softycent prowes,' and urging her desire to be free of Methven, ' who is but a sobare man,' before the return of her son and his young wife (Hamilton Papers, i. 42). Sadler was despatched to Rouen to remonstrate with James, who, as Margaret hastened to inform her brother, instructed 'his Lordis' to do her justice with expedition (State Papers, v. 70, 74). She implored Norfolk not to make war upon Scotland until she was safely divorced, and assured him that nothing should pass in Scotland which she would not communicate to Henry (ib. v. 75). On 7 June, after James's return, she wrote to Henry to notify him that her divorce was at the giving of sentence (ib. v. 90). It was therefore with bitter disappointment that she had soon after to inform her brother that James had stopped her suit when the sentence was already written out, and proved by forty famous provers, although she had bought his promise to let it go on. She declares that Methven had offered him a higher bribe from her lands (ib. v. 103). But perhaps James's proceeding admits of a sufficiently obvious and more creditable explanation. She attempted to steal into England, but was overtaken within five miles of the border and conveyed to Dundee by Lord Maxwell, who expressed an opinion that all things would go well between the realms if she did not make a breach (ib. v. 109). According to her own account, Methven had persuaded James that she had intended to reconcile herself with Angus because she went to her lands in Ettrick. He will only allow her to depart 'bed and bwrd' from Methven, and not 'somplecytur.' She complains that she has none of her dower palaces to live in, and talks of a cloister. Henry is urged, since she is now his only sister, to take strong measures in her behalf ; she is now 'fourty years and nine,' and wishes ease and rest rather than to be obliged to follow her son about like a poor gentlewoman as she has done for twenty weeks past (Letters of 13 and 16 Nov., ib. i. 534, v. 115 ; Hamilton Papers, i. 49-51). But this mood was transient. She cordially welcomed Mary of Lorraine in June 1538, seeking to impress her by pretending to have had recent letters from Henry (State Papers, v. 127, 135). The young queen seems to have soothed Margaret's morbid vanity, and by the beginning of 1539 she was reconciled with Methven (ib. p. 154 ; Green, p. 500). Norfolk reported to Henry that 'the young queen was all papist, and the old queen not much less' (ib.) But in 1541 she was again plaguing Henry with her money troubles ; and although he was puzzled by the contradictory reports of her treatment he received, he gave some ear to her complaints, as he required a spy upon the Scottish war preparations (Hamilton Papers, i. 60-5, 75). On 1 March 1541 she preferred a curious request to Henry on behalf of a begging friar from Palestine (Thorpe, Cal. of Documents relating to Scotland, i. 40). On 12 May she informed Henry from Stirling of the death of the two young princes, and that she never left the bereaved parents (State Papers, v. 188). At the end of that month Henry's messenger, Ray, was in secret communication with her at Stirling (Hamilton Papers, i. 75). She was seized with palsy at Methven Castle on Friday, 14 Oct., and finding herself growing worse sent for James from Falkland Palace, but he did not arrive in time to see her alive. She is said to have extremely lamented and asked God mercy that she had offended unto the Earl of Angus as she had done,' but this rests upon the report of Henry's messenger, Ray (State Papers, v. 193-4). She was unable to make a will, but desired that Lady Margaret should inherit her goods. Ray was informed that she had no more than 2,500 marks Scots at her death (ib.} She died on Tuesday, 18 Oct., aged nearly fifty-three (Chronicle of Perth, Maitland Club, and Treasurer's Accounts for October 1541, quoted by Green, p. 504; the Diurnal of Occurrents, Bannatyne Club ed., places her death on 24 Nov.) James buried her splendidly in the vault of James I in the Carthusian church of St. John at Perth (Lesley, p. 157). Methven, by whom she had no offspring, though the contrary has been asserted, survived her some years.
Margaret had, in the words of an old Scottish writer, a 'great Twang of her brother's Temper.' Impetuous, capricious, equally ardent and fickle in her attachments, unscrupulously selfish, vain of power and show, and not without something of Henry's robustness and ability, the likeness is not merely fanciful. She listened neither to the voice of policy nor of maternal affection when passion impelled her. Yet she showed a real affection even for the daughter of whom she had seen so little, and James loved and trusted her until she shamefully abused his confidence. It was a hard part that she had to play in Scotland, distracted by internal turbulence and the intrigues of Henry VIII, but she played it too often without dignity, consistency, or moderation. It was not unnatural that in the miserable conflict of French and English influence she should range herself on the side of her brother ; but nothing can justify the cold-bloodedness with which she urged him to destroy Scot-
