The weakness of Murdoch's character soon became apparent to his father, and in the following year a negotiation was opened with Henry to permit James I. to return for a time to Scotland, leaving in England a sufficient number of hostages to insure the payment of 100,000 marks if he broke his parole.

"On receiving letters of safe-conduct, the Earls of Fife and Buchan, Douglas, and other lords, with the bishops of St. Andrew's and Glasgow, repaired to Henry's court to complete the treaty, a task in which they completely failed. "Henry," says Tytler, "suddenly became cool, and interrupted the negotiation, so that the unfortunate prince saw himself at one moment on the eve of regaining his liberty, and being restored to the kingdom which was his rightful inheritance, and the next remanded back to his captivity, and once more condemned to experience the misery of that protracted hope which sickens the heart."

One of the secret springs of action in the vacillation of Henry in this and other instances, has been fully explained by Tytler in his historical remarks on the supposed death of Richard II.,... who was then believed to have escaped into Scotland, where he was fostered and protected by the Regent Albany.

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Soon after Buchan's return to Scotland, Henry of England, ambitious and warlike, put himself at the head of an army to enforce his absurd and

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inadmissible claim to the crown of France, as the representative of Isabella, queen of Edward III. In his great Council at Westminster, in April, 1415, he announced that it was his firm purpose, "by the grace of God, to recover his inheritance."

With his knights and archers he was soon before the walls of Harfleur, closing them up "with English dead." Agincourt followed, with all its glories, prisoners, and booty, the successes of Henry being greatly aided by the distracted state of France," which was rent between two rival factions, led by the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans; the unfortunate Charles VI. being alternately the prisoner of each, while the luckless Dauphin, the scoff of both, was a fugitive, and in constant danger of destruction.

While such was the state of France, the wily old Regent of Scotland, Robert Duke of Albany, died in the castle of Stirling on the 3rd of September, 1419, in his eightieth year; and Murdoch, his eldest son, succeeded him in his titles and Regency.

In the same year, while a war was raging on the borders between Scotland and England, the Duke of Vendôme arrived as ambassador from Charles the Dauphin, craving assistance from the young Regent against King Henry, and the boon was not sought in vain.

The Scots had beheld with natural jealousy and alarm the success of the English arms in France.

If her old ally fell in the struggle, Scotland might follow, and hence it was resolved to send her succour; and it is somewhat singular that the first signal defeat which the English sustained on the soil of France they received at the hands of their fellow-islanders.

CHAPTER II.

BUCHAN PROCEEDS TO FRANCE WITH A SCOTTISH ARMY.

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FTER the assembling of the Parliament, it was resolved to send to France an auxiliary force under Sir John Stewart, Earl of Buchan.

The transports to be furnished by France, by Don Juan II., king of Castile, and the Infant of Arragon (afterwards Alphonso VI.), who were in alliance with Scotland, and promised to lend a fleet of forty sail.-(Rymer's Fœdera.)

Henry, who had now returned home, became seriously alarmed on hearing of these preparations, and instructed his brother, the Duke of Bedford, who acted as his Regent in France, to use every means for intercepting Buchan and his Scots at sea; but these orders came too late, and in 1420 the Earl embarked with a body of troops, stated by Buchanan to be seven, and by Balfour in his "Annales" to be ten, thousand men, on board the Castilian and Arragonese carracks and row-galleys, which came by the west coast of England to the Scottish waters, from whence they made a prosperous voyage to France.

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The following were among the noblesse who accompanied the Earl of Buchan: 10 10 NĂ

Sir John Stewart, of Darnley, constable of the Scottish troops, afterwards slain at the siege of Orleans in 1429, 7 to 03 quo dito (ÄHRT

Archibald Douglas, Earl of Wigton (afterwards fifth Earl of Douglas), Lord of Longueville and Marshal of France.

"Sir Henry Cunninghame, third son of Sir William of Kilmaurs. sido youn 97 295 szoft Sir Robert Houston- g nb ensino qu Sir Hew Kennedy, of Ardstinchar, second son of Sir John of Dunure, bis duurt bonidioɔ

Sir Alexander Buchanan, of that Ilk; killed at Verneuil. or so tudi grid sibloe yn A

Sir John Swinton, of Swinton, and of that Ilk; killed at Verneuil. 2) and no bus an szof

Sir John Carmichael, of that Ilk; ancestor of the Earls of Hyndford or out botoi (Sir Alexander Macauslan, a knight of the Lennox. wo, bra fat an end to 971 of EBW

Sir William Crawford, of Crawfordland, killed eworbak at the siege of Clavell in 1424. 1o esʊry 2 Sir Robert Stewart, of Railston. tonen# 1809 ve ail Sir Robert Maxwell, of Calderwood; died of his wounds at Chinon." od to: acortabrsor sit to smo

All these knights and their followers had served in the long and bloody defensive wars against England, and all were accoutred in the order of Scottish armour and arms, which by the