1423; and amongst other securities for the stipulated sum, tendered that of the
burghs of Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen. Previously to his leaving
England, James married Joanna, daughter of the duchess of Clarence, niece of
Richard II. To this lady the Scottish monarch had been long attached. Her
beauty had inspired his muse, and was the frequent theme of his song. Amongst
the poems attributed to the royal poet, there is one, entitled "A Sang on Absence," beginning "Sen that the eyne that worlds my weilfair," in which he bewails, in strains breathing the warmest and most ardent attachment, the absence of his mistress ; and in the still more elaborate production of the "King's Quair," he thus speaks of her: —
"Of hir array, the form gif I sail write
Toward her goldin haire and rich atyre,
In fret wise couchit with perlis white;
And grete balas lemyng as the fir,
With many ane emerant and saphire;
And on hir hide a chaplet fresh of hewe
Of plumys partit rede, and white, and blue."
In this beautiful poem the enamoured king describes himself as having first fallen in love with his future queen, as she was walking in the gardens under the tower at Windsor in which he was confined.
It is probable that he lost no time in making his fair enslaver aware of the conquest she had made, and it is also likely that her walks under the tower were not rendered less frequent hy the discovery. The splendour of Joanna's dress, as described in this poem, is very remarkable. She seems to have been covered with jewels, and to have been altogether arrayed in the utmost magnificence; not improbably, in the consciousness of the eyes that were upon her. The result, at all events, shows that the captive prince must have found means sooner or later of communicating with the fair idol of his affections*
The marriage ceremony was performed at the church of St Mary's Overy in Southwark; the king receiving with his bride as her marriage portion, a discharge for ten thousand pounds of his ransom money!
James was in the thirtieth year of his age when he was restored to his liberty and his kingdom. Proceeding first to Edinburgh, where he celebrated the festival of Easter, he afterwards went on to Scone, accompanied by his queen, where they were both solemnly crowned; Murdoch duke of Albany, as earl of Fife, performing the ceremony of installing the sovereign on the throne.
Immediately after the coronation, James convoked a parliament in Perth, and by the proceedings of that assembly, gave intimation to the kingdom of the commencement of a vigorous reign. Amongst many other wise and judicious ordinations, this national council enacted, that the king's peace should be firmly held, and no private wars allowed, and that no man should travel with a greater number of retainers than he could maintain; that a sufficient administration of law be appointed throughout the realm; and that no extortion from churchmen or farmers in particular be admitted. James had early been impressed with the necessity of arresting with a vigorous and unsparing hand, the progress of that system of fraud and rapine to which the country had been a prey during the regencies that preceded his accession to the throne; a policy which, perhaps, though both necessary and just, there is some reason to believe he carried too far, or at least prosecuted with a mind not tempered by judicious and humane considerations. When first informed, on his arrival in the kingdom, of the lawlessness which prevailed in it, he is said to have exclaimed, "By the help of God, though I should myself lead the life of a dog, I shall make the key keep
