44 Memoirs of the Earl of Marr. fan^ ll^ 

 received intelligence' of the resolution taken to im- 

 peach him of being privy to the murder of king 

 Henry ; and ofTering him her counsel, and support 

 to vindicate his irmocence*. 



Lennox having gotten pofsefsion of the fortrefs 

 of Dumbarton, of which he was appointed gover- 

 nor, and grown in the king's favour exceedingly, 

 yet, fearing the effects of the popular harangues of 

 the Scottifli clergy, he wiflied to deceive Morton and 

 the public by negociation. He appointed the 6th of 

 August to confer with Morton at Aberdour, to 

 which they came from a banquet at the Lord Liu- 

 desay's, but both of them sick of a flux, gotten, as 

 Bowes writes, at the banquet: the cohference was 

 forced to be delayed. During this time the king 

 remained at Alloa castle, the seat of Lord Marr, 

 •and from thence came to the dowager countefs of 

 Mart's house at Edinburgh, where he held a council 

 of state on the businefs of the reconciliation. 



All this appears to have been conducted in 

 James's favourite style of difsimulation, to deceive 

 Marr and the Englifh ambafsador f . 



* Cal. fol. 47. 



In Bowes's letter to Walsingkam, of the 19th of July, he gives an 

 account of his conference with Morton, concerning the plan of opera- 

 tio:.s, and his answer to the (^ueen, in which he advises an additional 

 pcniion of 2000 merks sterling, to the king, and proportionally to 

 his party, to keep them steady, and bring them to his purposes, 

 ^vhich, bad it been immediately afforded, would probably have saved 

 Morton, and rendered the violent measure^ of the friends of the 

 country unnecefsary. On the 29th Morton wrote liis letter with cy- 

 phers to the queen, referring to this con/erence with Bowes. 



Cal. FoI. 56. 



•f It appears by a letter from Sir John Foster to Sir Francis Wal- 

 'Jnji.Uain, fol. 74. Sept. 16. 1 j^^o, that Lcuno2<> and tli; (jueen of Scot;, 



