Though they were thus secretly labouring to undermine this nobleman, the Queen-mother and the Cardinal seemed to study nothing so much as how they might put honour upon him before the people, and in the most effective manner contribute to his comfort By a constant succession of games and festivals, the court presented one unbroken scene of gaiety and pleasure. Day after day was spent in tournaments, and night after night in masquerades. In these festivities, of which he was naturally fond, Lennox found a keen rival in James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who had been banished by James V., but had returned after his decease, and was now labouring to obtain the Queen-dowager in marriage by the same arts that Lennox fancied himself to be so successfully employing. Both these noblemen were remarkable for natural endowments, and in the gifts of fortune they were nearly upon a level. Finding himself inferior, however, in the sportive strife of arms, Bothwell withdrew from the court in chagrin, leaving the field to his rival undisputed. Lennox, now fancying that he had nothing more to do than to reap the harvest of fair promises that had been so liberally held forth to him, pressed his suit upon the Queen, but learned with astonishment that she had no intention of taking him for a husband, and so far from granting him the regency, she had agreed with the Cardinal to preserve it in the possession of his mortal enemy Arran, whom they expected to be a more pliant tool to serve their own personal .views and purposes. Exasperated to the highest degree, Lennox swore to be amply revenged, but uncertain as yet what plan to pursue, departed for Dunbarton, where he was in the midst of his vassals and friends. Here he received thirty thousand crowns, sent to increase the strength of his party by the king of France, who had not yet been informed of the real state of Scotland. Being ordered to consult with the Queen-dowager and the Cardinal in the distribution of this money, Lennox divided part of it among his friends, and part he sent to the Queen. The Cardinal, who had expected to have been intrusted with the greatest share of the money, under the influence of rage and disappointment, persuaded the vacillating regent to raise an army and march to Glasgow, where he might seize upon Lennox and the money at the same time. Lennox, however, warned of their intentions, raised on the instant among his vassals and friends upwards of ten thousand men, with which he marched to Leith, and sent a message to the Cardinal at Edinburgh, that he desired to save him the trouble of coining to fight him at Glasgow, and would give him that pleasure any day in the fields between Edinburgh and Leith.
This was a new and unexpected mortification to the Cardinal, who, having gained the regent, imagined he should have gained the whole party that adhered to him; but the fact was, he had gained only the regent and his immediate dependants, the great body of the people, who had originally given him weight and influence, being now so thoroughly disgusted with his conduct, that they had joined the standard, and now swelled the ranks of his rival. The Cardinal, however, though professing the utmost willingness to accept the challenge, delayed coming to action from day to day under various pretexts, but in reality that he might have time to seduce the adherents of his rival, and weary out the patience of his followers, who, without pay and without magazines, he was well aware could not be kept for any length of time together. Lennox, finding the war thus protracted, and himself so completely unfurnished for undertaking a siege, at the urgent entreaty of his friends, who for the most part had provided secretly for themselves, made an agreement with the regent, and, proceeding to Edinburgh, the two visited backwards and forwards, as if all their ancient animosity had been forgotten. Lennox, however, being advised of treachery, withdrew in the night secretly to Glasgow, where he fortified, provisioned, and garrisoned the Bishop's castle, but retired himself to Dunbarton. Here he learned
