JAMES IV. (OF SCOTLAND). 



JAMKS L (OF ENGLAND). 



prateoc of nuch confusion. This act wu the foundation of the ' oloM 

 lystem,' which wu only remedied by the Burgh Reform Act for 

 Scotland. The same jwir the Act 1469, c, SO, wu paasod, subjecting 

 all notaries to the examination nd authority of the Ordinary. This 

 act WM passed to pin** the clergy, who had the ear of the king. 

 The lattrr indwd appears to have been the known clave of hit eccle- 

 aiaatic*, and Sir James Balfour (' Annals of Scotland,' an. 1481) 

 records a trick played off upon him by King Edward IV. of England, 

 who trimmed up a person in the habit of a papal legate, and aeut him 

 to Jamee with injunctions and excommunication! in the name of hit 

 Holiurn. The imposition succeeded completely. The king took up 

 alao with low favourites, and on their account involved himself in a 

 quarrel with his nobler, which ended in the encounter at Bannock- 

 burn. Th king fled in fright from the field, and falling from his 

 horse was ' haded ' into a miller's cottage, where, on being discovered, 

 he was secretly killed and carried off, nobody knew where (Pitscottie, 

 220). The king's death took place in June 1488, in the thirty-Bfth 

 year of hii age. 



JAMKS IV., King of Scotland, son of James III., was about fifteen 

 years old at his accession to the throne, which took place on the llth 

 of June 1488. He was of an active disposition, full of life and vigour ; 

 and in his time the commerce and literature of the country flourished 

 under his encouragement. But though he possessed not a few of the 

 element* of a great mind, he unfortunately became the slave of super- 

 stition, and thence in his public conduct a mere tool in the hands of 

 hi* clergy. 



In 1494, having fallen into a state of melancholy on the reflection 

 that he had countenanced the rebellion in which his father perished, 

 be received a legate from the pope, and, in obedience to him, bound 

 about his waist an iron belt, to be worn in penauce. day and night, for 

 the remainder of his life. Some time after this his queen fell sick, 

 and immediately then upon he made a pilgrimage to St. Niuian's 

 in Galloway, on foot, for her recovery, and she having afterward* 

 recovered, they both went thither in pilgrimage the same year. That 

 year alto he went to St. 1 Hithiu's in Hoss which was to the extreme 

 north of the kingdom, as the other shrine was at the extreme south ; 

 and it appears most probable that it was at the desire of the eccle- 

 siastics he made those repeated progresses to the highlands and isles 

 in which we find him engag- d, with the ostensible purpose of quieting 

 that part of the realm, but in fact to remove him from the seat of 

 authority and government. In the meantime the clergy were not 

 idle. In the above year, 1494, the University of Aberdeen (the third 

 of the Scottish universities) was founded ; and in the same year an 

 net was passed in parliament, enjoining all barons and freeholders of 

 substance to put their eldest sous to grammar learning, and thereafter 

 for three yean to the universities to study the canon and civil laws. 

 In 1603. while the archbishop of St. An Irews was lord chancellor, 

 the court of 'Daily Council' was instituted a court of the same 

 nature and extensive jurisdiction a) the previous Court of the Session, 

 composed of the chancellor and others appointed by the crown ; and 

 the tame year an act was passed subjecting all notaries to the examina- 

 tion of the Ordinary. In 1512 a great council of the clergy was held 

 at Edinburgh, where the famous Valor lencjiciorum, called 'Bagiuiont's 

 Jioll,' was made up. The following year the king, taking up the 

 French cause, entered, with the flower of the kingdom, on the fatal 

 field of Flodden, where he perished. [HKNHY VIII. of England.] 



JAMES V., King of Scotland, eon of James IV., was little more 

 than a year old when the crown devolved upon him; but so equally 

 poised was the balance of power in Europe at this time that, as the 

 favour of Henry VIII. of England was anxiously Bought by the rival 

 monarcbs of Germany and France, BO all three courted the favour of 

 James's government. The state of the papal see was also peculiar at 

 this time ; for besides the risks which it ran from the collision of 

 temporal interests, it was now raising up for itself determined enemies 

 within its own dominions. The reforming spirit of Martin Luther 

 and his followers spread into Scotland, and introduced new elements 

 of discord into a country then in a singularly distracted stute. The 

 regency of the young king was long an object of ambition, and in the 

 struggle everything was forgotten by the contending parties but suc- 

 cess. The king was besieged, captured, and retaken ; and personal 

 rencontres between nobles and their vasaals in the streets of the 

 metropolis were of frequent occurrence. The loss of laymen however 

 at Floddrn hid given a decided advantage to the clergy, and the 

 ecclesiastical interent at last bore undisputed sway. Gavin Dunbar, 

 who had been the king's preceptor, was made Archbishop of Glasgow 

 in 1624 ; in 1528 be was appointed lord chancellor ; and in four y?ars 

 afterwards the Court of Session was erected a court of general and 

 supremo jurisdiction under the chancellor. The latter was now at 

 the head both of the church and common law, aud when Cardinal 

 Beaton became chancellor his vast powers were exercised with such 

 force and rapidity as threatened, and well nigh accomplished, the 

 extermination of every power in the kingdom but his own and the 

 papal. It was a matter of course that all attempts at an alliance with 

 the king by King Henry V11I., who had become embroiled with the 

 papacy, should be rejected. A war was thus provoked, and James 

 wu obliged to court tho-e nobles whom it had been the policy of his 

 court to bumble. They joined him, but in a spirit of determined revenge. 

