RSiTV OF CALIFORNIA. SAN DIEGO ^ 
 
 3 1822 00786 6361 
 
 niversity of California 
 Southern Regional 
 Library Facility
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CAl IFORNIA SAN niFGO 
 
 3 1822 00786 6361 
 
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 GEORGE BUCHANAN
 
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 ^
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 AND HIS TIMES 
 
 P. HUME BROWN 
 
 M.A., LL.U. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT (SCOTTISH) HISTORY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
 
 AUTHOR OF "JOHN KNOX, HIS LIFE AND TIMES," ETC. 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 OUPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER 
 I 906
 
 PRINTED BV 
 
 TURNBULL AND SPEARS 
 
 EDINI3UKGH
 
 This short life of George Buchanan, ex- 
 pressly written for young peoi)le, contains 
 facts which do not appear in the author's 
 larger work, published in 1890. It may 
 be well, therefore, to state that the authority 
 for the new facts is an official document 
 containing the account of Buchanan's trial 
 by the Inquisition in Lisbon, which came 
 into the author's hands subsequent to the 
 appearance of his former work.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 George Buchanan and his Times 
 
 Childhood and Youth 
 
 Buchanan goes to Paris . 
 
 Buchanan serves as a Soldier 
 
 He Studies at St Andrews 
 
 He Returns to Paris 
 
 Buchanan put in Prison and Escapes 
 
 Returns to France 
 
 Buchanan in the Prison of the In- 
 quisition . . . . 
 
 Buchanan and Queen Mary 
 
 Buchanan made Tutor to Jaimes VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 
 15 
 21 
 28 
 32 
 36 
 44 
 54 
 
 58 
 66 
 
 71
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 George Buchanan . . . Frontispiece 
 
 John Knox . . . . .10 
 
 KiLLEARN, WITH BuCHANAN's MONUMENT . l6 
 
 Old Glasgow College . . .18 
 
 Glasgow Cathedral . . .19 
 
 DuMi'.ARTON . . . . .23 
 
 St Andrews . ■ ■ ■■ 2>Z 
 
 Paris in the i6th Century . . 39 
 
 James V. . . . . .41 
 
 Cardinal Beaton . . .49 
 
 Henry VIII. .... 52 
 
 Holyrood Palace . . . .67 
 
 Queen Mary .68 
 
 Lord Darnley . . .69 
 
 James VI. as a Boy . . -73 
 
 St Leonard's College, St Andrews . 77 
 
 Ruins of Crossraguel Abbey . . 79 
 
 Andrew Melville . . .81 
 
 Greyfriars' Churchyard . . .85 
 
 James VI. . . . . .91 
 
 Monument in Greyfriars' Churchyard . 94
 
 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 AND HIS TIMES 
 
 T AST year Scotland celebrated the 
 -*"^ 400th anniversary of the birth of 
 her great reformer, John Knox, and dur- 
 ing the present year, 1906, falls the same 
 anniversary of another of her greatest men, 
 George Buchanan. Knox and Buchanan 
 were fellow-Scotsmen and contemporaries ; 
 they took the same side at the Reforma- 
 tion, and they knew and greatly respected 
 each other. In his " History of the Re- 
 formation in Scotland " Knox has some 
 words about Buchanan, which show what 
 a high opinion he had of him. " That 
 notable man, Mr George Buchanan," he 
 says, "remains to this day, the year of 
 God, 1566 years, to the glory of God, to 
 the great honour of the nation, and to the
 
 lo GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 comfort of them that delight in letters and 
 virtue." But, though Knox and Buchanan 
 had such a hiorh esteem for each other, 
 
 
 
 JOHN KNOX 
 
 and though they both stood • side by side 
 as reformers, they were in many respects 
 very different men. They led very differ- 
 ent lives ; they were not interested in the 
 same things, and the chief work which
 
 AND HIS TIMES ii 
 
 each of them had to do was of a very 
 different kind. At the present day Knox 
 is far better known than Buchanan ; for 
 every one person who has heard of 
 Buchanan hundreds have heard of Knox. 
 During their lives, however, this was far 
 from being the case. If any educated 
 Scotsman had then been asked which of 
 the two was the greater honour to his 
 country, he would have certainly said that 
 it was Buchanan. One reason of this was 
 that men did not at that time understand 
 the greatness of the work which Knox did 
 for his country, and the other reason was 
 that all educated Scotsmen knew that 
 Buchanan was considered one of the most 
 learned men and one of the best poets 
 in the whole of Europe. Here, for ex- 
 ample, are some of the things that were 
 said of Buchanan in foreiofn countries. 
 One famous Frenchman said of him that he 
 "was easily the first poet of his age," and 
 another equally famous said that "he was 
 the greatest man of his time." One of 
 the greatest Dutchmen who ever lived,
 
 12 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 Hugo Grotius, even went so far as to call 
 Buchanan " that wonder of Scotland." 
 But what the great Dr Johnson said of 
 him is perhaps most interesting. " Ah, 
 Dr Johnson," said a rather foolish Scots- 
 man to him one day, " what would you 
 have said had Buchanan been an English- 
 man ? " " Why, sir," answered the great 
 doctor, " I should not have said, had 
 he been an Englishman, what I will 
 say of him as a Scotsman, that he was 
 the only man of genius his country ever 
 produced." 
 
 If Buchanan was once so famous both 
 in his own country and abroad, why is he 
 not so well known at the present day ? 
 The reason is quite simple. In the time 
 of Buchanan and for long afterwards most 
 learned men wrote their books in Latin, 
 and Buchanan was considered one of the 
 best Latin scholars that ever lived. He 
 wrote Latin both in poetry and prose just 
 as if it was his mother tongue, and people 
 even said that he was as good a poet 
 as Virgil and as good a historian as Livy.
 
 AND HIS TIMES 13 
 
 At the present time, however, even learned 
 men do not write their books in Latin, 
 and only a few people can read that lan- 
 guage as easily as they can read their own. 
 The explanation, then, why Buchanan is 
 not so well known now as he once was, is 
 that only learned men can read his books, 
 as they are almost all written in Latin. 
 Still Buchanan is considered one of the 
 three or four greatest men that Scotland 
 has produced ; and even those who do not 
 approve of some of his opinions, as, for 
 instance, Sir Walter Scott, regard him as 
 a great honour to his country. It is 
 surely right, therefore, that his fellow- 
 countrymen should know something of his 
 life, and of what his country owes to him. 
 And it happens that the story of his life 
 is full of strange adventures, and that we 
 know more of it than in the case of most 
 famous Scotsmen of old times. The life 
 of an author at the present day is for the 
 most part only the story of how his books 
 were written and how his readers liked or 
 disliked them, but in the time of Buchanan
 
 14 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 it was very different, and we shall see 
 that Buchanan wandered as much and 
 passed through as many dangers as a 
 knight-errant in the days of chivalry.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 
 
 George Buchanan was born in the be- 
 ginning of February, in the year 1506 or 
 1507 — we are not sure which. His father 
 owned a httle property, called The Moss, 
 quite near to the village of Killearn, in 
 Stirlingshire, and it was on this property 
 that Buchanan was born. The house 
 where he first saw the lisfht was still 
 standing in the year 18 12, more than 
 three hundred years after his birth, but 
 in that year it was pulled down and a new 
 one built in its place. In memory of 
 Buchanan, however, a chair and a table 
 were made out of the oaken beams of the 
 old house, and are still to be seen in the 
 new one. His father, Thomas Buchanan, 
 belonged to the Highland clan of the 
 Buchanans, and in the district where his 
 home lay it was the Gaelic language that
 
 .11. 1. EARN, WITH BUCHANANS MONTMENT 
 
 From a Photograph by 
 Valentine <5?= Sons, Dundee.
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17 
 
 was then spoken. What was unusual for a 
 Highlander, however, his father had mar- 
 ried a Lowlander named A^nes Heriot, 
 who came from Haddingtonshire, and be- 
 longed to the same family as George 
 Heriot, who is so well known as the 
 founder of Heriot's Hospital in Edin- 
 burgh. As she was a Lowlander, she, of 
 course, spoke the Scottish language as her 
 mother tongue, and so it was that her son 
 learned to speak two languages in his 
 childhood, just as in some countries on ■ 
 the Continent children speak both French 
 and German, or French and Italian. The 
 father of George died while he was still a 
 young man, and left his widow to bring 
 up a family of five boys and three girls. 
 Even before the father's death the family 
 had been poor, but after it there were 
 hardly means left to keep a roof above 
 their heads. As her son George tells us, 
 however, Agnes Heriot was the most 
 careful and diligent of mothers. The 
 motto of her family was — " Pray for a 
 brave heart," and in her case the prayer 
 
 B
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19 
 
 was granted, for she brought up all her 
 children to an age when they were able to 
 provide for themselves. 
 
