Chapter V: Summary (1)

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.

“When thou wert young, I bore thee on mine arm
Full tenderly, till thou began to _gang_,[312]
And in thy bed oft lapped thee full warm,
With lute in hand full sweetly to thee sang;
Sometimes in dancing fitfully I flang,
And sometimes played thee farces on the floor,
And sometimes like a fiend transfigurate.
And sometimes like a griesly ghost of gray;
In divers forms ofttimes disfigurate,
Sometimes disguised for thee full pleasantly.
So since thy birth I have continually
Been exercised, and aye to thy pleasure;
Have often been thy steward, _cupper_,[313] carver,
Thy purse-master and secret treasurer--
Thine usher, aye since thy nativity,
Who to this hour hath kept my loyalty.
Laud be unto the blessed Trinity,
That such a wretched worm hath made so able
Unto so great a prince to be agreeable.”

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,--

“She could climb on ane cord, and laugh, and play the fool;
She might have been a minstrel against Yule.”

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.

“For now thou art by natural influence,
High of _ingine_[316] and right inquisitive,
Of antique stories and of deeds martial,
Most pleasantly the time to over-drive,
I have, at length, the stories to describe,
Of Hector, Arthur, and the gentle Julius,[317]
Of Alexander and the great Pompieus,[318]
And of leil lovers many a story amiable,
I have for thee ofttimes feigned many a fable.”

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

“Queen of the sea and beauty of the night.”

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.