was above what could 
 be expected from her sex, her judgment solid, her 
 carriage was gaining and affable to her inferiors, 
 as she knew well how to behave herself to her 
 equals : she was descended from one of the most 
 honourable and wealthiest families of Scotland, 
 and of great interest in the kingdom, but at that 
 time eclisped ; she was married to John Lion, lord 
 Glammes, a discreet and valiant nobleman, who 
 died in the bloom of his youth, and left a son be- 
 hind him by their marriage : she continued a widow 
 some years after. During which time, several of 
 the best families of the kingdom courted her ; but 
 a gentleman named Archibald Campbell, had the 
 honour and happiness to gain her love, he had a 
 good estate, and was of a good family, and com- 
 manded the third squadron of king James'' army. 
 Now this gentleman, who equally admired her 
 beauty and virtue, made his addresses to her with 
 all possible respect, at length she owned she loved 
 him, so they were married to both their satisfac- 
 tions. 
 
 William Lion, a near relation of her first hus- 
 band, and one of her former suitors, not being 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 135 
 
 able to stifle his former flame, nor dissemble his 
 rage and discontent for the loss of her, became al- 
 most frantic upon this disappointment ; and though 
 he was so unhappy as to lose her, yet he did not 
 forbear his addresses, hoping still, that in recom- 
 pense of his painful attendance, she would grant 
 him some favours. 
 
 This beautiful lady repulsed him with disdain, 
 and told him, that the reason why she formerly 
 treated him with civility, was more owing to his 
 relation to her last husband, and to her son, than 
 to any regard to himself; but now, seeing he had 
 designs upon her honour, she hated the sight of 
 him; for he might be assured that she would 
 never comply with his criminal and brutal desires. 
 
 This resolute and virtuous refusal distracted 
 him, and not knowing what to answer, sometimes 
 he complained of her severe virtue ; at another 
 time he told her, the great love he had for her 
 was the occasion of his addresses : he blamed her 
 also for her ingratitude, as if, in complaisance to 
 him, she ought to throw away all regards to chas- 
 tity ; in fine, he told he had lost all his time and 
 endeavours. This interview was spent in com- 
 plaints, intreaties, reproaches, and threatenings ; 
 after which he departed and never visited her more. 
 From that time his love, or rather lust, was 
 changed into rage and revenge ; his thoughts were 
 divided, whither he should kill her himself, or 
 contrive some plot against her life ; the first 
 seemed unworthy of his courage, whereas the lat- 
 ter required very nice conduct, and too long a de- 
 lay, seeing he was enraged to that degree, that he 
 
136 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 thirsted for present revenge ; but at last the latter 
 carried it. 
 
 So the passion of love being succeeded by that 
 of vengeance, he was brooding over his resentment 
 for some months, at last he lights upon one of 
 the blackest contrivances that hell could suggest, 
 viz* he accused this lady, her son, her husband, 
 and one John Lion, an aged priest, and his own 
 near relation, as guilty of a design to poison the 
 king. This was the most unlikely thing in the 
 world, if we consider the characters and conversa- 
 tion of the persons accused, who lived for the 
 most part in the country at a great distance from 
 court, and seldom had an occasion of seeing the 
 king ; however, upon this, those innocent persons 
 were apprehended and imprisoned in the castle of 
 Edinburgh, and their goods were seized, with a 
 strict charge to the judges of the justice-court to 
 proceed to their trials. 
 
 William Lion, the accuser, who had the ear of 
 the jealous king, used all his rhetoric to aggravate 
 the matter, and that he might dispose the king to 
 treat them with all possible cruelty, he represented, 
 « c that the family of Douglas had always been dan- 
 gerous and troublesome to his predecessors, and 
 even to himself and his kingdom ; and reminded 
 him of the insolent behaviour of Archibald Dou- 
 glas, earl of Angus, the brother of the prisoner, 
 in the time of his majesty's minority, whose prac- 
 tices were so pernicious, that by a public decree 
 he was banished the kingdom as a disturber of 
 the peace of his native country ; that since that 
 time he was become the subject of Henry king of 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 
 
 137 
 
 England, his majesty's enemy, and was now the in- 
 cendiary betwixt the two kingdoms, and advised all 
 the inroads that were made from England upon 
 Scotland ; and that, seeing he could not be restored 
 to his honours and fortune, without great difficulty, 
 revenge incited him to plot all the mischief possi- 
 ble against the king's person ; and who could he 
 employ for compassing such wicked designs more 
 fit than his own sister, who was obliged to secrecy 
 by the ties of blood ? That he engaged her in 
 that conspiracy, thinking that her sex, character, 
 and birth, would make her the less suspected : 
 therefore, if his majesty had any regard either to 
 his interest or safety, it was necessary to exter- 
 minate that race which produced nothing but 
 monsters of rebellion, and especially that woman, 
 whom if he spared, he would put it in her power 
 to accomplish her wicked designs." 
 
