Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

would have quickly extended to all the favorers of
the Protestant opinions.[5] The discovery helped
not a little to pave the way for the downfall of a
hierarchy which was capable of concocting so
diabolical a plot.
Instead of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, it
was the king himself whom the priests had brought
to destruction; for, hoping to prevent the Reformed
opinions entering Scotland from England, the
priests had instigated James V to offer to Henry
VIII the affront which led to the disaster of
Solway-moss, followed so quickly by the deathbed
scene in the royal palace of Falkland. The
throne now vacant, it became necessary to appoint
a regent to govern the kingdom during the minority
of the Princess Mary, who was just eight days old
when her father died, on the 16th of December,
1542. The man whose name was first on the list of
nobles marked for slaughter, was chosen to the
regency, although Cardinal Beaten sought to bar
his way to it by producing a forged will of the late
king appointing himself to the post.[6] The fact that
Arran was a professed Reformer contributed quite
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