Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/163

James V son of the church among the monarchs of Europe. The title of ‘defender of the faith,’ which Henry had forfeited, was offered him, and more was promised, if James would take up arms against the heretic king. The leading Scottish bishops gave the same advice.

The turning-point of James's life and reign was his French marriage. On 29 March 1536 a treaty was concluded by which James was to marry Marie de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Vendôme. Eager to see his betrothed, James started with five ships on a voyage to France without the knowledge of the nobles, but was driven back by a storm to St. Ninians in Galloway. He then returned to Stirling, from which he made a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loretto, near Musselburgh, and, having held a council, obtained its consent to his going to France, after naming a regency. He again set sail from Kirkcaldy, with a larger suite, on 1 Sept. 1536, and landed at Dieppe on the 10th. He then paid an incognito visit, in the dress of John Tennant, one of his servants, to Marie de Bourbon, but that lady did not please him, and he proceeded to the court of Francis I at Lyons. In October, James fell in love with Madeleine, elder daughter of Francis, and their marriage was agreed to by a treaty signed at Blois on 25 Nov. Francis is said to have pressed the hand of his second daughter as of stronger constitution, but yielded to the urgency of James. He was received on his entry into Paris on 31 Dec. with the honours usually reserved for the dauphin. The marriage was celebrated in Notre Dame on 1 Jan. 1537. Stories have been told of his munificence; he is said to have presented his guests at a banquet with cups of gold filled with bonnet pieces, saying these were the fruits of his country. But the whole of his expenses in France were in the end paid by the French king. James remained in France with his young bride till the following May, and an observer, not altogether trustworthy, for he was a retainer of Angus, may probably be credited when he relates how James escaped from the ceremonials of the court to run about the streets of Paris and make purchases as if unknown, though the boys in the street pointed to him as ‘the king of the Scots.’ His bad French probably betrayed him. At Rouen on 3 April 1537, when he attained his legal majority, he made the usual revocation of previous grants. He landed at Leith on 19 May, having received a visit when off Scarborough from some Yorkshire catholics, who informed him of the oppression of Henry VIII. He promised them that he would ‘bend spears with England if he lived a year.’ Madeleine was received with great rejoicing in Scotland, her fragile beauty attracting both the nobility and the commons. According to Buchanan, there was even hope that she might have favoured the reformers' movement through her education by her aunt, the queen of Navarre. Her premature death, at the age of sixteen, in July was the cause of great mourning, and led, it is said, to the introduction of mourning dress into Scotland. James spent some time in retirement, but at once sought a successor. David Beaton [q. v.], nephew of the archbishop, then abbot of Arbroath, the future cardinal, was sent to France, and concluded a treaty of marriage with Mary of Guise, widow of the Duc de Longueville, early in 1538. She landed at Crail on 14 June, and the marriage was celebrated at St. Andrews. Sir David Lindsay wrote and prepared the masque in which an angel, descending from a cloud, presented Mary with the keys of Scotland as a token that all hearts were open to her.

Between his first and second marriage the attention of James had been occupied with two conspiracies. On 15 July John, master of Forbes, was found guilty of having plotted at some earlier date ‘the slaurghter of our Lords most noble person by a warlike machine called a bombard, and also of treasonable sedition;’ he was hanged and quartered at Edinburgh. Three days later Lady Glamis was condemned for taking part in a treasonable conspiracy to poison James, and was burnt on the Castle Hill. Forbes was brother-in-law, and Lady Glamis was sister, of Angus [see under Douglas, Janet (DNB00)]. At the same period James encouraged the bishops to proceed against heretics. Patrick Hamilton [q. v.] had been burnt at St. Andrews in 1528, and similar auto-da-fés followed at Edinburgh in 1534 and Glasgow in 1539. Heretical books were strictly prohibited, and those who owned them punished. James himself was highly commended by the clergy for refusing to look at some heretical books which Henry VIII sent him. He was, says Leslie, ‘a hydra for the destruction of pestilent heresy.’ The young queen, Mary of Guise, was ‘all papist,’ and the old queen, who always exercised some influence on her son, ‘not much less,’ according to Norfolk's report to the English council. In the personal character of James V there was little either of the piety or the superstition of his father. He and his queen seem to have had, however, their favourite pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loretto, near Musselburgh, and they were duped, not only by Thomas Doughty, the alleged miracle-working hermit of Loretto, but also by the fasting impostor, John Scot.