 This discourse found too easy a belief with the 
 king, who was naturally jealous and suspicious, 
 and was wholly ignorant of the hatred which Wil- 
 liam Lion bore to that lady ; upon which he or- 
 dered that they should be put upon their trial 
 in all haste, so that small regard was had either to 
 their characters, birth, or defences they made. 
 Before the judges gave sentence, this lady was 
 brought to the bar according to custom, that they 
 might hear what she could say for herself : she 
 knew well enough that her misfortunes proceeded 
 from her near relation to the earl of Angus. When 
 she had answered to all the the questions which 
 the judges asked, with the greatest courage and 
 
138 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 boldness imaginable,' she delivered the following 
 speech : 
 
 " Those who hate the merit of my brother are 
 enraged because he is not in their power, that he 
 might fall a sacrifice to their malice, and they now 
 discharge their spite upon me, because of my near 
 relation to him ; and to gratify their revenge »vith 
 my blood, they accuse me of crimes which, if true, 
 deserve the severest death. But seeing it is the 
 only prerogative of God to punish men or women 
 for the faults of others, which belongs to no judge 
 on earth, who are obliged to punish every one ac- 
 cording to their personal crimes, you ought not to 
 punish in me the actions of my brother, how blame- 
 able soever ; above all, you ought to consider if 
 those things I am accused of have the least appear- 
 ance of truth imaginable ; for what gives the 
 greatest evidence either of the guilt or innocence 
 of an impeached person, is their former life. What 
 fault could any hitherto lay to my charge ? Did 
 any ever reproach me with any thing that is scan- 
 dalous ? Examine, I intreat you, my former con- 
 versation, vice hath its degrees as well as virtue, 
 and none can attain to a perfection in either, ex- 
 cept by long use and practice ; and if you can find 
 nothing reprovable in my conduct, how can ye 
 believe that I am arrived all of a sudden to contrive 
 this murder, which is the very height and perfec- 
 tion of impiety? I protest I would not deliberately 
 injure the most despicable wretch alive ; could I 
 then make the murder of my sovereign, whom I 
 always reverenced, and who never did me any 
 wrong, the first essay of my wickedness ? None 
 
OP KING JAMES V. 139 
 
 are capable of such damnable and unnatural ac- 
 tions, except two sorts of persons, viz. those of des- 
 perate fortunes who are weary of their lives, or 
 those who are hurried into them by revenge ; my 
 birth, and manner of life, puts me beyond the sus- 
 picion of the first kind ; and for the latter, seeing 
 I was never injured by the king, how can I be 
 suspected to thirst for any revenge ? I am here 
 accused for purposing to kill the king, and to 
 make my pretended crime appear more frightful, 
 it is given out, that the way was to be by poison. 
 With what impudence can any accuse me of such 
 wickedness, who never saw any poison, nor know 
 I any thing about the preparation of it ? can any 
 say they ever saw me have any of it ? let them 
 tell me where I bought it ; or who procured it 
 me. And though I had it, how could I use it, 
 seeing I never came near the king^s person, his 
 table nor palace ? It is well known, that since 
 my last marriage with this unfortunate gentleman, 
 I have lived in the country, at a great distance 
 from the court ; what opportunity could I ever 
 have then to poison the king ? You may see by 
 those circumstances, which give great light in such 
 matters, that I am intirely innocent of those crimes 
 I am charged with : it is the office of you judges 
 to protect injured innocence ; but if the malice and 
 power of my enemies be such, that whether inno- 
 cent or guilty I must needs be condemned, I shall 
 die cheerfully, having the testimony of a good con- 
 science ; and assure yourselves that you shall cer- 
 tainly find it more easy to take away my life, than 
 to blast my reputation, or to fix any real blot upon 
 
140 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 my memory. This is my last desire of you, that 
 I may be the sole object of your severity, and that 
 those other innocent persons may not share in my 
 misfortunes. Seeing my chief crime is, that I am 
 descended of the family of Douglas, there is no 
 reason that they should be involved in my ruin ; 
 for my husband, son, and cousin, are neither of 
 that name, nor family. I shall end my life with 
 more comfort if you absolve them, for the more of 
 us that suffer by your unjust sentence, the greater 
 will be your guilt, and the more terrible your con- 
 demnation when you shall be tried at the great 
 day by God, who is the impartial judge of all flesh, 
 who shall then make you suffer for those torments 
 to which we are unjustly condemned." 
 
 This admirable speech, which was spoken with 
 such boldness and manly courage, astonished the 
 judges extremely, and when^ they had reasoned 
 upon what she had alledged in her own defence, 
 they determined, before they gave sentence, to 
 send two of their number to the king, and to re- 
 present to him, that though the witnesses had 
 proved the articles of impeachment, and that, ac- 
 cording to the law of the land, upon this evidence 
 she deserved death, yet, upon a serious considera- 
 tion of the whole circumstances of the matter, they 
 could not perceive the least probability of her 
 guilt : they were afraid lest the rigour of the law 
 in this case should prove the height of injustice, 
 therefore they wished rather that equity and mercy 
 should take place, it being more safe to absolve a 
 criminal, than to condemn an innocent person ; 
 that time alone could discover the truth of the 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 141 
 
 matter, by making known the character of those 
 witnesses who had sworn against her, whether they 
 were men of honesty, or had been bribed to accuse 
 her ; that nothing was so adviseable as to delay 
 the whole affair for some days, which could be no 
 danger to the king, seeing those persons were not 
 to have their liberty ; but whenever they could 
 perceive any presumptions of their guilt, they 
 should not escape justice : as for themselves they 
 were tied up to the formalities and letter of the 
 law, it belonged only to his majesty to temper and 
 moderate the severity of it by his clemency, upon 
 which account they addressed themselves to him, 
 seeing in such cases wherein the life, honour, and 
 estates of persons of distinction are concerned, all 
 possible caution is necessary. 
 
 The king, who was naturally merciful en6ugh, 
 bad yielded to this reasonable request, if Lion, 
 who had contrived that hellish plot, and was 
 afraid, if they had escaped, his wickedness would 
 be discovered, had not prevailed with the king to 
 give this answer to the judges : * that the exercise , 
 of justice was a considerable part of the royal dig- 
 nity, which he had entrusted them with when he 
 made them judges ; that it belonged to their office 
 to preserve the innocent, and punish the guilty ; 
 that the book called Regiam Majestatem, con- 
 tained all the forms and rules which ought to de- 
 termine them in such cases ; wherefore he gave 
 them full power to proceed in that business accord- 
 ing to justice, and the laws of the land ; and said, 
 he knew of nothing that could hinder them from 
 doing their duty like men of honour." 
 
