Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/25

 INTRODUCTION

I THE KING AND HIS TUTORS

" Quae tarn docta fuit, quamvis privata, juventus ? "

Grotius, Poemata, p. 64.

THE series of murders, tumults, and intrigues which finally left the infant James an orphan in the hands of his mother's enemies, gave the nobles and clergy of that faction a rare opportunity for educational experiment. The result was ironically unexpected, but even in the light of results one cannot criticize the earnestness or wisdom with which the experiment was undertaken. In August, I56Q, 1 when the King was but a little over three years old, four precep- tors were appointed to take charge of his moral and intel- lectual training. Two of these, David and Adam Erskine, lay Abbots respectively of Cambuskenneth and Dryburgh, obtained their posts as kinsmen of the Earl of Mar, the King's guardian. Both were of the royal household and allies of Morton in the troubles of i5y8, 2 and prominent among the plotters against the King in the Raid of Ruthven (1582) ; 3 but they are not mentioned as tutors in later acts of the Council, and it is not clear that they were ever closely associated with the King as instructors. The remaining two, George Buchanan and Peter Young, were confirmed

''Dict. Nat. Biog''., from a document among Lord Haddington's MSS. in the Advocates' Library. The tutors entered upon their duties early in the following year, "Admissus in clientalem regis, January 4,1569 [70]" (Young's Ephemeride, in Vita Quorundam Eruditissimorum & illustrium Virorum, Th. Smith, London, 1707, p. 23).

z Memoirs of Sir James Melville, Bann. Club, p. 236.

8 Papers relating to the Master of Gray, Bann. Club, p. 59.