MARGARET TUDOR, QUEEN OF JAMES IV.
From the Painting by Mabuse
The reign of James IV. is full of picturesque incident. There are stories of brilliant tournaments at Edinburgh, where he sat on a ledge of the Castle rock and presided over the sports of a glittering throng gathered from far and near. There are the splendid records of his marriage with Margaret, Henry VII.’s daughter, the marriage that a hundred years afterwards was to unite the Crowns, the marriage whose fateful import even then was clearly discerned; and there is the tragic close at Flodden, of which, in the scanty remnants of the Flodden Wall, Edinburgh still bears the tangible memorials.
I prefer to note here quainter and humbler memorials. James had a curious, if fitful, interest in art and letters. The picturesque Pitscottie boldly affirms him “ane singular guid chirurgione.” In the book of the royal expenses we have some curious entries. A fine pair of teeth had an unholy attraction for him. He would have them out, on any or no pretext. “Item, ane fellow because the King pullit furtht his teith, xviii shillings.” “Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for twa teith drawn furtht of his hed be the King, xviii sh.” History does not record what the “fellow” or the “barbour” said on the subject, or whether they were contented with the valuation of their grinders, which was far from excessive since the computation is in Scots money, wherein a shilling only equalled an English penny. The barber, moreover, according to the practice of the time, was a rival artist, but—speculation is vain; though it will be observed that instead of the patients feeing the Royal physician, they were themselves feed to submit to treatment. This same Lindsay of Pitscottie is also our authority for another story to the full as quaint. James desired to know the original language of mankind. He procured him two children—human waifs and strays were plentiful in old Scotland; provided them with a dumb woman for nurse, and plumped the three down on Inchkeith, that tiny islet in the Forth a little way out from Leith. Our chronicler is dubious as to the result. “Some say they spak guid Hebrew, but I know not by authoris rehearse.” The “guid Hebrew,” if it ever existed, died with them. Nor is there any trace of a Scots Yiddish, a compound whereof you shudder at the bare conception.
Under James V. we have the popular legend of Howieson already referred to. James, or all tradition errs, was given to wandering in disguise through his kingdom to see how his subjects fared or to seek love adventures, or perhaps for both. The King of the Commons, as his folk called him, took things as they came and life as he found it. The story goes that he was courting some rustic damsel in Cramond village when he was set upon by a band of enraged rivals or relatives. He defended himself on the narrow bridge that then crossed the Almond, but spite his efficient swordplay was like to get the worst of it when a rustic, one Jock Howieson, who was working near at hand, came to his aid and laid about him so lustily with his flail that the assailants fled. There was some talk of a reward, and Jock confessed that his dearest wish was to own the land which he tilled. The stranger, without revealing his identity, or, rather, concealing it under the title of the Gudeman of Ballengiech (the traditional name adopted by James in his wanderings and derived from a road or pass at Stirling Castle), made an appointment with his preserver at Holyrood Palace. Jock turned up in due course, and was promised an interview with the King, whom he would recognise as the only man with his bonnet on. Jock, with rustic humour, replied that either he himself or his friend must be the King since they were the only two that were covered. A grant of the land, which conveniently turned out to be Crown property, speedily followed on the condition that when the King came that way Jock or his descendant should present him with a vessel of water wherein to wash his hands. “Accordingly in the year 1822 when George IV. came to Scotland the descendant of John Howieson of Braehead, who still possesses the estate, which was given to his ancestor, appeared at a solemn festival and offered His Majesty water from a silver ewer that he might perform the service by which he held his lands.” Thus Sir Walter Scott in the Tales of a Grandfather. It seems that in 1822 the proprietor was William Howieson Crawford, Esq. of Braehead and Crawfordland. One fancies that the good Sir Walter jogged, if one may say so, Mr. Crawford’s memory, and possibly arranged both “the solemn festival” and “the silver ewer.” This entertaining legend has not escaped—how could it?—sceptical modern critics. It is shown that not for centuries after James did the story take coherent shape, and that as handed down it can scarce have happened. What can you say but that in some form or other it may have had a foundation in fact? That if it is not possible conclusively to prove, neither is it possible clearly to disprove, and finally it is at least ben trovato.
In setting down one or two anecdotes of James V.’s Queens I am on surer ground. In 1537, James was married to Magdalen, daughter of Francis I., in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. They reached Scotland on the 27th of May. As the Queen landed she knelt down and kissed the soil, a pretty way of adopting her new fatherland that touched those hard Scots as it still touches us, but on the 10th of July the poor child, she was not complete seventeen, was lying dead at Holyrood. It was a cold spring: the Castle was high and bleak, Holyrood was damp and low. She was a fragile plant and she withered and faded away, for us the most elusive and shadowy of memories, yet still with a touch of old-world sweetness. All the land grieved for that perished blossom. It was the first general mourning known in Scotland, and there was in due time “the meed of some melodious tear” from George Buchanan and David Lindsay.
MARY OF GUISE, QUEEN OF JAMES V.
From an old Engraving
Before a year had passed away, to wit, in June 1538, James had brought another mate to Scotland, a very different character, known in our history as Mary of Guise, the famous mother of a still more famous daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. James V.’s widow was Queen Regent during most of the minority of her child, and she held her own with unfailing courage and ability. If she tricked and dodged she was like everybody else. In that bitter fight neither Catholic nor Protestant were over-scrupulous; she was on the unpopular and finally on the losing side, but she fought as steadfastly and stoutly for what gods she had as Knox himself, and she was not one of the royal authors. Her story is told for us mainly by her enemies, and chief of all by John Knox, the most deadly among them.