fairs of State. He next
urges Cardan to consent to meet the Archbishop in Paris, a city in which
learning of all sorts flourishes exceedingly, the nurse of many great
philosophers, and one in which Cardan would assuredly meet the honour and
reverence which is his due. The Archbishop's offer was indeed magnificent
in its terms. Funds would be provided generous enough to allow the
physician to travel post the whole of the journey, and the goodwill of all
the rulers of the states _en route_ would be enlisted in his favour.
Cassanate finishes by fixing the end of January 1552 as a convenient date
for the _rendezvous_ in Paris, and, as time and place accorded with
Cardan's wishes, he wrote to Cassanate accepting the offer.

The Archbishop of St. Andrews was John Hamilton, the illegitimate brother
of James, Earl of Arran, who had been chosen Regent of the kingdom after
the death of James V. at Flodden, and the bar sinister, in this case as in
many others, was the ensign of a courage and talent and resource in which
the lawful offspring was conspicuously wanting. Any student taking a
cursory glance at the epoch of violence and complicated intrigue which
marked the infancy of Mary of Scotland, may well be astonished that a man
so weak and vain and incompetent as James Hamilton--albeit his footing was
made more secure by his position as the Queen's heir-presumptive--should
have held possession of his high dignities so long as he did. Alternately
the tool of France and of England, he would one day cause his great rival
Cardinal Beatoun to be proclaimed an enemy of his country, and the next
would meet him amicably and adopt his policy. After becoming the partisan
of Henry VIII. and the foe of Rome, he finally put the coping-stone to his
inconsistencies by becoming a convert to Catholicism in 1543. But in spite
of his indolence and weakness, he was still Regent of Scotland, when his
brother, the Archbishop, was seized with that attack of periodic asthma
which threatened to change vitally the course of Scottish politics. A very
slight study of contemporary records will show that Arran had been
largely, if not entirely, indebted to the distinguished talents and to the
ambition of his brother for his continued tenure of the chief power of the
State. If confirmation of this view be needed, it will be found in the
fact that, as soon as the Archbishop was confined to a sick-room, Mary of
Guise, the Queen Mother, supported by her brothers i