History Of Scotland Vol. 1 - Part 19

( Originally Published 1909 )

Struggle between the Nobles and the Crown—Elevation of Crichton and Livingston to the Government—Their Dissensions--Crichton possesses himself of the King's Person; but by a Stratagem of the Queen he is conveyed to Stirling—Crichton is besieged in Edinburgh Castle; reconciles himself with Livingston; quarrels once more with him; and again obtains the Custody of the King's Person—A second Reconciliation—Power of the Douglas Family—Trial and Execution of the young Earl of Douglas and his Brother—Highland Feuds—Douglas gains the Ascendency in the King's Councils--Fall of the Livingstons—Feud of the Earl of Crawford and the Ogilvies—Death of the Queen-Dowager—War with England—Battle of Sark—Marriage of James—His Quarrel with Douglas: he puts him to Death with his own Hand—Great Civil War—The Douglas Family is destroyed—War with England—Siege of Roxburgh Castle, and Death of James II.

IN the reign of James I a struggle had commenced of a nature hitherto unknown to Scotland. The dissensions by which the kingdom had previously been disturbed or divided had either been caused by hostile invasion or the insurrection of ill-subdued and ill-governed provinces, the in-habitants of which, to resent supposed wrongs and indulge their love of war and plunder, disturbed the internal peace of the country. But in the reign of this monarch we for the first time recognize a distinct struggle for power between the king on the one hand and the great nobility on the other; and from that time downward we can trace the progress of a constant and sometimes a bloody contest between the monarch, who desired to increase his power, and the great aristocratic nobles, who were determined to retain that powerful influence in the state which they had secured by frequent wars, in which their arms were necessary, and their license could not be restrained, and by the long intervals of minority, when the regal power was peculiarly liable to invasion. The mass of the common people, termed in France the tiers état, and in Britain the commons of the realm, had not yet arisen to that consequence in Scotland which the same order had attained in the commercial countries of Flanders, France, and England. The towns were poor, and the merchants ruined by constant wars and the oppressions of the neighboring barons. What power they had, however, in the national councils they lent to the sup-port of the king's prerogative, which was a species of refuge to them from the subaltern oppression of a multitude of petty tyrants, who assumed the right because they possessed the power to tyrannize over them.

The late monarch, James I., in consequence of his standing in opposition to the aristocracy, was induced to select his officers, ministers, and counsellors, not from the haughty nobles who rivalled his power, but from the lower class of barons or private gentlemen. Among them, accordingly, James I. selected several individuals of talent, application, and knowledge of business, and employed their counsels and abilities in the service of the state, without regard to the displeasure of the great nobles, who considered every office near the king's person as their own peculiar and patrimonial right, and who had in many instances converted such employments into subjects of hereditary transmission.

Among the able men whom James L called in this manner from comparative obscurity, the names of two statesmen appear, whom he had selected from the rank of the gentry, and raised to a high place in his councils. These were Sir William Crichton the chancellor, and Sir Alexander Livingston of Calender. Both were men of ancient family, though, descended probably of Saxon parentage, they did not number among the greater nobles, who claimed, generally speaking, their birth from the Norman blood. Both, and more especially Crichton, had talents of a distinguished order, and were well qualified to serve the state. Unhappily, these two statesmen, upon whom either the will of the late king, or the ordinance of a parliament called at Edinburgh immediately after James's murder, devolved the power of a joint regency, were enemies to each other, probably from ancient rivalry; and it was still more unfortunate that their talents were not united with corresponding virtues; for Livingston and Crichton appear to have been alike ambitious, cruel, and unscrupulous politicians. It is said by the Scots chroniclers that the parliament assigned to Crichton the chancellor the administration of the kingdom, and to Livingston the care of the person of the young king.

It might have been supposed that the widowed queen Joanna had some title to be comprised in the commission of regency, and there are indications that such had been the purpose of her husband. But alone, an English stranger, and a woman, after prosecuting the murderers of her husband to the death, she seems to have withdrawn herself from public affairs; and shortly afterward married a man of rank, Sir James Stewart, who was called the Black Knight of Lorn a union which, placing herself under tutelage, disqualified her from the office of regent, whether in her sole person or as an associate of Crichton and Livingston. About the same time (1438), a nine years' truce with England put an end to the war which subsisted at the death of James I., and left the Scottish rulers at liberty to follow out without interruption their domestic dissensions.

These were of a numerous and complicated nature. Crichton and Livingston, who had been preferred by the king's favor from a moderate station among the gentry to be rulers of the state, were sufficiently well disposed to prosecute the system under which they had themselves risen to power, providing they could have agreed upon the share of the administration which each of them was to hold. But they had a powerful opponent in the dreaded Earl of Douglas, a family whom we have often mentioned as supporting their native princes and defending the honor of their country, but whom we must now record as placing by their ambition both the one and the other in extreme danger. Crichton and Livingston were obliged to admit this mighty peer into the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. It does not appear that he was disposed to abuse his trust; but it is evident that Crichton and Livingston, particularly the former, regarded the power of Douglas with suspicion and fear.

This cause of alarm, common to them both, did not sup-press their mutual hatred to each other. A series of manoeuvres, disgraceful when the situation of the parties is considered, and tending to destroy the government in which they held such a principal share, were played off between the chancellor and governor of Scotland, with the rapidity displayed by rival jugglers in the exercise of their legerdemain. A minute account of enterprises which historians have left in great obscurity may be here slightly excused; but the following facts are prominent.

Sir William Crichton had possession of the castle of Edinburgh, in which strong fortress he detained the person of the infant king, although the governor Livingston had a just title to the custody of his royal pupil. The queen-dowager privately favored Livingston's cause : and as she was permitted to visit the castle at all times, she contrived to convey the child out of that fortress, by enclosing him in a coffer supposed to contain a part of her wardrobe. Setting sail from Leith, she removed the prince by water to Stirling, where Livingston lay in garrison, by whom she was gladly received. Assembling there such nobles and barons as adhered to him, Livingston proposed to besiege the castle of Edinburgh, and the queen offered from her own store-houses to supply the soldiers with food. The castle was beleaguered accordingly. Crichton, thus severely threatened, applied himself in his necessity to the Earl of Douglas, offering his constant friendship and assistance, on condition of the earl's standing his friend at this crisis. The earl scarce heard the message to an end, answering with a furious look and gesture, "It is but small harm, methinks, although such mischievous traitors as Crichton and Livingston move war against each other; and it would ill become any of the ancient race of nobles to interfere to prevent their utter wreck and destruction. As for myself, nothing is more pleasing than to hear of their discord; and I hope I shall live to see the mischief they deserve condignly overwhelm both."

