Mary, queen of Scots, her environment and tragedy, a biography

Preface

MY explanation for seeking to add to the numerous works on Mary Stuart may be stated in a sentence. The recent concise biographies — whatever their special merits — and the more important works, lately published, on special aspects of the subject, so far from forestalling, rather suggest the desirability, of a biography dealing in a '■ somewhat detailed and critical fashion with the main episodes of her career. True, among recent contributions to Marian literature is the first volume of Dr. Hay Fleming's notable example of biographic spadework. That book is, however, more a dictionary of the errors of other biographers of the Queen than a biography in the strict sense of the term. It has, it is to be hoped, done valuable service towards dissipating many persistent and venerable delusions about Queen Mary ; but its method is entirely exceptional, and only to be justified by the exceptional peculiarities of the Marian controversy ; while its efFect is necessarily, on the whole, negative rather than positive, and perhaps more unfavourable to Mary than is actually intended. Another recent biographical work of importance is the lively and graphic volume on the Love Affairs of Mary Qiueen of Scots, by Major Martin Hume, to whose

VI

PREFACE labours in calendaring the Spanish State Papers all students of this period of English and Scottish history are under a debt of obligation ; but the volume deals mainly with a special aspect of the Queen's character and career. Of recents works, less strictly biographic in form, a first place must be assigned to Father Pollen's Papal Negotiations, which, besides supplying much ' new and varied information in regard to minor details, has made known the suggestive fact that Mary dared to marry Darnley without a Papal dispensation. But for Father Pollen, also, we probably should not have had Mr. Lang's bright and ingenious Mystery of Mary Stuart, with its remarkable Casket Letter theory, which I have dealt with in an appendix ; and, again, Mr. Lang's volume has been the apparent begetter of Mr. Hewlett's clever and realistic GLueetis duair, which is, however, of course, romance rather than history, and, vividly suggestive though it be, rather provokes biography than supplies it.

For the student of human nature, the career of Mary Stuart must ever have a special fascination, as a striking example of a strong personality the issues of whose life seem to have been persistently determined by an adverse fate ; while the whole range of human history affords no better opportunity for the study of the moral and social influences that determine a nation's destiny. It is all very well to insist on attention, in the study of history, to external customs, habits, social conditions, progress in art and science and industry ; but after all, history is the history

PREFACE vii

of human nature, and these details are the mere trappings of the subject. It is the heart of the nation that we desire to understand ; and on account of the tension and stress of the great contest that centred round Mary Stuart, the hearts of all the main actors in it are laid bare with exceptional completeness.

The aim of the present biography is, therefore, to deal with the more personal aspects of the Marian period, and to deal with them apart from ecclesiastical prepossessions, and on the understanding that the praise and blame of the twentieth century are not quite applicable to the sixteenth. Indeed, the more the present writer has concerned himself with the career of Mary Stuart, the more has he been impressed with the inapplicability to it, in the strict sense, of praise or blame. Whatever may be the rights or wrongs of Protestantism or Catholicism, Mary appears to have been very largely the mere victim of a bitter religious quarrel.

While it has been deemed inadvisable to overload the text with references to authorities, they have been added on all the more important and disputed points.

The importance of portraiture and other illustrations as an aid to the realisation of the past is becoming more and more recognised ; and it is hoped that the special attention devoted to this in the present volumes will meet with the reader's approval.

September ii,th, 1905.

T. F. HENDERSON.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I

PAGE

PREFACE V

Chapter I Childhood In Scotland . . ... I Errata

VOL. I.

Page 306, line ^,for " Wemmys " read •' Wemyss " Page 308, hne t8,/or" Wemmys" read " Wemyss."

