Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/164

224 while the royal infant brought with him into the world pretensions the most brilliant that could have befallen a mortal creature, he also carried in his constitution a weakness of the most lamentable nature, affecting both his body and his mind. About three months before his birth, his father headed a band of conspirators, who broke violently into the privacy of his mother's chamber, and in her presence slew her favourite counsellor, David Riccio. The agitation of the mother on that occasion, took effect upon the child, who, though intended apparently to be alike strong in mental and bodily constitution, showed through life many deficiencies in both respects, though, perhaps, to a less extent than has been represented by popular history.

It is well known that a confederation of the Scottish nobles dethroned Mary about a year after the birth of her son. While this ill-fated princess was condemned to imprisonment in Lochleven castle, her son was taken to Stirling, and there crowned at the age of thirteen months and ten. days. The real government was successively administered by the regents Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton, under the secret direction of the English queen, by whom, in time, her rival Mary was put to death. James, after a weakly infancy, was placed under the care of the celebrated Buchanan, whose religious principles and distinguished scholarship seemed to qualify him peculiarly for the task of educating a protestant prince. It would appear that the young king received at the hands of his master a great deal more learning, classical and theological, than he was able to digest, and thus became liable to as much of the fault of pedantry, as consists in a hoarding of literature for its own sake, or for purposes of ostentation, accompanied by an inability to turn it to its only true use in the ordinary purposes of life. A pliability of temper, subject alike to evil and to good influences; a sly acuteness in penetrating the motives of men, without the power to make it of any practical advantage; and a proneness to listen to the dattering counsellors who told him he was a king, and ought to have the power of one, were other characteristics of this juvenile monarch; whose situation, it must at the same time be acknowledged, was one of such difficulty, as to render a fair development of the best faculties of the mind, and the best tendencies of the heart, hardly to be expected.

Though made and upheld as a king, in consequence of a successful rebellion against the monarchical principle, James was early inspired with a high sense of his royal powers and privileges, probably by some of those individuals who are never wanting around the persons of young princes, let their education be ever so carefully conducted. Even before attaining the age of twelve, he had become the centre of a little knot of courtiers, who clustered about him at his residence in Stirling castle, and plotted schemes for transferring the reins of government into his own hands. Morton permitted himself to be surprised in 1578 by this party, who for some time conducted the affairs of state in the name of the king, as if he had been in full possession of his birth-right. Morton, however, soon after regained nearly all his wonted ascendancy, and it was not till two or three years later that the king became completely emancipated from this powerful agent of the English queen. A young scion of nobility, named captain Stuart, from his commanding the king's guards, and Esme, earl of Lennox, the king's cousin, were his chief instruments in obtaining the sovereign power, and in raising that prosecution against Morton, which ended in his execution, June 2, 1581. The former is represented as a profligate adventurer, who studied only how, by flattering the king and enforcing his despotic views, to promote his own interest Lennox was a gentler and worthier person, but was obnoxious to popular odium, on account of his professing the catholic faith. The protestant and English interest soon rallied, and, in August, 1582, took