Two knichtis war, Achilles and Tersete;
That ane maist vailyeand, this othir maist coward.
Better is to be, sayis Juvinall the poete,
Tersetis son, havand Achilles sprete,
With manly force his purpos to fulfill,
Than to be lord of every land and strete,
And syne maist cowart, cumin[696] of Achill.
Man, callit ay maist nobill creature,
Becaus his life maist reason dois assay,
Ay sekand honour with his besy cure[697],
And is na noble quhen honour is away.
Thairfore he is maist nobill man, thow say,
Of all estatis, under reverence,
That vailyeantly doith close the latter day,
Of native cuntre deand[698] in defence.
The glore of armis and of forcy dedis,[699]
Quhen thay ar worthy to be memoriall,
Na les be wit than manheid ay procedis.
As Plinius wrait in Story Naturall,
Ane herd of hertis is more strong at all,
Havand ane lion aganis the houndis foure,
Than herd of lionis arrayit in battall,
Havand ane hert to be thair governoure.
Quhen fers Achilles was be Paris slane,
Amang the Grekis began ane subtell plede,
Quhay was maist nobill and prudent capitane
Into his place and armour to succede;
Quhay couth[700] thaim best in every dangeir lede,
And sauf[701] thair honour as he did afore.
The vailyeant Ajax wan not for his manhede
Quhen wise Ulysses bure away the glore.
Manhede but prudence is ane fury blind,
And bringis ane man to schame and indegence.
Prudence but manhede cumis oft behind,
Howbeit it have na les intelligence
Of thingis to cum than gone, be sapience.
Thairfore quhen wit and manhede doith concurre
Hie honour risis with magnificence:
For glore to noblis is ane groundin spurre.
[686] the praise is.
[687] those who propose to take place.
[688] must.
[689] which.
[690] fearful.
[691] strain, race.
[692] courtesy.
[693] same stock.
[694] overcome.
[695] host.
[696] come, begotten.
[697] care.
[698] dying.
[699] powerful deeds.
[700] who could.
[701] save, preserve.
ADDRESS
TO BELLONA AND KING JAMES V.
_From the “Proloug apoun the Traduction of Titus Livius.”_[702]
Armipotent lady, Bellona serene,
Goddes of wisdome and jeoperdyis of were[703],
Sister of Mars, and ledare of his rene.
And of his batallis awfull messingere!
Thy werelyke trumpett thounder in mine ere--
The horribill battellis and the bludy harmes--
To write of Romanis, the nobil men of armes.
And bricht Appollo with thy cours eterne,
That makis the frutis spring on every ground,
And with thy mychty influence dois governe
The twynkland sternes about the mappamound[704]!
Thy fyry visage on my vers diffound[705],
And quikin the spretis of my dull ingine[706]
With rutiland[707] beme of thy low[708] divine.
And ye my soverane be line continewall,
Ay cum of kingis your progenitouris,
And writis in ornate stile poeticall
Quik-flowand vers of rethorik cullouris,
Sa freschlie springand in youre lusty flouris
To the grete comforte of all trew Scottismen,
Be now my muse and ledare of my pen!
That be youre helpe and favoure gracius
I may be abill, as ye commandit me,
To follow the prince of storie, Livius,
Quhais curious ressouns tonit ar so hie.
And every sens sa full of majeste
That so he passes uther stories all,
As silver Diane dois the sternis[709] small.
For I intend of this difficill werk
To mak ane end or I my lauboure stint[710],
War not the passage and stremes ar sa stark[711],
Quhare I have salit, full of crag and clynt[712],
That ruddir and takillis of my schip ar tynt[713];
And thus my schip, without ye mak support
Wil peris lang or[714] it cum to the port.
[702] The prologue consists of twenty stanzas, of which the first four
and the last are here printed.
[703] hazards of war.
[704] map of the world.
[705] diffuse.
[706] the spirits of my dull intelligence.
[707] glittering.
[708] flame.
[709] stars.
[710] stop.
[711] strong, hard to encounter.
[712] hard rock.
[713] lost.
[714] perish long ere.
THE EXCUSATION OF THE PRENTAR.
_Prefixed to the Translation of Boece’s History._
Ingyne[715] of man be inclinatioun
In sindry wyse is geuin, as we se.
Sum men ar geuin to detractioun,
Inuy, displeseir, or malancolie,
And to thair nychbouris hes no cherite.
Sum ar so nobill and full of gentilnes,
Thay luf no-thing bot joy and merynes.
Sum ar at vndir[716], and sum maid vp of nocht:
Sum men luffis peace, and sum desiris weir[717].
