History Of Scotland Vol. 1 - Part 18

( Originally Published 1909 )

Duke Murdach's Regency—His Character—A Pestilence in Britain —The Conduct of the Regent's Family—Treaty for the Liberation of James I.—He is restored to his Kingdom—Scottish Auxiliaries in France—Character of James I.—Execution of Duke Murdach and his Friends—Disorders in the Highlands repressed--League with France, and Contract of the Scottish Princess with the Dauphin—War with the Lord of the Isles, and his Submission—Acts of the Legislature—Donald Balloch —Treaty with England--Proceedings toward the Earl of March —War with England—Parliament of 1436—Conspiracy against James—He is Murdered—Fate of the Regicides

MURDACH, earl of Fife, already repeatedly named in this history, succeeded to his father in his title as Duke of Albany, and his high office as regent of Scotland, but neither to his lofty ambition nor to the qualities of craft and cruelty which supported it. He is everywhere described as a man of an easy and slothful character, who, far from having the boldness and prudence necessary to rule so fierce a people as the Scots, seems to have been unable to exert the authority necessary for the government of his own family.

The evils which attended the feeble and remiss government of this second Duke of Albany were aggravated by a public misfortune, which no wisdom or energy could have prevented, but which, nevertheless, added to the unpopularity of the regent, it being the custom of the common people to censure their rulers as much for misfortunes arising purely out of their bad fortune as for those which flow directly from their misconduct. A contagious disease, resembling a fever and dysentery, wasted the land universally, and cut off many victims. Among other distinguished per-sons who died of this disorder were the Earl of Orkney, Lord Douglas of Dalkeith, and. George, earl of March, remarkable for the versatility with which he changed sides between England and Scotland, and not less for the good fortune which attended his banner, on whatever side it was displayed.

Murdach, duke of Albany, such as we have described him, became in the space of five years weary of exercising an administration, which was popular with no man, over a disorderly country, wasted by pestilence and divided by the feuds of the nobility. He determined to rid himself of the responsibility of the regency, although he must have been internally conscious that such a power, though difficult and unsafe, to wield, could not be resigned without much danger. It was, perhaps, a sense of the perils to which he might be exposed, if called by the king to account for many years of misrule, his father's as well as his own, which made him suspend his resolution till 1423, when his decision is said by tradition to have been precipitated by an act of insolent insubordination on the part of Walter, his eldest son. The regent Murdach had a falcon which he highly valued, and which his son Walter had often asked of him in vain. Exasperated at repeated refusal, the insolent young man snatched the bird as it sat on his father's wrist, and killed it by twisting round its neck. Deeply hurt at this brutal act of disrespect, Murdach dropped the ominous words, "Since you will render me no honor or obedience, I will bring home one who well knows how to make all of us obey him." From this time he threw into the long-protracted negotiation for the freedom of James a sincerity which speedily brought it to a conclusion.

Henry V. being now dead, John, duke of Bedford, protector of England, was defending with much skill and prudence the acquisitions which his brother's valor had made in France. Occupied with this task, he was willing to use a liberal policy toward Scotland; to restore their lawful king, so long unjustly detained; having formed, if possible, such an alliance between him and some English lady of rank as might maintain in the young monarch's mind the feelings of predilection toward England which were the natural con-sequence of a long residence in that country and familiarity with its laws and manners. He thus hoped at once to en-large James, to make a friend of him, and to secure England against further interference on the part of Scotland in the wars of France, where the army of auxiliaries, under the Earl of Buchan, had produced a marked effect upon the last campaigns. And here, before proceeding further, the reader must be made acquainted with the exploits and the fortunes of the body of Scotsmen sent to support the dauphin, in the extremity of his distress, against the English arms.

The little army consisted of from five to seven thousand men, among whom were numbered many lords, knights, and barons, the flower of the Scottish chivalry, who gladly embraced an opportunity of acquiring fame in arms under a leader so distinguished as Buchan. The small number of the Scots made them willing to submit themselves to the rules of discipline; and whenever that leading point could be attained, their natural courage has displayed itself to advantage. Their first exploit was at Baugé, a village in Anjou, where they lay along with a small body of Frenchmen. The Duke of Clarence, brother to Henry V. of England, had been detached to invade that province, and had just sat down to dinner when he learned that he was in the vicinity of the Scottish auxiliaries. "Upon them, gentlemen!" said the fiery prince, springing from table : "let the men-at-arms instantly mount and follow me." He made a rapid march to surprise the Scots; but the church of Baugé was garrisoned by some French, who made a gallant defence, giving the Scots time to get themselves into order on the opposite bank of the River Coesnon. Bent on taking them at advantage, Clarence, at the head of the men-at-arms, rode fiercely forward to possess himself of the bridge. On the other side, the Scottish knights galloped down to defend the pass. Sir William of Swinton distinguished the English prince by the coronet of gold and gems which he wore over his helmet; and meeting him in full course unhorsed and wounded him. As Clarence strove to regain his steed, the Earl of Buchan struck him down with a mace, and slew him. Many brave English knights were slain: the Earl of Kent, the Lords Grey and Ross, with fourteen hundred men-at-arms, were left on the field. The Earls of Huntingdon and Somerset were made prisoners.

