THE POST-NATI (1608). blended with a country which disdained them. 501 Finally, nothing but the "abolition of all memory of hostility, and the repression of occasions of disorder," was recorded. Border prisoners, usually taken on charges of raiding and violence, were to be tried in their own countries. The case of the Post-nati was at last settled by a suit, in 1608, raised in the name of Richard Colvin, a child born in Scotland the third year of James's tenure of the English Crown. Bacon argued that, to prove the child an alien, and incapable of holding land, say, in Shoreditch, it was necessary to prove that he owned allegiance to a foreign prince. It was decided that Colvin and all Post-nati were natural-born subjects of the king of England, and "enabled to purchase and have freehold and inheritance of lands in England, and to bring real actions for the same in England." The case fills nearly four hundred columns in the State Trials. The Chancellor and twelve judges decided this matter by a majority of eleven to two votes. A topic of keen interest to the politicians of the day, but of little moment in national history, was the affair of Balmerino. This gentleman, originally known as James Elphinstone of Innernauchty, and after 1604 as Lord Balmerino, had become a judge in 1587, and was one of the Board of Treasury Control styled "the Octavians" in the agitated year 1596. In 1598 he was made Secretary, holding the important post so long possessed by Maitland of Lethington. In 1598 and 1599, as we have already seen, there were some tentative traffickings between James and Rome, and a letter signed by James, and addressing the Pope as "Father," "blessed," and so on, arrived at the hands of his Holiness. In September 1608 a summons to England reached Balmerino, and this presaged the close of his career in disgrace. The cause was this-James, ever since 1604, had been, reluctantly or not, a persecutor of Puritans, Presbyterians, and Catholics. Nobody was to dwell in his realm, as he had previously said, who was not of his own religion or religions-Anglican in England, and, in Scotland, the Presbyterianism of an auto-pope, if the term may be allowed. James was not content with edicts. In 1607 he produced an antipapal work," Triplici Nodo, Triplex Cuneus," defending the oaths of allegiance to himself against Paul V. and Cardinal Bellarmine. The Cardinal, writing as "Matthæus Tortus," replied in 1608. James was rebuked for his religious veerings, and especially for having long ago written a polite letter to the Pope, Clement VIII., and another to 502 FALL OF BALMERINO. Cardinal Bellarmine, asking that a hat might be given to his subject, Chisholme, Bishop of Vaison. At that time (1598-99) the existence of a Scottish cardinal, to reply to the attacks of English Catholic supporters of the Infanta, would have been useful to James. He was never a true-blue Protestant. He did not think that the Pope was the Beast; and he revered as his mother Church the Church of Rome. He did not regard her as the Scarlet Woman sitting on the Seven Hills, "as if ane," quoth Andrew Fairservice, was na braid eneugh for her auld hurdies." But, since 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, and the need of some victim to throw to the preachers, had modified the very proper and historically correct sentiments of the king. Now Cardinal Bellmarine recalled the polite letter of James to the Pope, in his book replying to the "Triplex Cuneus." Balmerino, then Elphinstone, had been Secretary in 1598, and Balmerino was called to court to explain how the polite letter, signed by James, had been sent to the pontiff. Balmerino met James, Archbishop Spottiswoode, Dunbar, and other important Scottish officials, at Royston. There is no doubt that Spottiswoode was intriguing against the secular influence of Balmerino. That statesman, after his disgrace, left a private memoir with his own account of the whole affair. The gist may be given in his own words, "A plot is secretly contrived that I shall be brought to a confession [oral] of it," (that is, of fraudulently inducing James to sign a letter to the Pope written by Elphinston) "his majesty to disallow it . . . and consequently, my undoing.”5 Balmerino denied that, in this letter, James had promised either to turn Catholic (as the report went) or, when King of England, to tolerate Catholics. Here he told the truth, as the Pope's reply to the letter attributed to James suffices to prove. But Balmerino confessed the part as to procuring a cardinal's hat for a Scottish subject. Sir Alexander Hay (who had been appointed his adjunct in the Scottish secretaryship) induced him to confess this much, "the simple truth." Balmerino admitted that he himself had written, or caused Sir Edward Drummond to write, the ordinary forms of address, Pater, and so forth, into the letter which, in 1598, James had signed. Sir Alexander Hay was a witness of a repetition of this confession. Balmerino was then ordered under arrest, though he was unaware of it, and was told to make his confession in writing. He now realised that his ruin was intended-he had thought that his previous oral admis CONFESSIONS OF BALMERINO. 503 sions were only for the king's private satisfaction. He asked for delay, and for time to procure the evidence of Sir Edward Drummond, who had been with him in 1598. Balmerino was next examined before the English Privy Council, just as Andrew Melville had been. He extracted from them the admission that they could not judge him, that he must be tried before his ordinary judge." They could not entangle him, he says, and Lord Balfour of Burleigh was sent to him to advise a confession entirely exculpating the king, with assurance that his life and estate should not be imperilled. Balmerino tried, meanwhile, to make terms with Dunbar. "If he desired Restalrig, he should have it for the price I bought it." In fact, Balmerino had bought Restalrig from the impoverished Logan in 1605; and, when Logan died in July 1606, Balmerino still owed eighteen thousand marks of the price, as appears from Logan's will. Dunbar himself also owed to Logan's estate fifteen thousand marks of the purchase money of the property of Flemington, which he escaped paying, through the forfeiture of Logan's heir in 1609.6 Dunbar was apparently pleased by Balmerino's offers, and Balmerino thought that his life and lands were now