Sum is so blyth in-to his mery thocht
He curis[718] nocht, so he may perseueir
In grace and fauour of his lady deir.
Sum boldin[719] at othir in maist cruell feid[720],
With lance and dagar rynnis to the deid[721].
Ane hes that mycht ane hundreth weil sustene,
And leiffis[722] in wo and pennance at his table,
And of gud fallois comptis nocht ane bene[723];
His wrechit mynd is so insaciable;
As heuin and hell wer no-thing bot ane fable
He birnis ay, but sycht[724] to gud or euil,
And rynnis with all his baggis to the deuil.
And I the prentar, that dois considir weil
Thir sindry myndis of men in thair leuing[725],
Desiris nocht bot on my laubour leil[726]
That I mycht leif, and of my just wynnyng
Mycht first pleis God, and syne our noble Kyng,
And that ye reders bousum and attent[727]
Wer of my laubour and besynes content.
And in this wark, that I haue heir assailyeit
To bring to lycht, maist humely I exhort
Yow nobill reders, quhare that I haue failyeit
In letter, sillabe, poyntis lang or schort,
That ye will of your gentrice it support[728],
And tak the sentence[729] the best wyse ye may;
I sall do better, will God, ane-othir day.
[715] Spirit.
[716] Some are deep-thinking.
[717] war.
[718] cares.
[719] rage.
[720] feud.
[721] death.
[722] lives.
[723] of good fellows counts not a bean.
[724] He burns, without regard.
[725] living.
[726] loyal.
[727] compliant and attentive.
[728] of your courtesy forbear with it.
[729] composition.
ANNO DOMINI.
_The opening stanzas of “The Benner of Pietie.”_
Quhen goldin Phebus movit fra the Ram
Into the Bull to mak his mansioun,
And hornit Dean in the Virgin cam
With visage paill in hir assentioun,
Approcheand to hir oppositioun;
Quhen donk Awrora with hir mistie schowris,
Fleand of skyis the bricht reflexioun,
Hir siluer teiris skalit[730] on the flouris;
The sesoun quhen the greit Octauian
Baith erd[731] and seis had in his gouernance
With diademe as roy Cesarian
In maist excellent honor and plesance,
With every gloir that micht his fame advance;
Quhen he the croun of hie triumphe had worne,
Be quhais peax and royell ordinance
The furious Mars wes blawin to the horne[732];
The samyne[733] tyme quhen God omnipotent
Beheld of man the greit callamitie,
And thocht the tyme wes than expedient
Man to redeme fra thrald captiuite,
And to reduce him to felicitie
With body and sawle to be glorificat
Quhilk wes condempnit in the lymb[734] to bie
Fra[735] he wes first in syn prevaricat;
Before the Fader, Mercye than appeiris
With flude of teris rainnand fra hir ene,
Said, “Man hes bene in hell fyve thowsand yeiris,
Sen he wes maid in feild of Damascene,
And cruwall tormentis dayly dois sustene
But ony confort, cryand for mercie.
How may thy grace nocht with thy pietie mene[736]
Off thy awin[737] werk the greit infirmitie?”
“And be the contrare,” then said Veretie,
“Thy word eterne but end is permanent,
Vnalterat, but mvtabilitie,
Withowttin slicht of ony argument;
Quhen Adame wes fund inobedient
In Paradice thruche his ambitioun,
Perpetualy, be richtous jugement,
Off thy blist visage tynt[738] fruisioun.”
Than Pece said, “Lord haif in thy memorie
That man, thy wark, was creat to that fyne[739],
That he micht haif perfyte felicitie
With thé aboif the hevynis cristellyne--
Quhilk Lucifer did thrwch his foly tyne--
Sumtyme maid to thy image worthiest:
It wes said than be prophecie devyne
That thow sowld sleip and in my bosom rest.”
And Justice said, “His odius offence
Contrare thy hie excellent dignitie,
His oppin syn and wilfull negligence,
Befoir thy sicht sowld mair aggregit[740] bie,
Sen thow art Alpha, O, and Veretie:
Be richtous dome, Adame and all his seid,
For tressone done agane thy maiestie,
Condempnit is to thoill[741] the bitter deid[742].”
Thir ladeis foure, contending beselie
With argumentis and mony strong repplyis,
Beffoir the blissit Fader equalie,
Sum for justice, and sum for mercie cryis.
The Fader wret ane sentence in this wyiss,
“For tressone done aganis oure maiestie,
The bittir deid salbe are sacrifyiss
The grit offence of man to satisfie.”
[730] scattered.