The siege by this time was laid around the castle of Edinburgh, when Crichton, having received this scornful answer from the Earl of Douglas, asked an interview with his enemy Livingston, to whom he communicated the earl's reply as indicating no less hostility to the governor than to himself, and proposed that they should forget their private enmity, and unite to protect themselves against Douglas as their common enemy. At the same time, upon an under-standing that he should receive honorable treatment, Crichton declared himself ready to yield up the castle to the governor. Livingston, after consulting his friends, accepted of Crichton's submission, confirmed him in his office of chancellor, and restored the castle of Edinburgh to his charge; and a course of friendship and amity seems for a short interval to have taken place between the two rival statesmen. This state of concord did not long last; for Crichton found means to obtain vengeance both of the queen and of his rival Livingston. Under pretence that Joanna favored the faction of the Douglases, Livingston had the audacity to arrest the widow of his sovereign, with her second husband, the Black Knight of Lorn, and detain them for some time in custody. In so far the governor avenged on the queen the offence given to his rival Crichton. But he was himself circumvented by this audacious statesman. Crichton came in darkness with a party of horse to the park of Stirling, where, waiting until the young king came from the castle at daybreak to hunt with a small attendance, he suddenly accosted him, and easily prevailed on him to repair to Edinburgh.

Upon this new injury, the hatred between Crichton and Livingston was about to revive with treble fury. The interference, however, of the prelates of Aberdeen and Murray again accomplished a seeming reconciliation. The two con-tending statesmen met in St. Giles's Church, and once more renewed their politic purpose of uniting their efforts to oppose the power of the aristocracy, and particularly that of the House of Douglas. It required, indeed, all the influence of both, and more than their talents, though these were considerable, to counterbalance the formidable weight of such a tremendous opponent. But these unprincipled statesmen were abundantly disposed to support their want of power or sagacity by fraud and circumvention.

At this time (1439) Archibald, the fifth earl of Douglas, died, and was succeeded by his son William, a boy of four-teen years old, upon whom descended the various estates and dignities of that powerful family. The duchy of Tou-raine and lordship of Longueville in France seemed to give him the consequence of a foreign prince. In Scotland he enjoyed the earldom of Douglas, the lordships of Galloway and Annandale, and a wide extent both of property and influence throughout all the southern frontier. Repeatedly intermarried with the royal family itself, this mighty house had also formed matrimonial alliances with many of the most distinguished Scottish families. By bonds of dependence, or man-rent, as they were called, almost all the principal gentry who lay in the neighborhood of the wide domains of Douglas had become followers of the earl's banner; and his power, as far as it could be immediately and directly exercised, was equal to that of the king, his opulence perhaps superior.

In 1440, Earl William, whose youth rendered him arrogant, made an imprudent display of the power which he possessed. His ordinary attendance consisted of a thousand horse, and he is said to have held cours plenieres, after the manner of parliaments, within his own jurisdictions, and to have dubbed knights with his own hand. The body of men who constantly attended on this young chief were many of them such as found their subsistence by bloodshed and pillage, who were always ready to interpose the name of their patron as a defence against punishment. The instances of oppression performed by the earl's followers, and the con-tempt and insult with which they rejected the attempts of the ordinary distributors of justice to bring them to punishment, were carefully noted down and laid to the charge of the young Douglas, whom Crichton was determined to make responsible for the mass of injuries which were committed in his name and by his followers. Under pretext of cultivating an intimacy between the young king and the Earl of Douglas, whose years corresponded together, Earl William and his younger brother David were inveigled by the chancellor's flattery and fair speeches first to his castle of Crichton, near Edinburgh, and then to the metropolis itself, where the two noble guests were lodged in the castle. Here, while they expected to be regaled at the royal table, a black bull's head, the signal of death, as it is reputed to have been in Scotland, was suddenly placed before them.' The astonished youths were dragged from the table by armed men, and subjected to a hasty trial. What crimes they were accused of is not known; but the extent of their power and the lawless character of their followers must have afforded enough of pretexts for condemnation, when the sentence rested with judges who were determined to make no allowance for the youth and inexperience of the accused parties, for the artifices by which they had been brought within the danger of the law, and for their being totally deprived of constitutional or legal defenders. The youthful earl and his brother were dragged from the mock judgment-seat to the castle yard, where, in spite of the entreaties and prayers of the young king, they were cruelly beheaded. Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld, a friend and adherent of their family, shared the fate of the unfortunate boys.

The whole might be well pronounced a murder committed with the sword of justice.

Unquestionably Livingston and Crichton, the authors of this detestable treason, reckoned on its effects in depressing the House of Douglas, and producing general quiet and good order, the rather upon two accounts : the first was that a large part of the unentailed property, in particular the estates of Galloway, Wigton, Balveny, Ormond, and Annandale, were severed from the inheritance which was to descend on the new Earl of Douglas, and went to Margaret, the sister of the Earl William who was beheaded in the castle, who was thence commonly called the Fair Maiden of Galloway. Another encouragement to the crime was the indolent and pacific disposition of James, called the Gross, the uncle of the murdered earl. This corpulent dignitary, whose fat is said to have weighed four stone, seems accordingly to have taken no measures whatever for avenging the death of his relatives; on which account the historian of the Douglas family expresses his opinion that Earl James's obesity had invested him with a dulness of spirit inconsistent with the quick feeling of honor that should have stimulated him to a bold revenge.

But the state took as little benefit from the division of the Douglas estates as from the peaceful temper of James the Gross. A marriage, hastily effected, between William, son and heir of James the Gross, and his cousin-german, Margaret the Fair Maid of Galloway, restored the whole of her immense possessions to the male heir of the House of Douglas : and James the Gross, being removed by death within two years after the murder at Edinburgh Castle, was succeeded by the same William, a youth in the flower of his age, of as ardent ambition as any of his towering house, and filled with hatred against Crichton and Livingston for their share in his kinsmen's death. Thus did the power of Douglas revive in its most dangerous form, within two years after the tragic execution in the castle of Edinburgh; and the political crime of Crichton and Livingston was, like many of the same dark complexion, committed in vain.

If we look at Scotland generally during this minority, it forms a dark and disgusting spectacle. Feudal animosities were revived in all corners of the country; and the barriers of the law having been in a great measure removed, the land was drenched with the blood of its inhabitants, shed by their countrymen and neighbors. In 1442 John Colquhoun, lord of Luss, was cut off, with many of his followers, by, a party of Highlanders. In the subsequent year, the sheriff of Perth, Sir William Ruthven, having arrested a Highland thief, and being in the act of leading him to execution, a rescue was attempted by a body of Athole mountaineers, headed by a chief named John Gorme, or Gormac.1 The assailants were, however, defeated, and their leaders slain.

In the midst of universal complaint, bloodshed, and con-fusion, the king was approaching his fourteenth year (1444). He was easily persuaded, or brought to persuade himself, that he could govern more effectively without the control of Crichton and Livingston, while the greater part of his subjects were at least satisfied that he could not rule worse than with the assistance of such unscrupulous counsellors. This produced a desire on the part both of the king and his subjects to dissolve the regency; and the Earl of Douglas, trusting to find his own advantage, and the means of prosecuting his revenge against Crichton and Livingston, with more art than his house had usually manifested, resolved to make personal advances to gain the king's favor, and prosecute his course to power rather as an ally and minister of the throne than the avowed rival and antagonist of the royal family.

