The story of Scotland from the earliest times to the present century .. . directions—inthe emphatic complaints touching the poor and theefforts to relieve them ; in the attempts to place theinstitution of marriage on a proper footing, to pro-tect the life of infants, to purify the domestic circle,and to expose vice in every quarter. In short, therevolutionary waves of the sixteenth century weremainly religious and moral ; but these were soonfollowed by intellectual achievements and revolutionsof thought. George Buchanan wrote his poems, History ofScotland, and De Jure Regni apud Scotos, in Lat
The story of Scotland from the earliest times to the present century .. . directions—inthe emphatic complaints touching the poor and theefforts to relieve them ; in the attempts to place theinstitution of marriage on a proper footing, to pro-tect the life of infants, to purify the domestic circle,and to expose vice in every quarter. In short, therevolutionary waves of the sixteenth century weremainly religious and moral ; but these were soonfollowed by intellectual achievements and revolutionsof thought. George Buchanan wrote his poems, History ofScotland, and De Jure Regni apud Scotos, in Latin;and it is necessary to notice the last work, as it wascondemned and burned by the government of Scot- LITERATURE. 175 land, when bent on a despotic policy. The De JureRegni, which is written in the dialogue form, ap-peared in 1579, and at once excited attention. Theprinciples enunciated in it are clear and decisive, anddirected against every form of tyranny. Buchanansmain argument was put in this manner: Men werenaturally formed for society, but in order to arrest. GEORGE BUCHANAN. the Internal broils that sprang up amongst them, theycreated kings ; and in order to restrain the power oftheir kings, they enacted laws. As the community isthe source of legal power, it is greater than the king,and may therefore judge him ; and since the laws areintended to restrain the king in case of collision, it isfor the people, not for the ruler, to interpret is the duty of the king to associate himself withthe law, and to govern exclusively according to its 176 CONFLICT TO THE UNION OF THE CROWNS. decisions. A king is one that rules by law, and inaccordance with the interests of the people ; but atyrant is one that rules by his own will, and contraryto the interests of the people. An opinion had beenadvanced that a king who was hampered by recog-nised constitutional ties might be resisted if heviolated them, but that a tyrant who reigns where noconstitution exists, must be always
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