When Perkin Warbeck made his way to Scotland the young King of that country was already fully informed as to the nature of his claims. James, when a boy of sixteen, had taken part in the rebellion headed by Douglas Earl of Angus, in which his father the late King had been overthrown at Sauchie Burn and murdered after the battle. He was now twenty-four years of age, of brilliant parts, no mean scholar, an admirable athlete, and ambitious to raise the name of Scotland among the nations. His weakness lay mainly in a boyish impulsiveness, which often caused him to mar well-laid plans on the spur of the moment, and in an exaggerated fondness for chivalric ideas more appropriate to a knight-errant than to a king or a leader of armies. Perkin appealed to him as early as 1492; and before the pretender's expedition sailed, Tyrconnel, chief of the O'Donnells of the north-west of Ireland, presented himself in Scotland to renew the appeal. The antagonism of Scottish feeling to the ruling powers in England was chronic. There was a treaty of peace between England and Scotland, but the unfailing turbulence of the borders kept each country constantly provided with a tolerable excuse for accusing the other of having broken its engagements. James was well within his rights in receiving the claimant; of the justice of whose title he evidently persuaded himself, since he bestowed a kinswoman of his own upon him in marriage, Lady Katharine Gordon. In the summer of 1496 he was making active preparations for an incursion into England on Warbeck's behalf; largely influenced no doubt by the promise that, should it prove successful, Berwick, which had been finally ceded to England fourteen years before, was to be once more surrendered to the Scots. The astute Henry turned all this to account, by impressing on the Spanish and Venetian agents the urgent necessity laid on him to abstain from military operations against France while Scotland was so threatening. [Sidenote 1: A Scottish incursion (Sept.)] [Sidenote 2: 1497]