Englishwoman. Forlorn and in danger, she tried to secure a
protector by a marriage with Sir James Stewart, called the Black
Knight of Lorn; but he was unable to do much for her, and only
added the feuds of his own family to increase the general
danger. The two eldest daughters, Margaret and Isabel, were
already contracted to the Dauphin and the Duke of Brittany, and
were soon sent to their new homes. The little King, the one
darling of his mother, was snatched from her, and violently
transferred from one fierce guardian to another; each regarding
the possession of his person as a sanction to tyranny. He had
been introduced to the two winsome young Douglases only as a
prelude to their murder, and every day brought tidings of some
fresh violence; nay, for the second time, a murder was
perpetrated in the Queen's own chamber.

The poor woman had never been very tender or affectionate, and
had the haughty demeanour with which the house of Somerset had
thought fit to assert their claims to royalty. The cruel
slaughter of her first husband, perhaps the only person for whom
she had ever felt a softening love, had hardened and soured her.
She despised and domineered over her second husband, and made no
secret that the number of her daughters was oppressive, and that
it was hard that while the royal branch had produced, with one
exception, only useless pining maidens, her second marriage in
too quick succession should bring her sons, who could only be a
burthen. No one greatly marvelled when, a few weeks after the
birth of little Andrew, his father disappeared, though whether
he had perished in some brawl, been lost at sea, or sought
foreign service as far as possible from his queenly wife and
inconvenient family, no one knew.