troops for this purpose, but stipulated that her son, the prince, should retain the title of king (ib. p. 237). Further, he made it a condition that the Duke of Guise should have the chief management of the plot (De Tassis to Philip, 18 May, ib. p. 248). The Duke of Guise therefore went to Paris, where he had a special interview with Creighton and Holt, when it was arranged that a force should be raised on behalf of catholicism under pretext of an expedition to Brittany (ib. p. 254). Difficulties, however, arose on account of the timidity or jealousy of Philip II, and the delay proved fatal.
The fact was that after Morton's death Lennox, deeming himself secure, ceased to maintain his submissive attitude to the kirk authorities, whose sensitiveness was not slow to take alarm. Thus, at the assembly held in October 1581 the king complained that Walter Balcanquhal was reported to have stated in a sermon that popery had entered ‘not only in the court but in the king's hall, and was maintained by the tyranny of a great champion who is called Grace’ (Calderwood, iii. 583). A serious quarrel between the duke and Captain James Stewart (lately created Earl of Arran) led also to dangerous revelations. As earl of Arran, the duke's henchman now deemed himself the duke's rival. He protested against the duke's right to bear the crown at the meeting of parliament in October, and matters went so far that two separate privy councils were held—the one under Arran in the abbey, and the other under the duke in Dalkeith (ib. iii. 592–3; Spotiswood, ii. 281). They were reconciled after two months' ‘variance;’ but meanwhile Arran, to ‘strengthen himself with the common cause,’ had given out ‘that the quarrel was for religion, and for opposing the duke's courses, who craftily sought the overthrow thereof’ (Spotiswood). After the reconciliation, the duke on 2 Dec. made another declaration of the sincerity of his attachment to protestantism (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 431), but mischief had been done which no further oaths could remedy. In addition to this the duke had come into conflict with the kirk in regard to Robert Montgomerie, whom he had presented to the bishopric of Glasgow (Calderwood, iii. 577); and Arran and the duke, being now reconciled, did not hesitate to flout the commissioners of the assembly when on 9 May 1582 they had audience of the king. On 12 July a proclamation was issued in the king's name, in which the rumour that Lennox was a ‘deviser’ of ‘the erecting of Papistrie’ was denounced as a ‘malicious’ falsehood, inasmuch as he had ‘sworn in the presence of God, approved with the holy action of the Lord's Table,’ to maintain protestantism, and was ‘ready to seal the same with his blood’ (ib. p. 783). The proclamation might have been effectual but for the fact that in some way or other the kirk had obtained certain information of the plot that was in progress (ib. p. 634). This information had reached them on 27 July through James Colville, the minister of Easter Wemyss, who had arrived from France with the Earl of Bothwell; and the news hastened, if it did not originate, the raid of Ruthven on 22 Aug., when the king was seized near Perth by the protestant nobles.
On learning what had happened, the duke, who was at Dalkeith, came to Edinburgh; and, after purging himself ‘with great protestations that he never attempted anything against religion,’ proposed to the town council that they should write to the noblemen and gentlemen of Lothian to come to Edinburgh ‘to take consultation upon the king's delivery and liberty’ (ib. p. 641); but they politely excused themselves from meddling in the matter. Next day, Sunday the 26th, James Lawson depicted in a sermon ‘the duke's enormities’ (ib. p. 642); and, although certain noblemen were permitted to join him, and were sent by him to hold a conference with the king, the only answer they obtained was that Lennox ‘must depart out of Scotland within fourteen days’ (ib. p. 647). Leaving Edinburgh on 5 Sept. 1582 on the pretence that he was ‘to ride to Dalkeith, the duke, after he had passed the borough muir, turned westwards, and rode towards Glasgow’ (ib. p. 648). On 7 Sept. a proclamation was made at Glasgow forbidding any to resort to him except such as were minded to accompany him to France, and forbidding the captain of the castle of Dumbarton to receive more into the castle than he was able to master and overcome (ib.) At Dumbarton the duke on 20 Sept. issued a declaration ‘touching the calumnies and accusations set out against him’ (ib. p. 665). Meanwhile he resolved to wait at Dumbarton in the hope of something turning up, and on the 17th he sent a request to the king: or a ‘prorogation of some few days’ (ib. p. 673). A little later he sent to the king for liberty to go by England (ib. p. 689); but his intention was to organise a plot for the seizure of the king, which was accidentally discovered. The king, it is said, earnestly desired that the duke might be permitted to remain in Scotland; but was ‘sharply threatened by the lords that if he did not cause him to depart he should not be the longest liver of them all’ (Forbes-
