ve burghers would shake their heads at the boldness of the
Englishwoman who had so confronted the Scots lords in their own city.

The Queen transferred herself and her children to Stirling before the
six days had expired, but, as might be supposed, her little triumph was
short-lived. Her boyish husband had already shown signs of deserting
her, and probably enough her fancy for him was as short-lived as those
other ephemeral and still more tragical passions which her brother had
scarcely yet begun to indulge. The excuse which the Regent and his
council put forth for taking the infant King from his mother was partly
her second marriage, and partly a supposed plan for carrying off the two
children to England, which did actually exist, King Henry being, as a
matter of fact, their nearest of kin and most powerful possible
guardian, though one who would have been vehemently rejected by all
Scotland: while on the other hand the little James was as yet the most
likely heir to the English crown. But this scheme had been opposed both
by the Queen herself--whose statement that had she been a woman of
humble condition she might have taken her children in her arms and gone
unknown to her brother, but that, being a queen, she could not move
anywhere without observation, is full of homely and natural dignity--and
by Gawin Douglas, who repeats the same objection. Margaret, however, did
not long continue to identify herself with the Douglases. The conduct of
Angus gave her full reason for offence, if, perhaps, she was not
altogether guiltless on her side; and they were in a state of absolute
estrangement when the calling of a Parliament early in the year 1520
brought Angus to Edinburgh, where with his party he had been sometimes
master and sometimes proscribed man in the innumerable variations of
politics or rather of personal quarrels and intrigues. Albany had by
this time returned to France without however resigning his regency, and
authority was more or less represented by the Earl of Arran, who was at
the head of the opposite faction. The party of Arran were in possession
of Edinburgh and of the little King, now eight years old, who was in the
castle under charge of the peers who had been appointed his guardians,
when Angus reappeared. Queen Margaret amid all these tumults, finding
little encouragement from her brother, who was much more intent on
securing a party in Scotland than on consulting her wishes, had also
chosen to reside n