Chaucer and other mediaeval writers. It is pleasant to
fancy that a sympathetic friendship may have existed between the
unfortunate youth and the warm-hearted, impulsive Prince Hal, who,
immediately upon his accession as Henry V., had James transferred from
the Tower to Windsor. There it was he spent the last ten years of his
captivity, there he met Lady Jane Beaufort, and wrote a great part of
his poem.

The turbulence which had been checked by the splendid energy of James
I., revived with increased fury after his death. The fifty years in
which James II. and James III. reigned, but did not govern, is a
meaningless period, over which it would be folly to linger. If it had
any purpose it was to show how utterly base an unpatriotic feudalism
could become--Douglases, Crawfords, Livingstons, Crichtons, Boyds, like
ravening beasts of prey tearing each other to pieces, and trying to
outwit by perfidy when {278} force failed; Livingstons holding the
infant King, James II., a prisoner in Stirling Castle, of which they
were hereditary governors, and together with the Crichtons entrapping
the young Earl of Douglas and his brother by an invitation to dine, and
then beheading them both--so that it is with satisfaction we learn of
the King's reaching his majority and beheading a half-score of
Livingstons at Edinburgh Castle! Then to the Douglases is traced every
disorder in the realm, and with relief we hear of their disgrace and
banishment, only to have the Boyds come upon the scene with a villanous
conspiracy to seize the young King, James III., they, after rising to
power, swiftly and tragically to fall again. History could not afford
a more shameful and senseless display of depravity than in these human
vultures. A Scottish writer says: "There was nothing but slaughter in
this realm, every party lying in wait for another, as they had been
setting tinchills (snares) for wild beasts."

In viewing this raging storm of anarchy one wonders what had become of
the people. We hear nothing of them. They had no political influence,
and if they had {279} representatives in Parliament, they were dumb,
for the voice of the Commons was never heard. But there is reason to
believe that, in spite of the ferocious feudal and social anarchy, the
urban population and the peasantry were groping their way into a higher
civilization. That better ways of living prevailed we may infer from
sumptuary laws enacted by James III., and in the fo