James IV of Scotland

“ James IV, wounded by two arrows and a blow from a halberd, fell amidst his nobles on the battlefield of Flodden. James V died of grief at the loss of his two sons, and of remorse for the execution of Hamilton. James VI, destined to unite on his head the two crowns of Scotland and England, son of a father who had been assassinated, led a melancholy and timorous existence, between the scaffold of his mother, Mary Stuart, and that of his son, Charles I. Charles II spent a portion of his life in exile. ”

“ Thus have we attempted to describe one of those wild frolics in which the young King James V. of Scotland occasionally indulged. If he had lived to an advanced age, his subjects might have had as much reason to admire the king as they had to love the royal gaberlunzie, who, wherever he took up his quarters, whether "in a house in Aberdeen," or in the barn of Cairnkibbie, sent the fire of his spirit of love and fun throughout all with which he came in contact. ”

“ The Register House, Edinburgh, contains a curious and valuable series of these Accounts, detailing the daily expenses of the kings of Scotland from the reign of James III. down to the ascension of the English throne by James VI. At the time of the first appearance of syphilis in our northern realm, the throne of Scotland was occupied by James IV., a prince who was a great patron of the arts and sciences of his time. He was a practitioner in them also, as well as a patron of them. At different times we find him busily experimenting in chemistry, in physiology, and in medicine. ”

“ The poet-king and his noble queen were very kindly received in Scotland, and lived for some time very happily and peacefully, always dearly loving one another. But James found the kingdom in great confusion from misgovernment, and the common people very much oppressed. He bravely set himself to reform matters, trying to relieve and protect the poor, and restrain and humble the rich and powerful. ”

“ James appears to have been a brave and generous man, and a wise and energetic king. According to one account, he was possessed of considerable learning; during his reign the Scottish court attained some degree of refinement, and Scotland counted in European politics as she had never done before. Literature flourished under the royal patronage, education was encouraged, and the material condition of the country improved enormously. ”

“ When Philip the Second was preparing his Armada for the conquest of England, he spared no pains to induce James of Scotland to favor his enterprise. Elizabeth, on her part, was not less active to secure the friendship of a neighbor, who, by opening or closing his ports, might do so much to assist or to counteract the projects of her enemy. James had the [Pg 215] wisdom to see that it was not for his interest to ally himself with a power that sought the extinction of the faith which he professed, and the subjugation of a kingdom to which he was the heir. ”

“ All his trusty adherents in England were without power or influence, and in Scotland the Duke of Gordon was the only nobleman who openly stood out for the interests of his sovereign. He had been created a duke by Charles II. James had appointed him governor of the castle of Edinburgh, and he had been thereafter made a privy-counsellor and one of the lords of the treasury. Though a firm and conscientious Catholic, he was always opposed to the violent measures of the court, as he was afraid that however well meant, they would turn out ruinous to the king ”

“ With James the First began the work of building the monarchy up again from this utter ruin; but the wresting of Scotland from the grasp of its nobles was only wrought out in a struggle of life and death. Few figures are more picturesque than the figures of the young Scotch kings as they dash themselves against the iron circle which girds them round in their desperate efforts to rescue the Crown from serfdom. They carry their life in their hands; a doom is on them; they die young and by violent deaths. ”

“ The Estates of England had brought two charges against James, his misgovernment and his flight, and had, by using the soft word "Abdication," evaded, with some sacrifice of verbal precision, the question whether subjects may lawfully depose a bad prince. That question the Estates of Scotland could not evade. They could not pretend that James had deserted his post. For he had never, since he came to the throne, resided in Scotland. ”

“ Both England and Scotland recognised in him the principle of hereditary right, for there was little in his character or antecedents to recommend him as a national sovereign. In his own country he had become unpopular, and in England he was chiefly known as one who had basely betrayed his mother, who had intrigued with Elizabeth to obtain her throne, and who had no sympathy with the great alliance with France and the United Provinces in the war with Spain. James, however, encountered no opposition in assuming the sceptre of these realms ”

“ How little is it known to him who makes the visible the measure of nature's existence and power, that every step he makes, or thinks he makes, in his progress, the farther he removes from the great landmarks of those great truths on which is founded our holy religion. James III. was killed in open day: who killed him? History is mute; but tradition is eloquent, and fearfully impressive. The reign of this unfortunate monarch was marked by more rebellion and murder than any period of the same extent in the history of Scotland. ”

“ His time, besides, fell at a crisis in Scottish history—the meeting of the counter currents of the old order and the new in the Reformation. Whatever the causes, the fact remains that from his birth at Linlithgow on 10th April, 1512, till his death at Falkland on 14th [142] December, 1542, the career of James V. presents a continuous series of personal episodes as dramatic as anything on the historic stage. Dating his reign from the most tragic disaster in Scottish history, he was crowned King of Scotland before he could speak, a month after his father’s death on the battlefield. ”

“ It was hoped that this alliance [Pg 12] would be the means of ending the bitter hostility which had existed between Scotland and England since the time of Edward I. A temporary peace ensued, but it was not till a century later that a descendant of the Scottish James sat on the throne of England.
The only son of James IV. and Margaret who survived infancy was James V. (James Fitz-James of the poem) . He was born in 1513, and crowned when less than ten years old, his father having been slain at the battle of Flodden Field, which had resulted so disastrously for Scotland. ”

