Chapter IV: Part 4

James's methods of achieving ends in themselves honourable and profitable were indeed of a kind which has made posterity unjust to his real merits. The circumstances in which he passed his youth developed in him a natural tendency to craft. He boasted indeed of his "king-craft" and probably believed that he owed it to his studies. But it was in reality the resource of the weak, the art of playing off one possible enemy against another by trickery, and so deceiving all. The marquis de Fontenay, the French ambassador, who saw him in the early part of his reign, speaks of him as cowed by the violence about him. It is certain that James was most unscrupulous in making promises which he never meant to keep, and the terror in which he passed his youth sufficiently explains his preference for guile. He would make promises to everybody, as when he wrote to the pope in 1584 more than hinting that he would be a good Roman Catholic if helped in his need. His very natural desire to escape from the poverty and insecurity of Scotland to the opulent English throne not only kept him busy in intrigues to placate the Roman Catholics or anybody else who could help or hinder him, but led him to behave basely in regard to the execution of his mother in 1587. He blustered to give himself an air of courage, but took good care to do nothing to offend Elizabeth. When the time came for fulfilling his promises and half-promises, he was not able, even if he had been willing, to keep his word to everybody. The methods which had helped him to success in Scotland did him harm in England, where his reign prepared the way for the great civil war. In his southern kingdom his failure was in fact complete. Although England accepted him as the alternative to civil war, and although he was received and surrounded with fulsome flattery, he did not win the respect of his English subjects. His undignified personal appearance was against him, and so were his garrulity, his Scottish accent, his slovenliness and his toleration of disorders in his court, but, above all, his favour for handsome male favourites, whom he loaded with gifts and caressed with demonstrations of affection which laid him open to vile suspicions. In ecclesiastical matters he offended many, who contrasted his severity and rudeness to the Puritan divines at the Hampton Court conference (1604) with his politeness to the Roman Catholics, whom he, however, worried by fits and starts. In a country where the authority of the state had been firmly established and the problem was how to keep it from degenerating into the mere instrument of a king's passions, his insistence on the doctrine of divine right aroused distrust and hostility. In itself, and in its origin, the doctrine was nothing more than a necessary assertion of the independence of the state in face of the "Hildebrandism" of Rome and Geneva alike. But when Englishmen were told that the king alone had indefeasible rights, and that all the privileges of subjects were revocable gifts, they were roused to hostility. His weaknesses cast suspicion on his best-meant schemes. His favour for his countrymen helped to defeat his wise wish to bring about a full union between England and Scotland. His profusion, which had been bad in the poverty of Scotland and was boundless amid the wealth of England, kept him necessitous, and drove him to shifts. Posterity can give him credit for his desire to forward religious peace in Europe, but his Protestant subjects were simply frightened when he sought a matrimonial alliance with Spain. Sagacious men among his contemporaries could not see the consistency of a king who married his daughter Elizabeth to the elector palatine, a leader of the German Protestants, and also sought to marry his son to an infanta of Spain. The king's subservience to Spain was indeed almost besotted. He could not see her real weakness, and he allowed himself to be befooled by the ministers of Philip III. and Philip IV. The end of his scheming was that he was dragged into a needless war with Spain by his son Charles and his favourite George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, just before his death on the 5th of March 1625 at his favourite residence, Theobalds.

James married in 1589 Anne, second daughter of Frederick II., king of Denmark. His voyage to meet his bride, whose ship had been driven into a Norwegian port by bad weather, is the only episode of a romantic character in the life of this very prosaic member of a poetic family. By this wife James had three children who survived infancy: Henry Frederick, prince of Wales, who died in 1612; Charles, the future king; and Elizabeth, wife of the elector palatine, Frederick V.