There was an occasion shortly offered which afforded Douglas a graceful opportunity of approaching the king's person with offers of service and protestations of fidelity. Sir Robert Semple, sheriff-depute to the Lord Erskine, was in the important charge of Dumbarton Castle, while the upper bailie of the same fort was intrusted to Patrick Galbraith, a vassal of the Earl of Douglas. For some unknown cause of suspicion, Semple deprived Galbraith of his charge, and ordered him to begone from the castle. Galbraith seemed to obey; but introducing a few men, under pretence of removing his furniture and household stuff, he suddenly attacked Sir Robert Semple, and expelled, or, as other authorities say, slew him, and seized the whole fortress into his own possession.

The Earl of Douglas assumed an appearance of great concern, as if Galbraith's dependence upon him might occasion this affair to be made a handle against him by his enemies. He therefore came to court, submitted himself to the king's will, placed his person in the royal power without reserve, and personated so well the expressions and behavior of a good subject, that James was delighted to find in the Earl of Douglas, who had been represented as a formidable rival, a vassal so powerful at once and so humble. The king received him not into favor only, but into confidential trust and power, and with the assistance received from him easily succeeded in assuming the supreme authority into his own hands, and in displacing Livingston and Crichton, who had governed in James's name since his father's death.

In modern times, the dismission of a ministry whose government has lasted long and assumed an absolute character, is usually followed by inquiries and impeachments: in the more ancient days, the ministers were called to account for their power by the terrors of a civil war. But the late chancellor and governor were, as the age required, soldiers as well as statesmen. Livingston shut himself up in the castle of Stirling, and determined on resistance; the chancellor also garrisoned his castles, and stood upon his defence. Douglas, armed with the royal authority, marched against the baronial castles of Crichton and of Barnton, both belonging to the late chancellor. These fortresses were held out against the Douglas's banner for several days, but surrendered when that of the king was displayed before them. Douglas caused them to be dismantled.

But the far more important castle of Edinburgh was stoutly defended by Sir William Crichton in person : nor did he refrain from offensive measures; for, in revenge of the mischief done by Douglas to his lands, he made sallies out of the castle with force sufficient to destroy the lands of Abercorn and Strabrock, belonging to the earl. He continued to hold out the castle of Edinburgh for nine weeks, and at last surrendered it (1446) on the most advantageous terms. He was confirmed in his honors, titles and possessions; even his office of chancellor was restored to him. He seems to have formed an alliance with the Earl of Douglas, and consented to take a share in his administration, surrendering at the same time to the earl's resentment Sir Alexander Livingston, the king's governor.

This latter statesman was arrested, with many of his friends; and though his own gray hairs were spared, their ransom was dearly purchased by the decapitation of his two sons and the destruction of his family. He himself was imprisoned, and with his kinsmen, Dundas, Bruce, and others, subjected to ruinous fines and penalties.

The Earl of Douglas now attained the high dignity of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and having the universal management of state affairs, failed not to use his influence for the advancement of the over swollen importance of his house. Three of his brothers were created peers. Archibald, by marrying with the heiress of the Earl of Moray, succeeded to that title and estate; Hugh Douglas was made earl of Ormond; and John, lord of Balveny.

Meantime the public tranquillity went to wreck on all hands; and one feud is distinguished by our historians from the rest, on account of the number and consequence of the parties engaged on both sides. The powerful Earl of Crawford, by countenance and aid of the Livingstons, and by assistance of the family of Ogilvy, made an inroad on the property of the bishopric of St. Andrew's, then held by James Kennedy, a near relation to the king. For this incursion, the bishop excommunicated the parties concerned on all the holidays of the year, with staff and mitre, book, bell, and candle. This, however, was but empty vengeance on men who made but slight account of his curses. In 1445, a more effectual amends ensued from a quarrel between the master of Crawford and Ogilvy of Inverquharity, the chief of that great name, about the bailiwick of Aberbrothock, which the abbot had taken from Crawford and bestowed upon Ogilvy. They assembled their forces on each side; and the parties having met near the gates of the town of Aberbrothock, were prepared to fight it out, headed by the master of Crawford on the one side and Inverquharity on the other. The Gordons, under the Earl of Huntley, arrived on the field of battle, took the part of the Ogilvies, and the battle was about to join. At this moment the Earl of Craw-ford rode forward between the two bodies, with the purpose of making terms. The master halted his forces at his father's command, and the earl was advancing toward the Ogilvies, when one of them, ignorant who he was, rode at him with his lance, threw him to the ground, and mortally wounded him. Both parties joined battle with mutual fury, and after a fierce conflict the Ogilvies were defeated, and their chief fell in the action, while his ally Huntley only escaped by flight. It gives an idea of the fury of this domestic feud, when we read that in this battle of Aberbrothock five hundred of the vanquished were slain on the field. The Earl of Crawford did not long survive. this bloody field of private vengeance; and his body lay for a considerable time above ground, on account of the sentence of excommunication.

In the midst of this almost universal turmoil, we may notice the death of Joanna, the queen-mother, who hardly obtained permission to die in safety in the castle of Dunbar, that of Hales being stormed and taken for having afforded her temporary refuge. Her husband, the Black Knight of Lorn, having uttered some words reflecting on the administration of the Earl of Douglas, saw himself compelled to leave Scotland. His misfortunes continued to attend him; the bark in which he sailed for France was taken by a Flemish corsair, and he died shortly after, in a species of captivity.

In the meantime, the Earl of Douglas, who possessed the warlike character of his ancestors, defended the country against its external enemies with better success than that with which he maintained domestic tranquillity. The borderers, partaking the spirit of the unsettled times, had broken through the truce by incursions on both sides; and the discordant administrations of Henry VI. and James II., who strongly resembled each other in point of cabal and internal dissension, found that the two countries were at war, even without either government intending it. On the one side, Dumfries was burned by young Percy and Robert Ogle; on the other, Lord Balveny, the youngest brother of Douglas, gave the town of Alnwick to the flames.

To make a deeper impression on the hostile country, the Earl of Huntingdon and Lord Percy crossed the western marches with about fifteen thousand men. In 1448, they were met by Douglas at the head of a much inferior army, who either defeated or compelled them to retire. This foil only animated the English to a stronger effort. They assembled an army amounting to twenty thousand men. They crossed the river Sark at low water, and found themselves in front of the Scottish force, under command of Hugh, earl of Ormond, another brother of the Douglas family. Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, who seems to have been second in command of the Scottish army, behaved himself with distinguished bravery. He was mortally wounded in leading the Scottish right wing to a close conflict with the left of the English, which was commanded by Magnus Redman, governor of Berwick, in whose military skill the English placed great confidence. The Scots, encouraged by their dying leader, pressed furiously forward : Magnus Redman was slain in the melee, and the English gave way. The river Sark, now augmented by the returning tide, lay in the rear of the fugitive army : many were drowned in the attempt to cross it. The English army lost three thousand men; and the young Lord Percy and Sir John Pennington were made prisoners.

