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 the procession of the king to the parliament, the Countess of Gowrie went down on her knees to petition the king for grace to her and her house, but was rudely thrust away by Arran, and, falling into a swoon, lay in the streets until the procession passed into the Tolbooth. At the same parliament ‘all ministers, readers, and members of colleges’ were ordered within forty days to subscribe the act of parliament acknowledging the supreme authority of the king in matters temporal as well as spiritual. On 6 Oct. Arran was chosen provost of Edinburgh, and he had now reached the acme of his influence. But the more secure he felt, the more he endangered his position by his reckless use of power. ‘Supposing all things to be right,’ says Spotiswood, ‘he went on in his accustomed manner, not caring what enmity he drew upon himself’ (History, ii. 325). The Earl of Atholl, the Lord Home, and the master of Cassilis he committed to prison simply because he had a private grudge against them. Thus when the crisis came he was left practically without a supporter. It was not long in coming. Just when he supposed that negotiations with Elizabeth were reaching a stage which would render his lease of power almost for ever secure, his influence with Elizabeth was being undermined by the very agent employed to conduct the negotiations. This was Patrick, master of Gray [see, sixth , (d. 1612)], who, either in secret dread of Arran's supremacy or from the more ambitious resolve to supplant him, professed, and with some justification, to reveal to Elizabeth that no trust could be placed either in Arran's intentions or in the stability of his authority, and offered, if she would support him, to do his utmost to effect his ruin and secure an indissoluble league between the two countries.

In the following spring Wotton, the English ambassador, endeavoured to contrive a plot for Arran's assassination (see specially, History of Scotland, ed. 1868, iv. 99–100), but did not quite succeed in completing arrangements before an event happened which rendered the execution of the plot unnecessary. This was the slaughter, on 27 July 1585, of Francis, lord Russell (son of Francis Russell, second earl of Bedford [q. v.]), in a border affray between Sir John Forster and Kerr of Ferniehirst. Elizabeth complained to the king through her ambassador, asserting that Russell had been slain at the instance of Arran; and as the ambassador offered further to prove that Arran and Kerr had been art and part in the murder, the king had no choice but meanwhile to send Arran into ward in the castle of St. Andrews (, iv. 379). But strangely enough a saviour now appeared to Arran in the person of the master of Gray, who, either because he had become doubtful of Elizabeth's regard for himself or wished to conceal his intrigues with her, arranged with the king, on the receipt of certain bribes from Arran, that Arran should be sent to nominal confinement in Kinneil. Nevertheless, the master knew that he could not trust Arran, and immediately set on foot a new plot for his overthrow by the recall of the banished lords. About the middle of October 1585 rumours reached Scotland of the advance of the banished lords, and Arran, escaping from Kinneil, hurried to the king at Stirling to announce that he was being betrayed by the master of Gray. But learning this, the master returned also to court, and Arran, frustrated in a design for the master's assassination by the rapid approach of the lords, secretly left the castle (Relation of the Master of Gray in the Bannatyne Club, pp. 59, 60;, iv. 389–90). Soon after their entrance into the castle Arran was proclaimed a traitor at the market-place, and fled to the west coast. About the end of March 1586 he was commanded to depart out of the country before 6 April, and obeyed, going either to Cantyre or Ireland (, iv. 547). Afterwards he returned to Scotland, where he resided as merely Captain James Stewart. On 27 Nov. 1592 he came to court at the request of the king, ‘to give articles’ against the chancellor and Lord Hamilton (, v. 186). While in Edinburgh he made an attempt to get reinstated in the favour of the kirk; but it was concluded that he had shown no such offers of repentance as the kirk looked for, and he was dismissed with the general answer: ‘Ye must give us as good proofs of your well-doing as ye have given of your evil-doing before we can credit you much’ (ib. p. 190;, Memoirs, p. 99). ‘And so Captain James,’ says Calderwood, ‘finding so great opposition, went home, and came not to court again’ (ib.) Various intrigues were set on foot for his return to power, but they were unsuccessful. Towards the close of 1595, while riding homewards through Symington in Clydesdale, he was attacked and slain by Sir James Douglas of Parkhead, nephew of Morton, in revenge of Morton's death. His body was left where he fell, a prey to dogs and swine, and his head, having been fixed on the point of a spear, was carried by Douglas through the country in triumph.

By his wife, Lady Elizabeth, he had two sons—Sir James Stewart of Killeith,