SEPTEMBER 203 



fickle as popular applause nowadays, and there is to be 

 observed this difference in the loss of the two beaten in 

 a general election, a modern minister may amuse himself 

 unmolested in private life by the study of anything, from 

 Homer to hymenoptera; but the monarch's displeasure 

 was generally the passport to a dungeon and the heading 

 hill, accompanied by forfeiture of titles and land. The ban 

 lay upon the children to the third and fourth generation. 



The age of the early Jameses was one that witnessed 

 the reversal of many a fair fortune, but Dan Cupid came 

 timeously to the aid of the Kennedys. To the second 

 Lord Kennedy his wife bore a beautiful daughter, Janet, 

 who was to have a notable influence on the history of 

 her time. She was betrothed to Archibald ' Bell-the-Cat,' 

 Earl of Angus, with whom to trifle required a cool head 

 and a stout heart. The girl seems to have been wanting 

 in neither ; for, although matters went so far that Angus, 

 in terms of great affection, actually made over to her the 

 lands of Braidwood and Crawford-Lindsay, she continued 

 to receive the addresses of that flower of chivalry King 

 James the Fourth, and became his mistress. He was, it 

 will be remembered, an exceedingly devout individual, 

 and in his minutely detailed personal accounts articles 

 for the use of ' the lady,' as the fair Janet is decorously 

 called, appear side by side with expenses on pilgrimages 

 to St. Ninian's shrine and other religious exercises, as 

 well as those incurred at golf and ' the tables.' 



She bore a son to the king ; thus in 1501-2 is noted in 

 the royal accounts : 



{ Item. y e xx day of December for viii elne small quhit 

 (white) to be blancatis and wylycottis (petticoats) to y e barne 

 (child) in Doun, ilk elne iis. viii^., summa xxiis. viiirf.' 



