another, each waiting to be attacked. At dusk Angus withdrew to Dalkeith, and amidst the glare of torches the Queen and the young King were seen sweeping up out of the palace, behind the stronger shelter of the Castle wall.[1] Civil war appeared to be imminent; but, happily, civil wars are not always possible; and where a nation is to suffer, the passions of the nation must first be interested in the quarrel. The French and English factions were each of them strong; but neither was the French nor the English feeling so strong as to make a compromise impossible. Money and promises had been freely distributed by Francis.[2] Angus hesitated at drawing the sword openly against his wife; and Margaret consented to be reconciled to him if he would agree to a divorce. Anxious for entire possession of Methuen, she contrived a plea that her first husband was alive at the time of her second marriage, which was therefore of no validity.[3] The ecclesiastical courts accepted the extraordinary story as the ground of a suit; and the technical difficulties could be overcome the more easily, if the husband offered no opposition. Peace was
- ↑ State Papers, vol. iv. p. 258.
- ↑ 'The French King will give unto her Grace (the queen-mother), to be of favourable inclination to his desire, a great country in France; and the said King hath sent great sums of money to the lords.'—State Papers, vol. iv. p. 283.
- ↑ 'The Queen's Grace sueth fast for a divorce between her said Grace and the Earl of Angus, surmitting her cause to be that she was married to the said Earl, the late King of Scots her husband being alive, and that the same King was living three years after the field of Flodden.'—Magnus to Wolsey; ibid. p. 385.
And that na gunaris pass to the Castell of Edinburgh without comand and charge of the said lords under the pane of deit.'—Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 290.
