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

80 THE HISTORY OF THE AFFAIRS [1543.
which several persons in those western counties, where the
estates of the most part of these Noblemen lay, had con-
ceived against the Governor for his late shifting of sides,
but mostly by the power of the money which they had in
their custody, that finding their army in a condition to act
offensively against their enemies, they advanced to the town
of Leith, in order to be beforehand with the Governor, and
offer him battle in the fields between that town and Edin-
burgh. But the crafty Cardinal, who well perceived that
the Governor was in no condition to hazard a battle, to-
gether with the Earl of Huntly did so manage affairs, that
a capitulation was agreed upon ; and Lennox came in to
Edinburgh to the Governor, where matters were transacted
by these two Lords for some days together, as if they had
quite forgot their old grudges and animosities; and Sir George
Douglas and the Lord Kilmaurs, son to the Earl of Glencairn,
were delivered up as hostages 1 for conservation of the late
agreement on the part of the Earls of Angus and Glencairn.
Nevertheless this settlement was of no long continuance, for
within a week, the Governor being at Linlithgow, the Earl
of Lennox, upon information, as is reported, that some
sudden mischief was preparing against him, slipt privately
away from thence to Glasgow. But as to the subsequent
scuffles betwixt the Governor and Lennox, which fell out
all to the disadvantage of this Nobleman and the English
Lords, because I have no sure records whereby to unravel the
perplexed accounts that are given of them by our historians
in the true order of time, I choose rather to leave them un-
touched, and only assure the readers of our Scottish affairs
that, in great probability at least, all this bustle, from the
first to the last, was transacted pretty early in the spring of
the year 1543-4, as may appear from the dates of the follow-
ing public 2 transactions relating to the Earl of Lennox,
1 Lesley says these hostages were delivered at this time ; but Buchanan
says that they were delivered upon a secret agreement made betwixt the
llamiltons and Douglasses, unknown to Lennox, and seems to insinuate
that it was upon private information thereof, that that Earl made his
elopement from Linlithgow.
2 Lesley, who, in my opinion, gives the most distinct account of
these matters, tells us expressly that the sending of Mr Bishop into
England was posterior to the last conflict betwixt the Lord Governor and
Lennox.