A Princely Pioneer [pp. 38-46]

44 A4 Princely Pioneer. [Jul
were within reach. His father and his un- her son and the restoration of good feelin
cle, Sir Alexander Boyd, were summoned to between them, uniitil she prevailed. Thu
appear and answer charges to be brought as a peacemaker, this woman who had s
against them. The father, who was chan- fered so much passes out of our sight.
cellor of the realm, made a show of resist- The husband whom she had left with
ance, raised a straggling army, and advanced much hope in her youth, waited in vain f
at its head. But his irregular troop dispersed the pardon. The last authentic mention
at sight of the King's standard, and left him him occurs in the Paston Letters, where,
almost alone. He fled, with great difficulty, 1472, John Paston, writing to his brother
into Northumber]and, where, broken down London, asks him to call upon him there
by misfortune, he speedily died. Sir Alex- the George Inn, in Lombard Street, and
ander appeared as he was summoned, and scribes him as' the most courteous, gentle
no kindliness for the chivalrous old knight. wisest, kindest, most companionable, free
who had been his military tutor, held back largest, and most bountiful knight, m
the reckless boy from condemning him to Lord, the Earl of Arran who hath marrie
be beheaded on an unjust charge of treason. the king's sister of Scotland"; and again
While Arran and his wife were in Burgun- "the devoutest, most perfect, and truest
dy, their two children were born, a boy and his lady of all the knights that ever I was
a girl. James iii. had never given up the quainted with." All is uncertain about
idea of getting his sister back, and managed life after this private testimony to his chara
to decoy her home by a hope she had that ter. One historian says he entered the s
through her influence with him Arran might vice of Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, a
be pardoned and all be well. It is hardly died in Antwerp; another, that he wander
necessary to say that husband and wife never to Germany, Venice, Naples, and Tusca
met again. A divorce was contrived by the where he died; but Buchanan's account
King, no one knows how, and after three Arran is called by one historian "unst
years in Scotland, about which the chroni- ported," and by another, "malicious
cles are silent, she was married to Lord Ham- while Ferrerius was a foreigner whose sta
ilton, to whom the King was indebted for ments are considered by the Scotch autho
services. Arran's possessions (as well as his ties notoriously unreliable.
father's) were added to the crown. His son There are but two alternatives: either
did not live to be old. In a feud with the must question Herrera's assertion, which
Montgomeries he was killed, while still a historian down to Hefele, in our own d
boy. The daughter married and died child- has done in quoting it; or we must prov
less. some other prince of Scotland, which, as
In 1503, James iv. gave the title of Earl have shown, is impossible. The house
of Arran to the son of Hamilton and this Hamilton, from the reign of James III.t