Not the least of James's many ambitions was the desire to excel as an author. He left a body of writings which, though of mediocre quality as literature, entitle him to a unique place among English kings since Alfred for width of intellectual interest and literary faculty. His efforts were inspired by his preceptor George Buchanan, whose memory he cherished in later years. His first work was in verse, _Essayes of a Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_ (Edin. Vautrollier, 1584), containing fifteen sonnets, "Ane Metaphoricall invention of a tragedie called Phoenix," a short poem "Of Time," translations from Du Bartas, Lucan and the Book of Psalms ("out of Tremellius"), and a prose tract entitled "Ane short treatise, containing some Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie." The volume is introduced by commendatory sonnets, including one by Alexander Montgomerie. The chief interest of the book lies in the "Treatise" and the prefatory sonnets "To the Reader" and "Sonnet decifring the perfyte poete." There is little originality in this youthful production. It has been surmised that it was compiled from the exercises written when the author was Buchanan's pupil at Stirling, and that it was directly suggested by his preceptor's _De Prosodia_ and his annotations on Vives. On the other hand, it shows intimate acquaintance with the critical reflections of Ronsard and Du Bellay, and of Gascoigne in his _Notes of Instruction_ (1575). In 1591 James published _Poeticall Exercises at Vacant Houres_, including a translation of the _Furies_ of Du Bartas, his own _Lepanto_, and Du Bartas's version of it, _La Lepanthe_. His _Daemonologie_, a prose treatise denouncing witchcraft and exhorting the civil power to the strongest measures of suppression, appeared in 1599. In the same year he printed the first edition (seven copies) of his _Basilikon Doron_, strongly Protestant in tone. A French edition, specially translated for presentation to the pope, has a disingenuous preface explaining that certain phrases (e.g. "papistical doctrine") are omitted, because of the difficulty of rendering them in a foreign tongue. The original edition was, however, translated by order of the suspicious pope, and was immediately placed on the Index. Shortly after going to England James produced his famous _Counterblaste to Tobacco_ (London, 1604), in which he forsakes his Scots tongue for Southern English. The volume was published anonymously. James's prose works (including his speeches) were collected and edited (folio, 1616) by James Montagu, bishop of Winchester, and were translated into Latin by the same hand in a companion folio, in 1619 (also Frankfort, 1689). A tract, entitled "The True Law of Free Monarchies," appeared in 1603; "An Apology for the Oath of Allegiance" in 1607; and a "_Déclaration du Roy Jacques I. ... pour le droit des Rois_" in 1615. In 1588 and 1589 James issued two small volumes of _Meditations_ on some verses of (a) Revelations and (b) 1 Chronicles. Other two "meditations" were printed posthumously.

See T. F. Henderson, _James I. and VI._ (London, 1904); P. Hume Brown,
_History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (Edinburgh and Cambridge, 1902); and
Andrew Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (Edinburgh, 1902) and
_James VI. and the Gowrie Mystery_ (London, 1902); _The Register of
the Privy Council of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1877, &c.), vols. ii. to
xiii.; S. R. Gardiner, _History of England 1603-1642_ (London,
1883-1884). A comprehensive bibliography will be found in the
_Cambridge Modern Hist._ iii. 847 (Cambridge, 1904).

For James's literary work, see Edward Arber's reprint of the _Essayes
and Counterblaste_ ("English Reprints," 1869, &c.); R. S. Rait's
_Lusus Regius_ (1900); G. Gregory Smith's _Elizabethan Critical
Essays_ (1904), vol. i., where the _Treatise_ is edited for the first
time; A. O. Meyer's "Clemens VIII. und Jacob I. von England" in
_Quellen und Forschungen_ (Preuss. Hist. Inst.), VII. ii., for an
account of the issues of the _Basilikon Doron_; P. Hume Brown's
_George Buchanan_ (1890), pp. 250-261, for a sketch of James's
association with Buchanan.

