The new king, with Angus for his Governor, Argyll for his Chancellor, and
with the Kers and Hepburns in office, was crowned at Scone about June 25,
1488. He was nearly seventeen, no child, but energetic in business as in
pleasure, though lifelong remorse for his rebellion gnawed at his heart.
He promptly put down a rebellion of the late king's friends and of the
late king's foe, Lennox, then strong in the possession of Dumbarton
Castle, which, as it commands the sea-entrance by Clyde, is of great
importance in the reign of Mary and James VI. James III. must have paid
attention to the navy, which, under Sir Andrew Wood, already faced
English pirates triumphantly. James IV. spent much money on his fleet,
buying timber from France, for he was determined to make Scotland a power
of weight in Europe. But at the pinch his navy vanished like a mist.
Spanish envoys and envoys from the Duchess of Burgundy visited James in
1488-1489; he was in close relations with France and Denmark, and caused
anxieties to the first Tudor king, Henry VII., who kept up the Douglas
alliance with Angus, and bought over Scottish politicians. While James,
as his account-books show, was playing cards with Angus, that traitor was
also negotiating the sale of Hermitage Castle, the main hold of the
Middle Border, to England. He was detected, and the castle was intrusted
to a Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell; it was still held by Queen Mary's
Bothwell in 1567. The Hepburns rose to the earldom of Bothwell on the
death of Ramsay, a favourite of James III., who (1491) had arranged to
kidnap James IV. with his brother, and hand them over to Henry VII., for
277 pounds, 13s. 4d.! Nothing came of this, and a truce with England was
arranged in 1491. Through four reigns, till James VI. came to the
English throne, the Tudor policy was to buy Scottish traitors, and
attempt to secure the person of the Scottish monarch.
Meanwhile, the Church was rent by jealousies between the holder of the
newly-created Archbishop of Glasgow (1491) and the Archbishop of St
Andrews, and disturbed by the Lollards, in the region which was later the
centre of the fiercest Covenanters,--Kyle in Ayrshire. But James laughed
away the charges against the heretics (1494), whose views were, on many
points, those of John Knox. In 1493-1495 James dealt in the usual way
with the Highlanders and "the wicked blood of the Isles": some were
hanged, some imprisoned, some became sureties for the peacefulness of
their clans. In 1495, by way of tit-for-tat against English schemes,
James began to back the claims of Perkin Warbeck, pretending to be
Richard, Duke of York, escaped from the assassins employed by Richard
III. Perkin, whoever he was, had probably been intriguing between
Ireland and Burgundy since 1488. He was welcomed by James at Stirling in
November 1495, and was wedded to the king's cousin, Catherine Gordon,
daughter of the Earl of Huntly, now supreme in the north. Rejecting a
daughter of England, and Spanish efforts at pacification, James prepared
to invade England in Perkin's cause; the scheme was sold by Ramsay, the
would-be kidnapper, and came to no more than a useless raid of September
1496, followed by a futile attempt and a retreat in July 1497. The
Spanish envoy, de Ayala, negotiated a seven-years' truce in September,
after Perkin had failed and been taken at Taunton.
The Celts had again risen while James was busy in the Border; he put them
down, and made Argyll Lieutenant of the Isles. Between the Campbells and
the Huntly Gordons, as custodians of the peace, the fighting clans were
expected to be more orderly. On the other hand, a son of Angus Og,
himself usually reckoned a bastard of the Lord of the Isles, gave much
trouble. Angus had married a daughter of the Argyll of his day; their
son, Donald Dubh, was kidnapped (or, rather, his mother was kidnapped
before his birth) for Argyll; he now escaped, and in 1503, found allies
among the chiefs, did much scathe, was taken in 1506, but was as active
as ever forty years later.
The central source of these endless Highland feuds was the family of the
Macdonalds, Lords of the Isles, claiming the earldom of Ross, resisting
the Lowland influences and those of the Gordons and Campbells (Huntly and
Argyll), and seeking aid from England. With the capture of Donald Dubh
(1506) the Highlanders became for the while comparatively quiescent;
under Lennox and Argyll they suffered in the defeat of Flodden.
