Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/182

 wife, Janet Beaton of Easter Wemyss, succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father in 1529. During his minority he remained under the guardianship of Sir James Hamilton (d. 1540) [q. v.] of Finnart (Hamilton MSS. 5, 6). In 1536 he accompanied James V on his matrimonial expedition into France (, ii. 337). On the death of James (14 Dec. 1542), shortly after the battle of Solway Moss, he was chosen governor of the realm during the minority of Mary; and, notwithstanding the violent and unscrupulous opposition of Cardinal Beaton [see ], was installed in his office on 22 Dec. 1542. His election, which was confirmed by the estates on 15 March 1543 (Acts of Parl. ii. 411, 593), was due rather to his position as ‘second person of the realm’ (through the marriage of his grandfather, Sir James Hamilton of Cadzow, lord Hamilton (d. 1479) [q. v.], with Mary, sister of James III), than to any commanding talents of his own, though, according to Knox, ‘the cause of the great favour that was borne to him was that it was bruited that he favoured God's word, and because it was well known that he was one appointed to have been persecuted, as the scroll found in the king's pocket after his death did witness’ (Reformation, i. 94, 101;, State Papers, i. 94, 108). He was a man of great wealth and refinement, genial and tolerant, though somewhat vain in his private relations, but in public affairs indolent and vacillating in the extreme. Almost from the first it was apparent that in political capacity and daring he was inferior to his rival the cardinal. To Henry VIII, however, his character and religious sentiments seemed to present a favourable opportunity for the realisation of his scheme of a union between the two kingdoms, and no efforts were spared, even to a tempting offer of marriage between his eldest son and the Princess Elizabeth, to attach him to the English interest (, i. 129, 139). But though a pliant enough instrument in Henry's hand, he was by no means a trustworthy one. Already, in the beginning of April 1543, Sir Ralph Sadleir noticed symptoms of tergiversation in him, which were generally attributed to the influence of his natural brother, John Hamilton (d. 1570) [q. v.], abbot of Paisley, and afterwards archbishop of St. Andrews, a man of unbounded ambition, who, having attached himself to Cardinal Beaton, laboured assiduously to win Arran over to the French side, representing to him how, owing to the manner of his father's divorce from his first wife, Elizabeth Home, it would inevitably endanger his claim to the succession were he to cut himself off from communication with Rome (ib. i. 157, 158, 160;, Officers of State, i. 376; , Reformation, i. 109; Hamilton MSS. p. 49). John's representations carried much weight with the weak-minded governor; but his inclination evidently lay in the other direction, and Henry's agents warned him of the risk he ran of playing into the cardinal's hand, only to find himself discarded in the end (State Papers, Henry VIII, v. 274). For a time Henry's threats and promises kept him firm, and on 1 July 1543 the preliminaries were arranged for a treaty between England and Scotland on the basis of a marriage between the infant Mary and the young Prince Edward (, xiv. 788, 796). But the alliance was not popular. The common people everywhere, wrote Sadleir, murmured against the governor, ‘saying he was an heretic and a good Englishman, and hath sold this realm to the king's majesty’ (, i. 216, 234). The capture of Mary and her removal from Linlithgow to Stirling, together with the appearance of Lennox on the scene as a rival claimant to the succession, further alienated him from the English alliance. ‘The governor, methinketh,’ wrote Sadleir, ‘is out of heart and out of courage’ (ib. p. 260). After confirming the English treaties on 25 Aug. he, on 3 Sept., joined the French party. He stole quietly away, as Knox expressed it, from Holyrood Palace to Callander House, near Falkirk; there he met the cardinal, and proceeded with him to Stirling (ib. pp. 270, 282–3). In the Franciscan convent of that city he publicly abjured his religion, and, having received absolution, renounced the treaties with England, and delivered his eldest son to the cardinal as a pledge of his sincerity (, Life of Mary, ii. 404). But after having taken this decisive step he still wavered in his policy. At one time he secretly informed Sadleir that he was only temporising with the French party (, i. 288); at another he was, ‘by the persuasions of the cardinal, earnestly bent against England,’ and was resolved to destroy ‘all such noblemen and others within the realm as do favour the same’ (ib. p. 336). The repudiation of the treaties was of course followed by an outbreak of hostilities.

Arran's conduct in the regency had given little satisfaction to either party, and a coalition having taken place between them, it was resolved, at a convention of nobles at Stirling in June 1554, to transfer the government to the queen-dowager, Mary of Guise (State Papers, Henry VIII, v. 391–4; Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 33). On this occasion Arran acted boldly, and, ignoring the act of the Stirling convention, summoned a parlia-