Beatoun assembled at St. Andrews the prelates and the nobles who enjoyed his confidence. An elevated seat was provided for him in the cathedral, and he sat there in his twofold character of primate and of cardinal. The earls of Huntley, Arran, and Montrose, the earl Marshall, and Lords Erskine, Lyndsay, Fleming, Seaton, and many other barons and men of rank, Gawin, archbishop of Glasgow and chancellor, the bishops of Aberdeen, Galloway, and others besides, abbots and priors, deans and doctors of theology, were around him. David Beatoun, proud to see beneath him that illustrious and brilliant assembly, began to speak. He set forth with warm feeling the dangers to which the multiplication of heretics was exposing the Roman faith: the audacity with which they avowed their opinions, even at the court, where they found too much support, he added, alluding thus to the famous dramatic representation with which James had been so struck. Then impatient to show the serious import of his words, he announced that he had cited before that assembly Sir John Borthwick, brother of the lord of the same name, provost of Linlithgow, who had probably had a hand in the satirical drama. ‘This heretic gives out,’ he said, ‘that the pope has no more authority than other bishops, that his indulgences have no other effect than to deceive the people, that the religious orders ought to be abolished, that all ecclesiastics are at liberty to marry, and in short, that the Scots, blinded by their clergy, do not profess the true faith. He reads and circulates the New Testament in English, and divers treatises of Melanchthon, Œcolampadius, and Erasmus, and refuses to submit to the see of Rome.’
Borthwick, instead of going to St. Andrews, set out in all haste for England, where he was well received by Henry VIII., and was afterwards employed by him as one of his commissioners to the princes of Germany. But although Beatoun could not send the lamb to the slaughter, he could at least find the way to possess himself of the fleece. On May 28 the confiscation of Sir John’s property was pronounced and his effigy was burnt, first at St. Andrews and two days after at Edinburgh. The fire did him no great harm, but it served to give a certain point to the cardinal’s discourse.[232]
The king had now again returned, under the influence of the cardinal, to the side of Rome. This prince, so thoughtless, hasty, violent, and unprincipled, bent before every breeze and changed his opinion and his will at a word from those who were about him. Money he wanted, and he would have received it from one party as readily as from another, from the nobles as well as from the priests: but the latter were more persevering and more skilful in finding out the crowns of which he had need. ‘They are always at the king’s ear,’ said Sadler, one of the envoys of Henry VIII. Sir James Hamilton, his treasurer, was at his left ear, and Beatoun, the cardinal, at his right. The treasurer had at that time received large sums from the cardinal for the king, and James, won by that argument, pronounced himself against the friends of the Reformation with the passion which he had before shown towards the prelates. Sir James Hamilton, brother of the earl of Arran, a man of dishonorable character, cruel, and the murderer of the earl of Lennox, was then invested by command of the king with functions resembling those of an inquisitor. ‘I charge you,’ said James, ‘to seize all persons suspected of heresy, and to inflict on them after judgment such penalties as they have deserved.’ In the excess of his popish zeal he exclaimed,’Not a man of that sort shall find any mercy at my hands, not even my own son, if it were proved that he was in the number of the guilty.’ This declaration alarmed many. It was plain that an inquisitorial court was to be set up, and Hamilton was already preparing everything for that end. But on a sudden he was himself thrown into the prison in which he meant to confine the friends of the Reformation. Accused either justly or unjustly of treason, even of a conspiracy against the life of the king, he was arrested, and James, in his wrath, had him put to death in August 1540.
BIRTH OF A SON TO JAMES.
James spoke of his son. He had indeed a son, but one not old enough to excite any fears with respect to what he called heresy. The child was born on May 22, 1540, and had been named James after his father. ‘He is fair and lively,’ wrote the king to his uncle Henry VIII., ‘and will succeed to us and this our realm.’[233] Very proud of this son and of having an heir, he felt his crown to be more secure than ever,[234] and began to contemn the nobles. ‘They will no longer dare,’ said he, ‘to attempt anything against my house.’
