Mary remained at Stirling after the ambassadors had gone, but in the dismal weather of the middle of January she departed with her son for the capital.[40] Two months afterwards the Prince was carried back to Stirling Castle by the Earls of Huntly and Argyll, and placed in the charge of John, Lord Erskine, by this time Earl of Mar.[41] Meanwhile Darnley had perished at Kirk-of-Field, and Bothwell was plotting for his marriage with the Queen. Shortly before the consummation of that union, Mary paid her last visit to Stirling. She came with the natural desire to see her son and possibly with the object of removing him from the castle. The child, however, remained in the faithful hands of Mar, and in a few days the Queen, on her homeward journey, was intercepted and carried off by Bothwell. The marriage was celebrated in Holyrood Palace in May, 1567; but the ambitious and unscrupulous nobleman, not satisfied with being the husband of his sovereign, sought to gain possession of the person of the Prince, in order, as Sir James Melville says, to “warrant him fra revenging of his father’s death.” Mar, however, distrusting the Queen and regarding Bothwell as a murderer, refused to allow the Prince of Scotland to pass into even his own mother’s keeping.
The Stewarts were an unhappy race, but James V. and Mary had the saddest lives of all. He was gifted with a joyous nature and a genuine love of justice, and yet when only thirty years old he died of a broken heart. She was endowed with beauty, vivacity, generosity and courage, but these brought her sorrow, captivity and death. The national disaster at Flodden Field was to a great extent responsible for those unhappy reigns. The country was crippled by the heavy blow and was more at the mercy of the English Crown than in the days of the early Stewarts. This was especially the case in James V.’s time, for his weariness of life was chiefly due to despair of being able to combat Henry’s schemes.
The defeat had another effect, however, which gave rise to the troubles of Mary’s reign. Almost all the nobles of Scotland fell with their King in battle, leaving, in many cases, minors to succeed. Consequently, the government passed into the hands of the prelates, who were mostly, at this time, men of low moral character and of selfish worldly aims. Moreover, the Regent Albany, in order to avert civil strife, filled the wealthy benefices with members of influential families. Thus the clergy grew more and more corrupt, and a Reformation became a necessity. The revolution did not break out in James V.’s days, mainly on account of that monarch’s alliance with France and his distrust of his English uncle; but it accomplished its work with greater thoroughness because of its postponement, and directly after the change had been wrought, Queen Mary returned to Scotland. Yet had Flodden and Pinkie not been lost, the Queen in all likelihood would not have been sent to France to be reared at the Court of Catharine de’ Medici and trained by the fiercely orthodox Guises, and Scotland might have been ruled by a sovereign who had not been educated in a form of faith that had become obnoxious to the majority of her subjects.
CHAPTER V.
JAMES VI.
Once more a minor became sovereign of Scotland. Not, however, as in former cases, by the early death of the preceding monarch did the throne become vacant again, but by a deed of abdication which the helpless captive Queen was compelled to sign at Lochleven. On July 29th, 1567—a few days after the close of Mary’s reign—the thirteen months old Prince of Scotland was crowned at Stirling as James VI. The Chapel at the castle on this occasion was not the scene of the function, the High or Parish Church being chosen as a suitable place for the ceremony. The child was anointed by the Protestant Bishop of Orkney, while the Earl of Atholl held the crown over the royal head. Morton and Home took the oath for the King that he would maintain the true religion, and after Knox had preached a sermon, the company returned to the castle, Mar carrying the infant monarch and Atholl bearing the crown.
For twelve years after his coronation young James resided in Stirling Castle under the care of the family of Mar. During almost the whole of that period the government of Scotland was carried on in the name of the King by four Regents in succession; and Stirling, being the sovereign’s seat, figured conspicuously in the history of the time. In September, 1569, at a council held in the castle by the Regent Moray, Maitland of Lethington was accused by Thomas Crawford of having taken part in the murder of Darnley. His trial being fixed for December 21st, Lethington was placed in confinement in the fortress, but a few days later he was carried to Edinburgh, where he managed to escape from bondage by the instrumentality of Kirkcaldy of Grange.[42]
Less than two years later there was thrust into Stirling Castle another prominent member of Queen Mary’s dwindling faction. This was John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, the prelate who had taken the leading part at the Prince’s baptism not many years before. He had been seized in Dumbarton Castle on the memorable night when the King’s men scaled the rock, and had been brought without delay to his enemies’ headquarters. Like Maitland of Lethington, he was charged with having been implicated in the murder of James’s father, and his confinement in Stirling, like Lethington’s, lasted for only one or two days. The Archbishop, moreover, was held to be guilty of having encouraged Bothwellhaugh to assassinate the Regent Moray, so after a hasty trial he was hanged at the market cross in April, 1571.
Stirling, being at this time the young King’s home, was naturally the headquarters of his mother’s opponents. Edinburgh, where the castle was held for the Queen by Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, was the principal seat of Mary’s less powerful party. A plan was accordingly devised by the Laird of Grange that nearly succeeded in changing, for a time at least, the course of Scottish history. Knowing that the leaders of the opposite faction were gathered together for a meeting of Parliament, he resolved to surprise and capture Stirling, to seize all the prominent supporters of the King, and to obtain possession, if possible, of the royal child himself. Kirkcaldy was anxious to conduct the expedition in person, but, being persuaded by his followers not to run such a risk, he appointed the Earl of Huntly, Lord Claude Hamilton, Scott of Buccleuch and Ker of Fernihirst to undertake the enterprise.