Border at the head of his army, when it became known that James was beyond the reach of earthly punishment, and the sovereign with whom he was at war was an infant girl. The council of Scotland communicated the news in a letter of prostrate humiliation. While relating the loss which had fallen upon them, they added that they had arrested the men who had killed the herald, and would deliver them up immediately to justice. They trusted that his Highness's blood reigning within their realm, he would not fail to desire the tranquillity of it; 'they had thought it above all things most needful to seek the ways whereby all diversity betwixt the two realms might be brought to amity and quiet;' and they entreated that at once a six mouths' armistice might be proclaimed on the Borders, till terms of peace could be agreed on.[1] Evidently either the spirit of the whole nation was broken, or Beton and Beton's party were no longer in the ascendant.
In fact, for the moment, the Cardinal had ruined his cause. The invasion of England, which had terminated so disastrously, had been his exclusive work. Foreseeing that the recoil of feeling, inevitable under any circumstances, would be stimulated by the fate of the King, he had ventured a desperate effort to retain his supremacy. He had hastened to the bedside of the dying monarch, and had guided his hand, at the moment of departure, in the signature of a paper by which the regency was conferred upon himself and upon those of the
- ↑ The Council of Scotland to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. v. p. 231.