 When George was about the age of 
 seven, his mother took the lease of a farm 
 
 GLASGOW CATHEDRAL 
 
 on the estate of Cardross, in the district of 
 Monteith, in the south-west of Perthshire, 
 and there he probably spent the rest of his 
 boyhood. In the case of one who became 
 so famous, we should like to know how and 
 where he received his education, but all that 
 he himself tells us is, that he was educated
 
 20 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 in the schools of his native country. 
 Accordino- to some accounts he went to 
 school at Killearn, near his birthplace, 
 and according- to others at Dumbarton, 
 but it is pretty certain that at some time 
 during his boyhood he attended school in 
 Glasgow, then onlv a village with little 
 more than a thousand inhabitants, but 
 where there was a great cathedral with 
 learned men belonging to it.
 
 BUCHANAN GOES TO PARIS 
 
 Wherever Buchanan was educated, he 
 must at least have shown that he was 
 clever at his books, for when he was about 
 fourteen or fifteen years old, his mother's 
 brother, James Heriot, determined to send 
 him to the most famous place of education 
 in the world — the University of Paris, 
 To Georofe this news must have been the 
 most exciting he ever received in his life. 
 Paris, we must remember, was not so 
 easily reached then as it is now ; a journey 
 which now takes only two days then took 
 several weeks. But it was not only the 
 distance that made the journey a serious 
 matter ; there were a good many risks 
 that you would never reach your destina- 
 tion. The longest part of the journey 
 was by sea, and ships in those days were 
 not so safe as now. It was in the autumn,
 
 22 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 too, when storms are frequent, that the 
 University opened, so that the voyage was 
 Hkely to be both long and dangerous. 
 But there was a greater peril than from 
 winds and waves. In those days the seas 
 were swarming with pirates of all coun- 
 tries who were on the outlook for every 
 vessel from which they could get any 
 plunder. A common thing for these 
 pirates to do was to take passengers as 
 prisoners, and only send them home when 
 their friends paid a large sum of money 
 for them. About the same time as 
 Buchanan went to Paris, a Professor from 
 Aberdeen went there to publish a book he 
 had written, and he says that " he met 
 with many dangers both by land and sea, 
 and from desperate sea-robbers.' 
 
 But how, we ask, did a boy of fourteen 
 accomplish so long and dangerous a jour- 
 ney in those days? In the first place he 
 did not go alone. Every autumn there 
 were numbers of Scotch boys and young 
 men who went to Paris to study, and the 
 custom was for some elderly person,
 
 GOES TO PARIS 23 
 
 usually a priest, to go in charge of them. 
 If Buchanan started on his journey from 
 his mother's home, he would probably 
 
 DUMBARTON 
 
 sail from Dumbarton, which was the usual 
 port on the west coast from which Scots- 
 men sailed to F" ranee. Arrived at the 
 mouth of the Seine, he would be taken in 
 a boat up that river and so reach Paris,
 
 24 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 his destination. Whether Buchanan had 
 any adventures by the way we do not 
 know, but at all events he got safely to 
 the end of his journey. 
 
 A wonderful sig-ht it must have been 
 for the country boy to see such a place as 
 Paris for the first time. The grandeur of 
 the buildings, the numbers of the people, 
 the stranofe dresses of all classes and of all 
 nations must have made his brain dizzy 
 with wonder. It would be, of course, the 
 students at whom Buchanan would look 
 with the greatest curiosity, and, indeed, 
 they were the most wonderful sight of all. 
 There were so many of them that they 
 would have made a considerable town by 
 themselves. They were of all ages, from 
 fourteen to thirty-five. Some were learn- 
 ing to be clergymen, some to be doctors, 
 lawyers, or teachers, and many had come 
 there merely to waste their time. They 
 came from all countries, and wore the 
 dress of the lands from which they came, 
 and in the case of most of them their 
 clothes were so torn and tattered that they
 
 GOES TO PARIS 25 
 
 looked more like besfcrars than future 
 clergymen and doctors. The greater 
 number of them lived in colleges on the 
 left bank of the river Seine, and apart 
 from the city itself In the colleges they 
 were compelled to behave tolerably well, 
 as the oldest of them were soundly flogged 
 if they disobeyed the rules of the college. 
 There was one way of chastising them 
 which the students enjoyed, though not 
 the unfortunate victim. Two lines of 
 students and teachers, each armed with a 
 stout stick, were formed, and between 
 these lines the culprit had to rush, re- 
 ceiving a blow from every hand that could 
 reach him. But if the students were kept 
 in some order within the colleges, they 
 took their full swing when they were out 
 of doors. Their favourite time for work- 
 ing mischief was at night ; then they 
 roved through the streets of the city with 
 all kinds of weapons in their hands, and 
 considered it good fun to beat and wound 
 every harmless person they met. Among 
 so many thousands of students there were
 
 26 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 not a few who were really bad characters, 
 and who committed crimes, such as stealing 
 and even assassination, which were not 
 discovered in the darkness of the night. 
 This was the kind of world in which 
 Buchanan now found himself, and in 
 which at different times he was to spend 
 many years of his life. 
 
 A question we naturally ask is, How 
 did a Scottish boy of fourteen make him- 
 self understood in a foreign University? 
 The answer is, that almost all the teachers 
 and students spoke in Latin, not only 
 during class hours but even when they 
 were at play. But in the best schools in 
 Scotland boys were taught to speak in 
 Latin, so that Buchanan would have little 
 difficulty in understanding his teachers 
 and making himself understood. Without 
 Latin in those days, it is to be remem- 
 bered, nothing could be learned, and 
 for the simple reason that the best books 
 on all subjects were written in Latin. We 
 are not surprised, therefore, that during 
 the two years he now spent at the Univer-
 
 GOES TO PARIS 27 
 
 sity of Paris he was taught Httle else but 
 Latin. Almost all his time, he says him- 
 self, was spent in writing verses in Latin, 
 whether he liked it or not. We know, 
 however, that he must have liked it, as it 
 was by his skill in composing Latin 
 poetry that he afterwards became so 
 famous both in his own and other coun- 
 tries. We do not know where he lived in 
 Paris during these two years — whether in 
 a college or in lodgings, as some students 
 did, but we know that he was neither 
 comfortable nor happy. He was often ill, 
 and often had so little money that he could 
 hardly buy food to keep himself alive. 
 At length, at the end of two years, his 
 uncle who had sent him to Paris died, and 
 his money was stopped altogether. As at 
 this time, also, his health was worse than 
 ever, there was nothing for it but for him 
 to return home, though if he had stayed 
 another year he would have become a 
 Bachelor of Arts, which must have been 
 the intention of his uncle when he sent 
 him to Paris.
 
 BUCHANAN SERVES AS A 
 SOLDIER 
 
 Buchanan was so ill on his return home 
 that it took him nearly a year to recover. 
 As soon as he was well, he was called upon 
 to do what most Scotch boys in those days 
 had to do at one time or other. The 
 King of Scotland at this time was James 
 v., but, as he was too young to rule, the 
 country was governed by the Regent 
 Albany, who was more a Frenchman than 
 a Scotsman, as he had lived most of his 
 life in France. At this time England was 
 the enemy of France, and Albany, more 
 in the interests of France than of Scotland, 
 determined to invade England with a great 
 army. There was then no regular army of 
 soldiers as there is now, and when the king 
 went to war, what he did was to command 
 every man between the ages of sixteen and 
 
 s8
 
 SERVES AS A SOLDIER 29 
 
 sixty to meet him at a certain place on an 
 appointed day, and bring with him such 
 weapons as he possessed, and also provi- 
 sions enough to last him for thirty days. 
 As Buchanan was now more than sixteen 
 years old, he had to obey the Regent's 
 command, and so on the appointed day 
 he went to the Boroughmuir at Edin- 
 burgh, where Morningside now stands, 
 which was the place fixed for the army 
 to meet. So we have now to imagine 
 Buchanan not dressed in a student's gown, 
 but with a steel cap on his head and with 
 a long leathern jacket covered with iron 
 plates, and armed with a sword, a buckler, 
 a knife, and a spear or axe. In his " His- 
 tory of Scotland," which he wrote in his 
 old age, he has told us the story of the 
 expedition, and a pitiful story it is. When 
 the army, in which there were many 
 Frenchmen, had crossed the river Tweed 
 at Melrose, the nobles refused to march 
 into England as the Regent wished. The 
 reason why they refused was that if the 
 Scots invaded England, the English would
 
