Chapter V · SUMMARY.

Slow convalescence of Queen Margaret—Extends her protection to the Prioress of Coldstream—Queen’s personal jealousy of Regent Albany—Excites her son against tutelage—Her enmity to the Regent—Her treachery—Regent forbids her access to her son—Her letters on the subject—She mediates peace with England—Is importunate for money—Her jealous fury against Lord Fleming’s sister—Accuses Lord Fleming of poisoning the Drummond sisters—Her letter and interview with the Regent—Her speech to the Privy Council—Regent bids her farewell when he leaves Scotland forever—Margaret threatened with her husband’s return—Henry VIII. gives her money to pay guards—Margaret releases her son from tutelage—Her new favorite, Henry Stuart, lieutenant of the guard—Queen’s regency disputed by the Chancellor—She seizes the Great Seal and others—She gives all the seals to Henry Stuart—Her brother sends Dr. Magnus as envoy—Scenes and dialogues with her—Gives her a letter from Angus—Edinburgh wives in her presence-chamber—Nocturnal attack of her husband—Queen orders cannon to be fired—Retreat of her husband—Queen retires to Edinburgh Castle—Her conduct when there.

The painful effects of her recent malady kept the Queen several weeks at Stirling Castle in the winter of 1523; she could not be moved; and as the pestilence spread among her household there, the Privy Council took alarm for the life of the royal child, and caused his removal to his palace of Dalkeith. The Regent went to France early in the year 1523, to obtain aid of soldiers and ammunition.

Meantime, great movements took place in England against Scotland. An immense feudal militia advanced to the aid of Dacre for the invasion of the Scotch, or rather to watch if the Scotch meant to invade them. At this time the Queen remembered the obligations she owed to the Prioress of Coldstream, when, in sore distress (just before the birth of Lady Margaret Douglas), she took refuge at her priory. Robin Barton, her own faithful comptroller, appealed to his royal mistress regarding the cruel intentions of Lord Surrey to his aunt the Prioress; for Surrey had discovered that the holy lady of Coldstream (now Queen Margaret was on friendly terms with the Regent Albany) sent all sorts of intelligence relative to the proceedings of the English army on the Border to the Scotch. The reader is behind the scenes, by knowing that the Prioress was aunt[309] to the Queen’s comptroller.

“I am informed, my Lord,” wrote Margaret to Surrey, “that you are come to the borders forenent Scotland, and there is a good friend and servant of mine, which wons nearest to your bounds of England, and is prioress of a poor abbacy of sisters, called Coldstream, and it appears to be in great trouble on both sides, and she is nearest to the strait, and that place has been troubled divers times before. I pray you, for my sake, that her place may be untroubled, and be brought in no strait by Englishmen, for they that are good servants and friends to me, methinks, should have favor of you for my sake, as I trust you will. I believe she has the King my brother’s protection to show, therefore you will show more kindly to her, I have not been cumbersome to you in my desires, and this is reasonable, and God keep you.”[310]

The favorable mind of Queen Margaret toward the Regent Albany changed remarkably before the month of June. She had received intelligence from some of her informers (probably of the English faction) which infuriated her temper with jealousy against him—personal jealousy it was, as it is easy to gather from her subsequent letters, regarding the sister of Lord Fleming; and her rage as a woman was aggravated by consciousness of that deplorable change in her beauty which the ravages of the small-pox in the previous autumn had effected. The scheme she devised for annoying the faithless Regent was to render her young son discontented with the wholesome restraints of his educational seclusion at Stirling Castle. How wisely and excellently that education was progressing, not only by the tuition of his accomplished preceptor, Gavin Dunbar[311] (lately appointed Archbishop of Glasgow, on the promotion of James Beton to the primacy of St. Andrews), but in the hours of recreation by his faithful servant, Sir David Lindsay, the works of that great poet will reveal.

It has been shown how gently and fondly David Lindsay bent his richly endowed intellect to amuse the royal babe, giving him due exercise of body and mind, awakening his faculties by degrees, as he apportioned his information to the years of the tender Prince.

After awakening the young King’s natural love for melody, by the “springs” he played on his lute. Sir David gradually brought him to take delight in historical narration by imaginative tales, by ballad-lore and marvelous traditions; and even by the assumption of fancy and character-costumes. Sometimes the mirthfulness of the royal boy was awakened “by farces played on the floor.” Sometimes Sir David tried his courage by appearing as “a fiend or a griesly ghost in gray,” plans which would not be endured in modern times; but it is certain that proper care was taken by Sir David to obliterate superstitious terror instead of inducing it, since he was himself one of the most able combatants of the noxious superstitions which the increasing corruptions of the Roman Catholic church of Scotland had established in his country.

In Stirling Park the young King was solaced by the entertainment of various tame animals, whose tricks and playfulness were encouraged by his faithful David Lindsay. In various of his works he mentions these playfellows of the lower creation, so pleasant to the amusements of those children who are wisely taught to treat them humanely, and not to gainsay their natural habits. James V. had been presented with a parrot or papingo, then a rare bird. Sir David Lindsay took charge of it, with other animal dependents of his young monarch, and the creature was an especial favorite. Indeed, she did not rely on the mere possession of what Sir David calls “her angel feathers green and gold, and of all the colors of the rainbow;” she had been given an education equal to any parrot who is on her preferment in the Pantheon in these days, when the march of intellect presses forward parrots equally with more presumptuous bipeds. The papingo could whistle the tunes to which the gymnastics of that period were performed, changing her measure from “plat” or “flat foot” to “foot before,” or from the first to the fourth dancing position. She could sing like the blackbird, crow like a cock, pew like the gled or kite, and chant as the lark, bark like the dog, and cackle as a hen, bleat as the lamb, and bellow as the bull, she could wail like the gowk or cuckoo, and cry and sob if she was vexed, besides,—

This “blessed bird,” as Sir David calls her, was so pleasant to him, that wherever he went he carried her on his wrist, as other gentlemen did their falcons. The poor papingo met with the usual ill fate of favorites—she escaped into the park, and was killed by the wild birds.

Sir David Lindsay founded one of his most popular poems on the mishap of the poor papingo; but under the names of the pye, the raven, and the hawk, the birds who killed her, he took his poetical opportunity of satirizing the abuses of the Regular Canons, the monks and friars. From the child’s play of James V., his parrot and his poet, was the impetus given to the religious revolution of Scotland; for the poem became popular, and the enormities in the government of church and state which called for reformation became known to all men.[314]

When the young King of Scotland had attained his eleventh year, Sir David Lindsay prepared for him entertainment[315] suitable to a higher degree of intellect, which according to his elegant delineation of the qualities of James he required.

The story, which is dressed up in the form of a vision, is, in truth, a dissertation on natural history, geography, and astronomy, very sweetly touched, and adorned with exquisite descriptive poetry. When Sir David Lindsay places under the consideration of the royal boy the starry spheres, he explains to him the reflected light of the moon, and speaks of her with no little elegance as

His descriptions of the planets are extremely poetical, by no means inferior to the celebrated passage in Schiller’s Wallenstein. Considering that the modern lights of science had not arisen, there are some passages in this beautiful astronomical poem which will startle the modern reader. Even Tycho Brahe was not then born, for James V.’s grandson visited that philosopher on his voyage to Denmark, half a century later.[319] In his sketch of geography it may be observed that Sir David includes none of the then new discoveries of Cabot, or Columbus, Pizarro or Cortez. After examining David Lindsay’s delineations of the calm and rational course of life of the young royal student, it is scarcely possible to suppress expressions of indignation at Queen Margaret’s folly in interfering, for her own purposes, with the course of training calculated to form a wise and great King of a child whose ardent temperament was too apt to impel him into irreparable errors. Her letters to England prove her ill intentions in disturbing and irritating his fiery disposition by taunts unendurable to any spirited boy—that he was treated as an infant—held in captivity—made a tame slave—under pretense of educating him. When Margaret wrote to Surrey, she speaks much of her schemes to set her son at liberty. She unconsciously gives due credit to his training, for these are the expressions she uses herself concerning James V., then arrived at the discreet age of eleven years—wisdom or discretion being the quality most insisted upon for him by his discerning Queen-mother:—

“Of his age, my Lord,[320] I trow there be not a wiser child, nor a better hearted, nor that dare better take on him as far as he may: he wants nothing but help to bear him forth in his good quarrel. And I assure you, upon mine honor, that he loves not the Governor, the Duke of Albany,[321] nor no Frenchman, and that the King, my brother, will find, an’ his Grace will help him. And as to his coming forth at freedom, he will bide no longer in than Monday come eight days, without he be holden perforce by the Lords; and he saith plainly ‘that no good Scottishman will hold him in one house against his will.’ Whereof the Frenchmen that are here are right sore displeased, and maketh all the ways they can to stop it, by money-giving and other fair promises.”