“ He had governed Scotland during his twenty-two years of absence with a much firmer hand than [Pg 129] in the troubled time of his personal rule. He had then been quite at the mercy of his ministers and of the nobles. The wealth and power of his larger kingdom made him now able to deal with the smaller one pretty much as he liked, and the nobles were too eagerly seeking favour and place at the richer court to be willing to risk the loss of them by opposing his will. James was quite unlike all his forefathers. ”

“ James’s work as a ruler can be divided, without violating any sound rule of criticism, into black and white—into the part which was a failure and a preparation for future disaster, and the part which was solid achievement, honourable to himself and profitable to his people. His native kingdom of Scotland had the benefit of the second. Between 1583 and 1603 he reduced the anarchical baronage of Scotland to obedience, and replaced the subdivision of sovereignty and consequent confusion, which had been the very essence of feudalism, by a strong centralized royal authority. ”

“ On 19 June 1587 James reached the age of twenty-one. He celebrated the event by an attempt to reconcile the feuds between the nobility by making the bitterest enemies walk through the streets of Edinburgh hand in hand. In July the estates passed an act revoking all grants made to the injury of the crown during the king's nonage.
In 1588 the approach of the Spanish Armada threw Scotland as well as England into consternation. In opposition to the Earl of Huntly in the north and to Lord Maxwell on the western borders, James took his stand against Spain. ”

“ Under his wise rule, Scotland was at peace and prosperous, the Court maintained a higher level of refinement and luxury, and science and art were encouraged. Unfortunately, James's chivalrous and rash temperament led him into war with England and the disaster at Flodden Field. Before starting on the expedition, a council was held at Linlithgow, after which the King attended evensong in the church. ”

“ The absence of any fear of an outbreak of hostilities with the "auld enemy" was a great boon to the borders, but there was little love lost between the two countries. The union of the crowns did not, of course, affect the position of Scotland to England in matters of trade, and beyond some thirty years of peace, James's ancient kingdom gained but little. King James, who possessed considerable powers of statesmanship, if not much practical wisdom, devised the impossible project of a union of the kingdoms in 1604. "What God hathe conjoyned", he said, "let no man separate. ”

“ But James of Scotland was the worst possible subject to depend on in such an emergency. No noble or daring passion ever animated his heart. His only philosophy was what he called his kingcraft—that was, how he could make the most of any event, without any reference to its moral value as bearing on the good of the nation or the advance of civilisation, and that at the least cost of money or exertion. He waited to see whether Philip or Elizabeth were the highest bidder, not intending to help either of them. Philip was advised to secure him and to land a Spanish army in Scotland ”

“ James had also another cause of complaint against Henry the Eighth, for Henry refused to give up to his sister Margaret a legacy of jewels left to her by her father. When therefore England and France declared war, Scotland stood by her old ally, the bond between them was drawn closer, the right of citizenship in France was extended to the Scots, and Queen Anne of France made an appeal to the chivalrous feeling of James by choosing him as her knight, and calling on him for assistance. ”

“ A singular riot in Edinburgh in December 1596, of which an account is given in the chronicle, led to a reaction in favour of the king against the ultra-zealous Presbyterians. James was enabled to acquire considerable influence in the church-courts, to obtain seats in parliament for certain ministers, as representing the ancient bishops, and to secure a peaceable restoration for the popish lords. His brightening prospects of the English succession added to his power within Scotland, and the latter years of his Scottish reign were marked by comparatively few events of importance. ”

“ After the French Revolution, at the end of the eighteenth century, the English system began to become popular on the continent, and it has now replaced the older absolute monarchy in all the kingdoms of western Europe.
Accession of James I, 1603–1625.
On the death of Elizabeth in 1603, James I, the first of the Stuarts, ascended the English throne. He was, it will be remembered, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, and was known [Pg 476] in Scotland as James VI; consequently England and Scotland now came under the same ruler. ”

“ According to the law of Scotland, the heir to the throne was not allowed to be brought up by his parents, but was sent to Stirling Castle, to be under the care of the Earl of Mar, who held the right to be the hereditary guardian, and this accounts for the many letters which passed between the little prince and the king and queen. When Elizabeth died and James became king of Great Britain, he had to go hastily to London, but about a year later he sent for the queen to come "with the bairns to Windsor, where he prayed God they should all have a blyth meeting." ”

“ So far as education went this was no doubt the case; but it is possible that in his subsequent life his reforms were too rapid, too thorough-going, too modern, for Scotland. The English sovereigns were richer, stronger, and more potent; the English commonalty more perfectly developed, and more capable of affording a strong support to a monarch who stood against the nobles and their capricious tyranny. James might not have been the enlightened ruler he was but for his training in a region of more advanced and cultivated civilisation ”

“ In taking the measure of James VI as a statesman, it is important not to overlook the method which he adopted to carry on the government of Scotland as an absentee king. It is assuredly no sign of weakness or incapacity that the nearest approach to that absolutism that he had set up as his ideal was made by him after his departure to take possession of the crown left him by Elizabeth. What he achieved in this respect was once set forth by him in a speech to his refractory English Parliament. "This I must say for Scotland, and may truly vaunt it: here I sit and govern it with my pen ”

“ The antagonism of Scottish feeling to the ruling powers in England was chronic. There was a treaty of peace between England and Scotland, but the unfailing turbulence of the borders kept each country constantly provided with a tolerable excuse for accusing the other of having broken its engagements. James was well within his rights in receiving the claimant; of the justice of whose title he evidently persuaded himself, since he bestowed a kinswoman of his own upon him in marriage, Lady Katharine Gordon. ”