 so GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 pay them back by invading Scotland ; and 
 they also said that the Regent was thinking 
 more of the interests of France than of 
 Scotland. It would have been ridiculous, 
 however, for the Regent to have sent home 
 his great army without doing something 
 with it, so he marched along the north 
 bank of the Tweed till he came to Wark 
 Castle, to which he laid siege. To prevent 
 the English from coming to its assistance, 
 he sent a number of horse-soldiers across 
 the river into Northumberland, who burnt 
 and destroyed everything on which they 
 could lay their hands. But the garrison 
 who defended the castle fought so bravely 
 that Albany soon saw that he would not 
 be able to take it — more especially as a 
 great English army was coming to its 
 assistance. There was nothing for it, 
 therefore, but to march his army home, 
 thoueh he had done so little with it. But 
 it was now the month of November, and 
 one night, while the army was on the march, 
 there was a great snowstorm, and a number 
 of horses and men perished from the cold.
 
 SERVES AS A SOLDIER 31 
 
 Buchanan, who was never very healthy 
 and robust, had orood reason to remember 
 that night, as on his return home he 
 was confined to bed for the rest of the 
 winter.
 
 HE STUDIES AT ST ANDREWS 
 
 By the spring of the next year {1525) 
 Buchanan was sufficiently recovered to 
 leave home, and to resume the studies 
 which he had not been able to finish in 
 Paris. This time, however, he did not 
 go to Paris, but to the University of St 
 Andrews, which was the oldest and most 
 famous in Scotland. The subjects he had 
 now to study were not Latin and Greek, 
 but logic and philosophy, and there was 
 now at St Andrews a professor who was 
 considered one of the most learned philo- 
 sophers in all Europe. This was John 
 Mair, or Major, as he was called in Latin. 
 Major, like Buchanan, was the son of a 
 small farmer, and like Buchanan he had 
 also gone to the University of Paris, where 
 he had made himself a great name for 
 his cleverness and learninor. But though
 
 STUDIES AT ST ANDREWS 3^ 
 
 Major was such a famous professor, 
 Buchanan did not find his teaching: at all 
 interesting, and when we read Major's 
 books we can hardly wonder at this. Here, 
 
 ST ANDREWS 
 
 for example, are some of the things we 
 find in them. Roman Catholics are not 
 allowed to eat meat in Lent, but they may 
 eat vegetables and fish. But in peas and 
 beans, says Major, there are little animals, 
 c
 
 34 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 so that in eating peas and beans you must 
 
 eat the flesh of Hve animals. Is it right, 
 
 then, asks Major, for a good CathoHc to 
 
 eat peas and beans ? Yes, he answers, 
 
 because, in the first place, the creatures 
 
 are dead, and, secondly, because you do 
 
 not know you are eating them. Then, 
 
 Major goes on, what is a good Catholic 
 
 to do in the case of the beaver.'* It lives 
 
 half on land and half in the water ; is it, 
 
 then, a fish or a land animal ? Why, says 
 
 Major, the thing is quite simple ; eat the 
 
 beaver's tail and the part of its body 
 
 that goes under water, and don't eat the 
 
 rest. In other parts of his books Major 
 
 asks even stranger questions than these. 
 
 For instance, he asks whether God, if He 
 
 chose, could become an ox or an ass, and 
 
 whether John the Baptist's head, when it 
 
 was cut off, could be in more places than 
 
 one. We can hardly wonder, then, that 
 
 Buchanan did not find Major's lectures 
 
 very interesting, and thought that he 
 
 wasted his time on trifles. But the truth 
 
 is, as we shall see, that Major and his ways
 
 STUDIES AT ST ANDREWS 35 
 
 of teaching were now out of date, and that 
 there were new things to be learned which 
 he could not teach. However, Buchanan 
 had not to endure Major very long. He 
 ha.d only come to St Andrews to take the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts, and this he 
 did the same year he had come. We can 
 still read Buchanan's name in the list of 
 the students at St Andrews, and what is 
 interesting is that opposite his name stands 
 the Latin word pauper, which means that 
 he was so poor that he could not pay the 
 fee which was required from students when 
 they became Bachelors of Arts.
 
 HI- RETURNS TO PARIS 
 
 But Buchanan had not yet completed his 
 studies. Before he could become a pro- 
 fessor himself, he must be a Master as 
 well as a Bachelor of Arts, and he had 
 to attend some university for three 
 more years. As the University of Paris 
 was the most famous in the world, he 
 chose to go there again tlioiigh he could 
 not have very pleasant memories of it 
 after his first visit. So in the year 1525, 
 when he was about the age of twenty-one, 
 he returned to Paris where he was to stay 
 for the next ten years. This time we 
 know exactly where he lived during the 
 whole of his stay. For the first two or 
 three years he lived in a college for 
 Scottish students which had been set up 
 two hundred years before by a certain 
 bishop in Scotland. The students only
 
 HE RETURNS TO PARIS t^j 
 
 boarded in this college, however, and had 
 to go to other larger colleges to be taught. 
 But we are not to think that the Scotch 
 students were either very comfortable or 
 well fed in this college of their own. On 
 the contrary, their food was much plainer, 
 and they had less of it than people in poor- 
 houses at the present day. They usually 
 had little money to buy clothes, and those 
 they had they had to wear till they were 
 threadbare and tattered. But it was dur- 
 ing the cold winters of Paris that they 
 suffered most of all. Houses in those 
 days did not keep out the cold as ours 
 do now, and it was only very rich people 
 who could afford to buy enough of fuel 
 to keep up a sufficient number of fires. 
 During the daytime in winter the only way 
 the students could keep themselves warm 
 was to play games in the open air. But 
 it was in the night-time that the cold was 
 hardest to bear, and we hear of them lying 
 awake shivering in their beds — that is to 
 say, some straw or rushes strewn on the 
 floor with but scanty covering to keep
 
 3S GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 them warm. We wonder, indeed, not 
 only how they kept up their spirits but 
 how they kept themselves alive, and the 
 truth is that many of them died from the 
 hardships they had to go through. Long 
 afterwards, when he was an old man, 
 Buchanan remembered these hard years 
 which he spent in the Scots College, and 
 he tells us himself how unhappy they 
 were. 
 
 At length, when he was twenty-four 
 years old, he became a Master of Arts, 
 and so could become a Professor and earn 
 his own living. As he was one of the 
 cleverest students at the University, he 
 was not long in finding employment, and 
 he was lucky in getting into one of the 
 best colleges of Paris, called Ste. Barbe. 
 In this college, then, for the next few 
 years Buchanan was one of a number of 
 professors who taught students of all ages 
 from fourteen up to thirty. Let us see 
 what kind of life the students and pro- 
 fessors lived in these colleges four hundred 
 years ago, as Buchanan himself describes
 
 HE RETURNS TO PARIS 39 
 
 it in one of his poems. At four o'clock 
 in the morning, summer and winter, every- 
 one in the college had to get out of bed 
 and to be in his class-room by five. And 
 
 PARI.1 IN IHE i6TH CliMURY 
 
 what places the school-class-rooms were 
 even in the famous University of Paris ! 
 There was only one seat in the room on 
 which the teacher sat while he was giving 
 his lesson. As for the scholars, they sat 
 or lay on the floor which was strewn with
 
 40 GKORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 straw, which was only clianj^cd whni il 
 became as dirty as if it had been trampled 
 in the street. The walls of the mom were 
 bare, the windows let in hardly any lii^hl. 
 and, when it was dark, one or two litiU- 
 lamps, which were constanil)- noin.L; oiii, 
 dimly Hi up the dismal aparlmeiU. The 
 scholars being all in their places, some 
 sittinL,^ up and odiers l)ing at hill leni^fth. 
 in came the master wearin;^ his cap and 
 orown, and carrying; in his hantl his instru- 
 ment of chastisement which was seKlnm 
 idle during the course ol the da)'. \\ ere 
 scholars more attcMilive in lliosc ilays than 
 now ? Let us hear what Buchanan says 
 of //A- class. "Some of the scholars," he 
 sa)s, "are sound asleep, and others are 
 thinking of everything but the book th(.'\- 
 are reading. One is absent, but has 
 bribed his neighbour to answer to his 
 name when the roll is called. Another 
 has lost his stockings, and another cannot 
 keep his eyes off a big hole in his shoe. 
 One pretends to be ill and another is 
 writing a letter to his parents. And so
 
 J.VMKS V.
 
