Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/35

 THE JESUIT LVVASIOti. tg passionate Catholics, imagined Scotch Protestantism to be an accidental creation of a few intriguing nobles, could believe that the disgrace of the leader would be the death-blow of the creed. James Stuart, the second son of Lord Ochiltree, famous or infamous afterwards as Earl of Arran, a youth little older than Lennox, was selected for the execution of the arrest. The King had consented, and the first plan was to send for Morton to the presence-chamber, when he would necessarily be alone and unarmed, and seize him in the King's pre- sence. Either James's courage failed him however, or his better nature prevailed. On the day agreed upon (December 26) he took Morton hunting with him. He called him his father. His manner was unusually affectionate, and in the course of the chase Lord Robert Stuart, possibly at James's instigation, told him what was intended, and advised him to fly. He had long known that he was in danger, but for some cause he was unable to believe that it would approach him in the form of an arrest. He neglected the warning, he would not even retire to his own castle at Dalkeith, but returned to Edinburgh with the Court. "When informed that he was to be accused of the murder of Darnley he laughed at the thought of it, and went as usual to his apartments in Holyrood, ' confident in the King and in his own innocency.' 1 1 Bowes to Burghley and Walaingham, January i, 1581 : MSS Scotland.