Scotland, vol. i. pp. 145–152.
Buchanan,
Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xiv. pp. 420, 421.
153
‘This defeat being so very dishonourable, especially to the clergy, who stirred up the king to that attempt, and promised him great success from it; and there being such a visible evidence of the anger of God, fighting by his providence against them, all men were struck with fear and astonishment; the bishops were ashamed to show their faces for a time.’ Stevenson's History of the Church of Scotland, reprinted, Edinburgh, 1840, p. 30.
154
We may readily believe the assertion of an old chronicler, that ‘the nobilitie did not greatlie take his death grievouslie, because he had fined manie, imprisoned more, and caused no small few (for avoiding his displeasure) to flie into England, and rather to commit themselves to the enemie than to his anger.’ Hollinshead's Scottish Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 210.
155
Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. ii. p. 111.
156
It has been often said, that this will was forged; but for such an assertion I cannot find the slightest evidence, except the declaration of Arran (Sadler's State Papers, Edinburgh, 1809, vol. i. p. 138), and the testimony, if testimony it can be called, of Scotch historians, who do not profess to have examined the handwriting, and who, being themselves Protestants, seem to suppose that the fact of a man being a cardinal, qualifies him for every crime. There is no doubt that Beaton was thoroughly unprincipled, and therefore was capable of the forgery. Still, we have no proof; and the will is such as we might have expected from the king. In regard to Arran, his affirmation is not worth the paper it is written on: for he hated Beaton; he was himself very unscrupulous; and he succeeded to the post which Beaton had to vacate on the ground that the will was forged. If such circumstances do not disqualify a witness, some of the best-established principles of evidence are false. The reader who cares to look further into this subject, may compare, in favour of the will being forged, Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xv. p. 422, Abredoniæ, 1762; Knox's History of the Reformation, edit. Laing, Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i. pp. 91, 92; Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, second edition, 4to, 1860, p. 102; and, in favour of its being genuine, Lyon's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1843, vol. i. pp. 304, 305. Some other writers on the subject leave it doubtful: Tytler's History of Scotland, 1845, vol. iv. p. 274; Lawson's Roman Church in Scotland, 1836, p. 99; and a note in Keith's Church and State in Scotland, 1844, vol. i. p. 63.
157
On the 26th of January 1542–3, ‘the said cardinall was put in pressoune in Dalkeith.’ A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 26. See also, respecting his imprisonment, a letter written, on the 16th of March, by Angus and Douglas, in State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 263. He was then in ‘firmance.’
158
His appointment was confirmed by Parliament on the 12th of March. Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 411: ‘tutor lautfull to the quenis grace and gounour of this realme.’ He excluded the clergy from power. On 20th March, in the same year, Sir Ralph Sadler writes to Henry VIII., that Sir George Douglas ‘brought me into the council-chamber, where I found a great number of noblemen and others at a long board, and divers standing, but not one bishop nor priest among them. At the upper end of the board sat the governour.’ Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 78.
159
Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 415, 419, 424, 423*; and Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 285.
160
‘Had become a convert to its doctrines.’ Tytler's Hist. of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 286. But he, as well as the other nobles, neither knew nor cared much about doctrines; and he was, moreover, very venal. In April 1543, Sir Ralph Sadler writes to Henry VIII.: ‘And the lord Maxwell told me apart, “That, indeed, he lacked silver, and had no way of relief but to your majesty;” which he prayed me to signify unto the same. I asked him what would relieve him? and he said, 300l.; “for the which,” he said, “as your majesty seemed, when he was with your grace, to have him in more trust and credit than the rest of your majesty's prisoners, so he trusted to do you as good service as any of them; and amongst them they will do you such service, as, if the war succeed, ye shall make an easy conquest of this realm; as for his part he shall deliver into your hands, at the entry of your army, the keys of the same on the west marches, being all the strongholds there in his custody.” I offered him presently to write to my lord of Suffolk for 100l. for him if he would; but he said, “he would stay till he heard again from your majesty in that behalf.”’ Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 165.
161
Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 415, 425. Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 83. Knox, in his History of the Reformation (edit. Laing, vol. i p. 100), archly says, ‘The cleargy hearto long repugned; butt in the end, convicted by reassonis, and by multitud of votes in thare contrare, thei also condiscended; and so, by Act of Parliament, it was maid free to all man and woman to reid the Scriptures in thair awin toung, or in the Engliss toung; and so war all Actes maid in the contrair abolished.’
162
Or, as Keith calls them, ‘English Lords.’ History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland, vol. i. p. 80.
163
In May 1544 the English attacked Scotland, Tytler's History, vol. iv. p. 316; and in that same month, the ‘Anglo-Scottish party’ consisted only of the Earls of Lennox and of Glencairn, since even ‘Angus, George Douglas, and their numerous and powerful adherents, joined the cardinal.’ p. 319. As to the part taken by the Scotch clergy, see, in Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 173, a letter to Henry VIII., written on the 1st of May 1543: ‘And as to the kirk-men, I assure your majesty they seek the war by all the means they can, and do daily entertain the noblemen with money and rewards to sustain the wars, rather than there should be any agreement with your majesty; thinking, verily, that if peace and unity succeed, that they shall be reformed, and lose their glory, which they had rather die, and put all this realm in hazard, than they would forego.’ See also p. 184, note.
164
Buchanan records a very curious conversation between the regent and Douglas, which, as I do not remember to have met with elsewhere, I shall transcribe. The exact date of it is not mentioned, but, from the context, it evidently took place in 1544 or 1545. ‘Ibi cum Prorex suam deploraret solitudinem, et se a nobilitate derelictum quereretur, Duglassius ostendit “id ipsius culpa fieri, non nobilium, qui et fortunas omnes et vitam ad publicam salutem tuendam conferrent, quorum consilio contempto ad sacrificulorum nutum circumageretur, qui foris imbelles, domi seditiosi, omniumque periculorum expertes alieni laboris fructu ad suas voluptates abuterentur. Ex hoc fonte inter te et proceres facta est suspitio, quæ (quòd neutri alteris fidatis) rebus gerendis maxime est impedimento.”’ Rerum Scoticarum Historia, lib. xv. p. 435. Buchanan was, at this time, about thirty-eight years old; and that some such conversation as that which he narrates actually took place, is, I think, highly probable, though the historian may have thrown in some touches of his own. At all events, he was too great a rhetorician to invent what his contemporaries would deem unlikely to happen; so that, from either point of view, the passage is valuable as an evidence of the deep-rooted hostility which the nobles bore towards the Church.
165
Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 337. ‘The plot is entirely unknown either to our Scottish or English historians; and now, after the lapse of nearly three centuries, has been discovered in the secret correspondence of the State-paper Office.’ The first suggestion of the murder was in April 1544. See State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 377, and the end of the Preface to vol. iv. But Mr. Tytler and the editor of the State Papers appear to have overlooked a still earlier indication of the coming crime, in Sadler's