From 1497 to 1503 Henry VII. was negotiating for the marriage of James to
his daughter Margaret Tudor; the marriage was celebrated on August 8,
1503, and a century later the great grandson of Margaret, James VI. came
to the English throne. But marriage does not make friendship. There had
existed since 1491 a secret alliance by which Scotland was bound to
defend France if attacked by England. Henry's negotiations for the
kidnapping of James were of April of the same year. Margaret, the young
queen, after her marriage, was soon involved in bitter quarrels over her
dowry with her own family; the slaying of a Sir Robert Ker, Warden of the
Marches, by a Heron in a Border fray (1508), left an unhealed sore, as
England would not give up Heron and his accomplice. Henry VII. had been
pacific, but his death, in 1509, left James to face his hostile brother-
in-law, the fiery young Henry VIII.
In 1511 the Holy League under the Pope, against France, imperilled
James's French ally. He began to build great ships of war; his
sea-captain, Barton, pirating about, was defeated and slain by ships
under two of the Howards, sons of the Earl of Surrey (August 1511). James
remonstrated, Henry was firm, and the Border feud of Ker and Heron was
festering; moreover, Henry was a party to the League against France, and
France was urging James to attack England. He saw, and wrote to the King
of Denmark, that, if France were down, the turn of Scotland to fall would
follow. In March 1513, an English diplomatist, West, found James in a
wild mood, distraught "like a fey man."
Chivalry, and even national safety, called him to war; while his old
remorse drove him into a religious retreat, and he was on hostile terms
with the Pope. On May 24th, in a letter to Henry, he made a last attempt
to obtain a truce, but on June 30th Henry invaded France. The French
queen despatched to James, as to her true knight, a letter and a ring. He
sent his fleet to sea; it vanished like a dream. He challenged Henry
through a herald on July 26th, and, in face of strange and evil omens,
summoned the whole force of his kingdom, crossed the Border on August
22nd, took Norham Castle on Tweed, with the holds of Eital, Chillingham,
and Ford, which he made his headquarters, and awaited the approach of
Surrey and the levies of the Stanleys. On September 5th he demolished
Ford Castle, and took position on the crest of Flodden Edge, with the
deep and sluggish water of Till at its feet. Surrey, commanding an army
all but destitute of supplies, outmanoeuvred James, led his men unseen
behind a range of hills to a position where, if he could maintain
himself, he was upon James's line of communications, and thence marched
against him to Branxton Ridge, under Flodden Edge.
James was ignorant of Surrey's movement till he saw the approach of his
standards. In place of retaining his position, he hurled his force down
to Branxton, his gunners could not manage their new French ordnance, and
though Home with the Border spears and Huntly had a success on the right,
the Borderers made no more efforts, and, on the left, the Celts fled
swiftly after the fall of Lennox and Argyll. In the centre Crawford and
Rothes were slain, and James, with the steady spearmen of his command,
drove straight at Surrey. James, as the Spaniard Ayala said, "was no
general: he was a fighting man." He was outflanked by the Admiral
(Howard) and Dacre; his force was surrounded by charging horse and foot,
and rained on by arrows. But
"The stubborn spearmen still made good
Their dark impenetrable wood,"
when James rushed from the ranks, hewed his way to within a lance's
length of Surrey (so Surrey writes), and died, riddled with arrows, his
neck gashed by a bill-stroke, his left hand almost sundered from his
body. Night fell on the unbroken Scottish phalanx, but when dawn arrived
only a force of Border prickers was hovering on the fringes of the field.
Thirteen dead earls lay in a ring about their master; there too lay his
natural son, the young Archbishop of St Andrews, and the Bishops of
Caithness and the Isles. Scarce a noble or gentle house of the Lowlands
but reckons an ancestor slain at Flodden.
