Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/283

A.D. 1542.] pursuit of the English. But he soon found that different causes paralysed his intended chastisement. Many of the nobles were in favour of the Reformation, and held this martial movement as a direct attempt to maintain the Papal power and the influence of Beaton and his party. Others were in secret league with the banished Douglases, who were on the English side; and there were not wanting those who sincerely advised a merely defensive warfare, and pointed out the evils which had always followed the pursuit of the English into their own country. They represented the truth, that Norfolk and his army, destitute of provisions, and suffering from the inclemency of the weather, were already in full retreat homewards. But James would not listen to these arguments; he burned to take vengeance on the English, and after halting on Fala Muir, and reviewing his troops, he gave the order to march in pursuit of Norfolk; but, to his great consternation, he found that nearly every nobleman refused to cross the borders. They pleaded the lateness of the season, the want of provisions for the army, and the rashness of following the English into the midst of their own country, where another Flodden Field might await them.

James was highly exasperated at this defection, and denounced the leaders as traitors and cowards, pointing out to them their unpatriotic conduct, when they saw all around them the towns and villages burnt, the farms ravaged, and the people expelled or exterminated along the line of Norfolk's march. It was in vain that he exhorted or reproved them; they stole away from his standard, and the indignant king found himself abandoned by the chief body of his army. For himself, however, he disdained to give up the enterprise. He dispatched a force of 10,000 men under Lord Maxwell, to burst into the western marches, ordering him to remain in England laying waste the country as long as Norfolk had remained in Scotland. James himself awaited the event at Caerlaverock Castle; but, discontented with the movements of Lord Maxwell, whom he suspected of being infected by the spirit of the other insubordinate nobles, he dispatched his favourite, Oliver Sinclair, to supersede Lord Maxwell in the command.

This was an imprudent measure, calculated to excite fresh discontent, and it did do it effectually. The proud nobles who surrounded Maxwell threw down their arms, swearing that they would not serve under any such royal minion; the troops broke out into open mutiny; and in the midst of this confusion, a body of 500 English horse riding up under the Lords Dacre and Musgrave, the Scots believed it to be the vanguard of Norfolk's army, and fled in precipitate confusion. The English, charging furiously at this unexpected advantage, surrounded great numbers of the fugitives, and took 1,000 of them prisoners. Amongst them were the greater portion of the nobles. Maxwell himself was one of the number; the Earls of Cassilis and Glencairn; the Lords Somerville, Fleming, Oliphant, and Gray; the masters of Erskine and Rothes, Home of Ayton. All these were sent prisoners to London, and given into the custody of different English noblemen. Many of the prisoners were believed to give themselves up willingly, as disaffected men who were ready to sell their country to England; and others are said to have been seized by border freebooters, and sold to the enemy.

The king was so overwhelmed with grief and resentment at this disgraceful defeat, through the disloyalty of his nobility, that he returned to Edinburgh in deep dejection. From Edinburgh he proceeded to the palace of Falkirk, where he shut himself up, brooding on his misfortunes; and such hold did this take upon him, that he began to sink rapidly in health. He was in the prime of his life, being only in his thirty-first year; of a constitution hitherto vigorous, having scarcely known any sickness; but his agonised mind producing fever of body, he seemed hastening rapidly to the grave. At this crisis his wife was confined. She had already born him two sons, who had died in their infancy, and an heir might now have given a check to his melancholy; but it proved a daughter—the afterwards celebrated and unfortunate Queen of Scots. On hearing that it was a daughter, he turned himself in his bed, saying, "The crown came with a woman, and it will go with one. Many miseries await this poor kingdom. Henry will make it his own, either by force of arms or by marriage." On the seventh day after the birth of Mary, he expired, December 14th, 1542.

James V. of Scotland may be said to have died the victim of Henry's machinations. He was a monarch of many virtues and much talent. His carriage was lofty, and his sense of justice eminent; but he was led to support the Church against the nobility by what he saw going on in England, and from his suspicions of Henry's designs on his kingdom. In this persuasion he was led to support the Papal party even to persecution, and his death naturally hastened the very catastrophe which he feared. The relentless King of England, who might now be said to have destroyed by his ambition two successive Scottish kings—his brother-in-law and his nephew—so far from feeling any compunction, only set himself immediately to profit by the latter event. He called together the large body of captive nobles of Scotland, as well as Angus and Sir George Douglas, who had long been in his interest and service, and pretending to upbraid those who had been taken at the route of Solway Frith with their breach of treaty, he then altered his tone, and intimated that it was in their power to make up for the past, and to render the most essential service to both countries, by promoting a marriage betwixt his son, the heir of England, and Mary, the infant Queen of Scotland.

The Scottish nobles had, no doubt, been previously schooled for the purpose. They professed themselves anxious to assist in putting an end to the troubles of their native country, and entered into a treaty, not merely to promote this desirable marriage, but, what was more traitorous and inexcusable, to acknowledge Henry as the sovereign lord of Scotland, and do all in their power to deliver the kingdom, with all its fortresses and the infant queen, into his hand. Sir George Douglas, the brother of Angus, was made the chief agent in this notable scheme; and all the lords bound themselves to return to their captivity if they failed to effect this great object, leaving hostages for their good faith. The union of the kingdoms was now within the range of a fair possibility; but the impetuous and overbearing disposition of Henry was certain to ruin the project.

No sooner did Cardinal Beaton and his party learn that