For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs.
—Shakespeare, Hen. V., Act i. sc. 2.
[9] ‘Hepburnus, Gavini ministris pulsis, arcem valido præsidio communit.’—Buchanan, lib. xiii, 106 Rex.
[10] Buchanan, Ibid. Spotswood, Hist. of the Church of Scotland. London, 1677, pp. 61, 62.
[11] Knox, Buchanan, Fox, Spotswood, McCrie.
[12] Alesius relates this story in his ‘Epistola dedicatoria Comment. in Johannem.’ Bayle, in the article Alesius, says, ‘Il avait été préservé de la mort, par miracle, dans sa jeunesse.’
[13] ‘Hamiltonium familia regium quoque sanguinem attingente, natus.’—Bezæ Icones. This is the opinion of Pinkerton, McCrie, and other authors. Others suppose that Sir Patrick Hamilton (of Kincavil) was a natural son of Lord Hamilton. But in a charter of April 1498 he is called brother-german of James Lord Hamilton, eldest son of his father, which seems plainly to mean that he was not half-brother by the father’s side; and in a charter of January 1513 he is distinguished from another Hamilton, a natural son of the same lord. This last circumstance doubtless gave rise to a qui pro quo.
[14] Pitscottie, Hist. of Scotland. Leland’s Collectanea. Lorimer, Patrick Hamilton.