the estate and majestie of another King, as to
his superior lord, as that of Scotland to our English empire.« This assertion
set on fire the Scottish blood of Islay Herald, who, forgetting the book had
been printed nearly forty years before, and that the author was probably dead,
writes on the margin in great wrath, and in a half-text hand, »He is a traitor
and lyar in his throat, and I offer him the combat, that says Scotland's Kings
were ever feudatorie to England.«
 
63 The heralds of the middle ages, like the feciales of the Romans, were
invested with a character which was held almost sacred. To strike a herald was a
crime which inferred a capital punishment; and to counterfeit the character of
such an august official was a degree of treason towards those men, who were
accounted the depositaries of the secrets of monarchs and the honour of nobles.
Yet a prince so unscrupulous as Louis XI. did not hesitate to practise such an
imposition, when he wished to enter into communication with Edward IV. of
England.
Exercising that knowledge of mankind for which he was so eminent, he selected,
as an agent fit for his purpose, a simple valet. This man, whose address had
been known to him, he disguised as a herald, with all the insignia of his
office, and sent him in that capacity to open a communication with the English
army. Two things are remarkable in this transaction. First, that the stratagem,
though of so fraudulent a nature, does not seem to have been necessarily called
for, since all that King Louis could gain by it would be, that he did not commit
himself by sending a more responsible messenger. The other circumstance worthy
of notice is, that Comines, though he mentions the affair at great length, is so
pleased with the King's shrewdness in selecting, and dexterity at
indoctrinating, his pseudo-herald, that he forgets all remark on the impudence
and fraud of the imposition, as well as the great risk of discovery. From both
which circumstances we are led to the conclusion, that the solemn character
which the heralds endeavoured to arrogate to themselves had already begun to
lose regard among statesmen and men of the great world.
Even Ferne, zealous enough for the dignity of the herald, seems to impute this
intrusion on their rights in some degree to necessity. »I have heard some,« he
says, »but with shame enough, allow of the action of Louis XI. of the kingdom of
France, who had so unknightly a regard both of