 N 
 
142 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 Upon receiving that answer, those that were sent 
 to wait upon the king, returned to the exchequer, 
 where the court of justice then sat, and reported 
 to the rest of the judges, what the king had given 
 them in charge ; upon which the judges gave sen- 
 tence against that lady, which was, that she was 
 to be led out to the place of execution, and there 
 to be burnt alive till she was dead. A little time 
 after the sentence, she was delivered into the 
 hands of the executioner, to be led out to suffer ; 
 the constancy and courage of this heroine is al- 
 most incredible, which astonished all the specta- 
 tors : she heard the sentence pronounced against 
 her without the least sign of concern, neither did 
 she cry, groan, or shed a tear, though that kind 
 of death is most frightful to human nature. When 
 she was brought out to suffer, the people who 
 looked on could not conceal their grief and com- 
 passion ; some of them who were acquainted with 
 her, and knew her innocence, designed to rescue 
 her ; but the presence of the king and his ministers 
 restrained them : she seemed to be the only uncon- 
 cerned person there, and her beauty and charms 
 never appeared with greater advantage than when 
 she was led to the flames, and her soul being for- 
 tified with support from heaven, and the sense of 
 her own innocence, she outbraved death, and her 
 courage was equal in the fire, to what it was be- 
 fore her judges ; she suffered those torments with- 
 out the least noise, only she prayed devoutly for 
 divine assistance to support her under her suffer- 
 ings : thus died this famous lady with a courage 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 143 
 
 not inferior to that of any of the heroes of anti- 
 quity. 
 
 The d&y following her disconsolate husband, de- 
 signing to make his escape from the castle of Edin- 
 burgh, was let down over the walls by a cord, 
 which happening to be too short, he fell upon the 
 rocks, where he was dashed to pieces. The king 
 was very sad upon hearing of that lamentable ac- 
 cident, and immediately ordered that Lion, the 
 old priest, should have his liberty, because his 
 great age made him incapable of any such design ; 
 as for the young lord Glamis, though his child- 
 hood was sufficient proof of his innocency, yet he 
 was kept still in prison, from whence he was not 
 released till after the king's death. 
 
 Those who make any reflections upon the tragi- 
 cal history of this unfortunate lady may observe, 
 that great beauty frequently exposes women to 
 danger, and often proves a snare and curse, ra- 
 ther than a blessing ; seeing most men who be- 
 hold them become passionate admirers of them, 
 whereas it is only in such virtuous lady's power to 
 make one man happy ; the other less fortunate 
 rivals, missing that bliss they impatiently longed 
 for, sometimes their disappointed love degenerates 
 into revenge and fury, which proves the cause of 
 great misfortunes to those beautiful females. 
 
 William Lion, after this virtuous and incom- 
 parable lady had fallen a victim to his fury, when- 
 ever he began to think cooly upon the wickedness 
 he had done, was so filled with horror, that he was 
 not able to endure the lashes of his awakened con- 
 science ; he lamented when it was too late, that 
 
 2 
 
144 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 his malice had occasioned the loss both of the lives 
 and fortunes of those who were his near relations ; 
 so that having confidence in the king's m6rcy, he 
 confessed the whole matter secretly to him. The 
 king abhorring such frightful wickedness, banished 
 him from the court, and designed his punishment 
 should be answerable to his guilt ; but affairs of 
 greater concern which happened immediately after, 
 made the king forget that matter. 
 
 At length the king heard from his ambassadors 
 cardinal Beaton and Robert Maxwell, then at 
 the court of France, that his marriage was conclu- 
 ded, very much to the satisfaction of the French 
 king, and all his court, and that they designed to 
 set out in a little time from France, and to bring 
 with them the lady Mary of Guise ; from that 
 time he thought of nothing but of his amours, and 
 of making preparations for his queen's honourable 
 reception. 
 
 Monsieur D'Annebault, admiral of France, was 
 ordered to wait upon her from the court to Dieppe, 
 with a great number of the nobility of the best 
 quality in the kingdom, where she went aboard 
 about the beginning of June, 1538. A great 
 number of French ships conducted her to Balcomy 
 in Scotland, where the earl of Murray and other 
 Scotch noblemen were sent to wait upon her ; af- 
 ter she had stayed there some days, and had taken 
 leave of the French noblemen who attended her, 
 she was brought to St. Andrews in great state, 
 where the marriage was solemnized with all possi- 
 ble rejoicing. 
 
 The great merit of the new queen was so re- 
 
OF KING JAMES V. HS 
 
 Remarkable, that she was admired and loved by 
 all her subjects ; her prudence, and love to the 
 king, gained his heart intirely, and to complete 
 his happiness, she brought forth a son the first 
 year of" their marriage, at St. Andrews ; and the 
 next year she had another son at Stirling, upon 
 which the king admired her to that degree, that he 
 advised with her in all affairs of state : she was a 
 lady of great wit, and was reputed a princess not 
 inferior to any at that time, either for beauty, 
 courage, or prudence. 
 
 Hitherto all things went well with king James, 
 who was arrived to that height of prosperity, that 
 he had nothing to wish for ; having children by 
 his marriage, was loved by his subjects, and feared 
 by his enemies : but frequently adversity is nearer 
 prosperity than we expect, thus it was with this 
 king, for all of a sudden he experienced the re- 
 verse of fate, and was immediately attacked with 
 so many and various troubles, that whenever he 
 thought to disengage himself from any of them, 
 he was overpowered with new ones which defeated 
 all his endeavours. 
 
