Stuart dynasty

118 THE STUART DYNASTY.
quite amazing to those who believed his better in-
stincts to have been swamped by enervating indulg-
ence, provided as a salve for loss of personal liberty.
Inexorable towards the Douglases, he raised an army
and besieged his late gaoler Angus in his stronghold
of Tantallon, magnificent even in its present shattered
condition, and still familiar to visitors on the coast
whereon North Berwick is the chief attraction.
Although James V. was unable to gain his purpose
forthwith, the opposition he received served only to
make him more determined to drive Angus out of
the kingdom, a resolution which was accomplished
before the year 1528 closed. Arresting certain
recusant earls and barons with the connivance of
Parliament, James V. then swooped down on the
disturbed borderland with eight thousand men, and
to the astonishment of the scattered feudalities there
established, hanged Armstrong, the most powerful
freebooter of all, together with forty-eight retainers.
During the following year, 1529, measures were
taken to conciliate the Western Islanders, who had
been at variance with their chief, Argyll ; while
elsewhere stern justice was executed on the persons
of law-breakers, such as those who murdered the
Abbot of Kilross — these necessarily rigorous means
of pacification being accompanied by acts of clemency,
for which the King received little credit.*
The events of after years show that on the whole
James V. made more enemies than friends by
this necessary severity ; but amongst his subjects
* Tytler's ' History of Scotland,' edition 1834, vol. v. pp. 234, 235.