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in their offices by two subsequent acts of the Privy Council, 1 following changes in the regency. The form in each case was the same; the King's education in "literature and religioun " was to continue under " Maisteris George Buchan- nane and Petir Young his present Pedagogis, or sic as salbe heireftir appointit . . . agreing in religioun with the saidis Maisteris." The characters of all four tutors and of the widow of the Earl of Mar, who was mistress of the household at Stirling, are succinctly indicated by a passage in Sir James Melville's Memoirs: " The tua abbotis wer wyse and modest; My Lady Mar was wyse and schairp, and held the King in gret aw ; and sa did Mester George Buchwen- nen. Mester Peter Yong was gentiller, and was laith till offend the King at any tym, and used him self wairly, as a man that had mynd of his awen weill, be keping of his Maies- teis favour. Bot Mester George was a stoik philosopher and loked not far before the hand. ... He was also of gud religion for a poet." 2
Buchanan and Young together were chiefly responsible for the King's training in morals and scholarship during the twelve quiet years he spent at Stirling Castle. The choice of the former was predetermined by his eminence not only in Scotland but in all Europe as a teacher, scholar, and writer. Though at the time of his appointment he had written nothing in the vernacular, he had a wide reputation as a poet and dramatist in Latin, 3 and as a leader of Protes- tant thought in politics and theology. His De Jure Regni apud Scotos gives a sufficient idea of the startling, though from a modern standpoint sound, political doctrines with which James's mind was fed during his credulous childhood. Written at the time of Mary's downfall, it asserts the ac- countability of a ruler to his subjects, justifies tyrannicide, and shows incidentally to what an extent radical political
1 Acts of the Privy Council of Scotland, January 28, 1572-1573, following the death of Mar; May 3, 1578, following the temporary fall of Morton.
2 Bannatyne Club edition, p. 262.
8 Cf. Du Bellay, Regrets, sonnet CLXXIX :
"Buchanan, qui d'un vers aux plus vieux comparable Le surnom de Sauvage ostes a 1'Ecossois."
