om everybody
had intrigued and plotted all his life long, who had been torn from one
side to another since ever he could remember, and whom a Douglas had but
recently threatened, at a moment of alarm, that rather than render him
up they would tear him in two, took at last the matter into his own
hands. Whether the suggestion was his own, or had in some way been
breathed into his mind, there is no evidence; but it is clear that he
had good reason to be very tired of his subjection. He had already
attempted, we are told, several means of getting free of bondage, but
had only succeeded in causing the destruction of various lords to whom
he had appealed. All his friends had been alienated from him. His mother
was powerless to help, and indeed on her own account in such evil case
that she is said to have wandered over the country in disguise,
friendless and out of favour with all. She had hastened into a third
foolish marriage as soon as she had obtained her divorce from Angus, and
thus lost all her supporters and champions. His uncle, Henry VIII, was
more closely bound to Angus, who was strongly in the interest of England
as against France, than to any other Scot, and the young King was thus
surrounded by influences hostile to his freedom.

[Illustration: DOORWAY, SIR A. AITCHESON'S HOUSE]

There are moments, however, when the most vigilant watch relaxes, and it
so happened that Angus left his young prisoner on one occasion at the
Castle of Falkland, the hunting seat of the Scots kings, to all
appearance fully occupied with hunting and hawking and thinking of
nothing more important, in the charge of Archibald Douglas, the Earl's
uncle, George his brother, and a certain James Douglas of Parkhead, who
was the captain of the guard. When Angus had been gone a day or two, the
elder of these guardians asked leave of the King, according to the
formula, to go to Dundee upon personal business of his own; and George
Douglas rode off to St. Andrews to see the Bishop on a question of
taxes, leaving only the captain and his hundred guardsmen to be
accounted for. Who can doubt that young James was well used to all
devices for deceiving his gaolers, he who had been held by so many?
There was nothing in his present expedient which could have offended the
most tender conscience. He desired that preparations might be made for a
great hunting, calling upon "the laird of Ferme, forester of the park of
Falkland, and chamberlain of Fife," to wa