But the most dangerous symptom for the clergy in Scotland was, that the nobility, from the example of England, had cast a wishful eye on the church revenues, and hoped, if a reformation took place, to enrich themselves by the plunder of the ecclesiastics. James himself, who was very poor, and was somewhat inclined to magnificence, particularly in building, had been swayed by like motives; and began to threaten the clergy with the same fate that had attended them in the neighboring country. Henry also never ceased exhorting his nephew to imitate his example; and being moved, both by the pride of making proselytes, and the prospect of security, should Scotland embrace a close union with him, he solicited the king of Scots to meet him at York; and he obtained a promise to that purpose.
The ecclesiastics were alarmed at this resolution of James, and they employed every expedient in order to prevent the execution of it. They represented the danger of innovation; the pernicious consequences of aggrandizing the nobility, already too powerful; the hazard of putting himself into the hands of the English, his hereditary enemies; the dependence on them which must ensue upon his losing the friendship of France, and of all foreign powers. To those considerations they added the prospect of immediate interest, by which they found the king to be much governed: they offered him a present gratuity of fifty thousand pounds: they promised him that the church should always be ready to contribute to his supply: and they pointed out to him the confiscation of heretics, as the means of filling his exchequer, and of adding a hundred thousand pounds a year to the crown revenues.[*] The insinuations of his new queen, to whom youth, beauty, and address had given a powerful influence over him, seconded all these reasons; and James was at last engaged, first to delay his journey, then to send excuses to the king of England, who had already come to York in order to be present at the interview.[**]
* Buchanan, lib. xiv. Drummond in Ja. V. Pitscotie, ibid. Knox.
** Henry had sent some books, richly ornamented, to his nephew, who, as soon as he saw by the titles, that they had a tendency to defend the new doctrines, threw them into the fire, in the presence of the person who brought them; adding, it was better he should destroy them, than they him. See Epist. Reginald Pole, part i. p. 172.