Spottiswoode Society > History of the affairs of the Church and State of Scotland from the beginning of the reformation to the year 1568 > Volume 1

82 THE HISTORY OF THE AFFAIRS [1543.
way, after he had perceived himself to bo neglected by
the Queen Dowager and Cardinal, and that very sinistrous
representations had by them been made of him to the Court
of France ; for in the beginning of October, six or seven good
ships arrived from that kingdom in the Frith of Clyde, which
had on board a Legate from Rome, and two ambassadors,
with arms, ammunition, and 30,000 crowns 1 in silver from
France, to be distributed to proper persons in Scotland, by
the advice of the Queen Dowager and Cardinal. The Earl
got the captains of the French ships persuaded to land the
money, and some of the arms and ammunition, in his castle
of Dunbarton ; whereupon the Queen Dowager and Cardinal
begin again ardently to cajole the Earl, and to endeavour a
reconciliation betwixt him and the Governor. But notwith-
standing all the Cardinal's address, the Earl would by no
means part with the money, but took that opportunity to in-
gratiate himself with the English Lords, and it is not im-
probable but the former neglect that Prelate had used to-
wards the Earl, after he had gained the Governor, made
his Lordship the less obsequious now to his Eminence's
directions.
As John Hamilton, Abbot of Paisley, had a great ascend-
ant over the mind of his brother the Governor, and had been
very serviceable to the Cardinal in the first bringing over
the Governor, and still retaining him fixed to the Cardinal's
measures, the Cardinal did first resign to him the office of
Privy Seal ; and shortly after, that the rising fortune of the
Abbot might be more noticeable in the Parliament which
was to sit down in the beginning of the month of December,
he was advanced to be Treasurer of the kingdom, in the room
of Sir William Kirkaldy 2 of Grange in Fife, who was known
1 [Sir James Balfour states the sum at 60,000 crowns " sent this year,"
he says, " by the French King to the Regent, with a ship laden with all sorts
of ammunition, to aid him against England." This sum, Sir James narrates,
was " intercepted by the Earl of Lennox, who does his best to displant
the Governor ; but at Edinburgh, by the mediation of Cardinal Beaton
and the Earl of Iluntly, they are reconciled. But Lennox, being of a
very facile nature, does anew violate his faith given, and from Edinburgh
by night covertly retires himself to Glasgow, and fortifies the place, against
whom the Regent, with his army, takes the field, and utterly defeats Len-
nox, and has Glasgow Castle rendered to him." Annals, vol. i. p. 280.
The Castle of Glasgow was the residence of the Archbishops of that
See.— E.]
'\[ According to Beatson's "Political Index," vol. iii. p. 84, Sir William