could be regarded as the first great event in British, as opposed to English or Scottish, history. It led directly, and exactly a century later, to the Union of the Crowns, the joining of the Thistle and the Rose. Henry VII, the bride’s father, with his Welsh background, his kingdom of England, and his determination to build good relations with Scotland, should be regarded as an early, prescient exemplar of Britishness. The same could hardly be said of James IV of Scotland.
The wedding itself was the last great set-piece ceremonial event of pre-Reformation Scotland. The 14-year-old Margaret said goodbye to her father, whom by all accounts she loved dearly, early in July. There was a long and tedious progression north, via Grantham, Doncaster, York, Durham and Berwick. Margaret met her future husband at Dalkeith. The actual rites were conducted by the archbishops of Glasgow and York at Holyrood Abbey. Then James hosted an extravagant and spectacular wedding feast. Unfortunately, Margaret was not served until the second sitting, by which time James had already dined with the two archbishops.
James was in some ways an appalling husband. He was not averse to parading his mistresses before his young queen. But Margaret had her father’s tenacity, and not a little pride. The marriage was stormy, but the queen held her own. Their first son was born in 1507, but he died before he was a year old. Five years later, the boy who was to become James V was born. James V’s grandson James VI eventually became the first monarch of both England and Scotland.
Thus, the marriage of Margaret and James was hugely significant; yet it would be wrong to claim that it immediately gave the two nations the sense of a shared destiny. That was not to come until, in their very different ways, England and Scotland both embraced the Reformation. It was to be Protestantism that finally brought them together.
Henry VII, dry and sardonic, watchful and careful, was indubitably a great man and an exemplary king. Indeed, he was probably the greatest king England ever had. But there was nothing flashy or inflated or obviously regal about him. He did not engage popular attention as his son Henry VIII or his granddaughter Elizabeth did. There was something guarded and watchful about him. His son Henry was a brute and a rascal, duplicitous and bloodthirsty, yet his subjects warmed to him in a way they never did to the more austere founder of the Tudor dynasty.
Henry VII had his contemplative side, and he became increasingly exercised about the future peace of his soul. In his Christianity, he could not have been more orthodox. He behaved with restraint and lived decently. In a marginally excessive tribute, his superlative biographer Sir Francis Bacon celebrated the ‘divine’ in him. Bacon noted that ‘he had the fortune of a true Christian as well as of a great king’. Bacon further noted that he lies buried ‘in one of the stateliest and daintiest monuments of Europe so that he dwells more richly dead in the moment of his tomb, than he did alive in Richmond or any of his palaces’.
Henry had given his kingdom the benefits of order and equilibrium. He constantly contended for peace, and he was consistently far-sighted. The writers of history, Bacon apart, have not been keen to celebrate him. But that is perhaps a reflection of his somewhat cold, stand-offish nature rather than a considered assessment of his twenty-four years of power. As he prepared for death and looked ahead, as he must have done, this deeply religious and essentially conservative man could hardly have imagined the extraordinary convulsions that were soon to tear his kingdom – and many others in Europe – apart, all in the name of religion. The first explosion was near – but Henry died in 1509, utterly unaware of the tumults to come.
CHAPTER 2
James IV of Scotland
WHEN Henry VII won the Battle of Bosworth and became king of England, his counterpart north of the Border was James III of Scotland. One thing that these monarchs had in common was their desire for good relations between their two countries.
James was a weak man. He had persistent trouble with his nobility – particularly those in the Borders, who detested the idea of peace with England, which became James’s prime policy – and he was deeply unpopular with his subjects. One reason for this was that James, like Henry, was rapacious. But Henry was cunning and effective in his rapacity. James, by contrast, was arbitrary and inconsistent. He annexed land, he levied extraordinary taxes and – worst of all – he debased the coinage. All this in a random manner, and in a country that was considerably poorer than England.
Further, James conspicuously preferred the company of low-born favourites at his court to that of his fractious and bloodthirsty aristocracy. Foolishly, he did not make a point of travelling around his kingdom. He spent most of his time in Edinburgh and was regarded (somewhat unfairly) as being reclusive. And he had a problem with his eldest son, also James, to whom he became more and more hostile.
In his relations with the Church, James III had mixed fortunes. He was generally able to control key Church patronage, appointing some of his strongest supporters to sensitive bishoprics. Like Henry VII, he was not interested in church reform, preferring to regard the Church as a source of revenue. His wife, Queen Margaret, was a woman of such conspicuous piety that she was actually, after death, a serious candidate for canonisation. James’s key clerical ally was Bishop William Elphinstone, one of the outstanding Scots of his time.
Elphinstone was born in Glasgow in 1431. He studied for several years in France, at Paris and Orléans; and, when he returned to Scotland in 1471, his rise was rapid. He became Bishop of Ross in 1481 and was transferred to Aberdeen two years later. In 1485, he represented James at the coronation of Henry VII. In 1488, he became chancellor of Scotland. He was an accomplished lawyer and diplomat, and he undertook many negotiations with England and continental countries. He founded Aberdeen University, introduced printing to Scotland in 1507, and was responsible for the Aberdeen Breviary, a new national liturgy for Scotland.
James III coveted the Church’s revenues, and he interfered constantly in Church affairs, most controversially in a dispute on the management of Coldingham Priory. But he maintained reasonable relations with the papacy in Rome – and indeed, towards the end of his reign, Pope Innocent VIII granted him a special licence, involving a ‘window’ during which James could make his own appointments to cathedrals and monasteries. If James had had more advisers of the calibre of William Elphinstone, he might have been a more successful king. As it was, his downfall came because of his poor relationship with his eldest son, James.
When still in his early teens, the boy was cultivated by some of the leading Scottish nobles, who regarded him as a useful figurehead in their machinations against the king. The future king in turn used these nobles to further his own excessive and premature ambition; and, in 1488, he became involved with what was to prove the most serious and final rebellion of James III’s unhappy reign.
Prince James left Stirling Castle with a small rebel force, mainly from the Borders. The king’s supporters confronted them, and there was a skirmish near Stirling Bridge. There was a second, more serious, engagement at Sauchieburn. King James fled from the fighting – and, some distance away, he was stabbed to death, possibly by a man claiming to be a priest. The Scottish Parliament conducted an inquiry into the king’s death but was only able to conclude, in the blandest of phrases, that the king ‘happened to be slain’. The new king was definitely complicit in his father’s death, if not directly responsible for it. In any event, he was crowned James IV at Scone on 26 June 1488.
James IV is often described as Scotland’s greatest king; cynics might aver that there was not much competition. James IV was seriously, serially ambitious. He was desperate to make his mark, and not just on his own desolate kingdom on the obscure margins of north-west Europe. He wanted to lead the new navy he created – at vast expense – in a grand Christian crusade against the Turks, an idea that was impractical and did not impress those whom he would have needed as allies. (Too often, James was a fantasist, and an impetuous one at that.)
Luckily,
