Baron of Merchiston. 85 



the Continent, probably to complete bis education, as was 

 customary among Scotch persons of distinguished rank. 

 Having returned to Merchiston in 1571, he married in the 

 following year ; and, confining himself to his retreat, he 

 divided his time between two chief occupations, the dis- 

 charge of domestic affairs, with which his father had 

 entrusted him, and mathematical and theological studies, 

 for each of which he appears to have had an equal liking. 

 But, in spite of his life of repose, he was too often forced 

 to leave his asylum, either in order to escape the attacks of 

 the military, or to take upon him the sole defence which 

 his position and his religious opinions dictated, in the reli- 

 gious transactions of the time. There we can trace his 

 actions, by the aid of numerous documents which his bio- 

 grapher has collected ; and the study of the mental ideas 

 which he carried upon the theatre of earthly affairs will 

 not be superfluous in order to complete the philosophical 

 view in which we ought to regard him. 



It was at this time that the crisis of reform agitated 

 Scotland most violently. James VI:, afterwards James I. 

 of England, occupied the throne; a prince habitually weak, 

 and sometimes possessing the power of exhibiting a certain 

 firmness, not destitute of information, or rather, erudition, 

 and rendering himself almost always ridiculous by his want 

 of tact, in the selfish exhibition of his religious duties ; 

 tormented by the continual revolts of his stubborn vassals, 

 by the daily increasing audacious exactions of the reformed 

 party, whose puritanism distrusted him in consequence of 

 his leaning to the Catholics ; rendered uneasy, also, by the 

 ambitious Elizabeth, who laid for him constantly a thousand 

 snares, impatient as she was of beholding in him her direct 

 and unavoidable successor, and one who was sprung from 

 blood which her jealousy as a woman, and her politics as a 

 queen, had shed. 



In this state of peril and misery the poor King of Scot- 

 land remained for a long time, hoping always for some 

 favourable change. Among these struggles of puritan- 

 ism and royalty the Baron of Merchiston appeared upon 

 tin- scene. He took part in those Presbyterian Synods 

 which harrasscd the King with indefatigable audacity with 

 their fanatical exactions from the Catholics, whom, in their 



