He had relations there, it was true, both on his father's and mother's side, but they were strangers to him.

Moreover, Scotland at present was torn by a civil and religious war.

In England a civil war was raging, and the extreme party in Scotland, having got the upper hand, had allied themselves with the English parliamentarians, and the cause of the king was well nigh lost.
The Scottish officers and men in the French service had for the most part left their homes owing to the bitter religious differences of the times, and, under the easier conditions of the life in France, had come to look with disgust at the narrow bigotry of the Scottish sects, a feeling heightened perhaps by the deep resentment that still prevailed in France at the insolence with which Knox and the Scottish reformers had treated their princess, Queen Mary.

Among the French officers the feeling was wholly in favour of the royal cause in England.

The queen was French, and had France herself not been engaged in warfare numbers of the young nobles would have gone over and drawn their swords in her cause, and Hector would gladly have done the same.
For the time, at any rate, he had no idea whatever of returning to Scotland.