yll, Moray,
Bothwell, and other nobles, with Maxwell and the Laird of Buccleuch, Sir
Walter Scott. Angus and his kin were forfeited; he was driven across the
Border in November, to work what mischief he might against his country;
he did not return till the death of James V. Meanwhile James was at
peace with his uncle, Henry VIII. He (1529-1530) attempted to bring the
Border into his peace, and hanged Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie, with
circumstances of treachery, says the ballad,--as a ballad-maker was
certain to say.

Campbells, Macleans, and Macdonalds had all this while been burning each
other's lands, and cutting each other's throats. James visited them, and
partly quieted them, incarcerating the Earl of Argyll.

Bothwell and Angus now conspired together to crown Henry VIII. in
Edinburgh; but, in May 1534, a treaty of peace was made, to last till the
death of either monarch and a year longer.

CHAPTER XV. JAMES V. AND THE REFORMATION.

The new times were at the door. In 1425 the Scottish Parliament had
forbidden Lutheran books to be imported. But they were, of course,
smuggled in; and the seed of religious revolution fell on minds disgusted
by the greed and anarchy of the clerical fighters and jobbers of
benefices.

James V., after he had shaken off the Douglases and become "a free king,"
had to deal with a political and religious situation, out of which we may
say in the Scots phrase, "there was no outgait." His was the dilemma of
his father before Flodden. How, against the perfidious ambition, the
force in war, and the purchasing powers of Henry VIII., was James to
preserve the national independence of Scotland? His problem was even
harder than that of his father, because when Henry broke with Rome and
robbed the religious houses a large minority, at least, of the Scottish
nobles, gentry, and middle classes were, so far, heartily on the anti-
Roman side. They were tired of Rome, tired of the profligacy, ignorance,
and insatiable greed of the ecclesiastical dignitaries who, too often,
were reckless cadets of the noble families. Many Scots had read the
Lutheran books and disbelieved in transubstantiation; thought that money
paid for prayers to the dead was money wasted; preferred a married and
preaching to a celibate and licentious clergy who celebrated Mass; were
convinced that saintly images were idols, that saintly miracles were
impostures. Above all, the nobles coveted the lands of the