of a
most attractive personality in this young sovereign, so natural and
manful, so generous and true. That James should acknowledge the penalty
of the fatal power he had to draw a whole nation into his quarrel, just
or unjust, by risking himself the first, is so entirely just according
to every rule of personal honour, yet so wildly foolish according to all
higher policy; exposing that very nation to evils so much greater than
the worst battle. Flodden was still far off in the darkness of the
unknown, but had this description been written after that catastrophe,
it could not more clearly have disclosed the motives and magnanimity but
tragic unwisdom of this prince of romance.

The Spaniard adds much praise of James's temperance, a virtue
indifferently practised by his subjects, and of his morality, which is
still more remarkable. The amours and intrigues of his youth, Don Pedro
informs his king, this young hero had entirely renounced, "or so at
least it is believed," partly "from fear of God, and partly from fear of
scandal," which latter "is thought very much of here"--a curious touch,
which would seem to indicate a magnificent indifference to public
opinion, not shared by the little northern Court, in the haughtier
circles of Madrid. The picture is perhaps a little flattered; and it is
hard to imagine how James could have picked up so many languages in the
course of what some writers call a neglected education, confined to
Scotland alone; but perhaps his father's fondness for clever artificers
and musicians may have made him familiar in his childhood with foreign
dependants, more amusing to a quick-witted boy than the familiar varlets
who had no tongue but "braid Scots." "The King speaks besides," says
Ayala, "the language of the savages who live in some parts of Scotland
and in the islands"; clearly in every sense of the word a man of endless
accomplishments and personal note, quite beyond the ordinary of kings.

At no time, according to unanimous testimony, had Scotland attained so
high a position of national wealth, comfort, and prosperity. The wild
Highlands had been more or less subdued by the forfeiture of the
traditionary Lord of the Isles, and the final subjection of that lawless
region, nominally at least, to the King's authority, and with every
precaution for the extension of justice and order to its farthest
limits. A navy had suddenly sprung into being, signalising itself in its
very birth by brilliant a