This story takes up a large part of the early reign of James, who no doubt saw his error at the last, but in the beginning threw himself into Perkin's fortunes with characteristic impetuosity, and thought nothing too good, not even his own fair kinswoman, for the rescued prince. It was an error, however, that James shared with many high and mighty potentates who gave their imprimatur at first to the adventurer's cause. But even for the most genuine prince, when only a pretender, the greatest sovereigns are but poor supporters in the long run. James had a hundred things to do to make him forget that unfortunate adventure of Perkin. It was in the year 1497 that this incident ended so far as the Scottish Court was concerned, and James returned to the natural course of his affairs, not without occasional tumults on the Border, but with no serious fighting anywhere for a course of pleasant years. The old traditional strife between the King and the nobles no longer tore the kingdom asunder. Perhaps the first great event of his life, the waking up of his boyish conscience to find himself in the camp of a faction pitted against his own father, influenced him throughout everything, and made the duty of conciliation and union seem the first and most necessary; perhaps it was but the natural revulsion from those methods which his father had adopted to his hurt and downfall; or perhaps James's chivalrous temper, his love of magnificence and gaiety, made him feel doubly the advantage of courtiers who should be great nobles and his peers, not dependants made splendid by his bounty. At all events the King lived as no Stewart had yet lived, surrounded by all without exception who were most noble in the land, encouraging them to vie with him in splendour, in noble exercises and pastimes, and almost, it may be imagined--with a change of method, working by good example and genial comradeship what his predecessors had vainly tried to do by fire and sword--tempting them to emulate him also in preserving internal peace and a certain reign of justice throughout the country. There was no lack of barons in the Court of James. Angus and Home and Huntly, who had pursued his father to the death and placed himself upon the throne, were not turned into subservient courtiers by his gallantry and charm: but neither was there any one of these proud lords in the ascendant, or any withdrawn and sullen in his castle, taking no share in what was going on. The machinery of the State worked as it had never done before. There were few Parliaments, and not very much law-making. Enough laws had been made under his predecessors, "if they had but been kept," to form an ideal nation; the thing to do now was to charm, to persuade, to lead both populace and nobility into respecting them. It would be vain to imagine that this high purpose was always in James's mind, or that his splendour and gaieties were part of a plan for the better regulation of the kingdom.