 42 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 the rod is never idle, sobs never cease, 
 and cheeks are never dry from tears." 
 
 This, then, was the kind of life that 
 Buchanan led in the College of Ste. Barbe, 
 teaching from early morning till late at 
 night, and then working hard at his own 
 studies. But it was during this time that 
 he began to make himself famous as a 
 clever writer and one of the most learned 
 men in the University. At this time 
 there was a great fight going on in the 
 University, in which some took one side, 
 and some another. What the one side 
 wanted was to go on reading the same 
 books and teaching in the same way as 
 men had been doing for several hundred 
 years. The other side, on the contrary, 
 wished to bring in new books, especially 
 those by Latin and Greek authors, and to 
 teach in quite a different way from men 
 like John Major, who had taught Buchanan 
 at St Andrews, Now Buchanan was all 
 for the new way of teaching, and as he 
 was one of those men who are very keen 
 about everything in which they are inter-
 
 HE RETURNS TO PARIS 43 
 
 ested, he did all he could for his own side. 
 He taught his own scholars in the new 
 way, and became known as one of the 
 best teachers in France. But he did more 
 than this. He wrote poems in Latin in 
 which he made fun of the old-fashioned 
 teachers and set all the University laughing 
 at them. So important a person did he 
 become, indeed, that he was chosen to be 
 chief of all the students from the British 
 Islands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and 
 Germany.
 
 BUCHANAN PUT IN PRISON 
 AND ESCAPES 
 
 At the end of four or five years Buchanan 
 seems to have become tired of li\ing- in 
 a college, and he looked about him for 
 some new employment. At this time 
 there was living in Paris a young Scottish 
 nobleman, the liarl of Cassillis, who like 
 other Scottish nobles had come there to 
 study. As the Earl wished to return to 
 Scotland, and yet not to give up his studies, 
 he asked Buchanan to <jo home with him 
 as his private tutor. It was about ten 
 years since Buchanan had left his native 
 country, and no doubt he was anxious by 
 this time to see it again, so he gladly 
 accepted the Earl's offer, and the two set 
 off together for Scotland. Buchanan did 
 not remain long with Cassillis, however, 
 for another offer was made to him, which 
 shows that he was already considered one
 
 IN PRISON AND ESCAPES 45 
 
 of the most learned Scotsmen then living. 
 The new offer came to him from Kino- 
 James V. himself, who wanted a tutor 
 for his son, whose name was James 
 Stewart, but who must not be confused 
 with another James Stewart, also a son 
 of King James, and afterwards the 
 famous Regent Moray. Buchanan, of 
 course, could not refuse such an offer as 
 this, and for nearly four years he lived at 
 the Court, teaching his pupil and leading 
 what must have been a very different life 
 from what he had seen in the Paris college. 
 But wherever Buchanan went, he was sure 
 before long to get into some scrape or 
 other. The reason of this was that when- 
 ever he saw anything that he did not think 
 was right, he could never hold his tongue, 
 and must speak out his mind about it. 
 But when he did speak his mind, he did 
 it so cleverly and wittily as to make those 
 he spoke against exceedingly angry. And 
 this was exactly what happened now ; 
 though, as. we shall see, it was as much 
 the Kino's fault as Buchanan's.
 
 46 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 It was about this time that men here 
 and there in Scotland began to become 
 Protestants and to take the side of Luther 
 against the Church of Rome. Just a few 
 years before Buchanan had returned from 
 France, Patrick Hamilton, who is usually 
 called the first martyr of the Reformation 
 in Scotland, had been put to death for 
 teaching doctrines contrary to those of the 
 Roman Church. In the year 1539, the 
 year to which we have come in Buchanan's 
 life, there was a great search made for 
 heretics, as the Protestants were called, 
 and five of them were burned and many 
 were banished from the country. At this 
 time, therefore, it was very necessary that 
 men should be careful as to what they said 
 and did, or they ran the risk of being 
 taken for heretics, and meeting the same 
 fate as Patrick Hamilton. But Buchanan 
 was never a very cautious person, and was 
 always in the habit of speaking right out 
 what he thought. One day he was talking 
 with a Franciscan friar, and he said to him 
 that it was not fair to condemn a man as
 
 IN PRISON AND ESCAPES 47 
 
 a heretic when the persons who accused 
 him were not known and mipht even be 
 his enemies. The Franciscan was horrified 
 at this remark, and went about saying that 
 Buchanan was himself a heretic. Buch- 
 anan, who was really a Catholic at this 
 time, just as John Knox himself was, was 
 indignant at this, and he now did what he 
 usually did when he was angry. He wrote 
 a poem about the Franciscan friars, in 
 which he said things of them which could 
 not have been pleasant for them to read. 
 It so happened that the King himself did 
 not like the Franciscans, and he asked 
 Buchanan to write another poem about 
 them and to say still more unpleasant 
 things in it. Rather against his will, 
 because he knew what dangerous enemies 
 the Franciscans could be, he wrote 
 the poem as the King wished, and. as we 
 shall see, he. had good reason afterwards 
 to be sorry that he did so. Only the King- 
 got a copy of his poem, but the Francis- 
 cans heard of it and they never forgave 
 him, and during the rest of his life they
 
 48 GEORGK BUCHANAN 
 
 did all they could to have him put to 
 death. Unfortunately for Buchanan, also, 
 a noblewoman at the Court took a dis- 
 like to him and told Cardinal Beaton, 
 who was a great enemy of Protestants, 
 that Buchanan was certainK a heretic. 
 Another thing that Buchanan did made 
 the Catholics still more angry with him. 
 One of his friends was lying very ill, 
 but would not eat meat on Fridays and 
 Sundays because he said it was forbidden 
 by his religion. Buchanan told him how- 
 foolish this was and that it was quite 
 right that he should eat meat on these 
 days for the good of his health, and to 
 encourage him he ate meat himself on the 
 Fridays and Sundays, though he had not 
 the excuse of being ill. Strange stories 
 now began to be told about Buchanan by 
 those who disliked him. It was .said, for 
 example, that he had eaten the Pascal 
 Lamb, and that he was really a Jew in 
 disguise. He was now in great danger 
 of his life, and had to ask the King to 
 protect him. It was the King who had
 
 CAKDINAI liKAlON
 
 so GEORGE BUCHAXAX 
 
 been partly the cause of Buchanan's 
 eettino- into trouble, and he would have 
 liked to save him from his enemies, but 
 Cardinal Beaton and others said it was 
 the law of the land that heretics like 
 Buchanan should be put to death. At 
 last King" James thought of a clever wa\ 
 of getting Buchanan safely out of Scotland 
 and out of the reach of his enemies. He 
 put him in prison as if he meant to have 
 him tried and punished, but arranged 
 secretly that he should escape before the 
 trial came on. So one night, when his 
 guards were asleep. Buchanan slipped 
 out of his prison and travelled as fast as 
 he could to England, where he thought he 
 would be safe. The next day the King 
 sent people in pursuit of him. but this was 
 only a pretence as he knew very well that 
 Buchanan was out of reach. 
 
 But Buchanan's adventures were not 
 yet ended. In those days there were 
 man)- gangs of robbers on the borders of 
 England and Scotland who made a living 
 by stealing horses and cattle, and robbing
 
 IN PRISOxV AND ESCAPES 51 
 
 travellers of their money, and Buchanan 
 fell into the hands of one of these Qranofs. 
 He had very little money in his pocket, 
 but they thought he had been sent as a 
 spy to find out who they were, and it was 
 not till he made it plain that he was not a 
 spy that they would let him go. Having 
 escaped from the hands of the robbers, 
 he went on his way and had got some 
 distance into E norland when he was ao-ain 
 brought to a standstill. This time, how- 
 ever, it was not from robbers, but from a 
 terrible plague that was raging in the 
 north of England. In the times when 
 Buchanan Hved there were plagues every 
 few years, and hundreds of people died 
 from them as the doctors then did not 
 know how to treat those who took ill. 
 What was done to stop the plague from 
 spreading was this : no one was allowed 
 to leave the place where he lived, and if a 
 stranger came to a place where the plague 
 was raging he was compelled to stay 
 there till it was over. This was what 
 now happened to Buchanan, and greatly
 
 52 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 atfainst his will and in danoer of his life all 
 the time, he had to remain in the north 
 of England till the plague was past. 
 