Surrey did not pursue his victory, which was won, despite sore lack of
supplies, by his clever tactics, by the superior discipline of his men,
by their marching powers, and by the glorious rashness of the Scottish
king. It is easy, and it is customary, to blame James's adherence to the
French alliance as if it were born of a foolish chivalry. But he had
passed through long stress of mind concerning this matter. If he
rejected the allurements of France, if France were overwhelmed, he knew
well that the turn of Scotland would come soon. The ambitions and the
claims of Henry VIII. were those of the first Edwards. England was bent
on the conquest of Scotland at the earliest opportunity, and through the
entire Tudor period England was the home and her monarch the ally of
every domestic foe and traitor to the Scottish Crown.
Scotland, under James, had much prospered in wealth and even in comfort.
Ayala might flatter in some degree, but he attests the great increase in
comfort and in wealth.
In 1495 Bishop Elphinstone founded the University of Aberdeen, while
(1496) Parliament decreed a course of school and college for the sons of
barons and freeholders of competent estate. Prior Hepburn founded the
College of St Leonard's in the University of St Andrews; and in 1507
Chepman received a royal patent as a printer. Meanwhile Dunbar, reckoned
by some the chief poet of Scotland before Burns, was already denouncing
the luxury and vice of the clergy, though his own life set them a bad
example. But with Dunbar, Henryson, and others, Scotland had a school of
poets much superior to any that England had reared since the death of
Chaucer. Scotland now enjoyed her brief glimpse of the Revival of
Learning; and James, like Charles II., fostered the early movements of
chemistry and physical science. But Flodden ruined all, and the country,
under the long minority of James V., was robbed and distracted by English
intrigues; by the follies and loves of Margaret Tudor; by actual warfare
between rival candidates for ecclesiastical place; by the ambitions and
treasons of the Douglases and other nobles; and by the arrival from
France of the son of Albany, that rebel brother of James III.
The truth of the saying, "Woe to the kingdom whose king is a child," was
never more bitterly proved than in Scotland between the day of Flodden
and the day of the return of Mary Stuart from France (1513-1561). James
V. was not only a child and fatherless; he had a mother whose passions
and passionate changes in love resembled those of her brother Henry VIII.
Consequently, when the inevitable problem arose, was Scotland during the
minority to side with England or with France? the queen-mother wavered
ceaselessly between the party of her brother, the English king, and the
party of France; while Henry VIII. could not be trusted, and the policy
of France in regard to England did not permit her to offer any stable
support to the cause of Scottish independence. The great nobles changed
sides constantly, each "fighting for his own hand," and for the spoils of
a Church in which benefices were struggled for and sold like stocks in
the Exchange.
The question, Was Scotland to ally herself with England or with France?
later came to mean, Was Scotland to break with Rome or to cling to Rome?
Owing mainly to the selfish and unscrupulous perfidy of Henry VIII.,
James V. was condemned, as the least of two evils, to adopt the Catholic
side in the great religious revolution; while the statesmanship of the
Beatons, Archbishops of St Andrews, preserved Scotland from English
domination, thereby preventing the country from adopting Henry's Church,
the Anglican, and giving Calvinism and Presbyterianism the opportunity
which was resolutely taken and held.
The real issue of the complex faction fight during James's minority was
thus of the most essential importance; but the constant shiftings of
parties and persons cannot be dealt with fully in our space. James's
mother had a natural claim to the guardianship of her son, and was left
Regent by the will of James IV., but she was the sister of Scotland's
enemy, Henry VIII. Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow (later of St Andrews),
with the Earl of Arran (now the title of the Hamiltons), Huntly, and
Angus were to advise the queen till the arrival of Albany (son of the
brother of James III.), who was summoned from France. Albany, of course,
stood for the French alliance, but when the queen-mother (August 6, 1514)
married the new young Earl of Angus, the grandson and successor of the
aged traitor, "Bell the Cat," the earl began to carry on the usual
unpatriotic policy of his house. The appointment to the see of St
Andrews was competed for by the Poet Gawain Douglas, uncle of the new
Earl of Angus; and himself of the English party; by Hepburn, Prior of St
Andrews, who fortified the Abbey; and by Forman, Bishop of Moray, a
partisan of France, and a man accused of having induced James IV. to
declare war against England.
