more fortunate than his brother prodigal, had the
means of showing what was in him; but even the suggestion approaches
once more strangely and suggestively the names of the two heirs whose
fate was so different--the one almost within sight of a miserable
ending, the other with glory and empire before him. Prince Henry did not
apparently come with his father to Scotland, or there might perhaps have
been a different ending to the tale, and it would not have needed Harry
Hotspur to rouse his namesake from his folly. There was, alas! no such
noble rival to excite David of Scotland to emulation, and no such happy
turning-point before him. No one, not even a minstrel or romancer, has
remembered it in his favour that he once defied the English host for the
love of his country and the old never-abandoned cause of Scottish
independence. Already it would seem a prodigal who was a Stewart had
less chance than other men. Whether some feeble fibre in the race had
already developed in this early representative of the name, or whether
it was the persistent ill-fortune which has always pursued them, making
life a continual struggle and death a violent ending, the fatal thread
which has run through their history for so many generations comes here
into the most tragic prominence, the beginning of a long series of
tragedies. It adds a softening touch to the record of David's unhappy
fate that the death of his mother is recorded as one of the great
misfortunes of his life. In the same year in which these public
incidents occurred the Queen died, carrying with her the chief influence
which had restrained her unfortunate son. She was Annabella Drummond, a
woman of character and note, much lamented by the people. And to add to
this misfortune she was followed to the grave within a year by the great
Earl of Angus, David's father-in-law, and the Bishop of St. Andrews, to
whom, as the Primate of Scotland, the young Prince's early instruction
had probably been committed, as his loss is noted along with the others
as a special disaster.

Thus the rash and foolish youth was left to face the world and all its
temptations with no longer any one whom he feared to grieve or whom he
felt himself bound to obey. His father, a fretful invalid, had little
claim upon his reverence, and his uncle Albany, the strong man of the
family, was his most dangerous enemy, ever on the watch to clear out of
his path those who stood between him and the throne: or such at