the troubled reign of Mary of Scots from its extreme

unlike, not in his methods, and though he was tenacious and firm

ness to any contemporary. Motives on which we have no beyond any man of his age, he showed his quality in prosaie first-hand evidence give free scope for guesses, and to so fields like councils and embassies and an interminable mysterious a protagonist it is possible with some credibility correspondence. Into his forty-five stormy years he crowded to assign almost any policy. Hence he bulks largely in the activities enough for ten men. The son of an East Lothian histories, and some twenty years ago Sir John Skelton pro- laird, he was so admirably educated that Queen Elizabeth, no duced an elaborate biography. Skelton, however, is now out bad judge, called him "the flower of the wits of Scotland."

of date, for much has come to light since he wrote. The At twenty-six he became a Privy Councillor and Secretary of dispute about the Casket letters, for example, may now be State to the Regent, Mary of Guise, and began the long taken as settled, and the verdict is clear for Mary's guilt in negotiations with England which ended only with his death.

Darnley's murder. Further, the issue of the fourth volume He was a persona grata to Elizabeth's advisers, who appre. of the State Papers, Scotland and Mary, in 1905 has cast much ciated the sincerity of his friendship for their country ; and it fresh light upon Lethington's doings. Mr. Russell has pro- was largely due to his efforts that the English alliance wee duced a work which is a model of how historical monographs formed and the French influence of the Regent counteracted. should be written. He aims at giving a concise and accurate The death of Mary of Guise saw the end of the old Franco.

statement of the facts, and in every case he goes for his Scottish pact and the beginning of Knox's supremacy evidence to the best authorities, the State Papers of the day. over Scottish minds. The Pope's jurisdiction was formally But he does not use his authorities blindly, for he fully destroyed by Act of Parliament, the old heresy laws were realizes that the State Papers are themselves the work of annulled, and the saying or hearing of Mass was prohibited. partisans, and he can adjudicate, when necessary, on the value Lethington's first attempt at the Union with England was of this evidence with acumen and good sense. He eschews his proposal that Elizabeth should marry Arran, the

fine writing and pretentious psychology, but he has succeeded prospective heir to the Scottish throne. Elizabeth refused, in presenting a vivid and convincing picture of an elusive and the death of the French King left the Scots with character, a young Queen, a devout Catholic, whose personality The Scottish wars of religion between 1550 and 1688 were threatened to upset all calculations. The main problem at the in the main an epoch of reaction. The Kirk, while advanced outset of Mary's reign was that of the English succession, enough in certain civil questions, was moving back to the with which that of her marriage was closely bound up. Her first mediaeval idea of a theocracy, and its opponents, the nobles, desire was to wed Don Carlos of Spain, and Lethington seems were with a few exceptions the most backward and turbulent to have furthered the scheme in the hopes of using it as a in Europe. But this epoch produced several men so startlingly lever to compel the recognition by Elizabeth of the Queen of modern as to warn us off facile generalization. The great Scots as her successor. Then came the proposal for * Montrose is, of course, the most notable ; his civil and match with Leicester, and finally Mary's counter-stroke of religious ideals were a century at least in advance of the marriage with Darnley. After that, tragedy began to his age. Sir George Mackenzie in certain respects was thicken about the luckless Queen. Lethington dropped out Maitland of Lothington. Ministor of Mary Stuart a Study of his Life and of her councils, and he dropped out also of the confidence of the Jews under an international guarantee—to become, in fact, an another of the type, though his practice fell short of his creed. Eastern Belgium. Sinai and Egypt would pass under avowed Lethington, though in a narrower sense, was also a modern British protection, and Arabia (except the southern portion, which

already lies within the British sphere of influence) be regarded as man, for in an age when a confused nationalism ran _ n

a federation of independent Arab States. For the rest, Turkey in wild—the jealousy of the little ation against its " auld Asia—less Armenia, which might be handed over to Russia—would, enemy," he alone saw the ultimate necessity of the English in fact, become to Germany what Egypt is to England—a kingdom Union, and he forecast a settlement where Scottish nationalism to be educated, regenerated, and perhaps transfused and trans. should not be absorbed but safeguarded. For this great formed by the renewed percolation of the Aryan Caucasian. Here

cause he fought from first to last, for, as Mr. Russell says, he

Austria, sufficient to keep them contented, busy, prosperous, and was always consistent in his aim if not in his measures. He

happy for at least a century ahead." foresaw, too, the menace of the theocracy. Knox's Book of Although Sir Harry Johnston recognizes that Germany wants Discipline began the breach between him and the reformer,

