THE CATHOLIC EARLS.


Early in 1589 Elizabeth became mistress of some letters which proved that
the Catholic earls, Huntly and Errol, were intriguing with Spain. The
offence was lightly passed over, but when the earls, with Crawford and
Montrose, drew to a head in the north, James, with much more than his
usual spirit, headed the army which advanced against them: they fled from
him near Aberdeen, surrendered, and were for a brief time imprisoned. As
nobody knows how Fortune's wheel may turn, and as James, hard pressed by
the preachers, could neglect no chance of support, he would never gratify
the Kirk by crushing the Catholic earls, by temperament he was no
persecutor. His calculated leniency caused him years of trouble.

Meanwhile James, after issuing a grotesque proclamation about the causes
of his spirited resolve, sailed in October to woo a sea-king's daughter
over the foam, the Princess Anne of Denmark. After happy months passed,
he wrote, "in drinking and driving ower," he returned with his bride in
May 1590.

The General Assembly then ordered prayers for the Puritans oppressed in
England; none the less Elizabeth, the oppressor, continued to patronise
the plots of the Puritans of Scotland. They now lent their approval to
the foe of James's minister, Maitland, namely, the wild Francis Stewart,
Earl of Bothwell, a sister's son of Mary's Bothwell. This young man had
the engaging quality of gay and absolute recklessness; he was dear to
ladies and the wild young gentry of Lothian and the Borders; he broke