CHAPTER V HAMILTONS AND GORDONS 220

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII THE DARNLEY MARRIAGE 303

CONTENTS OF VOL. I

PAGE

PREFACE V

CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD IN SCOTLAND ... ... I

CHAPTER 11 THE FAVOURITE OF FRANCE 69

Chapter VII The Darnley Marriage 3o3 List Of Illustrations

VOL. I

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS {Frotti a miniature by F. Clouetat Windsor Castle) Fmntispieci

FACING PAGE

THE SWORD OF STATE OF SCOTLAND : A PRESENT FROM POPE JULIUS II. TO JAMES V. xii

JAMES V. AND MARY OF LORRAINE, THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF MARY QUEEN

OF SCOTS (After a picture in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire) . . 4 HENRY VIII. (After the picture by Holbein) . . . .8 KING EDWARD VI. (After the picture by Holbein, formerly in the possession of the

Earl of Egremont) . . . . . . -14

MARY OF LORRAINE, QUEEN OF JAMES V. AND MOTHER OF MARY QUEEN OF

SCOTS (From the picture in the National Portrait Gallery) . 20

LINLITHGOW PALACE (From an old print) . . 28

THE CROWN OF SCOTLAND . . ■ ■ 36

CARDINAL BEATON (From the picture at Holyrood Palace) . 40

EDWARD SEYMOUR, DUKE OF SOMERSET (After the picture by Holbein) 52

STIRLING CASTLE (After u drawing by G. B. Campion) . . 64 MARY LIVINGSTONE (From the picture in the possession of the Countess Dowager

of Seafield) . ... 66

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, AGED 9 (After an engraving by F. Clouet) 70

HENRY II. OF FRANCE (From a drawing after F. Clouet) .... 72

THE PALACE AT BLOis (After a drawing by J. W. M. Turner, R.A.) . . 76

THE CARDINAL OF LORRAINE (From a Contemporary engraving) ... 78

DIANA OF POITIERS (From the drawing by F. Clouet) . 80

MARY OF LORRAINE, QUEEN OF JAMES V. AND MOTHER OF MARY QUEEN OF

SCOTS (From u, drawing in the British Museum) . . . 90

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS IN 1559 (From a drawing by F. Clouet) . . lOO

FRANCIS II. OF FRANCE IN 1560 (From a drawing by F. Clouet) 104

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AS QUEEN OF FRANCE (Bronze bust in the Louvre) . 106

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AS QUEEN OF FRANCE (After an engraving by Cock) . 108

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS IN I560, AS A WIDOW, WEARING HER " DEUIL BLANC "

(From a drawing after F. Clouet) ... .... ii6

CATHERINE DE MEDICI IN 1561 (From an anonymous drawing in the Bibliotheque

Nationale, Paris) . . ^^23

Xll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

MARGARET OF vALOis {FrofK a drawtttg by F. Clouet) ■ ^^4

JOHN KKOX {From the engraving in Beza's " Icones ") . ■ ^30 MAiTLAND OF LETHiNGTON (From the picture in the possession of the Earl of

Lauderdale • ■ ^3"

JAMES STEWART, EARL OF MORAY (From the picture at Holyrood Palace) . 146

rONTAiNEBLEAU {From an old print) . ... • 152

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, IN WIDOW'S DRESS, AS QUEEN OF FRANCE {After an

engraving by Thomas de Leu) ... ..... 160

HOLYROOD PALACE, EDINBURGH {After u drawing by Gordon of Rothiemay) . 172

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS {After the picture by Mytens at St. James's Palace) . 178

FALKLAND PALACE {From an old print) • • 184

QUEEN ELIZABETH {After the picture by Zucchero in the collection of the Marquis

of Salisbury) ... • . 192

WILLIAM CECIL, FIRST BARON BURGHLEY, K. G. {From the piclure attributed to

Marc Gheeraedts in the National Portrait Gallery) 200

GEORGE BUCHANAN {From the picture by Francis Pourbus, in the possession of

the Royal Society) ....... ... 222

JAMES HAMILTON, THIRD EARL OF ARRAN {From an old engraving) . . 226 ENAMELLED JEWEL {Presented by Mary Queen of Scots to George Gordon, fourth

Earl of Huntly) ... 234

MEMENTO MORI WATCH {Presented by Mary Queen of Scots to Mary Seton) . 234

OLD ABERDEEN {From an old print) 238

DON CARLOS, SON OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN {After a painting by Sir Antonio More) 252

FRANCIS, DUKE OF GUISE {From u contemporary engraving) . . 258

PHILIP II., KING OF SPAIN {After an engraving by Cock) 268

AMBROSE DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK {After the picture in the collection of the

