| The political career of this statesman-lawyer is part of the history of his times. It was not a creditable one; a man of undoubted ability, he distinguished himself chiefly by the facility with which he went from one political party to another as he found most convenient for his own interests. A companion of Knox in the Castle of St. Andrews, figuring as one of the champions of the Protestant cause, and a fellow-prisoner with the same Reformer in the French galleys, it was not long before he renounced his profession of the new religion, and actually held ecclesiastical appointments as official of Lothian and parson of Flisk. On 14 November 1561 he is found as a member of the Privy Council. On the twelfth of the same month he was appointed an Extraordinary Lord of Session, and an Ordinary Lord on 15 November 1563. He was made one of the four Commissaries of Edinburgh 8 February 1564, was knighted and appointed Clerk Register in 1566. He was openly accused of being one of the chief instigators of the murder of Darnley, and was in 1567 Governor of Edinburgh Castle for Mary and Bothwell, but on the fall of the Queen he took care to provide for his own safety by enabling the confederate Lords to obtain possession of the famous Casket Letters, and also by surrendering the Castle itself. He managed to obtain the Commendatorship of Pittenweem, and on 6 December 1567 was appointed President of the Court of Session. After the death of Moray, however, in 1570 we find him back in the Queen's party, only to desert it for the second time two years afterwards. In August 1571 he had been included in a list of persons who were forfeited by an Act of Parliament passed at Stirling. The following year, however, he and his brothers Gilbert and Robert received a pardon and remission, but the charge of having been 'chiefly culpable' of the murder of Darnley having been revived he found it expedient to retire to France. Notwithstanding the remission of January 1572-73 we find him on 4 June 1579 described as 'forfaltit and declairit traitour to his Majestie,' and his castles and houses in Scotland were ordered to be surrendered. His lands of Moncastell and others in Menteith were, on 24 November 1579, granted to Sir James Stewart of Doune, the priory of Pittenweem to Sir James Haliburton, and the lands of Burleigh, Balgarvy, Star, Kinloch, and others to John Ruthven, son of Lord Ruthven. While in France negotiations had been entered into with him in order to procure evidence from him to convict Morton, and he returned privately to Scotland on that business, and petitioned the Privy Council to be heard with a view to his pardon and restoration. Influence was made for him and he obtained a certain limited amount of protection for some time, but was not allowed to regain the lands and offices which had been granted to other persons through his forfeiture. In this condition he continued till his death in 1583.14 |