THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF JAMES I. 131 



following document* as one of more intrinsic historical value than 

 that to which we have just referred. We will not agitate this ques- 

 tion, hut intreat the reader to helieve us, as willing as himself can 

 be, to admit all possible palliations for the conduct of James ; since 

 it never can he matter of indifference to this country that the memo- 

 ry of any one of its past kings should undeservedly he consigned to 

 infamy. We will, then, only contend that the first cited document 

 contains a triumphant refutation of the charge, that Burnett here 

 exhibits that perverse fecundity of imagination which leads a man 

 to invent circumstances such as nothing but the grossest prejudice 

 or infatuation could have invented. " The 7th of February, 1592, 

 (beginning the yeir in January), the Earle of Huntly and his fol- 

 lowers killed the Earle of Muaray at Duninbarste (for) the slaughter 

 of John Gordone, brother of Sir Thomas Gordone of Clunie, com- 

 mitted by the Earl of Muaray at Turnolbay, the — December, 

 1590, the Earle of Huntly obtayned a comisso from his majestie to 

 pursue such as did manteyne or harbour the Earle of Bothwell, by 

 virtue whereof he proceeded against the Earl of Muaray, as ane 

 harb — of him. Whereupon ther sprang a great heartburning and 

 deadlie feud. — Huntlie and the Earle of Muaray 's friends."t 



,We are, lastly, told by Higgons, that Burnett worries King 

 James as he did his grandson, Charles II., with a most rabid fury, 

 because he affirms " it is certain no king could die less lamented or 

 less esteemed than he was." But he who looks calmly and compre- 

 hensively at the conduct of this monarch with respect to his mother, 

 to Raleigh, and to Somerset, will find great difficulty in believing it 



"O! bonny Earl of Murray 

 He was the queen's love," 

 gives an appearance of reality and strength to some historical charges of his 

 having carried on a criminal intercourse with the queen. But even admit- 

 ting her majesty's gallantries, which have been so pointedly glanced at by 

 several other cotemporaries, could be verified, a more lawful species of retri- 

 butive justice might surely have been resorted to by the king, than that 

 barharous one recorded in the narrative of* our text. 



* The History of James, the Sixth Kiruj of Scotland, with the instability of his 

 liiiji /its, and their unhappy Ends. — Harleian MS., 681 . Robertson seems not 

 to have been acquainted witli the paper to which we have referred. His ac- 

 count of* the transaction, therefore, tallies with that of Spottiswood. But the 

 well-known prepossessions of that popular historian in favour of the Stuart 

 line, particularly of the unfortunate Mary, would not render him very anx- 

 ious to confirm by new evidence the statement of Burnett. 



f The Slaughter of the Earle of Muaray, — See MS. in the Cottonian Li- 

 brary, Caligula, D. i, fo. 1536, apparently written about the time. 



