assistance of one Henry Balfour, a mercenary priest, whom he suborned, he is said to have forged a will for the king, in which he was himself nominated agent, with three of the nobility as his assessors or assistants. According to Knox, these were Argyle, Huntley, and Murray; but Buchanan, whom we think a very sufficient authority in this case, says that he also assumed as an assessor his cousin by the mother's side, the Earl of Arran, who was, after Mary, the next heir to the crown, but was believed to be poorly qualified by the humbler virtues for discharging the duties of a private life, and still less fitted either by courage or capacity for directing the government of a kingdom. Aware of the danger that might arise from delay, the cardinal lost not a moment in idle deliberation. The will which he had forged he caused to be proclaimed at the cross of Edinburgh on the Monday immediately succeeding the king's death.
Arran, the unambitious presumptive heir to the throne, would, had he been left to himself, have peaceably acquiesced in the cardinal's arrangements, for he had the approbation of the queen mother, and, by presents and promises, had made no inconsiderable party among the nobility. But his friends, the Hamiltons, says Buchanan, more anxious for their own aggrandizement than for his honour, incessantly urged him not to let such an occasion slip out of his hands, for they would rather have seen the whole kingdom in flames than have been obliged to lead obscure lives in private stations. Hatred, too, to the Cardinal, who, from his persecuting and selfish spirit, was very generally detested, and the disgrace of living in bondage to a priest, procured them many associates. The near prospect which Arran now had of succeeding to the crown, must also have enlisted a number of the more wary and calculating politicians upon his side. But what was of still more consequence to him, Henry of England who had carried all the principal prisoners taken in the late battle to London, marched them in triumph through that metropolis, and given them in charge to his principal nobility, no sooner heard of the death of the king than he recalled the captives to court, entertained them in the most friendly manner, and having taken a promise from each of them that they would promote as far as possible, without detriment to the public interests, or disgrace to themselves, a marriage between his son and the young queen, he sent them back to Scotland, where they arrived on the 1st of January, 1543. Along with the prisoners the Earl of Angus and his brother were restored to their country, after an exile of fifteen years, and all were received by the nation with the most joyful gratulations.
It was in vain that the Cardinal had already taken possession of the regency. Arran, by the advice of the Laird of Grange, called an assembly of the nobility, which finding the will upon which the Cardinal had as assumed the regency forged, set him aside and elected Arran in his place. This was peculiarly grateful to a great proportion of the nobles, three hundred of whom, with Arran at their head, were found in a proscription list among the king's papers, furnished to him by the Cardinal. Arran, it was well known, was friendly to the reformers, and his imbecility of mind being unknown, the greatest expectations were formed from the moderation of his character. In the parliament that met in the month of March following, public affairs put on a much more promising appearance than could have been expected. The king of England, instead of an army to waste or to subjugate the country, sent an ambassador to negociate a marriage between the young queen and his son, and a lasting peace upon the most advantageous terms. The Cardinal, who saw in this alliance with protestant England the downfall of his church in Scotland, opposed himself, with the whole weight of the clergy at his back, and all the influence of the Queen-dowager, to every thing like pacific measures, and that with so
