CHAPTER X.

REGENCY OF MORTON.

1572-1577-1581.

THE death of the Regent Mar was naturally followed by the Regency of Morton. Few stranger souls than Morton existed even in the Scotland of the Reformation. The open licentiousness of his private life is, comparatively speaking, a high light on the darkness of his character, and proves that, in hypocrisy, he was not absolutely consistent. Double murderer as he was, he talked the speech of the godly with skill and freedom. His avarice may have been overstated he needed money for the king's government: he really had a care for the public weal, and his fall was partly due, like the unpopularity of Murray, to his salutary severities. He had the merit of detesting the interference of preachers with politics. Attached to his family, the Douglases, he appointed nonentities, murderers, and forgers of the name to bishoprics, minor livings, and seats on the bench of justice. He robbed rich and poor with equal ruthlessness. But he had the virtue of personal courage and stedfast resolution. No man did more to keep the preachers within bounds. By a system of fines he discouraged disorder. When the end came, and he followed others among Darnley's murderers to the scaffold, the ministers were sincerely sorry, for he was as stout a Protestant as Bothwell himself.

The Regency of Morton meant the ruin of the Castilians and of Mary's cause in Scotland. He let Elizabeth know, in short, that she must make up her mind. She must aid him with money, a pension, and artillery, or he would look elsewhere for assistance. On the day after Morton's election Knox expired (November 24, 1572). He had asked Morton if he had any knowledge of Darnley's murder, and Morton had lied.

DEATH OF KNOX (NOV. 24, 1572).

247

The first is

In

Of Knox we may cite two contemporary opinions. that of his secretary, Bannatyne: "This man of God, the light of Scotland, the comfort of the Kirk within the same, the mirror of godliness and pattern and example to all true ministers, in purity of life, soundness in doctrine, and in boldness in reproving of wickedness, and one that cared not the favour of men (how great soever they were) to reprove their abuses and sins."1 The other verdict is from the hand of the author of the Diurnal of Occurrents': "John Knox, minister, deceased in Edinburgh, who had, as was alleged, the most part of the blame of all the sorrows of Scotland, since the slaughter of the late Cardinal" (Beaton). The most severe of modern verdicts on Knox is that of Mr Froude: purity, in uprightness, in courage, truth, and stainless honour, the Regent Murray and our English Latimer were perhaps his equals.” As to Murray and purity, Knox had none of Murray's avarice: he betrayed no man: he took money from none, to none did he truckle. He even urged clemency on Murray, after Langside fight, and the Regent spared his future murderer Bothwellhaugh. But, as Lethington said, Knox "was a man subject unto vanity." As a historian, he is, necessarily, a partisan, and is credulous of evil about his adversaries, and apt to boast, as the heathen Odysseus declines to do, over dead men and women. As a Christian, Knox's fault was fighting parts of Scripture, and The "sweet reasonableness"

to confine his view too much to the to the denunciations of the prophets. of the Gospel was to him less attractive. He laid on men burdens too heavy to be borne, and tried to substitute for sacerdotalism the sway of preachers but dubiously inspired. His horror of political murder was confined to the murders perpetrated by his opponents. His intellect, once convinced of certain dogmas, remained stereotyped in a narrow mould. How little his theology affected, morally, the leaders of his party, every page in this portion of history tells. He was the greatest force working in the direction of resistance to constituted authority,-itself then usually corrupt, but sometimes better than anarchy tempered by political sermons. His efforts in favour of education, and of a proper provision for the clergy and the poor, were too far in advance of his age to be entirely successful. He bequeathed to Scotland a new and terrible war between the Kirk and the State. He was a wonderful force, but the force was rather that of Judaism than of the Gospel.

The new year, 1573, was marked by the tragedy of the castle,

248

PACIFICATION OF PERTH (FEB. 1573).

4

and the fall of Mary's party as a party in arms. In August 1572 Lethington had written to Mary in a tone almost of despair. Without money and aid from France, the castle must fall. The town was in the hands of the enemy, and Morton poisoned the wells near the castle. Sir James Balfour turned his coat, gaining a pardon from Morton (January 9, 1573). He was thought to be the deepest in the secret iniquity of Darnley's murder: later his knowledge was used to ruin Morton. Balfour, apparently, betrayed the Castilians just before their approaching fall. Like Knox, he had joined the assassins of Beaton, and with Knox had rowed in the galleys. He next alternately betrayed Mary of Guise and the Lords of the Congregation. As Clerk Registrar he is supposed to have prepared the band for Darnley's murder, and he betrayed the castle to Morton. In a meeting at Perth on February 23, 1573, he procured the pacification of most of Mary's party who deserted Kirkcaldy; he had refused to desert them; the Gordons and Hamiltons abandoned her, and the affair of Darnley's death was to be slurred over for the moment.5 Balfour passed on to other treacheries already, at a meeting of the Kirk and commissioners from the Three Estates, Episcopacy had been established, the beginning of countless evils.

