Papers relating to William, first Earl of Gowrie, and Patrick Ruthven, his fifth and last surviving son

10 Observations on the Trial and Death of
favourites which was the cause of so many of his subsequent
troubles. His first favourite was Esme Stewart, son of an
uncle of the King's father, a young Frenchman of polished
manners and amiable temper. The King heaped honours and
favour upon him, but the people hated him, both as a French-
man and as a Roman Catholic. Conjoined with Esme
Stewart, whom the King created Duke of Lennox, and almost
as much distinguished in the King's regard, was James Stewart,
Earl of Arran. No two men were ever more dissimilar.
Lennox was kind, amiable, and placable, sensitive to popular
opinion, and free from glaring moral defects. Born and edu-
cated in France, his manners were marked by the elegance and
affability which have ever distinguished that courteous nation ;
generous and affectionate himself, he strove, as much from
feeling as from policy, to bring about some arrangement for
the release of the unhappy Mary, and for the relief of his
Roman Catholic brethren from the persecution under which
they were suffering. Arran was in almost every respect the
opposite of his coadjutor in power. History can point to few
men so daringly unobservant of all the customary restraints
of public or private life,— in manners imperious, overbearing,
insolent, to a degree that would be incredible, but for the con-
current testimony of contemporaries of all sects and parties.
Everything he possessed was acquired by open and daring
wrong. Received as a friend by the King's uncle-in-law, the
Earl of March, Arran corrupted the wife of his host, and in-
duced her, when far gone with child, to petition for a divorce,
for a reason which, as Robertson declares, no modest woman
will ever plead. The judges, corrupted and overawed, set a
precedent for the similar case which afterwards occurred in
England to another of James's favourites, by pronouncing the
desired sentence, and public decency was outraged, as in the
English case, by a pompous marriage, which the sober people
of Scotland beheld with horror. Arran's rise to power was
upon the neck of Morton, whom he prosecuted in person with
the bitterest rancour. His acquirement of his title was equally