Perthshire in bygone days

600 PERTHSHIRE IN BYGONE DAYS.
doing so did not "at first" injure their confidence in his
fulfilling his engagement with England. What engage-
ment? When James selected this daughter of a noble
house as his mistress, the Princess Margaret Tudor was
four years old ! and Tytler himself informs us that when
the engagement took place, she was in her twelfth year.
Poor James ! What other engagement had he with Eng-
land? He is here represented as indiscriminate and select.
Thirteen years of close attachment is called a temporary
amour. Margaret Drummond is represented as inimical
to this engagement with England. Poor woman ! Six
months before James entered into any nuptial engagement
with England in the person of Margaret Tudor, she was
lying below the blue pavement in the chancel of Dunblane
Cathedral.
Fifth. Tytler says that " Margaret Drummond's ob-
sequious father encouraged her connection with King James
knowing it to be illicit." A father who panders his daugh-
ter's virtue is a fiend ; and if the accusation is at variance
with the other features of a man's character, it ought never
to be made ; yet this loose historian, with a single stroke
of his pen, changes one of the best names that graces the
pages of Scobtish History into that of one of the refuse of
the earth. Before characterising the connection as illicit
and wicked, and stating that it was connived at by an
obsequious father, Mr. Tytler was bound to inquire into the
circumstances which led to its formation, but this he de-
clines to do, and treats the guilt of parties as a foregone
conclusion ; thus violating all the candour with which the
uncertified historian is expected to treat the illustrious
dead. The daughter's position may be a fair subject for
discussion ; but to implicate the father in her alleged way-
wardness is gross injustice.
Lord Drummond was made a Privy Councillor, and got
an addition to his estate, because he had defeated the rebel
army at Tillymoss and established the permanent peace of
the kingdom. No obsequiousness in this ! He encouraged
the marriage of his grandson, the Earl of Angus, with Mar-
garet Tudor ; and when Angus was brought up before the
offended Council, Lord Drummond thought that the Lyon
King delivered his charge with indiscreet boldness, and
dealt him a box on the ear, for which he was imprisoned
in Blackness Castle, and his estates confiscated. Most
people would consider this outrageous rather than