Marquis of Salisbury) .......... 272

CHARLES IX. IN 1570 (From u drawing by F. Clouet) 278

ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER {After the picture in the collection of

the Marquis of Salisbury) ... 292

ST. ANDREWS (From an old print) . . 298

MATTHEW STEWART, EARL OF LENNOX, REGENT OF SCOTLAND {After the picture

in the Royal Collection) .......... 304

HENRY STEWART, LORD DARNLEY {From the picture in the collection of the late

Earl of Seaforth) .... 306

LADY MARGARET DOUGLAS, COUNTESS OF LENNOX, MOTHER OF LORD DARNLEY

{After a picture formerly in the possession of Lord Carteret) . . 330

SETON HOUSE {From a print in the British Museum) . . . 334

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD DARNLEY {After a print by R. Elstrake) . 338

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS {From the picture at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg) . 352

THE SWORD OF STATE OF SCOTLAND.

A present from Pope Julius II. to James V.

Chapter I Childhood In Scotland

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS— third and only surviving child, and the only daughter, of James V. of Scotland and Mary of Lorraine — was born in the Palace of Linlithgow, either on October 7th or 8th, 1542.^ The birth took place at a very dark crisis of Scottish history. Abashed by the humiliating disaster of Solway Moss, and perturbed by bodeful expectancy of what might follow it, the spirit of the Scottish nation had sunk to an exceptional depth of dejection. Yet the birth was, whether the nation realised it or not, a mitigation of the disaster.

To Henry VIIL, then apparently purposing the annexation of Scodand, either by violence or guile, the birth could hardly have been welcome, and it must have been less gratifying after he learned of the death of James V. Had no immediate heir to the throne, in the senior line,

' The 8th was kept as the official birthday ; but Chalmers, in his Life of Mary, gives as authority for the 7th the Register of the ofScial of Lothian ; and the 7th is the date given by Bishop Leslie, who had special access to official documents, and by Holinshed. Knox gives the 8th, probably because he knew that it was Mary's custom to celebrate the 8th ; but if the birth happened late on the 7th, there was a strong temptation to make the 8th the birth-date, since it was the festival of the Conception of the Virgin Mary.

VOL. I, I been born, the peril of Scotland's annexation by Henry would have been even greater than it was : the groundless rumours that were current as to the birth and the child's illness, are a sufficient evidence of the English hope that the Scottish throne might be left, in a manner, vacant.

Some days before the birth happened, it was reported to have occurred prematurely. The first rumour was that the child was a son ; then it was said to be a daughter, but not like to live ; later it was declared to have died ; but although on the 19th Sir George Douglas was able to report that it was both alive and likely to live,^ Chapnys, the imperial ambassador in London, was on the 23rd writing to the Queen of Hungary that both mother and child were very ill and despaired of by the physician.^

The importance of the birth was incalculably enhanced by the death, within seven days afterwards, of James V. at Falkland Palace, where, a few days before the birth, he had taken to his bed. The variety of dates assigned to his death is partly to be accounted for by the fact that the occurrence was for a time concealed from the nation ; but Sir George Douglas, who had the information from a servant, was probably correct in stating that he died on Thursday at 12 o'clock at night, although he wrongly supposed that Thursday was the 15th instead of the 14th of the month.^

From an early period of his illness the King's mind had been affected. His nerves were highly strung, and when the disaster occurred he was apparently so ill as

2 Spanish State Papers, vi. (ii.) No. 87.

' Hamilton Papers, i. 339. Chalmers (MSS. in the University of Edinburgh) gives as authorities for the 14th the Register of Lothian, the Household Book, and the tombstone.

to be unable to accompany the army. There is no proof that he was a mere craven-hearted sentimentalist ; but, on account of his illness, the disaster completely upset his mental balance, and Douglas, on the authority of his servant, who was present with the King, reported that from the time he took to his bed, " he did rage and crye out, and spake but fewe wysse wordes." ^ Having taken to his bed on the 6th of the month, he was in the full grasp of the fever, or of the mental alienation, before a messenger arrived from Linlithgow with tidings of the Queen' s delivery of a daughter. Had the child been a son the news might have given him some comfort, but that it was a daughter seemed but the climax of his misfortunes. " The King," writes Lindsay of Pitscottie, " inquyred whidder it was a man or woman. The messinger said it was ane fair dochter. The King answered and said, 'Fairweill, it cam with ane las and it will pas with ane las ' : and so he commendit himselflF to the Almightie God, and spak litle from thenforth, but turned his back to his lordes, and his face to the wall." ^

