Et, sur son cou de lait, luy donnoit bon grace.
Son port etoit royal, son regard vigoureux,
De vertus et d’honneur et de guerre amoureux;
La douceur et la force illustroit son visage,
Si que Venus et Mars en avoient fait partage.
Not yet thirty-one years of age at his death, and notwithstanding the corrupting influences to which in early youth he had been purposely exposed by the Douglases, James had shown himself a noble and active prince. Had he gone with the tide and consented to gratify his courtiers with the plunder of the monasteries, like Henry VIII., his reign might have been less troubled and his memory less maligned by interested historians. He has been chiefly accused of an unrelenting severity towards members of the house of Douglas, and of cruelty in assenting to the death of Lady Glammis. Buchanan’s assertion, however, of the innocence of this lady, though followed by many historians, has been sufficiently answered by Tytler;[744] and James’s consistent refusal to show favour to the Douglases can be blamed by no one who takes into consideration the king’s early treatment by that house, the insult and ravage with which they met his assumption of power, their persistent attempts to undermine his authority and take his life, and the final success which, by his death in the prime of manhood, finally crowned their efforts. Like his ancestor, the first of his name, James succeeded for a time in making “the bush keep the cow” in Scotland, and had he only been moderately supported by those who should have been his lieutenants, there can be no doubt that he would presently have made his realm a model of just administration. As it is, his reign must be honourably remembered for what he accomplished in this direction, and for the wise laws which he made for the restraint of feudal violence. A monument of his administrative power exists in the establishment of the College of Justice, which, under the name of the Court of Session, remains the supreme tribunal of Scotland to the present day.
But there is reason for believing that James the Fifth left evidence of genius in another field. Drummond of Hawthornden in his History (p. 346) states that “James V. was naturally given to poesie, as many of his works yet extant testifie.” Bellenden in his prologue to Livy thus addresses the king:
And ye, my soverane, be line continewall
Ay cum of kingis youre progenitouris,
And writis in ornate stile poeticall