Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/235

Rh acceding to his dying wish, they hanged him over the bridge in a halter of horse hair. After this the nobles disbanded their feudal array, being only anxious to secure the person of the king, while the Duke of Gloucester was enabled to take Berwick without resistance, and advance unopposed to the capital. It was now deemed a fitting time by Angus and his associates to hint at their plan, which they had kept in reserve, of dethroning the king, and placing Albany in his room, under English protection; but the Scottish nobles were not only astonished, but indignant at the idea. They had caballed against the king, and executed summary justice upon his favourites; but to sacrifice the liberties of their country had never entered into their calculations. Bell-the-Cat, therefore, with all his audacity, was obliged to unite with them, not only in opposing the English invasion, but effecting a reconciliation between the royal brothers. After this last measure was accomplished, Angus returned to his disloyal and unnational intrigues, as the principal negotiator of the Duke of Albany with the English government; until, at last, the duke himself was impeached by the Estates as a traitor, and obliged to flee, first to England and afterwards to France, where, a few years after, he was killed, not in actual battle, but in the chance medley of an idle tournament.

After the departure of the Duke of Albany from the kingdom, the Earl of Angus scarcely appears in Scottish history; or, if his name occurs, it is only incidentally. It is scarcely to be supposed, however, that he remained idle during the plots that were afterwards formed against James III.; and it is certain, that when the rebellion broke out, he was one of the insurgent lords who fought against the royal army at the battle of Sauchie Burn, at which the king was assassinated while he fled from the field. On the accession of James IV., still a minor, the earl was allowed to take his full share in the government; but when the young king had arrived at manhood, his vigorous intellect soon perceived that the lords, who had arrayed him in arms against his father, and procured his advancement to the throne, had only used him as a tool for their own selfish purposes. He therefore regarded them with displeasure; and among the foremost of these was the Earl of Angus, who, in consequence, went to England full of resentment, and there entered into a secret treaty with Henry VII., the particulars of which are unknown. It appears, however, to have been so suspicious, that on his return to Scotland, he was met, by an order from the king to confine himself in ward in his castle of Tantallan; and soon after, the lands and lordship of Liddesdale, and the castle of Hermitage, were taken from him, and given to the Earl of Bothwell.

The reign of James IV. was popular and energetic—one of those reigns, indeed, in which neither royal favourite nor royal antagonist can have much hope of success. For years, therefore, extending from 1491 to 1613, we hear nothing in our national annals of the bold ambitious Earl of Angus; and it is probable that during this long interval he quietly took his place as a Scottish councillor in the Estates, and a feudal chief among his retainers, neither suspected nor giving cause of suspicion. It is also not unlikely, that seeing his country in peace, and every year becoming more prosperous, his better feelings may have taught him that those turbulent schemes in which he had been formerly engaged were not, by any means, the best for ultimately accomplishing the happiness and independence of Scotland. That such was the effect of his retrospections, as years advanced upon him, may be charitably concluded from the closing scene of his career.