Henry VIII. had been at great pains to bring about a personal interview with James; and had obtained a promise that he should meet him at York. Henry arrived according to appointment, and remained there during six days, but no James appeared. The priests, dreading Henry's influence with James on the subject of the Reformation, prevailed upon him to remain at home; which he did, but sent a courteous apology. But the haughty revengeful English king was not to be so easily pacified. He conceived himself slighted and insulted, and vented threatenings and curses against the Scotch. A border war was the result. The priests instigated James to go to war without summoning to his banner the proscribed nobles. Bishops, priests, and their partisans were to form the army; and when the king returned in triumph from the defeat of Henry, all those suspected of heresy should be seized and executed as a thank-offering for victory. But alas! when James was waiting in Lochmaben castle for the news of triumph, some of the fugitives arriving made known the total rout of his army on Solway Moss. His distress was unbounded. So great was his agony of mind, he could hardly breathe, and only muttered some vague cries. The high-spirited monarch could bear no more. He had been deceived by that despicable man in whom he trusted, which disturbed him as much as the victory of the English.
In this state of despair he shut himself up in Falkland palace, and the violence of his grief soon induced a slow fever. While rapidly sinking, intelligence was brought that his queen, who was at Linlithgow, had been delivered of a girl, afterward Queen Mary. This was a fresh wound as he had no son; and feeling as if his family was extinct and his crown lost, he muttered an old saying, "It cam wi' a lass, and it will gang wi' a lass." Seven days afterward the king died, on December 14th, 1542. When disrobing him, the dreadful proscription roll was found in his pocket. The nation then saw what a merciful providence had saved them from, and how narrow its escape had been from so fearful a catastrophe. The discovery helped not a little to increase the number of the Reformed, and to prepare the way for the downfall of a religion which was capable of conceiving such plans of cruelty and avarice.
The throne was now vacant, and "Cardinal Beaton lost no time in producing a document purporting to be the will of the deceased monarch, appointing him regent of the kingdom during the minority of the infant queen;" but it was generally believed to be forged, and the Earl of Arran was peaceably established in the regency by the nobles. Thus it was, by the gracious overruling hand of God, the man whose name was first on the list of nobles marked for slaughter, was now at the head of the government, and used by the same providence to place the Bible in every Scotchman's hand. The change produced in the political state of the kingdom by the death of James and the regency of Arran was favorable to the Reformation.
The earl having formerly professed faith in the Reformed doctrines, was now surrounded with counselors of the same opinions. It is deeply interesting to observe that, at this early stage of the Scottish Reformation, the very flower of the nobility and gentry were on its side. Not that we think of them all as true Christians; but at that time the prospect of overturning the ancient religion was distant and uncertain, and they were taking a step which exposed their lives and fortunes to the most imminent hazard, so that we cannot attribute to them a lower motive than their personal convictions.