Nobilitas, animus, probitas, sapientia, virtus,
Consilium, imperium, pectora sancta, fides,
Cuncta mihi simul hæc instant certamine magno:
Ut sibi, sic certant viribus ista meis;
Ipsi adeo Aonides cum vellent dicere, cedunt
Sponte sua numeris, hæc, Buchanane, tuis.
Johannis Jonstoni Heroes, p. 31, 32
Lugduni Batavorum, 1603.
Knox, among others, warned the regent of the designs which his enemies had formed against his life. “When the Mr ofGrahame (says Bannatyne) come and drew him to Dumbartane, he [Knox] plainlie said to the regent then, that it was onlie done for a trane be that meanis to cut him off, as it came to pas; also when he was in Stirveling, being returned from Dumbartane, he sent me to my ladie the regentis wyfe, tuo sundrie tymes, and desyrit her to signifie my lord her husband, that he suld not come to Lynlythgow. So that gif his counsall had bene followed, he had not died at that tyme. And my ladie the last tyme sent Mr Jhone Wood, to desyre him to avoid Lynlythgow. But God thought vs not worthy of sic a rewlare above vs, and also he wald thereby have the wickitnes of vthers knawin, whilk then was hid; and therefore did God then tak him fra us. But lat the Hamiltonis, the lard of Grange, with the rest of that factione, lay their compt and recken thair advantage and wining since.” Bannatyne’s Journal, p. 428, 429. The intrepidity of Murray prompted him to despise these prudential admonition, and defeated the precaution of his friends.
Mr Scott has, by a poetical license, introduced the Reformer as present at Linlithgow, to grace the regent’s fall.