42/48 The English had lost only persons of small note; but the flower of the Scottish nobility had fallen in battle, and their king himself, after the most diligent inquiry, could nowhere be found. In searching the field, the English met with a dead body which resembled him, and was arrayed in a similar habit; and they put it in a leaden coffin, and sent it to London. During some time it was kept unburied; because James died under sentence of ex-communication, on account of his confederacy with France, and his opposition to the holy see:[**] but upon Henry's application, who pretended that this prince had, in the instant before his death, discovered signs of repentance, absolution was given him, and his body was interred. Virg. |