JAMES II. (1633-1701), king of Great Britain and Ireland, second surviving son of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born at St James's on the 15th of October 1633, and created duke of York in January 1643. During the Civil War James was taken prisoner by Fairfax (1646), but contrived to escape to Holland in 1648. Subsequently he served in the French army under Turenne, and in the Spanish under Condé, and was applauded by both commanders for his brilliant personal courage. Returning to England with Charles II. in 1660 he was appointed lord high admiral and warden of the Cinque Ports. Pepys, who was secretary to the navy, has recorded the patient industry and unflinching probity of his naval administration. His victory over the Dutch in 1665, and his drawn battle with De Ruyter in 1672, show that he was a good naval commander as well as an excellent administrator. These achievements won him a reputation for high courage, which, until the close of 1688, was amply deserved. His private record was not as good as his public. In December 1660 he admitted to having contracted, under discreditable circumstances, a secret marriage with Anne Hyde (1637-1671), daughter of Lord Clarendon, in the previous September. Both before and after the marriage he seems to have been a libertine as unblushing though not so fastidious as Charles himself. In 1672 he made a public avowal of his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Charles II. had opposed this project, but in 1673 allowed him to marry the Catholic Mary of Modena as his second wife. Both houses of parliament, who viewed this union with abhorrence, now passed the Test Act, forbidding Catholics to hold office. In consequence of this James was forced to resign his posts. It was in vain that he married his daughter Mary to the Protestant prince of Orange in 1677. Anti-Catholic feeling ran so high that, after the discovery of the Popish Plot, he found it wiser to retire to Brussels (1679), while Shaftesbury and the Whigs planned to exclude him from the succession. He was lord high commissioner of Scotland (1680-1682), where he occupied himself in a severe persecution of the Covenanters. In 1684 Charles, having triumphed over the Exclusionists, restored James to the office of high admiral by use of his dispensing power.

James ascended the throne on the 16th of February 1685. The nation showed its loyalty by its firm adherence to him during the rebellions of Argyll in Scotland and Monmouth in England (1685). The savage reprisals on their suppression, in especial the "Bloody Assizes" of Jeffreys, produced a revulsion of public feeling. James had promised to defend the existing Church and government, but the people now became suspicious. James was not a mere tyrant and bigot, as the popular imagination speedily assumed him to be. He was rather a mediocre but not altogether obtuse man, who mistook tributary streams for the main currents of national thought. Thus he greatly underrated the strength of the Establishment, and preposterously exaggerated that of Dissent and Catholicism. He perceived that opinion was seriously divided in the Established Church, and thought that a vigorous policy would soon prove effective. Hence he publicly celebrated Mass, prohibited preaching against Catholicism, and showed exceptional favour to renegades from the Establishment. By undue pressure he secured a decision of the judges, in the test case of _Godden_ v. _Hale_ (1687), by which he was allowed to dispense Catholics from the Test Act. Catholics were now admitted to the chief offices in the army, and to some important posts in the state, in virtue of the dispensing power of James. The judges had been intimidated or corrupted, and the royal promise to protect the Establishment violated. The army had been increased to 20,000 men and encamped at Hounslow Heath to overawe the capital. Public alarm was speedily manifested and suspicion to a high degree awakened. In 1687 James made a bid for the support of the Dissenters by advocating a system of joint toleration for Catholics and Dissenters. In April 1687 he published a Declaration of Indulgence--exempting Catholics and Dissenters from penal statutes. He followed up this measure by dissolving parliament and attacking the universities. By an unscrupulous use of the dispensing power he introduced Dissenters and Catholics into all departments of state and into the municipal corporations, which were remodelled in their interests. Then in April 1688 he took the suicidal step of issuing a proclamation to force the clergy and bishops to read the Declaration in their pulpits, and thus personally advocate a measure they detested. Seven bishops refused, were indicted by James for libel, but acquitted amid the indescribable enthusiasm of the populace. Protestant nobles of England, enraged at the tolerant policy of James, had been in negotiation with William of Orange since 1687. The trial of the seven bishops, and the birth of a son to James, now induced them to send William a definite invitation (June 30, 1688). James remained in a fool's paradise till the last, and only awakened to his danger when William landed at Torbay (November 5, 1688) and swept all before him. James pretended to treat, and in the midst of the negotiations fled to France. He was intercepted at Faversham and brought back, but the politic prince of Orange allowed him to escape a second time (December 23, 1688).

