30. Mary, 1542-1554. Arran's Regency.—James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, next heir to the throne by his descent from James the Second, was chosen Regent, but, as it was the Scotch custom that the nearest of kin on the mother's side should have the care of the minor, the infant Queen was left in charge of her mother, Mary of Lorraine. The defeat at Solway Moss, and the death of the King, had left the people nearly as dispirited and defenceless as they had been after Flodden, and Henry the Eighth determined to get the kingdom into his power by marrying Mary to his son Edward, Prince of Wales.
31. Treaties with England.—To carry out his plans the better, he sent Angus back to Scotland, and with him the Lords Cassilis and Glencairn, and several other nobles, all pledged to do their best to place the Queen and the strongholds in the hands of Henry. These nobles were called by the English the Assured Scots, because Henry thought he could be sure of their help, but they were either unable or unwilling to give him the aid for which he had hoped. It was not till July in the next year that two treaties were drawn up at London: the one for the English alliance; the other agreeing to the English marriage of the Queen. But there was a strong national party, much set against any dealings with England; and, though the treaties were approved at one meeting of the Estates, it was plain that they would be thrown out at the next. The Regent tried to break them off, and Henry, greatly enraged, made ready for war, and seized some Scotch ships which had been driven by stress of weather into English ports. This was reason enough for the rejection of the treaties by the Estates. Shortly after, the "Assured Scots" changed sides and made a bond with the Regent; but Henry got a new supporter in Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, who, as he wished to marry Margaret Douglas, daughter of Angus, Henry's niece and ward, was eager to do anything to win Henry's favour.
32. First English Invasion.—War was declared at Edinburgh by an English herald, May 1, 1544, and an English army under Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was sent by sea and landed at Granton. He was bidden to destroy Edinburgh and as many other towns and villages as he conveniently could, and he carried out his orders to the letter. He sacked and burned Leith, a wealthy trading town, set fire to Edinburgh, though no resistance had been made to him there, robbed the burghs on the coast of Fife, and then marched south to the Border, burning, slaying, spoiling, and leaving a wasted land behind him. The only resistance he met with was near the Border, where a division of his army which had been sent to Melrose to break open the tombs of the ancestors of Angus was routed at Ancrum by Angus himself and some of the Border lords. At the news of this success six hundred Borderers from the Scottish side, who had been fighting in the service of the English Wardens, changed sides and attacked their former brothers in arms. The rest of the nation then took heart, and a large force was mustered and brought to the Border, but did nothing.
33. Second English Invasion.—Before the traces of his former ravages had disappeared, just when the next harvest was ready for the sickle, Hertford appeared again at the head of a motley host, swelled by half-savage Irish and by foreign hirelings, and repeated the wild work of the year before. The invaders attacked and plundered the religious houses. The ruins of Kelso, Melrose, Dryburgh, Roxburgh, and Coldingham still bear witness to their zeal in carrying out the orders of their master. Towns, manors, churches, and between two and three hundred villages were left in ashes behind them. All this misery was wantonly inflicted without winning for Henry a foot of ground or a single new subject.
34. Third English Invasion. Battle of Pinkie.—Two years passed, and again the sorely scourged country was visited by its old enemy. Hertford, now Duke of Somerset and Protector of England during the minority of Edward the Sixth, thought by one well-aimed blow to wrest from the people their proud boast, the national independence. Two armies, the one led by himself and the other sent by sea, met at Musselburgh and threatened the capital. The Regent had mustered a large force to resist them, and the two hosts faced each other on opposite banks of the Esk. But the Scots very foolishly left their strong position and forced the English to a battle, in which they were again defeated with great slaughter, at Pinkie, September 10, 1547. After the battle Somerset went back to England, and took the greater part of his army with him. As most of the strongholds were now in the hands of the English, it was thought best to send the Queen to France that she might be out of harm's way. The French sent six thousand men to help in driving out the English, a work that was not ended till 1550, when a short peace followed the nine years of cruel war. If we consider the difference of the times and the advance of civilization, the fiercest raids of Malcolm and of Wallace may be favourably compared with the misery wrought by Hertford in these three savage and unprovoked attacks.
35. Internal Affairs.—The overthrow of the monasteries, the seizure of their revenues, and the other changes in religious matters carried out by Henry the Eighth in England, had been approved by a large party in Scotland. They were eager to begin the same work there, for the Church, by her abuse of power and by her persecution of all who differed from her, was fast losing her hold upon the people. The first outbreak of the popular feeling was the murder of Cardinal David Beaton, the Primate, the leader of the French party in the state and the chief mover of religious persecution. In revenge for the burning of George Wishart in 1545, for preaching what was called heresy, sixteen of Wishart's followers murdered Beaton in his own Castle of St. Andrews, which they had entered by a stratagem, and which they held for fourteen months, setting at defiance all the Regent's efforts to retake it. It was only with the help of the French that they were at last obliged to give in, and were sent to the French galleys. Among them was John Knox, who twelve years later became famous as the apostle of the Reformation among his countrymen. On the death of Beaton, Arran made his own ambitious brother John Archbishop of St. Andrews, in the room of the murdered Cardinal. The castle was destroyed.
