The History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland

¹While these things were in doing at Glasgow, Letters and a servant came from the Earle of Arran, to the Duke his father, signifying unto him, That by the providence of God he had escaped the French Kings hands, who most treasonably and most cruelly had sought his life, or at the least to have committed him to perpetual prison: For the same time the said French King, seeing he could not have the Earle himself, caused put his younger brother,² a child of such age as could not offend, in strait prison, where he yet remained, to wit, in the Month of October, the year of our Lord 1559. Which things were done by the power and craft of the Queen Dowager, at the time that the Duke and his friends were most ready to set forth her cause. These Letters received, and the estate of her two sons known,³ of whom one was escaped, and the other cast in vile prison, the Duke desired communing with the said Earle of Argyle; who partly against the will of some that loved him, rid unto the Duke from Glasgow to Hamilton, where abiding a night, he declared his judgement to the Duke, and to his friends, especially to Master Gavin Hamilton. The Duke required him and the Lord James to write their friendly and comfortable Letters to his son; which they most willingly did, and thereafter addressed them to their journey. But the very day of their departing, came one Boutancourt (from the Queen Regent with Letters, as was alleged) from the King and Queen of France, to the Lord James, which he delivered with a bragging countenance, and many threatening words: the Tenor of his Letter was this: The King his Letter to the Lord James. MY Cousin, I have greatly marvelled when I understood the troubles that are happened in these parts. And yet I more marvel, That ye, in whom I had whole confidence, and who has the Honour to be so near the Queen my wife, and has received from the late King my Father, from the Queen my wife, and from me such graces and favours that ye should be so forgetful, as to make your self the Head, and one of the principal beginners and nourishers of the tumults and seditions that are seen there: The which because it is so strange to me, and so far against the profession that ye at all times have made, ⟨p. 167⟩I cannot well believe it.