 The first mortification he met with, proceeded 
 from his bad conduct, which lost him the affec- 
 tions of his subjects ; for when he saw he had two 
 sons, and that there was no fear he should want 
 heirs to succeed him in the throne, he began to un- 
 dervalue his nobiiity, and upbraided them with 
 want of courage, and that they had degenerated 
 from the valour and military bravery of their an- 
 cestors : he reminded them of the dishonourable de- 
 feat at Floddon, where they gave small proof of 
 
 3 
 
146 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 their regard to the king his father, or concern for 
 the honour of their country : he told them, if they 
 were willing, he had inclination to revenge his fa- 
 ther's death upon Henry VIII. and to retrieve the 
 ancient reputation of the kingdom. He found them 
 not very forward to engage in any such matters ; 
 for those reproaches had so much alienated their af- 
 fections from him, and enraged them, that they de- 
 serted his service, when he had most need of their 
 help : for of all things, what can more highly pro- 
 voke haughty spirits than disdain ? 
 
 The kingdom was then at peace, the Protestants, 
 who were at that time a very numerous body, and 
 increased daily, were so displeased with what they 
 suffered upon the account of their religion, that 
 they had certainly taken up arms to get their griev- 
 ances redressed, if they had had any nobleman of 
 note to head them. The king knew that well 
 enough, but his affairs were then so embroiled, that 
 he was obliged to dissemble his displeasure at them, 
 and waited till he had extricated himself from his 
 present difficulties, as a more fit season to mortify 
 them ; his treasury was then very much exhausted 
 because of his extraordinary expense, by his mar- 
 riages, and his many new buildings, so that he 
 wanted money extremely ; the most ready way was, 
 either to lay a tax upon the clergy, or upon the no- 
 bility ; both of them desired to be excused from 
 that hardship, and enlarged upon their own pover- 
 ty, and the riches of the other estate. 
 
 Now Henry VIII. who had not forgotten that 
 he had been affronted by king James, who refused 
 to marry his daughter, and to have an interview 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 147 
 
 with him, was determined to try if he could by 
 subtiltv persuade him to meet him in England, 
 otherwise, upon refusal, he should have a specious 
 colour for beginning a war : he sent his ambassador 
 to king James, to desire him to come to York, 
 where he would meet him, and that they might 
 confer friendly together about affairs that related 
 to the peace of both their kingdoms, and conclude 
 a lasting peace; for what could be more for 
 both their glory, than to put a period to the 
 ancient hatred and animosity betwixt their two 
 kingdoms, which had occasioned the effusion of so 
 much christian blood ? that instead of those na- 
 tional and hereditary quarrels, a firm and sincere 
 friendship might be established betwixt the two 
 crowns. 
 
 Many of the peers of the kingdom, and who 
 had great interest with the king, were protestants, 
 and used all possible arguments to persuade him 
 to go and see his uncle, who, they assured him, 
 had then all the inclination imaginable to receive 
 him with the utmost demonstration of love and 
 friendship ; there was not the least cause of fear 
 that his person would be in any danger, for they 
 had all the reason in the world to believe that 
 that interview would procure a well-grounded 
 peace betwixt the two kings and their subjects. 
 But what above all things made them long for 
 that meeting was, that they knew that Henry VIII. 
 was a prince of a very moving eloquence, so they 
 hoped their king would be gained upon to choose 
 the king of England for his ally, rather than any 
 other prince, and hoped be might be induced by 
 
H8 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 his uncle to make a change of religion in his king- 
 dom, as he had began to do in his. 
 
 But upon the other hand the clergy foreseeing 
 how much that interview threatened the downfall 
 of their authority, employed the utmost of their 
 skill to defeat it ; for they told the king, they 
 were assured that a toleration to the protestants 
 would be the least effect of it. To dissuade the 
 king they used all the arguments which they had 
 employed upon a like occasion, " that his majesty 
 was not to trust to safeconducts, seeing Malcolm, 
 and William his brother, both kings of Scotland, 
 by trusting to such securities, had lost their liberty, 
 and were made prisoners by Henry II. of England, 
 and carried to Guyenne, where the English were 
 at war with France, that he might oblige them to 
 renounce the old alliance with that kingdom. The 
 misfortunes of his predecessor king James I, might 
 teach him caution and wisdom in such affairs ; and 
 if his uncle had broke his engagements to heaven, 
 and was an apostate from the truth, what human 
 tie could bind him ? Those considerations might 
 prevail with his majesty to avoid the snares of his 
 enemy : but if his uncle should be so enraged 
 with this refusal that it should be the occasion of 
 a war with England, they promised him as much 
 money as should be necessary to defray the 
 charges of it ; besides, they promised to pay him 
 yearly thirty thousand crowns, and if at any time 
 his affairs required more money, than they would 
 willingly contribute as far as their revenues would 
 go for his assistance : provided his majesty would 
 allow the laws to be put in execution against those 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 149 
 
 who had scandalously renounced all obedience to 
 the Holy See, and despised its ordinances, and 
 now avowedly professed Lutheranism : they de- 
 sired his majesty, as the only way to stop the 
 course of that growing mischief, he would allow 
 them to seize the goods and estates of those who 
 should for the future be convicted of that heresy, 
 which they thought would amount to a yearly rent 
 of a hundred thousand crowns, which they said 
 might be annexed to the king's revenue; so they 
 hoped his majesty would appoint such judges as 
 were men of courage and resolution, and would go 
 through-stitch with such a godly work." 
 
