centuries? They refuse to the priests whom God has consecrated all obedience and respect. But there must be no delay.’ James yielded. He conceded to the bishops the inquisition which they claimed, and sent Sir James Learmont, one of the officers of his court, to offer his excuses to his uncle. Of all James’s proceedings this was the most perilous. CHAPTER XI. WAR BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND--DEATH OF JAMES V. (1542.) [Sidenote: PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.] It is easy to imagine the wrath of Henry VIII. when he found himself alone at York. He had made an agreement with his nephew; he had left London to have a conference with him; he had made great preparations; he had gone to the north; and then the young man was missing at the _rendezvous_! He was beside himself with anger. His sister, the mother of James, had died at the end of November 1541. But even if she had lived it was hardly likely that her influence would have appeased the rage of the king. He was provoked not only because his favorite project broke down just at the moment when he expected to see it carried out, but still more by the intolerable affront which the King of Scotland had just offered him. He could not endure it, and he swore that he would wash his name and his memory of that insult by a startling act of vengeance. He wrote to James letters full of the sharpest reproaches and the most violent menaces. ‘I have still in my hand,’ said he, ‘the very rod which chastised your father.’ That rod was the duke of Norfolk, who while earl of Surrey had commanded at Flodden, where James IV. was killed. Henry immediately authorized piratical expeditions by sea, and invasions on the Scottish borders; but these pirates and marauders were only the precursors of the chastisements which he was preparing.