ENGLAND AND THE ISLES. 135 



1541, James granted him and his affianced spouse, Barbara 

 Stewart, daughter of the Lord Chancellor (Andrew, Lord 

 Avondale), the lands, island, and barony of Lewis, with the 

 : castle and other lands resigned by Ruari for that purpose ; 

 whereupon the whole was erected anew into the free 

 : barony of Lewis. It may be convenient to state here that 

 Ruari's first wife was Janet, an illegitimate daughter of 

 John Mackenzie of Kintail, her first husband being Mackay 

 !of Reay. After divorcing Janet Mackenzie under circum- 

 | stances which will be noticed later on, Ruari married 

 | Barbara Stewart in 1541. 



The premature death of James V. in 1542 placed Scot- 

 Hand at the mercy of rival parties which, during the minority 

 of Mary Queen of Scots, kept the country in a perpetual 

 ; state of domestic strife. The real master of Scotland 

 during the regency of the Earl of Arran was the able but 

 unscrupulous Cardinal Beaton, who used the great nobles 

 as puppets to serve his own purposes. As the head of 

 the Roman Catholic clergy, who were at that time the 

 dominant party in the State, Beaton possessed sufficient 

 influence to mould the Church and its adherents to his 

 resolute will. His natural abilities as a statesman, as well 

 as a Churchman, left him without a rival in shaping the 

 policy of the country in foreign affairs. The Earl of 

 Arran, the next heir to the Crown and the nominal 

 Regent, was regarded by the Protestant party as their 

 natural leader against the designs of the Cardinal. A 

 weak and indolent man, Arran was a mere child in the 

 hands of the crafty prelate, who took steps to counteract 

 his influence by bringing over from France, Matthew 

 Stewart, Earl of Lennox, a rival for the regency, and a 

 claimant, like Arran, to the succession, through their 

 common descent from the House of Stewart. The advent 

 of Lennox upon the scene had important results, both for 

 himself and for the country. 



Henry VIII. of England had been quick to turn the 

 distracted state of the sister kingdom to his own advan- 

 tage. The disastrous defeat of the Scots at Solway paved 



