But James V was by that time so near his end that he lacked the strength to feel happy at the tidings or to harbour any hope as to the issue. Why was he not granted a son, a male heir? The dying man could see nothing but disaster in every event, nothing but tragedy and defeat. In a resigned voice, he answered the messenger: “Farewell, it came with ane lass and it will pass with ane lass.” This dismal prophecy proved to be the last words he was destined to utter. With a sigh, he turned his face to the wall and, heeding nobody, refused to answer any questions. A few days later he was buried, and Mary Stuart, before she had been given time to open her baby eyes and look around her, became Queen of the Scottish realm.

To be a Stuart and at the same time to be Queen of Scotland was to be placed indeed under an evil star and to be exposed to a twofold doom, for no Stuart had so far been happy on the Scottish throne, nor had any occupied it for long. James I and James III were murdered; James II and James IV perished on the battlefield; while for two of their descendants, the unwitting infant Mary and her grandchild Charles I, an even crueller end was in prospect, for they both died on the scaffold. Not one of this Atrides-race ever reached the zenith of life’s course, not one was born under a happy star. The Stuarts were always to be at war with enemies without, with enemies within the frontiers of their homeland, with themselves; they were surrounded by unrest, and unrest raged perpetually in their hearts. Just as they could find no peace for their own turbulent spirits, so they could not safeguard peace for their country. Those who should have proved the most loyal of their subjects were the least to be depended upon—lords and barons of the dark, strong land, the whole knighthood, inconstant and headstrong, wild and unbridled, rapacious and rejoicing in the fight, constantly betraying and betrayed. As Ronsard sighed during his enforced stay in this fog-bound region, “c’est ung pays barbare et une gent brutelle”—This is a barbaric country with a brutal people. Themselves acting the king on their estates, behind the massive walls of their strongholds they would herd the clansmen, who were their ploughmen and shepherds, into vast armies so as to carry on their endless feuds and forays—for these autocrats of the clans knew only one genuine pleasure, and that pleasure was war. “A bonnie fecht” was their delight; they were goaded on by jealousy; their one thought was to have power and ever more power. The French ambassador wrote: “Money and personal advantage are the only sirens to whose voices the Scottish lords will lend an ear. To try and bring them to a sense of their devoir towards their prince, to talk to them of honour, justice, virtue, decent and reliable negotiations, merely incites them to laughter.” In their amoral combativeness and cupidity they resembled the Italian condottieri, though lacking their culture, and being even more unbridled in their instincts. Thus they were ceaselessly battling for precedence; and the ancient and powerful clans of the Gordons, the Hamiltons, the Arrans, the Maitlands, the Crawfords, the Lindsays, the Lennoxes, the Argylls, were unendingly at one another’s throats. During certain periods they would be fighting their age-long feuds; during others, swearing a pact—which was never of long duration!—that they might outwit and overthrow a third party; though they were never tired of forming cliques and factions, none of these minor leagues ever possessed any internal cohesion; and no bond of blood or of kinship by marriage was able to break down the relentless feeling of envy and enmity that existed among them. A vestige of the heathen barbarian lived on in their wild souls, whether they called themselves Protestants or Catholics; and they took up with either faith according to which would be most profitable to their ambitions. They were genuine descendants of Macbeth and Macduff, the fierce thanes of Shakespearian drama.

One cause only was capable of bringing this envious rabble to act in concert: to attack their liege lord, their King; for they knew neither what loyalty meant nor obedience. If, in actual fact, this “pack of rascals” (as Burns, that true son of his native soil, nicknamed them) tolerated a shadow king to rule over their castles and estates, this was made possible solely through the jealousies entertained by one clan against another. The Gordons helped to keep the crown on the Stuarts’ heads merely that it might not fall to the Hamiltons; whereas the Hamiltons swore fealty to the King to keep the Gordons out. But woe to him who should try to act as a genuine king in Scotland, should endeavour to introduce discipline and order into the realm, should, in a fit of youthful enthusiasm, set his will up against the arrogance and greed of his nobles! In such circumstances, they would join forces to frustrate the designs of the sovereign, and if the issue could not be solved on the battlefield, it could easily be dealt with through the assassin’s dirk.

This last outpost of Europe towards the northern seas that lash its rugged coasts was indeed a tragic land, perpetually rent in sunder by antagonistic passions, dark and romantic as a saga, a poverty-stricken land to boot, since unremitting warfare crushed every effort to make it prosperous. The few towns, which hardly deserved the name seeing that they consisted of a huddle of wretched hovels clustering for protection around a stronghold, were eternally being plundered and destroyed by fire, so that it was impossible for them to acquire wealth or to bring the semblance of well-being to a settled burgherdom. We may still behold today the ruins of the gloomy and domineering castles wherein the nobles dwelt, castles by courtesy, for these buildings show none of the ornate brilliance we are accustomed to find in such edifices, nor is it easy to imagine any courtly state possible within those austere walls. Their uses were purely for war, and there had been no scope in their construction for the gentler arts of entertainment and hospitality. Between this handful of nobles and their serfs there existed no middle estate of the realm which could serve as an efficient pillar for the maintenance of the state authority. The most populous district, that situated between Tweed and Forth, was never given a chance to prosper, for it was always being invaded by the English from over the border, its people killed and the fruits of their industry destroyed. In the northern half of the country a man could walk for hours by lonely lake shores over boundless heaths, through mysterious forests and woodlands, without spying a village, a castle, a town. Here the hamlets did not press one upon the other as they did on the overpopulated continent of Europe; here were no broad highways serving as channels for intercourse and commerce; not here, as in Holland and England, did one see the ships sail forth out of busy harbours, making for far-off strands, and bringing back gold and spices. Sheep-herding, fishing, hunting—such constituted the patriarchal occupations of the folk in northern Scotland at that date.