al Assemblies without Royal assent. This weak point in
their defences enabled James to vanquish them, but, in June, Bothwell
attacked him in the Palace of Falkland and put him in considerable peril.

The end of 1592 and the opening of 1593 were remarkable for the discovery
of "The Spanish Blanks," papers addressed to Philip of Spain, signed by
Huntly, the new Earl of Angus, and Errol, to be filled up with an oral
message requesting military aid for Scottish Catholics. Such proceedings
make our historians hold up obtesting hands against the perfidy of
idolaters. But clearly, if Knox and the congregation were acting rightly
when they besought the aid of England against Mary of Guise, then Errol
and Huntly are not to blame for inviting Spain to free them from
persecution. Some inkling of the scheme had reached James, and a paper
in which he weighed the pros and cons is in existence. His suspected
understanding with the Catholic earls, whom he merely did not wish to
estrange hopelessly, was punished by a sanctified plague. On July 24,
1593, by aid of the late Earl Gowrie's daughter, Bothwell entered
Holyrood, seized the king, extorted his own terms, went and amazed the
Dean of Durham by his narrative of the adventure, and seemed to have the
connivance of Elizabeth. But in September James found himself in a
position to repudiate his forced engagement. Bothwell now allied himself
with the Catholic earls, and, as a Catholic, had no longer the prayers of
the preachers. James ordered levies to attack the earls, while Argyll
led his clan and the Macleans against Huntly, only to be defeated by the
Gordon horse at the battle of Glenrinnes (October 3). Huntly and his
allies, however, dared not encounter King James and Andrew Melville, who
marched together against them, and they were obliged to fly to the
Continent. Bothwell, with his retainer, Colville, continued, with
Cecil's connivance, to make desperate plots for seizing James; indeed,
Cecil was intriguing with them and other desperadoes even after 1600.
Throughout all the Tudor period, from Henry VII. to 1601, England was
engaged in a series of conspiracies against the persons of the princes of
Scotland. The Catholics of the south of Scotland now lost Lord Maxwell,
slain by a "Lockerby Lick" in a great clan battle with the Johnstones at
Dryfe Sands.

In 1595, James's minister, John Maitland, brother of Lethington, died,
and early in 1596 an organisation called "the O