es he would incur through a longer stay.
Cardan had originally settled to return by way of Paris, but letters which
he received from his young kinsman, Gasparo Cardano, and from Ranconet,
led him to change his plans. The country was in a state of anarchy, the
roads being infested with thieves, and Gasparo himself had the bad fortune
to be taken by a gang of ruffians. In consequence of these things Cardan
determined to return by way of Flanders and the Empire.

It was not in reason that Cardan would quit Scotland and resign the care
of his patient without taking the stars into his counsel as to the future.
He cast the Archbishop's horoscope, and published it in the _Geniturarum
Exempla_. It was not a successful feat. In his forty-eighth year, _i.e._
in 1560, the astrologer declared that Hamilton would be in danger of
poison and of suffering from an affection of the heart. But the time of
the greatest peril seemed to lie between July 30 and September 21, 1554.
The stars gave no warning of the tragic fate which befell Archbishop
Hamilton in the not very distant future. For the succeeding six years he
governed the Church in Scotland with prudence and leniency, but in 1558 he
began a persecution of the reformers which kindled a religious strife,
highly embarrassing to the Catholic party then holding the reins of
power. His cruelties were borne in mind by the reformers when they got the
upper hand. In 1563 he was imprisoned for saying mass. In 1568 Mary, after
her escape from Loch Leven, gave the chief direction of her affairs into
the hands of the Archbishop, who was the bitter foe of the Regent Murray.
Murray having defeated the Queen's forces at Langside, Hamilton took
refuge in Dumbarton Castle, which was surprised and captured in 1571, when
the Archbishop was taken to Stirling and hanged. In the words of the
_Diurnal of Occurrants_: "as the bell struck six hours at even, he was
hangit at the mercat cross of Stirling upon a jebat."[152] His enemies
would not let him rest even there, for the next day, fixed to the tree,
were found the following verses:

"Cresce diu, felix arbor, semperque vireto
Frondibus ut nobis talia poma feras."

To return to Cardan. Having at last won from his patient leave to depart,
he set forth laden with rich gifts. In Scotland, Cardan found the most
generous paymasters he had ever met. In recording the niggard treatment
which he subsequently experienced at the hands of Brissac, the Frenc