Excerpt from The Battle of Flodden: Fought 9 Sept. 1513 During the reign of James IV., which extended from 1488 to 1513, Scotland underwent great improvement in the arts and in the general administration of justice. The entrance of that monarch into public life was unfavourable; for, about his seventeenth year, he appeared in arms against his father, when the latter was slain, and by way of atone ment for such error, he occasionally shut himself up for days in religious seclusion, and wore around his body an iron chain, to which he an nexed some additional weight every year. But when such periods of penance were over, he entered freely into society, and by his bland de portment to the nobles, and kindly bearing to the lowest of his subjects, he was much beloved and highly honoured. His love of sports and frolicksome disposition gained him, wherever he went, the cordial sym pathy and attachment of his people. He paid much attention to the art of healing, and prided himself upon being the best curer of wounds in his dominions. By his great constitutional vigour and temperate living, he practised with success all bodily exercises; and such was the order he maintained in his kingdom, that, with his cloak thrown around him and his hunting-knife by his side, he could have mounted on horse back, and, without a single attendant, travelled upwards of a hundred miles in perfect safety. Though no great scholar himself, he well knew the value of learning; for having a natural son, instead of appointing him to any office of civil importance, he placed him at Padua, in Italy, under charge of the celebrated Erasmus, and such were thc acquirements of the youth, that by the in uence of his father and the authority of Pope Julius he was appointed, at an early age, Archbishop of St. Andrew's. At this period, in Scotland, considerable encouragement was given to liter ature; for the University of Aberdeen was now founded, and the king granted pensions, besides other gifts, to Blind Harry, the metrical his torian of W'allace, and to William Dunbar, a poet who in graphic ability and Horatian terseness of expression has not yet been surpassed, even0006' 7. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."