The Castilians alone, since the pacification of Perth, and the surrender of Huntly and the Hamiltons, now supported Mary. James Kirkcaldy, with a large sum in French gold, had succeeded in landing at Blackness; but thence he could not move. The castle garrison suffered from want of water. Lethington could not endure the vibration of the gun-fire, and was laid "in the low vault of David's Tower." Surrender he dared not; the gibbet awaited him; Morton would never have let him go. Lethington knew too much. He persistently hoped that, from parsimony and fear of France, Elizabeth would never aid Morton with men and artillery. But Killigrew kept urging this course on her, and English engineers from Berwick sketched the fortifications, arranged and organised the attack, and justly estimated that it would occupy but a short time. James Kirkcaldy was captured by Morton, it is said, through the treachery of his wife; his gold was seized. A treaty had been arranged by Ruthven with Drury on April 17 to the following effect. The Crown property in the castle was to be retained for the king. Grange, Lethington, Lord Home, Sir Robert Melville, and Logan of Restalrig, if captured, were to be "justified" by

THE CASTLE SURRENDERS TO ENGLAND.

249

It

Scottish law, "wherein her majesty's advice shall be used." was not used in Grange's case; Restalrig, Hume, and Melville were more fortunate. An English force, with abundant artillery, now entered Edinburgh on April 25 under Drury. Trenches and mounds were dug and erected at close quarters. By May 17 thirty heavy guns were in position. The castle guns were in part silenced, and on May 26 the assault was given at The Spur, an outwork looking down the High Street. The Spur was taken, and a parley was called. Kirkcaldy and Robert Melville came out and had an interview with Drury. On May 28 Mary's flag was struck; the castle surrendered. In losing The Spur they lost their last poor supply of water; the garrison was exhausted and mutinous.

Among the captives were Lord Home, Lethington, Kirkcaldy, their wives, Lady Argyll, and Robert Melville.8 Morton would admit the chief prisoners (the whole garrison was but 200 men) to no terms; the Queen of England must decide their fate. They were carried to Drury's quarters as Elizabeth's prisoners. Morton, says Killigrew, "thinks them now fitter for God than for this world, for sundry considerations." They knew too much about Morton.9 Elizabeth (June 9) asked for information about their offences; Kirkcaldy and Lethington were in vain appealing to their old ally, Cecil, saying, "Forget not your own good natural." Happily for himself, Lethington died, doubtless of "his natural sickness.” His body lay unburied, some atrocities were intended against it; but his wife, Mary Fleming, successfully appealed to Cecil, supported by Atholl and Drury himself. Morton hanged Kirkcaldy on August 3. A hundred gentlemen of Scotland offered their services under man-rent" to the House of Douglas, if Morton would be merciful; nay, even offered £2000 yearly, and £20,000 worth of Mary's jewels. The preachers, he thought, clamoured for blood, and blood they must have. The prestige of the dead Knox would have been shaken if Kirkcaldy, for whom he prophesied hanging, had not died.10

In a more fortunate age Kirkcaldy might have been as honest as he was valiant. Indeed, if we may trust Sir James Melville, who certainly was much behind the scenes of diplomacy, Kirkcaldy's whole conduct while in the castle was that of a Bayard. Murray could trust him, though he could not trust Murray. When Morton first became Regent, Kirkcaldy might have made his peace on the

250

DEATH OF KIRKCALDY AND LETHINGTON.

best terms; but Morton would not in that case admit Huntly, the Hamiltons, and the rest of the queen's party to terms. Kirkcaldy, knowing this, preferred to be betrayed rather than to betray. He was free, we are told, from avarice and ambition. There can be no doubt that, to Melville, Kirkcaldy seemed a very perfect gentle knight.

In any age Lethington would have been pre-eminent as a politician. It is almost impossible to conjecture why he made the fatal error of entering into the plot of murdering Darnley. That unhappy prince was then no longer dangerous; and Lethington naturally, and for private reasons, detested Bothwell, from whom he had far more to dread than from Darnley. It has been guessed that he expected Bothwell to rush to ruin, and so himself to escape from two enemies by one murder. But Lethington's acquiescence in the deed of Kirk-o'-Field was his own bane; it drove him fatally into Mary's fated party, and the castle was so gallantly held from no romantic attachment to the queen (of which we hardly find a trace in the history of the Scots of the day), but merely because for Lethington there was no safety beyond its walls. Outside the circle of Mary's personal attendants, her ladies, and such men as Arthur Erskine and George and Willie Douglas, with possibly Herries, and, as far as he dared, Robert Melville, romance in Scotland had no effect upon politics, though in England it was otherwise. Men acted as their personal interests, or seeming interests, inspired them; and loving loyalty to the queen is a refraction from the Jacobite sentiment of a later time.

Lethington's brother, John, and Robert Melville were spared when Kirkcaldy died, Robert owing his safety to Elizabeth. He was for many months held a prisoner at Lethington Castle and elsewhere, continuing to intrigue for Mary after his release. His examination was taken on October 19 before the Commendator of Dunfermline and others, the questions asked covering the period since October 1568. We have quoted this document several times, in relation to the intrigues at York. If Melville spoke truth, Lesley in his examination before Cecil did not. Melville was closely examined as to Mary's jewels in the Castle, and Mary declared that Morton hanged Mossman, the goldsmith, to prevent her from learning where her jewels were. She acquitted the late Regent Murray of dishonest dealing as to these valuable objects, of which three great rubies, three great diamonds, and