Stuart dynasty

128 TEE STUART DYNASTY.
his nobility. Nor were 'they mollified by the fact
that James Stuart was bent on introducing into his
own dominions the centralisation he had admired in
France.
In 1541 two sons, borne to him by Mary of Guise,
who had been the pride of their nation, were
suddenly cut off, James, the heir, a year old, at
St. Andrews, and Arthur, an infant, at Stirling ;
leaving the Hamiltons, and Arran in particular,
next in the succession to the throne, supposing that
James should have no more children.
At this crisis Henry Till, almost demanded that
his nephew should meet him at York, scouting the
alternative of Newcastle as a rendezvous, put for-
ward on behalf of the Stuart sovereign by his lay
advisers, who allowed James to agree to the proposal
provided that he had safe-conduct. But the ecclesi-
astical majority who dominated the Council would
not let their King leave for performance of this
promise, so that his indignant uncle, already full of
anger against all things Scottish, waited in vain at
York for James's arrival. Henry returned to London
in high dudgeon, and hearing soon after that a
skirmish across the Border at Halydon Bigg had
ended adversely to the English, prepared for war in
real earnest.*
James V., with no means of raising an army but
that of summoning the nobles and heads of clans,
mustered his men on the Boroughmuir, near Edin-
burgh, now known as Morningside. On reaching
* Fronde's 'History of England,' edition 1858, vol. iv. p. 178.