It was the settled policy of the Tudor kings to detach Scotland from the
old French alliance, and secure it for England. The marriage of Margaret
Tudor to James iv. shows what means they thought to employ, and but for
Margaret's quarrel with the Earl of Angus, her second husband, another
wedding might have bound the nations firmly together. The French
marriages of James V., first with Madeleine, daughter of Francis I.
(1537), and on her premature death with Mary of Guise (1538), showed the
recoil of Scotland from the English alliance. James' death gave Henry
VIII. an opportunity to renew his father's schemes, and his idea was to
betroth his boy Edward to the baby Mary, and get the "little Queen"
brought to England for education. Many Scotsmen thought the proposal a
good one for their country, and perhaps more were induced to think so by
the money which Henry lavished upon them to secure their support They
made the English party in Scotland. The policy of English alliance as
against French alliance was complicated by the question of religion.
Whatever may be thought of the character of the English Reformation at
this date, Henry VIII. had broken thoroughly with the Papacy, and union
with England would have dragged Scotland to revolt against the mediæval
Church. The leader of the French and Romanist party in Scotland was
David Beaton, certainly the ablest and perhaps the most unscrupulous man
there. He had been made Archbishop of St. Andrews, coadjutor to his aged
uncle, in 1538. In the same month, Pope Paul iii., who needed a
Churchman of the highest rank to publish his Bull against Henry VIII. in
a place as near England as was possible to find, had sent him a
Cardinal's Hat. The Cardinal, Beaton, stood in Scotland for France and
Rome against England and the Reformation. The struggle for the Regency
in Scotland in 1542 carried with it an international and a religious
policy. The clouds heralding the storm which was to destroy Mary,
gathered round the cradle of the baby Queen.
At first the English faction prevailed. The claims of the Queen Mother
were scarcely considered. Beaton produced a will, said to have been
fraudulently obtained from the dying King, appointing him and several of
the leading nobles of Scotland, Governors of the kingdom. This
arrangement was soon set aside, the Earl of Arran was appointed Governor
(Jan. 3rd, 1543), and Beaton was confined in Blackness Castle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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