Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/213

Rh the unfortunate queen appeared upon the scaffold, arrayed in her best and most splendid attire, and her whole conduct throughout the trying scene was marked with the noble bearing and unshaken fortitude of a heroine. Mary never for a moment forgot that she was queen of Scotland, and she died with a magnanimity worthy of the title.

STUART,, Earl of Murray, celebrated in Scottish history by the title of the "Good Regent," was an illegitimate son of James V., by Margaret Erskine, daughter of John, fourth lord Erskine. The precise year of his birth, is not certainly known; but there is good reason for believing that this event took place in 1533. Agreeably to the policy which James V. pursued with regard to all his sons,—that of providing them with benefices in the church, while they were yet in infancy, that he might appropriate their revenues during their nonage,—the priory of St Andrews was assigned to the subject of this memoir, when he was only in his third year.

Of the earlier years of his life, we have no particulars ; neither have we any information on the subject of his education. The first remarkable notice of him occurs in 1548, when Scotland was invaded by the lords Grey de Wilton and Clinton, the one by land, and the other by sea. The latter having made a descent on the coast of Fife, the young prior, who then lived at St Andrews, placed himself at the head of a determined little band of patriots, waylaid the invaders, and drove them back to their boats with great slaughter. Shortly after this, he accompanied his unfortunate sister, queen Mary, then a child, to France, whither a party of the Scottish nobles sent her, at once for safety, and for the benefits of the superior education which that country afforded.

The prior, however, did not remain long in France on this occasion; but he seems to have been in the practice of repairing thither, from time to time, during several years after. At this period he does not appear to have taken any remarkable interest in national affairs, and none whatever in those of the church, to which he had always a decided aversion as a profession. He, however, did not object to the good things in its gift. In addition to the priory of St Andrews, he acquired that of Fittenweem, and did not hesitate, besides, to accept that of Mascon in France, in commendam, with a dispensation to hold three benefices. For these favours of the French court, he took an oath of fealty to pope Paul III. in 1544.

From the year 1548, when the prior, as he was usually called, defeated the English troops under Clinton, till 1557, there occurs nothing in his history, with the exception of the circumstance of his accompanying Mary to France, worthy of any particular notice. In the latter year, accompanied by his brother, lord Robert Stuart, abbot of Holyrood, he made an incursion into England at the head of a small force, but without effecting any very important service, or doing much injury to the enemy. In the same year, he proceeded to Paris, to witness the ceremony of marriage between the young queen of Scotland and the dauphin of France, having been appointed one of the commissioners on the part of the former kingdom for that occasion. Soon after the celebration of the marriage, the prior solicited from Mary the earldom of Murray; but this request, by the advice of her mother, the queen regent, she refused; and, although she qualified the refusal by an offer of a bishopric, either in France or England, instead, it is said that from this circumstance proceeded, in a great measure, his subsequent hostility to the regent's government.

During the struggles between the queen regent and the lords of the congregation, the prior, who had at first taken part with the former, how sincerely may be questioned, but latterly with the lords, gradually acquired, by his