The truce was shortly after (1449) again renewed by the English; and in the treaty on the occasion both parties disowned having been the cause of its being broken. About the same period, the interest of the Earl of Douglas at the Scottish court began to decline. It is easy to imagine various ways in which the actions of so overgrown a minister may have given offence to the king, who, being now about the age of eighteen, might perhaps be disposed to look upon the earl as a rival rather than a servant of the throne. Most kings prefer those favorites whose fortunes, however exorbitant, are nevertheless the work of their own hands; and the Douglas's power and splendor rested on hereditary honors and possessions which the king could neither give nor take away. The misrule of the kingdom also, and the numerous and bitter feuds into which it was divided, were universally said to be fostered and encouraged under the earl's influence; and it was alleged that when the worst of felons was arrested for the worst of crimes he might completely secure himself by alleging that he had done the deed at the command of a Douglas, or in revenge of a Douglas's quarrel.

Sir William Crichton also, who was so long and well acquainted with state affairs, began to recover the king's confidence; and his proved policy was employed in the honorable commission of renewing the old alliance with France, and seeking out upon the Continent a befitting match for the king. The election fell on Mary of Guelders, with whom Philip of Burgundy agreed to give sixty thousand crowns of gold as the portion of his kinswoman, who had been educated at his court. The alliance with France was renewed, and one with Burgundy was entered into. The success of Sir William Crichton in this negotiation, and the acceptable selection of his bride, raised the old statesman still higher in James's favor; and as he acquired the royal confidence, he had further opportunities of instilling into the sovereign's mind the rules of policy on which his father James I. had acted, with a view of raising the power of the crown, and depressing the feudal greatness of the nobility. These instructions were necessarily unfavorable to Douglas.

A parliament was held at Edinburgh (1450), providing for the restoration of the progresses of the justiciary courts, which had been interrupted, and denouncing the penalties of rebellion against all persons who should presume to make private war on the king's subjects, declaring that the whole force of the country should be led against them if necessary. Severe laws were made against spoilers and marauders; and regulations laid down that the nobility should travel with moderate trains, to avoid oppressing the country. Finally, a statute was passed imposing the pains of treason on any who should aid or supply with help or counsel those who were traitors to the king's person, or who should garrison houses in their defence, or aid such rebels in the assault of castles or other places where the king's person should hap-pen to be for the time. The tendency of these laws shows the predominant evils which had taken root during the king's minority, and the remedies by which, when come to man's estate, James II. proceeded to attempt a cure.

The Earl of Douglas, finding his court favor upon the wane, began to withdraw himself from the king's, and, in despite of the laws which had been so lately enacted, to play the independent prince in his own country, which comprehended all the borders and great part of the west of Scotland. An instance of his mode of acting occurred in a feud between Richard Colville of Ochiltree and John Auchinleck of Auchinleck. The former, having received some injuries from Auchinleck, watched an opportunity, while his enemy was journeying to wait upon the Earl of Douglas, whose follower he was, and on the road waylaid and slew him. Douglas, considering this violence as a personal insult to himself, undertaken perhaps in scorn of his diminished power, instantly beset Colville's castle with a body of men, took it by force, and put the lord and his garrison to the sword (1449). This daring contempt of the public law, though colored over as the vengeance claimed by the memory of a worthy follower, was justly regarded at court as a daring insult to the royal authority, and so much resented by James that the earl judged it prudent for a time to absent himself, not only from the court, but from the country.

The Earl of Douglas, therefore, in 1450, undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, which he performed magnificently, with a retinue of six knights, fourteen gentlemen, and eighty attendants of inferior rank. He was received at Paris with the honor due to his high family, and the memory of his ancestor who fell at Verneuil in the French service. Even at Rome the name of Douglas was respected, and the rude magnificence of the earl who bore it attracted attention and regard.

While Douglas was absent on his pilgrimage, his vassals continued to be disorderly and insubordinate as before. Symington, the earl's bailiff in Douglas Dale, was cited to answer for the conduct of such malefactors, but contumaciously refused to obey. Upon this, William Sinclair, earl of Orkney, then chancellor of Scotland, was sent to levy distress on the rents and goods of the Earl of Douglas, to satisfy those who complained of injury from his tenants. The chancellor's mission met with no success, for he was received only with resistance and insult. The king, incensed at this contumacy offered to the highest law-officer in the realm, marched in person into the disobedient districts, ravaged Douglas's estates, and took possession of the castles of Lochmabane and Douglas, the last of which he razed to the ground.

When the evil tidings reached Rome, they struck such alarm into the minds of Douglas's attendants that several relinquished their dependence on the earl and left him. He himself hastened homeward, and was so much affected by this instance of the king's energy and activity that he submitted himself to the royal authority, and was graciously received.

The services of the Earl of Douglas were used as one of the negotiators to adjust the continuation of the truce with England; but there is too much reason, from his visiting that country attended by his three brothers and the more distinguished followers of his house, that he even then meditated some intercourse of a secret and treasonable character. The English ministry, however, occupied by the internal commotions which soon after broke out in the dreadful civil war of York and Lancaster, received Douglas with distinction, but did not choose to become accessory to his intrigues.

Returning to his native country, the haughty earl attempted to clear his way to court favor by attacking and cutting off Sir William Crichton, his old rival and enemy, as he travelled from his castle of Crichton toward Edinburgh. An ambuscade of the Douglas followers beset the road, and broke out on the now aged chancellor with shouts and cries. But, encouraged by the presence of his son, a valiant young man, the old statesman stood to his weapon, and, after killing one and disabling another of the assailants, effected his retreat back to Crichton. The old man had borne the highest offices of the state too long to endure this wrong unrevenged: he gathered a strong body of friends and adherents, and marched to Edinburgh with such secrecy and despatch that he had nearly surprised Douglas, who lay there with a small retinue; and, despite his pride and power, the earl was compelled to fly from the metropolis in his turn.

Both parties, stimulated by mutual injuries and insults, seemed now prepared to combat to extremity. The Earl of Douglas retired altogether from the court; and that he might strengthen his cause, which he represented as that of the aristocracy in general, he entered into a private cor respondence with the Earls of Crawford and Ross, the most powerful and independent Scottish nobles, after Douglas himself, and possessing the same power in the centre and north of Scotland which the earl exercised on the frontiers. He also used his influence upon such men of consequence as lived in those countries over which he had authority, to compel them, though diametrically contrary to law, to execute leagues and bonds, by which they engaged themselves to support each other, and to make common cause with the Douglas against all mortals besides. Those who declined to comply with Douglas's pleasure in this matter were sure, more or less directly, to feel the force of his vengeance, which a wide authority over the border countries, filled with strong clans of habitual marauders, enabled him to accomplish, without the earl himself appearing active in the matter.

