In viewing this raging storm of anarchy one wonders what had become of the people. We hear nothing of them. They had no political influence, and if they had {279} representatives in Parliament, they were dumb, for the voice of the Commons was never heard. But there is reason to believe that, in spite of the ferocious feudal and social anarchy, the urban population and the peasantry were groping their way into a higher civilization. That better ways of living prevailed we may infer from sumptuary laws enacted by James III., and in the founding of three universities (St. Andrew's, 1411, Glasgow, 1450, and Aberdeen, 1494) there is sure indication that beneath the turbid political surface there flowed a stream of intellectual life. From these literary centres "learned Scotsmen" began to swarm over the land, and a solid scholarship was the aim of ambitious youths, who found in that the road to posts of distinction once won only by arms. There was a small body of national literature. Barbour's poem, "The Brus," led the way in the fourteenth century, then King James's poem in the fifteenth, then Henryson and Boece, and the procession of splendid names had commenced which was to be joined in later ages by Burns, Scott, and Carlyle. England had now become the refuge for {280} disgraced and intriguing nobles. The Duke of Albany, the Earl of Douglas, and others entered into negotiations with the English King, offering to acknowledge his feudal superiority, he in return promising to give the crown of Scotland to Albany. A battle between the English and Scottish forces took place in the vicinity of Stirling. During the engagement King James was thrown from his horse and then slain by his miscreant nobles (1488). The scheme was a failure, and the son of the murdered King was at once crowned James IV. Henry VII., now King of England, conceived a plan of cementing friendly relations between the two kingdoms by the marriage of his daughter, Princess Margaret, with the young King. This union, so fruitful in consequences, took place at Holyrood in 1502, amid great rejoicings. During the two preceding reigns the relations of Scotland with her great neighbor were comparatively peaceful. But in 1509 Queen Margaret's brother, Henry VIII., was crowned King of England. Family ties sat very lightly upon this monarch, and his hostile purposes soon became apparent, and {281} the friendly relations were broken. A war between France and England was the signal for a renewal of the old alliance between the French and the Scots. James himself led an army against that of his brother-in-law across the Tweed, and at Flodden met an overwhelming defeat and his own death (1513).