Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/313

 death of the mere tools of the conspiracy, while the principals were allowed to go scot free. Sir James Balfour (d. 1583) [q. v.] the closest of Bothwell's associates, not merely remained unaccused, but obtained the gift of the priory of Pittenweem.

The escape of the queen from Lochleven made still greater demands on Moray's courage and address. Though completely taken by surprise, he rejected the offers of reconciliation, and rallied his followers with such rapidity as wholly upset the calculations of her supporters. But with her defeat at Langside and flight to England the situation became still more complicated. He had to protect himself and Scotland against Elizabeth as well as Mary; he had to circumvent the intrigues of Maitland and other secret favourers of the dethroned queen; he had to save his own reputation from the possibilities of damage by searching inquiry into the circumstances of the murder. All this he accomplished with consummate ability and address, but also by means of unscrupulous deception wherever this was deemed necessary. Thus his original consent to the Norfolk marriage scheme was a mere ruse either to throw Maitland off his guard or to prevent a full inquiry; it is not even impossible that he himself revealed the scheme to Elizabeth. Though induced finally to commit himself to a public accusation of the queen of Scots, he made it manifest that he did so on compulsion, and he even succeeded in obtaining the formal sanction of Elizabeth for his continuance in the regency. Also when confronted on his way to Scotland by a plot for his assassination, in revenge for his treachery to Norfolk, he unblushingly asserted that he was as devoted as ever to the Norfolk marriage project, that his accusation of the queen of Scots had been compulsory, and that he would do all that he could to promote the marriage. Yet no sooner had he arrived in Scotland than he procured the formal ratification of all his proceedings against the queen in England. Further, after inducing some of her leading supporters to attend a convention on 10 April 1568 at Edinburgh to consider the terms of a pacification, he ordered the Duke of Châtelherault and Lord Herries, on their refusing to sign an acknowledgment of the king's authority, to be apprehended and thrown into prison. Thus summarily deprived of their most powerful allies, both Argyll and Huntly soon afterwards gave in their submission. All the while Moray, partly it may be with a view to being accurately informed of his sister's intrigues, partly to promote pacification in Scotland, kept up the pretence of favouring the Norfolk marriage. At the convention held at Perth on 28 July he, however, voted against the divorce from Bothwell, and as soon as the intrigues of Norfolk were discovered by Elizabeth he revealed to her all that he knew, excusing himself for giving the project his seeming approval by his desire to escape assassination, and by his uncertainty as to her attitude towards himself and the Queen of Scots. But, either to protect himself against a most dangerous enemy or to save his credit with Elizabeth, he now deemed it advisable to proceed against Maitland of Lethington, and did so by contriving that Maitland should be formally accused by Captain Crawford, a dependent of Lennox, of the murder of Darnley. Maitland, however, was rescued from prison by Kirkcaldy of Grange; and even his trial, fixed for 22 Nov., was indefinitely postponed owing to the concourse of his friends in Edinburgh. Shortly after this, Moray, having secured the special approbation of Elizabeth by the capture of the rebel Earl of Northumberland and his imprisonment in Lochleven, made a proposal for the deliverance of Mary into his hands. ‘There is no more likely means of remedy,’ so runs the bond of Moray and others, ‘and for the quiet of both the realms, than that the said queen's person were again in Scotland, and so be something further from foreign realms and daily practice with the princes thereof.’ She was of course to be detained, but was to be ‘provided for in competent state like unto a queen,’ and no ‘sinister means’ were to be taken ‘to shorten her life’ (Cal. State Papers, For. 1569–71, No. 580). That Elizabeth would have agreed to a bona fide arrangement of this kind is unlikely, but the negotiations were suddenly cut short by the assassination of Moray at Linlithgow by James Hamilton (fl. 1566–1580) [q. v.] of Bothwellhaugh, on 21 Jan. 1569–70. His body was removed to the abbey of Holyrood, and on 14 Feb. was carried thence to St. Giles', where it was buried in the south aisle, Knox, according to Calderwood, making a sermon in which ‘he moved three thousand persons to shed tears for the loss of such a good and godly governor.’ The following Latin epitaph by George Buchanan was engraven in brass and set above his tomb: ‘Jacobo Stewarto, Moraviæ comiti, Scotiæ proregi, viro ætatis suæ longe optimo, ab inimicis, omnis memoriæ deterrimis, ex insidiis extincto, ceu patri communi, patria mœrens posuit.’

Moray by his own party was canonised as the ‘good regent;’ but the epithet ‘good’ can