However, the question was whether the young king would lean towards the side of Rome or the side of the Gospel. James V., in whose name the decree against the Reformation had been issued, had in reality nothing at all to do with it. Amiable and generous, but a weakling and lover of pleasure, he was so backward in his learning that for want of knowing English he could not read the letters of his uncle Henry VIII.[26] He was a child under tutelage; he spoke to no one except in the presence of some member of the council, and Angus took care to foster in him the taste for pleasure in order to turn away his attention from public affairs. That taste was moreover quite natural to the young prince. His life was devoted to games, to arms, to the chase; he made request to Henry VIII. to send him swords and bucklers, the armor made in London being far more beautiful than that of Edinburgh. He sacrificed business to pleasure all the more readily because those who were about him were living in a state of entire disunion. The three chief personages of the realm, archbishop Beatoun, head of the priests, Angus, leader of the nobles, and the queen-mother who intrigued with both parties, were at open war.[27] Margaret desired both to get a divorce from Angus and to avenge herself on the archbishop who thwarted her in her projects.[28] In the midst of all these ambitious ones the young king was like a prey over which the vultures fight. In May 1525, James having reached his fourteenth year, had been declared of age, in conformity with the law of Scotland. It had been a mere matter of form. Angus, supported by the most powerful of the nobles and by the parliament, verified the fears of the queen; he gave all places to the Douglases, and taking the Great Seal from archbishop Beatoun, kept it himself. The queen-mother indignantly entreated her very dear brother to secure the intervention of the pope on behalf of her son.[29] All was useless: the authority of the bold and ambitious Angus remained unimpaired. [Sidenote: JAMES V. AND THE PRIESTS.]