Series 3 > Foreign correspondence with Marie de Lorraine, Queen of Scotland, from the originals in the Balcarres papers > Volume 7

BALCARRES PAPERS
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the Earl of Arran and his heirs to the succession of the
throne of Scotland, failing heirs by Mary Stuart, there is
a hint of some designs on the part of the Hamiltons to
revive their claim to be heirs to the crown of Scotland.
Teulet, in his Papiers d’Ptat relatifs d Vhistoire d’Ecosse,
gives a decision of the Parlement of Paris,1 dated wrongly
by him as 1552, on the question of the majority of Mary
Stuart, with no explanation as to the reason why the
Parlement should have been called upon to deal with the
matter. But, in view of this definite promise of Henri n.
and the reasons which made it desirable that the date of
the Queen of Scots’ coming of age should be settled
definitely, it is evident that the King called upon the
Parlement for a pronouncement in the matter. Although
the declaration of the Parlement mentions no month, it
is probable that the King’s letters of the 13th of ‘this
month’ were written in December 1553, a few days after
the eleventh birthday of Mary Stuart.
Allusion is made to Scots church affairs 2 in the copy of
a document addressed to Henri ii., praying him to direct
his ambassador in Rome to support the request for the
appointment of John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews,
as legate a latere, for the providing of James Betoun,
Abbot of Arbroath, to the Archbishopric of Glasgow in
place of Alexander Gordon, whose election by the chapter
of Glasgow had previously been confirmed by the Pope,
and for the appointment of Gavin Hamilton as coadjutor
to the Archbishop of St. Andrews, because of the latter’s
ill-health. The date of the document is probably 1550.
The various events which led up to this letter with its
three requests, and the ecclesiastical difficulties to which
they refer, are dealt with in the Scottish Historical Review
of October 1924, in the article on certain papal bulls
preserved among the Hamilton family papers. The
Teulet, vol. i. p. 261.
Letter L.