In reward of such distinguished service, the dauphin, now king of France by the title of Charles VII., created Buchan high constable of France, and conferred upon Stewart of Darnley the lordship of Aubigny in France. Desirous of increasing the forces by which he had acquired so much fame and honor, the Earl of Buchan returned to Scotland to obtain recruits. He found that his father-in-law, the Earl of Douglas, with the license assumed by men of far less importance than himself during the feeble government of the regency, was then engaged in a treaty with Henry V. of England, whom he was to serve with two hundred horse and as many infantry, for the stipend of two hundred pounds a year. The influence of Buchan disturbed this agreement; and Douglas, who seems to have conducted himself during the whole matter like an independent prince, instead of joining the English, accepted of the Duchy of Touraine, offered to him on the part of Charles VII. of France, and engaged to bring to his aid an auxiliary force of five thousand men.

He came accordingly; but the bad fortune which procured him the name of Tyne-man (Lose-man) continued to wait on his banners. The Scots sustained a severe defeat at Crevan. They had formed the blockade of that place; but were surprised by the Earl of Salisbury, who raised the siege, by defeating them with a slaughter of nine hundred men.

A battle yet more fatal to the Scots took place near the town of Verneuil, 17th August, 1424. It was a general action, risked by the king of France for the relief of Yvry, besieged by the English. The Duke of Bedford, who commanded the English, and whom Douglas had called in derision John with the Leaden Sword, advanced to meet the enemy, and sent a herald to inform the Scottish earl he was coming to drink wine and revel with him. The Earl of Douglas returned for answer, he should be most welcome, and that he had come from Scotland to France on purpose to carouse in his company. Under these terms a challenge to combat was understood to be given and accepted. Douglas, desirous to draw up his forces on advantageous ground, pro-posed to halt, and to await the English attack on the spot where the herald found him. The Viscount of Narbonne, the French general, insisted on advancing : the Scots were compelled to follow their allies, and came into battle out of breath and out of order. The consequences were most calamitous; Douglas and Buchan fell, and with them most of their countrymen of rank and quality, so that the auxiliary army of Scots might be considered as almost annihilated. The corps of Scots, long maintained as the French king's bodyguard, is said to have been originally composed of the relics of the field of Verneuil. And thus concluded the wars of the Scots in France, fortunate that the nation was cured, though by a most bitter remedy, of the fatal rage of selling their swords arid their blood as mercenaries in foreign service; a practice which drains a people of the best and bravest, who ought to reserve their courage for its defence, and converts them into common gladiators, whose purchased valor is without fame to themselves or advantage to their country. Individuals frequently continued to join the French standard, in quest of fame or preferment; but, after the battle of Verneuil, no considerable army or body of troops from Scotland was sent over to France.

We return, after this digression, to consider the condition of Scotland, now more hopeful than it had been for a length of time, since she was about to exchange the rule of a slothful, timid, and inefficient regent for that of a king in the flower of his age, and possessed of a natural disposition and cultivated talents equally capable to grace and to guard the. throne.

The terms on which the treaty for the freedom of James I. was at last fixed were, on the whole, liberal rather than otherwise. The English demanded, and the Scots agreed to pay, forty thousand pounds sterling not as ransom, as the use of that obnoxious phrase could not apply to the case of an innocent boy taken without defence in time of truce, but to defray what was delicately termed the expenses of Prince James's support and education. Six years were allowed for the discharge of the sum by half-yearly payments. It was a part of the contract that the Scottish king should marry an English lady of rank; and his choice fell upon Joanna, niece of Richard II. by the mother's side, and by her father, John, duke of Somerset, the granddaughter of the Duke of Lancaster, called John of Gaunt. To this young lady, so nearly connected with the English royal family, the Scottish captive had been attached for some time, and had celebrated her charms in poetry of no mean order, although defaced by the rudeness of the obsolete language. They were married in London; and a discharge for ten thousand pounds, the fourth part of the stipulated ransom, was presented to the Scottish king, as the dowry or portion of his bride. The royal pair were then sent down to Scotland with all respect and dignity, and Murdach, the late regent, had the honor to induct his royal cousin into the throne of his forefathers.

