History of the English People, Volume IV | Page 7

was preparing to
raise more material obstacles to the Emperor's designs. Charles had
bought his last reconciliation with the king by a promise of restoring
the Milanese, but he had no serious purpose of ever fulfilling his pledge,

and his retention of the Duchy gave the French king a fair pretext for
threatening a renewal of the war.
[Sidenote: James the Fifth.]
England, as Francis hoped, he could hold in check through his alliance
with the Scots. After the final expulsion of Albany in 1524 Scottish
history became little more than a strife between Margaret Tudor and
her husband, the Earl of Angus, for power; but the growth of James the
Fifth to manhood at last secured rest for the land. James had all the
varied ability of his race, and he carried out with vigour its traditional
policy. The Highland chieftains, the great lords of the Lowlands, were
brought more under the royal sway; the Church was strengthened to
serve as a check on the feudal baronage; the alliance with France was
strictly preserved, as the one security against English aggression.
Nephew as he was indeed of the English king, James from the outset of
his reign took up an attitude hostile to England. He was jealous of the
influence which the two Henries had established in his realm by the
marriage of Margaret and by the building up of an English party under
the Douglases; the great Churchmen who formed his most trusted
advisers dreaded the influence of the religious changes across the
border; while the people clung to their old hatred of England and their
old dependence on France. It was only by two inroads of the border
lords that Henry checked the hostile intrigues of James in 1532; his
efforts to influence his nephew by an interview and alliance were met
by the king's marriage with two French wives in succession, Magdalen
of Valois, a daughter of Francis, and Mary, a daughter of the Duke of
Guise. In 1539 when the projected coalition between France and the
Empire threatened England, it had been needful to send Norfolk with
an army to the Scotch frontier, and now that France was again hostile
Norfolk had to move anew to the border in the autumn of 1541.
[Sidenote: Defeat at the Solway.]
While the Duke was fruitlessly endeavouring to bring James to fresh
friendship a sudden blow at home weakened his power. At the close of
the year Catharine Howard was arrested on a charge of adultery; a
Parliament which assembled in January 1542 passed a Bill of Attainder;

and in February the Queen was sent to the block. She was replaced by
the widow of Lord Latimer, Catharine Parr; and the influence of
Norfolk in the king's counsels gradually gave way to that of Bishop
Gardiner of Winchester. But Henry clung to the policy which the Duke
favoured. At the end of 1541 two great calamities, the loss of Hungary
after a victory of the Turks and a crushing defeat at Algiers, so
weakened Charles that in the summer of the following year Francis
ventured to attack him. The attack served only to draw closer the
negotiations between England and the Emperor; and Francis was forced,
as he had threatened, to give Henry work to occupy him at home. The
busiest counsellor of the Scotch king, Cardinal Beaton, crossed the seas
to negotiate a joint attack, and the attitude of Scotland became so
menacing that in the autumn of 1542 Norfolk was again sent to the
border with twenty thousand men. But terrible as were his ravages, he
could not bring the Scotch army to an engagement, and want of
supplies soon forced him to fall back over the border. It was in vain
that James urged his nobles to follow him in a counter-invasion. They
were ready to defend their country; but the memory of Flodden was
still fresh, and success in England would only give dangerous strength
to a king in whom they saw an enemy. But James was as stubborn in
his purpose as the lords. Anxious only to free himself from their
presence, he waited till the two armies had alike withdrawn, and then
suddenly summoned his subjects to meet him in arms on the western
border. A disorderly host gathered at Lochmaben and passed into
Cumberland; but the English borderers followed on them fast, and were
preparing to attack when at nightfall on the twenty-fifth of November a
panic seized the whole Scotch force. Lost in the darkness and cut off
from retreat by the Solway Firth, thousands of men with all the
baggage and guns fell into the hands of the pursuers. The news of this
rout fell on the young king like a sentence of death. For a while he
wandered desperately from