The forebodings of the dying King were not to be fulfilled ; for though in their efforts against Mary's sovereignty the Protestants finally succeeded, the sceptre of Scotland did not then pass from the Stewarts. On the contrary, Mary's son, James VI., by ascending the throne of England, was to be the fated agent in accomplishing the great political purpose which was then bafHing the wit and might of Henry VIII. Nevertheless, the King's forebodings that exceptional misfortunes would await his daughter were fully justified. Almost from the earliest moments of her existence, she became an object of dire ' Hamilton Papers, i. 340. * Chronicle, ii. 406.

conflict and contention, and even what her immediate fate might be seemed to hang in very uncertain balances.

Among the more potent personages to whom her future was a subject of intimate concern, a first place must be assigned to the portentous Henry VIII., the most strenuous and self-willed personality of Europe, and at this juncture conscientiously bent on the appropriation of her kingdom. Nor could Henry's great adversary, Pope Paul III., nor his chief political rival, the accomplished and dissipated Francis I. of France, be oblivious to the issues dependent on the infant's fate, although their interference in the great intrigue was meanwhile of a more obscure and indirect character than that of Henry. For the results they might be able to achieve, Henry, Paul, and Francis were also largely dependent on the purposes of Scottish notabilities who had their own particular ends to serve.

Arran, recognised as next heir to the Crown, though his claims were, on account of asserted bastardy, disputed by Lennox, became, as Regent, a person of high official consequence. He desired, if he could, to turn the providential opportunity to account for the advancement of his house, and nothing could have gratified him more than the betrothal of the infant sovereign to his own son and heir ; but he was constitutionally unfit, however nominally high his position, for any hazardous adventure. His wits were so limited, and so mild and facile was his temper, that he had no distinct individual influence, and was bound to become the mere tool of subtler and more resolute plotters.

It was as the tool of others that Arran was a formidable opponent of Henry's scheme ; but, unlike Arran, the Queen- Dowager was exceptionally fitted for playing her own game, though her peculiar gifts were as yet unascertained.

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Probably alone amongst the intriguers unselfishly devoted to the infant's welfare, she could not be expected to favour the ambitious hopes of a mere noble like Arran ; and, apart from its worldly advantages, she was not likely to be biased towards the marriage to a son of the heretic Henry VIII. The eldest child of Claude, Count and afterwards Duke of Guise, and also, before her Scottish marriage, the widow of Louis of Orleans, second Duke of Longueville, her sympathies were necessarily with the French and Catholic party. That Henry's proposals offered no temptation to her is, however, by no means certain ; but in any case she had meantime to dissimulate her preferences, and to remain outwardly almost as impassive to the designs of others as was her helpless infant.

Next to Arran and the Queen-Dowager in official power, but much more to be reckoned with than either, was Cardinal Beaton, the virtual prime minister and more of the late King, and the main director of the policy which had resulted in the Solway disaster. This powerful prelate was, even for his own time, a quite notable specimen of the secular ecclesiastic. No such astonishing development of worldly ecclesiasticism is perhaps now possible, and amongst the ambitious ecclesiastics of that exceptional age Beaton occupied a high pre-eminence. Like many great prelates of his time, he lived in open violation of his priestly vows of chastity ; but he violated them with as much decorous restraint as if he had been the husband of one wife, and, it may be, was quite faithful to the lady who had won his affections. Nor could there have been any prelate more resolutely devoted to the interests of the Catholic Church as he understood them ; but, whilst he was more or less the slave of ecclesiastic^,!

fetichism, his inordinate conceptions of priestly power had a strong secular colouring, so that practically in his eyes the Church was hardly more than a Divine institution for gratifying the pride and ministering to the avarice of the higher ecclesiastics. His face indicates polish and refinement rather than coarseness ; but though also full of intelligence, the expression is disdainful, and there are indications of temper, if not of cruelty.