to peg out claims for her posterity, and confesses that the for he saw that the Knoxian scheme, great and fruitful as it desire is admirable and worthy of all sympathy, he reminds was, contained the germs of the policy which, in the hands us of what is too often forgotten, that Germany has not in of leaser men like Andrew Melville, was to establish in practice displayed any very ardent colonizing purpose :— Scotland a tyranny incompatible with civilized government. " The total area of German East Africa is 384,200 square miles, Where he failed was in underestimating the strength of the of which perhaps 20,000 square miles, at the most generous forces behind Knox. Lethington was the true politigue, not estimate, is now under organized cultivation with cotton, coffee, rubber, or other exportable products. There are many parts of over-scrupulous, insensitive to religious enthusiasm, a strong German East Africa which have never been examined, even super- secular intelligence which could not allow for intangible things &hilly, as to their minerals, soil, and other resources. Even that were inexpressible in legal and political terms. His view in where indications of minerals have been discovered, nothing as the long run prevailed, after it had been modified by dreary years yet has been done to turn this knowledge to account. The same of conflict. He was for the royal power rather than for that of remarks may apply in varying degrees to German South-west Africa, a region of immense extent, of which very little is really the nobles, as Mr. Russell seems to suggest, and the royal power known, while that little points to a possibility of great wealth in had to take on a different guise before it could commend mineral and metallic substances and to the existence of consider- itself to a nation which the new Presbyterianism had made able stretches of land which might be populated by prosperous independent in thought and deed. Out of the strife a wiser white German inhabitants, and which have been shown to be well adapted to sheep-rearing. I have already referred to the potential monarchy and a chastened Birk emerged, and the feudal value of the Kamerun. It has sufficient natural resources to power of the nobles, the old root of the mischief, disappeared occupy a great colonizing Power for at least half a century. When for ever. If we were to join issue with Mr. Russell's view, it we think of what the French made out of Haiti (10,000 to 11,000 would be on his estimate of Lethington's exact place in the square miles) during the eighteenth century, what might not Germany obtain from the Kamerun, which has a superficies of great story. As we understand Scottish history, it was the view 292,000 square miles ? Germany's eyes are larger than her of the politigues which ultimately won and which made modern

stomach." Scotland. The two mediaeval remnants were the nobility A curious point which we may notice in conclusion is Sir and the theocratic Kirk which Knox founded and Melville Harry Johnston's belief in the regenerative power of Portugal. expanded. Both had to be beaten to their knees before there He bids us keep our eyes on Madeira, whence proceed admini- could be peace in the land. Incidentally the Kirk performed strators who have learned the liberal methods of Englishmen, a work of incalculable national value, but its ultramontane and from this place he thinks a saviour may arise. We wish claims were sheer reaction. The victory lay with Lethington's

we could share all his optimism. We are certain that he has ideas, and still more with those of Montrose and the later 1o3n misled as to the abolition of slavery in West Africa under moderates, who, in Mr. Gardiner's words, did not draw their

the Republic. swords "for a vanished past," but for "the hope of the future."

MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON.* Lethington's career has none of the swift romance of Tin figure of Lethington must always fascinate the student of Montrose's. He was single-hearted enough in his aims but

the troubled reign of Mary of Scots from its extreme unlike, not in his methods, and though he was tenacious and firm

ness to any contemporary. Motives on which we have no beyond any man of his age, he showed his quality in prosaie first-hand evidence give free scope for guesses, and to so fields like councils and embassies and an interminable mysterious a protagonist it is possible with some credibility correspondence. Into his forty-five stormy years he crowded

Russel. Laudon; James Nisbet sad ce. [Zs. net.] Moray and Knox. Henceforth he was to play him own pine in polities. He was undoubtedly an accomplice in the murder of Riccio, and be had foreknowledge of the grievous tragedy of Darnley's death. "Looking through the fingers" at the crimes of others was, as Ur. Russell says, a common accomplishment of the statesmen of that age. Lethington btood by the Queen through the events which followed, for he was convinced that only through the Queen could the Union be desired be accomplished.

"He felt probably some real attachment to her; he pitied her nearly as much as he blamed her ; she was still very young ; and she was a great asset in the cause of union. The Throne of England might at any moment become vacant; Elizabeth had been more than once ill ; Mary alone had the extensive support at home and abroad that would go far to secure the prize."

In the remaining six years of his life he fought for the Queen till, as happens to obstinate men, he had almost for- gotten his original reasons, and fought as if he were a blind legitimist. He intrigued unsuccessfully on her side at the inquiries at York and Westminster. To him, permanent deposition seemed a punishment beyond her deserts, besides being a hindrance to the Union of Britain ; and therein he differed from Moray and Knox and the nobles, who began to form the party of the young King. Moreover, he had a deep- seated love of power, and he saw that as he had played his cards he could only hope to exercise supreme influence through Mary's restoration. He wished to safeguard the Reformation settlement, but he believed that the now chastened Queen would be no obstacle. The death of Moray —" the most just and magnanimous ruler that Scotland had had since the days of Bruce," Mr. Russell calls him—removed one difficulty ; but Lethington had underrated the strength of the King's party, which now, through Knox's influence, had obtained the support of the great body of the lairds and burgesses. He went into open opposition, and intrigued for French support against his Scottish opponents and Elizabeth. He would have defended his apparent inconsistency by maintaining that his ends were still the same as when he had opposed Mary of Guise. "Whereas be had formerly sought the Union of the realm by friendship with Elizabeth, he was now compelled to seek it by coercing her, which was impossible without foreign aid." He was prepared to be reconciled at once with the English Queen if she would recognize the Scottish rights to the English succession. In the end he and the ;rest of the Queen's party were forced to make an armed stand in Edinburgh Castle. The tale of the long siege, till Morton with English aid forced a capitulation, ahows that Lethington possessed, at any rate, an indomitable courage. Tormented with bodily ailments, he never wavered, though his party fell away daily, and Hamilton and Huntly and creatures like Sir James Balfour went over to the other side. With the gallant and quixotic Kirkaldy of Grange he kept his flag flying to the last, striving by his old subtleties to sow dissension among his opponents, and never losing hope till the enemy were through the gates. He and Kirkaldy in the end were deserted by everybody, even by France ; they fought on in their hopeless fight out of sheer pride and stubbornness. Kirkaldy died on the scaffold, but it must have been a relief to the Scots nobles, as well as to Elizabeth and Burghley, that Lething ton died a natural death before his trial. There is a kind of magnificence in his last desperate resolu- tion which is lacking in the far wiser and more successful dexterity of his earlier career. He is one of the few cases of the politigue who in the last resort could attain to the simpler heroism of the enthusiast.