After long and scandalous intrigues, Forman obtained the see. Albany was
Regent for a while, and at intervals he repaired to France; he was in the
favour of the queen-mother when later she quarrelled with her husband,
Angus. At one moment, Margaret and Angus fled to England where was born
her daughter Margaret, later Lady Lennox and mother of Henry Darnley.
Angus, with Home, now recrossed the Border (1516), and was reconciled to
Albany; against all unity in Scotland Henry intrigued, bribing with a
free hand, his main object being to get Albany sent out of the country.
In early autumn, 1516, Home, the leader of the Borderers at Flodden, and
his brother were executed for treason; in June, 1517, Albany went to seek
aid and counsel in France; when the queen-mother returned from England to
Scotland, where, if she retained any influence, she might be useful to
her brother's schemes. But, contrary to Henry's interests, in this year
Albany renewed the old alliance with France; while, in 1518, the queen-
mother desired to divorce Angus. But Angus was a serviceable tool of
Henry, who prevented his sister from having her way; and now the heads of
the parties in the distracted country were Arran, chief of the Hamiltons,
and Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, standing for France; and Angus
representing the English party.
Their forces met at Edinburgh in the street battle of "Cleanse the
Causeway," wherein the Archbishop of Glasgow wore armour, and the
Douglases beat the Hamiltons out of the town (April 30, 1520). Albany
returned (1521), but the nobles would not join with him in an English war
(1522). Again he went to France, while Surrey devastated the Scottish
Border (1523). Albany returned while Surrey was burning Jedburgh, was
once more deserted by the Scottish forces on the Tweed, and left the
country for ever in 1524. Angus now returned from England; but the queen-
mother cast her affections on young Henry Stewart (Lord Methven), while
Angus got possession of the boy king (June 1526) and held him, a
reluctant ward, in the English interest.
Lennox was now the chief foe of Arran, and Angus, with whom Arran had
coalesced; and Lennox desired to deliver James out of Angus's hands. On
July 26, 1526, not far from Melrose, Walter Scott of Buccleuch attacked
the forces guarding the prince; among them was Ker of Cessford, who was
slain by an Elliot when Buccleuch's men rallied at the rock called "Turn
Again." Hence sprang a long-enduring blood-feud of Scotts and Kers; but
Angus retained the prince, and in a later fight in the cause of James's
delivery, Lennox was slain by the Hamiltons, near Linlithgow. The spring
of 1528 was marked by the burning of a Hamilton, Patrick, Abbot of Ferne,
at St Andrews, for his Lutheran opinions. Angus had been making futile
attacks on the Border thieves, mainly the Armstrongs, who now became very
prominent and picturesque robbers. He meant to carry James with him on
one of these expeditions; but in June 1528 the young king escaped from
Edinburgh Castle, and rode to Stirling, where he was welcomed by his
mother and her partisans. Among them were Arran, Argyll, Moray,
Bothwell, and other nobles, with Maxwell and the Laird of Buccleuch, Sir
Walter Scott. Angus and his kin were forfeited; he was driven across the
Border in November, to work what mischief he might against his country;
he did not return till the death of James V. Meanwhile James was at
peace with his uncle, Henry VIII. He (1529-1530) attempted to bring the
Border into his peace, and hanged Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, with
circumstances of treachery, says the ballad,--as a ballad-maker was
certain to say.
Campbells, Macleans, and Macdonalds had all this while been burning each
other's lands, and cutting each other's throats. James visited them, and
partly quieted them, incarcerating the Earl of Argyll.
Bothwell and Angus now conspired together to crown Henry VIII. in
Edinburgh; but, in May 1534, a treaty of peace was made, to last till the
death of either monarch and a year longer.