On the accession of James to the throne of England, and before he set out for England, on the 4th of April 1603, he gave orders for prince Henry's remaining at Stirling with the earl of Marr; but the queen, impatient to have the prince in her own power, went to Stirling, in order to bring him away from thence, and carry him with her to England; but the trustees appointed by Marr, who was himself gone to London with the king, refused, without the royal warrant, to deliver him into her majesty's hands, which threw her into such an agony of grief, or rather of indignation, that she miscarried of the child with which she was pregnant *. The king being informed of this accident, ordered Marr to return to Scotland, sending after him, the duke of Lennox, with a warrant to receive the prince, and deliver him to the queen, which was done in the end of May.

The queen, however, not satisfied with this concession, complained, in strong terms, of Marr, and wrote a letter to the king, full of passion, which she delivered to her almoner Mr John Spottiswood, soon after made archbishop of Glasgow; but the king, knowing the

you and your wife can be of one flesh, and keep unitie betwixt you, being members of two opposite churches. Remember what deceived Solomon, the wisest king that ever was, and that the grace of perseverance is not a flowe that groweth in our garden."

*Birch's Life of Prince Henry.

innocence and fidelity of Marr, refused to be troubled with her complaints, saying, that she ought to forget her resentment when she considered, that, under God, his peaceable accession to the throne of England was due to the temper and address of Erskine. But when the queen received this message, she said, in the true spirit of an angry woman, that she should rather have wished never to see England, than to be under obligations to Marr †.

On the 24th of June, this year, the king gave Marr, as has been mentioned, his discharge for the government of the prince, full of honourable expressions respecting his fidelity and conduct in his education; and having already given him the garter, he gave him a gold key, and next year a grant of the abbeys and church-land of Cambuskenneth, Dryburgh, and Inchmahome, dated the 27th of March 1604. "For the good, true, and faithful services, and acceptable pains, and care taken by his ancestors, in the education of his

It has been an uniform tradition, that the foundation of Anne's dislike to Marr was a funny piece of imprudence of the king's, who should have told Marr, the morning after his marriage, that he was much surprised at the queen's manner of receiving him, and that he imagined the joys of matrimony were novelty to her most sacred majesty! This fancy of the king's cost afterwards the life of the bonny earl of Moray.

"O the bonny earl of Moray, he played at the glove,

"And the bonny earl of Moray, he was the queen's love."

majesty, and his progenitors, and particularly of his own by the regent, as of his son by Marr, and for his speedy and dutiful discharge of his errand in the several embassies wherein he had been employed by his majesty, disannexing these 'church-lands from the crown, and erecting them into a temporal lordship, with suffrage in parliament, to be called, in all times coming, the lordship of Cardross, to him, and heirs, and successors that should happen to be provided by him to the said lordship;" and in consequence of this grant, lord Marr conveyed this estate and honour to Henry the godson of the prince of Wales, his second son, by his second marriage, whose descendants sat in the parliaments of Scotland, as lord Cardross of Dryburgh, &c. until the death of William earl of Buchan in 1693, when it was merged in a superior title.

In the year 1606, his eldest son, by the lady Mary Stuart, was married to Mary Douglass countess of Buchan; the heiress of that honour from James Stuart of Lorne, uterine brother of James the second of Scotland by Jane Plantagenet, daughter of the earl of Somerset, and grand-daughter of King Edward the III. widow of James the I.

This marriage was obtained by the king's patronage, and Buchan went, by the king's appointment, with the baby Charles to Spain.

Sketch of the Life of John, Earl of Marr, concluded.

FOR THE BEE.-JANUARY 25. 1792.

ON the 17th of December 1615, on the fall of Carr, Earl of Somerset, the king gave his white staff, as treasurer of Scotland, to the Earl of Marr, which he kept for more than fifteen years, when, being old and infirm, he voluntarily resigned it into the hands of the king, who conferred it on the Earl of Mor

ton.

As the part Marr bore in his negociation with Cecil, in concert and commission with the Lord Bruce of Kinloss, has found its way into several publications, and collections of state papers, I have forborne to swell this memoir with an account of it, and shall conclude with observing, that the good old earl lived several years after his retreat from the court, at his castle of Alloa, in the county of Clackmannan, and addicted himself to study, and rural solacements, having married his four daughters to the Earls of Mafischal, Rothes, Strathmore, and Haddington, and established all his sons in very honourable situations.

He died at his house, as governor of Stirling castle, being the messuage of his lordship of Stirling, on the 14th day of December 1634, and was solemnly interred, with a concourse of his family and friends attending, in the chapel of the family at Alloa, on, the 7th of April 1635. In his person, as appears from an original portrait by Cornelius Jansen, as well as by one by George Jamesone, he appears to have had a shrewd, animated countenance, and well-proportioned body in his. manners, he was active, sprightly, and witty, affecting much of the poignant manner of his master, Buchanan, as he did occasionally to please the king, the rougher salt of the Stuarts; and many of his jokes, as well as those of the king, in his company, are repeated in Scotland, which would be improper for a grave narration.

On the first day of April 1608, he had executed a last will and testament, whereby, leaving the tuition of the children of his second marriage to their mother, he gives to his son, the Earl of Buchan, the hundred of Ocham, to relieve him from the incumbrance of legacies to his brothers and sisters. To his eldest son, Lord Erskine, he leaves, as a memorial of his particular affection, the bason and laver, set with mother-of-pearls, which he had from Queen Elizabeth *, to remain

These are still preserved entire in the house of Alloa by his heir.