court-tragedy in his "Fair Maid of
Perth," one of the best of his later novels, most of the incidents in
which are strictly historical. James I. was murdered while he was yet
young, and James II. lost his life at twenty-nine; but James III. lost
both throne and life in a war that was waged against him in the name
of his son, who became king in consequence of his father's defeat and
death. When James IV. fell at Flodden, because he fought like a brave
fool, and not like a skilful general, he left a son who was not three
years old; and that son, James V., when he died, left a daughter, the
hapless Mary Stuart, who was but a week old. There was not much room
for quarrelling in either of these cases. Mary Stuart's son, then an
infant, was made the head of the party that dethroned his mother,
and forced her into that long exile that terminated in her murder by
Elizabeth of England. Mary's quarrels with her husband, Darnley, were
of so bitter a character as to create the belief that she caused
him to be murdered,--a belief that is as common now as it was in the
sixteenth century, though the Marian Controversy has been going on for
wellnigh three hundred years, and it has been distinctly proved by a
host of clever writers and skilful logicians that it was impossible
for her to have had any thing to do with that summary act of divorce.

Several of the sovereigns of Continental Europe have had great
troubles with their children, and these children have often had very
disobedient fathers. In France, the Dauphin, afterward Louis XI.,
could not always keep on good terms with his father, Charles VII., who
has the reputation of having restored the French monarchy, after the
English had all but subverted it, Charles at one time being derisively
called King of Bourges. Nothing annoyed Louis so much as being
compelled to run away before the army which his father was leading
against him. He would, he declared, have stayed and fought, but that
he had not even half so many men as composed the royal force. He
would have killed his father as readily as he killed his brother in
after-days,--if he did kill his brother, of which there is some
doubt, of which he should have the benefit. As was but natural, he
was jealous of his son, though he died when that prince was thirteen.
Owing to various causes, however, there have been fewer quarrels
between French kings and their eldest sons than between English kings
and their eldest sons. Few French