Publications (Volume 19) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN ACCOUNT OF A PRETENDED CONFERENCE HELD BY THE REGENT, EARL OF MURRAY, WITH THE LORD LINDSAY AND OTHERS; JANUARY, MD.LXX. In the year 1568, when the talents and character of James Stuart, Earl of Murray, then Regent of Scotland, were considered as the chief obstacle to the re-establishment of Queen Mary, her partizans resorted to a literary fraud, in order to diminish his interest among the people, by representing that it was his object, and that of his principal followers, to dethrone the young King, and to usurp the royal seat and dignity, as he already possessed the real authority, of" the monarch. This remarkable paper, which was entitled, " Ane Advertisement sent from the Court to a Friend of my Lordis," was not circulated till after the Regent's death, either because that event had anticipated the publication, or because it had been reserved for such a crisis by the author, or authors, who probably had a shrewd guess that the close of Murray's life was approaching. " At this time," says the learned biographer of John Knox," there was handed about a fabricated account of a pretended conference, held by the late Regent with Lord Lindsay, Wishart of Pitarrow, the tutor of Pitcur, James M'Gill, and Knox; in which they were represented as advising him to set aside the young King, and to place the crown on his own head. The modes of expression peculiar to each of the persons, were carefully imitated in the speeches put into their mouths, to give it the greater air of credibility. The evident design of circulating it at this time was to lessen the odium of the murder, and the veneration of the people for the memory of Murray;but it was universally regarded as an impudent and gross forgery. The person who fabricated it was Thomas Maitland, a young man of talents, ...