At the end of 1688 James seemed to have lost his old courage. After his defeat at the Boyne (July 1, 1690) he speedily departed from Ireland, where he had so conducted himself that his English followers had been ashamed of his incapacity, while French officers had derided him. His proclamations and policy towards England during these years show unmistakable traces of the same incompetence. On the 17th of May 1692 he saw the French fleet destroyed before his very eyes off Cape La Hogue. He was aware of, though not an open advocate of the "Assassination Plot," which was directed against William. By its revelation and failure (February 10, 1696) the third and last serious attempt of James for his restoration failed. He refused in the same year to accept the French influence in favour of his candidature to the Polish throne, on the ground that it would exclude him from the English. Henceforward he neglected politics, and Louis of France ceased to consider him as a political factor. A mysterious conversion had been effected in him by an austere Cistercian abbot. The world saw with astonishment this vicious, rough, coarse-fibred man of the world transformed into an austere penitent, who worked miracles of healing. Surrounded by this odour of sanctity, which greatly edified the faithful, James lived at St Germain until his death on the 17th of September 1701.

The political ineptitude of James is clear; he often showed firmness when conciliation was needful, and weakness when resolution alone could have saved the day. Moreover, though he mismanaged almost every political problem with which he personally dealt, he was singularly tactless and impatient of advice. But in general political morality he was not below his age, and in his advocacy of toleration decidedly above it. He was more honest and sincere than Charles II., more genuinely patriotic in his foreign policy, and more consistent in his religious attitude. That his brother retained the throne while James lost it is an ironical demonstration that a more pitiless fate awaits the ruler whose faults are of the intellect, than one whose faults are of the heart.

By Anne Hyde James had eight children, of whom two only, Mary and Anne, both queens of England, survived their father. By Mary of Modena he had seven children, among them being James Francis Edward (the Old Pretender) and Louisa Maria Theresa, who died at St Germain in 1712. By one mistress, Arabella Churchill (1648-1730), he had two sons, James, duke of Berwick, and Henry (1673-1702), titular duke of Albemarle and grand prior of France, and a daughter, Henrietta (1667-1730), who married Sir Henry Waldegrave, afterwards Baron Waldegrave; and by another, Catherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester (1657-1717), a daughter, Catherine (d. 1743), who married James Annesley, 5th earl of Anglesey, and afterwards John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham and Normanby.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Original Authorities_: J. S. Clarke, _James II. Life_
(London, 1816); James Macpherson, _Original Papers_ (2 vols., London,
1775); Gilbert Burnet, _Supplement to History_, ed. H. C. Foxcroft
(Oxford, 1902); Earl of Clarendon and Earl of Rochester,
_Correspondence_, vol. ii. (London, 1828); John Evelyn, _Diary and
Correspondence and Life_, edited by Bray and Wheatley (London, 1906);
Sir John Reresby, _Memoirs_, ed. A. Ivatt (1904); _Somers Tracts_,
vols, ix.-xi. (London, 1823). _Modern Works_: Lord Acton, _Lectures on
Modern History_, pp. 195-276 (London, 1906); Moritz Brosch,
_Geschichte von England_, Bd. viii. (Gotha, 1903); Onno Klopp, _Der
Fall des Hauses Stuart_, Bde. i.-ix. (Vienna, 1875-1878); L. von
Ranke, _History of England_, vols, iv.-vi. (Oxford, 1875); and Allan
Fea, _James II. and his Wives_ (1908).

