His father's family descended from Walter FitzGilbert, the founder of the House of Hamilton, who had received the barony of Cadzow from Robert the Bruce.

The Regent besieged St Andrews; the Protestants offered to give James to Henry VIII, in return for the help of an English fleet.

[26] Regent Arran now agreed to the marriage of Mary to the Dauphin Francis, son and heir of King Henry II of France, confirmed by the Treaty of Haddington.

In 1549, the Emblemata, a collection of illustrated Latin proverbs and mottos compiled by Italian jurist Andrea Alciato appeared in a new French edition.

[39] A later chronicler, David Hume of Godscroft, believed the marriage proposal was "so unprobable, and such a proposition as Morton knew would not be very acceptable to her," but it was mooted by the Parliament of Scotland.

[40][41] At the end of May 1559, the English ambassador in Paris, Nicholas Throckmorton, discovered that Arran had declined an invitation to join festivities and tournaments at the French court.

Throckmorton heard that Mary had denounced James as an "arrant traitor," and he hoped that this news would advance pro-English policy in Scotland.

William Cecil acknowledged Chatelherault's thanks for the rescue, writing on 24 August 1559, "this one thing I covet, to have this isle well united in concord".

[55] After a midnight ride through the Cheviot Hills, at one or two o'clock in the morning of Sunday 10 September 1559, he arrived in Teviotdale, and was re-united with his father at Hamilton Palace.

[58] In September 1560, Sarlabous, the French Captain of Dunbar Castle, tried to spread a rumour that Elizabeth's council had proposed an alternative marriage plan for Arran, with the English royal heiress Lady Catherine Grey, daughter of the Duchess of Suffolk.

[60] She was described by Randolph as "a good handsome wench" in December 1561, and the interference of the Earl of Bothwell, Lord John Stewart, Prior of Coldingham, and René, Marquis of Elbeuf led to an armed stand-off.

[63] With his cousin, Robert, Master of Maxwell, on his father's orders, he attacked Crichton Castle the home of the Earl of Bothwell, on 10 October 1559 James and his friends took money and silverware from Daldowie and on 9 November 1559 raided the Palace of the Bishop of Dunblane, taking a gold necklace belonging to Janet, Lady Fleming, and removing the Bishop and his silver to Stirling Castle and Falkland Palace.

[66] In January 1560 Arran was leading the war in Fife, writing reports to Ralph Sadler and Sir James Croft from Dysart, Wemyss, Cupar and Aberdour.

[68] A later English document of 1583 represents the possibility that the Scottish nobility were intent on making Arran King of Scotland, because of their dissatisfaction with Mary and her French links.

The nobles were "fullie resolved to have deprived her of her government, and established the same in the eldest sonne of the Duke of Chatteleroy, the Erle of Arreyne, beinge then a gent of verie great hope and towardnes".

[70] It consisted of 17 large ships belonging to the Queen, carrying a total of 3,000 men; part of the fleet was tasked with intercepting supplies from France to starve French troops in Scotland.

[71] At the end of January, Arran conferred with the English Admiral William Wynter at Burntisland, saying he was about to return to his father's lands in the West.

[72] Later in February, Thomas Randolph posed as a Scot to gain the confidence of a French agent at Dumbarton Castle but Arran clumsily revealed his identity.

Before the English army arrived, the French raided Glasgow and attacked the Bishop's Palace, Arran shadowed their return to Leith with 800 horse.

James was chosen a member of her council on her arrival, but took up a hostile attitude to the court in consequence of the practice of the Roman Catholic religion.

[19] George Buchanan, who was unsympathetic to Mary, suggested that in November 1561, she exploited young Arran's real affection for her by spreading a rumour that he planned to abduct her from Holyrood Palace to his residence, Kinneil House, to justify strengthening the royal bodyguard.

[79] Though James' father disputed the rumour, and Thomas Randolph's considering with this "great horlyburly without reason" the Queen "had never less occasion to fear, with so many papists then in the town", physical security was tightened at Holyrood.

[80] On 17 January 1562 Arran rode from Kinneil to Linlithgow Palace to meet with Mary, Queen of Scots, and discuss how he and his father might be remunerated for their services.

He accused his enemy the Earl of Bothwell of conspiring to abduct Queen Mary, and spoke strangely of witches and devils, and "fearing that all men round about came to kill him".

[90] Arran's expenses at Edinburgh Castle, where he was kept by the Earl of Mar, were paid by Mary, Queen of Scots, from her income known as the "Thirds of Benefices".

[91] Randolph described Arran in a letter to Cecil in January 1564, saying he inclined to solitariness, in dark rooms, with little company or talk, and was suspicious of all he met.

[96] John and his other brother Claude, Abbot of Paisley kept Arran prisoner at Craignethan Castle, and though Henry Killigrew reported in August 1575 that if he were well-used and at liberty there was hope of recovery, he was never again allowed any freedom.

Thomas Randolph wrote that Arran "has twice before been in the same case," and his mother and aunts were "certain times or the most part of the year distempered with an unquiet humour.

"[98][99] Randolph's description of Arran's symptoms sound akin to modern diagnoses of mania and bipolar disorder although details of his psychological condition will remain unknown.

John and Claud were supporters of Mary Queen of Scots, and so in May 1579 the former Regent Morton seized Hamilton and Craignethan on the pretence of rescuing James from his imprisonment.