secure had been secured. The Spanish sovereigns were so far from feeling
that they could make a tool of him that they were in considerable
trepidation lest he should still throw them over if a tolerably legitimate
excuse offered, and were anxious to do all they could to conciliate him
without betraying the full extent of their fears. Henry had already, in
February, terminated the commercial war with the Flemings by the treaty
with Philip known as the _Intercursus Magnus_, which included a
proviso against the admission into Philip's territories of rebels against
the English King.

[Sidenote: 1496 Warbeck and the King of Scots]

When Perkin Warbeck made his way to Scotland the young King of that country
was already fully informed as to the nature of his claims. James, when a
boy of sixteen, had taken part in the rebellion headed by Douglas Earl of
Angus, in which his father the late King had been overthrown at Sauchie
Burn and murdered after the battle. He was now twenty-four years of age, of
brilliant parts, no mean scholar, an admirable athlete, and ambitious to
raise the name of Scotland among the nations. His weakness lay mainly in a
boyish impulsiveness, which often caused him to mar well-laid plans on the
spur of the moment, and in an exaggerated fondness for chivalric ideas more
appropriate to a knight-errant than to a king or a leader of armies. Perkin
appealed to him as early as 1492; and before the pretender's expedition
sailed, Tyrconnel, chief of the O'Donnells of the north-west of Ireland,
presented himself in Scotland to renew the appeal. The antagonism of
Scottish feeling to the ruling powers in England was chronic. There was a
treaty of peace between England and Scotland, but the unfailing turbulence
of the borders kept each country constantly provided with a tolerable
excuse for accusing the other of having broken its engagements. James was
well within his rights in receiving the claimant; of the justice of whose