 At length, after a journey that had 
 taken him several months, he arrived in 
 
 London where he thought he would be 
 out of all danger. He soon found that 
 he was greatly mistaken. The King of 
 England at this time was Henry \TII., 
 who was a Protestant of a kind, and 
 forced all his subjects to be Protestants 
 like himself. The very year that Buchanan 
 arrived in London Henry had passed a 
 law called the Statute of the Six Articles
 
 IN PRISON AND ESCAPES 53 
 
 for punishing every person who was not of 
 the same religion as himself. The con- 
 sequence was, so Buchanan says him- 
 self, that Protestants and Catholics were 
 both being burned together on the 
 same day and in the same fire. But, 
 as Buchanan at this time was not a 
 Protestant, he had good reason to fear 
 that his turn to be burnt would come 
 soon. This was, indeed, one of the most 
 unhappy times in his life. In a poem 
 which he now wrote he describes himself 
 as " a wanderer, an exile, poor, and tossed 
 about by land and sea." As he could not 
 make a living in London and was in 
 danger of his life besides, he determined 
 to go once more to France, which he 
 always regarded as his second home. 
 But England was at this time at war with 
 ' France, and if it had been known that he 
 wished to go there he would have been 
 taken for a French spy and been put in 
 prison and kept there till the war was over. 
 What he did, then, was to pretend that he 
 was going to Germany, but really got 
 aboard a vessel that took him to France.
 
 RETURNS TO FRANCE 
 
 Buchanan had no sooner arrived in Paris 
 than he found that he had orone into the 
 lion's den. Cardinal Beaton, his greatest 
 enemy, was now staying- there, and would 
 be sure if he heard of him to have him 
 arrested as a heretic. The King now- 
 reigning in France was Francis I. who 
 had once been a friend of the Protestants 
 but now was one of their greatest enemies. 
 All the Cardinal had to do, therefore, was 
 to tell Francis that there was a Scotch 
 heretic in Paris, and Buchanan would 
 soon have heard of it. Luckily for 
 Buchanan, however, he now received an 
 invitation to become a professor at Bor- 
 deaux where he would be out of reach of 
 all his enemies. At Bordeaux there had 
 been set up a new college in which only 
 the most famous professors were to be 
 teachers, and the fact that Buchanan was
 
 RETURNS TO FRANCE 55 
 
 chosen to be one of them shows how well 
 he was known to the learned men in 
 France. 
 
 The way of living in the College at 
 Bordeaux was much the same as at Ste. 
 Barbe, only both the professors and 
 scholars had better food to eat and more 
 comfortable rooms to live in. The pro- 
 fessors stayed in the college and kept 
 boarders, from whom they received fees 
 in addition to . their salaries. Among 
 Buchanan's boarders there was a boy 
 who afterwards became one of the most 
 famous writers of France — Michel de 
 Montaigne. Montaigne, when he grew 
 up, was proud to have had Buchanan as 
 one of his teachers, and in his writings he 
 calls him " that great Scottish poet." But 
 Buchanan, it is to be remembered, was 
 always an author as well as a teacher, and 
 everybody in the college knew that he 
 was one of the best writers of Latin then 
 livino-. Whenever the head of the college 
 wanted anything written, therefore, it was 
 Buchanan whom he asked to do it. For
 
 56 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 example, he wished to have plays in 
 Latin which the scholars might act, and 
 Buchanan wrote no fewer than four which 
 we can still read in the two large volumes 
 which contain his writings. So every- 
 thing went on smoothly for about three 
 years, and then as usual Buchanan got into 
 trouble. Just as before, his trouble came 
 from his speaking out his mind about 
 something which he thought was wrong 
 and unjust. This is the story as he tells 
 it himself. The wife of a great man in 
 Bordeaux died, and left a large sum of 
 money. By the law of the country this 
 money should have gone to her two 
 daughters, but the father tried to put the 
 o-irls in a nunnery in order to tret the 
 money for himself. The girls, however, 
 refused to 2^0 into a nunnery, and the 
 case was brouo^ht before the ma^ristrates 
 of the city. While everybody was talking 
 about the affair, Buchanan wrote a poem 
 in which he made two persons speak, 
 and say how unjust it was for parents 
 to put their daughters into nunneries
 
 RETURNS TO FRANCE 57 
 
 against their will. The poem was thought 
 so clever that it was acted both in private 
 houses and in public, and the result was, 
 of course, that all the Catholic clergy were 
 indignant at the man who had written it. 
 Just about this time, also, the clergy began 
 to be alarmed about another matter. In 
 Bordeaux and near it, it was found that 
 many persons were giving up the Roman 
 Catholic religion and becoming Protestants, 
 and for the first time one person was burned 
 in the town as a heretic. It will be seen, 
 therefore, that Bordeaux was no longer 
 a safe place for Buchanan, so once more 
 he had to set out on his travels, not know- 
 ing very well where to go or where to 
 find employment.
 
 BUCHANAN IN THE PRISON 
 OF THE INQUISITION 
 
 At first when Buchanan left Bordeaux, 
 he thought of returning to Scotland, but on 
 learning that his enemy, Cardinal Beaton, 
 was as powerful as ever, he had to give 
 up all thoughts of this, and for the next 
 few years he remained in France, now in 
 one place and now in another, wherever 
 he could find employment. For nearly a 
 whole year he was so ill that he did not 
 expect to recover, but it shows how much 
 he was liked and honoured that some of 
 the most famous men in France used to 
 sit by his bedside day after day and' try 
 to cheer him in his illness. At length, in 
 the year 1547, when he was a little over 
 forty years old, he received an invitation 
 which was to lead him into the greatest 
 danger he ever was in. The invitation 
 came from the King of Portugal who
 
 IN PRISON OF INQUISITION 59 
 
 wished him to become a Professor in a 
 new University which he had started in 
 the town of Coimbra. This was the 
 farthest journey that Buchanan had ever 
 taken, and he was quite aware that his 
 life might not be safe in Portugal where 
 the Jesuits, who were great enemies of 
 heretics, had much influence with the 
 Kine. To make sure that no harm should 
 befall him, therefore, he got the King to 
 promise that he would protect him as long 
 as he was in Portugal. About this time, 
 also, the Pope offered a pardon to all who 
 had said or done things of which the 
 Church did not approve, and Buchanan 
 took care to get this pardon, which shows 
 that he was still a Catholic at this time. 
 
 In the spring of the year 1547 the 
 chosen band of Professors set out for their 
 destination. Most of them went by sea, but 
 Buchanan and two others, who were per- 
 haps not good sailors, preferred to go by 
 land. We do not know how they travelled, 
 but probably they rode on horseback, as 
 this was the usual way of going to places
 
 6o GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 that were far off. At last they came to 
 Salamanca in Spain, where there was one 
 of the most famous universities in the 
 world. They stayed for a few days at 
 an inn, and now a thing- happened which 
 I)uchanan was made to repent of after- 
 wards. It was the time of Lent when 
 the three friends were in the town, and 
 during- that time Catholics are not allowed 
 to eat meat. Unluckily the bread made in 
 the place was very very bad, and the only 
 fish to be oot were cono^er eels which 
 neither Ijuchanan nor his friends could 
 eat. What then were they to do ? In 
 the circumstances they thought that it 
 would not be very wrong to eat meat, 
 more especially as most people in Spain 
 were in the habit of eating meat in Lent. 
 So all three ate the forbidden food, and 
 went on their way, ^little thinking what 
 misfortunes were befbre them. 
 
 At last the whole band of the professors 
 reached Coimbra, and the new University 
 was set agoing. Eor a year everything 
 went smoothly, but the head of the Uni-
 
 IN PRISON OF INQUISITION 6i 
 
 versity died and then there came a change. 
 As was already said, the Jesuits had great 
 influence with the King of Portugal, and 
 what the Jesuits wished above everything 
 was to have the charge of educating boys 
 and young men so that they might bring 
 them up as good Roman Catholics. They 
 now told the King that most of the new 
 professors were heretics, and that it was 
 not safe for them to be trusted with the 
 teaching of students. The King believed 
 them, and so one morning the head of the 
 Jesuits appeared at the gate of the college 
 with an order from the King in which he 
 gave command that from that time on- 
 wards the University was to be in the 
 hands of the Jesuits. Of course, the first 
 thing the Jesuits then did was to have all 
 the professors brought to trial whom they 
 suspected of being heretics, and Buchanan, 
 who was one of those suspected, was at 
 once carried off to Lisbon and put in the 
 dungeons of the Inquisition. 
 
