SCOTLAND AND ITS TROUBLES DURING MARY’S INFANCY.
James V. left, as an inheritance to his kingdom, an expensive and destructive war with England. He likewise left what, under such circumstances, was a very questionable advantage, a treasury well stored with gold, and a coinage in good condition, produced from the mines which he had worked in Scotland. The foreign relations of the country demanded the utmost attention; but the long minority necessarily ensuing, as Mary, his only surviving lawful child, was but a few days old when James died, awakened hopes and wishes in the ambitious which superseded all other considerations. For a time England was forgotten; and the prize of the Regency became a bone of civil contention and discord.
There were three persons who aspired to that office, and the pretensions of each had their supporters, as interest or reason might dictate. The first was the Queen-Dowager, a lady who inherited many of the peculiar virtues, as well as some of the failings, of the illustrious house of Guise, to which she belonged. She possessed a bold and masculine understanding, a perseverance to overcome difficulties, and a fortitude to bear up against misfortunes, not often met with among her sex. She was indeed superior to most of the weaknesses of the female character; and having, from her earliest years, deeply studied the science of government, she felt herself, so far as mere political tactics and diplomatic acquirements were concerned, able to cope with the craftiest of the Scotch nobility. Besides, her intimate connexion with the French court, coupled with the interest she might naturally be supposed to take in the affairs of a country over which her husband had reigned, and which was her daughter’s inheritance, seemed to give her a claim of the strongest kind.
The second aspirant was Cardinal David Beaton, at that time the undoubted head of the Catholic party in Scotland. He was a man whose abilities all allowed, and who, had he been less tinctured with severity, and less addicted to the exclusive principles of the Church of Rome, might probably have filled with éclat the very highest rank in the State. He endeavoured to strengthen his title to the Regency, by producing the will of James V. in his favour. But as this will was dated only a short while before the King’s death, it was suspected that the Prelate had himself written it, and obtained the King’s signature, at a time when his bodily weakness had impaired his mental faculties. Beaton was, moreover, from his violence and rigour, particularly obnoxious to all those who favoured the Reformation.
James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and next heir to the throne, was the third candidate, and the person upon whom the choice of the people ultimately fell. In more settled times, this choice might possibly have been judicious; but Arran was of far too weak and irresolute a character to be able to regulate the government with that decision and firmness which the existing emergency required. He had few opinions of his own, and was continually driven hither and thither by the contradictory counsels of those who surrounded him. He had joined, however, the reformed religion; and this, together with the inoffensive softness of his disposition, made him, in the eyes of many, only the more fit to govern.
The annexation of Scotland to the crown of England, either by conquest or the more amicable means of marriage, had for many years been the object nearest the heart of Henry VIII. and several of his predecessors. That his father, in particular, Henry VII., had given some thought to this subject, is evident from the answer he made to such of his Privy Council as were unwilling that he should give his daughter Margaret in marriage to James IV., on the ground that the English Crown might, through that marriage, devolve to a King of Scotland. “Whereunto the King made answer, and said, ‘What then? for if any such thing should happen (which God forbid), yet I see our kingdom should take no harm thereby, because England should not be added unto Scotland, but Scotland unto England, as to the far most noble head of the whole island; for so much as it is always so, that the lesser is wont, for honour’s sake, to be adjoined to that which is far the greater.’”[1] How correct Henry VII. was in his opinion, the accession of James VI. sufficiently proved.
Henry VIII., though aiming at the same object as his father, thought it more natural that Scotland should accept of an English, than England of a Scottish King. Immediately, therefore, after the birth of Mary, he determined upon straining every nerve to secure her for his son Edward. For this purpose, he concluded a temporary peace with the Regent Arran, and sent back into Scotland the numerous prisoners who had surrendered themselves at Solway Moss, upon an understanding that they should do all they could to second his views with their countrymen. His first proposals, however, were so extravagant, that the Scottish Parliament would not listen to them for a moment. He demanded not only that the young Queen should be sent into England, to be educated under his own superintendance, but that he himself, as her future father-in-law, should be allowed an active share in the government of Scotland. Having subsequently consented to depart considerably from the haughty tone in which these terms were dictated, a treaty of marriage was agreed upon at the instigation of Arran, whom Henry had won to his interests, in which it was promised, that Mary should be sent into England at the age of ten, and that six persons of rank should, in the mean time, be delivered as hostages for the fulfilment of this promise.
It may easily be conceived, that whatever the Regent, together with some of the reformed nobility and their partisans, might think of this treaty, the Queen Mother and Cardinal Beaton, who had for the present formed a coalition, could not be very well satisfied with it. Henry, with all the hasty violence of his nature, had, in a fit of spleen, espoused the reformed opinions; and if Mary became the wife of his son, it was evident that all the interests both of the House of Guise and of the Catholic religion in Scotland, would suffer a fatal blow. By their forcible representations of the inevitable ruin which they alleged this alliance would bring upon Scotland, converting it into a mere province of their ancient and inveterate enemies, and obliging it to renounce forever the friendship of their constant allies the French, they succeeded in effecting a change in public opinion; and the result was, that Arran found himself at length obliged to yield to their superior influence, to deliver up to the Cardinal and Mary of Lorraine the young Queen, and refuse to ratify the engagements he had entered into with Henry. The Cardinal now carried every thing before him, having converted or intimidated almost all his enemies. The Earl of Lennox alone, a nobleman whose pretensions were greater than his power, could not forgive Beaton for having used him merely as a cat’s paw in his intrigues to gain the ascendency over Arran. Lennox had himself aspired at the Regency, alleging that his title, as presumptive heir to the Crown, was a more legitimate one than that of the House of Hamilton, to which Arran belonged. But the still more ambitious Cardinal flattered only to deceive him; and when Lennox considered his success certain, he found himself farther from the object of his wishes than ever.
Seeing every other hope vain, Lennox set on foot a secret correspondence with Henry, promising that monarch his best support, should he determine upon avenging the insult he had sustained, through the vacillating conduct of the Scotch. Henry gladly availed himself of the offer, and sent a considerable force under the Earl of Hartford to the North, by sea, which, having landed at Leith, and plundered that place, as well as the neighbouring city of Edinburgh, again took its departure for England, without attempting to penetrate further into the country. This was an unprofitable and ill-advised expedition, for it only tended to exasperate the minds of the Scotch, without being of any service to Henry. The Earl of Huntly well remarked concerning it, that even although he might have had no objections to the proposed match, he had a most especial dislike to the manner of wooing.
The Earl of Lennox now found himself deserted in the midst of his former friends, and went prudently into voluntary exile, by retiring into England. Here Henry, in reward of his former services, gave him his niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas, in marriage. She was the daughter, by the second marriage, of Henry’s sister, the Lady Margaret, wife of James IV., who, after the King’s death, espoused Archibald Earl of Angus. By this alliance, Lennox, though it was impossible for him to foresee such a result, became the father of Henry Darnley, and a long line of Kings.