to death his brother Rothesay, {275} and,
as he believed, had also conspired with Henry IV. for his own capture
and eighteen years' captivity. The old conspirator who had been the
chief author of these things had recently died, but his son wore his
title. So the Duke of Albany (the King's cousin) and a few of the most
conspicuous of the conspirators were seized, tried, and one after
another five of the King's kindred died by the axe, in front of
Stirling Castle. It was one of those outbursts of wrath after a long
period of wrongdoing, terrible but wholesome. An unscrupulous nobility
had wrenched the power from the Crown, and it must be restored, or the
kingdom would perish. This disease, common to European monarchies,
could only be cured by just such a drastic remedy; successfully tried
later in France, by Louis XI. (fifteenth century), by Ivan the Terrible
in Russia (sixteenth century), and by slower methods accomplished in
England, commencing with William the Conqueror, and completed when
great nobles were cringing at the feet of Henry VIII. There are times
when a tyrant is a benefactor. And when a centralized, or even a
despotic, monarchy {276} supplants an oligarchy, it is a long step in
progress.

This ablest of the Stuart kings was assassinated in 1437 by the enemies
he had shorn of power, his own kindred removing the bolts to admit his
murderers. He was the only sovereign of the Stuart line who inherited
the heroic qualities of his great ancestor Robert Bruce, a line which
almost fatally entangled England, and sprinkled the pages of history
with tragedies, four out of the fourteen dying violent deaths, two of
broken hearts, while two others were beheaded.

It is a temptation to linger for a moment over the personal traits of
James I. We shall not find again among Scottish kings one who is
possessed of "every manly accomplishment," one who plays upon the
organ, the flute, the psaltery, and upon the harp "like another
Orpheus," who draws and paints, is a poet, and what all the world
loves--a lover. It was his pure, tender, romantic passion for Lady
Jane Beaufort, whom he married, just before his return to his kingdom,
which inspired his poem, "The Kingis Qahaiir" (the King's book), a work
{277} never approached by any other poet-king, and which marked a new
epoch in the history of Scottish poetry. It is the story of his life
and his love--a fantastic mingling of fact and allegory after the
fashion of