THE HISTORY OF MY OWN TIMES. BOOK I. A summary recapitulation of the state of affairs in Scotland, both in church and state; from the beginning of the troubles, to the restoration of king Charles the second, 1660. THE mischiefs of civil wars are so great and lasting, and the effects of them branching out by many accidents, that were not thought on at first, much less intended, into such mischievous consequences, that I have thought it an inquiry that might be of great use, both to prince and people, to look carefully into the first beginnings and occasions of them, to observe their progress, and the errors of both hands, 6 the provocations that were given, and the jealousies that were raised by these, together with the excesses into which both sides have run by turns. And though the wars be over long ago, yet since they have left among us so many seeds of lasting feuds and animosities, which upon every turn are apt to The distractions James's mi ferment and to break out of new, it will be an useful as well as a pleasant inquiry to look back to the first original of them, and to observe by what degrees and accidents they gathered strength, and at last broke forth into a flame. The reformation of Scotland was popular and during king parliamentary: the crown was, during that time, nority. either on the head of a queen that was absent, or of a king that was an infant. During his minority, matters were carried on by the several regents, so as was most agreeable to the prevailing humour of the nation. But when king James grew to be of age, he found two parties in the kingdom. The one was of those who wished well to the interest of the queen his mother, then a prisoner in England : these were either professed papists, or men believed to be indifferent as to all religions. The rest were her inveterate enemies, zealous for the reformation, and fixed in a dependence on the crown of England, and in a jealousy of France. When that king saw that those who were most in his interests were likewise jealous of his authority, and apt to encroach upon it, he hearkened first to the insinuations of his mother's party, who were always infusing in him a jealousy of these his friends; saying, that by ruining his mother, and setting him in her room while a year old, they had ruined monarchy, and made the crown subject and precarious; and had put him in a very unnatural posture, of being seized of his mother's crown while she was in exile and a prisoner ; adding, that he was but a king in name, the power being in the hands of those who were under the management of the queen of England. * Nonsense. S. tices of the Guise. Their insinuations would have been of less force, The pracif the house of Guise, who were his cosin germans, house of had not been engaged in great designs, of transferring the crown of France from the house of Bourbon to themselves; in order to which it was necessary to embroil England, and to draw the king of Scotland into their interests. So under the pretence of keeping up the old alliances between France and Scotland, they sent creatures of their own to be ambassadors there; and they also sent a graceful young man, who, as he was the king's nearest kinsman by his father, was of so agreeable a temper, that he became his favourite, and was made by him duke of Lenox. He was known to be a papist, though he 7 pretended he changed his religion, and became in profession a protestant. The court of England discovered all these artifices of the Guisians, who were then the most implacable enemies of the reformation, and were managing all that train of plots against queen Elizabeth, that in conclusion proved fatal to the queen of Scots. And when the English ministers saw the inclinations of the young king lay so strongly that way, that all their applications to gain him were ineffectual, they infused such a jealousy of him into all their party in Scotland, that both nobility and clergy were much alarmed at it. But king James learnt early that piece of kingcraft b, of disguising, or at least denying every thing b A mean expression, often made use of by king James the first; though little to the reputation of his integrity or un derstanding, but suitable to the King James in the in terest of England. that was observed in his behaviour that gave of fence. The main instance in which the French management appeared was, that he could not be prevailed on to enter into any treaty of marriage. It was not safe to talk of marrying a papist; and as long as the duke of Guise lived, the king, though then three and twenty, and the only person of his family, would hearken to no proposition for marrying a protestant. But when the duke of Guise was killed at Blois, and that Henry the third was murdered soon after, so that Henry the fourth came in his room, king James was no more in a French management: so presently after he married a daughter of Denmark, and ever after that he was wholly managed by queen Elizabeth and her ministers. I have seen many letters among Walsingham's papers that discover the commerce between the house of Guise and him (king James); but the most valuable of these is a long paper of instructions to one sir Richard Wigmore, a great man for hunting, and for all such sports, to which king James was out of measure addicted. The queen affronted him publicly. Upon which he pretended he could live no longer in England, and therefore withdrew to Scotland. But all this was a contrivance of Walsingham's, who thought him a fit person to get into that king's favour: so that affront was designed to give him the more credit. He was very particularly instructed in all the proper methods to gain upon the king's confidence, done designedly, to make him chanan said, he would take care to make him the lively image of his mother. D. and to observe and give an account of all he saw in him; which he did very faithfully. By these instructions it appears that Walsingham thought that king was either inclined to turn papist, or to be of no religion. And when the court of England saw that they could not depend on him, they raised all possible opposition to him in Scotland, infusing strong jealousies into those who were enough inclined to receive them. A censure of Spots tory. This is the great defect that runs through archbi-8 shop Spotswood's history, where much of the rude opposition that king met with, particularly from the wood's hisassemblies of the kirk, is set forth; but the true ground of all the jealousies they were possessed with is suppressed by him. After his marriage, they studied to remove these suspicions all that was possible; and he granted the kirk all the laws they desired, and got his temporal authority to be better established than it was before: yet as the jealousies of his fickleness in religion were never quite removed, so they gave him many new disgusts: they wrought in him a most inveterate hatred of presbytery, and of the power of the kirk; and he fearing an opposition in his succeeding to the crown of England, from the papist party, which, though it had little strength in the house of commons, yet was very great in the house of lords, and was very considerable in all the northern parts, and among the body of the people,employed several persons who were known to be papists, though they complied outwardly. The chief of these were Elphinston, secretary of state, whom he made lord Balmerinoch; and Seaton, afterwards chancellor, and earl of Dun- King James fermling. By their means he studied to assure the gain the studied to papists. |