The natural talents of James I., both mental and corporeal, were of the highest quality; and if Henry IV. had taken an unjust and cruel advantage of the accident which threw the prince into his hands, by detaining him as a prisoner, he had made the only possible amends, by causing the most sedulous attention to be paid to his education. In per-son, the king of Scotland was of low stature; but so strongly and compactly built as to excel in the games of chivalry, and all the active accomplishments of the time. He was no less distinguished by mental gifts, highly cultivated by the best teachers that England could produce. He was, according to the learning of the day, an accomplished scholar, an excellent poet, a musician of skill, intimately acquainted with the science as practiced in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, which are described as being then the principal seats of national music,1 with a decided taste for the fine arts of architecture, painting, and horticulture. Nothing, therefore, could be more favorable than his personal character. As a prince, his education in England had taught him political views which he could hardly have learned in his own rude and ignorant realm. His ardent thirst of knowledge made the acquisition of every species of art fit to be learned by persons of his condition not only tolerable, however laborious, but a source of actual pleasure. He found Scotland in the utmost disorder, and divided among a set of haughty barons, whom the wars of David II.'s reign, the feebleness of those of his two successors, and the culpable indulgence of two regencies, had rendered almost independent of the crown. To curb and subdue this stern aristocracy, and to secure general good order, by re-establishing the legitimate authority of the crown, was a difficult and most dangerous task; but James embarked and persevered in it with a courage which amounted almost to rashness.

Among various laws for the equal administration of justice, for obliging the nobility to ride with retinues no larger than they could maintain, for discontinuing the oppressive exaction of free quarters, and for requiring that the Scottish youth should be trained to archery, there were two measures adopted by James which were highly unpopular. The first was an inquiry into the extent of the crown lands under the last three monarchs. The object of this was to examine into the dilapidation made of the crown property, during the reigns of Robert II. and III., and the two regencies of the House of Albany. But by these preparations to reassert the right of the king to the lands which had been alienated by weak monarchs and unfaithful viceroys, James excited among the people at large doubts and jealousies concerning the stability of property, which gave rise to general dissatisfaction. With these was combined the imposition of a large subsidy for raising the sum due to England by the late treaty, of which it is only necessary to say that it was a tax, and was therefore unpopular; and the more so, as it fell on a poor country.

The records of this reign being almost entirely lost, we do not know by what means further than his own consciousness of talents, and the command over others which such consciousness necessarily inspires, the young king was able to enforce his authority in a kingdom where a large party were leagued together by mutual interest, to support the usurpations which had been made on the crown during the space of more than twenty years, in which time wrongful encroachment had attained by prescription the appearance of lawful right. We are only aware that James had not been on the throne a full year ere he began to visit on the House of Albany the wrongs he had sustained during his long imprisonment, protracted through their means, and the dilapidation and usurpation exercised by them, their favorites and allies, over the rights and possessions of the crown.

Walter, the son of Duke Murdach, whose brutal insolence to his father had suggested to the old man the idea of bringing home the lawful heir, or at least had decided him to adopt that measure so much fraught with hazard to his family, was laid under arrest shortly after the king's return. The Earl of Lennox, father-in-law to Duke Murdach, and Sir Robert Grahame, a man of peculiarly fierce and daring temper, were next made prisoners. But on the 12th March, 1425, the king found himself, by whatever means, powerful enough to arrest, during the sitting of a parliament at Perth, Murdach, the late regent, his second son Alexander, the Earls of Douglas, Angus, and March, with twenty other persons of the highest rank, among whom are the formidable names of Alexander Lyndsay of Glenesk, Hepburn of Hales, Hay of Yester, Walter Halyburton, Walter Ogilvy, Stewart of Rosyth, Alexander of Seton-Gordon, Ogilvy of Auchterhouse, John the Red Stewart of Dundonald, David Murray of Gask, Hay of Errol, constable of Scotland, Scrimgeour, the constable of Dundee, Irving of Drum, Herbert Maxwell of Carlaverock, Herbert Herries of Terreagles, Gray of Foulis, Cunninghame of Kilmauris, Ramsay of Daiwolsey, Crichton of Crichton.

