guard that the restraint became very irksome to him, and he determined to escape from their power. In two attempts by force he was unsuccessful; but finally, on pretence of going hunting, he escaped from his captivity, and fled into the strong fortress of Stirling Castle, whose governor was friendly to him. Here he assembled around him the numerous nobility favorable to him, and threatened to declare a traitor any of the name of Douglas who should approach within twelve miles of his person, or who should attempt to meddle with the administration of government. He retained, ever after, this implacable resentment against the Douglases, not permitting one of the name to settle in Scotland while he lived. James was especially ungenerous to one Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie, the one mentioned in the poem who had been a favorite of the young King. He was noted for great strength, manly appearance, and skill in all kinds of exercises. When an old man, becoming tired of his exile in England, he resolved to try the King's mercy, thinking that, as he had not personally offended James, he might find favor on account of their old intimacy. He therefore threw himself in the King's way one day as he returned from hunting in the Park at Stirling. Although it was several years since James had seen him, he knew him at a great distance by his firm and stately step. When they met he showed no sign of recognizing his old servant. Douglas turned, hoping still to obtain a glance of favorable recollection, and ran along by the King's side; and, although James trotted his horse hard, and Douglas wore a heavy shirt of mail, yet he reached the castle gate as soon as the King. James passed by him, without the slightest sign of recognition, and entered the castle. Douglas, exhausted, sat down at the gate and asked for a cup of wine; but no domestic dared to offer it. The King, however, blamed this discourtesy in his servants, saying that, but for his oath, he would have received Archibald into his service. Yet he sent his command for him to retire to France, where the old man soon died of a broken heart. Freed from the stern control of the Douglas family, James V. now began to exercise the government in person, and displayed most of the qualities of a wise and good prince. He was handsome in his person, and resembled his father in the fondness for military exercises, and the spirit of chivalrous honor which James IV. loved to display. He also inherited his father's love of justice, and his desire to establish and enforce wise and equal laws, which should protect the weak against the oppression of the great. It was easy enough to make laws, but to put them in vigorous exercise was of much greater.difficulty; and, in his attempt to accomplish this laudable purpose, James often incurred the ill-will of the more powerful nobles. He was a well-educated and accomplished man, and, like his ancestor, James I., was a poet and musician. He had, however, his defects. He avoided his father's failing of profusion, having no hoarded treasures to employ on pomp and show; but he rather fell into the opposite fault, being of a temper too parsimonious; and, though he loved state and display, he endeavored to gratify that taste as economically as possible, so that he has been censured as rather close and covetous. He was also, though the foibles seem inconsistent, fond of pleasure, and disposed to too much indulgence. It must be added that, when provoked, he was unrelenting even to cruelty; for which he had some apology, considering the ferocity of the subjects over whom he reigned. But, on the whole, James V. was an amiable man and a good sovereign.

His first care was to bring the Borders of Scotland to some degree of order. As before stated, these were inhabited by tribes of men, forming each a different clan, as they were called, and obeying no orders, save those which were given by their chiefs. These chiefs were supposed to represent the first founder of the name or family. The attachment of the clansmen to the chief was very great; indeed, they paid respect to no one else. In this the Borderers agreed with the Highlanders, as also in their love of plunder and neglect of the general laws of the country. But the Border men wore no tartan dress, and served almost always on horseback, whereas the Highlanders acted always on foot. The Borderers spoke the Scottish language, and not the Gaelic tongue used by the mountaineers.

The situation of these clans on the frontiers exposed them to constant war; so that they thought of nothing else but of collecting bands of their followers together, and making incursions, without much distinction, on the English, on the Lowland (or inland) Scots, or upon each other. They paid little respect either to times of truce or treaties of peace, but exercised their depredations without regard to either, and often occasioned wars betwixt England and Scotland which would not otherwise have taken place.

James' first step was to secure the persons of the principal chieftains by whom these disorders were privately encouraged, and who might have opposed his purposes, and imprison them in separate fortresses.

He then assembled an army, in which warlike purposes were united with those of sylvan sport; for he ordered all the gentlemen, in the wild districts which he intended to visit, to bring in their best dogs, as if his only purpose had been to hunt the deer in those desolate regions. This was intended to prevent the Borderers from taking the alarm, in which case they would have retreated into their mountains and fastnesses, from whence it would have been difficult to dislodge them.

These men had indeed no distinct idea of the offences which they had committed, and consequently no apprehension of the King's displeasure against them. The laws had been

so long silent in that remote and disorderly country, that the outrages which were practised by the strong against the weak seemed to the perpetrators the natural course of society, and to present nothing that was worthy of punishment. Thus the King suddenly approached the castles of these great lords and barons, while they were preparing a great entertainment to welcome him, and caused them to be seized and executed.

There is reason to censure the extent to which James carried his severity, as being to a certain degree impolitic, and beyond doubt cruel and excessive.

In the like manner, James proceeded against the Highland chiefs; and, by executions, forfeitures, and other severe measures, he brought the Northern mountaineers, as he had already done those of the South, into comparative subjection.

Such were the effects of the terror struck by these general executions, that James was said to have made "the rush bush keep the cow"; that is to say, that, even in this lawless part of the country, men dared no longer make free with property, and cattle might remain on their pastures unwatched. James was also enabled to draw profit from the lands which the crown possessed near the Borders, and is said to have had ten thousand sheep at one time grazing in Ettrick forest, under the keeping of one Andrew Bell, who gave the King as good an account of the flock as if they had been grazing in the bounds of Fife, then the most civilized part of Scotland.

James V. had a custom of going about the country disguised as a private person, in order that he might hear complaints which might not otherwise reach his ears, and, perhaps, that he might enjoy amusement which he could not have partaken of in his avowed royal character.

He was also very fond of hunting, and, when he pursued that amusement in the Highlands, he used to wear the peculiar dress of that country, having a long and wide Highland shirt, and a jacket of tartan velvet, with plaid hose, and everything else corresponding.

The reign of James V. was not alone distinguished by his personal adventures and pastimes, but is honorably remembered on account of wise laws made for the government of his people, and for restraining the crimes and violence which were frequently practised among them; especially those of assassination, burning of houses, and driving of cattle, the usual and ready means by which powerful chiefs avenged themselves on their feudal enemies.

Had not James become involved in a war with Henry the Eighth of England, he might have been as fortunate a prince as his many good qualities deserved; but, the war going against him, in despair and desolation he shut himself up in his palace, refusing to listen to consolation. A burning fever, the consequence of his grief and shame, seized on the unfortunate monarch. When they brought him tidings that his wife had given birth to a daughter, who afterwards became the brilliant, but most unfortunate, Mary Queen of Scots, he only replied, "Is it so?" reflecting on the alliance which had placed the Stewart family on the throne; "then God's will be done. It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass." With these words, presaging the extinction of his house, he made a signal of adieu to his courtiers, spoke little more, but turned his face to the wall and, when scarcely thirty-one years old, in the very prime of life, he died of the most melancholy of all diseases, a broken heart.

Driving. Here, stealing.