One incident in the life of James illustrates vividly the spirit of extravagant devotion which the character of the Stuarts from first to last seems to have been capable of exciting in their followers. During a royal progress through his dominions the young king was entertained by the Earl of Athole in a sumptuous palace of wood erected for the occasion on a meadow at the foot of Ben y Gloe. Hung with tapestries of silk and gold, and lit by windows of stained glass, this palace, surrounded by a moat and by towers of defence in the manner of a feudal castle, lodged the king more luxuriously than any of his own residences. Yet on the departure of the royal cavalcade the Earl, declaring that the palace which had lodged the sovereign should never be profaned by accommodating a subject, to the astonishment of the Papal legate who was present, ordered the whole fabric, with all that it contained, to be given to the flames.
It was at this period of his life that James engaged in most of those romantic adventures by which, under his assumed name of “the Gudeman of Ballengeich,” he is popularly remembered. He was as fearless as he was energetic, and upon tidings of misdeeds, however remote, he made no hesitation in getting instantly on horseback and spurring at the head of his small personal retinue to attack and punish the evil-doers. In these excursions he constantly shared extreme perils and privations with his followers. These and the perils of his too frequent intrigues with the fair daughters of his subjects form the burden of most of the traditions current regarding him. One of the most characteristic of these traditions is preserved by Scott in his Tales of a Grandfather, was used by the great romancist for the plot of “The Lady of the Lake,” and forms the subject of the favourite drama of “Cramond Brig.” Another, hardly less dramatic and amusing, also preserved by Scott, is that of James’s turning the tables upon Buchanan of Arnpryor, the bold “King of Kippen.”
None of his adventures, however, surpasses in romantic incident the weightier matter of the king’s own marriage. In the hope of withdrawing Scotland from the support of France in the great continental rivalry then going on, the Emperor Charles V. had in turn offered James alliance with his sister, the Queen of Hungary, his niece the daughter of the King of Denmark, and with a second niece the Princess Mary of Portugal; while Henry VIII. had offered his own daughter Mary to the young monarch. In one case the whole of Norway was offered by way of dowry. But James had a mind of his own on the subject, and was not to be tempted from the ancient policy of the country. Sir David Lyndsay was accordingly despatched to arrange a marriage with the daughter of the Duc de Vendôme, the head of the princely house of Bourbon. The treaty was all but concluded, when suddenly, among the attendants of some nobles freshly arrived from Scotland, the princess recognised James himself. Irking at his envoy’s delay he had hit upon this device for forming personal acquaintance with his bride, but his identity was betrayed by a portrait which he had previously sent her. For eight days he was sumptuously entertained by the Bourbons, but, dissatisfied in some way with the choice which had been made for him, he formed an excuse to visit the court of Francis I. There he fell in love with the king’s eldest daughter, the fragile Princess Magdalene. She, it appears, became also passionately attached to him, and, notwithstanding all obstacles—the warnings of the physicians and the reluctance of Francis to expose his daughter to an inhospitable climate, the two were married on 1st January, 1537, and after four months of rejoicings and utmost happiness sailed for Scotland. The gallant fleet of fifty ships sailed up the Firth of Forth on the 28th of May, and it is narrated that as she landed to pass to Holyrood the fair young queen stooped down and kissed the soil of her husband’s country.
This romantic method of royal match-making, however, must be considered to have cost James dear. His continued absence from the country had left room for the machinations of his enemies; his previous good fortune seemed, upon his return, to fail him; and worst of all, amid the increasing troubles of the time he seems to have been oppressed by a certain foreboding.
Forty days after landing, and while preparations were being made for her triumphal progress through the country, the seventeen-year-old queen died. “And,” says Lindsay of Pitscottie, “the king’s heavy moan that he made for her was greater than all the rest.” A second marriage, it is true, was, for political reasons, and with the approval of Francis, forthwith arranged for James, and in the summer of 1538 Marie, daughter of the Duc de Guise, was received with gallant display by her royal consort at St. Andrews. But three months later, news arrived from France that the daughter of the Duc de Vendôme had sickened of her disappointment, and was dead. “Quhairat,” to quote Pitscottie again, “when the King of Scotland got wit, he was highlie displeased (distressed), thinkand that he was the occasion of that gentlewoman’s death also.”
Meanwhile the intrigues of Henry VIII. and the banished Douglases had succeeded in corrupting a great part of the Scottish nobility. Twice was the life of James attempted; first by the Master of Forbes, a brother-in-law of the Earl of Angus, and next by Angus’s sister, Janet Douglas, Lady Glammis. With envious eyes and diminishing loyalty the Scottish nobles saw the English peers enriched by Henry’s distribution of the confiscated church lands, while James consistently refused to carry out the same plan of spoliation in Scotland. The climax of the young king’s troubles was reached in 1542. Hitherto Henry VIII., in his designs upon the independence of the northern kingdom, had confined himself to the arts of policy and bribery, suborning the trusted servants of the crown, and embroiling James between the rights of the church and the ambition of the nobles. Now, however, the time seemed ripe, and he sent the English forces openly across the Border. These were met and routed with courage and promptitude; and, overjoyed at his success, the Scottish king had made full preparations for retaliating, and was marching south at the head of his army, when at Fala his nobles suddenly refused to carry war into England, and forced him to abandon the campaign. This dishonour before his people, followed immediately by the disgraceful rout of a Scottish army at Solway Moss, broke the gallant young monarch’s heart. To add to his sorrows his two infant sons had died within a short time of each other. Upon hearing of the destruction of his troops he shut himself up in the palace of Falkland, where, overwhelmed with grief and despair, he sank under a burning fever. One hope still sustained him: the birth of an heir to the throne was hourly expected. On the 7th of December news arrived that the queen had been safely delivered. To the king’s eager question the messenger replied that the infant was “ane fair dochter.” “Is it so?” said James; “Fairweill! The crown cam with a lass, and it will gang with a lass.” Whereupon, in the quaint words of Pitscottie, “he commendit himselff to the Almightie God, and spak litle from thensforth, bot turned his back to his lords and his face to the wall.” On the 14th of December he passed away.
There exists an interesting description of James from the pen of Ronsard, who accompanied the queen from France and was a servant at the Scottish court.
Ce Roy d’Escosse etoit en la fleur de ses ans;
Ses cheveux non tondues, comme fin or luisans,
Cordonnez et crespez, flottans dessus sa face,