him in the days when his handsome face and figure had first struck her
fancy, and when she thought nothing too costly to lavish upon him. She
had made him great, to her own and the country's misfortune, and it was
a difficult matter to make him small again; but all Scotland felt the
evil effects of his power, of his ascendancy over the young king, and
of the feuds which resulted therefrom. So great was the scourge felt to
be, that the Council appealed to Margaret to recall the Regent Albany,
that he might restore order.

Margaret was aware that Albany's return was the thing of all others
that Henry wished to avoid, but it suited her for the nonce to act the
part of a good Scotswoman, and she wrote an imploring letter to the
duke, begging him to come back and take pity on his unhappy country.*
Notwithstanding this, her complaints to Henry through Lord Dacre of her
bad treatment, and her supplications to be allowed to return to
England, did not cease. She had "liever be dead than live among the
Scots," and she entreats that no peace may be renewed, unless "some
good may be taken," that she may live at ease.**

* Calig. B 1, 232.

** Ibid. B 2, 195.


Wolsey was not sparing in his remarks on the queen's double-dealing,
the facts of which had all been disclosed to him by spies. He has, he
says, represented to the king her brother "the folly of Queen Margaret
in leaning to her enemies, and departing from her husband,"
notwithstanding what Dacre has already written to her. Dacre, by the
king's desire, is to tell her that if she persists in her dishonourable