from the deep resentments that burned in the people’s hearts after the defeat of Flodden, and it was with difficulty that the Estates brought themselves to say that, though Scotland believed herself able single-handed to avenge her losses, yet, out of respect for the old friendship of France, the country would consent to peace with England. Setting to work after the manner of one possessed of the same supreme authority as the King of France, Albany began his government with an air of rigour, insomuch that the common historians speak of him as having resolved to suppress the turbulent spirit of the age, and assert the supremacy of law and order. He thus incurred the reputation of a grasping tyrant. The infant brother of the king died suddenly; his mother said Albany had poisoned the child, and people shuddered for his brother, now standing alone between the Regent and the throne, and talked ominously of the manner in which Richard III. of England was popularly believed to have achieved the crown by murdering his nephews. It is from this period that we may date the rise of a really English party in Scotland—a party who feared the designs of the French, and who thought that, after having for two hundred years maintained her independence, Scotland might with fair honour be combined with the country nearest to her and likest in blood, should the succession to both fall to one prince, and that it would be judicious to adjust the royal alliances in such a manner as to bring that to pass. Such thoughts were in the mean time somewhat counteracted by the lightheaded doings of her who was the nation’s present tie to England—the Queen-Dowager—whose grotesque and flagrant love-affairs are an amusing episode, especially to those who love the flavour of ancient scandal; while all gracious thoughts that turned themselves towards England were met in the teeth by the insults and injuries which her savage brother, Henry VIII., continued to pile upon the country.