George Buchanan

‘Having little or no property save his bare designation, Sir Mungo had been early attached to Court in the capacity of whipping-boy, as the office was then called, to King James the Sixth, and, with his Majesty, trained to all polite learning by his celebrated preceptor, George Buchanan. The office of whipping-boy doomed its unfortunate occupant to undergo all the corporeal punishment which the Lord's Anointed, whose proper person was of course sacred, might chance to incur, in the course of travelling through his grammar and prosody. Under the stern rule, indeed, of George Buchanan, who did not approve of the vicarious mode of punishment, James bore the penance of his own faults, and Mungo Malagrowther enjoyed a sinecure ; but James's other pedagogue, Master Patrick Young, went more ceremoniously to work, and appalled the very soul of the youthful king by the floggings which he bestowed on the whipping-boy, when the royal task was not suitably performed…’

The humanist, poet, and historian George Buchanan reaches the pages of Walter Scott’s “The Fortunes of Nigel” as tutor for James VI of Scotland.  James was not Buchanan’s first student.  As a result of persecution of Lutherans in Scotland (1539), Buchanan fled the country for some 20 years, moving to the continent.  He was about 33 years old at the time.  Here he picked up a notable pupil; Michel Eyquem de Montaigne. Well after Montaigne, at a time when Buchanan had returned to Scotland (1560), and just before James, Buchanan tutored James’ mother, Mary Queen of Scots.  Royal tutor George Buchanan died on September 28, 1582.

Queen Mary

‘…The inhabitants of the village were therefore invited to attend upon the instructions

 of Henry Warden,and many of them were speedily won to the doctrine which their 

master and protector approved. These sermons, homilies, and lectures, had made a

 great impression on the mind of the Abbot Eustace, or Eustatius, and were a

 sufficient spur to the severity and sharpness of his controversy with his old

 fellow-collegiate; and, ere QueenMary was dethroned, and while the Catholics

 still had considerable authority inthe Border provinces, he more than once

 threatened to levy his vassals, and assailand level with the earth that stronghold

 of heresy the Castle of Avenel…’

Queen Mary was dethroned on July 24, 1567, as the text above from “The Abbot” references.  Her son James VI acceded to the throne that day, though he was little more than a year old.

Anne of Denmark Crowned Queen of Scotland

'George Heriot, the son, pursued his father's occupation of a goldsmith, then peculiarly lucrative, and much connected with that of a money-broker. He enjoyed the favour and protection of James, and of his consort, Anne of Denmark...'

Sir Walter Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel" is set during the reign of James I and VI, and being James' goldsmith and banker, George Heriot is an important person.  Presumably, James' Queen, Anne of Denmark, was important as well.  The two were married by proxy on August 20, 1589, James not being present, with an in-person follow-up the following November in Oslo.  It took until May 1590 before the couple reached Scotland, and Anne was crowned Queen of Scotland on May 17, 1590.

Raid of Ruthven

'..."Ay! " said the King, " say ye sae, man ? — Lord Glenvarloch, that was his name indeed — Justus et tenax propositi — A just man, but as obstinate as a baited bull. He stood whiles against us, that Lord Randal Olifaunt of Glenvarloch, but he was a loving and a leal subject in the main. But this supplicator maun be his son — Randal has been long gone where king and lord must go, Geordie, as weel as the like of you — and what does his son want with us ?"


" The settlement," answered the citizen, " of a large debt due by your Majesty's treasury, for money advanced to your Majesty in great state emergency, about the time of the Raid of Ruthven."


" I mind the thing weel," said King James — " Od's death, man, I was just out of the clutches of the Master of Glamis and his complices, and there was never siller mair welcome to a born Prince, — the mair the shame and pity that crowned King should need sic a petty sum. But what need he dun us for it, man, like a baxter at the breaking ? We aught him the siller, and will pay him wi' our convenience, or make it otherwise up to him, whilk is enow between prince and subject — We are not in meditationc fugce, man, to be arrested thus peremptorily."...'
 
The raid of Ruthen occurred on August 22, 1582.  The Earl of Gowrie, William Ruthven, along with other Presbyterian nobles abducted James VI of Scotland.  Walter Scott's text (above) from "The Fortunes of Nigel" references this raid, which is further explained in a note to the text:
 
'p. 93. "The Raid of Ruthven." The object of this Raid (1582) was to separate James from his favourites, Lennox and Arran. The King was near Perth ; Lennox, at Dalkeith, near Edinburgh ; Arran, at Kinneil. Gowrie, Mar, and others caught James at Cowrie's own castle of Ruthven, removed his guard, and held him prisoner. " Better bairns weep than bearded men," said Glammis, when James burst into tears. The Kirk abetted the Raid, and en joyed a temporary triumph.'

Mary Queen of Scots Marries Lord Darnley

"This is the Castle of Crookstone," said the Lady Fleming, "in which the Queen held her first court after she was married to Darnley..."

Walter Scott refers to Lord Darnley, Henry Stuart, several times in "The Abbot", as above.  The story line of "The Abbot" however, begins with Mary's imprisonment at Lochleven Castle, long after Darnley's murder, and Mary's subsequent marriage to Bothwell.

Mary and Henry's wedding took place on July 29, 1565.  It was an ill-fated union, though it did produce an heir, James VI of Scotland/James I of England and Ireland.  The marriage ended less than two years after it began, with Darnley's murder on February 10, 1567.

James VI of Scotland/I of England

...The reign of James I. of England possessed this advantage in a peculiar degree. Some beams of chivalry, although its planet had been for some time set, continued to animate and gild the horizon, and although probably no one acted precisely on its Quixotic dictates, men and women still talked the chivalrous language of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia; and the ceremonial of the tilt-yard was yet exhibited, though it now only flourished as a Place de Carrousel. Here and there a high-spirited Knight of the Bath, witness the too scrupulous Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was found devoted enough to the vows he had taken, to imagine himself obliged to compel, by the sword's-point, a fellow-knight or squire to restore the top-knot of ribbon which he had stolen from a fair damsel;[Footnote: See Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Memoirs.] but yet, while men were taking each other's lives on such punctilios of honour, the hour was already arrived when Bacon was about to teach the world that they were no longer to reason from authority to fact, but to establish truth by advancing from fact to fact, till they fixed an indisputable authority, not from hypothesis, but from experiment...

Walter Scott's "The Fortunes of Nigel" covers James I's reign.  The passage above is from that novel.  James was born on June 19, 1566 to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.  Both his parents were descended from Henry VII of England.  He became king on July 24, 1567, as part of Mary's agreement to abdicate the throne, following her defeat with Earl Bothwell at Carberry Hill.