Many destructive agencies were at work in Scotland; loud lamentations were heard. One thing alone could save the country--the Gospel. [Sidenote: ALLEGED WILL OF JAMES V.] The king being dead, it appeared to Beatoun that the public troubles offered him a favorable opportunity for becoming master, for securing the triumph of the French party, for abolishing the Reformation, and establishing the supremacy of the clergy. Since Scotland was abased, he was to be exalted. It was needful to act quickly. The nobles who were recently made prisoners, and those who had for a long time lived in exile in England, were about to return. The cardinal knew well that they detested his subservience to the pope, his ambition, and his arrogance; and he had no doubt that they would vigorously oppose him. The earl of Arran, next heir after Mary to the crown, was it is true in Scotland, and seemed to be called to make head against him; but the haughty cardinal made little account of that. The earl is unambitious, said he; he has no energy, and all his wish is to have nothing to do. Besides, Arran was his near relation, a son of one of his aunts.[268] The king had scarcely breathed his last when the cardinal went boldly to the queen-mother at Linlithgow, fortified with the document on which he assumed to found his pretensions. ‘Welcome, my lord,’ said the queen, who as yet knew nothing more than the serious illness of her husband; ‘is not the king dead?’ Mary of Guise supposed that the first prelate of the kingdom was come solely to announce to her the sovereign’s death. But Beatoun had another end in view in this visit. Without loss of time he produced the king’s testament containing the nomination of a regency composed of the cardinal and the earls of Argyle, Huntley, and Murray, the first-named to be president of the council and guardian to the royal infant. This document was generally considered to have been extorted from the dying king. Many persons even believed that the cardinal’s agent had guided the hand of the dead king, and obtained a signature in blank which the cardinal had afterwards filled up at his own will. Buchanan states that the cardinal, having gained over a certain priest named Balfour, had with his assistance forged a false testament. Knox, Sadler, and Lesley also speak in the same way.[269] At the market-cross at Edinburgh the cardinal had proclamation made, on the Monday after the king’s death, of the alleged deed which made him the first personage in the realm.