[103] The only incident that tells for the "constitutional" interpretation is the refusal of the Lords of the Articles to allow the king to aid Louis XI of France in 1473. But the action of the Estates was simply the action of the chancellor, Evandale, and his party, who ruled the king with a rod of iron. It is very likely that there was, especially among the clergy, a strong general feeling against going to war, and this feeling strengthened the king's jailers. But the opposition of a small ruling clique of nobles to the whim of a powerless monarch is scarcely to be regarded as a great constitutional fact. It must also be remembered that the few who constituted the Lords of the Articles were virtually the Estates.
[104] William Elphinstone.
[105] History of Greater Britain, p. 352 (Scottish Hist. Soc. ed.).
[106] Pedro de Ayala to Ferdinand and Isabella, 25 July 1498 (Spanish Calendar, i. no. 210). The context shows that the remark was incidental, and was induced by an allusion by the ambassador to the king's behaviour in battle.
[107] Lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen, pp. 102-5 (New Spalding Club ed.).
[108] The burgesses and "a parte of the nobilitie" had petitioned for the act (Laing, Knox, i. 100).
[109] In 1558, indeed, before the outbreak of hostilities, the Lords of the Congregation asked the queen-regent to abrogate the acts against heresy, and Mary made the pretext of her refusal the difficulty of obtaining the consent of the prelates (Spottiswood, History of the Church of Scotland, sub anno 1558).
[110] Laing, Knox, ii. 87.
[111] For other important points in connection with this Parliament, cf. supra, pp. 24-5.
[112] Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James Melville, p. 370 (Wodrow Society). The year is 1596.