388
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 18.
break a spear on an Englishman's breast.'[1] In such a humour he was not likely to look more affectionately on his mother, or attend to Henry's representations on her behalf. May.On his arrival in Scotland, 'omitting all manner of his usual pastimes,' he spent his time with unknown intentions in military preparations. Margaret, in addition to her other misfortunes, found herself suspected and hated as a spy of England. She hud contrived to carry her suit for a divorce to the verge of a successful termination in a Scotch Ecclesiastical Court. But Methuen, who lived upon her dowry, which he would have lost if she escaped him, persuaded the King that she intended to retire across the Border, and rejoin the Earl of Angus. James forbade the sentence to be pronounced, and, as the queen-mother declared—but, it is to be hoped, misled by misery—he shared with Methuen the proceeds of her property.[2] Eventually this last grievance was brought to an end. She was parted from her husband; and the rest of her story may be concluded in this place. She struggled on
- ↑ Sir Thomas Clifford to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. v. p. 80.
- ↑ 'Dearest Cousin, I must make my complaint to you how I am heavily done to in this realm, for I have obtained my cause of divorce betwixt me and my Lord of Meffen; and it is so far past that the judge has concluded and written my sentence ready to be pronounced, and the King my son has stopped the same and will not let it be given; and he promised me, when I gave him my manor of Dunbar for a certain money, that I should have the same sentence pronounced.… They cause the King my son to believe that an the Lord of Meffen be my husband, that he may give the King my lands and living as long as he is my husband; and through this way he thinks to hold me daily in trouble, and to make him master of my lands.'—Queen Margaret to the Duke of Norfolk: State Papers, vol. v. p. 103.
