About four hundred and fifty years ago, when Henry IV. was king of
England, King Robert III., of Scotland, put his son James, the heir to
his throne, a boy of nine years old, on board ship, to send him to
France, to be educated. But the vessel was taken by some English
cruisers, and the little prince carried captive to King Henry, who
treacherously imprisoned him at Windsor Castle.
King Robert was a very loving father, and when the news of this capture
was brought to him, as he sat at supper in his palace at Rothesay, he
was so overcome with grief that he fainted and seemed about to die.
His attendants carried him to his chamber and laid him on his bed,
which he never left again; for when he came out of his swoon, he hid
his face in the pillow, and wept, and wept, refusing to be
comforted,--sending all his food away untasted, and scarcely ever
speaking, except to repeat the name of his son, over and over again, in
a way to break one's heart. So he took on for three days and nights,
and then died.
But the prince, now King James, was not so badly off as he might have
been. Though a prisoner, he was not confined in a gloomy dungeon, but
had handsome and comfortable apartments, in a tower which overlooked a
beautiful garden, where trees waved, and birds sang, and fountains
sparkled, and flowers sent up sweet perfumes to his windows. The sun
shone and the stars looked in upon him; and when a prisoner can see the
sun and the stars, he cannot feel that God has quite forgotten him, or
the angels ceased to watch over him. He was not left alone, or
deprived of employments and amusements. King Henry commanded that he
should have a right princely education. He had masters who taught him
history, grammar, oratory, music, sword-exercise, jousting, singing,
and dancing. He was handsome, graceful, and clever, but always most
celebrated for his poetical talent. As he grew to manhood, he became
one of the noblest poets of his day, and even now his verses, though
quaint and old-fashioned, are very sweet, pure, and pleasant to read.
One fresh May morning, when James had been a captive in Windsor Castle
nearly eighteen years, as he was looking down from his window, he saw a
beautiful young lady walking in the garden. She was dressed all in
white; a net of pearls and sapphires confined her golden hair, and a
rich chain of gold was about her delicate throat. By her side sported
a pretty little Italian greyhound, with a string of tinkling silver
bells around his neck.
As she moved among the flowers, the violet looked up into her eyes, and
thought their tender blue was her own reflection. The rose said to
herself, "What a rich bloom I must have, if even my shadow makes her
cheeks so red!" The lily had similar thoughts about her neck; while
the golden laburnum thought it and the sunbeams had been the making of
her hair.
This lovely dame was the Lady Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of
Somerset. Of course, King James, having little else to do, fell in
love with her without delay, and in a very short time told her so, by
means of tender rhymes, which he sent fluttering down into her path.
The Lady Jane was charmed with his verses, and found it easy to go from
admiring the poetry into loving the poet. To be frank, and tell him
so, she wrote a little billet, and tied it under the wing of a white
dove, directing him to carry it straight to the captive's window,--and
he did so. But if he had suspected what was to have come of it, I
don't believe he would have gone; for it was little rest the poor bird
got after that, between the two lovers, who kept him flying back and
forth a dozen times a day with their fond messages under his wing.
At last, King Henry got wind of this romantic affair, and, instead of
being angry; he was very glad, for he wanted King James to have an
English wife. So he took him from prison, gave him Lady Jane in
marriage, and restored him to his throne.
The poet-king and his noble queen were very kindly received in
Scotland, and lived for some time very happily and peacefully, always
dearly loving one another. But James found the kingdom in great
confusion from misgovernment, and the common people very much
oppressed. He bravely set himself to reform matters, trying to relieve
and protect the poor, and restrain and humble the rich and powerful.
His most difficult labor was to lessen the power of the great nobles,
who were in fact almost kings themselves, on their own estates, and
fought against each other, and even against the king, upon the
slightest provocation, and often without any. They rebelled against
this as being a spiteful action, and not, as it really was, a noble,
kingly effort to benefit the _whole_ kingdom. They took further
offence at the levying of some taxes for the support of the throne and
to carry on the government. The people being poor, and not used to
paying such taxes, were easily led to believe that it was King James's
avarice, and not the necessities of the government, which caused them
to be exacted. So, although he was so wise and good, and had the
welfare of his people so much at heart, he came to be looked upon as
unjust and tyrannical, by both the nobles and the common people; and
this led to a conspiracy to bring about his death.
The leader in this conspiracy was one Sir Robert Graham, a bold,
ambitious man, who was greatly embittered by having suffered an
imprisonment at the command of the King. He also enticed into the plot
the old Earl of Athole, by promising that his son, Sir Robert Stewart,
should be made king in James's place. Many others joined the plot,
upon various grounds, bringing with them their followers, to whom they
pretended that their object was to carry off a lady from the court.
Graham went off into the far Highlands, to complete his plan, and from
thence he formally recalled his allegiance to the king, bidding him
defiance, and threatening to put him to death with his own hand. In
reply to this, King James set a price upon the head of Graham, to be
paid to any one who should capture and deliver him up to justice; but
he managed to keep himself safely concealed in the mountains.