In perusing this list of ancient and powerful names, we are alike surprised to see so many barons, whose estates and interests lay separated over various parts of Scotland, involved in the same general accusation, and at the courage of the sovereign, who dared to apply the rigor of law to such a number of his powerful subjects at the same time. The prisoners were probably selected as the principal allies of the Albany family, or perhaps as those who, having shared most deeply in the spoils distributed during the regencies, might be most tempted to defend its usurpations. The specific charge against the imprisoned barons was probably their having evaded compliance with the royal command to exhibit their titles to their lands. But, though so many were included, it was at the family of Albany only that vengeance was aimed. The blow was struck so suddenly that the only one of the devoted family who had time to take precaution for his safety, or offer resistance, was James Stewart, the youngest son of Duke Murdach. He made his escape to the west of Scotland, returned by a sudden incursion, burned Dumbarton, and slew the king's uncle, the Red Stewart of Dundonald; but, closely pressed by the king's command, was obliged to fly to Ireland.

Murdach and his two sons, with their grandfather by the mother's side, the Earl of Lennox, were brought to trial under cognizance of an assize or jury of nobles, in which the allies and supporters of the king were mingled with the favorers and allies of the House of Albany in such a proportion as to give an appearance of impartiality to the trial, though the party of royalists was undoubtedly adequate to command the verdict, which, in Scotland, is decided by a majority of voices.

The nature of the charge brought against these high-descended and late powerful persons is unknown. There could be no want of instances in which the usurpation of the prisoners had amounted to acts of high treason. The king himself was present at the trial, with the royal emblems of dignity. The fatal verdict of guilty was pronounced against them all, and they were executed on the castle hill at Stirling, upon the little artificial mound called Hurley Hacket. From this elevated position, Duke Murdach might cast his last look upon the fertile and romantic territory of Monteith, which formed part of his family estate, and distinguish in the distance the stately castle of Doune, which emulated the magnificence of palaces, and had been his own viceregal residence. Among the multitude who beheld this melancholy spectacle, a sense of the mutability of human affairs, and the interest naturally due to fallen greatness, drowned recollection of the noble criminals' faults in sympathy for their misfortunes. Duke Robert, the great offender of the House of Albany, had been summoned long before to a higher tribunal ; and the imbecility of Duke Murdach, who only inherited at most, and in fact renounced the usurpations of his father, attracted commiseration rather than abhorrence. The goodly persons of his two sons drowned in the minds of the vulgar recollection of their vices and follies; and from the venerable appearance of the Earl of Lennox, a man in his eightieth year, he seemed too near the grave already to be precipitated into it by the hand of the executioner. The purpose of the king seems, in fact, to have failed in a great measure. He meant to strike a wholesome terror; but the punishment of so many nobles, his own nearest relations, excited in some bosoms hatred against the vindictive spirit by which it seemed to be dictated, and, in general, a sense that such a severe animadversion upon crimes long past savored too much of rigor to be true policy. These unfavorable feelings were exaggerated in the eyes of such as conceived that the monarch had the selfish prospect of repairing the royal revenue by the forfeiture of the estates of these wealthy criminals.

Perhaps, like many reformers, this excellent prince, for such he must certainly be esteemed, fell into an error common to those who, seeing acutely the extent of a rooted evil, attempt too hastily and too violently to remedy it by instant eradication. It is in the political world as in the human frame; dislocations which have been of long standing, and to which the neighboring parts of the system have accommodated themselves, cannot be brought back to their proper state without time, patience, and gentleness. It is true, the long course of license permitted by the loose government of the House of Albany had subjected many hundreds, nay, thousands of individuals to the penalties of the law ; but it cannot escape notice that, while a few severe examples are in such a case necessary for the purpose of impressing a respect for justice, the extending capital punishments to a large circle disgusts the public mind, assumes the form of vengeance rather than legal severity, and procures for malefactors an interest in their fate capable of altogether destroying the great purpose of punishment, by causing men to hate instead of respecting its motives. If, as historians affirm, James I. actually adjudged to death, within the first two years of his reign, to the number of three thousand of his subjects, for offences committed during his imprisonment in England, he certainly merited that the reproof used by Mecenas to Augustus "surge tandem carnifex" ought to have interrupted his judicial butchery.