The excitement the Queen had fomented in the mind of the young James V. had the effect which might have been expected. The royal boy became outrageous with passion, and struck one of his gentlemen through the arm with his dagger who resisted his attempts to break his captivity, as his foolish mother called his educational restraint. The young King threatened the porter with his dagger after this exploit, “because the man would not open the gates of Stirling Castle at his order.”[322] When all this uproar had been raised, the Queen could not find the money necessary to carry into effect her escape with her son. She wrote to Surrey regarding money, in her usual strain:—“I have nothing now to uphold my honest expenses, without I lay my cupboard of plate in pledge, which is not to the King my brother’s honor.”[323] Surrey, in reply to her proposal of escaping over the Border with her son, proposes for her Grace to come to her house at Bonckle, under the pretense of mediating for the poor miserable Borderers, ruined by having all their corn burned. She was to bring with her all her best stuff, plate, and jewels; “and then,” continues he, “I, with a good power, will suddenly come and fetch your Grace, stuff, plate, and jewels away, otherways I can none devise; and whereas your Grace sent for a token a pair of beads to Lord Maxwell, trusting he would have suffered you to pass through his country into this realm, it was thought by me and my Lord Dacre not meet to be done.”[324] He wrote directly afterward to Wolsey, that the Queen of Scots had “altered her good mind to run away into England, by the reason of the gifts given her by the French.”[325] The French bribes were either not sufficiently high, or spent when the Queen-mother’s mischievous disturbance of her young son’s mind again commenced. In James V.’s childhood she regrets, in letters already quoted, that she was not a wayfaring woman, who could take her bairns on her arm and cross the Border to England and her brother with them. Now she worked with all her might on the passions of the King, eleven years of age, to elope with her from the toils and tasks of his school-days into the vicious liberty of his uncle’s court, which she painted in tempting terms, not dwelling, of course, on the life-long captivity which other Kings of Scotland, his ancestors, had suffered in the fair southern land.

The Regent Albany, to whom the turbulent conduct of his royal ward was duly reported, hastened his return to Scotland. He landed at Kircudbright, September 24, with a French force, to repel the alarming invasion threatened by the vast feudal army Henry VIII., under Surrey and Dacre, had mustered on the Borders. He soon guessed who was the instigator of the childish heroics of the young monarch at Stirling Castle—swaggering with his dagger, and striking it into faithful servants, who would not return the assault let it have been ever so murderous. Albany would not visit the Queen, and, in consequence, her letters breathe fury against him, and she set herself to betray all his plans of defense of Scotland. Lord Dacre, although likely to be benefited as a general by such conduct, could not suppress the manly English feeling that rose in his breast against it; and many were the shrewd remarks he made on the sister of his formidable sovereign, when he wrote to the English Council. In revenge, Margaret made complaints of Dacre’s inactivity—that he had not that year crossed the Scottish Borders to do mischief, although she had given him perpetual information of the movements of the aids which the Regent Albany had brought from France for the defense of Scotland. Her machinations took the desired effect on the temper of her terrific brother, and a rating was dispatched to the Lord Warden, which would have been very alarming to a chieftain less bold in character and independent of station.[326] Wolsey wrote, by order of Henry VIII., reproofs to this effect, “that there were suspicions how little Lord Dacre esteemed the mind and opinions of his sovereign’s sister.”[327] Never were suspicions better founded; Dacre’s disesteem for Margaret’s mind, opinions, and, withal, her entire conduct, could not be more complete. However, urged by her detestable instigations to carry sword and fire into the unhappy country of which she called herself Queen, a mighty muster took place of all the northern English chivalry. Led by Dacre, this force advanced and burnt Jedburgh,[328] which had just been rebuilt by the Regent Albany. It was in this campaign that Lord Dacre, according to his own remarkable letter, received more visits than were welcome from a personage with whom it will be allowed (when the general tenor of Border warfare is remembered) both himself and many of his martial auxiliaries were only too likely to become better acquainted. “The night on which the English camped in Scotland,” according to his coadjutor Surrey’s sneering dispatch, “sprites and fearful sights beset Lord Dacre’s host, and, moreover, the devil made six distinct inbreaks among their tents.” Whatsoever that potentate personally might have been doing by the lurid glare of the flames of Jedburgh, one thing is undoubted, that he was spiritually active when the following epistle was indited by Margaret; for surely never was such a one written before by the Queen of an invaded country to the General of its enemy.

“My Lord,[330] if England ever made them strong against Scotland, make them now right strong! For I assure you, since Scotland was Scotland, it was never made so strong. And, therefore, I warn you look upon your weal and honor, for you will be right sharply assayed. But to show you of truth whether the Duke of Albany will pass to the Borders or to the west, I promise you, as yet there is none that knows, for the Duke will show his mind to no Scottish man.”

Again Margaret urges her base selfish interests, bargaining for payment from her brother; and then gives the following ruinous detail of the martial strength Scotland was employing to make head against her rich and powerful enemy.

“Now I will advertise you what he (Albany) hath brought with him, and this I promise you is truth. First, he hath eight-and-twenty cannons, and four double cannons that are far greater than any that was brought to Norham at the field.[331] Also, he hath great pavasies going upon wheels with the artillery, to shoot and to break the hosts asunder; and of these he hath many; and every one of them hath two sharp swords before them, that none may touch them. They have, besides this, great number of smaller artillery of all sorts, and much powder, and all with them that pertains to it, and twelve ships with victuals and wine. And of these they have sent four of their ships, with wine and flour and four great cannons, to the west Border.”

The Regent’s arrangements were excellent, but with this betrayal of his defense of Scotland’s independence, and of the traitress’s own son, his success was not likely to be remarkable. She seems, after thus injuring the country of which she called herself Queen, to have had some faint sense of the degradation of her position; for in her next sentences she affects nationality as an Englishwoman.

“I promise you, my Lord, they trust to win Berwick with other places, as they speak right plainly and despitefully, which doth me great displeasure. Wherefore I pray you, my Lord, to cause the King’s Grace (Henry VIII.) to look well to this matter, both for his weal and honor, and the weal of his nephew. For an’ they win any advantage now, my son and I are undone, he (the Regent Albany) will be so high in his mind. Think you surely I would not write this an’ it were not truth.

“I can do no more for my part, but advertise you of all things that I know, and that I shall not fail. Also, I hear say, that Richard de la Pole[332] should come shortly into England with a power, and that there is (are those) in England that will take his part—therefore, look well about you!”

Margaret’s feelings as Englishwoman and Tudor princess might be pleaded in excuse for her betrayal of Scotland, if she could permit her biographer to do so with justice; but the remainder of her epistle is devoted to the reiteration of her expectation of base remuneration for her intelligence. An interdict from the Duke of Albany, preventing Margaret from having access to her son at Stirling, followed fast upon this letter. A hurried little billet to her brother was her next communication.

“Queen Margaret to Henry VIII.[333]

“[October 2, 1523.]

“You shall wit that I am by force put away from the King (James V.), as in part you may see by other letters which this bearer will show you. Give credence to him, and answer for it so great need. In all haste,

“Written ye wit whom.”

Endorsed—“To the Right High and Mighty Prince, my dearest brother the King.”

It may fairly be guessed, that this mysterious note was written on the same day with Margaret’s letter of remonstrance to the Regent Albany, against the very necessary measure of denying her access to her son at Stirling Castle.

“You, my Lord, and the rest of the Lords, has ordained that I shall not abide with my son, but whiles (sometimes) come and see him; and if this be reasonable, or honorable, I report me (agree) to the deed; and I believe in God, that hereafter you shall have cause to bethink you of the good and true part I have kept to you.”

The readers of Margaret’s previous letters will be rather scandalized at this willful and unasked perjury. For even supposing that Margaret suspected that the Regent meditated sufficient mischief against James V. to induce the plots and plans she had been contriving since June, for carrying off her son over the Border, yet calling on God to witness her friendship to Albany must inspire those who know her real proceedings with disgust. The whole letter is in the peculiarly canting strain of her uncle Richard III., whose profuse use of the name of God, in all his diplomatic letters, adds hypocrisy to his undoubted sins, of which, with every charitable deduction, a long list remains.

The treachery with which Queen Margaret had betrayed the whole of the defenses of Scotland, in her private letters to Surrey, raises infinitely more disgust, when contrasted with the grimace of her public letter of the 10th of November, asking truce for Scotland, because she should think herself happy, she says, “gif I might bring the same to good point, considering the great trouble that is like to be, and hath been, betwixt the realms; and I being so tender on both the sides, methink of reason there should none be so well heard as I.”[334] A greater potentate than either Henry VIII. or Surrey was hastening to declare a truce at the day she dated, November 10—even the wintry lord of storms and snow, before whose breath the petty array of human malice has often withered and fled.

