James, if not pressed in this fashion, had no particular reason for
desiring Episcopal government of the Kirk, but being so pressed he saw no
refuge save in bishops. Meanwhile his chief advisers--d'Aubigny, now
Duke of Lennox, and James Stewart, the destroyer of Morton, now, to the
prejudice of the Hamiltons, Earl of Arran--were men whose private life,
at least in Arran's case, was scandalous. If Arran were a Protestant, he
was impatient of the rule of the pulpiteers; and Lennox was working, if
not sincerely in Mary's interests, certainly in his own and for those of
the Catholic House of Guise. At the same time he favoured the king's
Episcopal schemes, and, late in 1581, appointed a preacher named
Montgomery to the recently vacant Archbishopric of Glasgow, while he
himself, like Morton, drew most of the revenues. Hence arose tumults,
and, late in 1581 and in 1582, priestly and Jesuit emissaries went and
came, intriguing for a Catholic rising, to be supported by a large
foreign force which they had not the slightest chance of obtaining from
any quarter. Archbishop Montgomery was excommunicated by the Kirk, and
James, as we saw, had signed "A Negative Confession" (1581).

In 1582 Elizabeth was backing the exiled Presbyterian Earl of Angus and
the Earl of Gowrie (Ruthven), while Lennox was contemplating a _coup
d'etat_ in Edinburgh (August 27). Gowrie, with the connivance of
England, struck the first blow. He, Mar, and their accomplices captured
James at Ruthven Castle, near Perth (August 23, "the Raid of Ruthven"),
with the approval of the General Assembly of the Kirk. It was a Douglas
plot managed by Angus and Elizabeth. James Stewart of the Guard (now
Earl of Arran) was made prisoner; Lennox fled the country. In October
1582, in a Parliament at Holyrood, the conspirators passed Acts
indemnifying themselves, and the General Assembly approved them. These
Acts were rescinded later, and James had learned for life his hatred of