James I. might be more easily justified in teaching, even by strict examples of severity, the respect due to the royal person, the source of law and justice, which had fallen into contempt during the feeble regency of Duke Murdach, than in prosecution of acts of treason committed when there was no king in the land. We have the following instance of his strictness on such occasions : A nobleman of high rank, and nearly related to the crown, forgot himself so far as to strike a youth within the king's hall. James commanded that the hand with which the offence had been given should on the instant be extended on the council-table, and the young man who had received the blow was ordered to stand by with the edge of a large knife applied to the wrist of the offender, ready to sever it upon a signal given. In this posture the culprit remained for more than an hour in agonizing expectation of the blow being struck, while the queen and her ladies, the prelates, and the clergy, prostrated themselves on the floor, imploring mercy for the criminal. The king at length dispensed with the punishment, but banished the offender for some time from his court and presence.

In 1427, besides repressing the general habits of violence and devastation in the Lowlands of Scotland, James had also to reduce to his obedience the Highland chiefs, who during the impunity of the last regency had thrown off all respect to the mandates of the crown, forgotten the terrors of the Harlaw, and might be considered as having returned to their pristine independence and barbarism. The king, with a view to remedy these evils, built or repaired the strong tower of Inverness, at which place he held a parliament. Alexander, the lord of the Isles, and his mother, the Countess of Ross, with almost all the Highland chiefs, many of whom could carry into the field at least two thousand men, attended upon this assembly. The king invited them separately to visit his castle, where he had nearly fifty of them placed in arrest at the same moment; James in the mean-while applauding his own dexterity in an extempore verse, of which the Latin only survives. Two leaders of tribes, Alexander M'Reury de Garmoran and John M'Arthur, as more powerful, or more insolent, or more guilty than the others, were beheaded for acts of robbery and oppression; and to render his justice impartial, James Campbell was hanged for the murder of John, a former lord of the Isles.

In the midst of these examples of punishment, James was clement in his treatment of Alexander of the Isles, the successor of Donald, who was worsted at the Harlaw, and only remonstrating with him upon the necessity of his discontinuing his family habits of lawless turbulence, he dismissed him upon his promise to abstain from such in future. His mother was detained as a hostage for his faith. Alexander, how-ever, no sooner returned to his own territories than he raised his banner, and collected a host from the Isles and Highland mainland to the amount of ten thousand men, with which he invaded the continent, and burned the town of Inverness, where he had lately sustained the affront of an arrest. King James assembled an army and hastened northward, where his prompt arrival alarmed the invaders. Two powerful tribes, the Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron, deserted the lord of the Isles, and ranged themselves under the royal banner. Weakened and dispirited, the Highland forces sustained a severe defeat, and the lord of the Isles humbled himself to ask peace and forgiveness. It was not, however, granted till he had performed a feudal penance for his breach of allegiance. On the eve of St. Augustine's festival, he appeared in full congregation, before the high altar of Holyrood Church, at Edinburgh, attired only in his shirt and drawers, and there upon his knees presented the hilt of his naked sword to the king, he himself holding it by the point. In this attitude of submission the island chief humbly confessed his offences, and deprecated their deserved punishment. The capital penalty, which he had deservedly incurred, was exchanged for a long imprisonment in Tantallon Castle.

The captivity of the lord of the Isles did not prevent further disturbance from these unruly people.—Choosing for chieftain Donald, called Ballach or the Freckled, the cousin-german of their imprisoned lord, who exercised his power during his captivity, the islanders again invaded Lochaber with an army of wild Catherans. Encountering the Earls of Mar and of Caithness, the Celtic chief totally defeated them with much slaughter. Donald therefore re-turned to the islands with victory. But the king making great preparations to revenge this invasion, the Highland chiefs who had been accessory to it became afraid of the royal power, to which the activity of James had given such additional respect, and not only submitted themselves to their sovereign, but offered him their services against Donald Ballach, whose overbearing insolence they alleged had been the cause of their error. Thus deserted by those who had been accessory to his crime, Donald Ballach was forced to fly to Ireland, where he was shortly after slain, to propitiate the Scottish king, and his head sent to the court of James.

James took other and less violent methods of confirming the right of the Scottish crown, by accommodating with the Norwegians, who had heavy claims for the long arrears of an annuity, stipulated to them in the treaty with Alexander III., as the consideration for ceding their right over the Hebrides, but which the continued misfortunes of Scotland had prevented from being regularly paid.

