into no small trouble, from the factiousness of
the Scotch nobility. She not only lost the influence
she had possessed as queen dowager, but
was deprived of the guardianship of her own
son, and even for some time forbidden to see
him. She was also robbed of her widow's
portion, and was left at times in positive distress and
penury, in consequence of which she for a while
returned to the court of her brother in England.
Then she found that the only way to make life
tolerable in the country of her adoption was to
humour the different parties alternately. Finally
she became entirely detached from the interests
of her husband, and resolved on getting a divorce
from him in order to marry one Henry Stewart,
to whom she had taken a fancy. How to set
about this, was a question, one might have
supposed, of no small difficulty, for all the world
had its eyes open, when she married Angus.
But when she came to think of it, it occurred to
her that her first husband, James the Fourth,
had not been killed at Flodden, but must have
been alive when she married Angus. Hence she
was able to draw the agreeable inference that her
marriage with Angus had been bigamy, void
from the first. And so, though she had been
his wedded wife for fourteen years, she was now
free to marry Henry Stewart—and she did.
The new alliance, however, was not much
happier than the former; for after some years she
found that her third husband showed her as little
consideration as her second had done, for which
reason she obtained a divorce from him also,
and died a single woman.

Henry the Eighth's second sister, Mary, was
not altogether so unfortunate; but she had
troubles enough. Henry gave her in marriage
to Louis the Twelfth of France in the full
expectation that the aged and sickly king would
not live long, and he overcame the young girl's
natural objections to a repulsive match, with the
assurance that she should be free to marry
whom she pleased next time. She had not long
to wait for the opportunity, because King Louis
died three months after the marriage; but she
does not appear to have been quite sure that
her brother would keep faith with her. So
to make all right, she herself, before she left
France, married Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolk, who was at that time over on an embassy,
and to whom she seems to have been attached
when she was forced into the French alliance,
He was young, brave, and handsome,—in all
personal qualities an admirable match for her;
but the aristocracy of the day found in this
case a grave offence against decency, which they
had failed to see in the match with Louis the
Twelfth. Suffolk was an upstart. His title of
duke was at this time but a year old, and only
two years ago he had been plain Charles Brandon.
His advancement had been wholly due to
the king's favour, and by his impudence in
marrying the king's sister the best blood in
England was set on to boil.

To do Henry the Eighth justice, he did not
suffer his own blood to boil in the same pot with
the blood of his nobles. Indeed, it is pretty
clear that he sent Suffolk to France with a
promise, that he should have Mary to wife on his
return; and there is no reason to doubt that it
was at least sincerely promised. Mary, however,
was sadly afraid that she should be victimised
again, and took the matter into her own hands,
to the great displeasure of her brother, and to
the disgust of all English nobles.

The man, whom she had thus chosen, and
made her second husband—what were his
attractions? Physically speaking, he was not unlike
Henry the Eighth, who, no doubt, was drawn
to him by the qualities which they possessed in
common. He was like him in having a big,
large frame, strong limbs and animal passions,
and a liking for rough, manly exercises. But in
mental qualities he was much his inferior. With
just education enough to write a very bad hand
he spelled almost every word in a fashion quite
his own, and barely made himself intelligible in
letters totally void of grammar. Henry the
Eighth, however, had employed him both in
war and in diplomacy, and in the year before
his marriage with Mary had tried to recommend
him as a husband to Margaret of Savoy, daughter
of the Emperor Maximilian.

Whether Suffolk himself had produced any
serious impression on Margaret is more than
doubtful. We have a letter of hers upon the
subject to the King of England's ambassador,
stating that she had shown the duke a great
deal of respect, out of consideration for his
master; but that marriage was a thing she could
not think of, otherwise she would be dishonoured
and looked upon as a fool. Henry the Eighth,
indeed, who had just then won the town of
Tournay and found time for a little trifling at the
end of a busy campaign, had done a portion of
the wooing on Suffolk's account, who was
probably a clumsy hand at it. "I know well,
Madam," said the King, " that my fellow shall
be to you a faithful servant, and that he is
altogether yours." But she had allowed Suffolk
to flirt with her, with no very great reluctance.
Afterwards she was annoyed to find
the affair commonly talked about, apparently
through the idle vanity of Suffolk, who could
not keep himself from showing a diamond ring
that he had stolen from her finger. Of this
boast Margaret seems to have felt that some
explanation was necessary, and she gives the
following account of it in her letter.

"One night at Tournay," she writes, her
letter being translated to us by the ambassador
to whom it was addressed, " after the banquet
he put himself on his knees before me, and in
speaking, and him playing, he drew from my
finger the ring, and put it upon his, and since
showed it me; and I took to laugh, and to him
said that he was a thief, and that I thought not
that the King had with him led thieves out of
his country. This word larron, he could not
understand; wherefore I was constrained to ask
how one said in Flemish larron. And afterwards
I said to him in Flemish dieffe, and I prayed him
many times to give it me again, for that it was
too much known. But he understood me not
well, and kept it on unto the next day that I
spake to the King, him requiring to make him
to give it me, because it was too much known—
I promising him one of my bracelets the which