Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/581

A.D. 1424 refused; but added that it would be a pleasure and an advantage to himself to make the campaign in France under so renowned a captain as himself. We have, therefore, seen James of Scotland commanding a detachment of Henry's army, on condition that within three months after its close he should be allowed to return to Scotland.

Henry VI

It would seem that the Government of the infant Henry VI. did not feel themselves bound by the engagement between James and Henry V., for he was still in captivity when Bedford suggested the policy of his release. The father and grandfather of James, Robert II., and Robert III., had been monarchs rather amiable than of great capacity; James was a very different person, His English education, his life and experience at the English court in the midst of very stirring times, and men of great talents, had operated on a mind naturally vigorous to such advantage, so that he was not only a very accomplished man, but, as he showed, endowed with all the qualities of a great and active monarch.

James I. was in person handsome, in constitution vigorous, in mind frank, affable, generous, and just. His accomplishments were of a high order. He had cultivated a knowledge of books and music in his many long years of solitary life in the Tower and at Windsor. At Windsor love had made a poet of him. He beheld from his window one of the queen's ladies in the court below, who wonderfully attracted his attention. This lady was Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, grand-daughter of John of Gaunt, and niece of Bishop Beaufort, afterwards the cardinal, the educator of the boy-king. Joan Beaufort was a fitting consort for the youthful King of Scotland. When he came, under Henry V., to have more liberty and freer intercourse with the court, her beauty and excellence entirely won his heart, and in honour of her he wrote the "King's Quhair," that is, the King's Book, a poem which to this day continues to be admired by all lovers of our old, genuine poetry.

On the arrival of Catherine of Valois, the young bride