Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/234

294 along with Gaulter and Andrew Melville, have celebrated the memory and talents of this young man. Beza, in the dedication of his "Icones virorum doctrina et pietate illustrium," to king James, mentions, with much satisfaction, the circumstance of having been intrusted with the education of pupils so illustrious. After the death of his brother, Keith left Geneva, and visited the courts of Europe, where his rank and great wealth admitted his making a considerable figure. It is said that, even in this employment, presumed to be full of gayety, he was a grave and accurate student: that he indulged in the splendour of courts more for the purpose of acquiring- historical knowledge, than of pursuing pleasure, and that he travelled less for the purpose of recreation and variety, than for the acquisition of correct knowledge of the various countries of the world, having seldom seen a country of which he did not show his acquaintance, by embodying his knowledge in a map. He returned to his native country, after an absence of seven years. The Scottish peer who in the sixteenth century founded a university, and encouraged learning, must have been a man whose penetration and grasp of mind were very different from those of his colleagues in rank, yet he appears not to have been totally exempt from the barbarous habits and feelings of the day.

On the 8th of June, 1585, we find him obtaining a remission under the great seal, for "art and part" of the slaughter of his relative William Keith, apparent of Luduquhairn; and in 1595, ho is charged to appear before the king and council, as a person entertaining a deadly feud with the laird of Meldrum. Soon after his accession to the earldom, the celebrated raid of Ruthven took place, a political movement, as to which it is difficult to discover his view, but with which his connexion seems to have somewhat displeased the king. He was, apparently, not present at the "raid," nor does he appear to have approached so hot a political atmosphere, until the king's escape from Falkland to St Andrews, whither he repaired, apparently as a neutral person; but he is represented as having retired to his own home in disgust, on the king changing the lenient measure he had at first proposed towards the rebels. The earl was a member of that parliament which, on the 19th of October, 1582, approved the acts of the conspirators, holding their proceedings as legal, and protecting their persons from punishment, by an act which was afterwards expunged from the statute book. It is not without surprise, that, after such a measure, we find him acting as chancellor of the assize of peers, which, with considerable partiality in its proceedings, found the earl of Gowrie guilty of treason, on account of his share in the raid of Ruthven. It can scarcely be doubted, that in these proceedings he was guilty of inconsistency: it is not likely that any one attended a parliament held under the auspices of the conspirators, for the purpose of voting against them, and it was not customary for the crown to choose assizors who would acquit, while his having acted as chancellor leaves no doubt that he voted for a verdict of guilty! Charity can only palliate this tergiversation, on the circumstance, that Gowrie had, in the interval between these events, been guilty of additional acts of disobedience.

After the singular proceedings on the part of James towards the court of Denmark, in attempting a negotiation of marriage with the eldest daughter of Frederick the II., which terminated in that monarch (not presuming the king of Scotland to be serious in his proposals) marrying his daughter to the duke of Brunswick; the lover, disappointed of one daughter, was resolved to try more consistent plans for obtaining the other, and James proposed to send lord Altry,