[731] earth.
[732] declared rebel. See note, p. 97.
[733] same.
[734] limbo.
[735] From the time when.
[736] lament.
[737] own.
[738] lost.
[739] end.
[740] aggravated.
[741] suffer.
[742] death.
KING JAMES THE FIFTH.
More romance is associated in the popular mind of Scotland with the
career of James the Fifth than with that of any other of the romantic
race of Stuart, except perhaps the last of the line, the hero of the
’45. For three centuries stories of the amours and escapades of “the
Gudeman of Ballengeich” have formed the familiar tradition of the
countryside; his exploits have been the subject of innumerable songs,
ballads, and minstrel lays, from “The Jolly Beggar” itself, to “The
Lady of the Lake”; and even at the present day the eye of a Scotsman
kindles with lively reminiscence; at mention of the kindly “King of the
Commons.”
Son of that gallant James who fell at Flodden, and of Margaret, the
hot-blooded sister of Henry VIII., he might have been predicted to
make for himself a life more eventful than that of most men. His
time, besides, fell at a crisis in Scottish history--the meeting of
the counter currents of the old order and the new in the Reformation.
Whatever the causes, the fact remains that from his birth at Linlithgow
on 10th April, 1512, till his death at Falkland on 14th December,
1542, the career of James V. presents a continuous series of personal
episodes as dramatic as anything on the historic stage. Dating his
reign from the most tragic disaster in Scottish history, he was crowned
King of Scotland before he could speak, a month after his father’s
death on the battlefield. Smiled on by the Muses in his cradle, his
childish gambols have been made a sunny picture for all time by the
verses of his childhood’s companion, one of the greatest of the
national poets. Invested with the sceptre at twelve years of age, at
sixteen he suddenly astonished his enemies by proving that he could
wield it, making himself at one stroke and in a few hours absolute
master of Scotland.
Nothing, perhaps, shows one side of the character of James--his
decision, daring, and resolute energy--better than the transaction
of the night in May, 1528, when, slipping the Douglas leash at
Falkland, he galloped through the defiles of the Ochils with Jockie
Hart, and appeared at once as unquestioned king among his nobles at
Stirling. As energetic, however, and almost as dramatic were the
young monarch’s measures for restoring order in his disordered realm.
Under the Douglas usurpation every abuse had been rampant, might had
everywhere overridden right, and outrage had everywhere scorched
the land with sorrow and fire. Such a state of things was only to
be righted by an iron hand, and if the acts of James have sometimes
appeared severe to modern eyes, there can be no doubt that severity
was needed. In particular, the young king’s descent upon the Border
has been remembered in story and song.[743] Shutting up the Border
lords beforehand in Edinburgh, he swept suddenly through Ettrick
Forest, Eskdale, and Teviotdale, surprising freebooters like Cockburn
of Henderland, Scott of Tushielaw, and Johnnie Armstrong, in their
own fastnesses, and by the execution of swift, sharp justice reduced
these lawless regions forthwith to tranquillity. Rebellions in the
Orkneys and the Western Isles were quelled with tact and promptitude;
the attempts of the Douglases upon the marches were met and defeated
by superior force, and the insidious approaches of Henry VIII. were
checkmated by sending a force of seven thousand Highlanders over seas
to assist O’Donnel, the Irish chief, in his efforts to shake off the
English yoke.
[743] The dramatic incidents of the raid have been immortalized in
famous ballads like “Johnnie Armstrong,” “The Sang of the Outlaw
Murray,” and “The Border Widow’s Lament.”
One incident in the life of James illustrates vividly the spirit of
extravagant devotion which the character of the Stuarts from first to
last seems to have been capable of exciting in their followers. During
a royal progress through his dominions the young king was entertained
by the Earl of Athole in a sumptuous palace of wood erected for the
occasion on a meadow at the foot of Ben y Gloe. Hung with tapestries
of silk and gold, and lit by windows of stained glass, this palace,
surrounded by a moat and by towers of defence in the manner of a
feudal castle, lodged the king more luxuriously than any of his own
residences. Yet on the departure of the royal cavalcade the Earl,
declaring that the palace which had lodged the sovereign should never
be profaned by accommodating a subject, to the astonishment of the
Papal legate who was present, ordered the whole fabric, with all that
it contained, to be given to the flames.