Margaret’s mediation was probably the reason she was admitted to visit the King her son at Stirling, from whence her next letters are dated. Albany knew not quite as well as our readers the species of dispatches she wrote by every post to England. The following letter to Surrey was penned by her during the week in November which the indulgent Regent permitted her to spend with King James in Stirling Castle:—

“And as touching the King my son, thanked be God he is in good health, and I am with him in Stirling, and think not to be far from him in any danger that may come, if that I be not put from him by force. I beseech God if that you could see him, so that nobody knew of you but I, and then I trust you would be right well contented with him.”

Very dangerous would such visit have proved in the hostile towers of Stirling.

“And also, wit you, my Lord Surrey, the Governor Albany is in Edinburgh, and I saw him not since he came from the unhonest journey: but he thinks no shame of it, for he makes it his excuse that the Lords would not pass into England with him, and says they would have sold him in England; and therefore he hath begun the Parliament this Tuesday.”

Again the Queen repeats her soliciting clause, urging her usual plea, that, if she is not paid as the spy of the English, she must accept whatsoever the Scotch would give her; when, in good truth, she obtained all she could from both sides.

“Wherefore, I pray you, my lord, to do so to me that I need not to set by (care for) the displeasure of the Duke of Albany; or else I must be content to follow his pleasure, whether it be against my son or not. For there is none here that will contrary his pleasure, suppose he do never so much evil. And you well know, my lord, that my living that I should live upon is here, and he may do with it what he pleases. And how I have been treated since my last coming out of England is well known, and have lived, not like a princess, but a sober woman, and fain perforce to take any money the Duke of Albany would give me, as I have written before, and gotten no answer.”

Queen Margaret, at the same time, continued her endeavors to be divorced from Angus, in the expectation of marrying the Regent. Whether she would have agreed with him better than with her other husbands, can not now be known: it is not likely; for his temper was fiery, and exhaled itself in eccentricities almost as amusing as the treatment George II. used to bestow on his hat and wig. “If any thing goes contrarious to the mind and pleasure of the Regent Albany,” wrote Lord Surrey to Wolsey,[335] October, 1523, “it is his customary manner to snatch his bonnet suddenly off his head, and throw it in the fire. No man dare take it out, and there it is burnt. My Lord Dacre doth affirm that, at his last being in Scotland, the Regent did burn above a dozen bonnets after that manner.”

Then, again, Margaret, who had persecuted, betrayed, and reviled the Regent for some months, seems as if nothing would content her but his utter ruin. In regard to the caprice which is usually quoted as the motive for Margaret’s actions, it evidently was a stronger feeling which made her selfish spirit blaze out into all the murderous violence of Tudor wrath, at the least matter that irritated her at this crisis. It has been mentioned that she was jealous of Lord Fleming’s sister and the handsome Regent, and this passion worked with all the headlong fury which afterward inspired her brother when the same torch had lit up the evil now dormant in his heart. Margaret, in the following letter to Surrey, accuses Lord Fleming of the murder of his wife Euphemia and her two sisters, one of whom was supposed to be the first wife of King James IV.; she likewise accuses Lord Fleming’s sister of being the Regent’s mistress. Nor is the fury of the Queen confined to the Fleming family and the Regent; a suspicion existed that the Prioress of Coldstream—whose dangerous locality on the Borders made her the friend and intelligencer now of the English, now of the Scotch—navigating her affairs, poor woman, so as to avoid the rocks and whirlpools that beset her on either side—had betrayed some of Margaret’s correspondence. Surrey expressed his doubts of the Prioress’s sincerity; and Margaret, though never actively cruel before, only callous and selfish, now in her demoniac mood urges Surrey, if the Prioress fails in aught, “to cause her place to be burnt,” without having the least pity for the numerous helpless females who would be destroyed in a place of hospitality for the destitute in a rugged and savage country. Margaret was in a thorough state of exasperation when she wrote this letter, dated November 24. She had again been permitted to visit her son at Stirling; she then and there avowed her intention to remain with him in the royal fortress till put out by force.

“Thus, my Lord, I see great appearance of evil and danger to the King my son’s person, when they that be true lords to the King be put from him, and them that love the Governor (Albany) put to him, and that I know perfectly would have my son destroyed for pleasure of the Duke; and, most suspicion of all, they will not that I remain with him, but to come and go.”

Here it is needful again to recall the horrid tragedies which had taken place in Margaret’s own family, in order to plead her excuse for charges which seem monstrously wicked to those who know, by the common current of events, that James V. grew up, and thus proved that his guardian was faithful to his trust. Still Queen Margaret knew not the future, and she had not magnanimity sufficient to reason, that, if Albany had been false-hearted, the young King would have vanished from human ken soon after his brother the Duke of Ross died; but as he had been suffered to survive the natural infirmities of childhood, the inference might be very fairly drawn that no harm was intended against the royal boy.

“As yet,” she continues, “I am here with my son, and shall remain despite of the Governor (Albany), without that he take me away perforce. And therefore, my Lord, for God’s sake look well upon this matter, for now is time when such rules be begun for the utter destruction of my son, and that you will see some remedy to this, and to advertise me what I shall do; an’ if I and the Governor discord, what shall (will) be your part to me, and what help I shall get to bear me forth? For he (Albany) and I shall not long agree upon this.

“I set not by nothing in Scotland, an’ the King, my son, be not well.”

As before, Queen Margaret would have left young James V. to fulfill any destiny the Regent chose, if she could have induced the English commander-in-chief to have abducted her over the Border, and restored her to the pleasures and luxuries of her brother’s court. Perhaps Surrey, and Dacre as well, had had more trouble and perplexity than either honor or profit from her previous visit, as they were in no haste to avail themselves of her repeated proposals for escaping to them.

“Therefore, my Lord,” she proceeds, “I pray you, let me come to that realm (England), and devise the best way for me, and the King my son, as my trust is in you; and be not blinded no more with the Duke of Albany’s falsehood, and make no truce while this be (to be) remedied, for no sending without I send you a token.

“And haste me your counsel, I pray you; and cause the Prioress of Coldstream to send surely (safely) the answer to this bill, and send her word what you will do for her to keep her from trouble, if so she be true to me. For there is none that may so well and surely as she may convey letters betwixt; and if she fails to do it, that you will cause her place to be burnt. And this I pray you fail not to do, and God keep you!”

A benediction which certainly appears singularly out of place. The Queen was certainly in a fierce unfeminine humor when she wrote this letter. The reason of her exasperation appears as she concludes:—

“And God send your grace to help my son out of his enemies’ hands, which he will be daily in, now when these persons be put to him. For the Lord Fleming, for evil-will that he had to his wife, caused to poison three sisters, one of them his wife; and this is known of truth in Scotland. An’ if this (man) be good to put to the King my son, God knoweth! And another thing I know perfectly, that he would have my son dead. The Governor Albany and the Earl of Murray like such, for the Governor hath his sister now to his paramour!”

Thus, it is apparent that personal jealousy inspired the tone of this remarkable letter, and turned all the loving communication between Queen Margaret and the handsome Regent, which had excited the angry comments of Lord Dacre and the public remonstrances of his master, into wrath and acerbity.[336] Her suspicions of foul dealing to her son, and her murderous accusations of Lord Fleming, may all be attributable to the fact, which bursts out, if not in her postscript, according to the usual rule, at least as the conclusion of the epistle—Lord Fleming’s sister had stolen the heart of Albany. No very reputable prize for any lady, as he was yet a married man. Two days afterward Queen Margaret wrote a reproachful letter to the Regent, in which she dwells much on her attachment to the French interest, and on her fidelity to Albany and Scotland, as especial virtues in her conduct and character. She was still with her son, although murmuring perpetually at the possibility of being deprived of his company at the pleasure of the Council.

The Regent arrived at Stirling, December 9, for the purpose of examining into the royal discontents. Before the Privy Council convened, he had a private interview with the King and Queen of Scotland. He approached her deferentially, excusing himself, lamenting “that she was displeased at him.”

The Queen answered, “I have cause, as further I will show before you and the Lords.”

The Privy Council sat the next day. Queen Margaret was present, and made a speech of some length. She complained “that the new custodians positively refused to undertake the charge their country had confided to them if she had access to her son at pleasure.” And very much in the right they were, as every person must agree who has read her correspondence of that autumn.

It would have been well if Queen Margaret had had some other reporter of her speech to the Privy Council than herself; for she adds, “And I discharged me of many other sharp words that were too long to write.”

The Duke of Albany, after the Queen’s speech, bluntly told the Lords of the Privy Council, “that if they would not stand to what they had agreed on, the responsibility must rest on them for any evil that ensued.” He sought an interview with the young King, in the presence of Queen Margaret, on the succeeding morning, December 11th. “He came to the King, my son, himself,” says Margaret, “and desired that he might speak with him and me. Then he showed to the King and me the order that was devised by the Lords and him, touching such persons as were to be about him (the King), and prayed him to be contented therewith.” The young King said, “If it was for his good, he would be contented.”

