bled those which had succeeded the battle of Flodden. A great invasion had a second time been followed by a great defeat, by the death of a king, and by the succession of an infant. A second time there was an opportunity for a union of the Crowns by marriage. A second time there was an interval of penitence, when suffering brought with it wiser counsels. The recurring crisis was attended only with this difference, that before Scotland was left with a prince who was then to be mated with an English princess. The position was now reversed. A girl inherited the throne of the Stuarts: a boy, a few years older, was the heir of the rival crown.[1] But, under either form, 'the situation,' to use the language of Knox, 'was a wonderful providence of God;' and while the wounds of Solway Moss were still green, and the memory of suffering was fresh, the fear of the
- ↑ The difference was, perhaps, more important than it seemed. Sir Ralph Sadler, in a conversation with Sir Adam Otterburn, spoke of the opportunity and occasion offered by God's providence for the two realms to be knit and conjoined in one. 'I pray you,' said Otterburn, 'give me leave to ask you a question: If,' said he, 'your lad were a lass, and our lass were a lad, would you then,' said he, 'be so earnest in this matter; and could you be content that our lad should marry your lass and so be King of England?' I answered that 'Considering the great good that might ensue of it, I should not show myself zealous to my country if I should not consent to it.' 'Well,' said he, 'if you had the lass and we the lad, we could be well content with it; but,' saith he, 'I cannot believe that your nation could agree to have a Scot to be King of England. And likewise I assure you,' said he, 'that our nation being a stout nation, will never agree to have an Englishman to be King of Scotland.'—Sadler Papers, vol. iii. pp. 325–6. Unhappily for the value of the excuse, the Scots had already rejected the offer in the form which they professed to prefer.
