Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/278

Instead of sharing his wife's fortunes he withdrew to his estates in Forfarshire. He declined when summoned by Albany to aid him in the siege, but his brother George and Lord Hume went to Stirling and had an interview with the queen. She had been advised, it was said, by Angus to show the young king on the walls of the castle with the crown and sceptre, in hopes of moving the besiegers. The force of Albany was too great to be resisted by the queen, unaided either by her husband or her brother, and Stirling surrendered. Strict watch was kept, especially over the person of the king. Margaret was removed from Stirling to Edinburgh, but, on the ground that her time of childbearing was near, was allowed to go to Linlithgow, from which she escaped with Angus and a few servants, protected by Hume with a small guard of ‘hardy, well-striking fellows,’ to her husband's castle of Tantallon, and afterwards to Blackadder. Thence she fled to Harbottle in Northumberland, which she reached on Sunday 30 Sept., and gave birth on the following Sunday to Margaret Douglas, afterwards Countess of Lennox, and mother of Darnley. According to Lesley, Angus was not allowed to be with his wife at Harbottle, for Dacre, the English warden, when he admitted the queen refused to admit any man or woman of Scots blood. At Morpeth, however, to which she removed, she was joined by Angus and Hume. In April she went to London, but Angus and Hume returned to Scotland. Although for a short time put in ward at Inchgarvie, Angus now entered into friendly relations with the regent. He also corresponded with his wife, but her absence and the attractions of a lady in Douglasdale had begun to cool any affection there had been on his side. In March 1517 she pressed the regent to allow Angus to come to her in England, and Albany replied he had given leave but did not think Angus willing to go. Yet, on her return from England, Angus at last met her at Lamberton Kirk, near Berwick, on 15 June 1517. It cannot have been a happy meeting. ‘The Englishmen,’ says Hall the chronicler, ‘smally him regarded.’ His wife, one of whose objects in coming to Scotland was to secure payment of the income settled on her at their marriage, extorted from him, by the aid of Lord Dacre and Dr. Magnus, a writing by which he promised not to put away any of the lands settled on her. She had waited for Albany's departure to France before setting foot in Scotland, but her hopes of being restored to the regency were disappointed. Albany had procured the appointment of the archbishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, Huntly, Argyll, Arran, and Angus, as a council of regency before he left, and the custody of the young king was given to four other nobles. The queen was not even allowed to see her son. Meanwhile the absence of Albany left the jealousy of the leading Scottish nobles free play, and the attempt to reconcile them by sharing the regency failed. De la Bastie, the French knight to whom Albany had left the custody of Dunbar, with the office of warden of the east marches, as a representative of his own and the French interest, was murdered by Hume of Wedderburn in revenge for the execution of the chief of his house, Lord Hume, the chamberlain of Albany. Dacre, the English warden, and Angus himself were suspected of complicity in his death. George, the brother of Angus, was arrested on the charge, and Arran received the vacant office of warden, which would have naturally fallen to Angus. The queen, though she had at an earlier period expressed herself to Dacre as willing that Angus should have the chief power, had now entirely changed her views. Angus had broken his promise, instigated, as she thought, by Gavin Douglas as to his jointure lands. His connection with the lady in Douglasdale, a daughter of the Laird of Traquair, was no longer secret. Though within the same kingdom, Angus and the queen had not met as man and wife for six months. She wrote to Henry stating, though she did not use the word, that she desired a divorce. Henry knew his sister too well to trust her. He set his face resolutely against the divorce, and both Wolsey and Dacre on his behalf wrote to her in uncompromising terms. Chadworth, a friar observant, was sent to remonstrate with her, and her own ‘reported suspicious living’ was thrown in her teeth. A brief and insincere reconciliation was effected between her and Angus, who rode in her company into Edinburgh in October 1519, when she went to visit her son. The dissension between Angus and Arran was now hastening to a crisis, and Angus thought it politic to use his wife as a sign of his dignity. Margaret, on the other hand, was already scheming for the divorce on which she had set her heart, but deemed it prudent, till the train was well laid, not to hasten the explosion. Thwarted by her brother, she turned in her extremity to her old adversary Albany. He went to Rome in June 1520, and his great influence with the pope was employed in her service. His agents prosecuted her cause, and his purse supplied the funds necessary for its success. When he returned to Scotland on 18 Nov. 1521, the queen openly sided with him against her husband. The enmity