udacious contempt of all authority
but their own shown by the Douglas party, notwithstanding the standing
danger of their insolent power, their promises so often broken, their
frequent submissions and actual defiance, his aim in all his dealings
with them was rather to do justice to the oppressed than to punish the
guilty. His genial temper, and that belief in his kind which is always
so ingratiating a quality, is proved by the account Major gives of his
life on those military expeditions which from this time forth occupied
so much of his time. He lived with his soldiers as an equal, that
historian tells us, eating as they did, without the precaution of a
taster, which Major thinks highly imprudent, but which would naturally
bind to the frank and generous monarch the confidence and regard of his
fellow-soldiers, and the captains with whom he shared the sometimes
scanty provisions of the campaign.

News of these strange events was conveyed to Douglas, now in England on
his return from the pilgrimage of pride and ostentation to which, though
it was professedly for the Papal jubilee, no one attempts to give a
religious character. He was returning at his leisure, lingering on his
way, not without suspicion of secret treaties with the English in
support of the party of York, though all the prepossessions of Scotland
and King James were on the other side: but hurried home on hearing the
news, and was politic enough to make immediate submission as soon as he
became aware of the seriousness of the crisis, promising everything that
could be demanded of him in the way of obedience and respect of "the
King's peace." Once more he was fully and freely pardoned, his lands,
with some small diminution, restored, and the King's confidence given
back to him with a too magnanimous completeness. In the Parliament held
in Edinburgh in June 1451 he was present, and received back his charters
in full amity and kindness, to the great satisfaction and pleasure of
"all gud Scottis men." Later in the year, in his capacity of Warden of
the Marches, he was employed to assuage the endless quarrels of the
Border, but during his negotiations for this purpose secretly renewed
his mysterious and treacherous dealings with England, of which there is
no very clear account, but which was of all others the kind of treachery
most obnoxious to his countrymen. So far as would appear, James obtained
some hint of these clandestine proceedings, and was very angry,