y rocks of the castle where
James learned his lessons. His young companion's father, the Earl of
Mar, was taken from the family at Stirling and raised to a brief and
agitated Regency, through all of which a civil war was raging. And till
from beyond the seas there came the still more horrible news of that
French massacre which convulsed the world, and made an end of Mary's
party, nothing was secure from one day to another in Scotland. It was in
the midst of that very tumult and endless miserable conflict, in which
Mary's followers had at last set up the doctrine of her irresponsibility
and divine right to retain her position as Queen whatever might be her
guilt as Mary Stewart--that the scholar set himself to compose his work
upon the rights of the kingdom and the duties of kings. His high temper,
his strong partisanship, his stern logic, would find an incitement and
inspiration in those specious arguments on the other side which were so
new to Scotland, and had been contradicted over and over again in her
troublous history, where no one was so certain to be brought to book for
his offences as the erring or unsuccessful monarch. It must be difficult
for a great classicist to be at the same time a believer in the divine
right of kings; and it was a new idea for the mediaeval Scot accustomed
to reverence the name, but to criticise in the sharpest practical way
the acts of his sovereign. And we may imagine that the old scholar, who
could not but hear from his window the shouts of the warfare between the
Queen's party and the King's, would have a grim satisfaction as he sat
high above them, protected more or less by the royal name, in forging at
his leisure those links of remorseless argument which, though they had
no effect upon the pupil to whom they were dedicated, had their share in
regulating that great rebellion which had so important an effect upon
the after-history of the two kingdoms.

During this period, however, Buchanan had other occupations besides his
tutorship and his literary work. He was made "director of the Chancery,"
whatever that may mean, and in 1570 was elevated to the post of Keeper
of the Privy Seal, in which capacity he served in various Parliaments:
and was also a member of the Privy Council. When the conspiracy arose
against the Regent Morton which ended in his temporary deprivation of
the regency, Buchanan seems to have taken part against him, though on
what argument we are not told: for it was M