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sive life; how he had joined himself to the Kirk, and embraced the reformed religioun;’ he adds, ‘but they were maried the same day, in the morning, with a masse, as was reported by men of credite.’ The authorities for this statement are Birrell's diary, which says that the marriage was performed by the Bishop of Orkney in the Chapel Royal; Murray's diary, which affirms that it was celebrated ‘efter baith the sortis of the kirkis, reformit and unreformit;’ and the representation of the confederate barons that it was ‘accomplished in baith the fashions.’ Malcolm Laing, who discusses the point, considers that ‘the reformed bishop was not so scrupulous as to refuse to officiate privately in his former capacity,’ and argues that ‘the improbability that Mary would acquiesce in a protestant marriage is alone sufficient to refute the assertion’ in the diary of Melville (who witnessed the protestant marriage) that the ceremony was not performed in the chapel at the mass, as was the king's marriage. Burton, who speaks of the Bishop of Orkney as ‘a convert or an apostate, according to the estimate people formed of his sincerity,’ says nothing of a double marriage, rejects the account which places the ceremony in the Chapel Royal, and thinks ‘the probability lies with the other authorities’ who describe it as taking place in the council chamber, ‘strictly in the protestant form.’ Mary's abdication soon followed, on 24 July; and on the 29th, at Stirling, her son (born 19 June 1566, baptised ‘Charles James’ 17 Dec., according to the Roman rite) was crowned and anointed by the Bishop of Orkney. ‘Mr. Knox and other preachers,’ says Calderwood, ‘repyned at the ceremonie of anointing, yitt was he anointed.’ On 25 Dec. the general assembly delated in his absence ‘Adam, called bishop of Orkney,’ on four charges. He had not lately visited ‘the kirks of his countrie;’ he ‘occupyed the rowme of a Judge in the Sessioun;’ he ‘reteaned in his companie Francis Bothwell, a Papist, upon whom he had bestowed benefices;’ and he had ‘solemnized the mariage betwixt the queene and the Erle of Bothwell.’ He appeared on the 30th; excused himself from residence in Orkney on account of the climate and his health; and denied that he knew F. Bothwell was a papist. For solemnising the royal marriage, ‘contrarie an act made against the mariage of the divorced adulterer,’ the assembly deprived him of all function in the ministry till such time as he should satisfy the assembly ‘for the slaunders committed by him.’ However, on 10 July 1568, the assembly restored him to the ministry, did not renew his commission to superintend the diocese of Orkney; but ordered him, as soon as his health permitted, to preach in the Chapel Royal (‘kirk of Halyrudhous’), and after sermon confess his offence in the matter of the ill-fated marriage. He had probably had enough of his Orkney diocese, which he only visited twice; on the second occasion he was wrecked on a sandbank. In 1570 he exchanged the greater part of the temporalities of the see with Robert Stewart, natural brother to Queen Mary, for the abbacy of Holyrood House. His own account of the matter, in his defence to the assembly in March 1570, is that ‘Lord Robert violenthe intruded himself on his whole living, with bloodshed, and hurt of his servants; and after he had craved justice, his and his servants' lives were sought in the verie eyes of justice in Edinburgh, and then was constrained, of meere necessitie, to tak the abbacie of Halyrudhous, by advice of sundrie godlie men.’ He still retained the title of the bishop of Orkney, and added to it that of abbot of Holyrood House. He was present at the election of John, earl of Mar, as regent, by the parliament at Stirling, on 5 Sept. 1571; and he was one of the commissioners appointed by the regent and privy council at the Leith convention, on 16 Jan. 1572, to frame a revised ecclesiastical settlement. The result of their labours ‘is remarkable,’ says Grub, ‘for its general resemblance to the external polity of the Church, as it existed before the Reformation in Scotland, and as it was at that time sanctioned by law in England.’ In accordance with the new policy Bothwell was appointed on 3 Nov. 1572 one of the consecrators of James Boyd as archbishop of Glasgow. In 1578, shortly before the fall of Morton (12 March), Bothwell was imprisoned in Stirling Castle, for protesting against that regent's measures. He was quickly liberated, and became one of the council of twelve who formed the provisional government, overthrown on 10 June. Four years passed, and in October 1582 the general assembly appointed Andrew Melville and Thomas Smeaton to confer with the bishop of Orkney on his having ceased from the exercise of the ministry. He pleaded age (he was about fifty-five), weakness of memory, and continual sickness; and alleged that his preferment was scarce worth 500 merks (under 28l. sterling) at his entry. The assembly evidently had their doubts about the case, for they directed the Edinburgh presbytery to try his ability, to appoint him to a particular flock, if he were fit for it, and ‘to tak order with anie other complaints that sould be givin in against him’ before the next assembly. The next assembly appointed a fresh commission upon him; but, after the