For the Christmas following this, the poor, doomed king had appointed a
feast to be held at Perth. As he was about to cross a ferry on his way
to attend this feast, he was stopped by a Highland woman, who professed
to be a prophetess. She called out to him in a loud voice, "My lord,
the king, if you pass this water, you will never return alive." The
king had read in some book of prophecy, that a king would be killed in
Scotland during that year, and was much struck by this speech of the
old woman.
Better would it have been for both himself and Scotland had he given
heed to this warning, which the old woman doubtless had better
authority than her claim to prophecy for making; but he turned
jestingly to a knight of the court, to whom he had given the title of
"the King of Love," saying, "Sir Alexander, there is a prophecy that a
king shall be killed in Scotland this year; now this must mean either
you or me, since we are the only kings in Scotland." Several other
things occurred which, if attended to, might have saved the king; but
they were all suffered to pass unheeded.
When the king arrived at Perth, there being no castle or palace
convenient, he selected for his residence an abbey of Black Friars,
which made it necessary, unfortunately, to distribute his guards among
the citizens, and thus make comparatively easy the execution of the
design of the conspirators.
On the night of the 20th of February, 1437, after some of the
conspirators, selected for that purpose, had knocked to pieces the
locks of the doors of the king's apartment, carried away the bars which
fastened the gates, and provided planks with which the ditch
surrounding the monastery was to be crossed, Sir Robert Graham left his
hiding-place in the mountains and entered the convent gardens, with
about three hundred men.
The king had spent the evening with the ladies and gentlemen of the
court, in singing, dancing, playing chess, and reading romances aloud.
All the court had retired, and James was standing before the fire, in
night-gown and slippers, talking with the queen and her ladies, when
the same Highland prophetess that had warned him at the ferry, begged
to speak with him, but was refused, because it was so late.
Suddenly there was heard without the clash of men in armor, and the
glare of torches was seen in the gardens. The king at once thought of
Sir Robert Graham and his threat, and called to the ladies who were
still in the room to keep the doors fast, so as to give him time to
make his escape. After vainly trying to break the bars of the windows,
he suddenly remembered that there was a vault running beneath the
apartment, which was used as a common sewer; whereupon he seized the
tongs, raised a plank in the floor, and let himself down. This vault
had formerly led out into the court of the convent; but, most
unfortunately, he had only a few days before ordered this opening to be
walled up, because, when playing ball, the ball had several times
rolled into it.
In the mean time, the conspirators were hunting for him from room to
room, and at last they reached the one beneath which he was hidden.
The queen and her ladies kept the door shut as long as they could, but
you will remember that the cowardly conspirators had broken the locks
and carried off the bars; and this brings us to one of the most devoted
and heroic acts in Scottish history. Catherine Douglas, one of the
noblest (both by rank and nature) and loveliest of the queen's ladies,
when she found that the bar was gone, with that high spirit which has
made her race wellnigh the most famous of Scotland, thrust her
beautiful, naked arm through the staples, in the place of the bar, and
thus kept the door closed till her arm was crushed and broken by the
pressure of the brutal traitors on the other side. When this heroic
defence was overcome, they burst headlong into the room, with swords
and daggers drawn, beating down and trampling on the brave ladies who
did their best to keep them back. One of them was in the act of
killing the queen, but a son of Graham prevented it, by exclaiming,
"What would you do with the queen? She is but a woman! Let us seek
the king!"
After a careful, but unsuccessful search, they went away to look in
other parts of the building. The king having heard their departure,
and being very cold and uncomfortable, asked the ladies to help him out
of the vault. But some of the conspirators had remembered this vault,
and just at this moment they returned to search it. They tore up the
plank, and there stood the poor, doomed king in his night-gown, and
entirely unarmed; at which, one of them said, "Sirs, I have found the
bride for whom we have been seeking all night."
First, two brothers, named Hall, jumped into the vault, with drawn
daggers; but the king was a very powerful and active man, and he at
once threw them both down, and was trying to get a dagger from them,
when Graham himself leaped down. Then James, finding that defence was
useless, asked him for mercy, and for a little time to confess his
sins. But Graham replied, "Thou never hadst mercy on any one,
therefore thou shall receive no mercy; and thy confessor shall be only
this good sword." Whereupon he ran the king through the body. Then,
possibly overcome with remorse, or fearing the consequences of the
deed, he was for leaving the king to the chances of life and death; but
the others fiercely called out that if he did not kill the king, he
himself should die. At this, he and the two Halls dispatched the poor
monarch with their daggers. After his death, sixteen wounds were found
upon his breast alone.
And this was the end of the great and good James I. of Scotland, who,
king though he was, died a martyr for the rights of the people.
The Journal from England to Ireland.