er of warres, because he
was well practised in the same." Another of the visitors, Don Pedro
d'Ayala, the Spanish grandee who helped to conduct the quarrel over
Perkin Warbeck to a great issue, wrote to his royal master a description
of King James, which is highly interesting, and full of unconscious
prophecy. The Spaniard describes the young monarch at twenty-five as one
of the most accomplished and gallant of cavaliers, speaking Latin (very
well), French, German, Flemish, Italian, and Spanish; a good Christian
and Catholic, hearing two masses every morning; fond of priests--a
somewhat singular quality unless such jovial priests and boon-companions
as Dunbar, the poet-friar, were the subject of this preference; though
perhaps the seriousness which mingled with his jollity, the band of iron
under his silken vest, led him to seek by times the charm of graver
company, the mild and learned Gavin Douglas and other scholars in the
monasteries, where thought and learning had found refuge. The following
details, which are highly characteristic, bring him before us with
singular felicity, and, as afterwards turned out, with a curious
foreseeing of those points in him which brought about his tragical end.

"Rarely even in joking a word escapes him which is not the truth. He
prides himself much upon it, and says it does not seem to him well
for kings to swear their treaties as they do now. The oath of a king
should be his royal word as was the case in bygone ages. He is
courageous even more than a king should be. I have seen him even
undertake most dangerous things in the late wars. I sometimes clung
to his skirts and succeeded in keeping him back. On such occasions
he does not take the least care of himself. He is not a good
captain, because he begins to fight before he has given his orders.
He said to me that his subjects serve him with their persons and
goods, in just or unjust quarrels, exactly as he likes; and that
therefore he does not think it right to begin any warlike
undertaking without being himself the first in danger. His deeds are
as good as his words. For this reason, and because he is a very
humane prince, he is much loved."

[Illustration: BAKEHOUSE CLOSE]

The perfect reason yet profound unreasonableness of this quality in
James, so fatally proved in his after history, is very finely
discriminated by the writer, who evidently had come under the spell