Haughty and ambitious, and contemptuous of his intellectual and social inferiors, he viewed the spread of heresy among the friars and common people with aristocratic contempt, and punished it with much the same lofty rigour as that exercised by the secular justice against the crime of deer-stealing. But, possessed of a tireless and dauntless energy, and an expert in unscrupulous craft, he was, by the aid of his ecclesiastical position, by far the most formidable opponent that Henry had in Scotland, and much more than a match for the half-hearted band of Scottish nobles which Henry, by mingled bribes and threats, had lured into his service. The triumph of his diplomacy over that of Henry was inevitable, for, in addition to his great talents and his ecclesiastical prestige, he had, owing to the overweening assumption of Henry, the peculiar advantage of posing as a devoted and high-minded patriot.

Of the sincerity, and even fanaticism, of his patriotism there can hardly be more doubt than of that of the majority of his fellow-Scots ; but, in his efforts to thwart Henry, his patriotism was largely the slave of his ecclesiasticism. That Henry was seeking to tamper with the ancient independence of Scotland was perhaps cause enough, in itself, to rouse the resistance of Beaton to his policy ; but any terms that might have been proposed for a, union of the two kingdom?

would have been strenuously opposed by Beaton so long as they implied alliance with a king at feud with Rome ; while, had Henry appeared in the guise of a Catholic deliverer to a Scotland infected with heresy, Beaton, on almost any terms, would, we must suppose, have welcomed him with open arms. Yet, matters being as they were, Beaton was the means of rendering priceless service to his country in a political crisis of exceptional gravity ; for the aims of Henry, though in some respects well meant, were vitiated by his too passionate impatience, and his too lofty contempt for Scottish national sentiment.

The main direct opponent of the Cardinal in Scotland was Henry's agent. Sir George Douglas, brother of the Earl of Angus. Both in boldness and subtlety, Douglas was more than the equal of the Cardinal. The part he had to play, being that of, in a manner, bamboozling at once Henry, Arran, and the Cardinal, was an almost impossible one ; but in playing it he showed a fertility of resource suggestive of wizardry. Like Angus, he really wished to do his best to oblige the English King, who for many years had sheltered the two from the wrath of James V. He was driven to deceive and bamboozle Henry, simply by the unreasonable character of Henry's demands. Notwithstanding the rivalry of the Douglases with the royal house of Stewart, and their consequent alliances with England, even they were not without a tincture of patriotic prejudice, and by no means relished the brutal attitude of Henry towards their country. The task which Henry sought to impose on them was really an impossible one ; and on this account alone they had hardly other option than to plot for a modification of its stringency, even if they had not had chiefly at heart their own rehabilitation in Scotland,

Finally, a good deal was to depend on the Earl of Lennox, though more in the remote future than in the immediate present. Recalled by the Cardinal from France, where he had been in the service of the French king, he was, on account of his claims against Arran for the next heirship to the Scottish Crown, to play a part of high importance as the tool of the Cardinal ; and, after the Cardinal had cast him off, he was to become the tool of Henry VIII. But, admirable soldier though he was, and a great proficient in manly exercises, he was not fitted by nature to shine much more brilliantly than his rival Arran as a politicial diplomatist ; and he was mainly to be reckoned with after his marriage to the ardent and irrepressible Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Angus and the Queen- Dowager, Margaret Tudor. The great results of that marriage were as yet unforeseen, but it was to have a more vital effect on the relationships between the two countries than either the unprincipled intrigues of Henry or the savage exhibitions of his unbridled wrath.

As regards the immediate politicial outlook in Scotland, the death of James V. was fortunate rather than otherwise, for it induced Henry to suspend active operations against it when it was very much at his mercy, and to seek, in the first instance, to compass by guile what he had purposed to win by force of arms. Instead of proceeding to the immediate conquest or chastisement of Scotland, he now proposed to effect the transference of its government to himself, through a proposal for the betrothal of the infant Queen to his only son Prince Edward. There was of course the difficulty of Henry's quarrel with the Pope ; but by many of the Scottish nobles a close alliance with such a flaunting heretic, and such a bridler of ecclesiastical

After the picture by Holbein.

