The bishops of Scotland appeared to triumph. Hamilton was dead, Alesius in exile, and not one evangelical voice was any longer heard in the realm. They now turned their thoughts to the destruction of that proud aristocracy which assumed that the functions of the state belonged to the nobles and not to the priests. The estates of the earl of Crawford had already been confiscated; the earls of Argyle and Bothwell and several others had been imprisoned, and insults had been offered to the earl of Murray, Lord Maxwell, Sir James Hamilton, and their friends.[160] The archbishop of Glasgow, chancellor of Scotland, went still further; he deprived the nobles of their ancient jurisdiction, and set up in its place a _College of Justice_, composed exclusively of ecclesiastics. The nobles thought now only of delivering Scotland from the yoke of the clergy, and determined to invite the aid of Henry VIII. Some of them were beginning even to feel interested in those humble evangelical believers who were, like themselves, the object of the priests’ hatred. This interest was one day to contribute to the triumph of the Reformation. It was resolved that the earl of Bothwell should open negotiations with Henry VIII., and this at the very time that that prince was separating from Rome. This alliance might lead a long way. [Sidenote: BOTHWELL AND NORTHUMBERLAND.] The earl of Northumberland was then at Newcastle, charged by the King of England to watch over affairs in the north. It was to him that Bothwell addressed himself. Northumberland having referred to Henry on the subject, it was agreed that the two earls should meet by night at Dilston, a place almost equally distant from Newcastle and from the Scottish frontier. At the mid-hour of the long night of December 21, 1531, Bothwell, accompanied by three of his friends, arrived at the appointed place, where Northumberland was awaiting him.[161] They entered immediately on the conference. The English lord was struck with the intelligence, the acquirements, and the refined manners of Bothwell. ‘Verily,’ said he to Henry VIII., ‘I have never in my life met a lord so agreeable and so handsome.’ Bothwell, angered by the pride of the priests, reported their conduct with respect to Angus, Argyle, and Murray. ‘They kept me, too, confined in Edinburgh Castle for six months,’ said he, ‘and but for the intervention of my friends they would have put me to death. I know that such a fate is still impending over me.’ Bothwell added, that if the King of England would deliver the Scottish nobles from the evils which they had reason to dread, he himself (Bothwell) was ready to join Henry VIII. with one thousand gentlemen and six thousand men-at-arms. ‘We will crown him in a little while,’ he added, ‘in the town of Edinburgh.’[162] The enraged nobles were actually giving themselves up to strange fancies: according to their view, the only remedy for the ills of their country