purpose and insecurity in the
heterogeneous host, in which were many whose hearts failed them at sight
of the King's banners--men who were apt to rebellion without being wound
up to the extreme point of civil war: but he had "ane kyndlie love to
Earl Douglas" as well as a regard for his own honour, and would not
lightly desert his friend. While thus uncertain he appealed to Douglas
to know what he meant to do, warning him that the longer he hesitated,
the less would be the forces at his disposal. Douglas replied haughtily
that if he were tired of waiting he might go when he pleased--an
indiscreet answer, which decided Hamilton to withdraw and throw himself
upon the King's promised mercy. The same night he went over to the royal
army, carrying with him so many that "on the morn thereafter the Earl
Douglas had not ane hunder men by his own household," the whole host
having melted away. Never was a greater risk for a monarchy nor a more
easy and bloodless escape. The Earl fled to the depths of his own
country and thence to England, where he lived long a pensioned
dependant, after all his greatness and ambition, to reappear in history
only like a ghost after many silent years.

Amid all these bewildering and bitter struggles, in which much misery
was no doubt involved, it is recorded of the King that he never lost his
humane character, and that even in the devastations he was forced to
sanction or command, the cruel reprisals carried out over all the south
of Scotland, his severity was always tempered with mercy. "He was not so
much feared as a king as loved like a father," says Major. This luminous
trait appears through all the darkness of the vexed and furious time.
The King was always ready to pardon at a word, to believe in the vows
and receive the submission of the fiercest rebels. One curious evidence
of the confidence felt in him was shown by the widow of the murdered
Earl, Margaret Douglas, the Maid of Galloway, a woman doubly injured in
every relation--the sister of the young Earl murdered at Edinburgh,
married by his successor in order to reunite the Douglas patrimony, a
great portion of which went to her as her brother's heir--and again
forced into another and unlawful marriage by her husband's brother,
immediately upon his death, for the same end. James received this
fugitive kindly, restored to her part of the lands of her family, and
finally married her--thus freeing her from the lawless bond into which
she ha