This may perhaps be deemed, by some readers, an improper digression. But though it had been less {171} connected with the subject of this work than it is, and though the familiarity and co‑operation between the regent and the Reformer had been less intimate and cordial than they really were, I could not have denied myself the satisfaction of paying a small tribute to the memory of one of the greatest men of his age, who has been traduced and vilified in a most unjustifiable manner, and whose character has been drawn with unfavourable, and, in my opinion, with unfair colours, by the most moderate and impartial of our historians. All that I have attempted, is to sketch the more prominent features of his character. That he was faultless, I am far from wishing to insinuate; but the principal charges which have been brought against him, I consider as either irrelevant, or unproved, or greatly exaggerated. That his exaltation to the highest dignity in the state which a subject could enjoy, produced no unfavourable change on his temper and behaviour, is what none can be prepared to affirm; but I have not seen the contrary established. The confidence which he reposed in his friends was great, and he was inclined to pay much deference to their advice; but that he became the dupe of worthless favourites, and fell by listening to their flattery, and refusing to hearken to wholesome advice, and not by the treachery of his friends and the malice of his enemies, are assertions which have been repeated upon the authority of a single witness, unsupported by facts, and capable of being disproved.[209] {172} The regent died on the evening of Saturday, the 23d of January, 1570; and the intelligence of his murder was conveyed early next morning to Edinburgh. It is impossible to describe the anguish which the Reformer felt on this occasion. The loss of a noble and endeared friend was the least evil which he had to deplore. Of all the Scottish nobility, he placed the greatest confidence in Murray’s attachment to religion; and his conduct after his elevation to the regency, had served to heighten the good opinion which he formerly entertained of him. He looked upon his death as the greatest calamity which could befall the nation, and as a forerunner of many evils.[210] When the shock produced by the melancholy tidings had subsided, the first thought that rushed into his mind was, that he had himself been the instrument of obtaining, from his clemency, a pardon to the man who had become his murderer; a thought which naturally produced a very different impression on him from what it did on the mind of the dying regent.[211]