It is a temptation to linger for a moment over the personal traits of James I. We shall not find again among Scottish kings one who is possessed of "every manly accomplishment," one who plays upon the organ, the flute, the psaltery, and upon the harp "like another Orpheus," who draws and paints, is a poet, and what all the world loves--a lover. It was his pure, tender, romantic passion for Lady Jane Beaufort, whom he married, just before his return to his kingdom, which inspired his poem, "The Kingis Qahaiir" (the King's book), a work {277} never approached by any other poet-king, and which marked a new epoch in the history of Scottish poetry. It is the story of his life and his love--a fantastic mingling of fact and allegory after the fashion of Chaucer and other mediaeval writers. It is pleasant to fancy that a sympathetic friendship may have existed between the unfortunate youth and the warm-hearted, impulsive Prince Hal, who, immediately upon his accession as Henry V., had James transferred from the Tower to Windsor. There it was he spent the last ten years of his captivity, there he met Lady Jane Beaufort, and wrote a great part of his poem. The turbulence which had been checked by the splendid energy of James I., revived with increased fury after his death. The fifty years in which James II. and James III. reigned, but did not govern, is a meaningless period, over which it would be folly to linger. If it had any purpose it was to show how utterly base an unpatriotic feudalism could become--Douglases, Crawfords, Livingstons, Crichtons, Boyds, like ravening beasts of prey tearing each other to pieces, and trying to outwit by perfidy when {278} force failed; Livingstons holding the infant King, James II., a prisoner in Stirling Castle, of which they were hereditary governors, and together with the Crichtons entrapping the young Earl of Douglas and his brother by an invitation to dine, and then beheading them both--so that it is with satisfaction we learn of the King's reaching his majority and beheading a half-score of Livingstons at Edinburgh Castle! Then to the Douglases is traced every disorder in the realm, and with relief we hear of their disgrace and banishment, only to have the Boyds come upon the scene with a villanous conspiracy to seize the young King, James III., they, after rising to power, swiftly and tragically to fall again. History could not afford a more shameful and senseless display of depravity than in these human vultures. A Scottish writer says: "There was nothing but slaughter in this realm, every party lying in wait for another, as they had been setting tinchills (snares) for wild beasts."