JAMES I. (1394-1437), king of Scotland and poet, the son of King Robert III., was born at Dunfermline in July 1394. After the death of his mother, Annabella Drummond of Stobhall, in 1402, he was placed under the care of Henry Wardlaw (d. 1440), who became bishop of St Andrews in 1403, but soon his father resolved to send him to France. Robert doubtless decided upon this course owing to the fact that in 1402 his elder son, David, duke of Rothesay, had met his death in a mysterious fashion, being probably murdered by his uncle, Robert, duke of Albany, who, as the king was an invalid, was virtually the ruler of Scotland. On the way to France, however, James fell into the hands of some English sailors and was sent to Henry IV., who refused to admit him to ransom. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham, says that James's imprisonment began in 1406, while the future king himself places it in 1404; February 1406 is probably the correct date. On the death of Robert III. in April 1406 James became nominally king of Scotland, but he remained a captive in England, the government being conducted by his uncle, Robert of Albany, who showed no anxiety to procure his nephew's release. Dying in 1420, Albany was succeeded as regent by his son, Murdoch. At first James was confined in the Tower of London, but in June 1407 he was removed to the castle at Nottingham, whence about a month later he was taken to Evesham. His education was continued by capable tutors, and he not only attained excellence in all manly sports, but became perhaps more cultured than any other prince of his age. In person he was short and stout, but well-proportioned and very strong. His agility was not less remarkable than his strength; he excelled in all athletic feats which demanded suppleness of limb and quickness of eye. As regards his intellectual attainments he is reported to have been acquainted with philosophy, and it is evident from his subsequent career that he had studied jurisprudence; moreover, besides being proficient in vocal and instrumental music, he cultivated the art of poetry with much success. When Henry V. became king in March 1413, James was again imprisoned in the Tower of London, but soon afterwards he was taken to Windsor and was treated with great consideration by the English king. In 1420, with the intention of detaching the Scottish auxiliaries from the French standard, he was sent to take part in Henry's campaign in France; this move failed in its immediate object and he returned to England after Henry's death in 1422. About this time negotiations for the release of James were begun in earnest, and in September 1423 a treaty was signed at York, the Scottish nation undertaking to pay a ransom of 60,000 marks "for his maintenance in England." By the terms of the treaty James was to wed a noble English lady, and on the 12th of February 1424 he was married at Southwark to Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, a lady to whom he was faithful through life. Ten thousand marks of his ransom were remitted as Jane's dowry, and in April 1424 James and his bride entered Scotland.

With the reign of James I., whose coronation took place at Scone on the 21st of May 1424, constitutional sovereignty may be said to begin in Scotland. By the introduction of a system of statute law, modelled to some extent on that of England, and by the additional importance assigned to parliament, the leaven was prepared which was to work towards the destruction of the indefinite authority of the king, and of the unbridled licence of the nobles. During the parliament held at Perth in March 1425 James arrested Murdoch, duke of Albany, and his son, Alexander; together with Albany's eldest son, Walter, and Duncan, earl of Lennox, who had been seized previously; they were sentenced to death, and the four were executed at Stirling. In a parliament held at Inverness in 1427 the king arrested many turbulent northern chiefs, and his whole policy was directed towards crushing the power of the nobles. In this he was very successful. Expeditions reduced the Highlands to order; earldom after earldom was forfeited; but this vigour aroused the desire for revenge, and at length cost James his life. Having been warned that he would never again cross the Forth, the king went to reside in Perth just before Christmas 1436. Among those whom he had angered was Sir Robert Graham (d. 1437), who had been banished by his orders. Instigated by the king's uncle, Walter Stewart, earl of Atholl (d. 1437), and aided by the royal chamberlain, Sir Robert Stewart, and by a band of Highlanders, Graham burst into the presence of James on the night of the 20th of February 1437 and stabbed the king to death. Graham and Atholl were afterwards tortured and executed. James had two sons: Alexander, who died young, and James II., who succeeded to the throne; and six daughters, among them being Margaret, the queen of Louis XI. of France. His widow, Jane, married Sir James Stewart, the "black knight of Lorne," and died on the 15th of July 1445.

During the latter part of James's reign difficulties arose between Scotland and England and also between Scotland and the papacy. Part of the king's ransom was still owing to England; other causes of discord between the two nations existed, and in 1436 these culminated in a short war. In ecclesiastical matters James showed himself merciless towards heretics, but his desire to reform the Scottish Church and to make it less dependent on Rome brought him into collision with Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV.

