ert
Graham; and James I. rid himself of the imperious and intriguing
Douglas by suddenly stabbing him while within his own royal palace
under protection of a safe conduct.

"The leaders of the Reformation discerned in assassination (that of
their enemies) the special 'work and judgment of God.'... When the
assassination of Cardinal Beaton took place in 1546, all the savage
details of it were set down by Knox with unbridled gusto. 'These
things we wreat mearlie,' is his own ingenuous comment on his
performance.

"The burden of George Buchanan's _De Jure Regni apud Scotos_ is the
lawfulness or righteousness of the removal--by assassination or any
other fitting or convenient means--of incompetent kings, whether
heinously wicked and tyrannical or merely unwise and weak of
purpose; and he cites as a case in point and an 'example in time
coming,' the murder of James III., which, if it were only on
account of the assassin's hideous travesty of the last offices of
the Church, would deserve to be held in unique and everlasting
detestation."--(Henderson, _Old-world Scotland_, 182-186.)

Yet the Scots have always been a notably warlike and fearless race. So,
too, are our southern mountaineers: in the Civil War and the Spanish War
they sent a larger proportion of their men into the service than almost
any other section of our country.

Let us not overlook the fact that it demands courage of a high order for
one to stay in a feud-infested district, conscious of being marked for
slaughter--stay there month in and month out, year in and year out, not
knowing at what moment he may be beset by overpowering numbers, from
what laurel thicket he may be shot, or at what hour of the night he may
be called to his door and struck dead before his family. On the credit
side of their valor, then, be it entered that few mountaineers will
shrink from such ordeal when, even from no fault of their own, it is
thrust upon them.

The blood-feud is simply a horrible survival of medievalism. It is the
highlander's misfortune to be stranded far out of the course of
civilization. He is no worse than that bygone age that he really belongs
to. In some ways he is better. He is far less cruel than his ancestors
were--than our ancestors were. He does not torture with the tumbril,
the stocks, the ducking-stool, the pillory, the branding-irons, the
ear-pruners and nos