by the clergy, rejected all treaty; and James, who was now a captive in their hands, affirmed, that he had never agreed to an association with his mother, and that the matter had never gone further than some loose proposals for that purpose.[*] ** MS. in the Advocates’ Library, A. 3, 28, p. 401, from the Cott Lib. Calig. c. 9. The affairs of Scotland remained not long in the present situation. James, impatient of restraint, made his escape from his keepers; and flying to St. Andrews, summoned his friends and partisans to attend him. The earls of Argyle, Marshal, Montrose, and Rothes, hastened to pay their duty to their sovereign; and the opposite party found themselves unable to resist so powerful a combination. They were offered a pardon, upon their submission, and an acknowledgment of their fault in seizing the king’s person and restraining him from his liberty. Some of them accepted of the terms; the greater number, particularly Angus, Hamilton, Marre, Glamis, left the country, and took shelter in Ireland or England, where they were protected by Elizabeth. The earl of Arran was recalled to court; and the malecontents, who could not brook the authority of Lenox, a man of virtue and moderation, found, that by their resistance, they had thrown all power into the hands of a person whose counsels were as violent as his manners were profligate.[*] Elizabeth wrote a letter to James, in which she quoted a moral sentence from Isocrates, and indirectly reproached him with inconstancy, and a breach of his engagements. James, in his reply, justified his measures; and retaliated, by turning two passages of Isocrates against her.[**] She next sent Walsingham on an embassy to him; and her chief purpose in employing that aged minister in an errand where so little business was to be transacted, was to learn, from a man of so much penetration and experience, the real character of James. This young prince possessed good parts, though not accompanied with that vigor and industry which his station required; and as he excelled in general discourse and conversation, Walsingham entertained a higher idea of his talents than he was afterwards found, when real business was transacted, to have fully merited.[***] The account which he gave his mistress induced her to treat James thenceforth with some more regard than she had hitherto been inclined to pay him. * Spotswood, p. 325, 326, et seq. ** Melvil, p. 140, 141. Strype, vol. iii. p. 156. *** Melvil, p. 148. Jebb, vol. ii. p. 530.