A remarkable instance of this occurred in the case of John Herries, a man of power in Nithsdale, who, having declined to engage as an ally and follower of the Douglas, in the manner required, beheld his lands plundered by a body of banditti from Douglas Dale. Having repeatedly applied to Douglas for satisfaction for this injury, Herries at length, consulting rather his spirit than his strength, endeavored to revenge the wrong by retaliation. But in an attempt to invade Annandale, he had the misfortune to be defeated and made prisoner by Douglas, who cast him into irons, and, despite the king's personal interposition in his behalf, by letter and message, caused him to be ignominiously hanged.

A case of even greater atrocity was that of the tutor or guardian of the young Laird of Bombie, called M'Lellan, who had, like the unfortunate Herries, declined to acknowledge the usurped authority of the Earl of Douglas, and be-came therefore obnoxious to his vengeance. This he was not long of feeling. In 1451, Douglas besieged the house or castle of the family, took the tutor of Bombie, as he was called, prisoner, and carried him to Douglas Castle, or, as others say, to that of the Thrieve in Galloway, and there threw him into close confinement. The unhappy prisoner was the nephew of Sir Patrick Gray, captain of the king's bodyguard, an institution which we hear of for the first time in this reign, but which the complexion of the times, and the cruel murder of James I., had rendered but too necessary.

Anxious to avert the too probable fate of his relation, this officer, who was doubtless by his office especially familiar with the king, obtained from James II. letters to the Earl of Douglas, written in the most amicable tone of intercession, entreating rather than commanding that he would yield the captive in safety to Gray. The sudden appearance of the captain of the king's guard at his castle, joined with the recollection of Sir Patrick's connection with the tutor of Bombie, apprised Douglas how the case stood. He avoided immediately entering on business with Gray, until he had called for some refreshment; and while he pressed him to partake of the cheer, which, with an affectation of hospitality, was presently set before him, he caused the prisoner to be privately led out into the courtyard before the castle and there beheaded. Meanwhile, Sir Patrick Gray's meal being ended, the earl at last consented to open the king's letters, and seemed much gratified by their contents. "What the king requires of me," said he, "shall be granted as fully as circumstances admit." So saying, he led Sir Patrick to the place of execution, where the unfortunate tutor of Bombie's corpse still lay with a cloth spread over it. "Sir Patrick," said the earl, "you are come a little too late : yonder lies your sister's son; but he wants the head. You are at liberty to take his body, if you will." With a sad heart, Sir Patrick Gray replied, "My lord, since you have taken the head, you may dispose of the body at your pleasure." He then mounted his good horse, and, unable any longer to sup-press his burning sense of the insult and injury with which he had been treated, he sternly said, "My lord, if I live, you shall be rewarded according to your demerits for this day's work." ' The earl, incensed at these words, instantly called to horse; and though Sir Patrick Gray rode off upon the spur so soon as he had uttered the threat, he was chased by the followers of the Douglas till near to Edinburgh, and would have been taken but for the excellence of his led horse.

It is probable that this piece of cruelty, accompanied with such a marked degree of contempt, not only to the laws but to the person of the king, filled up the cup of James's resentment against the Earl of Douglas. Still the extreme power which rendered this overgrown noble so presumptuous made it perilous for the king to enter into open war against him. It was therefore determined by Crichton and others, who shared in the king's more secret councils, that the king should affect an appearance of goodwill toward the earl, and invite him to court, with assurances that none of his past enormities should be inquired into, and that a reconciliation should be effected, on the footing of Douglas's forbearing such aggressions against the royal authority in future.

By what allurements the king and his counsellors were able to lull to rest the suspicions which Douglas, conscious of his own demerits, must have entertained of James's feelings toward one by whom he had been publicly insulted, we have no means of knowing. It appears that religion, too often employed as the most efficient mask of sinister designs, was not spared on the occasion ; and that Sir William Crichton and Sir Patrick Gray had proposed to accompany Douglas and his brother James, with Lord Hamilton, his most powerful and faithful follower, upon a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Although a safe-conduct was granted by the English government for permitting this party of mingled royalists with Douglas and his followers to approach the shrine of Thomas A Becket, there was probably no intention that it should ever be made use of. The mutual pilgrimage was, in all likelihood, only proposed as one means of making evident the sincerity of Crichton and others, since the offer seemed to infer that these ministers of the king did not fear to accompany Douglas and his brother amid the various and doubtful incidents to which, in so long a journey, they must have been exposed. Neither was it uncommon for ancient enemies to testify the reality of a reconciliation by performing acts of devotion in company.

The various hopes and inducements-which were held out to Douglas, whatever was their precise character, were such as, joined with a spirit which set him above personal doubt or fear, induced the earl to visit the court in Lent, 1452. It was then held in Stirling Castle. But Douglas was not so confident in the sincerity of his recent reconciliation with the court as to venture himself within the king's power without an assurance of safety. He was accordingly furnished with letters from the principal persons at court, promising to be his warrant against any treachery, and, according to some authors, was also furnished with an ample safe-conduct under the great seal. His security thus provided for, the earl repaired to Stirling with his five brethren and a large band of his followers. Upon Shrove Tuesday he was honored with an invitation to sup with James in the castle, which he accepted without suspicion. Douglas was kindly received by the king, and the evening passed away in mirth and festivity. As they rose from the supper-table, about eight in the evening, the king led the earl apart into the recess of a deep window and began to expostulate with him on his late irregularities. No one was near them; but some of the privy-councillors and Sir Patrick Gray, with a few of the royal guards, were in the body of the apartment. At length in the course of his argument the king touched upon the bond or league in which Douglas had engaged with the Earls of Crawford and Ross, and earnestly urged him to renounce it as a confederacy inconsistent with his allegiance, dangerous to the state, and contrary to the express law of the realm. The earl haughtily replied that, his faith being once pledged to that bond as a solemn engagement, he could not with his honor renounce it, nor would he do so for the words of any living man. "By Heaven, then," said the king, his wrath being excited to the uttermost by the obstinate and disrespectful answer of the earl, "if you will not break the confederacy, this shall." So saying, he drew his dagger and plunged it in Douglas's body. Sir Patrick Gray came to the assistance of the king, and, not unmindful of his vow of revenge, beat Douglas down with his battle-axe, and all the courtiers present attested their approbation of the deed, by striking their knives and daggers into the too powerful subject, who lay now a corpse at the feet of his sovereign.

The character of James II. suffered a great stain by the death of Douglas, slain by his own hand while the royal guest, under sanction of the public faith. But circumstances acquit the king of the premeditated guilt of the action, and show it to have been the furious explosion of a sudden gust of passion, which, if pardonable in any person., may plead some excuse in the case of a prince braved to the face by his subject. Indeed, what end could the king or his counsellors propose to themselves by taking the earl's life, when in the very town of Stirling, at the moment of the deed, he had five surviving brothers, men of undaunted courage and resolution, the eldest of whom must have succeeded, as in fact he did, to the full power of the slaughtered earl? Such a crime, therefore, could only be the means of instantly precipitating that dreadful struggle between the crown and the aristocracy which it was the interest of the court to delay till some more favorable opportunity, and which would certainly be most impoliticly commenced by an act carrying with it the disadvantage of exposing the king to a charge of perfidy or breach of faith. If, however, it is to be believed that the death of Douglas was a premeditated action, it is still certain that the manner in which it was perpetrated must have arisen out of accident, since there occur so many obvious reasons why other agency than that of the king himself should have been employed for his removal, and in finding such there could have been no difficulty.