It was at this period of his life that James engaged in most of those
romantic adventures by which, under his assumed name of “the Gudeman
of Ballengeich,” he is popularly remembered. He was as fearless as he
was energetic, and upon tidings of misdeeds, however remote, he made no
hesitation in getting instantly on horseback and spurring at the head
of his small personal retinue to attack and punish the evil-doers. In
these excursions he constantly shared extreme perils and privations
with his followers. These and the perils of his too frequent intrigues
with the fair daughters of his subjects form the burden of most of the
traditions current regarding him. One of the most characteristic of
these traditions is preserved by Scott in his _Tales of a Grandfather_,
was used by the great romancist for the plot of “The Lady of the
Lake,” and forms the subject of the favourite drama of “Cramond Brig.”
Another, hardly less dramatic and amusing, also preserved by Scott, is
that of James’s turning the tables upon Buchanan of Arnpryor, the bold
“King of Kippen.”
None of his adventures, however, surpasses in romantic incident the
weightier matter of the king’s own marriage. In the hope of withdrawing
Scotland from the support of France in the great continental rivalry
then going on, the Emperor Charles V. had in turn offered James
alliance with his sister, the Queen of Hungary, his niece the daughter
of the King of Denmark, and with a second niece the Princess Mary of
Portugal; while Henry VIII. had offered his own daughter Mary to the
young monarch. In one case the whole of Norway was offered by way of
dowry. But James had a mind of his own on the subject, and was not to
be tempted from the ancient policy of the country. Sir David Lyndsay
was accordingly despatched to arrange a marriage with the daughter of
the Duc de Vendôme, the head of the princely house of Bourbon. The
treaty was all but concluded, when suddenly, among the attendants of
some nobles freshly arrived from Scotland, the princess recognised
James himself. Irking at his envoy’s delay he had hit upon this device
for forming personal acquaintance with his bride, but his identity was
betrayed by a portrait which he had previously sent her. For eight
days he was sumptuously entertained by the Bourbons, but, dissatisfied
in some way with the choice which had been made for him, he formed an
excuse to visit the court of Francis I. There he fell in love with
the king’s eldest daughter, the fragile Princess Magdalene. She, it
appears, became also passionately attached to him, and, notwithstanding
all obstacles--the warnings of the physicians and the reluctance of
Francis to expose his daughter to an inhospitable climate, the two were
married on 1st January, 1537, and after four months of rejoicings and
utmost happiness sailed for Scotland. The gallant fleet of fifty ships
sailed up the Firth of Forth on the 28th of May, and it is narrated
that as she landed to pass to Holyrood the fair young queen stooped
down and kissed the soil of her husband’s country.
This romantic method of royal match-making, however, must be considered
to have cost James dear. His continued absence from the country had
left room for the machinations of his enemies; his previous good
fortune seemed, upon his return, to fail him; and worst of all, amid
the increasing troubles of the time he seems to have been oppressed by
a certain foreboding.
Forty days after landing, and while preparations were being made for
her triumphal progress through the country, the seventeen-year-old
queen died. “And,” says Lindsay of Pitscottie, “the king’s heavy moan
that he made for her was greater than all the rest.” A second marriage,
it is true, was, for political reasons, and with the approval of
Francis, forthwith arranged for James, and in the summer of 1538 Marie,
daughter of the Duc de Guise, was received with gallant display by her
royal consort at St. Andrews. But three months later, news arrived
from France that the daughter of the Duc de Vendôme had sickened of
her disappointment, and was dead. “Quhairat,” to quote Pitscottie
again, “when the King of Scotland got wit, he was highlie displeased
(distressed), thinkand that he was the occasion of that gentlewoman’s
death also.”
Meanwhile the intrigues of Henry VIII. and the banished Douglases had
succeeded in corrupting a great part of the Scottish nobility. Twice
was the life of James attempted; first by the Master of Forbes, a
brother-in-law of the Earl of Angus, and next by Angus’s sister, Janet
Douglas, Lady Glammis. With envious eyes and diminishing loyalty the
Scottish nobles saw the English peers enriched by Henry’s distribution
of the confiscated church lands, while James consistently refused to
carry out the same plan of spoliation in Scotland. The climax of the
young king’s troubles was reached in 1542. Hitherto Henry VIII., in his
designs upon the independence of the northern kingdom, had confined
himself to the arts of policy and bribery, suborning the trusted
servants of the crown, and embroiling James between the rights of the
church and the ambition of the nobles. Now, however, the time seemed
ripe, and he sent the English forces openly across the Border. These
were met and routed with courage and promptitude; and, overjoyed at his
success, the Scottish king had made full preparations for retaliating,
and was marching south at the head of his army, when at Fala his nobles
suddenly refused to carry war into England, and forced him to abandon
the campaign. This dishonour before his people, followed immediately
by the disgraceful rout of a Scottish army at Solway Moss, broke the
gallant young monarch’s heart. To add to his sorrows his two infant
sons had died within a short time of each other. Upon hearing of the
destruction of his troops he shut himself up in the palace of Falkland,
where, overwhelmed with grief and despair, he sank under a burning
fever. One hope still sustained him: the birth of an heir to the throne
was hourly expected. On the 7th of December news arrived that the queen
had been safely delivered. To the king’s eager question the messenger
replied that the infant was “ane fair dochter.” “Is it so?” said James;
“Fairweill! The crown cam with a lass, and it will gang with a lass.”
