[133] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 207.
[134] Tytler, vol. iv. p. 212.
[135] ‘His preference of the clergy to the temporal lords disgusted these proud chiefs.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 230. See also p. 236. His reasons are stated by himself, in a curious letter, which he wrote so late as 1541, to Henry VIII. ‘We persaif,’ writes James, ‘be zoure saidis writingis yat Ze ar informyt yat yair suld be sum thingis laitlie attemptat be oure kirkmen to oure hurte and skaith, and contrar oure mynde and plesure. We can nocht understand, quhat suld move Zou to beleif the samyn, assuring Zou We have nevir fund bot faithfull and trew obedience of yame at all tymes, nor yai seik nor attemptis nouthir jurisdictioun nor previlegijs, forthir nor yai have usit sen the first institutioun of the Kirk of Scotland, quhilk We may nocht apoun oure conscience alter nor change in the respect We have to the honour and faith of God and Halikirk, and douttis na inconvenient be yame to come to Ws and oure realme yerthrou; for sen the Kirk wes first institute in our realme, the stait yairof hes nevir failzeit, bot hes remanyt evir obedient to oure progenitouris, and in our tyme mair thankefull to Ws, nor evir yai wer of before.’ This letter, which, in several points of view, is worth reading, will be found in State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. pp. 188–190, 4to, 1836.
[136] Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 212, 213, and Arnot's History of Edinburgh, 4to, 1788, p. 468: ‘fifteen ordinary judges, seven churchmen, seven laymen, and a president, whom it behoved to be a churchman.’ The statute, as printed in the folio edition of 1814 (Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 335) says ‘xiiij psouñs half spūale half temporall wt ane president.’ Mr. Lawson (Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1836, p. 81) supposes that it was the Archbishop of St. Andrews who advised the erection of this tribunal.
[137] Keith, who evidently does not admire this part of the history of his country, says, under the year 1546, ‘Several of our nobility found it their temporal interest, as much as their spiritual, to sway with the new opinions as to religious matters.’ Keith's Affairs of Church and State, vol. i. pp. 112, 113. Later, and with still more bluntness: ‘The noblemen wanted to finger the patrimony of the kirkmen.’ vol. iii. p. 11.
[138] ‘In the month of August (1534), the bishops having gotten fitt opportunitie, renewed their battell aganest Jesus Christ. David Stratilon, a gentelman of the House of Lawrestoune, and Mr. Norman Gowrlay, was brought to judgement in the Abby of Halyrudhouse. The king himself, all cloathed with reid, being present, grait pains war taken upon David Stratoun to move him to recant and burn his bill; bot he, ever standing to his defence, was in end adjudged to the fire. He asked grace at the king. The bishops answred proudlie, that “the king's hands war bound, and that he had no grace to give to such as were by law condemned.” So was he, with Mr. Norman, after dinner, upon the 27th day of Agust, led to a place beside the Rude of Greenside, between Leth and Edinbrug, to the intent that the inhabitants of Fife, seeing the fire, might be striken with terrour and feare.’ Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. i. part i. p. 210*. Also Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 106, 107.
[139] ‘It appears, by a letter in the State-paper Office, that Henry remonstrated against this title being given to James.’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 223. See also p. 258.
[140] In 1535, ‘his privy council were mostly ecclesiastics.’ Ibid. vol. iv. p. 222. And Sir Ralph Sadler, during his embassy to Scotland in 1539–40, writes: ‘So that the king, as far as I can perceive, is of force driven to use the bishops and his clergy as his only ministers for the direction of his realm. They be the men of wit and policy that I see here; they be never out of the king's ear. And if they smell any thing that in the least point may touch them, or that the king seem to be content with any such thing, straight they inculk to him, how catholic a prince his father was, and feed him both with fair words and many, in such wise as by those policies they lead him (having also the whole governance of his affairs) as they will.’ State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, Edinb., 1809, 4to, vol. i. p. 47.
[141] State Papers of Henry VIII., vol. v. p. 128. A Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 22. The Reverend Mr. Kirkton pronounces that the new queen was ‘ane egge of the bloody nest of Guise.’ Kirkton's History of the Church of Scotland, edited by Sharpe, Edinburgh, 1817, 4to, p. 7.
[142] ‘At his return home, he was made coadjutor, and declared future successor to his uncle in the primacy of St. Andrews, in which see he came to be fully invested upon the death of his uncle the next year, 1539.’ Keith's Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, pp. 23, 24.