dowager directed the measures of government; and being allied by blood and attached by interest to France, she sedulously endeavoured to promote the interest of that country.

CHAPTER III.

Resignation of Arran. Mary of Gujse Regent. Marriage of the young Queen. Insidious policy of the French. Union of the Congregation. Walter Mills burned. Dissentions between the Congregation and the Catholics.

THE defeat at Pinkey had loaded the Regent with disgrace. The Queen dowager, conceiving the design of obtaining the regency, improved the present circumstances to her advantage. As the assistance of France was indispensable to obtain her wishes, she resolved to form new engagements with that country. The Scottish ambassadors were instructed to insinuate that a marriage between the Dauphin and their young Queen would not be unacceptable to their countrymen, provided Henry would in return send them a military force sufficient to enable them to defend their country from the attacks of the English.

The

To gain at once such a kingdom as Scotland, was an object of no small consequence to France. Henry, without hesitation, accepted the offer; and sent immediately six thousand men to Scotland, under Monsieur Dessé, who disembarked at Leith. French served two campaigns in Scotland; during which they besieged Haddington and some other inconsiderable fortresses, which were evacuated by the English. By these operations, the French Monarch gained two advantages: The diversion his troops made in Scotland enabled him to wrest Boulogne from the English; and the presence of his army produced the ready concurrence of the Scottish Parliament to the young Queen's marriage, and to her residence for education in France.

The Queen dowager called a Parliament, that the articles of the marriage-treaty might be finally settled. A point of so much importance was hastily decided; the arguments of the Queen dow ager and her partisans were rendered irresistible by the plentiful distribution of French gold; even the Regent was weak enough to accept of a pension from France, with the title of Duke of Chatelherault. Thus, the interest of a faction was preferred to the honour of the nation. The young Queen, attended by the

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Lords Erskine and Livingstone, was conveyed to France, 1548. where she was soon after betrothed to the Dauphin.

Somerset, despairing of success in his designs upon Scotland, proposed a truce; which was rejected. Lord Seymour was despatched with a body of troops, and made a descent in Fife, and subsequently near Montrose. In the first he was successfully opposed by James Stewart, prior of St Andrew's, a natural son of the late King; in the last, John Erskine of Dun distinguished himself in opposing A.D. the invaders : But a peace being concluded between 1550. France, England, and 'Scotland, the French troops returned to their own country.

The Queen dowager, accompanied by a number of the Scottish nobility, made a voyage to France, for the ostensible purpose of visiting her daughter and relatives; but her real intention was to obtain the influence of the French King to persuade the Earl of Arran to resign the regency. Meanwhile, the Bishop of Ross and the Commendator of Kilwinning privately persuaded the Regent to resign his authority: But, upon the Queen dowager's return, he was very reluctant to fulfil his engagement. Finding, however, that the principal nobles no longer supported him, and that the majority of the young Princess was fast approaching, he judged it prudent to submit.

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It was in the Parliament which met on the 10th of April 1554. that the Earl of Arran executed this extraordinary resignation; and Mary of Guise was raised to that dignity which had been so long the object of her wishes. D'Oisel, a Frenchman of great capacity, had attended her as ambassador to Scotland from Henry, but in reality to assist her in the administration of the government. This man had formed a scheme for laying a general tax upon the kingdom, to support a permanent military force. The measure was found to be unpopular; and the Queen Regent had the prudence to trust entirely for her security to the goodwill and courage of her subjects.

As the French Monarch was desirous to celebrate the marriage of the Dauphin and the young Queen, the Scottish Parliament appointed a deputation of eight of its number to represent the whole body of the nation, to settle the terms of the contract, and to assist at the ceremony. The nuptials were solemnized with great pomp; but the French, who had hitherto affected to veil their designs upon Scotland, became less reserved. It had been

agreed upon, in the marriage-treaty, that the Dauphin should assume the title of King of Scotland: But the French laboured to annex to the name some substantial advantage and power: They insisted that his title should be publicly recognized; that the crown matrimonial should be conferred upon him; and that all the rights pertaining to the husband of a queen should be vested in his person.

In conducting this intricate negotiation, the Scottish deputies acted with considerable prudence. They discovered a fixed resolution of consenting to nothing that might introduce any alteration in the order of succession to the throne. The Scottish Parlia ment, in which the French ventured to move the subject, was more obsequious; and, notwithstanding the zealous opposition of the house of Hamilton, the Queen Regent procured an act conferring the crown matrimonial on the Dauphin. The Earl of Argyll and the Prior of St Andrew's were appointed to 1558. carry the crown, and the other ensigns of royalty, to the Dauphin.