In another material point James I. prosecuted his plan of lowering the power of the nobility, and rendering them more dependent on the crown; and it is only by catching at such casual sources of information that we can form a fair estimate of the schemes which he had formed or the means by which he proposed to execute them. We have repeatedly seen the powerful Earls of March, who lay on the eastern frontiers of Scotland, renounce and return to the allegiance of that country at their pleasure; and render their castle of Dunbar at one time a rampart against the English, at another a place of refuge to the retreating monarchs of that kingdom. Whether the existing Earl of March had been recently engaged in any of those unlawful and treason-able practices which had distinguished his family in former generations, or whether he was only guilty of possessing the power to be dangerous, we cannot well discern; but he was confined to the castle of Edinburgh as a prisoner, and his castle of Dunbar, being taken possession of by the king, was placed in the keeping of Adam Hepburn of Hales. The legal reasons assigned were, that the forfeiture of the earldom of March having been decreed, on account of the repeated treason of George, earl of March, the power of the regent Duke of Albany was insufficient to disjoin them from the crown, to which they had been united, and to confer them on the son of the traitor. It was not, however, the purpose of the king to act with rigor or injustice toward the present earl, even in depriving him of possessions which afforded him a power liable to be abused. He closed the transaction by instantly conferring on the late Earl of March the earldom of Buchan, which, by the death of the gallant high constable of France at the battle of Verneuil, already mentioned, had reverted to the crown. By this policy James hoped to convert a powerful family, from fickle and uncertain borderers, into more faithful inland vassals.

Almost all the proceedings of James I. were directed to the same general end that of diminishing the power of the nobles, which occasioned the discords in the state, and the general oppression of the subjects, and proportionally augmenting and extending the influence of the crown. This comprehended, indeed, the selfish purpose of elevating the king himself to a more absolute superiority in the state; but as, in that stage of society, the royal authority was the best means by which the general peace and good order of the country at large could be preserved, James may be considered as having pursued his favorite object with humane and patriotic views, directed more to the benefit of Scotland than his own aggrandizement.

By an act of parliament prohibiting all bonds and leagues, by which the nobility used to bind themselves to take each other's part against the rest of the community, or against the crown itself, and declaring that associations which had been made for such dangerous and unlawful purposes were not binding, J ames endeavored to deprive these petty princes of the power of uniting themselves together against his authority. Great pains were also taken to assure the regular distribution of government by the royal courts of justice, with the assurance that if there were any "poor creature" who, for want of skill and money, could not have his cause properly stated, a skilful advocate should be engaged for him at the expense of the crown.

Another law against leasing-making imposed the doom of death on the devisers of such falsehoods as were calculated to render the king's government odious to the people. The punishment, however severe, was not, perhaps, ill suited to that time, when there was so little communication between different parts of the country, and one province knew so little of what was happening in another that a rumor of any unpopular measure or oppressive act on the part of the crown might put a part of the kingdom into open rebellion before it could be refuted or explained. In after-times, the statute, •being applied even to confidential communications between man and man, became the source of gross and iniquitous oppression.

In relation to foreign policy, James I. appears to bave supported his place with dignity between the contending powers of France and England. Like his predecessors, he preferred the alliance of the former kingdom, as less tempted to abuse his confidence; and his friendship was thought of such importance that Charles of France was induced to cement it by choosing the bride of his son the dauphin, afterward Louis XI., in the person of Margaret, eldest daughter of the king of Scotland. The bridal took place in 1436, eight years after the contract. The honor which attended this match was great; but the bride's happiness was far from being secured in proportion. Though amiable and accomplished, she was neglected and contemned by her husband, one of the most malignant men who ever lived. She was basely calumniated also and slandered by his unworthy courtiers, and appears to have felt the imputed ignominy so sensitively that the acuteness of her feelings at length cost the princess her life.

As the affairs of the English were declining in France, from the enthusiasm universally awakened by the appearance of the Maid of Orleans on the scene, an English ambassador was sent to Scotland, in the person of Lord Scroope, with instructions to gain James, if possible, from his French alliance. England proposed terms which had not been lately named in negotiation between the countries. The offers were a sure and perpetual peace, with the restitution to Scotland of the castle of Roxburgh, the town of Berwick, together with Cumberland and Westmoreland, as far southward as Rere Cross on Stanmoor. The Scottish historians say that the English were not sincere in these proposals. If they were, James could not have entertained them without a formal breach of his treaty with France. The clergy interfered to support this obstacle, with the important additional objection that the contract with France had obtained an irrefragable, and in some degree sacred, character, by its having received the sanction of the pope, and therefore could not be infringed without a high crime. In the course of the scholastic discussion which arose on the question, what effect the approbation of the Roman pontiff conferred on a contract solemnly entered into between two independent monarchs, the disputants lost sight of the English propositions, the most honorable which Scotland had received from her proud neighbor since the arms of Bruce extorted from her the treaty of Northampton, and the negotiation fell to the ground.

