132 TWO CHAPTERS ILLUSTRATIVE OF 



to be capable of vindication, bowever tbe partiality of interest and 

 feeling may give rise to an infinite diversity of moral judgment in 

 our estimates of principles and actions. 



A very capable judge, speaking of Burnett's History of his own 

 Times, has observed, that "this work of great instruction and amuse- 

 ment is the more interesting, as he seems to have relied almost en- 

 tirely on his memory, and very little on the public relations of the 

 events he relates. We have thus the impression of what was pass- 

 ing, as he received it from conversation and general opinion, instead 

 of a mere detail of facts, gleaned from the Gazette, and drawn upon 

 the facts without colour or perspective.'" 4 The truth of these ob- 

 servations, we think is strikingly illustrated in the different accounts 

 given by Spottiswood and Burnett, of James's behaviour on the tra- 

 gical death of his mother. In the following statement of the Arch- 

 bishopt, it is evidently his object to make the reader believe that 

 James, in the fulness of his grief and indignation at her death, was 

 resolved to come forth with the might of an avenger — to declare 

 open war against Elizabeth, if his particular favourites had not ex- 

 erted their influence to prevent him from adopting a measure so na- 

 tural in his situation. " When queen Elizabeth understood that the 

 messenger whom she had sent with a letter to the king, excusing 

 the fact of his mother's death, was returned without audience, she 

 laboured by her ministers, of whom she was ever well furnished, to 

 pacify his mind, and direct him from the war he had intended. 

 These working privately with the king's chief counsellors, and such 

 of his chamber as he was known to affect, dealt so, as they kept off* 

 things from breaking forth into open hostility, which was every day 

 expected." Whereas Burnett, in recording this delicate and impor- 

 tant transaction does not hesitate to say — " It is true, king James 

 sent one Steward, the ancestor of the Lord Blantyne, who was then 

 of his bed-chamber, with an earnest and threatening message to 

 Queen Elizabeth, for saving his mother. But in one of the inter- 

 cepted letters of the French ambassadors then in Scotland found 

 among Walsingham's papers, it appears, that the king, young as 

 be was then, was eitl er very double, or very inconstant in his reso- 

 lutions. The French Ambassador assured him, that Steward had 

 advised the queen to put a speedy end to that business which way 

 she pleased ; and that as for his master's anger, he would soon be 

 pacified, if she would out send him dogs and deer. The king was 



• See Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht, p. 376. 

 t History of the Church of Scotland, book vi, p. 'So'J. 



