But there were rifts in the cloud. The first James, 1406 to 1437, has left a noble record as a man of knightly nature, a fine poet, and a wise ruler. When eleven years of age, he was put by his father, Robert III., on board of a vessel to sail to France, to save him from his uncle, the Duke of Albany, who had caused the death by starvation of his elder brother. The vessel was captured by the English, and the young prince was for eighteen years a prisoner. But he was well educated, and seems to have had great freedom of movement—even taking part in the French wars. He married Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and nearly related to the royal family of England. In 1424, a ransom was negotiated; James was set at liberty, and he and his queen were crowned at Scone. Under him many wise laws were enacted for the proper administration of justice, and for the fostering of home trade and foreign commerce. His great task was in curtailing the powers assumed by the nobles. This made him enemies, and cost him his life. Temporarily occupying a house in Perth, a band of miscreants under Sir Robert Graham, who had recently been punished by the King for law-breaking, burst at night into the King’s chamber, and in his wife’s presence savagely slew him. The Queen took wild vengeance on the murderers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Older Scottish Literature. Perhaps in no part of Scotland was there—even in the fourteenth century— pure Anglo-Saxon blood. The Lothians and the south-eastern shires had been a portion of the old kingdom of Northumbria, in which, with the Angles as a normal population, there had been large Danish settlements; and numbers of Normans also settled therein, both before and after the Conquest; whilst the descendants of the old Britons had peopled the south-western shires, from the Solway to the Clyde. Thus whilst the generally spoken language of the two countries was essentially the same, the literature of England would be more purely Teutonic; that of Scotland would include Celtic elements; but these elements would assert themselves more in qualifying the style of the literature than in the use of Celtic words.