tyranny of Arran becoming daily more insupportable the exiled
lords, joined by Maxwell, Home, Bothwell, and other border chieftains,
seized the town of Stirling, which was pillaged by their disorderly
followers, invested the castle, which surrendered at discretion, and
drove the favourite from the king's council[27].

[Footnote 27: The associated nobles seem to have owed their success
chiefly to the border spearmen; for, though they had a band of
mercenaries, who used fire arms, yet they were such bad masters of
their craft, their captain was heard to observe, "that those, who knew
his soldiers as well as he did, would hardly chuse to _march before
them_."--_Godscroft_, v. ii. p. 368.]

The king, perceiving the Earl of Bothwell among the armed barons,
to whom he surrendered his person addressed him in these prophetic
words:-- "Francis, Francis, what moved thee to come in arms against
thy prince, who never wronged thee? I wish thee a more quiet spirit,
else I foresee thy destruction."--_Spottiswoode_, p. 343.

In fact, the extraordinary enterprizes of this nobleman disturbed the
next ten years of James's reign. Francis Stuart, son to a bastard of
James V., had been invested with the titles and estates belonging
to his maternal uncle, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, upon the
forfeiture of that infamous man; and consequently became lord of
Liddesdale, and of the castle of Hermitage.--This acquisition of power
upon the borders, where he could easily levy followers, willing to
undertake the most desperate enterprize, joined to the man's native
daring and violent spirit, rendered Bothwell the most turbulent
insurgent, that ever disturbed the tranquillity of a kingdom. During
the king's absence in Denmark, Bothwell, swayed by the superstition of
his age, had tampered with certain soothsayers and witches, by whose
pretended art he hoped to atchieve the death of his monarch. In one
of the courts of inquisition, which James delighted to hold upon the
professors of the occult sciences, some of his cousin's proceedings
were brought to light, for which he was put in ward in the castle of
Edinburgh. Burning with revenge, he broke from his confinement,
and lurked for some time upon the borders, where he hoped for the
countenance of his son-in-law, Buccleuch. Undeterred by the absence
of that chief, who, in obedience to the royal command, had prudently
retired to France, Bothwell attempted the desperate enterprize of
seizing the pe