 The very name of the Inquisition in 
 those da)s was a terror both to Catholics
 
 62 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 and Protestants, and with very good 
 reason. What the Inquisition did was 
 to try to find out every person who was 
 suspected of not being a good Catholic, 
 and to put him in a dungeon and after- 
 wards bring him to trial. If it was thought 
 that he did not speak the truth during his 
 trial, he was put to terrible tortures to 
 compel him to do so, and then, if he was 
 found guilty, he was burned in some public 
 place where multitudes of people came to 
 see the sio-ht. It is difficult for us to 
 understand how men could treat their 
 fellow-creatures in this way, but what the 
 Inquisitors said was that a heretic was 
 the worst of all criminals, and that it was 
 right that he should be prevented from 
 making other persons heretics like himself 
 Buchanan was not kept long waiting 
 for his trial. Two days after he had been 
 l)ut in the dungeon he was brought before 
 the judges, who asked him a great many 
 questions to try and find out if he was a 
 heretic or not. What he was accused of 
 was, his writing against the Franciscans,
 
 IN PRISON OF INQUISITION 63 
 
 his eating meat in Lent, and his saying 
 that the bread and wine in the Sacraments 
 were not changed into the body and blood 
 of Christ. For a year and a half Buchanan 
 was kept in his dungeon, and was several 
 times brought before his judges, though 
 they never put him to torture as they did in 
 some cases. What they especially wanted 
 to find out was if Buchanan knew of any 
 heretics among his acquaintances, but we 
 are glad to know that he refused to say 
 a word that would put any of them in 
 danger. At length, after the year and a 
 half, his judges came to the conclusion 
 that, thouoh he had not been a oood 
 Catholic, he was not really a heretic, and 
 that they might safely let him go free. • 
 Before he was let out of his dungeon, 
 however, he had to confess that he had 
 not been a good Catholic if the things he 
 had said and done were wrong ; and to 
 make sure that he would not make such 
 mistakes in future he was sent to a 
 monastery for several months to be in. 
 structed by the monks. The monks, he
 
 64 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 Lells us, though very ignorant, were ver)- 
 kind to him, and he spent his time in 
 writinor the most famous of all his works 
 — his translation of the Psalms into Latin 
 verses. When his time in the monastery 
 was at an end, the King wished him to 
 remain in Portugal, but Buchanan had had 
 quite enough of Portugal, and took the 
 first ship he could get for England. As 
 Buchanan was still a Catholic, however, 
 he could not remain in England, and, as 
 soon as possible, he returned to P"rance. 
 the country which he says he loved almost 
 as much as his own. This was the fourth 
 time that he had stayed in France, and at 
 this time he remained there nearly eight 
 years so that he spent nearly thirty years 
 altogether in that country. We cannot 
 wonder, therefore, that his French friends 
 considered him more a Frenchman than a 
 Scotsman. We know very little of his life 
 at this time, except that he taught for 
 some time at a college in Paris, and that 
 he afterwards became tutor to a son of 
 one of the "reat men of P" ranee, and lived
 
 IN PRISON OF INQUISITION 65 
 
 among the highest people in the land. 
 Often, however, he was in great danger 
 of being burned as a heretic, as Henry II., 
 the King of France at this time, was a 
 great enemy of the Protestants, and would 
 have liked to destroy them all or drive 
 them out of his kingdom. Up till this 
 time Buchanan could hardly be called 
 either a Protestant or a Catholic, but he 
 now made up his mind to become either 
 the one or the other. As the only way to 
 settle the question, he began to read the 
 Bible to find out whether the religion of 
 the Protestants or the Catholics was the 
 true one, and. after studying for several 
 years he came to the conclusion that the 
 religion of the Protestants was the religion 
 of the Bible.
 
 BUCHANAN AND QUEEN MARY 
 
 Buchanan being now a Protestant, he 
 could not remain in France, which was a 
 Cathohc country, where his Hfe would 
 no longer be safe. But just about this 
 time Scotland, his native country, had 
 become Protestant throucrh the labours ot 
 John Knox and other reformers. It was 
 twenty-two years since he had to flee for 
 his life from Scotland, but Cardinal Beaton 
 and his other enemies had long been dead, 
 and he could now return without fear of 
 any danger. So in the year 1561, when 
 he was nearly sixty years old, we find him 
 back in his native country, which he did 
 not leave again except on a short visit to 
 England, and on a still shorter one to 
 France. As Buchanan was the most 
 learned man in Scotland and very famous 
 besides, he had no difficulty in finding 
 employment, and the first to employ him
 
 BUCHANAN & QUEEN MARY 67 
 
 was Queen Mar)' herself. In those clays 
 queens and the ladies about their Courts 
 were fond of reading Latin and even 
 Greek wnth learned men, and so Mary 
 had Buchanan to read Latin with her 
 
 
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 whenever she had any spare time, which 
 was not often. There was one subject in 
 which both Mary and Buchanan were in- 
 terested, and about which, no doubt, they 
 would often talk, and that was France, 
 where both of them had lived so lone and 
 which they both loved as much as if they 
 had been born there. Buchanan must,
 
 68 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 indeed, have been one of the most inter- 
 esting persons to talk with in all Scotland. 
 He certainly was not like a courtier in 
 appearance. He was very careless in his 
 dress, and we are told by one who knew 
 
 QUEEN MARY 
 
 him that the belt round his tunic was 
 never in its right place. On the other 
 hand, his manners and his way of speak- 
 inor were like those of a man who had 
 lived all his life in Courts. He was also 
 a very amusing talker, as he was in 
 the habit of telling humorous stories of
 
 BUCHANAN & QUEEN MARY 69 
 
 what he had seen in the course of his 
 many travels and adventures. We may 
 be sure, therefore, that Mary and he would 
 
 LORD DARNLEY 
 
 often foriret their Latin book and talk 
 about the persons and things they had 
 seen in their beloved France. But a day 
 came when they ceased to be friends and 
 were ever afterwards the bitterest enemies.
 
 70 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 Mary's husband, Darnley, was murdered 
 in the Kirk of Field at Edinburgh, and 
 Buchanan, Hke most people in Scotland and 
 England and on the Continent, believed 
 that Mary was not innocent of the murder. 
 Now there was a reason why Buchanan 
 should be anofrier than most other Scots- 
 men at the death of Darnley. Darnley 
 was the chief of the clan co which Buchanan 
 himself belonged, and it was a law among 
 the Hiorhland clans that if the chief were 
 killed, every clansman was bound to try 
 to find the man who killed him and put 
 him to death, Buchanan could not put 
 Mary to death, but what he did was to 
 write against her in such a way as to make 
 people believe that she was one of the 
 worst women that ever lived.
 
 BUCHANAN MADE TUTOR TO 
 JAMES VI 
 
 At this time the great question in Scot- 
 land was whether it was to be a Protestant 
 or a CathoHc country. Queen Mary, being 
 a CathoHc herself, of course wished it to 
 be Catholic, but men like John Knox and 
 the Earl of Moray, afterwards the Regent 
 Moray, were determined that it should be 
 Protestant. From the time that Buchanan 
 had returned to Scotland he had shown 
 that he had quite made up his mind to 
 be on the Protestant side. He was 
 several times a member of the General 
 Assembly, and one year he was chosen 
 to be Moderator, even though he was 
 not a minister. The Protestants were 
 no doubt proud to have a man so 
 famous as Buchanan on their side, and 
 they took care to put him in places 
 where he could be of use to them.
 
 72 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 Even before his quarrel with Mary they 
 had made him Principal of St Leonard's 
 College in the University of St Andrews, 
 so that the students mig-ht be under one 
 who was both a Protestant and a famous 
 teacher. Afterwards, however, he was 
 appointed to a post which was considered 
 still more important for the good of the 
 country. By this time Queen Mary had 
 been driven out of Scotland, and her 
 son had been made king under the title 
 of James VI. But James was now only 
 four years of age and the Protestants 
 were, of course, anxious that he should 
 be educated in such a way as to make 
 him a good king and friendly to their 
 religion. As the best teacher they could 
 get for him, therefore, they chose Buchanan, 
 though he was now an old man past 
 sixty. 
 
