[1482-1486 A.D.] 24th, 1482, by the troops of Richard of Gloucester, and the castle being also yielded, this strong fortress and valuable sea-port never afterwards returned to the dominion of Scotland. In other respects the English sought no national advantage by the pacification.

James was in this manner restored to his liberty, and, either from fickleness of temper or profound dissimulation, appeared for a time to be so much attached to Albany, that he could not be separated from him for a moment. The concord of the royal brethren showed itself by some demonstrations which would seem strange at the present day. They rode together, on one occasion mounted on the same horse, from the castle of Edinburgh, along the principal street, down to the abbey of Holyrood, to the great joy and delectation of all good subjects. Every night, also, according to Ferrerius," the king and Albany partook the same bed.

But this fraternal concord, which must have had from the beginning its source in a degree of affectation, did not long continue; and the predominant disposition of each prince disconcerted their union. The ambition of Albany would have alarmed the fears of a less timorous or suspicious man than James. It appears too plainly that the duke resumed his treasonable practices with the court of England [in a treaty dated February 11th, 1483], and it would seem that his intrigues were discovered, and that the greater part of the Scottish nobles, incensed at his perfidy, joined in expelling him from the government. [By a parliament which met June 27th, 1484] doom of forfeiture was pronounced against Albany, and he fled to England, having first, as the last act of treachery in his power, delivered up his castle of Dunbar to an English garrison, and thus, in so far as in him lay, exposed the frontiers of which he was the warden. The next year witnessed the battle of Lochmaberry, the event of a foray undertaken by Douglas and Albany into Annandale, in which Douglas was made prisoner,' and Albany obliged to fly for his life, July 22nd, 1485.

Richard III had now begun his brief and precarious reign. A short negotiation speedily arranged a truce with Scotland, September 21st, 1484, which might have had some endurance if the monarchs who made it had remained steady on their thrones. But James, when he felt himself uncontrolled in his sovereignty, used it, as his inclinations determined him, in founding expensive establishments for the cultivation of music, and in the erection of chapels and palaces in a peculiar species of architecture, in which the Gothic style was mingled with an imitation of the Grecian orders. To meet the expense of these buildings and foundations, and to gratify his natural love of amassing treasure, James watched and availed himself of every opportunity by which he could collect money; nor did he hesitate to appropriate to these favourite purposes funds which the haughty nobles were disposed to consider as perquisites of their own. A particular instance of this nature hurried on James' catastrophe.

In order to maintain the expenses of a double choir in the royal chapel of Stirling, the king ventured to apply to that purpose the revenues of the priory of Coldingham. The two powerful families of Home [Hume or Hoome] and Hepburn had long accounted this wealthy abbey their own property. The king's appropriation of the revenues which they had considered as destined to the advantage of their friends and clansmen disposed these haughty chiefs to seek revenge as men who were suffering oppression. The spirit of dis

[1"If ever subject deserved the death of a traitor, it was this last of the Black Douglases," says Hume Brown. He died in prison, however, and Albany was killed by accident while witnessing a tournament in France in 1486.]

[1487-1488 A.D.]

content spread fast among the southern barons, much influenced by the earl of Angus, a nobleman both hated and feared by the king, who could not be supposed to have forgotten the manner in which he had acquired his popular epithet of Bell-the-Cat. In the vain hope of controlling his discontented nobles, the king showed his fears more than his wisdom by prohibiting them to appear in court in arms, with the exception of Ramsay, whose life had been spared upon his entreaty at the execution of Lauder bridge. James had made this young man captain of his guard, and created him a peer, by the name of Lord Bothwell, under which title the new favourite had succeeded, if not to the whole power, at least to much of the unpopularity of Cochrane, whose fate he had so nearly shared.

A NEW REVOLT AND THE DEATH OF JAMES III (1488 A.D.)

A league was now formed against James, which was daily increased by fresh adherents till it ended in a rebellion which could be compared to no similar insurrection in Scottish history save that of the Douglas in the preceding reign.

The fate of James III was not yet determined, notwithstanding this powerful combination. He had on his side the northern barons, and was at least as powerful as his father had been at the siege of Abercorn. But he had not his father's courage, or the sage counsels of Bishop Kennedy. The malcontents, instead of attending the king's summons to court, withdrew to the southward, and raised their banners in open insurrection. James, unnerved by his fears, repaired to the more northern regions, in which the strength of his adherents lay, and by the assistance of Athol, Crawford, Lindsay of the Byres, Ruthven, and other powerful chiefs of the east and north, assembled a considerable army. The insurgent lords advanced to the southern shores of the Forth.

