ost ferocious of the savages who then formed the
Scotch aristocracy, and he had no idea of seeing radicalism made rampant
in his country; and so he headed a conspiracy against the King and
murdered him. James II. was himself an assassin, as he stabbed the Earl
of Douglas, who had come to him under an assurance of safety, and who
was cut to pieces by some of the royal retainers, after their master had
set them an example. The King's excuse was, that the Douglas had become
too powerful to be proceeded against regularly; and, indeed, the
question then before Scotland was, whether that country should be ruled
by the House of Douglas or the House of Stuart, and we cannot wonder
that a king in the fifteenth century should conclude rather to murder
than to be murdered. James II. overthrew the Black Douglas, and in his
case assassination _did_ prosper. James III. was assassinated while
flying from a field of battle on which he had been beaten by rebels.
Mary Stuart, daughter of James V., is believed by many historical
inquirers to have been a party to the assassination of her husband,
(Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who was her relative,) the question whether
she did thus act forming the turning-point in that famous Marian
Controversy which has raged for three hundred years, and which seems to
be no nearer a decision now than it was before Loch Leven and
Fotheringay,--Mr. Froude, the last of the great champions in the fight,
having pronounced, with all his usual directness, adversely to the Rose
of Scotland. Whether Mary was an assassin or not, it is beyond all doubt
that her husband was one of the assassins of her servant Rizzio, who was
murdered in her very presence. Mary's son, James VI., stands in the
strangest relation to an extraordinary assassination of any man in
history. The Gowrie Conspiracy is yet a riddle. According to one class
of historical critics, the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, Alexander
Ruthven, were bent upon assassinating the King; while another class are
quite as positive that the King was bent upon assassinating the
Ruthvens, and that he accomplished his purpose. We confess that we are
strongly inclined to go with those who say that the Ruthvens were
victims, and not baffled assassins; and we have always admired the reply
of the clergyman to whom the King condescended to tell his story, in the
hope of convincing him of its truth. "Doubtless," said that skeptical,
but pious personage, "I must believe it, sin