 The king was so sensibly touched with this ad- 
 dress from the clergy, that he laid aside all 
 thoughts of an interview with his uncle the king 
 of England, not so much upon the account of the 
 money they offered him, as to please the queen, 
 who declared, that she was averse to that journey, 
 because the danger of it overbalanced any pros- 
 pect they could have of advantage ; she knew that 
 the king did not love his uncle, neither could he 
 disguise his aversion, so feared that his open and 
 frank temper would widen the breach betwixt 
 them. 
 
 He made Sir James Hamilton, bastard brother 
 of the earl of Arran, judge of this court of inqui- 
 sition which was to be erected. This choice mighti- 
 ly pleased the churchmen, because he was a declar- 
 ed enemy to the protestants, and his interests were 
 inseparable from those of the clergy. This com- 
 mission proved his ruin ; for the protestants per- 
 ceiving how dangerous an enemy he should prove, 
 
150 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 for that now his malice was armed with power ; 
 they laid a trap for him which he could not es- 
 cape : James Hamilton, brother of Mr. Patrick 
 Hamilton who suffered for the protestant religion, 
 after he had been a long time sheriff of Lithgow, 
 was obliged to flee from Scotland, because he was 
 of his brother's religion ; when he had been a con- 
 siderable time abroad, he got liberty from the 
 king to return for some time to settle his affairs : 
 notwithstanding which, he could not think he was 
 safe whilst Sir James Hamilton was president of 
 that new inquisition, who, though his near relation, 
 was his mortal enemy, because when he was sheriff, 
 he had given a cause against him ; he knew that 
 Sir James never forgave what he believed was an 
 injury, and would now colour his revenge against 
 his enemies, by the all-atoning name of zeal for 
 the catholic faith. And now, seeing an aftergame 
 was dangerous, this gentleman designed to be be- 
 forehand with him, upon this he sent his son to 
 the king, who was then in Fifeshire, to warn him, 
 that now there was great necessity for his majesty 
 to take care of his person, for Sir James Hamilton 
 corresponded secretly with the earl of Angus, and 
 that he only waited for a convenient time to put 
 his wicked designs in execution ; for whenever he 
 could nick the time when his majesty was alone, 
 or had few attendants, then he would enter his 
 chamber and assassinate him. The king, who 
 never was regardless of any thing that was propo- 
 sed for the safety of his life, dispatched that young 
 gentleman to Edinburgh, and gave him his ring, 
 which was well known to his ministers as a token 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 151 
 
 of the truth of the message ; he told them the 
 king ordered James Lermont, his master of the 
 household, James Kirkcaldy, the treasurer, and 
 Thomas Erskine, master of requests, to meet in 
 the exchequer ; that the young gentleman, the 
 bearer, would acquaint them with the treasonable 
 designs of Sir James Hamilton, which they were 
 speedily to prevent. 
 
 Those judges, who could not dispence with 
 their obedience to the king's positive commands, 
 went immediately to Sir James' house, where they 
 arrested him, and committed him to prison in the 
 castle of Edinburgh, and in the mean time drew 
 up the articles of impeachment against him. The 
 churchmen were persuaded that this accusation 
 was a contrivance of the protestants, to ruin the 
 inquisition, which began then to be hard upon 
 them ; upon which account they undertook the 
 defence of the prisoner, went to the king, and 
 most earnestly desired him to give no credit to 
 those calumnies Sir James was charged with, who 
 had always been a very faithful and obedient sub- 
 ject to his majesty. They most humbly begged 
 that he might be enlarged, and sent back to the 
 exercise of his office. Lermont and Kirkcaldy, 
 being apprised how eagerly the clergy defended 
 the prisoner's cause, were mightily troubled ; on 
 the one hand they knew that the king was na- 
 turally inclined to mercy, and was too much di- 
 rected by the counsels of churchmen ; on the 
 other hand, they knew if Sir James regained his 
 liberty, he would never forgive the affront tney 
 had done him ; for he was a man of great interest, 
 
152 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 factious, and revengeful, and their known love to 
 the protestant religion, would give him the best 
 handle imaginable to work their ruin. 
 
 To provide for their safety, they went to the 
 king, and enlarged not so much upon the prisoner's 
 guilt, or the circumstances of it, as upon his dan- 
 gerous and wicked temper, that he was bold, out- 
 rageous, and powerful, and would never forget 
 the scandal of his imprisonment, but would think 
 of nothing but revenge, if he were freed from 
 prison before he was tried : those hints determined 
 the king to lay aside his journey to Seatoun, and 
 to go to Edinburgh. On the day appointed for 
 the trial, the king came to the court of justice 
 and sat there in person ; the prisoner was brought 
 to the bar, and had liberty to make his defence in 
 the most full manner he could ; after this the king 
 went out of the court, probably to shun any pe- 
 titions that might be made for his life, or lest his 
 presence might hinder the judges from speaking 
 their minds freely, seeing it was a matter that 
 concerned the safety of his own person : he or- 
 dered the judges to continue the trial till it was 
 ended, and told them he gave them all power to 
 do justice according to their consciences, and to 
 the laws of the kingdom: so upon the proof of 
 the articles of impeachment Sir James was found 
 guilty, and was condemned to be hanged and 
 quartered, and his quarters to be fixed upon the 
 gates of the city. Few lamented his death ex- 
 cept his relations ; for his actions had procured 
 very many enemies, because he stuck at nothing 
 to advance his own interest. 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 153 
 
 From that time there was an intire change in 
 the temper and nature of the king, so that all at 
 once he became morose and chagrin to that de- 
 gree, that he was uneasy both to himself and 
 others ; he was displeased with every thing, and 
 abandoned himself so much to melancholy, that 
 he avoided all recreations : but any scandalous 
 discourse that concerned the nobility, was the only 
 conversation that pleased him. 
 
