OBSERVATIONS ON A LIBEL. 441 



rished in the eminent virtue of a few persons, whose 

 ambition nevertheless was nothing inferior to their 

 virtue ; but being of a house, notwithstanding, which 

 the princes of the blood of France reckoned but as 

 strangers, aspired to a greatness more than civil and 

 proportionable to their cause, wheresoever they had 

 authority : and accordingly, under colour of consan 

 guinity and religion, they brought into Scotland in 

 the year 1559, and in the absence of the king and 

 queen, French forces in great numbers ; whereupon 

 the ancient nobility of that realm, seeing the immi 

 nent danger of reducing that kingdom under the 

 tyranny of strangers, did pray, according to the good 

 intelligence between the two crowns, her majesty s 

 neighbourly forces. And so it is true, that the 

 action being very just and honourable, her majesty 

 undertook it, expelled the strangers, and restored 

 the nobility to their degrees, and the state to peace. 

 After, when certain noblemen of Scotland of the 

 same faction of Guise had, during the minority of 

 the king, possessed themselves of his person, to the 

 end to abuse his authority many ways ; and namely, 

 to make a breach between Scotland and England ; 

 her majesty s forces were again, in the year 1582, 

 by the king s best and truest servants sought and re 

 quired : and with the forces of her majesty prevailed 

 so far, as to be possessed of the castle of Edinburgh, 

 the principal part of that kingdom ; which neverthe 

 less her majesty incontinently with all honour and 

 sincerity restored, after she had put the king into 

 good and faithful hands ; and so, ever since, in all 



