knew she would never get good from Scotland by fair means.

When by dint of constant urging to renewed contests the Borders had
become one vast battlefield in her quarrel, she wrote to the Marquis of
Dorset to beg him to spare the convent of Coldstream, whose abbess had
done her good service in times past.* The motive for this intercession
was no mere charitable one, the abbess being "one of the best spies for
England."

* Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, to Henry VIII.; Calig. B 3, 255.


And now, for the first time, Margaret ventures to express the wish that
has for long been forming itself in her mind. She has been much
troubled by Angus since her coming to Scotland, and is so more and more
daily. They have not met this half year, and--after some hovering of
the word on her lips, she pronounces it boldly--she will part with him,
if she may by God's law, and with honour to herself, for he loves her
not. Unlike Henry, when seeking a pretext to divorce his first wife,
Margaret was at no pains to disguise the motive which inspired her, and
a possibility of a flaw in the marriage is openly but a pretext for
getting rid of a husband of whom she was weary. We are at least spared
the nausea caused by Henry's conscientious scruples. She first puts
forward frankly her wish to be free from Angus, and then her
determination to divorce him if she may lawfully. But it was the only
piece of honesty in the whole business, for the suit itself was one
long, dreary series of misrepresentation and falsehood, without which
her cause could by no possibility have been gained.

The usual plea of pre-contracts was brought forward, but as these were