orders that nobles, prelates, and other people of Scotland journeying to and from England, were, in future, to be courteously treated, and that anyone who used threats or bad language to them, or who refused to sell them food, was to be punished. Similar orders regarding the treatment of Scotsmen in England were sent to the Sheriffs of London, and many of the English counties. Edward perhaps thought that by this semblance of an union, founded on conquest and set forth on parchment, his long-cherished schemes were at last accomplished. But his plans had hardly been completed, when he found himself confronted by that combination of the Scottish people which, during the reign of his son, triumphed under the leadership of Robert Bruce, and finally secured the complete independence of Scotland on the field of Bannockburn.

The marriage of the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry the Seventh, to James the Fourth of Scotland, stanched for a time—but only for a time—the torrent of blood which was shed in the wars which raged, one after another, for nearly two hundred years after the death of Bruce. Another period of warfare followed, during which the disasters of Flodden Field and Solway Moss left Scotland apparently at the mercy of England. But when Henry the Eighth attempted to reconcile and unite the nations by a treaty of marriage between the Prince of Wales and Mary, the youthful Queen of Scots, the Scottish Estates, while agreeing to his proposal, declared that, after the marriage, Scotland was to remain a separate and independent kingdom; and it was soon found that to propitiate the Scottish nation was a task beyond even the long experience and the profound diplomatic ability of Sadler. Sadler argued that England had a young prince, and Scotland had a young princess, and that if they were betrothed, “these two realms being knit and conjoined in one, the subjects of the same, which have always been infested with the wars, might live together in wealth and perpetual peace.” “I pray you,” said a Scottish statesman in reply, “give me leave to ask you a question: If your lad were a lass, and our lass were a lad, would you then be so earnest in this matter? Could you be content that our lad should marry your lass, and so be King of England?” And when Sadler answered that he would, the Scotsman shook his head. “I cannot believe,” he said, “that your nation could agree to have a Scot to be King of England. And likewise I assure you that our nation, being a stout nation, will never agree to have an Englishman to be King of Scotland. And though the whole nobility of the realm would consent to it, yet our common people, and the stones in the street, would rise and rebel against it.”

Then, to enforce the treaty of marriage, came the invasion of Scotland, when Edinburgh was burned to the ground, when the port of Leith and the picturesque castles of Roslyn and Craigmillar were in flames, when the abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh were laid in ruins, and when the villages and farms of the lowlands were devastated by the English soldiery. But the violence of Henry was in vain; and during his reign the Scottish people hated England as they had never hated her before.[5]

The project of uniting the kingdoms by a royal marriage was not abandoned on the death of Henry; and in the first year of Edward the Sixth, the battle of Pinkie, the last great battle between England and Scotland, was fought. But the Protector Somerset soon found that the Scots, though defeated, were as determined as ever to resist the English connection, and that the Scottish Parliament had at last resolved that their young queen should be betrothed to the Dauphin, and sent forthwith to France, to be educated at the French Court. This resolution, so fateful to Mary Stuart, then a child of only six, altered the views and policy of Somerset. In the name of the English Council he issued a remarkable proclamation, in which he proposed that the Crowns should be united, and that the kingdoms should become one. “We invite you,” it was said, “to amity and equality, because, as we inhabit in the same island, there is no people so like one another in manners, customs, and language.” There was to be freedom and equality of trade between England and Scotland. The subjects of both kingdoms were to be allowed to intermarry. If the Scots wished it, the name of England would be abolished, and “the indifferent old name of Britains” taken again. “If we two,” the proclamation declared, “being made one by amity, be most able to defend us against all nations; and, having the sea for the wall, mutual love for garrison, and God for defence, should make so noble and well-agreeing a monarchy, that neither in peace we may be ashamed, nor in war afraid of any worldly or foreign power; why should not you be as desirous of the same, and have as much cause to rejoice at it as we?”[6] But these overtures were too late; the Queen of Scots was sent to France: and when, two years later, peace was proclaimed, Scotland remained unconquered and independent.

The treaty of peace declared that the boundaries of the two countries were to be the same as they had been before the outbreak of war between Henry the Eighth and James the Fifth of Scotland. An attempt was made to deal with that portion of waste land upon the western borders which had been, for so long, a harbour of refuge for the outlaws of both kingdoms, and which was known as the Debateable Ground.[7] It was to be divided by march stones; and ditches and enclosures were to be made for the purpose of hindering the flight of marauders. The English were to relinquish all lands and houses which they had seized; and those fishings on the river Tweed which the Scots had possessed before the war were to be given back to them.[8]

Never in the history of this island, except afterwards during the reign of Anne, was the Scottish question so troublesome to England as during the second half of the sixteenth century. The immense additions which, of late years, have been made to our sources of information have not changed, to any great extent, the aspect of the long familiar picture, nor caused us to relinquish the old opinions regarding the characters and motives of those who held in their hands the tangled threads of international policy during the fifty years which preceded the Union of the Crowns. To use the Scots for the purpose of weakening England had long been the policy of France; and when war between Spain and France broke out in 1555, and an English army was to be sent to the assistance of Spain, the French Court hoped that an army from Scotland would march across the Tweed. Mary of Guise assembled the Scottish nobles, and proposed that they should seize the opportunity of taking vengeance for all the wrongs which their country had suffered since the fatal day of Flodden. But the proposals of the Queen Regent were not received with favour. She