But the reader may demand, what could be the purpose of James, if not to rid himself of his turbulent subject by death? If we are to substitute conjecture where certainty is not to be had, we may suggest the probability that the king had determined to arrest Douglas in case he was found intractable, and to detain him a hostage for the quiet demeanor of his family, until his league with the northern earls was broken and the height of his dangerous power was in some degree diminished. There might be in this device some part of the policy, as well as the unscrupulous breach of faith, which characterized the politics of such a statesman as Crichton; and considering the vehement character of James II. and the stubborn and presumptuous disposition of the earl, it is easy to conceive how, in a personal interview between two such hot and passionate spirits, the intended purpose of arrest should have been changed for one of a more bloody and decisive character.

The five brothers of the slaughtered earl, on hearing his fate, instantly assembled themselves, and, with the friends of their powerful family, recognized the eldest of their number as Earl of Douglas, being the last that was fated to wear that formidable title. The assembly vowed revenge for the blood of Earl William; but, instead of pressing an instant siege of Stirling Castle, ere it was supplied with pro-visions or means of defence, they agreed to meet there in arms on the 25th day of March. They assembled accordingly, bringing with them the safe-conduct granted to Earl William, which they dragged in scorn at the tail of a lean cart-horse; and in further reprobation of the king's treachery, they proclaimed him and his advisers and accomplices in the death of Douglas false, perjured, and forsworn men, while four hundred horns blew out at once to attest the fact thus formally promulgated. They then burned the town of Stirling, but drew off their forces, as finding themselves still unable to attempt the siege of the castle, so that the king obtained some breathing-space to improve his affairs in a very dangerous crisis.

Several of the nobility, seeing it absolutely necessary to take a part in the approaching contest, declared for the lawful authority of the crown, feeling, probably, that the control of a sovereign prince was more honorable certainly, and not likely to be so severe as that of the House of Douglas. Among those who held such opinions was an important chief of the House of Douglas itself, namely, the Earl of Angus, who, being nearly related to the king, preferred the royal service to that of the head of his own house. The Lord Douglas of Dalkeith also held out his castle, so named, against the fiercest attacks of the earl his namesake and kinsman. The king's most powerful adherent was, how-ever, Alexander Gordon, the first earl of Huntley, who arrayed under the royal standard a great part of the north-ern barons, and marched southward at their head toward Stirling.

The Earl of Crawford was, however, faithful to his bond of alliance, though Douglas, with whom it had been contracted, was no more. Being cited to justify himself against an accusation of treason, he refused to obey, and assembling a strong army of his friends in Fifeshire and Angusshire, he took post at Brechin, in order to intercept Huntley on his march toward Stirling. On the evening before the expected battle, Huntley, that his men might have more spirit in the encounter the next day, distributed many fair lands among the leaders of his army. Crawford followed a more niggardly policy. Collasse of Balnamoon, or Bonnymoon, who commanded a select division of axemen and billmen in the earl's army, feeling his own importance, requested of the earl, who was superior of his lands, that he would enter his son as vassal in the fief, which Crawford sternly refused to do. Collasse retired in discontent. The fight on the morrow, May 18, 1452, commenced with great fury, and the men of Angus attacked the northern troops so furiously as forced them to recoil, and placed the king's standard in danger. At this critical moment, John Collasse, whose duty it was to have sustained the assailants, led his division of billmen out of the line, and exposed the centre of Crawford's army without support, while the left wing engaged with the enemy. Huntley instantly availed himself of the opportunity to assault and break the troops who were thus laid open. The fortune of the field was thus changed, and the defeated Earl of Crawford retreated in great displeasure to his house at Finhaven. A gentleman of Huntley's army is said to have pursued the vanquished earl so closely, that he at last became completely involved in a crowd of the immediate attendants of Lord Crawford, and finding it necessary for his safety to pass for one of the number, he followed them in that character into the house of Finhaven, where he heard the earl say he would have been content to have purchased that day's victory, though it were at the penalty of seven years' residence in the infernal regions. The gentleman brought back these words to King James, with a silver cup, bearing the Earl of Crawford's arms, which he had subtracted from the sideboard in the confusion, to be a voucher of his strange adventure.

The Earl of Huntley did not derive much immediate advantage from his victory. He was instantly recalled to the north, by the intelligence that the Earl of Murray, one of the brethren of the Earl of Douglas, had burned his castle of Strathbogie, and was ravaging his estates: so that Crawford remained in Angus as arbitrary as before, spoiling the lands and destroying the houses of such as had joined the king or Huntley against him. Despairing, however, of making an effectual resistance against the sovereign authority, this bold and fierce lord at length submitted himself in the most humble manner to the king's mercy, and was received with some degree of favor. The king rode to visit him at the house of Finhaven, where he was dutifully and respectfully entertained; and James is said to have thrown a flagstone from the battlements of the castle down into the ditch, that he might, without injury to the earl or his mansion, fulfil a vow which he had made in his anger, that he would make the highest stone of that house the lowest.

Shortly afterward (1454) some species of peace or truce seems to have been patched up between the king and the Earl of Douglas, with little sincerity on either side, but from a feeling of unwillingness in both to carry to extremity a contest which must inevitably terminate in the destruction of the House of Douglas or that of Stewart, now exasperated by mutual wrongs, and placed in the most direct opposition to each other. But the pause of a few months again awakened the contending families to contention, which had never perhaps been actually suspended, but was now to be final and decisive. The forces of the parties stood thus matched:

In the north the king's interest predominated, though not without a struggle; Huntley having been defeated by Murray, at a swampy spot called the Bog of Dunkintie. The consequence of these feuds to the community at large may be guessed by the fate of the town of Elgin. One part of the town was burned by the Earl of Murray as the property of citizens who favored the Gordon : Huntley having recovered the superiority in his turn, it is most likely the other half was consumed as houses belonging to adherents of Douglas. Meantime both Murray and Ormond felt in the long run unequal to defend themselves in the north against the families of distinction who joined the king's standard, and they both retreated to the Hebrides.

The Earl of Douglas, after the temporary reconcilement with his sovereign, had retreated to England with several members of his family, and particularly with Margaret, called the Fair Maiden of Galloway, widow of the murdered Earl William, whose hand, notwithstanding their near relationship, the present earl was desirous to secure, on account of the rich dowry that was attached to possessing it. The dispensation which was necessary to authorize a marriage so objectionable was applied for at Rome; but, through the interest, doubtless, of the Scottish king, it was refused. The earl endeavored to effect a union with her, even without leave of the Church; but the lady in disgust fled to the Scottish king, and accused Douglas of having pressed a union upon her, and even made a pretended celebration of nuptials, though without the license of the pope.

