Archibald, sixth earl of Angus [q. v.], by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of David Douglas of Pittendriech. In his early years his father carefully superintended his education until compelled to take refuge in England by the act of forfeiture in 1528. From this time young Douglas was left very much to his own devices. His education was therefore ‘not so good as was convenient for his birth’ (Historie of James the Sext, p. 182); and he contracted habits which rendered him in private life one of the least exemplary of the special supporters of Knox. For some time he lived under the name of Innes with his relations the Douglases of Glenbervie, Kincardineshire, but fearing discovery there he went to the ‘northern parts of Scotland,’ where he filled ‘the office of grieve and overseer of the lands and rents, the corn and cattle of him with whom he lived’ (Hume, House of Douglas, ii. 138). His employment enabled him to acquire a knowledge of the details of business, and Hume states that the acquaintance he thus obtained, ‘with the humour and disposition of the vulgar and inferior sort of common people,’ afforded him important insight into the method of ‘dealing with them and managing them according as he had occasion.’
Through his mother, young Douglas inherited the lands of Pittendriech, and in right of his wife, Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of James, third earl of Morton, he succeeded in 1553 to that earldom, having previously been styled Master of Morton. In 1545 he took part in the invasion of England, which, through the ‘deceit of George Douglas’ (his father) ‘and the vanguard’ (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 40), resulted in a shameful retirement before inferior numbers. He was taken prisoner in 1548 on the capture of the castle of Dalkeith, which he held for his father, possibly not obtaining liberty till the pacification in April 1550. As his father was a supporter of Wishart, Morton no doubt received an early bias towards the reformation; but although he subscribed the first band of the Scottish reformers, 3 Dec. 1557 (Knox, Works, i. 274), he ‘did not plainly join them’ during the contest with the queen regent (ib. i. 460), and in November 1559 definitely withdrew his support, his defection being noted by Randolph in a letter of the 11th (Cal. State Papers, Scot. Ser. i. 122). He did not, however, give to the queen regent anything more than moral aid. On 2 May Maitland announces to Cecil that he is expected in the camp on the morrow (ib. 148), and on the 10th, along with other lords of the congregation, he ratified the agreement entered into with Elizabeth at Berwick on 27 Feb. (Knox, Works, ii. 53). He was a commissioner for the treaty at Upsettlington on 31 May, and in October accompanied Maitland and Glencairn to London to propose a marriage between Elizabeth and the Earl of Arran. After the arrival of Queen Mary in Scotland he was named one of the privy council. He opposed the proposal made in 1561 to deprive Mary of the mass (ib. ii. 291), and when, on the occasion of a second anti-popish riot in 1563, Knox, summoned before the council as abetting it, boldly retaliated by charging Mary ‘to forsake that idolatrous religion,’ Morton, then lord chancellor, ‘fearing the queen's irritation,’ charged him to ‘hold his peace and go away’ (Spotiswood, History, ii. 25). Morton had been appointed lord chancellor 1 Jan. of this year in succession to Huntly, head of the papal party, whose conspiracy in the previous October he had aided Moray in suppressing, he and Lord Lindsay bringing with them one hundred horse and eight hundred foot (Herries, Hist. Marie Queen of Scots, p. 65). Randolph on 22 Jan., intimating Morton's appointment, writes: ‘I doubt not now we shall have good justice.’
Morton must be classed among those persons referred to by Cecil in a memorandum of 2 June 1565 as supporting the marriage of Mary and Darnley because they were ‘devoted’ to the latter by ‘bond of blood,’ with the qualification in Morton's case that the devotion was never more than lukewarm. To secure his support Lady Lennox, mother of Darnley, had on 12 and 13 May renounced her claims on the earldom of Angus, which Morton held in trust for his nephew, the young earl (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. 394), but he never had any personal predilection for Darnley. Randolph, on Darnley's arrival in Scotland, reports on 19 Feb. to Cecil that Morton ‘much disliked him and wished him away’ (Keith, History, ii. 265). As, however, Lady Lennox had renounced her claims on the earldom of Angus, Morton was too prudent to commit himself to the rebellious enterprises of the extreme protestant party led by Moray. At the banquet which followed the marriage ceremony on 25 July 1565 he served the queen as carver (Randolph to Leicester, printed in Wright's Elizabeth and her Times, i. 203), and he assisted in the ‘roundabout raid’ for the suppression of Moray's rebellion, accompanying the king, and having in fact the military command (Reg. Privy Counc. Scot. i. 379; Knox, Works, ii. 500). On account of his former friendship with Moray and Argyll, he was, however, held by the queen in strong suspicion. She was at least not sanguine of winning