During some indecisive skirmishes, and equally indecisive negotiations, the associated nobles contrived to get into their hands the king's eldest son, the duke of Rothesay, by the treachery of Shaw of Sauchie, his governor. This gave a colour to their enterprise which was of itself almost decisive of success. They erected the royal standard of Scotland in opposition to its monarch, and boldly proclaimed that they were in arms in behalf of the youthful prince, whose unnatural father intended to put him to death and to sell the country to the English.

The king retired upon Stirling; but the faithless Shaw, who had betrayed the prince to the rebel lords, completed his treachery by refusing James' access to the castle of that town. In a species of despair the king turned southward, like a stag brought to bay, with the purpose of meeting his enemies in conflict. The battle took place at Sauchieburn, June 11th, 1488, not far from Falkirk, where Wallace was defeated, and yet nearer to the memorable field of Bannockburn, where Bruce triumphed. At the first encounter the archers of the king's army had some advantage. But the Annandale men, whose spears were of unusual length, charged, according to their custom, with loud yells, and bore down the left wing of the king's forces. James, who was already dispirited from seeing his own banner and his own son brought in arms against him, and who remembered the prophecy of the witch, that he should fall by his nearest of kin, on hearing the cries of the border-men lost courage entirely, and turned his horse for flight. [His sword was found on the field.] As he fled at a gallop through the hamlet of Milltown, his charger, a fiery animal, presented to him on that very morning by Lindsay

[1488 A.D.] of the Byres, took fright at the sight of a woman engaged in drawing water at a well, and threw to the ground his timid and inexperienced rider. The king was borne into the mill, where he was so incautious as to proclaim his name and quality. The consequence was, that some of the rebels who followed the chase entered the hut and stabbed him to the heart.d

Though it is in some contradiction with the relations of Buchanan m and Ferrerius, we give the story of Lindsay of Pitscottie, retaining in part its quaint language and spelling."

PITSCOTTIE'S ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH OF JAMES III

The king fell aff his horse before the mill door of Bannockburne, and so was brused with the fall, being heavie in armour, that he fell in ane deadlie swoon: And the miller and his wife haled him into the mill, and not knowing quhat he was, cast him up in a nook, and covered him with a cloth; while at the last the kingis host, knawing that he was fled, debated themselves manfully, and knowing that they were borderers and thieves that dealt with

them, therefore they had the more courage to defend themselves. Nevertheless, they retired and fled in guid ordour quhill they came to the Torwood, and there debated long time till the night came, and fled away as quyetlie as they might, and part passed to Stirling. But their enemies, on the other side, followed them very sharply, so that there was many taken, hurt, and slain of them. As the kingis enemies were retiring back, the king himself was overcome lying in the mill, and cryed if there was a priest to make his confessioun. The miller and his wife hearing his words, inquyred of him quhat man he was, and what was his name.

He happened to say, unhappilie: "This day at morne I was your king." Then the milleris wife clapped her hands, and ran forth and cried for a priest. In the meantime ane priest was cvming by; sum says he was my lord Grayes servant;' quho answered and said, "here am I ane priest, quhere is the king?" Then the miller's wife took the priest by the hand and led him in at the mill

[1 This priest in Lord Gray's service was said to be named Borthwick.]

[1488 A.D.]

door, and how soon as the priest saw the king he knew him incontinent, and kneilled doun on his knies, and inquired of the king's grace if he might live if he had good leech-ment: he answered him he trowed he might, but he would have had a priest to tak his adwyce, and to give him his sacrament. The priest answered, "That sall I do haistilie"-and pulled out a whinger [dirk] and strak him four or fyve tymes evin to the heart, and syne got him on his back and had him away. But no man knew quhat he did with him, nor where he buried him. Nor no trail of the king was gotten a month thereafter. This battle was fought on the eighth day of June, in the yeir of God 1488 yeires.

This may be an example to all kings that come hereafter, not to fall from God, and to ground themselves upon the vaine sayings and illusiones of devillis and sorcereris, as this feible king did, quhilk pat him in suspitioun of his nobilitie, and to murther and exyll his awin native brother. For, if he had used the counsall of his wyse lords and barons, he had not come to sick disparatioun, nor suspitione, quhilk he was moved to take be vaine and vicked persones, quhilk brought him to a mischievous end. Therefore we pray all godly kings to take example by him, and to fear God, and to use wyse and godlie counsall, having respect to their high calling, and to doe justice to all

men.9

TYTLER'S ESTIMATE OF JAMES III

A body ascertained to be that of James was afterwards found in the neighbourhood, and interred with royal honours beside his queen, in the abbey of Cambuskenneth. Thus perished in the prime of life, and the victim of a conspiracy headed by his own son, James III of Scotland; a prince whose character appears to have been misrepresented and mistaken by writers of two very different parties, and whose real disposition is to be sought for neither in the mistaken aspersions of Buchanan, nor in the vague and indiscriminate panegyric of some later authors. Buchanan, misled by the attacks of a faction, whose interest it was to paint the monarch whom they had deposed and murdered as weak, unjust, and abandoned to low pleasures, has exaggerated the picture by his own prejudices and antipathies; other writers, amongst whom Abercromby" is the most conspicuous, have, with an equal aberration from the truth, represented him as almost faultless.