 In an attack on the Scotti-h border the English were repelled, and an 



opportunity offered to the Soots of cuttiug off their retreat. The king 

 accordingly gave orders to that end, but bis barons refused to advance; 

 and iu a subsequent engagement 10,000 of the Scots deliberately sur- 

 rendered themselves prisoners to the enemy. Tho spirit of James 

 sunk under his contending; passions, aud he died of a broken heart in 

 the thirty-third year of hi* age. 



JAMKS I. of England and VI. of Scotland, was the only offspring 

 of Mary, queen of Scots, by her second husband, Henry Stuart, lord 

 Darnley, who, through his father, Matthew Stuart, carl of Lennox, 

 being descended from a daughter of James II., had some pretensions 

 to the succession of the Scottish throne in case of Mary dying without 

 JMue, and who was the grandson, u Mary was the granddaughter, of 

 Margaret Tudor, through whom the Scottish line claimed and eventu- 

 ally obtained the inheritance of the crown of England after the failure 

 of the descendants of Henry VIII. The son of Mary and Daruley 

 (or King Henry, as ho was called after his marriage) wu born iu tha 

 castle of Edinburgh on the 19th of June 1506, and wu baptised 

 according to the Roman Catholic ritual in Stirling Cutle, on the 17th 

 of December following, by the names of Charles James. Tho murder 

 of Darnley took place on the 13th of February 1567, and was followed 

 by Mary's marriage with Bothwell on the 15th of May of the same 

 year; her capture by the insurgent nobles, or lords of the congre- 

 gation as they called themselves, at Carberry, on the 14th of June; 

 her consignment u a prisoner to the castle of Lochleveu, on the 1 7th ; 

 and her forced resignation of the crowu, on the 24th of July, iu fuvour 

 of her son, who was crowned at Stirling on the 29th as James VI., 

 being then an infant of little more than a year old. 



The circumstances of the time, which was that of t!ie final struggle 

 in Scotland between the two great interests of the old and the new 

 religion, which besides their intrinsic importance were respectively 

 identified with the French and the English alliance, aud also with the 

 old and the new distribution of the property of the kingdom, mode 

 the minority of James stormy beyond even the ordinary use and wont 

 of Scottish minorities. Before his mother's marriage with Hothwell 

 ho had been committed by her to tha care of the Earl of M;ir, a 

 nobleman of the most estimable character, who had retired with his 

 charge to Stirling Castle, and there resolutely withstood all Both well's 

 attempts to obtain possession of the infant prince. There he continued 

 to reside during the regencies of the Earl of Murray (22nd of August 

 1567 to the 23rd of January 1570), of the Earl of Lennox (27th of 

 January 1570 to the 4th of September 1570), of the Karl of Mar (6th 

 of September 1570 to the 29th of October 1572), aud of the Karl of 

 Morton (24th of November 1572 to the 10th of March 1578), his 

 education being placed under the general direction of Mar's brother, 

 Alexander Erskiue, under whom were employed George Buuhauau and 

 three others of the most distinguished among the Scottish scholars. 

 After his brother's death not only the custody of the king's persou, 

 but also the command of the castle, were left in the bonds ot Erskine; 

 and principally by his management, in concert with the earls of 

 Argyle and Athol, a plot was arranged in the beginning of the year 

 1578, the result of which was that at a council composed of nearly all 

 the nobility of the kingdom, which met at Stirling, James, young u 

 he still was, was requested to take the government into his owu hands, 

 and Morton was compelled to resign the regency at Edinburgh on the 

 10th of M,arcb, to the great joy of the nation, with whom tho severity 

 and rjpacity of his administration had made him universally odious. 

 Affairs were now nominally administered by the king, assisted by a 

 council composed of twelve of the nobility. The new government 

 however soon became unpopular, principally from the presumed or 

 notorious inclination of its leading members in favour of popery ; and 

 this state of things in a few weeks opened a way for Morton to the 

 resumption of nearly all his former authority. Into the bauds of 

 this niiiii, undoubtedly one of the chief actors iu the tragedy of his 

 father's murder, the young prince now fell ; and Morton succeeded in 

 retaining his prize, notwithstanding all the efforts of the opposite 

 party, till, partly by force, partly by skilful negociatiou, he had 

 apparently re-established his power on a foundation of complete 

 security. It was not long however iu being undermined, chiefly by 

 the intrigues of two individuals, who seem to huve first made their 

 appearance at the Scottish court in the latter part of the year 1579, 

 and immediately became the objects of the unbounded fondness of the 

 young king. One of these earliest of James's succession of favourites 

 was Ksm<5 Stuart, a son of a younger brother of the Earl of Lenuox, 

 and therefore a near relation of hit owu : he was a native of France, 

 and bore in that country the title of Lord D'Aubigny, to which Jamee 

 rapidly added the Scottish honours of Lord Aberbrothock, Karl of 

 Lennox, and then Duke of Lenuox, with the appointments of governor 

 of Dumbarton Castle, captain of the royal guard, first lord of the 

 bed-chamber, and lord high chamberlain. Tile other, a much darker 

 character, was a Captain James Stuart, the second sou of Lord 

 Ochiltree. On the 30th of December 1580, the mind of the king 

 having been previously prepared for what was to be done, Captain 

 Stuart entered tho council-chamber, and formally accused Morton of 

 having been accessory to the murder of the late King Henry. Thu 

 earl wu immediately committed to prison, and notwithstanding the 

 most strenuous efforts in his behalf by the English queen, ho wu 

 brought to trial before tho court of justiciary, condemned, aud exe- 

 cuted at Edinburgh, 2nd June 1581. Thu two favourites, Lennox, 