Margaret answered, “I have shown my mind before him and the Lords; and therefore I can say no more now.”

She had been warned that Albany had summoned eight hundred of his French auxiliaries to take the King away from her, to some abiding-place on the western coast of Scotland. “Wherefore,” she adds, “to eschew more evil, I thought, for that time, I would not contrary them (contradict them) as to the Lords that should be about him.” At a sitting of the Privy Council, which immediately followed the interview of Albany with his royal ward, the Queen made profession before all the Lords thereof, to the effect—“That, if it was for the good of the King her son’s person, she would be contented with their arrangements; and that she would be ane good Scotswoman.” But immediately after she retired from the council-board, she had an instrument drawn up and witnessed, to the effect “that she revoked any thing that she did at this time, for it was to eschew a greater inconvenience.” When Queen Margaret had withdrawn from the Privy Council, the Duke of Albany informed the Lords “that his ships were ready, and he desired their consent to pass to France without returning more.” His wish was earnestly opposed by the Privy Council; with difficulty he was prevailed on to stay and hold his Christmas at Edinburgh, and “to bide” till Candlemas in Scotland.

Margaret acknowledged to Lord Surrey the receipt of “two hundred angel nobles” from her brother, Henry VIII. A small sum it certainly was, and very hardly extracted, after months of pertinacious begging. The Queen took care to mention the opposite bidding of the King of France, of five thousand crowns for her interest and good-will, which, according to her account, she had disinterestedly refused. But assuredly, whosoever spent money in bribing Queen Margaret, made foolish bargains, as her double-minded letters can testify.

The Duke of Albany’s wife departed this life about the commencement of the year 1524.[337] Whether this circumstance made Queen Margaret more than usually gracious to the Regent is not clearly defined; or whether the disbursement of the five thousand French crowns had effected the pacification, can not be insisted on; but she was again on very intimate terms with him on his return to Edinburgh, after the Border campaign. She met him at the gatehouse of Holyrood Palace, and great professions of kindness were exchanged on both sides.[338] Throughout the winter of 1523–4, Lord Dacre was inclined to renew his scandalous imputations on Queen Margaret’s conduct with Albany. The Duke of Norfolk was better informed. He complained of one Harry Stuart, a second son of the Lord of Avondale, a relative of the royal family, but a soldier of fortune, who had then a place in the royal household.[339] In her despair of Albany’s intentions to make her his wife, Queen Margaret bestowed some favor on Harry Stuart, enough to raise the indignation of the Duke of Norfolk, who was no other than the lately quoted correspondent of Queen Margaret, the son of the Surrey of Flodden Field, and the uncle of Anne Boleyn.

Margaret passed the winter and spring agitating her divorce from Angus; and in alternate hopes and fears as to whether Albany would marry her. “This present hour,” writes Lord Dacre to Wolsey,[340] “I am apprised by my secret espial out of Scotland, that the Lords continued together all Whitsun-week in Edinburgh; and were sitting in the Tolbooth the same Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday last, in council. The Duke entreated the Queen ‘to hold the young King in the Castle of Striveling (Stirling), and in the bounds devised for him, adjuring her not to confederate with her brother, Henry VIII.,” Margaret’s answer showed her sullen displeasure at Albany’s departure. “To which desires,” continues the spy, “the Queen denied him in part, saying—‘If he yode away, she must needs do the best she could for herself.’” In regard to the proposal of Albany to keep the young King in his regal fortress of Stirling, she condescended not to reply, meaning to act “directly contrarious,” according to her natural perversity; but the Lords sitting there, at council, observed, “They would do their best to keep the King’s Grace in, so far as they might solicit him.” The intention of Albany appears to have been entirely for the benefit of his young kinsman’s character and education. It will be soon shown by the testimony of Sir David Lindsay, the young King’s faithful chamberlain, what wild work Margaret made by her willful contradiction of the Regent’s wise injunction. The Duke then expressed his desire to the assembled Lords “that Queen Margaret should be obeyed in all her rights.” The Lords answered and said, “All the pleasure and service they might do should be at her commandment.”[341]

Queen Margaret’s very ungracious reply did not in the least impair the knightly courtesy with which the Regent, her kinsman, still treated her. After taking leave of all the Scottish lords assembled for that purpose at the Tolbooth, he rode the same night to Linlithgow; he proceeded on the Saturday to Stirling, and remained there all the Sunday, where he privately bade farewell to Margaret and the young Sovereign, for whose welfare he had made great sacrifices. The Regent arrived on the Tuesday at Dumbarton; where, the wind serving, he embarked “and sailed out of sight forthwith;” and that worthy person, the “secret espial,” assured Dacre, “that if there were any return of him, he would certify of the same.”[342]

But there was no return of him. The death of Agnes of Auvergne, his richly endowed wife, made a great difference in the revenues of the Scottish Prince, who well knew, by experience, how useless it was to return empty-handed. The ruinous campaigns of Francis I., ending in defeat and captivity at Pavia, stopped the source of supplies which Albany had hitherto drawn from France. Above all, the prospect of some species of divorce, which Queen Margaret expected to rid her of Angus, must have alarmed the Regent, lest she actually would have been at liberty to claim, on honor, the hand that report had so often bestowed on her. Margaret Tudor, free to contract lawful matrimony for the third time, was as formidable an object to John of Albany, as her brother, Henry VIII., was some years afterward to all the unmarried Princesses in Europe. Scarcely had the Regent Albany bade his last farewell to the Scottish shores, when Queen Margaret hastened to disobey his earnest injunctions. She broke into the peaceful and virtuous seclusion at Stirling Castle, where her young son was successfully pursuing his studies under the regular tuition of Gavin Dunbar, and the admirable influences of David Lindsay.

One fortnight after the Regent’s departure, the Queen undertook the farce of a pilgrimage to St. Ninians, on the Galloway coast, where, in the middle of June, she met a convention of the lords of her faction, who promised assistance in her wise plan of setting her son at liberty; meantime, she continued to make the noble boy wild for his freedom and the assumption of his regal power. But Margaret scarcely had had time to congratulate herself on her own undisputed possession of the dignity of Regent (which Albany left entirely in her hands), when she had reason to be alarmed concerning one from whose presence she had been for some time released—even her own detested spouse, the Earl of Angus, who had escaped from the honorable exile in France, for which the good-natured Regent had commuted his offenses, and had been for some months entertained by Henry VIII. with favor. Henry deliberated setting loose his guest just as Queen Margaret imagined that all matters were proceeding according to her wish. She renewed her vehement complaints concerning Angus in her letters from Stirling to her brother,[343] July, 1524, commencing her remonstrances in this strain,—

“As to my part,” she says in her letter, “your Grace sal find no fault, but I am a vhaman (woman), and may do little but by friends.

“Also, dearest brother, I have seen your writing touching my Lord of Angus, which, as your Grace writes, is in your realm, and that ye purpose to send him here shortly, and that ye find him right wise, and hath ruled him well, and that he hath desired that a peace may be between these two realms, and that he will do his labor and diligence to the same, with many other good words of him, praying me to have him in my favor, and that he is well-minded of me, and beareth me great love and favor. Dearest brother, as to my Lord of Angus and me, when your Grace desireth me to take him into my favor, as yet he hath not shown, since his departing out of Scotland, that he desireth my good-will and favor, neither by writing nor word. But now he hath desired your Grace to write for him to me, knowing well that there is none that I will do so mickle for as for your Grace. But I trust, dearest brother the King, that your Grace will not desire me to do nothing that may be hurt to me your sister, nor that may be occasion to hold me from the King my son.

“I beseech your Grace pardon me of my evil hand (bad writing), for I am something not well disposed (indisposed), and therefore I have caused my hand to be copied, in adventure (in case) your Grace could not read my evil hand, and God preserve you. Written July 14.”

But the lady’s mind more particularly appears in her postscript, which shows that she bears strong memory of the chasms the Earl’s rapacity had made in her jointure,—

“Dearest brother, please your Grace touching my Lord of Angus coming here, I would beseech your Grace to be well advised in the same as I have written of before and as touching my part, if he put hand to my gonrouffe (jointure) I will not be contented therewith, for I have but right sober thing (moderate means) to find myself with, and hath shown your Grace that divers times, and got but little remedy. Wherefore, now, an’ I be troubled with the Earl of Angus, it is your Grace that doth it, and then I will be constrained to look for other help, for I will not let him trouble me in my living, as he hath done in times past.

(Signed) “Your humble sister, Margaret.”