Whereupon, in the quaint words of Pitscottie, “he commendit himselff
to the Almightie God, and spak litle from thensforth, bot turned his
back to his lords and his face to the wall.” On the 14th of December he
passed away.
There exists an interesting description of James from the pen of
Ronsard, who accompanied the queen from France and was a servant at the
Scottish court.
Ce Roy d’Escosse etoit en la fleur de ses ans;
Ses cheveux non tondues, comme fin or luisans,
Cordonnez et crespez, flottans dessus sa face,
Et, sur son cou de lait, luy donnoit bon grace.
Son port etoit royal, son regard vigoureux,
De vertus et d’honneur et de guerre amoureux;
La douceur et la force illustroit son visage,
Si que Venus et Mars en avoient fait partage.
Not yet thirty-one years of age at his death, and notwithstanding the
corrupting influences to which in early youth he had been purposely
exposed by the Douglases, James had shown himself a noble and active
prince. Had he gone with the tide and consented to gratify his
courtiers with the plunder of the monasteries, like Henry VIII., his
reign might have been less troubled and his memory less maligned by
interested historians. He has been chiefly accused of an unrelenting
severity towards members of the house of Douglas, and of cruelty in
assenting to the death of Lady Glammis. Buchanan’s assertion, however,
of the innocence of this lady, though followed by many historians,
has been sufficiently answered by Tytler;[744] and James’s consistent
refusal to show favour to the Douglases can be blamed by no one who
takes into consideration the king’s early treatment by that house, the
insult and ravage with which they met his assumption of power, their
persistent attempts to undermine his authority and take his life, and
the final success which, by his death in the prime of manhood, finally
crowned their efforts. Like his ancestor, the first of his name, James
succeeded for a time in making “the bush keep the cow” in Scotland, and
had he only been moderately supported by those who should have been his
lieutenants, there can be no doubt that he would presently have made
his realm a model of just administration. As it is, his reign must be
honourably remembered for what he accomplished in this direction, and
for the wise laws which he made for the restraint of feudal violence.
A monument of his administrative power exists in the establishment of
the College of Justice, which, under the name of the Court of Session,
remains the supreme tribunal of Scotland to the present day.
[744] _History of Scotland_, vol. ii., p. 361, and note z. The
historian shows that the attempt to poison the king was by no means the
first capital offence of which Lady Glammis had been convicted, though
her youth and beauty were used by the reforming party to excite popular
feeling against James.
But there is reason for believing that James the Fifth left evidence of
genius in another field. Drummond of Hawthornden in his _History_ (p.
346) states that “James V. was naturally given to poesie, as many of
his works yet extant testifie.” Bellenden in his prologue to Livy thus
addresses the king:
And ye, my soverane, be line continewall
Ay cum of kingis youre progenitouris,
And writis in ornate stile poeticall
Quik-flowand vers of rethorik cullouris,
Sa freschlie springand in youre lusty flouris
To the gret comfort of all trew Scottismen,
Be now my Muse and ledare of my pen.
And one of Lyndsay’s poems, the “Answer maid to the Kingis Flyting”
leaves no doubt on the subject. The writer begins by stating that he
has read the monarch’s “ragment,” and he ends with a compliment on the
royal verse:
Now, Schir, fairweill, because I can nocht flyte;
And thocht I could I wer nocht till avance,
Aganis your ornate meter to indyte.
The fame of James V.’s poetical talents is even understood to have
spread as far as Italy, and to have led to his mention by Ariosto.[745]
[745] _Orlando Furioso_, canto xiii., stanzas 8 and 9.
Four separate poems attributed to James are extant at the present
day--“Peblis to the Play,” “Christis Kirk on the Grene,” “The
Gaberlunzieman,” and “The Jolly Beggar.” The authorship of the last two
of these has at no time been seriously questioned. The authenticity of
“Peblis to the Play” and “Christis Kirk,” however, has been the subject
of considerable debate, some critics assigning these two poems to James
the First. The evidence on both sides may be briefly stated.