That James had any design, similar to that of his able and energetic grandfather, of raising the kingly power upon the ruins of the nobility, is an assertion not only unsupported by authentic testimony, but contradicted by the facts which are already before the reader. That he was cruel or tyrannical is an unfounded aspersion, ungraciously proceeding from those who had experienced his repeated lenity, and who, in the last fatal scenes of his life, abused his ready forgiveness to compass his ruin. That he murdered his brother is an untruth, emanating from the same source, contradicted by the highest contemporary evidence, and abandoned by his worst enemies as too ridiculous to be stated at a time when they were anxiously collecting every possible accusation against him. Yet it figures in the classical pages of Buchanan;m a very convincing proof of the slight examination which that great man was accustomed to bestow upon any story which coincided with. his preconceived opinions, and flattered his prejudices against monarchy.

Equally unfounded was that imputation, so strongly urged against this prince by his insurgent nobles, that he had attempted to accomplish the perpetual subjection of the realm to England. His brother Albany had truly done so; and the original records of his negotiations, and of his homage sworn

8

[1460-1488 A.D.] to Edward, remain to this day, although we in vain look for an account of this extraordinary intrigue in the pages of the popular historians. In this attempt to destroy the independence of the kingdom, it is equally certain that Albany was supported by a great proportion of the nobility, who now rose against the king, and whose names appear in the contemporary muniments of the period; but we in vain look in the pages of the Fadera, or in the rolls of Westminster and the Tower, for an atom of evidence to show that James, in his natural anxiety for assistance against a rebellion of his own subjects, had ceased for a moment to treat with Henry VII as an independent sovereign. So far, indeed, from this being the case, we know that at a time when conciliation was necessary, he refused to benefit himself by sacrificing any portion of his kingdom, and insisted on the re-delivery of Berwick with an obstinacy which in all probability disgusted the English monarch, and rendered him lukewarm in his support.

James' misfortunes, in truth, are to be attributed more to the extraordinary circumstances of the times in which he lived than to any very marked defects in the character or conduct of the monarch himself, although both were certainly far from blameless. At this period, in almost every kingdom in Europe with which Scotland was connected, the power of the great feudal nobles and that of the sovereign had been arrayed in jealous and mortal hostility against each other. The time appeared to have arrived in which both parties seemed convinced that they were on the very confines of a great change, and that the sovereignty of the throne must either sink under the superior strength of the greater nobles, or the tyranny and independence of these feudal tyrants receive a blow from which it would not be easy for them

to recover.

In this struggle another remarkable feature is to be discerned. The nobles, anxious for a leader, and eager to produce some counterpoise to the weight of the king's name and authority, generally attempted to seduce the heir apparent, or some one of the royal family, to favour their designs, bribing him to dethrone his parent or relation by the promise of placing him immediately upon the vacant throne.

In the struggle in Scotland, which ended by the death of the unfortunate monarch, it is important to observe, that although the pretext used by the barons was the resistance to royal oppression and the establishment of liberty, the middle classes and the great body of the people took no share. They did not side with the nobles, whose efforts on this occasion were entirely selfish and exclusive. On the contrary, so far as they were represented by the commissaries of the burghs who sat in parliament, they joined the party of the king and the clergy, by whom very frequent efforts were made to introduce a more effectual administration of justice, and a more constant respect for the rights of individuals and the protection of property.

James' great fault seems to have been a devotion to studies and accomplishments which, in this rude and warlike age, were deemed unworthy of his rank and dignity. He was an enthusiast in music, and took great delight in architecture, and the construction of splendid and noble palaces and buildings; he was fond of rich and gorgeous dresses, and ready to spend large sums in the encouragement of the most skilful and curious workers in gold and steel; and the productions of these artists, their inlaid armour, massive gold chains, and jewelled-hilted daggers, were purchased by him at high prices, whilst they themselves were admitted, if we believe the same writers, to an intimacy and friendship with the sovereign which disgusted the nobility. The true account of this was, probably, that James received these ingenious