 The cause which was assigned for this melan- 
 choly of his, was his superstitious observance of 
 dreams, which he always explained to be the pre- 
 sages of some future dismal event. " It is one of 
 the most remarkable misfortunes of mankind, who, 
 for unaccountable apprehensions, torment them- 
 selves with what is past, are perplexed for what is 
 to come, and not satisfied with their present 
 troubles, make use of the night, which was de- 
 signed for their rest, to increase their misery, and 
 to afford them new materials of affliction." 
 
 Amongst all his dreams, none tormented him 
 more than this ; he dreamed, the night after the 
 execution of Sir James Hamilton, that he entered 
 his chamber, and with a sword cut off his two 
 arms, and threatened he would return and take 
 away the remains of his life ; upon which he dis- 
 appeared. The king awakened in a great sur- 
 prise, continued thoughtful, and was persuaded 
 that that dream which he could not get out of his 
 head, was an omen of something very afflicting, 
 which was very near at hand ; this he found too 
 true, for not long after, he had the sad news that 
 
 O 
 
154 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 both his sons died the same day, and the same 
 hour, the eldest at St. Andrews, and the other at 
 Stirling. This was a very great loss, but he bore 
 it patiently, because the queen was then with 
 child, who dissembled the sense she had of that 
 affliction, and endeavoured by all means to comfort 
 the king, whom she endeavoured to dissuade from 
 having such a regard to dreams, which above all 
 things impaired his health ; for that end she em- 
 ployed the assistance of two learned divines and 
 philosophers who were then at court, if possibly 
 by argument they could cure the wounded ima- 
 gination of the king, and persuade him that 
 dreams are nothing but delusions. When the 
 question was stated, whether we ought to give 
 any faith to dreams or not, they were not both of 
 the same opinion : 
 
 One of them said, " that God by dreams used 
 to give men notices of what was to come, and 
 though sometimes they appear very obscure and 
 unintelligible, yet the event, which is the best 
 commentary upon them, discovers their truth ; 
 dreams are generally big with mysteries, the un- 
 folding of which belongs only to those, to whom 
 heaven has imparted that gift; and if any ob- 
 ject that they are frequently false, that mis- 
 take proceeds from our ignorance of them, and 
 frequently because persons who are unacquaint- 
 ed with such high secrets, undertake to ex- 
 plain them : besides, that God for very wise rea- 
 sons reveals himself to mankind during their sleep, 
 because then the soul is most free from the noise, 
 hurry, and confusion of the senses ; and as that 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 155 
 
 time is most susceptible of his holy inspirations, 
 as the scriptures informs us in the case of Abime- 
 lech, Laban, Judas Machabeus, Nebuchadnezar, 
 St. John, the three Wise Men, and others who 
 were all instructed from above in dreams: like- 
 wise those surprising arts which Bezaleel and Aho- 
 liab excelled in, were more frequently infused 
 into them when asleep, than when they were 
 awake." 
 
 The other learned man on the contrary main- 
 tained, " that it was only an error of an old date 
 that had seduced several great men, to believe 
 that dreams contained any heavenly mystery, see- 
 ing they were to be accounted for in a natural 
 way ; for they had their rise partly from the con- 
 stitution of men, and partly from the active nature 
 of men's spirits, even in the time of rest, when 
 they cannot use the senses and organs of the body, 
 which are then fast bound up by sleep : the mind 
 is obliged to sport itself in the imagination, where 
 there is a medley of ideas relating to different ob- 
 jects, by the blending of which together, it creates 
 chimeras that never did exist, and are impossible 
 ever to be ; and sometimes the soul diverts itself 
 in the memory, where are imprinted the ideas of 
 things that have struck our senses, or the traces of 
 things which we have done, or design to do ; if 
 the mind happen then to be in any violent passion, 
 the ideas of the imagination are jumbled with 
 those of the memory ; the dreams which proceed 
 from such a confusion are incapable of any mean- 
 ing; so it is profane to attribute them to the holy 
 spirit. How foolish is it to imagine that our 
 
 2 
 
156 THE LIFE AtfD DEATH 
 
 dreams are more capable of infallibility and inter- 
 course with heaven, than our thoughts when we 
 are awake, which are frequently then engaged in 
 deep and rational meditations ? How unworthy 
 of God is it to fancy he is the author of dreams, 
 and that by them he warns us of things that are 
 to come, when of a hundred thousand of them we 
 shall scarcely find one that can have any meaning 
 at all ; the rest are only chimeras which have no 
 signification : this would prove quite otherwise, if 
 they were from God, who never does any thing 
 in vain ; for all his gifts answer the ends they 
 were designed for ; so those inspirations which 
 proceed from the omniscience of God, must of 
 necessity be intelligible: for God, who is infallible, 
 never produces effects contrary to his own perfec- 
 tions. How ridiculous is it to imagine, that God, 
 who is light, truth, and order, is the author of 
 dreams which are full of obscurity, lies, and confu- 
 sion ? In vain it is to support that opinion from 
 the authority of the holy scriptures, seeing it is 
 expressly forbidden in Leviticus to observe dreams ; 
 further, a regard to dreams and vain delusions 
 has been the occasion of the miscarriage of many 
 actions. He owned that great secrets had been 
 discovered in the night by revelation, which is the 
 peculiar favour of God, but not at all by dreams, 
 which have nothing to do with inspiration ; that 
 it was an improper way of speaking to call those 
 visions in the night which appeared to Abimelech, 
 Solomon, and other holy persons, by the name of 
 dreams, seeing the former are prophecies full of 
 high and holy mysteries : in fine, it was great 
 
OF KING JAMES V, ]57 
 
 weakness to be moved by dreams, or to give any 
 credit to them." 
 