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In negotiating the marriage-treaty between their niece, and the Dauphin, the Duke of Guise and his five brothers, while they prevailed on the French court to grant every security for the independence of the Scottish crown, engaged the young Queen to subscribe privately three deeds, by which, in failure of heirs of her own body, she conferred the kingdom of Scotland, with every inheritance and succession which might accrue to it, in free gift, upon the crown of France: And they moreover had the hardihood to elicit this remarkable declaration, that any deed which her subjects might extort from her to the contrary should be void and of no obligation.

By the succession mentioned in these deeds, the crown of England seems to have been meant; for no sooner were the Guises informed of the death of Queen Mary of England, and the accession of her sister Elizabeth, than they formed the desperate project to acquire for France the kingdom of England. For this pur pose, they solicited and obtained at Rome a bull declaring Queen Elizabeth illegitimate; and as the Queen of Scots was next heir by blood, they persuaded her and her husband to assume the title and arms of England.

Elizabeth complained of this insult; but she could obtain only an evasive reply. She thenceforth conceived a violent jealousy against the Queen of Scots, and determined at the same time to op

pose the design of the French court. The sudden death of Henry of France, who was killed at a tournament, appeased not her indignation; for, being informed that his son and successor, Francis the Second, continued to assume, without reserve, the title of King of England, she ever after considered him and his Queen as her mortal enemies, and resolved not only to provide for her own safety, but to seize every opportunity of revenging the injury.

No sooner were the princes of Lorrain in full possession of the administration under Francis, than they determined to support with vigour the claim of the Queen of Scots. Convinced that England could be attacked with the greatest advantage from Scotland, the Guises sent orders to their sister the Regent, to take the most effective measures for humbling the partisans of England, and suppressing the Protestant opinions in Scotland. They hoped that the English Catholics, who were formidable by their number, and exasperated against Elizabeth for the change she had made in the national religion, would rise in support of the claim of the Queen of Scots.

The situation of affairs in Scotland afforded Elizabeth an opportunity of retaliating upon her enemies: The Reformation was rapidly advancing in that kingdom; and the Queen Regent, desirous to secure the favour of the Protestant leaders, by whose means she had been elevated to her high station, connived at the progress of doctrines which she had not the power to suppress. Too cautious, however, to trust to this precarious security, the Earls of Argyll, Morton, Glencairn, Lord Lorne, Erskine of Dun, with other Protestant gentlemen, subscribed privately a bond of association for their mutual protection, and the propagation of their religious tenets; and called themselves the Congre gation of the Lord, in contradistinction to the Popish church, which they named the Congregation of Satan.

Before the league was publicly known, the clergy, alarmed by the progress of the new opinions, attempted to recover their lost authority, by a violent exercise of power in enforcing the tyrannical laws against heresy. Hamilton the Primate seized Walter Mills, a priest of an irreproachable life, who had embraced the Reformed doctrines; and, having tried him at St Andrew's, condemned him to the flames. But so general was the aversion to this act of barbarity, that it was some time before the bishops

could prevail on any one to act as a civil judge, and pronounce sentence upon Mills. Even after the time of his execution was fixed, no person would sell a rope to tie him to the stake; and the Primate himself was obliged to furnish that implement.

Mills endured his fate with the fortitude which zeal for truth inspires. The spectators, to express their abhorrence of the cruelty of the priests, raised a monument of stones upon the place of his execution. The clergy, enraged, gave orders to remove it; but it was as suddenly raised again by the indignant multitude. This was the last act of barbarity that the Catholics had the power of executing under the sanction of the laws.

The people, some time after, discovered their sentiments in such a manner as was sufficient to prognosticate to the priests the fate which was awaiting them. A provincial council, held at Edinburgh, permitted some convicted heretics to redeem their lives by making a public recantation on the 1st of September, the festival of St Giles, the tutelary saint of Edinburgh. It was usual on that festival to carry in procession the image of St Giles; but the Reformers, in order to prevent the ceremony, found means to purloin the statue from the church. The clergy

hastily formed a new image, which in derision was called by the people young St Giles. The saint was carried through the streets, attended by all the ecclesiastics in the town and neighbourhood. Of this ceremony, the Queen Regent was witness; but, the moment she retired, the multitude threw the idol in the mire, broke it in pieces, and rescued the convicts. The flight and terror of the priests and friars was the subject of universal mockery and laughter.

Encouraged by these appearances, the Congregation now openly solicited subscriptions to the league. Not satisfied with a new and more solemn promise of protection, they presented a petition to the Regent, craving a reformation of the church : They framed a petition, which they intended to present to the Parliament, soliciting some legal protection against the oppression and exorbitant jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts: They presented to the Convocation, then sitting, a petition which they called the preliminary articles of the Reformation,-desiring, first, "That public prayers be conceived and the sacrament administered in the vulgar tongue; second, that, in time coming,