secure if he exonerated James from the letter to the Pope. Consequently he "put himself in James's will," that is, would not defend himself. He declared that the Latin letter to the Pope was placed, among others, before James, that the king signed the heap, and that Drummond wrote in terms of address to the Pope as Pater, and the rest, at the beginning and end of the epistle. Balmerino also confessed that, to the ambassador of Elizabeth, he had denied all the facts, and had made Drummond corroborate his denial. Elizabeth had probably learned the truth through the Master of Gray, who corresponded both with Cecil and with the Roman court, as we have already shown (p. 440). Having secured these formal confessions from Balmerino, Salisbury (Robert Cecil) made them the basis of a charge of high treason, also of forgery of James's handwriting. Balmerino was wheedled into signing this document charging him with treason on the understanding that it was merely for the king's personal satisfaction. Being arraigned before, and scolded by the Council, he was again. persuaded not to defend himself. James is said to have been skulking behind the arras, or in some Ear of Dionysius, while his English sycophants railed at his Scottish minister. Balmerino was removed from the Council and "warded" at Falkland. He was 504 CONSECRATION OF BISHOPS (1610). then tried and convicted, merely on his own confession, at St Andrews, still abstaining from self-defence, in the king's interest, and in the belief that his life and lands were secure. But he was kept in close captivity, through the treachery of Dunbar and Sir Alexander Hay, "As for others of our nation who have little regard wherefore I suffer at Englishmen's hands, God forgive them!" His country, he says, is "miserable, coming in a vile servitude, the foresight whereof is all my wrack." Thus, in Balmerino's opinion, he was put at by Spottiswoode and Dunbar, because he was too good a "Scottisman," and opposed the "servitude" of his country. Balmerino died in 1612.7 Sir Alexander Hay, the blackest of traitors except Dunbar, if we accept Balmerino's view, was now left alone in the Scottish secretaryship. For a considerable time there is nothing of interest to record in domestic affairs, setting aside the reduction of the Borders and the Highlands. There were official changes and experiments in the control of finance, and Mr Archibald Primrose, writer, with his son James, now clerk of the Council, became men of official importance. The death of Dunbar (January 29, 1611) caused many shiftings in State offices, and Calderwood fires the salute of a most unseemly scandal over the dead statesman's grave. Dunbar was, perhaps, rather more unscrupulous than most public men of his age, but he was a person of great energy and of conciliatory manners. It seems certain that he much disliked the policy towards the Kirk with which he was entrusted. Cranstoun, now Lord Cranstoun, succeeded him in his Border lieutenancy; the treasurership was practically placed in the hands of a commission of eight, "the New Octavians," with Dunfermline for chief, and Lord Advocate Hamilton for one of the members. Cranstoun was succeeded in the Border lieutenancy by Ker of Ancrum the new favourite of James (Ker, later Rochester, later Somerset), being supposed to have influenced the royal choice. After a series of changes the King's Advocate became Secretary of State, and Sir Alexander Hay, Clerk Register. The only great noble of position in James's administration was the young Marquis of Hamilton, of the third generation from the Duke of Châtelherault of Queen Mary's reign.9 : It was in 1610 that James crowned his prelatical edifice by having Spottiswoode and two bishops consecrated by three English bishops (York and Canterbury being excluded). The consecrated REFORMS OF ADMINISTRATION. 505 three could now pass on any apostolical virtue which Anglican bishops are able to confer to their brethren in Scotland. These were no longer mere parliamentary officials, but bishops with as much mystical quality as Scotland could desire or dislike. Occasionally a minister who preached in a semblance of the old tone was put at; but between banishments, imprisonments, and other inflictions, the watchmen of the Kirk were practically reduced to silence the hearts of such as Calderwood burning within them. ❞ 10 In the matter of public order James took a lesson from England, and, in 1610, appointed a number of Commissioners or Justices of the Peace," godly, wise, and virtuous gentlemen, of good quality, estate, and repute." Their duties were much what they so long continued to be, they were county magistrates having constables under them. The Selkirkshire justices complain of the unruliness of the town, the want of money, the depression in sheep-farming, the numbers of sturdy men who will not work, and of willing workers for whom there is no employment. They suggest the making of public roads.11 The system, though opposed now by the towns, now by the recalcitrant gentry, struck root, though the constabulary was scanty and probably as inefficient as that of Dogberry. Meanwhile the settlement of Ulster by Scottish immigrants was being worked out, though the enterprisers were obviously, from their names and ranks, but a feeble folk, with more speculative tendency than capital. In 1611 the lists of enterprisers contain nobler names. The house of Ochiltree (the house of the daring captain who overthrew Morton, and of the bride of Knox), with the Abercorn Hamiltons, emigrated to Ulster. Among other noted names of adventurers whose families did not emigrate are those of Lennox, Balfour of Burleigh, Stewart of Minto, and Murray of Broughton, while Andrew Knox, that warlike preacher and prelate, became Bishop of Raphoe. As the settlers brought over hosts of their workmen and dependants, Ulster rapidly became sufficiently Scotticised. The year 1612 was clearly marked by nature as portentous. "A cow brought forth fourteen great dog whelps instead of calves," a circumstance inexplicable to the naturalist. Another COW expired in giving birth to a human infant, which did not survive, and a third cow's calf had two heads.12 These things do not occur without some mysterious reason, but nothing very remarkable happened till the Parliament in October, which ratified the Acts of the Episcopalian General Assembly of 1610, without retaining the |