It is wonderful to think that she might have been the mother of that other Mary so different yet still more sadly fated, who in that case never could have been the Mary Stewart she was. We are led to something like a _reductio ad absurdum_ by such speculations, very vain yet always attractive as they are. James was eager to marry at the earliest possible moment, and all would have welcomed the marriage with his kinswoman. In this respect, however, as in almost every other, Scotland was now at a turning-point of the utmost importance in her career. For the first time her politics had begun to be troubled by the possibility of an alliance with England more strong and lasting than the brief periods of truce which had hitherto existed between two nations whose principle and tradition were those of enmity. A perpetual peace had indeed been sworn and signed at the time of the marriage of Margaret Tudor with James IV, but how little lasting that had been is amply demonstrated by the fact that no such crushing defeat had ever been inflicted upon Scotland as that of Flodden, in which the King and the great part of his nobles perished. Perhaps it was the germ of the design to attract the lesser country into the arms of the greater by friendship rather than to set her desperately at bay against all peaceful influences, which had prevented the successful army from taking advantage of the victory; but certainly through all the distracted period of James's minority efforts had been made by constant envoys to acquire a share in the councils of the country, such as had hitherto been considered the right of France, who was the old and faithful ally as England was "the auld enemy" of the Scots. The alliance with France had been taken for granted on all sides. That Scotland should harass England in every war between that country and her continental neighbour was a foregone conclusion, and it was something still more sure, a proverb on the English side, that when France was to be assailed the right thing was to begin with Scotland. The position of Henry as brother of the Scottish Queen, and the nearest relative of James, who, under circumstances not at all unlikely to occur, might be his heir, gave the English king now a natural right to interfere; and it is conceivable that had this right been exercised more wisely it might have led to fortunate issues. But unhappily King Henry had associated his influence with that of Angus, taking the part of his sister's discarded husband with great determination, and apparently without any sympathy in those changes in Margaret's affections which so much resembled his own. Angus was to Scotland the representative of the English alliance, and as everything connected with Angus had now become hateful to James, it followed that his uncle's desire to obtain an influence over him, which was not accompanied by any substantial marks of kindness towards himself, did not meet with much success: though it