The oft-repeated threat that Margaret must look for other help was now of no avail, and was laughed at by Henry VIII. and his council. Francis I. was a captive, and Albany, with the most disinterested fidelity, was carrying on a dashing guerilla warfare for him almost to the gates of Rome.[344] Both Albany and his royal friend had ceased to be alarming to Margaret’s “dearest brother the King.” Though Albany had not given up all love for Scotland, and Queen Margaret wrote letters imploring his return, nevertheless the misfortunes of Francis I. forever severed the tie between him and the country whose scepter he had swayed so long.

The Archbishop of St. Andrews, who was Chancellor of Scotland, now became the object of Queen Margaret’s especial revilings, because he had opposed himself to what he terms “the young King’s erection,” being her old foolish plan of taking the boy from his studies, and giving him an unwholesome degree of liberty. It was remarkable that her alarm relative to the return of her husband did not produce some alteration in her plots and plans regarding her son. But of the result of her scheme of interrupting his education, she had not an idea. Consequently, the King was given a very evil degree of freedom in August, 1524, a few weeks after the Regent had placed before the Queen and the national council, solemnly assembled, the heinous folly of such proceeding, and the great injury it would do to the tender boy. What cared Margaret? Her selfish policy required that she should hold possession of her son’s person, knowing that the Scottish people at large would follow whosoever had power over their young King, even as the bee-master is accompanied by the whole hive when he carries the royal bee about him.

Margaret had many undertakings to fulfill on which she had fixed her headstrong inclinations, and which she fancied would be conducive to her happiness. There was her divorce from Angus on the point of declaration. Out of pique for the desertion of Albany, she determined to marry a new husband, the young, handsome Harry Stuart, already mentioned, whom, perhaps, she would not have raised to the rather undesirable distinction of her husband, if the Scottish Regent had been kinder. Lord Dacre was completely exasperated at the proceedings of Queen Margaret; he could not control his aversion, even when his expressions militated against the interest of his party and country. Margaret, in return, told tales to her formidable brother of his Lord Warden’s contumacious expressions, not only against herself, but against all female royalty for her sake. These are her words,—“Also I complain to the King my brother of what my Lord Dacre does and says to my hurt, for he says to Scottish folk, ‘that he marvels that they will let any woman have authority, and specially ME.’ Quilk words should come of others, not of Englishmen. For, the more honor I get, England will have the more; and such words as these may do me mickle ill. Therefore I desire remedy to be found in that behalf.”[345]

Henry VIII., with a wonderful exertion of brotherly kindness, as Margaret thought, had enabled her to raise a guard of two hundred mercenary soldiers, had given her a month’s pay for them, and the promise of further payments. This aid, Margaret imagined, would oblige all events to run smoothly for her; as the barons of Scotland would scarcely be able to master regularly trained soldiers, this guard, ensconced within the walls of a fortress like Stirling, would secure her son to her; and the possession of her son would give her the absolute power in Scotland for which she had sighed and striven for long years. With great satisfaction she thus expressed herself concerning them in one of her letters to the Duke of Norfolk,[346]—

“I sent Patrick Sinclair to you, my Lord, touching the money that the King’s Grace my brother ordered to the King my son for two hundred men to be about his person, which money he hath not gotten. Wherefore I desire perfitely to know if this money shall be furnished or not, and thereupon I send this bearer to know what we shall trust to; whereof, my Lord, I pray you let me be advertised. I trust the King’s Grace my brother will not change his good mind to the King my son and me, but help us to bring our matters to a good end. Suppose it be costly to his Grace, it will be steedable (available) hereafter to his Grace (Henry VIII.) Let this said money be sent with this bearer, to keep the two hundred men about the King my son, these men to be chosen as I think best for the surety of the King my son, and not to be chosen by other men’s advices.....

“And as to the money that his Grace has given to furnish the two hundred men, I assure you, my Lord, it hath done great good to the King my son, and hath hindered much evil to be done, and it is not a month since it began.”

As Henry VIII. advanced to his sister only a month’s pay at a time for this guard, the gist of the Queen’s letter is, that the next month’s allowance may be advanced rather before the day of payment.

“And whereas the said money is spent before the month, it is to be considered that at that time the expenses would be greater than at another time, for we had great matters ado, but the expense may be holden in again as we think needful. And thus, my Lord, I trust you will send the money by this bearer, and shall order it to be well ordered to the weal and surety (safety) of the King my son.”

Queen Margaret was at Edinburgh when she wrote this letter, which perhaps dates about September, 1524. Although in view of the attainment of all her projects, the alarm was renewed in her mind that her brother meant to set her repudiated husband, Angus, loose in Scotland; for, as already related, Henry VIII. had invited him to change his residence from France to England in 1523, but he had not yet been permitted to approach his court. Impelled by the fear excited by the rumor of Angus’s return, Queen Margaret added this postscript to her letter,[347]—“Touching my Lord of Angus, I pray you to keep promise with me, for I trust the King’s Grace, my brother, will not fail in that he hath promised me; but, as yet, I hear the Earl of Angus is not yet past hope of the court, whereof I marvel.”

The Queen means hope of coming to the court of Henry VIII. Angus had the daughter with him which Queen Margaret had borne him at Harbottle in the autumn of 1515. The child was the niece of the mighty English King, and, in the third degree, heiress to the crown of England, if Queen Margaret’s scheme of divorce from the father was nullified. Angus, who was nearly as selfish as his wife, knew the value of his daughter as a link of intercourse with his redoubtable brother-in-law, and therefore, kept her by his side.

Reports now began to reach King Henry that, since his sister’s disappointment of marriage with Albany, it was her intention to bring forward as her husband, and as the Keeper of the Seals of all the crown-offices in Scotland, young Harry Stuart of Avondale, whose name had for some time been connected disreputably with her own. In the greatest indignation at this disgrace to the royal families of England and Scotland, Henry VIII. not only had received his sister’s husband Angus at court, but was preparing a disagreeable surprise for her, which he intended should destroy all the fine plans she had projected for her future gratification. Without guessing the intentions of her brother, and greatly exulting in the prospects before her, Queen Margaret brought her son in triumph to Edinburgh, August 22, 1524; and, convening the next princes of the blood—the Earl of Arran, the Earl of Lennox—and all the great peers, she carried James V. in state to the upper chamber of the Tolbooth, and proposed to abrogate the authority of the Regent Albany.[348] The Chancellor of Scotland, Beton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, demurred to ratifying this act, as he knew that the Regency had been settled on Albany until the young King was eighteen; he therefore refused to affix the Great Seal to the instrument restoring to the Queen the regnant power, from which she had deposed herself by marrying. Queen Margaret sent her favorite, Harry Stuart, to deal with the Chancellor of Scotland, who fled; but the young guardsman followed him to his hiding-place, tore the Great Seal from him, and, by the orders of his royal mistress, haled him to prison, whither he conveyed for company the Bishop of Aberdeen, another of her opponents.[349]

The Duke of Norfolk was exasperated at the Queen’s despotism. He urged his royal master to send forward Dr. Magnus, because, from his admonitions as a priest, the Queen might amend her private life, as she attended to no one like him;[350] also to send home directly the Queen’s husband, the Earl of Anguish. He wrote to Wolsey that the young lieutenant of the Guard, Harry Stuart, had in his keeping the Great Seal of Scotland, torn from the Archbishop Beton, the Privy Seal, and another called the Signet and the Quarter Seal; and, as if all these charges were not enough, the Queen had conferred on him the office of Lord Treasurer[351]—a curious accumulation of grave functions for one young guardsman. “The grudge,” continues Norfolk, “is universal against the Queen, as well for that she taketh so much on herself, and is only ruled by the Earl of Arran and this Harry; as also for her ungodly living, and for keeping her husband, the Earl of Angus, out of the realm. Henry Stuart,” presuming on Queen Margaret’s favor, and his command as lieutenant of the royal life-guard, “filled the Court with his swaggering and brawling. He had a desperate quarrel with the Queen’s confidential equerry, Patrick Sinclair; but in this dispute, as in every other, her Majesty partially espoused the cause of Harry Stuart, and gave ‘right sharp words’ to Patrick Sinclair, ‘because he had not brought her a letter from the Duke of Norfolk.’” Margaret sent one of her messengers, whom she calls “Jemmy Dodge” and “Jemmy Dog,” to complain to Norfolk, who wrote thus to Wolsey,—“When I heard of her displeasure, I sent the said Jemmy Dog to her with a letter. I am assured by him she was fully contented and satisfied, which is very difficult to effect.” He adds, dryly,—“Most specially if one advise her of that which might promote her own weal, which hereafter I shall forbear to do. And yet, if I had not sent Patrick Sinclair to her, advising her in no wise to suffer the young King to go from Edinburgh, I believe her authority would at this time have been right small.”

