Short History of Scotland — 27 - Ch. 22: Reign of James I, pt 2

In 1582 Elizabeth was backing the exiled Presbyterian Earl of Angus and the Earl of Gowrie (Ruthven), while Lennox was contemplating a _coup d'etat_ in Edinburgh (August 27).

Gowrie, with the connivance of England, struck the first blow.

He, Mar, and their accomplices captured James at Ruthven Castle, near Perth (August 23, "the Raid of Ruthven"), with the approval of the General Assembly of the Kirk.

It was a Douglas plot managed by Angus and Elizabeth.

James Stewart of the Guard (now Earl of Arran) was made prisoner; Lennox fled the country.

In October 1582, in a Parliament at Holyrood, the conspirators passed Acts indemnifying themselves, and the General Assembly approved them.

These Acts were rescinded later, and James had learned for life his hatred of the Presbyterians who had treacherously seized and insulted their king.

{144} In May 1583 Lennox died in Paris, leaving an heir.

On June 27 James made his escape, "a free king," to the castle of St Andrews: he proclaimed an amnesty and feigned reconciliation with his captor, the Earl of Gowrie, chief of the house so hateful to Mary--the Ruthvens.

At the same time James placed himself in friendly relations with his kinsfolk, the Guises, the terror of Protestants.

He had already been suspected, on account of Lennox, as inclined to Rome: in fact, he was always a Protestant, but baited on every side--by England, by the Kirk, by a faction of his nobles: he intrigued for allies in every direction.

The secret history of his intrigues has never been written.

We find the persecuted and astute lad either in communication with Rome, or represented by shady adventurers as employing them to establish such communications.

At one time, as has been recently discovered, a young man giving himself out as James's bastard brother (a son of Darnley begotten in England) was professing to bear letters from James to the Pope.

He was arrested on the Continent, and James could not be brought either to avow or disclaim his kinsman!

A new Lennox, son of the last, was created a duke; a new Bothwell, Francis Stewart (nephew of Mary's Bothwell), began to rival his uncle in turbulence.

Knowing that Anglo-Scottish plots to capture him again were being woven daily by Angus and others, James, in February 1584, wrote a friendly and compromising letter to the Pope.

In April, Arran (James Stewart) crushed a conspiracy by seizing Gowrie at Dundee, and then routing a force with which Mar and Angus had entered Scotland.

Gowrie, confessing his guilt as a conspirator, was executed at Stirling (May 2, 1584), leaving, of course, his feud to his widow and son.

The chief preachers fled; Andrew Melville was already in exile, with several others, in England.

Melville, in February, had been charged with preaching seditious sermons, had brandished a Hebrew Bible at the Privy Council, had refused secular jurisdiction and appealed to a spiritual court, by which he was certain to be acquitted.

Henceforward, when charged with uttering treasonable libels from the pulpit, the preachers were wont to appeal, in the first instance, to a court of their own cloth, and on this point James in the long-run triumphed over the Kirk.

In a Parliament of May 18, 1584, such declinature of royal jurisdiction was, by "The Black Acts," made treason: Episcopacy was established; the heirs of Gowrie were disinherited; Angus, Mar, and other rebels were forfeited.

But such forfeitures never held long in Scotland.

In August 1584 a new turn was given to James's policy by Arran, who was Protestant, if anything, in belief, and hoped to win over Elizabeth, the harbourer of all enemies of James.

Arran's instrument was the beautiful young Master of Gray, in France a Catholic, a partisan of Mary, and leagued with the Guises.

He was sent to persuade Elizabeth to banish James's exiled rebels, but, like a Lethington on a smaller scale, he set himself to obtain the restoration of these lords as against Arran, while he gratified Elizabeth by betraying to her the secrets of Mary.

This man was the adoring friend of the flower of chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney!

As against Arran the plot succeeded.

Making Berwick, on English soil, their base, in November 1585 the exiles, lay and secular, backed by England, returned, captured James at Stirling, and drove Arran to lurk about the country, till, many years after, Douglas of Parkhead met and slew him, avenging Morton; and, when opportunity offered, Douglas was himself slain by an avenging Stewart at the Cross of Edinburgh.

The age reeked with such blood feuds, of which the preachers could not cure their fiery flocks.

In December 1585 Parliament restored Gowrie's forfeited family to their own (henceforth they were constantly conspiring against James), and the exiled preachers returned to their manses and pulpits.

But bishops were not abolished, though the Kirk, through the Synod of Fife, excommunicated the Archbishop of St Andrews, Adamson, who replied in kind.

He was charged with witchcraft, and in the long-run was dragged down and reduced to poverty, being accused of dealings with witches--and hares!

In July 1586 England and Scotland formed an alliance, and Elizabeth promised to make James an allowance of 4000 pounds a-year.

This, it may be feared, was the blood-price of James's mother: from her son, and any hope of aid from her son, Mary was now cut off.

Walsingham laid the snares into which she fell, deliberately providing for her means of communication with Babington and his company, and deciphering and copying the letters which passed through the channel which he had contrived.

A

trifle of forgery was also done by his agent, Phelipps.

Mary, knowing herself deserted by her son, was determined, as James knew, to disinherit him.

For this reason, and for the 4000 pounds, he made no strong protest against her trial.

One of his agents in London--the wretched accomplice in his father's murder, Archibald Douglas--was consenting to her execution.

James himself thought that strict imprisonment was the best course; but the Presbyterian Angus declared that Mary "could not be blamed if she had caused the Queen of England's throat to be cut for detaining her so unjustly imprisoned."

The natural man within us entirely agrees with Angus!

A mission was sent from Holyrood, including James's handsome new favourite, the Master of Gray, with his cousin, Logan of Restalrig, who sold the Master to Walsingham.

The envoys were to beg for Mary's life.

The Master had previously betrayed her; but he was not wholly lost, and in London he did his best, contrary to what is commonly stated, to secure her life.

He thus incurred the enmity of his former allies in the English Court, and, as he had foreseen, he was ruined in Scotland--his _previous_ letters, hostile to Mary, being betrayed by his aforesaid cousin, Logan of Restalrig.

On February 8, 1567, ended the lifelong tragedy of Mary Stuart.

The woman whom Elizabeth vainly moved Amyas Paulet to murder was publicly decapitated at Fotheringay.

James vowed that he would not accept from Elizabeth "the price of his mother's blood."

But despite the fury of his nobles James sat still and took the money, at most some 4000 pounds annually,--when he could get it.