THE HISTORY OF% SCOTLAND DURING THE REIGNS OF QUEEN MARY AND OF KING JAMES VI. TILL HIS ACCESSION TO THE CROWN OF ENGLAND. WITH A REVIEW OF THE SCOTTISH HISTORY And AN APPENDIX CONTAINING ORIGINAL PAPERS, IN TWO VOLUMES. BY WILLIAM ROBERTSON, VOLUME I. A NEW EDITION. VIENNA, Printed for F, A, SCHRÆMBL,corner in the Karnthaer- Street. Nro. 1053. 27387 I PREFACE. Deliver this book to the world with all the diffidence and anxiety natural to an Author on publishing his first performance. The time I have employed, and the pains I have taken, in order to render it worthy of the publick approbation, it is, perhaps, prudent to conceal, till it be known whe ther that approbation fhall ever be bestowed upon it. But as I have departed, in many inftances, from former hiftorians, as I have placed facts in a different light, and have drawn characters with new colours, I ought to account for this conduct to my readers; and to produce the evidence, on which, at the distance of two centuries, I prefume to contradict the tef timony of less remote, or even of cotemporary hiftorians. The transactions in Mary's reign gave rife to two parties, which were animated against each other with the fiercest political hatred, embittered by religious zeal. Each of these produced hiftorians of confiderable merit, who adopted all their fentiments, and defended all their actions. |