red independent of her was dangerous; the treatment her ambassadors had met with, differed greatly from the respect with which the Scots were in use to receive her ministers; and the attack now made on Morton, fully convinced her that there was an intention to sow the seeds of discord between the two nations, and to seduce James into a new alliance with France, or into a marriage with some popish princess. Full of these apprehensions, she ordered a considerable body of troops to be assembled on the borders of Scotland, and despatched Randolph as her ambassador into that kingdom. He addressed himself not only to James, and to his council, but to a convention of estates met at that time. He began with enumerating the extraordinary benefits which Elizabeth had conferred on the Scottish nation; and concluded with stating, that she had observed, of late, an unusual coldness, distrust, and estrangement, in the Scottish council, which she could impute to none but to Lennox, a subject of France, a retainer to the house of Guise, bred up in the errors of popery, and still suspected of favouring that superstition. Not satisfied with having mounted so fast to such an uncommon height of power, which he exercised with all the rashness of youth, and all the ignorance of a stranger; nor thinking it enough to have deprived the earl of Morton of the authority due to his abilities and experience, he had conspired the ruin of that nobleman, who had often exposed his life in the king's cause, who had contributed more than any other subject to place him on the throne, to resist the encroachments of popery, and to preserve the union between the two kingdoms. If any zeal for religion remained among the nobles of Scotland, if they wished for the continuance of amity with England, if they valued the privileges of their own order, he called upon them, in the name of

his mistress, to remove such a pernicious counsellor as Lennox from the presence of the young king, to rescue Morton out of the hands of his avowed enemy, and secure to him the benefit of a fair and impartial trial. And if force were necessary towards accomplishing a design, so salutary to the king and kingdom, he promised them the protection of his mistress in the enterprise, and whatever assistance they should demand either of men or money.

But these extraordinary remonstrances, accompanied with such an unusual appeal from the king to his subjects, were not the only means employed by Elizabeth in favour of Morton, and against Lennox. She persuaded the prince of Orange to send an agent into Scotland, and under colour of complimenting James on account of the valour which many of his subjects had displayed in the service of the states, to enter into a long detail of the restless enterprises of the popish princes against the protestant religion; to beseech him to adhere inviolably to the alliance with England, the only barrier which secured his kingdom against their dangerous cabals; and above all things, to distrust the insinuations of those who endeavoured to weaken or to dissolve that union between the British nations, which all the protestants in Europe beheld with so much pleasure.

James's counsellors were too intent upon the destruction of their enemy to listen to these remonstrances. The officious interposition of the prince of Orange, the haughty tone of Elizabeth's message, and so avowed an attempt to excite subjects to rebel against their sovereign, were considered as unexampled insults on the majesty and independence of a crowned head. A general and evasive answer was given to Randolph. James prepared to assert his own dignity with spirit. All those suspected of favouring Morton were turned out of

office; some of them were required to surrender themselves prisoners; the fencible men throughout the kingdom were commanded to take arms and troops were levied and posted on the borders. The English ambassador, finding that neither the public manifesto which he had delivered to the convention, nor his private cabals with the nobles, could excite them to arms, fled in the night time out of Scotland, where libels against him had been daily published, and even attempts made upon his life. In both kingdoms every thing wore an hostile aspect. But Elizabeth, though she wished to have intimidated the Scottish king by her preparations, had no inclination to enter into a war with him; and the troops on the borders, which had given such umbrage, were soon dispersed.

The greater solicitude Elizabeth discovered for Morton's safety, the more eagerly did his enemies drive on their schemes for his destruction. Captain Stewart, his accuser, was first appointed tutor to the earl of Arran, and soon after both the title and estate of his unhappy ward, to which he advanced some frivolous claim, were conferred upon him. The new-made peer was commanded to conduct Morton from Dunbarton to Edinburgh, and, by that choice, the earl was not only warned what fate he might expect, but had the cruel mortification of seeing his mortal enemy already loaded with honours, in reward of the malice with which he had contributed to his ruin.

The records of the court of justiciary at this period are lost. The account which our historians give of Morton's trial is inaccurate and unsatisfactory. The whole proceedings seem to have been violent, irregular, and oppressive. Arran, in order to extort evidence, tortured several of the earl's domestics with unusual cruelty. During the trial, great bodies of armed men were drawn up in dif

ferent parts of the city. The jury was composed of the earl's known enemies; and though he challenged several of them, his objections were overruled. After a short consultation, his peers found him guilty of concealing, and of being art and part in the conspiracy against the life of the late king. The first part of the verdict did not surprise him, but he twice repeated the words art and part with some vehemence, and added, "God knows it is not so." The doom which the law decrees against a traitor was pronounced. The king, however, remitted the cruel and ignominious part of the sentence, and appointed that he should suffer death next day, by being beheaded.

During that awful interval, Morton possessed the utmost composure of mind. He supped cheerfully; slept a part of the night in his usual manner, and employed the rest of his time in religious conferences, and in acts of devotion with some ministers of the city. The clergymen who attended him, dealt freely with his conscience, and pressed his crimes home upon him. What he confessed with regard to the crime for which he suffered, is remarkable, and supplies, in some measure, the imperfection of our records. He acknowledged, that on his return from England, after the death of Rizio, Bothwell had informed him of the conspiracy against the king, which the queen, as he told him, knew of and approved; that he solicited him to concur in the execution of it, which at that time he absolutely declined; that soon after, Bothwell himself, and Archibald Douglas, in his name, renewing their solicitations to the same purpose, he had required a warrant under the queen's hand, authorizing the attempt, and as that had never been produced, he had refused to be any farther concerned in the matter. "But," continued he, " as I neither consented to this treasonable act, nor assisted in the com

mitting of it, so it was impossible for me to reveal, or to prevent it. To whom could I make the discovery? The queen was the author of the enterprise. Darnly was such a changeling that no secret could be safely communicated to him. Huntly and Bothwell, who bore the chief sway in the kingdom, were themselves the perpetrators of the crime.' These circumstances, it must be confessed, go some length towards extenuating Morton's guilt; and though his apology for the favour he had shewn to Archibald Douglas, whom he knew to be one of the conspirators, be far less satisfactory, no uneasy reflections seem to have disquieted his own mind on that account. When his keepers told him that the guards were attending, and all things in readiness, "I praise my God," said he, "I am ready likewise." Arran commanded these guards; and even in those moments, when the most implacable hatred is apt to relent, the malice of his enemies could not forbear this insult. On the scaffold his behaviour was calm; his countenance and voice unaltered; and after some time spent in devotion, he suffered death with the intrepidity which became the name of Douglas. His head was placed on the public gaol of Edinburgh; and his body, after lying till sunset on the scaffold, covered with a beggarly cloak, was carried by common porters to the usual burial-place of criminals. None of his friends durst accompany it to the grave, or discover their gratitude and respect by any symptoms of sorrow.

JOHN KNOX.

THIS eminent man was the hero of the reformation in Scotland. At an early period of life he imbibed the principles of the protestants from the famous George Wishart. Instead of being intimi