179^' Memoirs of the Eai-l of Marr. y 



the Earl of Marr, with whom he knew his surety- 

 was greater than if he should be at the devotion 

 of those that caused the present troubles, whose 

 meanings towards him, could be no better than id 

 had been in times past *. After this, the whole 

 matter of the ecclesiastical discipline of the kirk 

 of Scotland was adjusted ; and it is foreign to my 

 purpose, to enter into the detail of any tranfaction 

 in which Marr was not immediately concerned -f-. 

 In the year 1579, Marr was joined in a commifsion 

 with the earls of Morton and Eglinton, the lords 

 Cathcart, Ruthven and Boyd, to seize the persons 

 and estates of the lords John and Claud Hamiltons, 

 who had the lands of Hamilton, during the insani- 

 ty of Arran. And this, on account of their supposed 

 accefsion to the murder of Murray and Lennox, 

 which excepted them from the general indemnity- 

 stipulated by the treaty of Perth. 

 . On the 8th of September, Esme Stuart, lord 

 i'Aubigny, the king's near kinsman, being descend- 



* Spottiswoode. 



■f Dr Robertson, in his history of Mary Queen of Scots, has, \vlt!j 

 great propriety, had recourse to Calderwood's large manuscript history 

 of the church, in the archives of the general afsenibly, for determi- 

 ning the minute particulars of this confused and barbarous period ofour 

 Scottish annals ; from whence Spottiswoode and Crawfurd had drawn 

 their information. This manuscript of Calderwood ought to be print- 

 ed ; and were a subscription opened I have no doubt that it would foon 

 be filled, and the work presented to the public with suitable notes 

 biographical and political. Such as may desire to support this under- 

 'taking, would do vrell to announce their names to the Editor of thi? 

 Miscellany, when a bookseller would be found to put it to the prefs, witlt 

 consent of the commifsioners and procurator of the church of Scot ■• 



