the West Port was committed to the Earl Marischal, who prudently ‘stayed there and invaded no man’ (Calderwood, iv. 390). He was present at the banquet of reconciliation held by the king on the 14th of the following May in the castle of Edinburgh (ib. p. 614), and henceforth he occupied a place of considerable influence in the king's counsels. The king's favour to his neighbour the catholic Huntly necessarily ruffled their relations. On 6 March 1588–9 the Earl Marischal found it necessary to give sureties in ten thousand marks to abide by the decision of the king in regard to the ‘actions, feuds, and debates’ between him and Huntly (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 364). The Earl Marischal was a staunch protestant, and was in January 1588–9 nominated one of the commissioners for the purpose of putting into more effectual execution the laws against the papists (Calderwood, v. 3). One of the most noticeable results of this commission was the conviction in the following year of Huntly of treason.
In June 1589 the Earl Marischal, partly at the suggestion of Sir James Melville, who himself desired to decline the honour (Melville, Memoirs, p. 367), was chosen ambassador extraordinary to Denmark to complete the match between the young Princess Anne of Denmark and the Scottish king, and to escort the bride to Scotland (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iv. 391). He was selected on account of his knowledge of foreign languages, his high personal character, and especially his great wealth. The Earl Marischal himself undertook to defray the expenses, and arrangements having been completed on a scale of great magnificence, the embassy set out on the 18th of the month. The marriage was celebrated by proxy at the Danish court on 20 Aug., and in the following September the Scottish ambassador with the queen and all her train set sail for Scotland. The ships were driven back by contrary winds, and compelled to winter in Norway. The king himself set out for Norway, where he was married to the queen on 24 Nov. No blame for the delay attached to the Earl Marischal, and on the following day an act of ‘exoneration and grateful approbation’ was passed in favour of the Earl Marischal and his companions for all their proceedings in the embassy to Denmark (ib. iv. 438). In recompense the earl also obtained the abbacy of Deer, ‘in perpetual monument of the said service, to him and his for ever’ (ib. p. 440).
On 29 July 1591 he was committed for a short time to the castle of Edinburgh for having had communications with the Earl of Bothwell (Calderwood, v. 138; Moysie, p. 86). On 9 March 1592–3 he was appointed the king's commissioner within the shires of Aberdeen, Banff, and Kincardine, with special power to apprehend George, earl of Huntly, and other papists and rebellious persons (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 49). In connection with the king's expedition to the north in the autumn of 1592 he signed the bond at Aberdeen for the maintenance and defence of the liberty of the true religion (Calderwood, v. 235).
The Earl Marischal, as one of the few thoroughly cultured Scottish noblemen of his time, was anxious to support a wider system of education. In 1593 he therefore founded Marischal College, Aberdeen, for the maintenance of which he granted the properties formerly belonging to the Grey, the Black, and the White friars of Aberdeen, and to the chaplainries of Bervie and Cowie. The foundation originally consisted of a principal, three teachers, a regent, and a cook. Minute regulations were laid down for its government and administration, and the appointments to professorships were reserved to him and his heirs (Charter in Fasti Mariscellanæ Aberdonensis, New Spalding Club, i. 39–60), but after the attainder of the earldom in 1716 they were vested in the crown.
On 31 Oct. 1593 the Earl Marischal was appointed one of a commission for the trial of the catholic lords (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 103), and he was one of the five lords of the articles who in 1594 did not agree to their forfeiture (Calderwood, v. 332). On 7 Nov. he was named one of the councillors to the lieutenant of the north, and was at the same time, along with others who assisted him, declared to have merited his majesty's ‘favour and remembrance’ by demolishing the fortalice of Newton and other houses of the northern rebels (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 189). He was one of the privy councillors chosen under the new act for the reconstitution of the council passed 14 Dec. 1598. By that act absence from the council without leave for four consecutive days, or remaining at the horn for forty days, incurred deprivation of office; and after the Earl Marischal's absence had on 19 Dec. been excused for a month (ib. p. 503), and again on 8 May 1599 for forty days (ib. p. 539), he was on 22 May 1599, for absence on four consecutive days after expiry of his leave of absence, deprived of all place and vote in the council (ib. p. 557). The earl evidently preferred literary retirement to party politics. Subsequently he was, however, again chosen a member of the privy council, and was present at a meeting on 24 Feb. 1601 (ib. vi. 214). He was also one of the commission appointed by the parliament of Perth in 1604 to co-operate with the English commissioners regarding a union with England.
