Chapter V: Summary (2)

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.

“‘Sir,’[356] some would say, ‘an’ like your majesty
Shall now go to your liberty,
Thou shalt by no man be subjected,
Nor in the school no more corrected.
We think them very natural fools,
That learn o’ermeikle in the schools.

Sir, you must learn to turn a spear,
And bear you like a man of war--
For we shall put such men about you,
That all the world and more shall _doubt_ you.’
Then on his Grace _they put a guard_,[357]
Which hastily got their reward;
They did solace his majesty.
Some caused him revel at the racket,
Some haled him to the _harly-hacket_,
And some, to show their courtly courses,
Would ride to Leith and run their horses;
To swiftly gallop o’er the sands
They neither spared spurs nor wands,
Casting gambades with bends and becks--
For wantonness some broke their necks.”

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:--

“There was no play but cards and dice,
And vilest flattery bore its price;
Methought it was a piteous thing
To see that fair young tender King,
Of whom these gallants felt no awe,
Playing with them at ‘Pluck the _craw_.’[358]
They became rich, I can be sure,
But aye my Prince remained poor.
There was not one of that ill garrison
But learned him some evil lesson.
Some went to crack,[359] and some to flatter,
Some played the fool, and some did chatter.
Said one, ‘De’il stick me with a knife,
But, Sir, I know a maid in Fife,
One of the loveliest fairest lasses,
For which, by Mary! there she passes.’
‘Hold thy tongue, brother,’ said another,
‘I know a fairer than that other!
Sir, when ye please to Lithgow pass,
There ye shall see a buxom lass!’
‘Now, pribble prabble, hey, trow low!’
Cried the third man, ‘thou dost but mow:[360]
When his Grace comes to fair Stirling,
There he shall see a day’s darling.’”

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_:--

“For when the ball
Has left its cannon, and is on its flight,
It is no longer a dead instrument!
It lives, a spirit passes into it!
The avenging furies seize possession of it,
And with sure malice guide it the worst way.”

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.