HENRY VIII.

arrogance as Henry, was hardly regarded with horror. They were already, many of them, weary of the yoke of Beaton and other ambitious ecclesiastics, even if most of them were yet untainted by the new doctrines ; while the prospect of a union of the kingdoms was already a by no means unwelcome idea to the more enlightened Scots. There was nothing in itself abhorrent in the proposal of Henry to the principal nobles taken prisoners at Solway, that they should do their utmost to eifect the betrothal of the young Queen to his son Prince Edward. To them and to Scotland there was even in the proposition a certain specious air of magnanimity. Yet it scarcely veiled the real character of his intentions — the virtual seizure of the Scottish government.

That Henry's purpose could then, even in opposition to the efforts of the Cardinal and the churchmen, have been accomplished by methods which would not have done violence to Scottish susceptibilities, was perhaps impossible ; but his best chance of success was by endeavouring to offend these susceptibilities as little as he could.

But besides that Henry had never learned to curb or temper his strong desires, he was probably convinced that he had no choice of methods — that the only adequate guarantee of the marriage and the union was the immediate possession of the Queen and Scotland. His providential capture of so many Scottish nobles afforded him, he thought, an exceptional chance of effecting his purpose, and he was resolved to make the most of it. This was all very good from his point of view, but what he demanded of the nobles was of course shameful treachery to their country. It is but a sorry excuse for them, that when they consented to the bargain they were wholly at his mercy ; of lo MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

more relevancy was the consideration that he was really proposing to them the impossible, and that on their arrival in Scotland the force of circumstances would compel him to modify his demands.

The treachery now mentioned the nobles were asked to perform openly. Henry calculated that, if willing, they, with the co-operation of Angus, had sufficient power to compel the accomplishment of his wishes. They were therefore, on their arrival in Scotland, publicly to demand the delivery of the child to Henry's guardianship, and the transference of the principal fortresses to his keeping ; and should those comprehensive requests be refused, they were to effect Henry's purpose by force. In addition to this, ten of the principal prisoners signed a secret article by which, in the case of the child's decease, they promised to aid Henry to the best of their power in taking " the whole rule, dominion and government of Scotland upon him " ; and the Earl of Angus, by a separate article, undertook to aid Henry in this, whether Henry obtained the guardianship of the child or not, or whatever fate might befall her.^

It so happened, however, that the astute Sir George Douglas had not been asked to sign any of the articles. His brother Angus had signed them without consulting with him, and Lisle perceived that Sir George was " verye angrye in his mynde " on learning that his brother had done so, without representing to the King the imprudence of imposing an agreement on him which could hardly be kept secret, and if known would do much mischief in Scotland.^ This could only mean that Sir George deemed

' J^qmiltot), Papers, i. 374-6. ' Ifiid., i. 390,

CHILDHOOD IN SCOTLAND ii

Henry's policy impossible. If Angus was resolved to fulfil his oaths to the letter, Sir George had hardly other option than to support him ; but then Angus was entirely under the influence of the much cleverer and more resolute Sir George, and Sir George, being bound by no oaths, felt himself free to do his utmost to modify, and in a sense to thwart, the policy of Henry, in the interests at once of Henry, the Douglases, and Scotland.

His strength in thwarting Henry lay in his plea of non possumus. The Solway nobles could do nothing without the support of their followers ; and in his first interview with Henry's ambassador. Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir George affirmed that if " we shoulde go about to take the Governour from his state, and to bring the obedience of this realme to Englonde . . . there is not so lytle a boy but he woll hurle stones ayenst it, the wyves woll com out with their distaffes, and the comons unyversaUy woll rather dye in it." ^ Further, the Solway nobles could plead that before their arrival in Scotland, a Governor of Scotland had already been chosen, and that Henry's best chance of securing his purpose was by peaceful negotiation through the Governor.

There has been some obscurity as to the time and manner of Arran's succession to the regency. As the nearest heir to the throne after the infant, he had a legal claim to the governorship of the kingdom, while the guardianship of the child fell to her mother, as her nearest female relative ; but, on December 1 8th, Lisle learned from Sir George Douglas that " the gret men of Scotland," who were then convened in Edinburgh, intended to choose four governors of the realm — Arran, Moray, Huntly, and ' Hamilton Papers, i. 477.