It may be easily conceived that the unwonted boldness with which James carried on his favorite measures resuming grants made in favor of the most powerful nobles altering at his will the seat of their power, as in the case of the Earl of March interfering with and controlling their jurisdiction over their vassals at times imprisoning the most powerful of them, as he did the Earl of Douglas, his own nephew and substituting the authority of the crown for that of the vassals, by whose greatness it had been eclipsed —was regarded with very different feelings by two classes of his subjects. With the great mass of the nation James was popular; for the people felt the protection arising from the power of the crown, which could seldom have any temptation to oppress those in middle life, and willingly took refuge under it to escape from the subordinate tyranny of the numerous barons, whose castles crowned every cliff, and for whose rapacity or violence no object was too inconsiderable. It was different with the nobility, who felt acutely that, as the king's importance arose in the national scale, their own was gradually sinking. They regarded the quantity of blood which had been shed by James's command less as a sacrifice to justice than as the means by which the sovereign indulged his rapacity after forfeitures, and what they alleged to be his vindictive hatred to the nobility. Many of the victims who had suffered the penalties of the law were related to honor-able houses ; and it was a point of honor, and almost of con-science, with their kindred, to watch for the opportunity to revenge their death. There was, therefore, a great party among the nobility who regarded James with fear and hatred, and who only wanted an opportunity to give deadly proof of the character of their feelings toward him.

The approach of war gave these evil sentiments an opportunity to display themselves. In 1435, Sir Robert Ogle, an English borderer of distinction, in breach of a truce which had continued uninterrupted since King James's accession to the Scottish throne, made an incursion on the borders, and did some mischief ; but was encountered by the Earl of Angus near Piperden, defeated and made prisoner. In resentment of this violence, and of an attempt on the part of the English to intercept the Scottish Princess Margaret on her way to France, James declared war against England, 1436. He besieged Roxburgh Castle with the whole array of his kingdom, which was said to amount to a tumultuary multitude of nearly two hundred thousand men. After remaining fifteen days before Roxburgh, the king suddenly raised the siege and dismissed his array, upon surmise, as has been supposed, of treason in his host. That there were such practices is highly probable; and a Scottish encampment, filled with feudal levies, each man under the banner of the noble to whom he owed service, was no safe residence for a monarch who was on bad terms with his aristocracy.

After dismissal of his army, James I. met his parliament at Edinburgh, and employed himself and them in making several regulations for commerce, and for the impartial ad-ministration of justice. In the meantime the period of this active and good prince's labors was speedily approaching.

The chief author of his fate was Sir Robert Grahame, uncle to the Earl of Strathern. James, with his usual view of unfixing and gradually undermining the high power of the nobility, resumed the Earldom of Strathern, and obliged the young earl to accept of the Earldom of Monteith in lieu of it. This seems to have irritated the haughty spirit of the earl's uncle, Sir Robert, who was likewise exasperated by having sustained a personal arrest and imprisonment, along with other men of rank, on the king's return in 1425. Entertaining these causes of personal dislike against his sovereign, Grahame, in the parliament of 1429, undertook to rep-resent to the king the grievances of the nobility; but, instead of doing so with respect and moderation, this fierce and haughty man worked himself into such extremity of passion as to make offer to arrest the monarch in name of the estates of parliament. As no one dared to support him in an attempt so arrogant, Grahame was seized, and, finally, his possessions were declared forfeited, and he himself ordered into' banishment.

He retired to the recesses of the Highlands, vowing revenge, and had the boldness to send forth from his lurking-place a written defiance, in which he renounced the king's allegiance, and declared himself his mortal enemy. On this new proof of audacity, a reward was offered to any one who should bring in the person of Sir Robert Grahame, dead or alive. On this a conspiracy took place, the event of which was terrible, although we can but ill trace the motives of some of the party.

