weep than bearded men." These words m a deep impression on the king's mind, and never forgotten. The conspirators, without garding his tears or indignation, dismissed suc his followers as they suspected allowed none their own party to have access to him; and thou they treated him with great respect, guarded his person with the utmost care. This enterprise is usually called by our historians The Raid of Ruthven.

Lennox and Arran were astonished to the last degree at an event so unexpected, and so fatal to their power. The former endeavoured, but without success, to excite the inhabitants of Edinburgh to take arms in order to rescue their sovereign from captivity. The latter, with his usual impetuosity, mounted on horseback the moment he heard what had befallen the king, and with a few followers rode towards Ruthven castle; and as a considerable body of the conspirators, under the command of the earl of Mar, lay in his way ready to oppose him, he separated himself from his companions, and with two attendants arrived at the gate of the castle. At the sight of a man so odious to his country, the indignation of the conspirators rose, and instant death must have been the punishment of his rashness, if the friendship of Gowrie, or some other cause not explained by our historians, had not saved a life so pernicious to the kingdom. He was confined, however, to the castle of Stirling, without being admitted into the king's presence.

The king, though really the prisoner of his own subjects, with whose conduct he could not help discovering many symptoms of disgust, was obliged to publish a proclamation, signifying his approbation of their enterprise, declaring that he himself was at full liberty, without any restraint or

violence offered to his person; and forbidding any attempt against those concerned in the Raid of Ruthven, under pretence of rescuing him out of their hands. At the same time he commanded Lennox to leave Scotland before the 20th of September.

Lennox, whose amiable and gentle qualities had procured him many friends, and who received private assurances that the king's favour towards him was in no degree abated, seemed resolved at first to pay no regard to a command extorted by violence, and no less disagreeable to James than it was rigorous with regard to himself. But the power of his enemies, who were masters of the king's person, who were secretly supported by Elizabeth, and openly applauded by the clergy, deterred him from an enterprise, the success of which was dubious, and the danger certain both to himself and to his sovereign. He put off the time of his departure by various artifices, in expectation either that James might make his escape from the conspirators, or that fortune might present some more favourable opportunity of taking arms for his relief.

After eluding many commands to depart out of the kingdom, he was at last, however, obliged to begin his journey. He lingered, however, for some time in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, as if he had still intended to make one effort towards restoring the king to liberty. But either from the gentleness of his own disposition, averse to bloodshed and the disorders of civil war, or from some other cause unknown to us, he abandoned the design, and set out for France by the way of England. The king issued the order for his departure with no less reluctance than the duke obeyed it; and both mourned a separation which neither of them had power to prevent. Soon after

his arrival in France, the fatigue of the journey or the anguish of his mind threw him into a fever. In his last moments, he discovered such a firm adherence to the protestant faith, as fully vindicates his memory from the imputation of an attachment to popery, with which he had been uncharitably loaded in Scotland. As he was the earliest and best beloved, he was perhaps the most deserving, though not the most able, of all James's favourites. The warmth and tenderness of his master's affection for him was not abated by death itself. By many acts of kindness and generosity towards his posterity, the king not only did great honour to the memory of Lennox, but set his own character in one of the most favourable points of view.

Arran was permitted for some time to reside at Kinneil, one of his country scats. When James regained his liberty, his love for him began to revive, and he expressed a strong desire to see him. The courtiers violently opposed the return of a minion whose insolent and overbearing temper they dreaded as much as the nation detested his crimes. James, however, continued his importunity, and promising that he should continue with him no longer than one day, they were obliged to yield. This interview rekindled ancient affection; the king forgot his promise; Arran regained his ascendant over him, and within a few days resumed the exercise of power with all the arrogance of an undeserving favourite, and all the rashness peculiar to himself.

The first effect of his influence was a proclamation with regard to those concerned in the Raid of Ruthven. They were required to acknowledge their crime in the humblest manner; and the king promised to grant them a full pardon, provided their future conduct were such as did not oblige him to remember past miscarriages. The tenor of

this proclamation was extremely different from the act of oblivion which the conspirators had been encouraged to expect. Nor did any of them reckon it safe to rely on a promise clogged with such an equivocal condition, and granted by a young prince, under the influence of a minister void of faith, regardless of decency, and transported by the desire of revenge even beyond the usual ferocity of his temper. Many of the leaders who had at first appeared openly at court retired to their own houses, and foreseeing the dangerous storm which was gathering, began to look out for a retreat in foreign countries.

Elizabeth, who had all along protected the conspirators, was extremely disgusted with measures which tended so visibly to their destruction, and wrote to the king a harsh and haughty letter, reproaching him in a style very uncommon among princes, with breach of faith in recalling Arran to court, and with imprudence in proceeding so rigorously against his best and most faithful subjects. James with a becoming dignity replied, that promises extorted by violence, and conditions yielded out of fear, were no longer binding when these were removed; that it belonged to him alone to choose what ministers he would employ in his service; and that though he resolved to treat the conspirators at Ruthven with the utmost clemency, it was necessary, for the support of his authority, that such an insult on his person should not pass altogether uncensured.

When Elizabeth afterwards found it prudent, in consequence of the union between the House of Guise and Philip II. made avowedly with the intention of invading England, to recover her influence over the Scottish counsels, that she might be in no danger of being attacked within the island; she resolved to endeavour to gain over the earl of

Arran to her interest, as not only the easiest and speediest, but most certain method of success. With this view, she sent Davison, one of her principal secretaries, a man of abilities and address, into Scotland. A minister so venal as Arran, hated by his own countrymen, and holding his power by the most precarious of all tenures, the favour of a young prince, accepted Elizabeth's offers without hesitation, and deemed the acquisition of her protection to be the most solid foundation of his own greatness. Soon after he consented to an interview with lord Hunsdon, the governor of Berwick, and being honoured with the pompous title of lieutenant general for the king, he appeared at the place appointed with a splendid train. In Hunsdon's presence he renewed his promises of an inviolable and faithful attachment to the English interest, and assured him that James should enter into no negotiation which might tend to interrupt the peace between the two kingdoms; and as Elizabeth began to entertain the same fears and jealousies concerning the king's marriage, which had formerly disquieted her with regard to his mother's, he undertook to prevent James from listening to any overture of that kind, until he had previously obtained the queen of England's consent.

Arran had now possessed for some time all the power, the riches, and the honours, that his immoderate ambition could desire, or the fondness of a prince, who set no limits to his liberality towards his favourites, could bestow. The office of lord chancellor, the highest and most important in the kingdom, was conferred upon him, even during the life of the earl of Argyll, who succeeded Athol in that dignity; and the public beheld, with astonishment and indignation, a man educated as a soldier of fortune, ignorant of law, and a contemner of justice, appointed to preside in parliament, in the privy