 Buchanan did his very best to make 
 James a king such as John Knox and 
 others would have liked, but, as we 
 shall see, he did not succeed. Several 
 stories are told of the way in which
 
 JAMES VI. AS A BOY
 
 74 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 Buchanan tried to teach James that, 
 though he was a king, he was no better 
 than other people and required to be 
 trained just hke other boys. In those 
 days it was thought that a young king 
 should not be punished like other children 
 because kings were set apart by God 
 from other men. Sometimes, indeed, 
 there was a lad called the " whipping- 
 boy," who was educated along with 
 the King, and who was whipped for all 
 the faults which the Kingr committed. 
 Buchanan, however, did not think that 
 kings were different from other people, 
 and he did not spare the rod when 
 James deserved it. Here is one story 
 which shows that Buchanan did not 
 believe in a whipping-boy getting all 
 the punishment when the King was the 
 culprit. The young Earl of Mar, who 
 was one of a number of boys educated 
 along with James, had a sparrow which 
 James was very anxious to possess. One 
 day James tried to take the sparrow out 
 of the earl's hands, and in the struggle
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. 75 
 
 between them the bird was killed. When 
 Buchanan was told of this, he was very 
 angry, and gave James a box on the ear 
 and a good scolding besides. 
 
 Another time Buchanan was sitting 
 reading in his room, when James and 
 the Earl of Mar made so much noise 
 as to disturb him at his studies. He 
 called to them to be quiet, telling them 
 that, if they did not attend to his words, 
 they would repent it. It so happened 
 that the two boys had just been asked to 
 write an essay on the story of Archibald, 
 Bell-the-Cat, so James, rather cleverly, 
 though rather impudently, answered back 
 to his master, " But who will bell the 
 cat ? " meaning that Buchanan would not 
 dare to touch his King. He found he 
 was mistaken, for Buchanan at once gave 
 him such a sound whipping that the 
 Countess of Mar heard his crying in 
 another room and came to ask what 
 was the matter. When she saw the King 
 sobbing, she scolded Buchanan for laying 
 his hands on the " Lord's anointed," but
 
 76 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 Buchanan as gfood as told her to mind 
 her own business, and said that he was 
 only doing his duty. 
 
 Still another story is told of the way 
 in which Buchanan tried to train James 
 to be a trood kino- when he was trrown 
 up. Buchanan had found that James had 
 a bad habit of making promises to people 
 without thinking, so one day he put two 
 papers into his hands and asked him to 
 sign his name to them. W^ithout taking 
 the trouble to read the papers James 
 wrote his name as he was asked. Now 
 in one of the papers it was said that 
 Buchanan was to be King of Scotland 
 for fourteen days, so on receiving back 
 the papers Buchanan began to speak 
 and act as if he were king. James, of 
 course, thought that his master had gone 
 mad, but Buchanan showed him the paper 
 he had signed, and then told him how 
 foolish it was to sav and do thini^s with- 
 out thinking what they meant. 
 
 In spite of all Buchanan's care, how- 
 ever, James did not turn out the kind
 
 L-- z
 
 78 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 of klnu his master wished. Buchanan's 
 idea of a good king was one who would 
 try to understand what his people wished 
 and would rule them according to the 
 laws of the land. But when James 
 came to rule for himself, he thought 
 that he knew better than his subjects 
 what was good for them, and that it 
 was their duty to obey his commands in 
 everything. This was a great mistake 
 on his part, and in the end it was the 
 cause of the House of Stewart losing the 
 throne. When James grew up. lie had 
 no very pleasant memory ot his old 
 teacher, and for two reasons. Buchanan 
 had chastised him whenever he deserved 
 it, and James never forgot this. Long 
 afterwards, w^hen he was a full-o^rown 
 man, he used to say that he was always 
 frightened when a certain person came 
 near him, because he reminded him of his 
 old master. The other reason why James 
 disliked Buchanan was that Buchanan in 
 his writings always spoke against kings 
 who did not rule according to the wishes
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. 79 
 
 of their subjects, and this was exactly 
 what James did not do. 
 
 Besides being tutor to the young king, 
 Buchanan held other important offices 
 
 RITINS OF CROSSRAGUEL ABBEY, OF WHICH 
 BUCHANAN WAS COMMENDATOR 
 
 at the same time. He was appointed 
 Keeper of the Privy Seal, a very high 
 position, as it made him one of the chief 
 advisers of the Government and o-ave him 
 a right to sit in Parliament. Buchanan, 
 however, was now an old man, and was 
 often in ill-health, so that he was unable
 
 8o GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 to perform his duties. In the last years 
 of his hfe he stayed in Kennedy's Close, 
 in Edinburgh, a little above the Tron 
 Church. Stories are told of him when 
 he was near his end which help us to 
 understand what kind of man he was. 
 One day the famous Andrew Melville and 
 two other friends went to call upon him, 
 and found him sitting in his chair teaching 
 the alphabet to a young man, his servant. 
 " I see you are not idle," said Melville. 
 " Better this," answered Buchanan, " than 
 stealing sheep or sitting idle." At this 
 time Buchanan's " History of Scotland " 
 was being printed, and Melville and his 
 two friends went to the printer's to see it. 
 On looking into it, they read some words 
 which they thought would greatly dis- 
 please the king, so they went back to 
 Buchanan and told him this. " But are 
 the words true ? " he asked, and Melville 
 said that they were true. " Then," an- 
 swered Buchanan, " let them stand, and 
 let the King do what he likes." 
 
 The last story told of him seems very
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE
 
 82 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 strange in the case of a man who had 
 been tutor to the King and a Privy Coun- 
 cillor besides, and therefore a great man 
 in the country. But at that time there 
 was very little money in Scotland, and 
 persons in high offices as often as not did 
 not receive the salaries that were owing 
 to them, so that even great nobles often 
 had not money enough to pay all their 
 expenses ; and this was the case with 
 Buchanan, who had been in poverty ever 
 since he had returned to Scotland. One 
 day when he was lying in bed a short 
 time before his death, he asked his ser- 
 vant to tell him how much money there 
 was in the house. When the sum was 
 told him, Buchanan found that it was not 
 enough to pay the expenses of his funeral, 
 and so he ordered his servant to give the 
 money to the poor. " But who is to pay 
 for your funeral ? " asked his servant. 
 " That does not matter," answered the 
 dying man ; " they can either let my 
 body lie here, or do with it what they 
 please." And, indeed, it was at the ex-
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. S3 
 
 pense of the town that Buchanan, who in 
 his own country and in England and on 
 the Continent was considered the most 
 illustrious of all Scotsmen, was buried in 
 the new graveyard of Greyfriars, where 
 he was the first famous person to be laid 
 to rest. 
 
 After the story of Buchanan's life some- 
 thing has to be said of the books which 
 he wrote, as it was by his books he 
 became so famous, and is remembered 
 to the present day. As we have seen, 
 Buchanan's whole life since he had become 
 a Master of Arts had been devoted to 
 teaching- either boys or young men in 
 schools or universities. But besides teach- 
 ing he had also been constantly writing, 
 and what he wrote fills two large volumes, 
 one of which is in poetry and the other in 
 prose. Very few people nowadays read 
 his writings, and for two good reasons : 
 they are, as has already been said, almost 
 all written in Latin, and they are about 
 subjects in which few people are now 
 interested. But it was very different at
 
 84 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 the time that Buchanan wrote. If a writer 
 wished to have his books read in other 
 countries besides his own, he had to write 
 them in Latin, because educated persons 
 in these countries all understood it. In 
 the time of Buchanan, also, it was believed 
 that one day Latin would be the only 
 language that would be written and spoken, 
 and that only the uneducated would use 
 their native language. When Buchanan 
 wrote his books in Latin, therefore, he 
 thought he was making sure that they 
 would continue to be read by people of all 
 countries hundreds of years after his death. 
 We now know that he was mistaken, and 
 that his books would have been far more 
 read at the present day if they had been 
 written in Enorlish or Scotch. 
 