The ostensible head of the conspirators was the king's own uncle, Walter, earl of Athole, son of Robert III., by his second marriage. This ambitious old man was not prevented by his near alliance with the crown from plotting against his royal nephew's life, with the purpose of placing on the throne Sir Robert Stewart, his own grandson, who on his part, though favored by the king, and holding the confidential situation of chamberlain, did not hesitate to enter into so nefarious a conspiracy. The event proved that the conspirators had formed their plan for assassinating their prince with too much accuracy. But the hopes upon which Athole and his grandson founded the subsequent part of their plot seem to have been vague and uncertain to an extravagant degree, inducing us to believe, that, like other heated and fiery spirits in similar situations, those engaged in the bloody design must have worked themselves into the belief that the feelings of hatred toward James which animated their own bosoms were also nourished by the greater part of the community; a species of self-delusion common among men who engage in such desperate enterprises.

The removal of the court to Perth, where James pro-posed to hold his Christmas, facilitated the conspirators' enterprise, by making a sudden descent from the Highlands a short expedition. About the 21st of February, 1437, the king, after having entertained his treacherous uncle of Athole at supper, was about to retire to rest in the Dominican monastery, which was the royal residence for the time, when it was suddenly entered by a body of three hundred men, whose admittance had been facilitated by Sir Robert Stewart, the faithless chamberlain. There is a tradition that a young lady in attendance on the queen, named Katherine Douglas, endeavored to supply the want of a bar to the door of the royal apartment by thrusting her own arm across the staples. This slender obstacle was soon overcome. So much time had, however, been gained, that the queen and her ladies had found means to let down the king into a vault beneath the apartment, from which he might have made his escape, had not an entrance from the sewer to the court of the monastery been built up by his own order a day or two before, because his balls, as he played at tennis, were lost by entering the vault. Still, notwithstanding this obstacle, the king might have escaped, for the assassins left the apartment without finding out his place of re-treat, and, having in their brutal fury wounded the queen, dispersed to seek for James in the other chambers. Unhappily, before either the conspirators had withdrawn from the palace, or assistance had arrived, the king endeavored, by the help of the ladies, to escape from the vault, and some of the villains returning, detected him in the attempt. Two brothers, named Hall, then descending into the vault, fell fiercely upon James with their daggers; when, young, active, and fighting for his life, the king threw them down, and trod them under foot. But while he was struggling with the traitors, and cutting his hands in an attempt to wrench their daggers from them, the principal conspirator, Grahame, came to the assistance of his associates, and the king died by many wounds. Thus fell James I., a prince of distinguished talents and virtue, too deep in political speculation, perhaps, for the period in which he lived, too hasty and eager in carrying his meditated reformation into execution, and too rigorous in punishing crimes which were rather the fruit of tempting opportunity, and of the general license of a disorderly period, than the deliberate offspring of individual guilt.

The alarm was given at last, and the attendants of the court and domestics began to gather to the palace, from which the assassins made their escape to the Highlands, not without loss.

The Queen Joanna urged the pursuit of the murderers with a zeal becoming the widow of such a husband. She had enjoyed her husband's political confidence as well as his domestic affection. In the parliament of 1435 the king, impressed, perhaps, with a presentiment that his public-spirited measures might expose him to assassination, caused the members of the estates to give written assurances of their fidelity to the queen. Upon this trying occasion they redeemed their pledge, and a close and general pursuit after the murderers took place. In the space of a month they were all apprehended in their various lurking places. Athole's grandson, Sir Robert Stewart, was executed at Edinburgh with refined tortures, in the midst of which he avowed his guilt. The aged earl admitted that his grandson had proposed such a conspiracy to him; but alleged that he did his utmost to dissuade him from engaging in it, and believed that the idea was laid aside. He was beheaded at Edinburgh, and his head, being surrounded with a crown of iron, was exposed to public view. The principal conspirator, Sir Robert Grahame, whose mind had devised, and whose hand executed the bloody deed, boldly contended that he had a right to act as he had done. The king, he said, had inflicted on him a mortal injury; and he, in return, had renounced his allegiance, and sent him a formal letter of defiance. Dreadful tortures were inflicted on the regicide, which served but to show how much extremity a hardy spirit is capable to endure. He told the court, that, though now executed as a traitor, he should be hereafter recollected as the man who had freed Scotland from a tyrant. But the evil spirit which had seduced him, and seemed to speak by his mouth, proved a false prophet : the immortality which his memory obtained was only conferred by a popular rhyme, to this effect :

Robert Grahame, That kill'd our king, God give him shame.

James I. had two sons; but one dying in infancy, he left behind him only James II., who in his childhood succeeded to his father's throne. The late king had five daughters, who were married, four of them into noble families abroad, while the youngest was wedded to the Earl of Angus.