The sixteenth-century Scottish crown, like its European counterparts, was semi-permanently broke. Standard historiographical wisdom has it that, with the exceptions of the personal rules of James v and Mary, the crown limped and lurched from financial crisis to financial crisis throughout the sixteenth century until James VI finally took the court south, when he left a number of ruined former officials and an overall sigh of relief in his financially reckless wake. Minorities in general, and individual regents specifically, have been regarded as a contributing factor to the crown's financial woes. Albany's regency has been characterised as ‘an expensive luxury’, Arran has been criticised for his ‘extravagance’, whilst Morton's embezzlement of crown funds has been frequently reviled. Regents, apparently, were a wicked breed when it came to money: at best powerless to prevent spiralling financial problems, perhaps simply indifferent to the consequences, or, at worst, actively cheating the crown for their own gain. The polemical strength of such arguments is demonstrated by Lennox's outraged allegations that Arran had ‘prodigalmen’ disbursed ‘tous les biens meubles du sieur Roy Qui estoit en valeur de plus de Troye cens mil liuvres’. The fact that Arran was unlikely to have actually disposed of £300,000 in goods or cash, either in pounds Scots or livres tournois, between assuming the governorship on 3 January and Lennox's arrival in March 1543 is immaterial to the force of this accusation: his alleged financial mismanagement ranked in seriousness alongside accusations of heresy and bastardy in this attempt to effect his ejection from power.

Such claims ought not to be swallowed whole. As we saw in chapter one, when alternative candidates for the regency were discussed in 1574, their personal wealth ranked as an important consideration alongside their religion and ability to secure political consensus in determining their suitability for office. This reflects the fact that by the 1570s it had become expected that regents would partially bankroll the crown during their rules, although since regents' private accounts are no longer extant, the full extent of this practice is unknown.