Margaret’s unbeloved spouse was excessively impatient to be home, as soon as he found that the man of whom he stood in awe, the princely Regent, had departed from Scotland, never more to return. He commenced his journey from London in the first days of October, 1524: he arrived at Brancepeth on the 16th of that month, where he waited for a favorable opportunity to appear among his vassals on the other side of the Border.[352] The rumors of his approach inspired the Queen’s faction with alarm. The Earl of Arran, her Majesty’s prime-minister, took the liberty of their mutual descent from the Beauforts to write a letter to Henry VIII., setting forth the charms and graces of the young King of Scotland, his goodly “haviour,” his noble delectable form, his manly firm countenance, and other pre-eminent beauties.”[353] The Earl, who was at Linlithgow, the favorite palace of Queen Margaret, and wrote under her guidance, finishes by assuring her brother, “that if he suffers the Earl of Angus to re-enter Scotland, it sall not only be hurtable and annoy the Queen’s Grace, but break the peace between the realms of England and Scotland,” Not the least effect had all the remonstrances of Margaret and her ally Arran. Her husband was to return: such was the will of him who never altered his mind on any representation of others.

Margaret sent Norfolk a present of a hawk,[354] with promise of another speedily, thanking him, at the same time, for the good mind he bore her; but she bitterly lamented “her great dishonoring” at the threatened return of her husband. “Gif it be the King’s Grace’s pleasure to send in the Earl of Angus,” she adds; “yet he can not cause ME to favor him, or to let him be in my company!” She likewise sent one of her hawks to Wolsey; but she would have spared her hawks and her thanks if she could have read with us the comments of Wolsey and Norfolk on her “evil life,” and their discussions on her ignorant tyranny in tearing all the seals from the law dignitaries of the realm, and giving them to the custody of her swaggering guardsman, Harry of Avondale. Norfolk was not grateful for his hawk. In his next letter to Wolsey, he observes “that Queen Margaret was marvelous willful against the Earl of Anguish, and that she talked of throwing him into prison if he ventured to enter Scotland.”[355] Wolsey calmly but dryly advised the sister of his monarch to reconsider that determination. Meantime, he charged Norfolk not to detain Angus on any consideration, but to “speed him onward across the Border.”

The Douglas faction were much elated at his approach, and they became extremely insolent and overbearing. Their first exploit was by no means offensive to Margaret, though an alarming breach of the law; for Douglas, Lord of Drommellar, slew the Lord Fleming on the threshold of St. Giles’s Church, Edinburgh. Fleming was the nobleman whom the Queen had particularly reviled in many of her letters, as the murderer of the Drummond sisters. Lord Fleming was the intimate friend of Albany; his son Malcolm was taken, and detained prisoner by the homicide. Such was the bad beginning of the Douglas domination.

The Queen of Scotland, about the middle of October, received by Roger Radclyffe, one of Henry VIII.’s gentlemen of the bedchamber, a piece of gold-tissue which her brother had sent her. At the same time he announced that Dr. Magnus was charged to open a commission to treat of a lasting peace between England and Scotland, which were nominally still at war. Rodger Radclyffe had presents for James V. from his royal uncle, and, being an accomplished cavalier, his mission was to make himself agreeable to the young monarch of Scotland, while on Dr. Magnus devolved the more difficult task of managing his mother.

The guards which Queen Margaret had established round the person of her son proved the bane of his youth. Those in the ranks, like the Scots archer-guard of the French kings, were the younger sons of noble houses; and the officers were from those great families which claimed descent from the crown—being the Earl of Arran (always a flighty character); Harry Stuart, the Queen’s favorite; and his brothers Andrew and James of Avonmore. Sir David Lindsay draws lively pictures of the temptations with which these military courtiers beset his young King.

Worse, far worse, were the ultimate proceedings of these gentlemen of the body-guard placed about her son by Queen Margaret. The court vice of gambling is pointed out by Sir David in these emphatic words:—

These corrupting lessons from the reckless swaggerers of his mother’s garrison, were but too readily imbibed by the young sovereign. It would be waste of words to point out that the faithful Sir David Lindsay was no favorite of the Queen Mother: he was too honorable and intelligent to suit either her or her satellites. His opinions concerning the lawless mercenaries who were to support the despotism she established, in the name of her boy-King, have been quoted. It is not likely that he limited his strictures to verse, Queen Margaret dismissed Sir David Lindsay from the personal attendance on the King at the time she interrupted his education in 1524. His inestimable services were only rewarded by a small pension, which the King, child as he was, took care should be regularly paid; and Sir David still had an abiding place under the royal roof in some retired nook of Stirling Castle. Bellenden, the learned translator of Hector Boece, was likewise dismissed by Queen Margaret from his place about her son’s person. But the good foundation early laid by these great men finally supported James V.’s character. At a future day, rising superior to the corrupting influences his careless mother had permitted to have access to her “tender fair young King,” he proved his own protector—and hers as well—at an age scarcely past boyhood. The growing partiality of the Queen Regent of Scotland for the gay lieutenant of her son’s guards, exasperated her haughty brother, beyond all the rest of her freaks and caprices. He was of course more than ever opposed to her long-urged divorce; and he deputed to Dr. Magnus, Archdeacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire, the delicate diplomacy of reuniting the refractory Queen to her banished spouse. Margaret (as Norfolk assures Wolsey) listened to no one for the weal of her soul as she did to Dr. Magnus. Her first care, before he opened formally his commission, was to send Harry of Avondale to let out the captives whom he had by her orders lately caught and imprisoned, after wresting from them the disputed seals. On the day of the state reception of the English ambassadors, the recently imprisoned prelates, Beton the Chancellor and the Bishop of Aberdeen, were to say high mass before the Queen Regent and her son, in all the pomp of their dignities, as if nothing had happened. “When Dr. Magnus presented letters from Henry VIII. to the Queen and the young King, the trumpets and shaulms blew up, and did sound right pleasantly. The King and his moder passed to the mass at the Abbey Church of Holyrood;” the English ambassadors followed; “and were,” as Magnus observes, “placed with the best. In the mass-time, the young King, with his master,[361] Gavin Dunbar, was a good season occupied in looking upon the letters of his royal uncle, the King of England, so lovingly and in such cheerful manner, that, in our opinions, if he had been his own son he could not have shown more.”[362]

At that very moment Dr. Magnus knew full well that Angus had crossed the Border. As he expected the news would come that afternoon, Magnus thought it best to present the gifts which Henry VIII. had sent to propitiate Margaret. “Immediately we had dined at our own lodging,”[363] says Magnus, “we brought to King James his coat of rich cloth-of-gold, and the sword sent by the King, our master (Henry VIII.), whereof both the Queen’s Grace his moder and the young King were so glad, that forthwith it was put upon his said Grace, and was as mete as was possible,”—meaning that the coat fitted as well as it possibly could do. “The King of Scots wore his fine gold-cloth coat that afternoon in the sight of all his people, saying openly, as his Queen-Mother prompted him, ‘Ye may see how well the King mine uncle doth remember me with many things, yet I was never able to do his Grace any pleasure.’”[364] Then finding her Grace, Queen Margaret, to be very pleasantly disposed, Dr. Magnus requested to confer with her in her privy-chamber, or drawing-room. When he was alone with her, as he wrote to Henry VIII., “I first made your Grace’s loving commendations to her, showing how good and gracious you were disposed to be to her. I, Thomas Magnus, having sworn her Grace not to disclose the thing I would show her, I declared ‘that it was your Grace’s high pleasure to purpose marriage between my Lady Princess (Mary), and the young King of Scots.’ Her Grace, Queen Margaret, was right joyous thereof.” But then came a homily of reproof from Magnus, of how far she and the Earl of Arran had forgotten themselves, by each writing letters to King Henry, declaring, “that if the Earl of Angus came back, no ambassadors would be received from England.” While the Queen was professing her penitence for her ill conduct to a brother who sent by his ambassadors the rich presents which were then glittering in the eyes of all beholders, a violent knocking at her withdrawing-room door was heard. Magnus anticipated what it meant, when he heard the messenger declare “he must speak immediately to her Grace on affairs of life and death.” Magnus watched Margaret’s countenance narrowly, while she heard the tidings. He saw, as he says, by its expression, “that the news was the arrival of the Earl of Angus in Scotland. She turned to me full of wrath,” he continues, “and disclosed the same. I confessed that so it was, showing it was not possible to be contrary.”[365]

Then comes the finest play of skill in the representations of Magnus to soothe the angry Queen. He talked of Angus’s lofty stature and grand figure, of how much his beauty was admired by all King Henry’s court—how much his manners and appearance were improved since his residence in France. And as to his returning to Scotland, “if the said Earl did offend her, had she not his life and body in her hands to kill him at her pleasure?”[366] He knew right well that whatever were the faults of Margaret Tudor, she was not personally cruel; by her follies and want of foresight she might cause the deaths of thousands, but she never doomed any one to punishment, even when it was well deserved. “Whereupon her Grace began roundly to incline (to relent), saying these words,—

“God forbid that my Lord of Anguish (as she ever called Angus), being so noble a man of this realm as he is, should be in any such danger for my sake!”

