'Troth, man, I have small doubt that he will,' quoth the king, 'I gave him the schedule of her worldly substance, which you delivered to us in the council, and we allowed him half an hour to chew the cud upon that.
It is rare reading for bringing him to reason.

I left Baby Charles and Steenie laying his duty before him, and if he can resist doing what _they_ desire him, why I wish he would teach _me_ the gate of it.

O Geordie, Jingling Geordie, it was grand to hear Baby Charles laying down the guilt of dissimulation, and Steenie lecturing _on_ the turpitude of incontinence.' 'I am afraid,' said George Heriot, more hastily than prudently, 'I might have thought of the old proverb of Satan reproving sin.' 'Deil hae our saul, neighbour,' said the king, reddening, 'but ye are not blate! I gie ye licence to speak freely, and by our saul, ye do not let the privilege become lost, _non utendo_--it will suffer no negative prescription in your hands.

Is it fit, think ye, that Baby Charles should let his thoughts be publicly seen?
No, no, princes' thoughts are _arcana imperii: qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare_.

Every liege subject is bound to speak the whole truth to the king, but there is nae reciprocity of obligation--and for Steenie having been whiles a dike-louper at a time, is it for you, who are his goldsmith, and to whom, I doubt, he awes an uncomatable sum, to cast that up to him ?" Assuredly there is no undue favouring of Stuarts in such a picture as that.
Scott's humour is, I think, of very different qualities in relation to different subjects.