tween them for the welfare of both kingdoms. Nothing could be more terrible to the clergy, of which Beaton was now confessedly the head in Scotland, than the agreement of the two kings; they saw in it nothing short of the loss of all that was dear to them, their altars, their revenues, and of course their influence, and they hastened to court from all quarters to weep over their religion about to be betrayed by an unholy conference, which, being impious in its purposes, could not fail, they said, to end in the ruin of the kingdom. Having by these representations made a strong impression upon the king, who was ignorant and superstitious, they then bribed, by the promise of large sums of money, the courtiers who had the most powerful influence over him, to dissuade him from the journey he had promised to make into England, which they successfully did, and so laid the foundation of a quarrel which ended in a war, the disastrous issue of which, preying upon the mind of James, brought him to an untimely end.
In the whole of these transactions, Beaton, a zealous churchman and the hired tool of France, was the chief actor, and knowing that the king was both covetous and needy, he overcame his scruples, by persuading the clergy to promise him a yearly subsidy of thirty thousand gold crowns, and even their whole fortunes, if this should be thought necessary. As he had no design, however, to be at any unnecessary expense himself, nor meant to be burdensome to his brethren, he pointed out the estates of those who rebelled against the authority of the Pope and the majesty of the king as proper subjects for confiscation, whereby there might be raised annually the sum of one hundred thousand crowns of gold. In order to attain this object, he requested that, for himself and his brethren, they might only be allowed to name, as they were precluded themselves from sitting in judgment in criminal cases, a lord chief justice, before whom, were he once appointed, there could be neither difficulty in managing the process, nor delay in procuring judgment, since so many men hesitated not to read the books of the New and Old Testaments, to discuss and disown the power of the Pope, to contemn the ancient rites of the church, and, instead of reverencing and obeying, dared to treat with derisive contempt these individuals that had been consecrated to God, and whose business it was to guide them in their spiritual concerns. This wicked counsel, as it suited both the inclinations and the necessities of the king, was quickly complied with, and they nominated for this new court of inquisition a judge every way according to their own hearts, James Hamilton, (a natural brother of the Earl of Arran,) whom they had attached to their interests by large gifts, and who was willing to be reconciled to the king, whom he had lately offended, by any service, however cruel.
The suspicions which the king entertained against his nobility from this time forward were such as to paralyze his efforts whether for good or evil. The inroads of the English, too, occupied his whole attention, and the shameful overthrow of his army which had entered England by the Solway, threw him into such a state of rage and distraction, that his health sunk under it, and he died at Falkland on the 13th of December, 1542, leaving the kingdom, torn by faction, and utterly defenceless, to his only surviving legitimate child, Mary, then no more than five days old. The sudden demise of the king, while it quashed the old projects of the Cardinal, only set him upon forming new ones still more daring and dangerous. Formerly he had laboured to direct the movements of the king by humouring his passions, flattering his vanity, and administering to his vicious propensities. Now, from the infancy of the successor, the death, the captivity, or the exile of the most influential part of the nobility, and the distracted state of the nation in general, he conceived that it would be easy for him to seize upon the government, which he might now administer for the infant queen, solely to his own mind. Accordingly, with the