Thus Magnus talked the Queen out of her resolution to seize and imprison her spouse, just as Shakspeare has described the winning of her grandmother Elizabeth Woodville by Richard III.

“I can not be familiar with the Earl of Anguish,” observed the pacified Queen, “considering the displeasures he hath done me; yet I will follow your counsels, and send for the Earl of Arran hither, and let the Earl of Anguish stay on his lands until he know our mind. The Earl of Lennox (the third Prince of the blood), though sister’s son to Arran,” she added, “would go with Angus sooner than with his uncle.”

Magnus assisted her at council with her lords, and reconciled her with the Archbishop of St. Andrews, her late prisoner, whom the Queen indicated to him with the words[367]—“Here is the Archbishop of St. Andrews, late Chancellor, being a great wise man of high experience, having great substance of goods, and many friends, whom, if it were possible, I would win, trusting, if I could so, it should be right beneficial to me.” Magnus replied, “that he wondered, if it were thus, that the Queen had thrown him in prison for high causes and treasons, and had informed her brother of the same?” Moreover, Magnus added, “he knew that it had been represented to the Queen, that as the Archbishop was a sickly man, he would have died if she had kept him longer incarcerated; and, if she had not liberated him, the people would have released him without her leave.” The Queen observed “that as priests were more agreeable to priests, Magnus should invite the Archbishop to dinner with him next day, and at the same time sound him whether he would be amenable to Henry VIII., whose interest could make him a cardinal, if he could be drawn from the French party.”[368]

Thus closed the All Halloween, which left Queen Margaret in mighty good-humor, notwithstanding the fact that Angus, her spouse, had crossed the Border. The very next morning, although the English envoy had cajoled Queen Margaret into being forgivingly disposed toward her husband, yet, when she summoned him and his colleague to her privy-chamber, she met them with a lowering countenance, and declared herself of a completely contrary opinion to what she had professed the night before. The change of mind and purpose was attributed by Magnus to the machinations of Harry Stuart.[369]

A private letter was brought in from her husband addressed to her; she repulsed it indignantly, affirming that she would neither touch nor open it. It was placed before her nevertheless; but while Magnus was present she neglected it. However, as Angus sent a copy to the Duke of Norfolk, we can have the satisfaction of reading it.

“Madame—[370]In my most humble and lowly manner, I commend my service to your Grace.

“It will please your Grace to know, that I have been with the King your brother, the which is oone of the most cristened [one of the most Christian-like] Princes, and his Grace hath entreated me so marvelous well that he hath addetted me (indebted me) to do his Grace service and honor, so far as lyes in my power—mine allegiance excepted to the King’s Grace, my master (young James V.), and your Grace, and shall do the same as gladly as any other (can do) in all the realm of Scotland, if your Grace will accept it.

“For there is no manner of thing that may be well for the King’s Grace, my sovereign, nor to your Grace’s honor and pleasure, but I shall be glad to fulfill the same.

“Madame, if there be any of my unfriends (enemies) that, in my absence, have made sinister information of me to your Grace, I would beseech your Grace so that ye would stand so good and gracious lady unto me, that ye would be content that I may speak with your Grace, and if I have offended your Grace in any manner of way, I shall reform it at the sight and pleasure of your said Grace.

“Beseeching your Grace that ye will advertise me of your mind in writing, as that I shall be ready to fulfill the same. As knoweth God, who preserve your Grace eternally.

“At Boncle, the first day of November, by the hand of your humble servant,

“Angus.”

Angus’s letter, it may be observed, was addressed all to the Queen, and nothing to the wife. Margaret’s manner of receiving it was in complete consonance with the petty intrigue which was inherent in her character. Notwithstanding the contempt which she affected in Magnus’s presence, curiosity prompted her, when he was gone, to seize the epistle of her long absent spouse, open it, and read it.[371] She then had the letter sealed up, and, with an affectation of the dignity she did not possess, pretended to send it back unopened. Some means had been taken to insure the knowledge that the Queen had unsealed her husband’s letter, for Magnus speaks very positively that she had ascertained the contents. Magnus had greatly approved of this epistle, for it had been submitted to him before it was sent: he thus mentions it in one of his dispatches to Angus—“We have seen your letter, written to the Queen’s Grace, it being right singularly well composed, and couched for the purpose. We suppose sometime this day[372] to be with her Grace; at the which time, if we may come to the knowledge of her pleasure, concerning the effect of your said letter, we shall be glad to advance your request and petition.”

Meantime Queen Margaret sent a message by the English courier, Appleby, of a very uncivil nature, to her brother, Henry VIII., which called forth something like a sermon from Wolsey, penned to the Duke of Norfolk, who was to let her know the danger and impropriety of offending England and King Henry at the same time. “Her insolent behavior,” said Wolsey,[373] “blemishing her royal house and blood from which she is descended, causeth the King’s highness to think that she is not only the most ingrate and unkind sister that ever was, to whom his Grace, neither in her tender youth nor since, hath ever given any cause.”

It seems the Bishop of Dunkeld, who had been lately imprisoned by the Queen, had heard of a plot (or had invented one), for assassinating Henry VIII. Margaret either treated it lightly, or else knew nothing about it, for it really seems to have been a specimen of the many mystifications regarding conspiracies which never were thought of by any one but the informers. If so, the whole proceeding was rather hard on Margaret. Wolsey continued to set forth the indignation felt by his Sovereign, that his sister knew of conspiracies against his life, and would not reveal them. “There hath been no matter,” he writes to Norfolk,[374] “which, in my life, I have seen his Grace (Henry VIII.) take more unkindly, or that more hath moved his royal and princely courage to think of the extreme high ingratitude, and unnatural dealing in any person, than her most strange answer given to Appleby, and the continual delay which the said Queen Margaret hath used in opening and disclosing a matter, as it is said, much to the danger of the King’s live (life) and person; so to satisfy her own malice, she would be contented to conceal, and not suffer to be discovered that thing which she might endanger her own brother’s life; and consequently, either to destroy her brother, her son, and herself, for revenging her own rancor and malice.” Wolsey concludes by hoping that Margaret may not hereafter have cause to be sorry she ever was born.[375]

The punishment ordered by Henry and Wolsey was, immediately stopping the payment of the two hundred mercenaries, of which Queen Margaret and Harry Stuart had made such a fine use. But breaking with her did not suit the English policy. Norfolk says,[376] “pleasanter letters must be written to her, or the truce will be run out; and when the war is renewed, of which she will be glad, as the mischief done by the English borderers will all fall on the demesnes of her enemies.” He takes no notice of the conspiracy, but says, “he perceives the unsteadfastness of the Queen’s demeanor, and that he knows her love for young Harry Stuart is so much, that he can turn all as he list; and it shall be well done that Master Magnus, as a priest, gives her wholesome counsel for her honor in this world, and the weal of her soul in that to come, and be plain with her, as in his first instructions; and unless he sees some likelihood that she follows the mind of the Lord Cardinal, to be round with her, not sparing to tell her, that all the realm doth marvelously speak thereof, as I doubt not they daily do.”

All the old councillors had told Norfolk “that since the Queen had had the mercenary guard, she had not heeded the advice of the wise men of the realm, thinking that, with the strength of the said armed men, she would force every body to follow her mind, which ye shall see will be as Harry Stuart will have it, and that shall be naught for us.” Norfolk reviles her other chief councillor, the Earl of Arran. Among his other crimes, “he daily wore the French King’s order on his breast (that of St. Michael), which he was not wont to wear so often.” Then adds Norfolk, in the dry quaint style peculiar to him—“Whoever have him best, is no more sure of him than he that hath an eel by the tail.”[377]

Magnus declared, “that finding Queen Margaret entirely perverse, he had given her advice, as a priest, for the weal of her soul, and reformation of her manners, as no Queen was ever given before; but she showed little appearance of amendment.” Master Magnus strongly suspected that the Queen, in return, had contrived a little plot for his especial annoyance. She sent for him and his colleague to visit her at Holyrood; and when they passed through her Grace’s great chamber, they were beset by ten or twelve Edinburgh wives, all expert scolds, who pounced on the poor ambassadors as they went to the Queen’s privy-chamber, or drawing-room, and commenced exclaiming upon them at the top of their voices. When Magnus and Radclyffe could get in a word or two above the din, to know the cause of this outburst of female eloquence, they found themselves accused, as representatives of the English government, of the capture of the husbands and goods of the aggrieved wives, notwithstanding peace proclaimed; “which mischief,” they said, “was done by the subtilty of Englishmen manning the barque of Sandwich.” “It was Hob-a-Barton,” says Radclyffe piteously, “Queen Margaret’s comptroller, and mightily in her favor, who had maliciously contrived the onset of the enraged Edinburgh wives in his royal mistress’s presence chamber.”[378] A rather curious instance of the class of persons allowed to approach thus near to royalty—for these enraged matrons were the wives of the crew of one merchant-ship.

