Scotland's Reforming Monarch James I, King of Scots from 1424--1437, was born at Dunfermline in Fife, the second son of King Robert III. After his elder brother David was murdered at Falkland in 1402, presumably by his uncle, the Duke of Albany, the young James was sent for safety to France. He was captured in 1406 by the English whilst en route, and remained a prisoner in England for some 18 years. Albany would not pay the high ransom the English King (Henry III) demanded for his return to Scotland. Albany ruled Scotland as governor until his death in 1420, when his son, Murdoch, assumed the regency, and the country rapidly fell into disorder. Finally, after 18 years in exile, his countrymen agreed to his ransom, and the Treaty of London was signed in 1423. James returned to Scotland in April 1424, and was crowned at Scone on May 2nd that same year. "If God gives me but a dog's life," said James when he saw and heard what had befallen his country, "I will make the key keep the castle and the bracken bush keep the cow through all Scotland". In a week after his coronation a parliament at Perth declared that peace would be enforced throughout the realm, and of "any man presume to make war against another he shall suffer the full penalties of the law." On his release, James dealt ruthlessly with the potential rivals to his authority, within the first year. Murdoch and his two sons, along with the elderly father-in-law of one of them, were at first imprisoned and then beheaded at Stirling. Some men who mourned their death, despite all the corruption, believed them friends of the poor and the victims of James's tyranny, and this sowed the seeds for what would follow. The man who returned from exile to rule his country was now aged 32, described as being of medium height but thickset, and swift in movement. He was known as an athlete, rider and wrestler, was held skilled with bow and spear, and proud of his strength. His inquisitive mind was fascinated by the machinery of war, gunnery in particular, as it intrigued many men of the day. He was also renowned as a poet and musician. Beyond fair but firm government perhaps, the greatest gift he brought back to a bleak Scotland was some lyrical verse. Whilst prisoner in England he had read all that he could, unusual in that age, and his epic poem "The Kingis Quair", is still held in esteem to this day. He had married Joan Beaufort, niece to the English King Henry IV, on February 13th 1424, shortly before his return to Scotland. This was a marriage not only of dynastic consequence, but reputedly born of love, which was unusual in the arranged aristocratic marriages of that time. "The Kingis Quair" is thought to refer to his love for Joan, his "freshest and fairest flower". He may have been a poet at heart, but he could be resolute and merciless as King, as evinced by his treatment of those who threatened his crown. His treatment of the Highlanders, in especial, led to a burning enmity. He showed contempt for the Gaelic people, and made the Highlander's ultimate self-sacrifice for the House of Stewart as pointless as it was heroic. He summoned over 40 Highland Chiefs before him and his parliament at Inverness in 1428. Among the Highlanders was Alexander of the Isles, (the current Lord of the Isles), the son of Donald of Harlaw. As each appeared before the throne he was seized and thrown into the dungeon pit, while the poet king entertained the parliament with a witty Latin squib on their 'certain hempen departure'. Actually, only three were hanged and the rest released after a short imprisonment, and clemency granted for any offences they might have committed. Alexander of the Isles waited until King and parliament were gone, then burnt Inverness to the ground. James marched with his army to Lochaber, isolated Alexander from the rest of the clans, and forced him to come to Edinburgh in submission. Alexander knelt before the high altar of Holyrood and humbly offered the hilt of his claymore to the king. James would have hanged him, it is said, but for the intercession of the Queen, and he was imprisoned in Lothian instead, in care of one of the famed Douglas family. By 1429 James had forced the Scottish nobles to submit to royal authority. He tried to improve the administration of justice and for the first time published parliamentary acts in the language of the common people. He angered the papacy by preventing church revenues from being sent to Rome. He formed a closer alliance with France (renewing the Auld Alliance in 1428), and in 1436 gave his eldest daughter, Margaret, in marriage to the Dauphin, later King Louis XI. During his 13 year reign he strengthened the machinery of government and justice, replacing the baron's law with the king's law, and restoring the crown to a respect it had not received since the days of the Bruce. Copies of the laws were distributed among all sheriffs, so that no-one might claim ignorance of the law. King James also created a court from the Three Estates to rule on complaints on and abuse of the law. He set up a group to reconsider the laws at intervals, and advise on their amendment if this was felt necessary. His personal faith was strong, but he was opposed to Rome's authority where he felt it to threaten Scottish independence. He argued against the Pope's 'right' to appoint bishops in Scotland without consultation with his authority, and prevented the church's high and mighty from bargaining with Rome for these positions. He held that this impoverished the kingdom both financially and morally, and this led to his taxing the export of gold and silver abroad from Scotland. Religious freedom was being clamped down on at the time, several 'heretics' being burnt, and this legacy was to haunt Scotland for the next hundred years or so. On October 16th, 1430, his son James was born, ensuring the Stewart succession. Meanwhile, his reforms had alienated many of the powerful in the land. He upset the Douglases by imprisoning the Earl, and his custom of appropriating estates to the crown where there was debate about the rightful succession made many more enemies. After an ineffectual assault on the English-held Castle of Roxburgh, brought about by an English attempt to capture his daughter Margaret on her way to France to marry the Dauphin, he lost the respect of the majority of the nobility. He continued his legal, administrative, political and church reform, but there now were plots laid against him. Sir Robert Stewart, the King's Chamberlain, was by his own reckoning the rightful king of Scotland, and he found a willing assassin in Sir Robert Graham, a man with his own festering grudge over his imprisonment and banishment. At Christmas of 1436, James went to spend it with the Queen at the monastery of the Dominican friars at Perth. Yuletide was passed there, and on the night of February 20th 1437 Sir Robert Stewart opened the door of the convent where the King was staying, and admitted Sir Robert Graham and eight compatriots. The unarmed James was with the Queen and her ladies, and when he heard the armed band approaching, lifted a hatch in the floor and dropped into the drains below, hoping to escape that way. The bar for the door had been removed, and one of the Queen's ladies, a Douglas, put her arm through the bolts. Her arm was badly mangled as the band broke their way into the room. Graham and eight others broke into the room, dropped into the drain, and killed the King with their dirks. He had been prevented from escaping from the drain as the mouth had been sealed previously due to the fact that tennis balls had been lost down it from the outside... So ended the life of one of Scotland's better kings. He was eventually succeeded by his son, James II. The conspirators were taken, and the Queen had her revenge. They were tortured and beheaded. Return to History Index |
