Sir George, startled at this unlooked-for news, ran to the apartment of the king; he knocked, and as no one answered, he had the door burst open. He looked round on all sides and exclaimed, ‘Treachery! the king is fled!’ He gave instant notice to his brother, the earl of Angus, and sent messengers in all directions with orders to arrest the king wheresoever he might be found. All was useless. The tidings of this event being spread abroad, the enemies of the Douglases hastened in crowds to Stirling. Without loss of time the king called together the parliament and got a decree of banishment issued against Angus. The latter, cast down suddenly from the height of greatness, made his escape into England, passing safely through many difficulties and dangers. From that time James V. bore rule himself, so far at least as the priests would allow him. In the character of this strange prince were combined insatiable ambition and unparalleled feebleness, kindliness full of affability and implacable resentment, a great regard for justice and violent passions, an eager desire to protect the weak from the oppression of the powerful and fits of rage which did not spare even the lowly. The king reigned, but the clergy governed. As the aim of James V. was to humble the nobles, a close alliance with the clergy was a necessity for him, and once having taken the side of the priests, he went to great lengths. The archbishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the bishop of Dunkeld, and the abbot of Holyrood were placed at the head of the government, and the most distinguished members of the aristocracy were immediately imprisoned or sent into exile. No Douglas, and no partisan even of that house, was allowed to come within twelve miles of the court. Persecution attacked at the same time the evangelical Christians; men who might have elevated their country perished on the scaffold. The course pursued by the priests tended to defeat their own end. The nobles, exasperated by the tyranny of the bishops, began to feel the aversion for the Church of Rome which they felt for its leading men. It was not indeed from the Romish religion that they broke off, but only from an ambitious and merciless hierarchy. But erelong we shall find the nobles, ever more and more provoked by the clergy, beginning to lend a willing ear to the evangelical doctrine of those who opposed the clergy. [Sidenote: ALESIUS.]