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boast—was not many-vesseled, but its crews were freemen, deliberately choosing their life at sea. Their bravery was greater than that of press-gangs or chained oarsmen. Henry's aim was bigger and grander ships. James was merchant, encouraging trade with Europe. Henry cared nought for trade except that such enriched his treasury, enabling him to make war. James was administrator, taking men of learning and law into hisT > rivy Council and paying them heed. Henry appointed men and then pitted them against each other, putting prime value on cunning and connivery. James was judicator, Henry, executioner. James was banker working hard to establish his country's currency and honest coinage. Henry debased both to pay for his war, and robbed the church to boot. James was statesman, marrying for the good of his country and then making peace with his father-in-law. Henry took his brother's widow as the first of six wives.
    Both men were patrons of the arts, of sorts. Henry competed unfairly with the artists, writing songs and poetry and translations that his court must, of course, praise. James acknowledged himself no poet, but having his great-grandfather's love of poetry, he saw to it that his court offered shelter and patronage to those with real talent. Moreover, he granted a patent to two burgesses to establish Scotland's first printing press and then granted them license to print more man just works of law and theology—as was the case in England. Thus Scotland could read Henry son's retelling of Aesop's fables in a Scots setting and in the Scots tongue ... Dunbar's poem in celebration of the king's Tudor bride, "The Thistle and the Rose" ... and all of the works of Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. This son to the murderous Bell-the-Cat Douglas, and uncle to the Marrying Douglas, was first to translate the Aeneid directly from the original. From his The Dukes of Eneados, written in Scots, would later come the English version.
    James was not without fault, however, as Margaret Tudor was first to proclaim. Not only did he keep her pregnant with babes that all died but one, but he left a spate of living natural children around his kingdom. (These latter did not endear him to his less fertile brother-in-law.) Moreover, James was quick to acknowledge offspring if there were at least a good chance that he was the father. He saw to it that the children of his official mistresses (first, Margaret Boyd, mother of Alexander Stewart, the Bishop of St. Andrews; and later, Janet Kennedy, mother of James Stewart, Earl of Moray, and the Lady Islean, Countess of Alva and Seaforth) received benevolences and estates commensurate with their status. Henry, less wisely, attempted to elevate his one bastard son above his natural born daughter, Mary Tudor.
    That these two princes could not share their isle harmoniously surprised no one. Once the shrewd influence of Henry VII was gone, problems multiplied, beginning at the border. No longer did the English wardens suppress the wanton raids of English Borderers into Scotland, and James's wardens retaliated by ignoring the incursions by Scots into England.
    Henry VDI compounded the problems by dabbling in European politics. In 1512, he joined with the Pope and the Emperor Maximilian in an alliance against France, Scotland's traditional ally. Against her will, Scotland was being pulled into a maelstrom not of her own choosing. Yet, it was a flaw in James IV's own character that brought Scotland to commit the folly of invading England.
    James, though forward-looking, was in one respect an atavism: he was an honorable man. Honorable in the medieval, chivalric sense of the word. In the early summer of 1513, faced with an invasion by an English army, Louis XII invoked the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland; and his queen, Anne of Bretagne, named James her champion and sent him a token, a turquoise ring, to carry while he protected her honor. James IV did the only thing a true knight could do—he