thankfull, and necessar service to his Hienes,’ and complete exoneration was given by name to the Earl of Mar, the Earl of Gowrie, and the Earl of Glencairn (Reg. Privy Council of Scotland, iii. 519). On 20 May the king, attended by the Earl of Mar and others, set out on a ‘progress,’ and while at Falkland he, with the aid of Colonel Stewart, withdrew suddenly to St. Andrews, and took refuge in the castle. The Duke of Lennox having died in the previous month, Arran now regulated alone the counsels of the king. On 22 Aug. Mar arrived at court, and through the mediation of Argyll was at first favourably received (Bowes, Correspondence, Surtees Society, p. 560). Argyll was, however, unsuccessful in reconciling him with Arran, and on the 27th he was committed to the custody of Argyll till he should leave the country (Calderwood, iii. 724). Having been persuaded by Argyll to deliver up Stirling Castle, he retired with him into Argyllshire (Bowes, Correspondence, 568). The keeping of the castle was then given by the king to Arran, who was also appointed provost of Stirling (Calderwood, iii. 731). Mar hoped that the storm would blow over, but in the beginning of September he was warned to depart also from Argyll (Bowes, 577), and on 31 Jan. 1583–4 he was banished from England, Scotland, and Ireland on pain of treason (Reg. Privy Council Scot. iii. 626). Either before or immediately after this he had crossed over to Ireland (Calderwood, iv. 21), and Angus O'Neill was charged to make him and the Master of Glammis depart from Carrickfergus (ib. 24). O'Neill declined, and shortly afterwards Mar was in Scotland endeavouring with other protestant lords to put into execution a new conspiracy. Whispers of the plot having reached Arran, all persons, servants, dependents, or tenants of Mar were on 29 March commanded to leave Edinburgh within three hours (Reg. Privy Council Scot. iii. 644; Calderwood, iv. 20). It was not, however, at Edinburgh that Mar designed to strike. In these plots and counterplots a form of legality was always observed, and Mar therefore determined to begin by capturing the castle of Stirling, to which his legal claims were more than plausible. This he effected on 17 April (Calderwood, iv. 25). Stirling was to have been made the rendezvous of the protestant nobles, but on 13 April Gowrie was captured by Colonel Stewart at Dundee. Mar therefore, on the approach of the king against Stirling with a large force, left the castle in haste and again fled the country (Sir James Melville, Memoirs, 326; Calderwood, vi. 32). Thereupon a proclamation was made for the capture of him and his confederates dead or alive (Reg. Privy Council Scot. iii. 659), but they made their way across the border to Berwick (Cal. State Papers, Scot. Ser. i. 470). There they received a letter from Walsingham, informing them of Elizabeth's intention to provide for their safety and to use the best means she could for their restoration to the king's favour (ib.). James endeavoured to persuade her to deliver them up, but she soundly rated him for having such dangerous and wicked instruments as Arran about him (ib. 472). Having arrived at Newcastle, Angus, Mar, and Glammis drew up instructions to Colvile to lay their case before the queen (ib. 473), and Elizabeth sent William Davison to Edinburgh on a special embassy on their behalf (ib.), who, however, found James vehemently opposed to come to any agreement with them. At the meeting of parliament in August both Mar and his countess, Agnes Drummond, were forfaulted (Calderwood, iv. 198). Thereafter Elizabeth opened negotiations with Arran, whose professions of goodwill so far prevailed as to make her discourage a proposed enterprise of the exiled lords against his authority. Accordingly on 22 Dec. 1584 she informed them that she had consented to the king of Scotland's request for their removal from the frontiers of the kingdom (Cal. State Papers, Scot. Ser. i. 491). After disobeying her repeated expostulations, they at last, on 2 Feb., reluctantly intimated compliance, and removing from Newcastle proceeded southwards. At Norwich they learned that an accusation had been made against them of being concerned in a conspiracy against the king's person (ib. 494), whereupon they wrote on 10 March asking to be sent for to be tried immediately before the council. Elizabeth, anxious at this time for a stricter league with James, instructed her ambassador to advise the king that Angus, Mar, and Glammis might be tried for their alleged conspiracy against his person by a parliament freely chosen (ib. 494). On 4 May she, however, in reply to the ambassador, requesting delivery of them, expressed her conviction of their innocence (ib. 495), and on the 12th she sent Sir Philip Sydney to visit them at their lodgings at Westminster, ‘to assure them of her good affection’ (Calderwood, iv. 366). At last, finding that her attempts to ‘disgrace’ Arran with the king were vain, and that her negotiations for a league were making no real progress, she was induced to act on the advice of Edward Wotton to Walsingham (25 Aug. 1585, Cal. State Papers, Scot. Ser. i. 506), ‘to stay the league and let slip the lords, who will be able to take Arran and seize on the person of the king.’
