Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/263

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even in that age of bad men, for ferocity, treachery, and cruelty. The chief of them, James Douglas, Earl of Morton, a man of a ferocious, treacherous, and cruel disposition, brought a stain on the name of Douglas of a peculiar kind; a stain too that shows that the morality of the nobles of that age had fallen below the level of the morality of two or three centuries back. This Morton surrendered to the Queen of England the unfortunate Earl of Northumberland, who, having been unsuccessful in his rebellion in England, had fled for refuge into Scotland, which had always before been a safe and hospitable place of refuge for those whom misfortune or political faction had driven into exile. What aggravated the blackness of the transaction, was that when Morton himself had been forced to fly to England, on account of his share in Rizzio's murder, he had been courteously received and protected by the unhappy nobleman whom he now delivered up to the vengeance of the Tudor Queen. 'It was,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'an additional and aggravating circumstance, that it was a Douglas who betrayed a Percy; and when the annals of their ancestors were considered, it was found that while they presented many acts of open hostility, many instances of close and firm alliance, they never till now had afforded an example of any