 There was one of his poems which 
 Buchanan thought would be interesting to 
 everybody to the end of time. It was 
 called " De Sphaera," and it tells how the 
 earth was made, and how the sun and 
 stars go round it. It is very strange to 
 read this poem now, as almost everything
 
 85
 
 86 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 that Buchanan says about the earth and 
 the heavenl)' bodies has been found to be 
 wrong. Nearly fifty years before Buchanan 
 wrote his poem the famous astronomer, 
 Copernicus, had shown that people had 
 all been mistaken in thinking that the sun 
 and all the stars went round the earth, 
 and that the real truth was that it is the 
 earth that whirls round its own axis every 
 twenty-four hours, and circles round the 
 sun every year. But very few people in 
 Buchanan's day, and, indeed, for a long 
 time after, believed that this was the case, 
 and Buchanan in his poem tries to show 
 how absurd it is to think of the earth 
 turning round itself. Here are some of 
 the curious things he says to show that it 
 was impossible that the earth could go 
 round as Copernicus said it did. Suppose 
 a bird flew into the air, where would its 
 nest be when it returned to the ground ? 
 Why. it would be hundreds of miles off, 
 and the bird would be unable to find it. 
 Aorain, when a bov whirls a rattle round 
 his head, it makes a whizzing noise, but
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. 87 
 
 imagine what a din the earth would make 
 if it really went round with all its moun- 
 tains, forests, rivers, and cities ! Then 
 how would the sea keep its place ? Would 
 it not rush all over the earth and sweep 
 everything before it ? Suppose, also, that 
 two armies were fio-htinp- ag-ainst each 
 other, what would happen ? Why, the 
 arrows and shot that did not go in the 
 direction the earth was movinof would fall 
 at the feet of those who discharo-ed them. 
 Of course, every school-boy and school- 
 girl could now explain to Buchanan how he 
 was mistaken, but it is to be remembered 
 that in Buchanan's time there was hardly 
 a learned man in Europe who did not 
 think that he was right, and that he had 
 written a most beautiful poem which would 
 be read for asfes to come. 
 
 There is one book of Buchanan, how- 
 ever, which is still read and greatly 
 admired by people who know Latin, both 
 in Scotland and other countries. This is 
 his translation of the Psalms into Latin 
 verse which he wrote when he was in the
 
 88 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 monastery in Portugal. Many stories are 
 told of this book of Buchanan's, which 
 show how much it was liked and admired. 
 For example, this story is told of the famous 
 Protestant King of Sweden, Gustavus 
 Adolphus, who was called the " Lion of the 
 North." Once in his wars against the 
 Roman Catholics in Germany he had taken 
 a town, and, while the arranofements were 
 being made for its surrender, he walked 
 through the gates, and as he was not 
 dressed like a king, he mixed with the 
 crowd in the streets, and the first thingf 
 he did was to go into a bookseller's shop 
 and buy a copy of Buchanan's poems. 
 Another story is one told of Sir Patrick 
 Home, who, in the time of the persecution 
 of the Covenanters, had to hide himself 
 in a vault in the churchyard of Polwarth 
 where his ancestors were buried. While 
 he lay concealed there, his daughter used 
 to brino- him food at midnio-ht, and, to 
 pass the time during the day, as well as 
 to cheer and console himself in his dangrer, 
 he used to read and recite the Psalms of
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. 89 
 
 Buchanan. It is told, also, of a certain 
 pope that he was sorry that Buchanan 
 was a heretic, as otherwise he would have 
 had his Latin Psalms sung in all the 
 Catholic churches. In Germany, indeed, 
 which was a Protestant country, they were 
 set to music, and were sung- in the schools 
 and universities ; and in Scotland, till not 
 so long ago, they were read in all the 
 schools where Latin was taught, and the 
 boys had to learn many of them by heart. 
 The biggest book which Buchanan wrote 
 was his "History of Scotland," which takes 
 up nearly the whole of one of the large 
 volumes which contain his works. Though 
 very few people nowadays have read it, 
 it was once thought to have been the 
 best book that had ever been written in 
 Scotland. For nearly two hundred years 
 after Buchanan died, it was almost the 
 only book from which Scotsmen learned 
 the history of their native country. And 
 it was not only Scotsmen who read it, 
 but foreigners, who admired the way it 
 was written, and tried to write the histories
 
 90 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 of their own countries as well as Buchanan 
 had done. What is wonderful is that he 
 wrote it when he was a very old man, and 
 was so often ill that he could hardly hold 
 the pen in his hand. But why did he 
 undertake such a heavy task when he 
 was so old and feeble."* He himself 
 tells us why he did so, and the reasons 
 which he gives show how true a Scot 
 he was, and how anxious he was for 
 the good and honour of his country. 
 P^irst of all, he says that his friends 
 wished him to write the history of his 
 native country ; and no doubt because 
 he was the only man who could write it 
 in such a way that people would read 
 it both at home and abroad. Another 
 reason he gives is that he wished his 
 pupil, King James, to have such a 
 history of his ancestors as would teach 
 him who had been the good and the 
 bad kings of Scotland, so that he mieht 
 learn to be a good king himself when 
 he grew up. But Buchanan was greatly 
 mistaken when he thought that James
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. 91 
 
 would learn lessons from his " History." 
 James and Buchanan, we have seen, had 
 
 JAMES VI. 
 
 very different notions of what a g-ood king 
 should be, and so it was that two years 
 after Buchanan's death James ordered 
 everybody who had a copy of the " His-
 
 92 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 tory " to give it up under a penalty of 
 ^200, so that everything might be taken 
 out of it that was displeasing to J.ames. 
 Of course, it was impossible for James 
 to execute this command, and people 
 went on reading Buchanan's "History" 
 in spite of him, 
 
 Buchanan wrote another book of which 
 something should be said, because it was 
 famous for such a long time, and had a 
 great deal of influence both in Scotland 
 and other countries. In many countries, 
 at the time that Buchanan lived, kings and 
 their subjects did not agree on some im- 
 portant subjects, and they often quarrelled 
 and went to war with each other. The 
 chief cause of their quarrelling was that, 
 while most of the kings wished to remain 
 Catholics, many of their people wished to 
 be Protestants. The question then came 
 to be : Had a king the right to compel his 
 subjects to be of his religion and to give 
 up their own ? Some people said that, as 
 kings were appointed by God, their sub- 
 jects should obey them in everything, even
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. 93 
 
 when they knew that the king was acting 
 unjustly. Other people, on the contrary, 
 said that it was their subjects who had 
 chosen their own kings, and that if any 
 king ruled contrary to the laws, then his 
 subjects had the right to dethrone him. 
 This was the view that Buchanan took, 
 and in the book of which we are speaking, 
 called " The Rights of the Crown in Scot- 
 land," he said that the kings of Scots had 
 not been appointed by God, but that they 
 had originally been chosen by their sub- 
 jects ; and that, if they broke the laws or 
 did not govern according to the will of the 
 people, then their Crowns should be taken 
 from them. As may be imagined, this 
 book gave great offence to James and all 
 the kings of the House of Stewart who 
 succeeded him. James forbade his people 
 to read it, and so did Charles (I. and 
 James VII. ; and a hundred years after 
 it was written the University of Oxford 
 ordered it to be burnt, along with works 
 by the poet Milton and others who held 
 the same opinions as Buchanan. But the
 
 
 ? 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 MONUMliM IN i.RKYKKIARS CHUK< ||\\KP 
 ERECTED IN 1878 AT THE EXPENSE OF DAVID LAING, l.L.D. 
 
 94
 
 TUTOR TO JAMES VI. 95 
 
 interesting thing is that almost all that 
 Buchanan said in his book was carried 
 out at the Revolution, which took place 
 in the year 1689, when the Stewarts were 
 driven from the throne ; and there can be 
 no doubt that Buchanan helped to bring 
 this about. 
 
 This story of Buchanan's life may show 
 how it was he came to be thought so 
 great a man, and how, four hundred years 
 after his birth, many people in Scotland, 
 as well as in other countries, think it right 
 to celebrate his memor)-. Beginning life 
 as a poor farmer's son. with no great 
 friends to push him on, often in ill-health 
 and always poor, he overcame all the 
 difhculties in his way, and made himself 
 one of the most learned men in Europe, 
 and by his own fame made his native 
 countr\- famous also. Men can do good 
 to their country in very different ways. 
 They can defend it against its enemies, 
 they can make good laws, they can be 
 great preachers and great reformers. It 
 was in none of these ways that Buchanan
 
 96 GEORGE BUCHANAN 
 
 served his native country. The good he 
 did was that he spent his Hfe in trying to 
 make men better and wiser both by teach- 
 ing and by what he said in his books. 
 And long after his death the work which 
 he did continued to do good. Boys at 
 school and students at the universities, 
 whenever the name of Buchanan was 
 HK^ntioned, thought they would like to 
 become as famous as he had been, and 
 both at home and abroad they tried to 
 follow in his steps and be an honour to 
 their country.
 
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