Studies from Court and Cloister | Page 7

in her own.
The eleven months which elapsed between the 9th September 1513 to
the 4th August 1514, were the most eventful of her whole life. The
catastrophe of Flodden left her, perhaps not without cause, the least
mournful woman in Scotland, for James IV., with all the heroism that
attaches to his name, had little claim to be called a faithful husband.
Unhindered, therefore, by any excess of grief, she was the better able to
attend to the affairs of State, and to hasten the coronation of her little
son, a baby of one year and five months. In December she convened the
Parliament of Scotland to meet at Stirling Castle, and formally took up
the dignity of regent with the consent of the assembled nobility of the
realm. At this sitting the greatest unanimity prevailed. In the Acts of the
Privy Council of Scotland, under date 12th January 1514, occurs the
following entry: "To advise of the setting up of the Queen's household,
and what persons and officers are necessary thereto, and to advise of
the expenses for the supportation of the same, and by what ways it shall
be gotten." All was peace for a short time, and the most friendly
relations existed between the queen and her Council, till the first
high-handed attempt of Henry VIII. to interfere through his sister in the
government of Scotland, resulted in her temporary banishment, and the
removal of the infant king from his mother's care.*
* P. Martyr, Ep. 535. For a detailed account of the state of Scotland for
the first nine years after the disastrous defeat at Flodden, see vol. xiv.
Of the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, edited by George Burnett, LL.D.,
Lyon King-of-Arms, and A. Y. G. Mackay, M.A. (Oxon.), LL.D.
(Edin.), etc., His Majesty's General Register House, Edinburgh.
On the 30th April Margaret gave birth to a posthumous son, who
received the title of Duke of Rothesay; and scarcely had she reappeared
in public after the birth of this child, when an envoy from the Emperor
Maximilian brought overtures of marriage. About the same time, she
received a like proposal from Louis XII. of France, who afterwards
married her younger sister Mary. Dismissing both aspirants to her hand,
before the first year of her widowhood had run its course, she married
Archibald, Earl of Angus, Margaret being in her twenty-fifth, he in his
nineteenth year. The union was equally unfortunate for the queen
herself and for her wretched husband, who, when the first charm of

novelty had passed, was disdainfully flung aside, and never restored to
favour.
There was an ancient custom of the realm, which placed the executive
power and the person of the king, should he be a minor at the death of
the preceding sovereign, in the hands of the next male heir, and the
appointment of James's widow to the regency and the guardianship of
his son was made in distinct disregard of all recognised precedent. The
consent of the Scottish lords to the innovation had been given entirely
from a sense of loyalty to their beloved and unfortunate monarch James
IV. But a proviso had been made in his will, that in the event of the
queen's remarriage, the regency, as well as the guardianship of the king,
should pass to John, Duke of Albany, the next heir to the throne.
But Margaret, who had not scrupled to make away with the royal
treasure, was scarcely likely to be very conscientious in regard to the
duty of laying down a sceptre, the pleasantness of which she had only
just begun to taste. She was already at variance with her Council, who,
in despair of any order being established, had invited Albany, then in
France, to come over and take up the reins of government. As early as
April 1514, a Bill for his recall had been read in Parliament, and it was
formally enacted that all the fortresses in Scotland should be given up,
a blow aimed primarily at Stirling, the queen's chief stronghold.* Here
she and Angus had shut themselves up, on hearing that Beaton,
Archbishop of Glasgow, was marching on Edinburgh. They were
captured, but escaped and returned to Stirling, where they were
besieged by John Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews.
* Brewer--Preface to Cal. 2, part i. (note).
Margaret, assuming a tone of injured innocence, wrote to Henry VIII.,
telling him that she and her party are in great trouble till they know
what help he will give them; that her enemies continue to usurp the
king's authority in Parliament, holding her and her friends to be rebels;
and she entreats him to hasten his army against Scotland by sea and by
land.* This was clearly as much an act of treason as if she had
deliberately invited