or that Albany would carry him away to France.[1] On the 27th a stormy council was held at Stirling, where Albany attempted his usual shift in difficulty, and required five months' leave of absence to go to Paris. This time the nobles refused to be left to bear the consequences of the Regent's weakness. If he went again, his departure should be final; nor should he depart at all, unless the French garrisons were withdrawn. The Duke, 'in marvellous great anger and foam,' agreed to remain; but his cause sank daily, and misfortunes thickened about him. He was without the means to support the French auxiliaries, they were obliged to shift as they could for their own security. Some escaped to their own country; others, sent away in unseaworthy vessels, were driven among the Western Islands, engaged in piracy, and were destroyed in detail.[2] MayAt length, for the last time, on the 20th of May, Albany turned his back upon the country with which he had connected himself only to his own and others' misery. He sailed away, and came again no more.
The friends of the English alliance were now re-
- ↑ Surrey to Wolsey: ibid. p. 63.
- ↑ 'A party of the Frenchmen that the said Duke despatched home again into France, were found in the out isles of Scotland, driven with stormy weather, and many of them were famished for lack of victuals, and the residue of them made war in the said out isles for getting of victuals to sustain them with, and so there were famished and killed of them there to the number of four or five hundred.'—Dacre to Wolsey: State Papers, vol. iv. p. 70.
from him; and them that loveth the governour put to him, and that I know perfectly would bare my son destroyed for the pleasure of the Duke.'—Queen Margaret to Surrey: State Papers, vol. iv. p. 57.
