things to my knowledge; then, at which time, certain gentlemen of Northumberland complained upon me, and since have practised thereupon, and some of them grudged at their own doings; and not knowing the success of these, I have been loth to trouble your Lordship, whom I have found my singular good Lord, and do so trust in all wherein my service shall be truly done to their Majesties, and to my little power, to your Lordship's honor and pleasure. I have small cause in these parts of comfort except in their Highness's favour, the nobility of this realm, and my friends; of my service your Lordship has had experience a long time; as the same has been, and my good will to serve, I pray your Lordship to be and continue my good Lord.

I think your Lordship has heard of the meeting appointed the 8th of June on the West Borders, by the Commissioners for both the realms. I do send unto your Lordship copies of such as I have sent to my Lords of Westmorland and Durham, that your Lordship may know the present state of my charge, and doings here. I am informed from out of Scotland that there are lately arrived at Dunbarton 600 Gascoignes, men of war; one spy says that they are 500. Those who set Stafford on land at Scarborough (which were in number 100 harquebusiers,* 60 pikes)

*Soldiers armed with guns, of whatsoever sort or denomination the latter, appear to have been called Arquebusiers, though the weapon termed an Arquebuse (originally a Haque or Haquebut) is distinguished by a particular description in dictionaries and glossaries. It is probable, however, that Haques,

they are placed on the West Borders at Annan* and Langholme. It is said Maxwell shall be Warden of that March again.

There was a day of March the last of May for the ; where deliverance was made for one bill of either side, before filed. The 4th of June the day of March is appointed to hold at Reddingborne. And Almighty God send unto your Lordship most honorable success in all the King and Queen's Majesties' affairs, to your Lordship's noble heart's desire. At their Highness's castle of Berwick, the 3rd of June, 1557.

Your Lordship's, at commandment;
THOMAS WHARTON.

To the right honourable and my singular good Lord
the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord President of the
King and Queen's Majesties' most honoruable
Council in the North.

No. XXXII.

(Talbot Papers, Vol. D. fol. 33.)

THE EARL OF SHREWSBURY
TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

PLEASETH it your good Lordships to be advertised I have this evening received the Queen's Majesty's

or Arquebuses, anciently signified guns in general; in proof of which a gun-smith is still called in French un Arquebusier. The strange alteration from Haquebut to Arquebuse may be gradually traced in these papers; where the bearers of the weapons in question are variously styled "Hackbutters; Hagbutters; Hergbushers; Harquebuttiers, &c." from Haque, a term of unknown derivation, and Buter, Fr. to aim at.

Annan, the chief town of Annandale, 22 miles N. W. of Carlisle.

most honourable letters, of the date of the second of this instant, together with one proclamation of war with the French King; which, albeit as I perceive by one letter therewith sent from the post of Ware that they were stayed by the way by thieves, and the boys almost slain, by the means whereof they came very late into my hands, yet shall I, by God's grace, cause the same to be accomplished accordingly. And, having a great want, that at this time there is no herald to proclaim the same in this country as it ought, for the supply whereof I did in my late letters beseech your Lordship to move her Majesty, I have thought good, and even so do eftsones beseech your Lordship to move her Highness therein; and also that it will please her Majesty to send down one or two trumpeters; the rather for that my own being lately dead, as I signified unto your Lordship, I know none in these parts to be had. And thus, trusting that your Lordship will have consideration of my former remembrances of things needful to be had in these parts, when occasion shall require, I beseech Almighty God to send your Lordship continual good health, with much increase of honour. From York, the 5th day of June, 1557.

Philip, having now been absent for two years, came over purposely to persuade the Queen to this measure, and immediately after the dclaration of war, 8000 English joined the Imperial army in Flanders, where they arrived just in time to be present at the famous battle of St. Quintin.

No. XXXIII.

(Talbot Papers, Vol. D. fol. 42.)

Intelligence out of Scotland, the 8th of July, 1557."

THE Queen of Scotland, being at Stirling the 29th of June last, sent for the Earls of Arran, Huntley, and Argyle. The Earl of Argyle* came to her, to whom she gave the preferment of a bishopric, for a friend of his, by means whereof she and he agreed well. The Earl of Huntley came not, but made his excuse that he had such business in his country that he could not come to her; and the Earl of Arran came not; but, lying at Linlithgow, and hearing of the Queen's coming thither, he met her a good space off the town, and brought her into the same, where she lay all night, and upon the morrow he attended her out of the town; to whom the Queen said that two men, being then in her company, which were at the murder of the Cardinal of Scotland,+ should go

* Archibald Campbell, fourth Earl of Argyle, the first of the Scottish nobility who embraced the Protestant persuasion. He died in the following year.

+ Cardinal Beaton, of whom before, fell a sacrifice to his fiery zeal against the Protestants. On the 29th of May, 1546, sixteen persons, led by Norman Lesley, eldest son of the Earl of Rothes, and Kirkaldy, the young Laird of Grange, entered the castle of St. Andrews, where he resided in the capital of his diocese, surrounded by dependants; and, having with great coolness dismissed his domestics, murdered him, and prepared to defend the castle. The Regent immediately sent a body of soldiers to besiege them; but so little was that branch of the military art then understood in this island, that after a year spent in vain attempts to reduce them, it was found necessary to call in the assistance of some experienced troops from the Continent, to whose commander, Leon Strozzi,

again into France, because she would not keep them to his displeasure; and the Earl said to her if they might be banished out of Scotland for ever he would be contented, and no otherwise; and so the Queen and he departed. All the Lords and freeholders of Scotland are commanded to be at Newbotle, 4 miles from Edinburgh, the 14th of this present July, there to sit in Council. The 29th of June, immediately after the arrival of James Remyd with letters to the Queen from their commissioners at Carlisle, the Queen and Mons. Dosye dispatched letters into France, by post, for a party; which post took shipping at Dunbarton that same day. The first of July present, two French ships took and brought two barks of England, freighted with fish, and 80 men, into Leith haven. The 3rd of the same July, one French ship of war came by Berwick; and their two English ships made out after her; and the one of them came to her, and fought with her, and killed 8 Frenchman in the same ship, and wounded 10 in peril of death; which French ship landed in

they surrendered, and were permitted to banish themselves to France. The Queen Dowager, being now obliged to court the Reformers, had recalled these popular assassins not long before the date of this letter. The elegant author of the History of Scotland under Mary and James VI. tells us that "the Regent secretly enjoyed an event which removed out of his way a rival who had not only eclipsed his greatness, but almost extinguished his power; and that some private motives induced him to take arms, in order to revenge the death of a man he hated." The short conversation, however, between the Queen and Arran, recorded in this letter, affords a strong presumption of the sincerity of the Duke's resentment, especially as eleven years had now elapsed since the murder.