Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/243

 THE JESUITS IN SCOTLAND. 227 with Hatton at the pretensions of Alen9on, and in public calling down the vengeance of God upon herself if she did not mean to marry him, danger was approaching her the most serious to which she had jet been exposed from the quarter in which her wisest ministers had anticipated its appearance. "With the death of Morton, her influence in Scotland had gone. D'Aubigny l was rewarded with a dukedom and with Dalkeith Castle. The second instrument in Morton's destruction, Colonel Stewart, had ascended through infamy to almost equal greatness. The Earl of Arran, who still survived in a state of idiotcy, had been for some years in charge of Lord March. The House of Hamilton had been crushed by Morton. Lord John and Lord Claude were in exile, and the Hamilton estates Were a tempting prey. Colonel Stewart was ap- pointed Arran' s tutor. He first used his opportunities to seduce Lady March, who, when she found herself with child with him, obtained a divorce from her husband on the ground of impotence, and married her lover. He then raised a plea of illegitimacy against his ward, pre- ferred a claim to his estates and title in the right of his mother, Lady Margaret, sister of the Duke of Chatel- herault ; and according to the easy methods of Scotch the Queen's Majesty shall not have cause to like, and if it he with Spain then her Majesty must look to re- ceive unkindness both from Spain and France, a matter hardly for her Majesty to bear, and yet so to be used by either of tlw is tjie Crown of England shall take no hurt but only the person of her Majesty and her Government' Notes in Burghley's hand, 1582 : MSS. France. 1 Henceforth he will be called Duke of Lennox.