 The king listened to this discourse with great 
 attention *, but when he compared his dream with 
 the loss of two sons which followed upon it, and 
 whom he thought were represented by his two 
 arms, nothing could hinder him from believing 
 them. 
 
 At this time there was neither certain peace, nor 
 open war, betwixt England and Scotland ; for 
 Henry VIII. was enraged to see that his nephew 
 slighted him, this made him give secret orders to 
 his garrisons on the frontiers to make inroads 
 upon Scotland ; when king James saw that such 
 grievances and injuries were not at all redressed, 
 he began to review his troops, because he was as- 
 sured that in a little time a war would begin be- 
 twixt the two kingdoms : upon which he made the 
 earl of Murray, his bastard brother, lieutenant- 
 general of his army, and gave all the necessary 
 orders for putting a stop to the incursions of the 
 enemy. In the mean time, whilst both kings 
 were making preparations for war, king James 
 desired by fair means to compose the differences 
 between his uncle and himself: for that end he 
 sent James Lermont to wait upon king Henry 
 at Newcastle, to excuse his not coming to York, 
 according to his uncle's desire, because then the 
 circumstances of his affairs were such, that it was 
 not safe for him to leave his kingdom ; that there 
 was no reason why the king of England should 
 be angry with him upon that account; that it 
 was unjust for him to suffer his army, even in the 
 
 3 
 
158 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 time of peace, to invade his kingdom, and lay his 
 subjects under contribution, and besides to treat 
 them with all possible cruelty. Mr. Lermont was 
 to ask reparation for those wrongs. 
 
 During Mr. Lermont' s absence, the king or- 
 dered George Gordon, earl of Huntly, to the 
 frontiers with a squadron of light horse, to op- 
 pose the English army if they entered Scotland ; 
 but he did nothing that was considerable, because 
 he was very far inferior to the enemy in number, 
 whose forces increased daily. The English, in 
 the view of Huntly, marched towards Jedburgh 
 to take it by assault, where they expected good 
 plunder ; but the earl of Hume, who had raised 
 four hundred horse in great haste, opposed their 
 march, and disputed every foot of ground with 
 them ; and after a bloody fight of three hours, 
 Hume's party perceiving Huntly^s troops riding 
 up to them, thought they were coming to reinforce 
 the English army, upon which they retired in 
 good order, with the loss of few of their men, but 
 several were taken. All this time Henry VIIL 
 amused Lermont with promises that he would 
 give full contentment to his nephew till his army 
 was ready to march, which he ordered Lermont 
 to accompany to Scotland, lest otherwise he might 
 give warning to his master, whom he designed to 
 surprise before he was prepared to encounter him. 
 
 When the king was informed of the march of 
 his enemies, not being then ready to take the field, 
 to gain time, he sent John Areskine to York, to 
 the duke of Norfolk, who was lieutenant-general 
 of king Henry's army, to demand the reasons pf 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 159 
 
 that invasion ; that if he had done any injustice 
 to the king of England he was willing to make re- 
 paration, seeing war would be to both their losses. 
 The duke detained Areskine till his army came to 
 Berwick, and would not suffer him to go to Scot- 
 land, though Areskine saw there was no hopes of 
 peace, he got no positive answer from the duke : 
 the design of this was, that king James, expecting 
 peace, might not be in readiness to resist him 
 when he entered Scotland. The king being in- 
 formed by his scouts, that the English army was 
 within fifteen miles of the borders, he encamped 
 the body of his army near Falla-church, and or- 
 dered the earl of Huntly to march before with 
 a thousand men to meet them ; but he did nothing 
 that was remarkable. 
 
 Though the Scotch army was outnumbered by 
 the English, yet the king sought all occasions to 
 bring it to a battle ; but could not persuade his 
 nobility to be willing, which highly enraged him, 
 and to gain, if possible, upon them, he made the 
 following speech : 
 
 " Shall it ever be said that the nobility of Scot- 
 land have abandoned the service of their king in 
 the sight of the enemy, and when the two armies 
 were ready to engage ? Is it possible that you 
 who have courted opportunities to show your bra- 
 very, that you now shall lose this occasion which 
 offers, where you may purchase new laurels ? How 
 unlike are you to those brave warriors your pre- 
 decessors, whose arms and names you bear, who 
 were regardless of their lives when honour and 
 the defence of their country invited them to war ! 
 
160 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 If the danger of your king is not argument enough 
 to persuade you, let the safety of your native coun- 
 try move you, which is in danger of suffering all 
 the inconveniencies of being made the seat of the 
 war, seeing your birth, your wives, and children, 
 oblige you to spend your blood in their defence : 
 what have you to fear from the English army 
 which is marching against you, seeing they are 
 only new levied men, and undisciplined, which I 
 could undertake to disperse with those of my 
 household? but I am more afraid of those amongst 
 you, who are not determined, as yet, if they shall 
 assist me in the time of the engagement; you 
 ought to remember it was always a fixed principle 
 with your worthy ancestors, That life is a punish- 
 ment to those who have lost their honour. Rouse 
 then your courage, and suffer not victory to es- 
 cape us, which shall certainly be ours, if you dis- 
 cover any bravery at all upon this occasion ; other- 
 wise I shall publish your ingratitude, and leave it 
 to posterity to judge, whither cowardice or treason 
 has the greatest share in your thus deserting the 
 service of your king." 
 