For this and other causes Earl Douglas was, in 1454, summoned to appear before the king's privy-council, or perhaps before the parliament. He answered by a placard nailed secretly on the church doors and cross of Edinburgh, upbraiding the king with having murdered two chiefs of the family of Douglas, and bidding him defiance. James II. retaliated this contumacy by immediately raising a small army of Westland men and Highlanders, with which he ravaged the territories of Douglas, and destroyed the crop. Next spring the spoiling of the country was renewed. Finally, the king, as a decisive blow, sent the Earls of Orkney and Angus, with a considerable army, to lay siege to Abercorn, a strong castle of the Douglas's, situated about ten miles from Edinburgh. The Earl of Douglas, on his part, had almost absolute authority upon the borders, and it cost him little more than the waving of his banner to collect an army of forty thousand men, who were rendered by their very birth and situation soldiers from the cradle. With this predominant force the Earl of Douglas advanced to raise the siege of Abercorn, and gage the fortunes of his princely house against those of a crowned king and the subjects who adhered to him.

James himself is said to have shrunk from the contest when he looked on it more closely; and there were moments of despondency, in which he spoke of abandoning Scotland. Sir William Crichton, his subtle but apparently faithful minister, had died before these second tumults commenced ; but he had a wise and able counsellor in James Kennedy, arch-bishop of Saint Andrew's, to whose advice he listened on this occasion. This sagacious prelate reminded James that the camp of the Douglas, though containing a very large host, consisted of numerous chieftains who followed the insurgent earl not from attachment, but either out of awe for his power, or hopes that they might gain something in the conflict. Could the expectations and fears of such per-sons be withdrawn from Douglas and fixed on the king, there would be no difficulty in transferring their allegiance to the crown. "The foe," said the sagacious prelate, "are like a sheaf of arrows : while they remain bound together, it were vain to attempt to break them; but sever the tie which unites them together, and a child may shiver them one after another."

Acting upon the counsel which he gave, the primate undertook to lop a main limb from the Douglas's enterprise, by a private communication with Hamilton, who commanded a chosen body of troops in Douglas's army. He had been the uniform and attached friend of Earl William of Douglas, murdered at Stirling, and was now that of Earl James. But he began to perceive that the latter had too little of the decisive character belonging to his house, to bring the present conflict to an honorable or advantageous issue. He listened, therefore, but did not close immediately with the proposal of the archbishop that he should embrace the royal party, and he hesitated between the sense of what was most for his own interest and personal advantage, and that which friend-ship and honor required of him.

The king now advanced with his host, and Douglas drew out his forces to meet him. The king's heralds, advancing, charged the rebels to disperse, under the pains of treason; and though Douglas returned a scornful answer, he saw the royal proclamation had such influence on his army that he was induced to suspend the impending action till next day, and lead his troops back into his intrenchments. Douglas had no sooner entered his pavilion than Hamilton requested to speak with him, and demanded positive information whether it was the earl's purpose to fight or_ no, declaring it was high time they should know his mind, since, while the royal army was every day increasing, theirs was thinned by constant desertion. "If you are tired," answered Douglas, without further explanation of his intention, "you are welcome to be gone." Hamilton took the earl at his word, and that very night passed over to the royal camp from that of Douglas with the chosen troops which he commanded, being three hundred horse and as many infantry. The example was contagious, for the character of Hamilton for prudence and sagacity stood very high. All the chiefs considered his change of sides as an example tending to show them the only possible mode of escaping from ruin, and contended which should be the first to act upon it. The array of the insurgents dissolved like a snow-wreath in a sudden thaw, and on the fateful morning succeeding that in which the Earl Douglas led out a host of nearly forty thou-sand men, his empty camp scarce contained a hundred soldiers save his own household troops.

The secession of Hamilton to the royal cause was deservedly regarded as excellent service. He was, for appearance' sake, put in ward for a while at Roslin, under the charge of the Earl of Orkney. But the king's favor was shown to him by large grants of forfeited estates, and by the title of Lord of Parliament, which raised first to nobility the great ducal House of Hamilton.

The Earl of Douglas broke up his camp and withdrew with his diminished squadrons to take refuge in the wildest districts of the border, where they lurked as exiles and fugitives in the countries which they had lately commanded with sovereign power. The castle of Abercorn, despairing of re-lief, soon surrendered, and of the defenders some principal persons were put to death for holding out the place against the king. James II. proceeded to march his army through the west and south of Scotland, where his powerful opponents had lately been proprietors of the soil, and leaders, if not tyrants, of the people, and with slight resistance reduced all the strong places of the Douglases to his own authority. Douglas Castle itself, that of Strathaven, and that of the Thrieve, were in this manner taken and demolished.

About the same time, and while the king was making his triumphal progress, Douglas himself fled into England with a very few attendants. His three brothers, Moray, Ormond, and Balveny, remained on the borders at the head of the re-mains of the followers of their family, and maintained them by military license. This, and the hope of benefiting by their forfeitures, aroused against them the clan of Scott, already, under their chief, Buccleuch, rising into formidable distinction in the west and middle marches. The Beattiesons, a numerous and bold people, with other borderers, united under the leading of Scott. All these clans had been lately numbered among the vassals of Douglas, and had owned his authority; but the failure before Abercorn had emboldened them to throw off the yoke, and bid defiance to the banners under which they had at no distant period ranked themselves. A conflict took place at Arkinholm, near Langholm., May 1, 1455, where the bands of Douglas were totally defeated by these border clans. The Earl of Moray was slain; the Earl of Ormond taken prisoner, condemned, and executed; and of the brethren of Douglas the Lord Balveny alone escaped into England.

The history of this, the last of the original branch of the Douglas family, may as well be terminated here. Having during his prosperity maintained a close intercourse with the House of York, who were then in power, Douglas was hospitably received in England. In the year 1483, he, with the Duke of Albany, then a banished noble like himself, made an incursion into Scotland, having vowed they would make their offer on the high altar of Lochmaben upon St. Magdalen's Day. The west border men rose to repel the incursion. The exiles were defeated, and the Earl of Douglas struck from his horse. Surrounded by enemies, and seeing on the field a son of Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, once his own follower, the earl surrendered himself to him in preference to others, that, as an old friend, he might profit by the re-ward of one hundred pound land ' set upon his head. Kirkpatrick wept to see the extremity to which his old master was reduced, and offered to set him at liberty and fly with him into England. But Douglas, weary of exile, was resigned to his fate. When the aged prisoner came before the king, James III. commanded him to be put into the cloister at Lindores. The earl only replied, "He that may no better must be a monk." He assumed the tonsure accordingly, and died about 1488.

