The royal families of England did by no means monopolize the share of domestic dissensions set apart for kings.  The House of Stuart, even before it ascended the English throne, and when it reigned over only poor, but stout Scotland, was anything but famous for the love of its fathers for their sons, or for its sons’ love for their fathers; and dissensions were common in the royal family.  Robert III., second king of the line, had great grief with his eldest son, the Duke of Rothsay; and the King’s brother, the Duke of Albany, did much to increase the evil that had been caused by the loose life of the heir-apparent.  The end was, that Rothsay was imprisoned, and then murdered by his uncle.  Scott has used the details of this court-tragedy in his “Fair Maid of Perth,” one of the best of his later novels, most of the incidents in which are strictly historical.  James I. was murdered while he was yet young, and James II. lost his life at twenty-nine; but James III. lost both throne and life in a war that was waged against him in the name of his son, who became king in consequence of his father’s defeat and death.  When James IV. fell at Flodden, because he fought like a brave fool, and not like a skilful general, he left a son who was not three years old; and that son, James V., when he died, left a daughter, the hapless Mary Stuart, who was but a week old.  There was not much room for quarrelling in either of these cases.  Mary Stuart’s son, then an infant, was made the head of the party that dethroned his mother, and forced her into that long exile that terminated in her murder by Elizabeth of England.  Mary’s quarrels with her husband, Darnley, were of so bitter a character as to create the belief that she caused him to be murdered,—­a belief that is as common now as it was in the sixteenth century, though the Marian Controversy has been going on for wellnigh three hundred years, and it has been distinctly proved by a host of clever writers and skilful logicians that it was impossible for her to have had any thing to do with that summary act of divorce.

Several of the sovereigns of Continental Europe have had great troubles with their children, and these children have often had very disobedient fathers.  In France, the Dauphin, afterward Louis XI., could not always keep on good terms with his father, Charles VII., who has the reputation of having restored the French monarchy, after the English had all but subverted it, Charles at one time being derisively called King of Bourges.  Nothing annoyed Louis so much as being compelled to run away before the army which his father was leading against him.  He would, he declared, have stayed and fought, but that he had not even half so many men as composed the royal force.  He would have killed his father as readily as he killed his brother in after-days,—­if he did kill his brother, of which there is some doubt, of which he should have the benefit.  As was but natural, he was jealous of his son, though he died when that prince