36. Regency of Mary of Lorraine. First Marriage of Mary Stewart.—In 1554, Arran, who had been created Duke of Chatelherault by the French king, went back to France, and Mary of Lorraine became Regent. The league with France was drawn still closer by the marriage of the Queen with Francis the Dauphin. Francis became King of France in 1559. The crown-matrimonial of Scotland was then granted to him, so that the two countries were for a short time united under one crown. On the strength of this the French began to give themselves airs of superiority which the Scots could ill bear from strangers, and before long they became well-nigh as unpopular as the English had been. The Regent was unconsciously doing her best to foster this feeling of dislike by placing foreigners in offices of trust, above all by making Frenchmen keepers of the strongholds. But there was another influence now at work, the desire of religious reform, which wrought a change in the national life greater than any that had been felt since the time of the first Robert.
37. Social Progress.—The intercourse with the French which arose from the close alliance of Scotland with France, influenced the social development of the nation throughout this period more strongly than during any other time either before or after it. The members of the National Council when they met in parliament were not, as in England, divided into lords and commons; the representatives of the three Estates, the Barons, the Clergy, and the Commons, assembled in one chamber, as was the French custom. All the tenants holding direct from the Crown were required to present themselves at these assemblies; but James the First released the lesser barons from this attendance, which they felt to be rather an irksome duty than a privilege, by allowing them to send commissaries in their stead. These commissaries, with the deputies from the cities and burghs, formed the Third Estate. The supreme court of justice, the Court of Session, established by James the Fifth, was formed on the model of the Parliament of Paris. The Universities were founded in the fifteenth century, at St. Andrews, at Glasgow, and at Aberdeen. Of these, Aberdeen was an exact imitation of the University of Paris. The architecture of this period, both domestic and ecclesiastical, is in many respects like the French. Melrose Abbey, and the palaces of Falkland and of Stirling, which were very richly ornamented, were built in the time of the Jameses. The houses of the nobles were also built in imitation of the French style. There are no remains of burgh domestic architecture older than the sixteenth century. Many French words also found their way into the Lowland Scotch, as the language of the Lothians came to be called. By this time there was so much difference between this dialect and that spoken at the English court, that the people who spoke the one could scarcely understand the other. The foreign trade of Scotland was most prosperous during the reign of James the Fourth. Fish, wools, and hides were the principal exports. By this time coal, which is first mentioned towards the end of the thirteenth century, was in general use. There were also lead and iron mines; and gold was found, though not in any large quantities. Of this native gold James the Fourth struck some beautiful coins, which were called bonnet pieces, because they bore the image of the King wearing a bonnet. The state of the people at this time was one of almost serf-like dependence on their lords. But great as the power of the nobles was, there were no forest or game laws in Scotland, nor did they enjoy any privilege of peerage. An offender against the law, if he could be brought to justice, had to "thole an assize," like any peasant, however high his rank might be.
38. Education and Literature.—In early times all the education that was within the reach of the people had been offered to them by the Church. Schools were founded and maintained in several towns by the great monasteries, and there was provision made for the education of the choristers attached to the several cathedral churches. In later times there were Grammar Schools founded by the burgh corporations. In 1496 an Act was passed requiring all "barons and freeholders" to keep their sons at these schools until they should be "competently founded," and have "perfect Latin," under pain of a fine of twenty pounds. A book, purporting to be the History of Scotland, was written in Latin by Hector Boece, the first Principal of the University of Aberdeen. The greater part of this book is purely imaginary. The Latin "Scotichronicon" of Fordun, was continued by Walter Bower, Abbot of Inchcolm, down to the middle of the fifteenth century. Besides the two kings James the First and Fifth, there were other notable poets in Scotland in the middle of the fifteenth century. Blind Harry, the Minstrel, then did for Wallace what about a century before Barbour had done for Bruce, by putting together all the popular stories of his deeds in a spirit-stirring poem that bears his hero's name. William Dunbar, a friar of the order of St. Francis, wrote a poem called The Thistle and the Rose, to celebrate the marriage of James the Fourth with Margaret Tudor. This, and the Golden Terge, and the Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, are the best among his writings. Gawin Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Dunkeld, the son of that Earl of Angus who was nicknamed Bell-the-Cat, also wrote several poems in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Those best known are King Hart, the Palace of Honour, and a translation of Virgil's Æneid. Some years after Douglas wrote, Sir David Lyndesay, the companion of James the Fifth's childhood, and the mourner of his untimely death, directed many clever satires against the abuses in the Church, the vices of the clergy, and the follies of the court. The Dreme, the Satire of the Three Estates, and the Monarchy, are his best poems.
39. Summary.—During this period, which extends over more than a century, the country made little progress either socially or politically. Of the five kings, all bearing the same name, who in turn wore the crown, four died violent deaths; and of these four, two were treacherously murdered by their own subjects. Most of them came to the throne in childhood; not one attained old age. Their reigns were chiefly passed in struggles to put down their lawless and turbulent nobles, who in each succeeding minority waxed more powerful and more independent. In the reigns of James the Second and of James the Fifth, this contest between the Crown and the Baronage took the form of a struggle between the House of Stewart and the House of Douglas. In both cases the King compassed the fall of his rival only by placing a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the other nobles. The foreign policy of Scotland under the Jameses was very simple. It consisted in maintaining a close alliance with France and a constant quarrel with England. But the French never gave the Scots any real help, and the English were so much taken up at home with the Civil Wars of the Roses that they made no serious attacks on the independence of Scotland. Though during this period there were four long minorities, there was no attempt made to break the regular line of succession. This was due partly to the attachment of the people to the royal line, and partly to the weakness of the royal authority, for the King had so little real power that the great nobles did not think the crown worth taking. The reign of James the Fourth was the most peaceful and prosperous, but James the First did the most for the welfare of the people.