Thus, after an obscure conflict with those who had been so lately its dependents, fell, and forever, the formidable power of the House of Douglas, which had so lately measured itself against that of monarchy. It can only be compared to the gourd of the prophet, which, spreading with such miraculous luxuriance, was withered in a single night. The indecision and imbecility of Earl James, who did not chance to possess the qualities of military skill and political wisdom which had seemed till his time almost hereditary in this great family, appear to have been the immediate cause of their destruction. But there was moral justice in the lesson that a house raised to power by the inappreciable services and inflexible loyalty of the good Lord James and his successors should fall by the irregular ambition and treasonable practices of its later chiefs.

In a parliament called at Edinburgh some care was taken that lavish grants of the domains of the crown should not be-come again the cause of bringing the kingdom into danger; "forasmuch," says the statute, "as thé poverty of the crown is often the cause of the poverty of the realm. " It was there-fore declared that certain castles and domains should be inalienably annexed to the crown. It was further provided that the important office of warden of the marches, which comprehended so much power, and the command of so many warlike clans, should not be hereditary; that, in like manner, regalities, or jurisdictions possessing regal power, should not in future be bestowed upon subjects without the consent of the estates. These enactments were judiciously calculated to prevent the raising up in any other family the same power of disturbing the domestic tranquillity which the Douglases had so unhappily attained.

Yet, though the policy of retaining these forfeitures in the crown was distinctly seen, it could not in prudence be invariably acted upon. The king had no other means of rewarding the services of the loyal chiefs who had stood by the crown in the last struggle than by grants out of the estates of the traitors ; and the lands of the Douglas family, large as they were, were inadequate to satisfy the numerous expectants. The chief of these was the Earl of Angus, a large and flourishing branch of the Douglas, sprung from a second son of the earl of the principal family. The present Angus, as already mentioned, had been a loyalist during his kinsman's usurpation, which, from the difference of the family complexion, led to a popular saying that the Red Douglas had put down the Black. The Earl of Angus was rewarded with a grant of Douglas Castle with its valley and domains, of Tantallon Castle, and other large portions of the ancient estates of the Douglas family; an imprudent profusion, it must be allowed, since it served to raise this younger branch to a height not much less formidable to the crown than that which the original Douglases had attained. Gordon, in the north, was not forgotten ; and the southern chieftains, profiting largely by the forfeiture of the Douglases, easily obtained gifts of considerable possessions, which no one but they themselves could have occupied with safety. In a word, if the king distinctly saw the policy of enriching the crown, which the statutes of his reign imply, it is as certain he found it impossible to follow the maxim rigidly with-out restricting the necessary bounty to his adherents. It was no time to lose men's hearts for lack of liberality; for the ashes of the civil hostility were still glowing in the remoter districts of Scotland, and a national war with England was impending.

A chief, termed John, lord of the Isles, had succeeded to Alexander, whose submission to James I. has been already noticed. He still took on him the title of Earl of Ross, and had, as usual, taken care to avail himself of the disturbances of the mainland by entering into a league with the Earl of Douglas. This negotiation had been concluded by one of the earl's brethren, who had bestowed on the insular chief and his Celtic followers much good wine, with silken cloths and silver, for which they received in exchange mantles or Highland plaids. In consequence of councils adopted on this occasion, John of the Isles ravaged Inverkip with a fleet of twenty-score of galleys, and five or six thousand men. He made a great booty, and slew some able-bodied men, with several women and children. On this occasion also he plundered Bute, Arran, and the small isles called Cumrays, that lie in the mouth of the Clyde. In March, 1451, we find this turbulent chief once more in action. He took the important castles of Inverness, Urquhart, and Ruthven in Badenoch, garrisoned the former, and destroyed the latter fortresses. This violence he committed at the instance of his father-in-law, James Livingston, alleging that the king had promised him a large lordship with the daughter of the said James Livingston, but had not kept his word. It appears that having performed these feats John retired, and afterward submitted himself on condition of pardon.

A war with England was the next object of interest during the active reign of James II. In 1459 he invaded England with six thousand men, burned and plundered the country for twenty miles inland, and destroyed eighteen towers and fortalices. The Scottish army remained on English ground six days, without battle being offered, and returned home without loss, and with worship and honor. On James's retreat, the Duke of York, and Earl Salisbury, with other English nobles, led to the border a body of about four or five thousand men; but having differed in opinion of the plan of the campaign, they quarrelled among themselves, and retired with disgrace. The cause of these internal discords in the English camp probably arose out of the dissensions concerning the red and white roses, which were now engrossing the nation. The truce with England was pro-longed for nine years. James, however, seems to have deemed the period favorable for recovering such Scottish possessions as were still held by the English; accordingly, we find him breaking through the truce.

It was with this view that the king collected a numerous army, and laid siege to Roxburgh, in 1460, which had now been in possession of the English since the captivity of David II., and, as a military post, was of the greatest importance, being very strongly situated between the Tweed and Teviot, and not far from their confluence, in the most fertile part of the Scottish frontier. John, the lord of the Isles, appeared in the royal camp, to atone for former errors and treasonable actions by zeal on the present occasion. He led a select body of Highlanders and Islesmen armed with shirts of mail, two-handed swords, bows, and battle-axes, with which he offered to take the vanguard of the army should it be necessary to enter England, and to march a mile before the main body, so as to encounter the first brunt of the onset. Invasion, however, made no part of James's purpose on this occasion. He was desirous to recover possession of Roxburgh, and not being apprehensive of relief from England, resolved to proceed in the siege according to formal rule. He beleaguered the castle on every side, and battered it from the north of the Tweed, his cannon being placed in the Duke of Roxburgh's park of Fleurs. James was proud of his train of cannon, and of the skill of a French engineer, who could level them so truly as to hit within a fathom of the place he aimed at, which, in those days, was held extraordinary practice. The siege had not continued many days when the arrival of the Earl of Huntley, to whose valor and fidelity the king had been so much indebted, with a gallant body of forces from the north, increased the king's hopes of succeeding in his enterprise. He received his noble and faithful adherent with the greatest marks of respect and regard, and conducted him to see his batteries.

Unhappily, standing in the vicinity of a gun which was about to be discharged, the rude mass, composed of ribs of iron, bound together by hoops of the same metal, burst asunder, and a fragment striking the king on the thigh, broke it asunder, and killed him on the spot. The Earl of Angus was severely wounded on the same occasion.

Thus fell James II. of Scotland, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his reign. His person was strong and well put together, and he was reckoned excellent at all exercises. His face would have been hand-some, had it not been partly disfigured by a red spot, which procured him from his subjects the name of James with the Fiery Face. Of the natural violence of his temper he had given an unfortunate proof, by suffering himself to be surprised into a violation of faith toward Douglas. His subjects seem, however, to have considered this as the act of momentary passion; and James's clemency to Crawford, who, in the words of the chronicler, had been "right dangerous to the king," after that earl was entirely in his power, as well as the small number of persons who suffered for rebellions which shook the very throne, made his temper appear merciful, compared to that of his father, James I. He possessed the gift of being able to choose wise counsellors, and had the sense to follow their advice when chosen. In the display which James II. was called on to make of his military talents, he showed both courage and conduct. His death was an inexpressible loss to his country, which was again plunged into the miseries of a long minority.