, daughter of Francis I, and was married to her in
January, 1536-37. This step naturally annoyed Henry, who refused James a
passport through England, on the ground that "no Scottish king had ever
entered England peacefully except as a vassal". So James returned by sea
with his dying bride, and reached Scotland to find numerous troubles in
store for him--among them, intrigues brought about by his mother's wish
to obtain a divorce from her third husband. Madeleine died in July,
1537, and the relations between James and Henry VIII (now a widower by
the death of Jane Seymour) were further strained by the fact that nephew
and uncle alike desired the hand of Mary of Guise, widow of the Duke de
Longueville, who preferred her younger suitor and married him in the
following summer. These two French marriages are important as marking
James's final rejection of the path marked out for him by Henry VIII.
The husband of a Guise could scarcely remain on good terms with the
heretic King of England; but Henry, with true Tudor persistency, did not
give up hope of bending his nephew to his will, and spent the next few
years in negotiating with James, in trying to alienate him from Cardinal
Beaton--the great supporter of the French alliance,--and in urging the
King of Scots to enrich himself at the expense of the Church. As late as
1541, a meeting was arranged at York, whither Henry went, to find that
his nephew did not appear. James was probably wise, for we know that
Henry would not have scrupled to seize his person. Border troubles
arose; Henry reasserted the old claim of homage and devised a scheme to
kidnap James. Finally he sent the Earl of Angus, who had been living in
England, with a force to invade Scotland, and this without the formality
of declaring war. Henry, in fact, was acting as a suzerain punishing a
vassal who had refused to appear when he was summoned. The English
ravaged the county of Roxburgh in 1542; the Scottish nobles declined to
cross the border in what they asserted to be a French quarrel; and in
November a small Scottish force was enclosed between Solway Moss and the
river Esk, and completely routed. The ignominy of this fresh disaster
broke the king's heart. On December 8th was born the hapless princess
who is known as _the_ Queen of Scots. The news brought small comfort to
the dying king, who was still mourning the sons he had lost in the
preceding year. "'Adieu,' he said, 'farewell; it came with a lass and it
w