Margaret, perhaps somewhat amused by the objurgations inflicted by the wives of Edinburgh on the ears of her brother’s ambassadors, was in a very good humor, and prepared for them a much pleasanter scene. She invited them to go with her that afternoon and see her son perform his manly exercises on Leith sands. Their description of what they saw there is addressed to the boy’s royal uncle, and is penned with a delectable quaintness which is far more characteristic than modern diction. It is written by Roger Radclyffe:—

“Now all things proceed more favorably than they did afore, by reason that in our poor suits, most humbly made to Queen Margaret’s Grace, there is for the time little that is contrarious to her pleasure. Insomuch that the Queen’s said Grace had us forth for solace (recreation) with the King’s Grace here, at Leith, and in the fields, to see him stir his horses, and run with a spear among his lords and servants at a glove.

“Also, by the Queen’s favor, we have seen his said Grace use himself pleasantly both in singing and dancing, and showing familiarity among his lords. All which his princely acts and doings be so excellent for his age—not yet thirteen till Easter next—that, in our opinion, it is not possible they should be amended. And mich more to our comfort it is, to see that in personage, favor, and countenance, and in all other his proceedings, his Grace of Scotland resembleth very mich the King’s Grace, our maister. And besides all this, his said Grace hath with most loving countenance showed unto us that mich it pleased his Grace to hear of the good manners of England, and mich it displeaseth to see his subjects exercise the fashions and manners of France. And we being present saw his Grace reprove one of his servants for that cause.”

There was adroit flattery in this dispatch to Henry, who envied his sister her fatherless boy—envying, however, more the island-heir than the promising child. He was pleased to find the brave and forward James of Scotland reckoned the miniature of himself. Unfortunately there was more resemblance in his nephew’s impetuosity and willfulness than even in his red and white complexion, the warm hue of his curling hair, and his vigorous and active form.

The day after the “notable exclamation of the wives of Edinburgh,” as Magnus terms the scene in the Queen’s presence-chamber recently detailed, an audience was given by her to the English envoy, on the subject of the infringement of the laws of the ocean, which had naturally exasperated those faithful women. “At our coming,” says Magnus, “we found the Earl of Arran, and Hob-a-Barton the Comptroller, standing beside the chair of the Queen’s Grace in her privy-chamber.”[379] Magnus having shown the Earl a letter from Henry VIII., he was so deeply offended “that he retreated into the Queen’s antechamber; and although her Grace sent to him four times, he would not return.” Margaret, it seems, would not suffer any communication between Magnus and Arran, her prime-minister, but what she heard.

The Queen continued obdurate in repulsing all billets-doux and other blandishments from her husband. His first letter was dated from his castle of Boncle, situated within a few miles of the English border. When his epistle was returned to him, and he found his submissions were of no avail, but that Magnus and his spouse were at high dispute as to whether she would permit him to take his place in the Parliament then collecting at Edinburgh Tolbooth, he resolved to wait for no permission, but make his approach according to his own will and pleasure, which was by suddenly scaling the walls of Edinburgh with a posse of his faction. He then opened the nearest gate to an armed force, headed by his friends the Earls of Lennox and Kilmorris (Glencairn), the Lord of Buccleuch, and four hundred Border cavalry.[380] The descent of these armed invaders into the midst of the peacefully sleeping city, it may be supposed, occasioned the greatest consternation. Queen Margaret heard of the arrival of her unwelcome spouse literally by “public outcry.” Directly Angus had made his formidable inbreak, he rode with his noble associates to the Market Cross, and caused his herald to make proclamation of his peaceable and amiable intentions, which every one understood were of course to last as long as everything went his own way.

Margaret, who never showed the spirit and courage of her Plantagenet descent excepting in times of sudden danger, was roused into heroism by the capture of Edinburgh. She wished to gain the strong fortress of the Castle, but found that her retreat would be cut off by her belligerent spouse; she therefore determined to keep him at bay as long as she could at her residence of Holyrood. There were two small cannon among the defenses of the portal of Holyrood Palace; these the Queen ordered to be loaded, and she gave notice that she would have them fired, if the mob raised by Angus’s partisans attempted any assault on the royal residence.

Magnus and Radclyffe, who were ostensibly of the faction of the Queen’s husband, immediately sought an audience of her, craving leave to speak with her, intending to make themselves mighty busy in the political storm then raging without and within old Holyrood. But Queen Margaret bade them sternly

“Begone, and not presume to intermeddle with Scottish affairs!”[381]

The uproar increasing without, Margaret gave the word to her cannoneers “to fire,” which was done forthwith; when the same species of execution took place which is invariable on such occasions. The mischievous disturbers of the public peace escaped all harm; while an old woman, a priest, and two merchant-mariners were slaughtered, who, poor souls, had done no other harm than looking on. A bad commencement of defense; but Margaret had never bent her thoughts toward the philosophy thus nobly expressed by Schiller in his Wallenstein:—

Strange that imagery, conceived in the highest flights of metaphysical poetry, should be frequently illustrated by simple facts, both in the records of the past and the history of Europe even at the present era.

At four in the afternoon the two intruding earls, Angus and Lennox, having acted according to their pleasure in Edinburgh all day, received the young King’s formal notice “to avoid.”[382] They thought fit to obey, and retired to Dalkeith.

All was hurry and din in old Holyrood the evening of November 26, 1524, after the failing light had seen the retreat of the Earl of Angus to Dalkeith. The Queen determined to retire forthwith from her palace, as she supposed that he would be back again directly he was somewhat recovered from the consternation occasioned by her resolute cannonade. Angus by no means possessed any superfluous stock of valor, as his Queen knew right well by former experience. Her Majesty’s first care was to secure all she held most dear, being her jewel-caskets and the young King her son; she then commenced her retreat to her stronghold of Edinburgh Castle. By torchlight, therefore, before morning, the Queen, the young monarch, James V., the officers and ladies of both their households, escorted by Harry Stuart of Avondale and his gay company of cavaliers[383] (who formed their body-guard), wended their way up to the gray citadel of Dunedin; and surely a very picturesque procession they must have made.

From thence Queen Margaret wrote a remonstrance to Wolsey, of which the following sentences contain the gist and pith: “Therefore, my Lord, I pray you consider how I am done to, and how daily the Earl of Anguish sets to take from me the King, my son; wherefore I marvel what pleasure it may be for the King’s Grace, my brother, to hold me in daily trouble. In your hands, God willing, I sal never come to any evil. And should I leave this realm, when any other princes understand how I am done to they will have pity on me. I can no more!”[384]

The consternation of Angus at the onslaught his consort had effected with her cannon lasted much longer than she had calculated. He continued his retreat till he arrived at Tantallan, from which stronghold he indited an epistle to Wolsey, couched in bitterer terms than he had as yet dared to use against the royal sister of England, “Ye are deceived by the Queen,[385] the greatest ennomyse (enemy, probably) that I have in Scotland. Therefore, please your Grace, to give no credence whatever you hear report of me. For Harry Stuart and the Earl of Cassillis are cousins-german.” The Earl of Cassillis was at that time near the ear of the English prime-minister, being ambassador. Magnus, the priest-ambassador, notwithstanding the sharp reproof with which Margaret had repelled his intermeddling on the day of the Holyrood cannonade, wrote to Wolsey somewhat in extenuation of her proceedings: “Your Grace knoweth what a haught letter the Queen wrote when she heard the Earl of Angus would enter Scotland; therefore it is not to be thought but when the Earl was come, indeed, that her Grace should be some deal further moved.[386] The Queen,” he adds, “writeth much with her own hand, and sendeth forth by one Davy Wood to the King’s highness.”

Wolsey commanded that Margaret should be propitiated by a donation of £200, and that a sop of £100 should be thrown to her Cerberus, the Earl of Arran. Magnus, however, refused to fee Arran, and gave Queen Margaret only £100, who murmured at the paucity of the gratuity. But Magnus affirmed that she would “call fast for more money,” therefore he had saved back a supply to appease her future rapacity. The Duke of Norfolk was indignant at any consideration being shown to her, and spoke his mind with his usual bold roughness: “I think none worthy to bear any blame but only the Queen, who is so blended with the folly that I have often written of to your Grace, that to have her ungodly appetite followed she careth not what she doeth. And yet, for all her evil dealing, I greatly doubt not but that all shall come well to pass, in despite of those who would be to the contrary.”[387]

The astute veteran means well for the English faction by means of Angus.