In 1541 the idea of a meeting between James and Henry was again mooted, and Henry actually went to York, where James did not appear.  Henry, who had expected him, was furious.  In August 1542, on a futile pretext, he sent Norfolk with a great force to harry the Border.  The English had the worse at the battle of Hadden Rig; negotiations followed; Henry proclaimed that Scottish kings had always been vassals of England, and horrified his Council by openly proposing to kidnap James.  Henry’s forces were now wrecking an abbey and killing women on the Border.  James tried to retaliate, but his levies (October 31) at Fala Moor declined to follow him across the Border:  they remembered Flodden, moreover they could not risk the person of a childless king.  James prepared, however, for a raid on a great scale on the western Border, but the fact had been divulged by Sir George Douglas, Angus’s brother, and had also been sold to Dacre, cheap, by another Scot.  The English despatches prove that Wharton had full time for preparation, and led a competent force of horse, which, near Arthuret, charged on the right flank of the Scots, who slowly retreated, till they were entangled between the Esk and a morass, and lost their formation and their artillery, with 1200 men:  a few were slain, most were drowned or were taken prisoners.  The raid was no secret of the king and the priests, as Knox absurdly states; nobles of the Reforming no less than of the Catholic party were engaged; the English had full warning and a force of 3000 men, not of 400 farmers; the Scots were beaten through their own ignorance of the ground in which they had been burning and plundering.  As to confusion caused by the claim of Oliver Sinclair to be commander, it is not corroborated by contemporary despatches, though Sir George Douglas reports James’s lament for the conduct of his favourite, “Fled Oliver! fled Oliver!” The misfortune broke the heart of James.  He went to Edinburgh, did some business, retired for a week to Linlithgow, {89} where his queen was awaiting her delivery, and thence went to Falkland, and died of nothing more specific than shame, grief, and despair.  He lived to hear of the birth of his daughter, Mary (December 8, 1542).  “It came with a lass and it will go with a lass,” he is said to have muttered.

On December 14th James passed away, broken by his impossible task, lost in the bewildering paths from which there was no outgait.

James was personally popular for his gaiety and his adventures while he wandered in disguise.  Humorous poems are attributed to him.  A man of greater genius than his might have failed when confronted by a tyrant so wealthy, ambitious, cruel, and destitute of honour as Henry VIII.; constantly engaged with James’s traitors in efforts to seize or slay him and his advisers.  It is an easy thing to attack James because he would not trust Henry, a man who ruined all that did trust to his seeming favour.