STUART,
JAMES, Earl of Murray, celebrated in Scottish history by the title of the
"Good Regent," was an illegitimate son of James V., by Margaret Erskine
daughter of John, fourth lord Erskine. The precise year of his birth, is not
certainly known; but there is good reason for believing that this event took
place in 1533. Agreeably to the policy which James V. pursued with regard to
all his sons,—that of providing them with benefices in the church, while
they were yet in infancy, that he might appropriate their revenues during
their nonage,—the priory of St Andrews was assigned to the subject of this
memoir, when he was only in his third year.
Of the earlier years of his
life, we have no particulars; neither have we any information on the subject
of his education. The first remarkable notice of him occurs in 1548, when
Scotland was invaded by the lords Grey de Wilton and Clinton, the one by
land, and the other by sea. The latter having made a descent on the coast of
Fife, the young prior, who then lived at St Andrews, placed himself at the
head of a determined little band of patriots, waylaid the invaders, and
drove them back to their boats with great slaughter. Shortly after this, he
accompanied his unfortunate sister, queen Mary, then a child, to France,
whither a party of the Scottish nobles sent her, at once for safety, and for
the benefits of the superior education which that country afforded.
The prior, however, did not
remain long in France on this occasion; but he seems to have been in the
practice of repairing thither, from time to time, during several years
after. At this period he does not appear to have taken any remarkable
interest in national affairs, and none whatever in those of the church, to
which he had always a decided aversion as a profession. He, however, did not
object to the good things in its gift. In addition to the priory of St
Andrews, he acquired that of Pittenweem, and did not hesitate, besides, to
accept that of Mascon in France, in commendam, with a dispensation to
hold three benefices. For these favours of the French court, he took an oath
of fealty to pope Paul III. in 1544.
From the year 1548, when the
prior, as he was usually called, defeated the English troops under Clinton,
till 1557, there occurs nothing in his history, with the exception of the
circumstance of his accompanying Mary to France, worthy of any particular
notice. In the latter year, accompanied by his brother, lord Robert Stuart,
abbot of Holyrood, he made an incursion into England at the head of a small
force, but without effecting any very important service, or doing much
injury to the enemy. In the same year, he proceeded to Paris, to witness the
ceremony of marriage between the young queen of Scotland and the dauphin of
France, having been appointed one of the commissioners on the part of the
former kingdom for that occasion. Soon after the celebration of the
marriage, the prior solicited from Mary the earldom of Murray; but this
request, by the advice of her mother, the queen regent, she refused; and,
although she qualified the refusal by an offer of a bishopric, either in
France or England, instead, it is said that from this circumstance
proceeded, in a great measure, his subsequent hostility to the regent’s
government.
During the struggles between
the queen regent and the lords of the congregation, the prior, who had at
first taken part with the former, how sincerely may be questioned, but
latterly with the lords, gradually acquired, by his judicious conduct and
general abilities, a very high degree of consideration in the
kingdom. He was by many degrees the most potent instrument, after John Knox,
in establishing the reformed religion.
Having now abandoned all
appearance of the clerical character, he was, soon after the death of the
queen regent, which happened on the 11th of June, 1560, appointed one of the
lords of the Articles; and in the following year, he was commissioned by a
council of the nobility to proceed to France, to invite Mary, whose husband
was now dead, to return to Scotland. This commission he executed with much
judgment, and with much tenderness towards his ill-fated relative; having,
much against the inclination of those by whom he was deputed, insisted on
the young queen’s being permitted the free exercise of her own religion,
after she should have ascended the throne of her ancestors.
On Mary’s assuming the reins
of government in her native land, the prior took his place beside her
throne, as her confidant, prime minister, and adviser; and, by his able and
judicious conduct, carried her safely and triumphantly through the first act
of her stormy reign. He swept the borders of the numerous bands of
freebooters with which they were infested. He kept the enemies of Mary’s
dynasty in abeyance, strengthened the attachment of her friends, and by his
vigilance, promptitude, and resolution, made those who did not love her
government, learn to fear its resentment. For these important services,
Mary, whose implicit confidence he enjoyed, first created him lieutenant of
the borders, and afterwards earl of Mar. Soon after his creation, the earl
married the lady Agnes Keith, daughter of the earl Marischal. The ceremony
was publicly performed in the church of St Giles, Edinburgh, with a pomp
which greatly offended the reformers, who were highly scandalized by the
profanities which were practised on the occasion. The earldom, which
the prior had just obtained from the gratitude of the queen, having been
claimed by lord Erskine as his peculiar right, the claim was admitted, and
the prior resigned both the title and the property attached to it; but was
soon after gratified by the earldom of Murray, which had long been the
favourite object of his ambition. Immediately after his promotion to this
dignity, the earl of Huntly, a disappointed competitor for the power and
popularity which Murray had obtained, and for the favour and confidence of
the queen, having been proclaimed a rebel for various overt acts of
insubordination, originating in his hostility to the earl; the latter,
equally prompt, vigorous, and efficient in the field as at the council
board, led a small army, hastily summoned for the occasion, against Huntly,
whom he encountered at the head of his adherents, at a place called
Corrichie. A battle ensued, and the earl of Murray was victorious. In this
engagement he displayed singular prudence, skill, and intrepidity, and a
military genius, which proved him to be as able a soldier, as he was a
statesman. On the removal of Huntly,—for this powerful enemy died suddenly
and immediately after the battle, although he had received no wound, and his
eldest son perished on the scaffold at Aberdeen,--Murray remained in
undisputed possession of the chief authority in the kingdom, next to that of
the sovereign; and the history of Scotland does not present an instance,
where a similar authority was more wisely or more judiciously employed. The
