could be relied on in a crisis was antagonism to England. To settle the
question by conquest had been proved impossible. Scotland might be
over-run, but she could not be held in subjection. If England's eyes were
bent on France, she must still manage to keep a watch on the north: but so
long as dissensions were raging, there was not much fear of anything more
serious than raiding expeditions.

[Sidenote: Henry's Scottish policy]

To keep Scotland innocuous was a primary object with the Tudor King. At the
time when he grasped the sceptre of England, the King of Scots, James III.,
was a feeble ruler surrounded by unpopular favourites, with a baronage
preparing to rise against him, and there was little danger to be
apprehended. He was over-thrown and murdered in 1488. But James IV, who
succeeded to the throne was of a different type. He was only a boy,
however, and Henry was not long in initiating a policy, more fully
developed by his descendants, of purchasing the support of leading nobles,
notably at this time and for forty years to come, the Earls of Angus-with
whom there was a compact as early as 1491. James, however, soon proved
himself a popular and vigorous monarch, of a type which attracted the
loyalty of his subjects, with a strong disposition to make his country a
serious factor in the politics of the time, and by no means devoid of
political sagacity despite his unfortunate impulsiveness and want of
balance. To block Scotland out of the field by the simple process of
keeping her thoroughly occupied with internal factions was not practicable
under these conditions, and the attitude of James in the affair of Perkin
Warbeck showed that he must be taken into serious account. Henry's
political acuteness recognised in alliance with Scotland a more hopeful
solution of the national problem than in eternal strife. The idea of a
matrimonial connexion had indeed once before, since the days of Edward I.,