e forlorn than the
condition of all. The father of the elder ones, James I., the flower
of the whole Stewart race, had nine years before fallen a victim to
the savage revenge and ferocity of the lawless men whom he had vainly
endeavoured to restrain, leaving an only son of six years old and six
young daughters. His wife, Joanna, once the Nightingale of Windsor, had
wreaked vengeance in so barbarous a manner as to increase the dislike
to her as an Englishwoman. Forlorn and in danger, she tried to secure a
protector by a marriage with Sir James Stewart, called the Black Knight
of Lorn; but he was unable to do much for her, and only added the
feuds of his own family to increase the general danger. The two eldest
daughters, Margaret and Isabel, were already contracted to the Dauphin
and the Duke of Brittany, and were soon sent to their new homes. The
little King, the one darling of his mother, was snatched from her,
and violently transferred from one fierce guardian to another; each
regarding the possession of his person as a sanction to tyranny. He had
been introduced to the two winsome young Douglases only as a prelude to
their murder, and every day brought tidings of some fresh violence;
nay, for the second time, a murder was perpetrated in the Queen's own
chamber.

The poor woman had never been very tender or affectionate, and had the
haughty demeanour with which the house of Somerset had thought fit
to assert their claims to royalty. The cruel slaughter of her first
husband, perhaps the only person for whom she had ever felt a softening
love, had hardened and soured her. She despised and domineered over her
second husband, and made no secret that the number of her daughters
was oppressive, and that it was hard that while the royal branch had
produced, with one exception, only useless pining maidens, her second
marriage in too quick succession should bring her sons, who could only
be a burthen. No one greatly marvelled when, a few weeks after the birth
of little Andrew, his father disappeared, though whether he had perished
in some brawl, been lost at sea, or sought foreign service as far as
possible from his queenly wife and inconvenient family, no one knew.

Not long after, the Queen, with her four daughters and the infants, had
been seized upon by a noted freebooter, Patrick Hepburn of Hailes, and
carried to Dunbar Castle, probably to serve as hostages, for they were
fairly well treated, though never allowed to go b