confidence, however, amounting even to affection, which had hitherto
subsisted between Murray and his sovereign, was now about to be interrupted,
and finally annihilated. The first step towards this unhappy change of
sentiment, was occasioned by the queen’s marriage with Darnley. To this
marriage, Murray was not at first averse; nay, he rather promoted it: but
some personal insults, which the vanity and weakness of Darnley induced him
to offer to Murray, together with an offensive behaviour on the part of his
father, the earl of Lennox, produced in the haughty statesman that hostility
to the connexion, which not only destroyed the good understanding between
him and the queen, but converted him into an open and undisguised enemy. His
irritation on this occasion was further increased by Mary’s imprudently
evincing, in several instances, a disposition to favour some of his most
inveterate enemies; and amongst these, the notorious earl of Bothwell, who
had some time before conspired against his life. In this frame of mind,
Murray not only obstinately refused his consent to the proposed marriage of
Mary to Darnley, but ultimately had recourse to arms to oppose it. In this
attempt, however, to establish himself by force, he was unsuccessful. After
raising an army, and being pursued from place to place by Mary in person, at
the head of a superior force, he fled into England, together with a
number of his followers and adherents, and remained there for several
months. During his expatriation, however, a total change of affairs took
place at the court of Holyrood. The vain and weak Darnley,
wrought upon by the friends of Murray, became jealous, not of the virtue,
but of the power of the queen, and impatiently sought for uncontrolled
authority. In this spirit he was prevailed upon, by the enemies of his
consort, to league himself with Murray and the banished lords who were with
him. The first step of the conspirators was the murder of Rizzio, the
queen’s secretary; the next, the recall, on their own responsibility,
sanctioned by Darnley, of the expatriated nobleman, who arrived in Edinburgh
on the 9th of March, 1566, twenty-four hours after the assassination of the
unfortunate Italian.
Although Murray’s return had
taken place without the queen’s consent, she was yet very soon, not only
reconciled to that event, but was induced to receive him, again apparently
into entire favour. Whatever sincerity, however, there was in this seeming
reconciliation on the part of the queen, there appears to be good reason for
believing that there was but little of that feeling on the side of Murray;
for, from this period he may be distinctly traced, notwithstanding of
occasional instances of apparent attachment to the interests of the queen,
as the prime mover, sometimes secretly, and sometimes openly, of a faction
opposed to the government of Mary; and whose object evidently was to
overthrow her power, and to establish their own in its stead. To this end,
indeed, the aim of Murray and his confederates would seem to have been long
steadily directed; and the unguarded and imprudent, if not criminal, conduct
of the queen, enabled them speedily to attain their object. The murder of
Darnley, and the subsequent marriage of Mary to Bothwell, had the twofold
effect of adding to the number of her enemies, and of increasing the
hostility of those who already entertained unfriendly sentiments towards
her. The result was, that she was finally dethroned, and confined a prisoner
in Lochleven castle, and the earl of Murray was appointed regent of
Scotland. With this dignity he was invested on the 22nd of August, 1567; but
whatever objection may be urged against his conduct previous and relative to
his elevation, or the line of policy he pursued when seeking the attainment
of this object of his ambition, there can be none urged against the system
of government he adopted and acted upon, when placed in power. He procured
the enactment of many wise and salutary laws, dispensed justice with a
fearless and equal hand, kept down the turbulent and factious, restored
internal tranquillity and personal safety to the people and, in every public
act of his authority, discovered a sincere desire for the welfare of his
country. Still the regent was yet more feared and respected, than loved. He
had many and powerful enemies; while the queen, though a captive, had still
many and powerful friends. These, having succeeded in effecting her
liberation from Lochleven, mustered in arms, and took the field in great
force, with the view of restoring her to her throne. With his usual presence
of mind, fortitude, and energy, the regent calmly, but promptly,
prepared to meet the coming storm; and, in place of demitting the regency,
as he had been required to do by the queen, he determined on repelling force
by force. Having mustered an army of three thousand men, he encountered the
forces of the queen, which consisted of double that number, at Langside, and
totally routed them; his cool, calculating judgment, calm intrepidity, and
high military talents, being more than a match for their numerical
superiority. This victory the regent instantly followed up by the most
decisive measures. He attacked and destroyed all the castles and strongholds
of the noble and gentlemen who had joined the queen; and infused a yet
stronger, and more determined spirit into the administration of the laws:
and thus he eventually established his authority on a firmer basis than that
on which it had rested before.
After the queen’s flight to
England, the regent, with some others, was summoned to York, by Elizabeth,
to bear witness against her, in a trial which had been instituted by the
latter, to ascertain Mary’s guilt or innnocence of the crime of Darnley’s
murder. The regent obeyed the summons, and did not hesitate to give the most
unqualified testimony against his unhappy sister. Having performed this
ungenerous part, he left the unfortunate queen in the hands of her enemies,
and returned to the administration of the affairs of that kingdom, of which
he was now uncontrolled master. The proud career, however, of this wily, but
able politician, this stern, but just ruler, was now soon to be darkly and
suddenly closed. While passing on horseback through the streets of
Linlithgow, on the 23rd of January, 1570, he was fired at, from a window, by
James Hamilton, of Bothwelhaugh, nephew to the archbishop of St Andrews. The
ball passed through his body, but did not instantly prove fatal. Having
recovered from the first shock of the wound, he walked to his lodgings, but
expired a little before midnight, being at the period of his death in the
thirty-eighth year of his age. Hamilton’s hostility to the regent, proceeded
from some severities with which the latter had visited him, for having
fought under the queen at Langside. The assassin escaped to France, where he
died a few years afterwards, deeply regretting the crime he had committed. |