yet survived. Louis the Eleventh, in France, had done much to quench it; it burnt bright again under the auspices of his son. Henry the Seventh was its bitter enemy; but we are still at the beginning of his reign, while war and arms were unextinguished by his cold avaricious policy. James of Scotland laboured, and successfully, to pacify his subjects, children of one common parent; but he, as well as they, disdained the ignoble arts of peace. England formed the lists where they desired to display their courage; war with England was a word to animate every heart to dreadful joy: in the end, it caused the destruction of him and all his chivalry in Flodden Field; now it made him zealous to upraise a disinherited prince; so that under the idea of restoring the rightful sovereign to the English throne, he might have fair pretext for invading the neighbour kingdom. At the hope, the soldiers of Scotland—in other words, its whole population—awakened, as an unhooded hawk, ready to soar at its accustomed quarry.
Sir Patrick Hamilton, the most accomplished and renowned of the Scottish cavaliers, and kinsman of the royal house, had returned laden with every testimony of the White Rose's truth, and a thousand proofs of his nobleness and virtue. Sir Edward Brampton delivered the duchess's message of thanks; and his lady had already awakened the zeal of many a gentleman, and the curiosity and interest of many a lady, for the pride of York, the noble, valiant Plantagenet. Woman's sway was great at Holyrood; as the bachelor king, notwithstanding his iron girdle, and his strict attention to his religious duties, was a devout votary at the shrine of feminine beauty.
There was a hawking party assembled in the neighbourhood of Stirling, which he graced by his presence. All was, apparently, light-heartedness and joy, till a dispute arose between two damsels upon the merits of their respective falcons. One of these was fair Mary Boyd, daughter of the laird of Bonshaw. Mary Boyd was the first-love of the young sovereign, and the report went, that he was no unsuccessful suitor; it spoke of offspring carefully concealed in a village of Fife, whom James often visited. When, afterwards, this young lady's example was imitated by others nobly born, this became no secret, and of her children, one became archbishop of St. Andrew's—the other, a daughter, married the earl of Morton.
But these were days of youthful bashfulness and reserve; the mind of Mary Boyd balanced between pride in her lover, and shame for her fault; a state of feeling that ill brooked the loss of what gilded her too apparent frailty—the exclusive attention of the king. Mary was older than the king; the dignity which