The baptism of the boy took place May 28, and on the next day the king embarked on some voyage. Nobody could give an explanation of this abrupt departure. Some said that the king was going to France, others said to Ireland, where the leading men, it was reported, would take him for their king.[235] ‘I am only going to visit the isles, to put everything in order,’ he wrote to Henry VIII. The cardinal and the prelates resolved to take advantage of his absence. The king, they saw, was in ill humor with the nobles, and all those who were suspected in the matter of doctrine must be got rid of. But one discreet man, James Kirkcaldy of Grange, the lord treasurer, having received information of this project, made it known to the king, and set before him all the calamities to which he would expose himself if he gave his support to the conspiracy. James, once more turning about, was enraged at this intrigue hatched in his absence. The cardinal, attended by many bishops, came to Holyrood palace to greet him, and presented to him a paper on which were inscribed the names of nobles suspected of heresy and of whom it would be well to get rid. He dwelt even on the gain which would flow to the crown from that course. James said sharply—‘Pack, you jefwellis![236] Get ye to your charges and reform your own lives: be not instruments of discord betwixt my nobility and me: or else I vow to God I shall reform you by sharp whingers if ever I hear such motion of you again.’
The prelates, astounded at this rebuke, withdrew in confusion, and gave up their scheme for a time.
SCOTT OF PITGORNO.
A second son was born to James in the town of Stirling in April 1541, and this event both heightened his joy and increased his pride. His happiness however was frequently disturbed. Certain people were incessantly endeavoring to deceive him. Hateful informers denounced to him one or other of his earls, his barons, and other subjects, as bent on taking his life, and thus threw him into a state of great alarm. In another direction some of his favorites were leading him to blameworthy acts. He had to pay dearly for his errors, and was punished by his very crimes. His mind was often in a state of gloomy reverie. Thomas Scott of Pitgorno, a courtier who had enjoyed his good graces and had been named by him lord of Lefries, and afterwards promoted to a higher office in the administration of justice,[237] had been guilty of many misdeeds. He was accused, among other things, of having plundered pretended Lutherans, and it was added that the king had gained something by it. Remorse tormented these two wretched men. One night, while James was at Linlithgow, he dreamed that he saw Scott coming towards him surrounded by a company of devils, and that he heard him say in a sepulchral tone—‘Woe to the day that ever I knew thee or thy service. For, for serving of thee against God, against his servants, and against justice I am adjudged to endless torment.’ The king awoke in terror. With a loud voice he called for torches (it was midnight), and he made all who were in the palace get up, and said to them—‘Thomas Scott is dead! He has appeared to me.’ He then related his horrible dream. That same night Thomas Scott, then at Edinburgh, was stricken with a terrible agony. ‘I am damned,’ said he, ‘I am damned! It is by the just judgment of God—justo Dei judicio condemnatus sum.’ He died in the midst of these torments. James heard of this death the next morning and was still more terrified. Such is the tale of the chroniclers and historians of Scotland.[238] It is certainly wonderful, but stranger coincidences have been known.
James had yet other causes of uneasiness. His sleepless nights were disturbed, gloomy, and agitated; and even the light of morning did not disperse his inward darkness. The death of Hamilton, whose execution he had hastily ordered on mere suspicion, frequently gave him bitter pain. That unfortunate lord had done for the prince all that he had wished; and the latter now asked himself whether he had done well to deprive himself of so devoted a secretary. Perhaps he was innocent. He might have been calumniated. One night, at Linlithgow, James saw Hamilton in a dream, with his sword drawn, rush upon him and cut off first his right then his left arm,[239] saying to him, ‘Take that! while thou receive a final payment for all thine impiety.’ James awoke trembling, and asked himself what this dream could mean. His imagination was impressed by it. He mused mournfully on the strange vision, and expected that some heavy blow was about to fall on him. It was in this state of mind that a message reached him from Stirling that his son Arthur has just died. Shortly after, another message came from St. Andrews to announce to him that his son James was dead. These two young princes, his hope, his joy, and his glory, were no more. Within twenty-four hours of each other (some say at the same hour), they had been taken from him. He now comprehended his dream. His two arms were already cut off: it only remained for him to lose his own life, and all would be accomplished. Nothing could divert this prince, who was guilty at once of profligacy and of persecution: nothing could beguile his grief. His heart was broken, his mind was disordered.