 The king could not moderate his wrath, though 
 many of the nobility represented, " that they had 
 acquired reputation enough, in that with so small 
 a force, and levied in such haste, they had stopt 
 the progress of their enemies powerful and nu- 
 merous army, which had been so long a preparing, 
 and which designed no less than to overrun the 
 whole country, which though it had been eight 
 days on the frontiers, yet never durst advance one 
 mile within it ; they were not sensible that they 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 161 
 
 had degenerated from the valour and merit of 
 their forefathers, and should never give occasion 
 to the king either to doubt of their courage or fi- 
 delity. But they desired his majesty to consider 
 how dangerous it would be, both for his person, 
 and kingdom, to hazard a battle at such an unfit 
 time ; he ought to remember Flodden Field, 
 where rashness contributed more than any thing 
 to the defeat, and lost the life of his father, and 
 exposed their country to the mercy of his enemy : 
 if he would be graciously pleased to listen to the 
 advice of his faithful servants, and would suffer 
 his affairs to be managed with patience, they could 
 promise him a sure victory." 
 
 It soon appeared, that the advice of the nobility 
 was very fit at that time ; for the duke of Nor- 
 folk leaving Berwick, had entered Scotland, and 
 crossed the river Tweed at Kelso, and did not 
 think there was any Scotch army to oppose his 
 march ; but when news came to his camp, that 
 king James was not six miles distant from him, 
 with a considerable army, and designed to give 
 him battle, this unexpected account of matters so 
 terrified his soldiers, a great part of which followed 
 more upon the account of plunder than for fight- 
 ing, that they repassed the river in great disorder, 
 leaving behind them their arms and baggage, and 
 returned to their houses. Huntly, who knew of 
 this, made no advantage of that disorder, and did 
 not pursue them ; so from that time the king hated 
 him. The lord Maxwell, who earnestly desired 
 to recover in the king^s mind a good opinion of his 
 nobility, came and proposed to his majesty, That 
 
162 THE LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 if he would give him the command of ten thou- 
 sand men, he would enter England by the way of 
 Solway, which diversion would divide their enemy's 
 force, and doubted not but he should do some 
 action that should please his majesty. This de- 
 sign was very like to turn to a good account, if it 
 had not been ruined by the king's implacable aver- 
 sion to the nobility : for the king, after he gave 
 the command to Maxwell, a wise and experienced 
 general, who detached a body of ten thousand 
 men from the army, he then gave also a secret 
 commission in writing to a young gentleman, 
 called Oliver St. Clare, of no great family, and 
 above all, who had no experience in any such 
 matters, which strictly commanded all the army 
 to acknowledge him for the king's lieutenant- 
 general, which commission Oliver was not to open 
 till the two armies was about to engage ; his de- 
 sign in this was, That if that army routed the 
 English, the nobility might pretend no share in 
 the victory, whose pride above all things he de- 
 sired to mortify. Maxwell passed the Solway, 
 and was about to enter England, when there ap- 
 peared on the top of a hill about one thousand 
 five hundred of the enemy's horse, about two miles 
 from his army, and was then about to pursue 
 them, when St. Clare, according to the king's or- 
 ders, is presently mounted on crossed pikes, that 
 he might be seen by the army, and has his com- 
 mission read with a loud voice : this unexpected 
 turn of affairs, provoked all the soldiers so much, 
 and especially Maxwell, that immediately they 
 broke their ranks, and refused to obey the new 
 
OF KING JAMES V. 163 
 
 general ; so confusion now prevailed instead of 
 their former good order. The enemy perceiving 
 this, improved it to their own advantage, and 
 were resolved to attack them immediately whilst 
 in disorder, before they were determined either to 
 fight or retire; they charged them with great 
 fury and a loud cry, whilst their suttlers, baggage, 
 and servants, horse and foot were all mixed to- 
 gether: few soldiers were killed in this encounter, 
 but many were made prisoners. The news of this 
 scandalous defeat when brought to the king, who 
 was near at hand, almost distracted him ; some- 
 times his thoughts was full of nothing but revenge 
 against those who would not acknowledge St. 
 Clare their general ; at another time he was racked 
 with indignation and shame for that scandalous 
 misfortune, and resolved to levy a new army, and 
 either to rout his enemies, or to lose his life. 
 
 But the prudent queen, who perceived that the 
 king was distempered with melancholy and chagrin, 
 and that the present bad posture of affairs required 
 a peace, she procured a truce by the mediation of 
 the earl of Angus, who for that good service had 
 liberty granted him to return into Scotland. 
 
 Upon the disbanding of the army the king 
 came to Stirling, whither the queen came also, 
 and was brought to bed of a daughter called Mary, 
 who was queen of Scotland after her father's 
 death ; this was a considerable comfort to them 
 in their late troubles : but the long watchings, the 
 constant perturbation of mind, and grief which he 
 had suffered for about four months, had so weak- 
 ened the king, that at length he was taken with a 
 
164* THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JAMES V. 
 
 loss of appetite, which hindered from taking any 
 nourishment, and that occasioned his death. 
 
 He was a comely prince, of an ordinary stature* 
 but strong to a wonder ; he was naturally a man 
 of great abilities, of a penetrating judgement, and 
 had made a greater figure in the worlds if those 
 gifts of nature had been cultivated by a good edu- 
 cation; but it was the unhappiness of that time, that 
 learning was thought unbecoming a great man : 
 he was gracious, a lover of justice, and punished 
 thieves severely; he could endure much fatigue,and 
 suffer trouble with a great evenness of temper ; 
 the poor had as easy access to him as the great ; but 
 withal he was very much given to his pleasures. 
 
 Thus died king James, the fifth of that name, 
 December 30th, 1541, more by grief than sickness, 
 being in the flower of his youth, about thirty years 
 of age, after he had reigned twenty-eight years. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 aksgow : Printed by R. Chapman. 1819= 
 
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