The earl of Angus had acquired the entire ascendant in Scotland; and having gotten possession of the king's person, then in early youth, he was able, by means of that advantage, and by employing the power of his own family, to retain the reins of government. The queen-dowager, however, his consort, bred him great disturbance. For having separated herself from him, on account of some jealousies and disgusts, and having procured a divorce, she had married another man of quality, of the name of Stuart; and she joined all the discontented nobility, who opposed Angus's authority. James himself was dissatisfied with the slavery, to which he was reduced; and by secret correspondence, he incited first Walter Scot, then the earl of Lenox, to attempt, by force of arms, the freeing him from the hands of Angus. Both enterprizes failed of success; but James, impatient of restraint, found means at last of escaping to Stirling, where his mother then resided; and having summoned all the nobility to attend him, he overturned the authority of the Douglasses, and obliged Angus and his brother to fly into England, where they were protected by Henry. The king of Scotland, being now arrived at years of majority, took the government into his own hands; and employed himself with great spirit and valour, in repressing those feuds, ravages, and disorders, which, though they disturbed the course of public justice, served to support the martial spirit of the Scots, and contributed, by that means, to maintain national independency. He was desirous of renewing the ancient league with the French nation; but finding Francis in close union with England, and on that account somewhat cold in hearkening to his proposals, he received the more favourably the advances of the emperor, who hoped, by means of such an ally, to breed disturbance to England. He offered the Scottish king the choice of three princesses, his own near relations, and all of the name of Mary; his sister the dowager of Hungary, his niece a daughter of Portugal, or his cousin the daughter of Henry, whom he pretended to dispose of unknown to her father. James was more inclined to the latter proposal, had it not, upon reflection, been found impracticable; and his natural propensity to France at last prevailed over all other considerations. The alliance with Francis necessarily engaged James to maintain peace with England. But though invited by his uncle, Henry, to confer with him at Newcastle, and concert common measures for repressing the ecclesiastics in both kingdoms, and shaking off the yoke of Rome, he could not be prevailed on, by entering England, to put himself in the king's power. In order to have a pretext for refusing the conference, he applied to the pope, and obtained a brief, forbidding him to engage in any personal negociations with an enemy of the holy see. From these measures, Henry easily concluded, that he could very little depend on the friendship of his nephew. But those events took not place till some time after our present period.