James was the author of two poems, the _Kingis Quair_ and _Good Counsel_ (a short piece of three stanzas). The _Song of Absence_, _Peblis to the Play_ and _Christis Kirk on the Greene_ have been ascribed to him without evidence. _The Kingis Quair_ (preserved in the Selden MS. B. 24 in the Bodleian) is an allegorical poem of the _cours d'amour_ type, written in seven-lined Chaucerian stanzas and extending to 1379 lines. It was composed during James's captivity in England and celebrates his courtship of Lady Jane Beaufort. Though in many respects a Chaucerian _pastiche_, it not rarely equals its model in verbal and metrical felicity. Its language is an artificial blend of northern and southern (Chaucerian) forms, of the type shown in _Lancelot of the Laik_ and the _Quair of Jelusy_.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The contemporary authorities for the reign of James I.
are Andrew of Wyntoun, _The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland_, edited by
D. Laing (Edinburgh, 1872-1879); and Walter Bower's continuation of
John of Fordun's _Scotichronicon_, edited by T. Hearne (Oxford, 1722).
See also J. Pinkerton, _History of Scotland_ (1797); A. Lang, _History
of Scotland_, vol. i. (1900); and G. Burnett, _Introduction to the
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1878-1901). _The Kingis
Quair_ was first printed in the _Poetical Remains of James the First_,
edited by William Tytler (1783). Later editions are Morison's reprint
(Perth, 1786); J. Sibbald's, in his _Chronicle of Scottish Poetry_
(1802, vol. i.); Thomson's in 1815 and 1824; G. Chalmers's, in his
_Poetic Remains of some of the Scottish Kings_ (1824); Rogers's
_Poetical Remains of King James the First_ (1873); Skeat's edition
published by the Scottish Text Society (1884). An attempt has been
made to dispute James's authorship of the poem, but the arguments
elaborated by J. T. T. Brown (_The Authorship of the Kingis Quair_,
Glasgow, 1896) have been convincingly answered by Jusserand in his
_Jacques I^{er} d'Écosse fut-il poète? Étude sur l'authenticité du
cahier du roi_ (Paris, 1897, reprinted from the _Revue historique_,
vol. lxiv.). See also the full correspondence in the _Athenaeum_
(July-Aug. 1896 and Dec. 1899); W. A. Neilson, _Origins and Sources of
the Court of Love_ (Boston, 1899) pp. 152 &c., 235 &c.; and Gregory
Smith, _Transition Period_ (1900), pp. 40, 41.

JAMES II. (1430-1460), king of Scotland, the only surviving son of James I. and his wife, Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, was born on the 16th of October 1430. Crowned king at Holyrood in March 1437, shortly after the murder of his father, he was at first under the guardianship of his mother, while Archibald, 5th earl of Douglas, was regent of the kingdom, and considerable power was possessed by Sir Alexander Livingstone and Sir William Crichton (d. 1454). When about 1439 Queen Jane was married to Sir James Stewart, the knight of Lorne, Livingstone obtained the custody of the young king, whose minority was marked by fierce hostility between the Douglases and the Crichtons, with Livingstone first on one side and then on the other. About 1443 the royal cause was espoused by William, 8th earl of Douglas, who attacked Crichton in the king's name, and civil war lasted until about 1446. In July 1449 James was married to Mary (d. 1463), daughter of Arnold, duke of Gelderland, and undertook the government himself; and almost immediately Livingstone was arrested, but Douglas retained the royal favour for a few months more. In 1452, however, this powerful earl was invited to Stirling by the king, and, charged with treachery, was stabbed by James and then killed by the attendants. Civil war broke out at once between James and the Douglases, whose lands were ravaged; but after the Scots parliament had exonerated the king, James, the new earl of Douglas, made his submission. Early in 1455 this struggle was renewed. Marching against the rebels James gained several victories, after which Douglas was attainted and his lands forfeited. Fortified by this success and assured of the support of the parliament and of the great nobles, James, acting as an absolute king, could view without alarm the war which had broken out with England. After two expeditions across the borders, a truce was made in July 1457, and the king employed the period of peace in strengthening his authority in the Highlands. During the Wars of the Roses he showed his sympathy with the Lancastrian party after the defeat of Henry VI. at Northampton by attacking the English possessions to the south of Scotland. It was while conducting the siege of Roxburgh Castle that James was killed, through the bursting of a cannon, on the 3rd of August 1460. He left three sons, his successor, James III., Alexander Stewart, duke of Albany, and John Stewart, earl of Mar (d. 1479); and two daughters. James, who is sometimes called "Fiery Face," was a vigorous and popular prince, and, although not a scholar like his father, showed interest in education. His reign is a period of some importance in the legislative history of Scotland, as measures were passed with regard to the tenure of land, the reformation of the coinage, and the protection of the poor, while the organization for the administration of justice was greatly improved.

JAMES III. (1451-1488), king of Scotland, eldest son of James II., was born on the 10th of July 1451. Becoming king in 1460 he was crowned at Kelso. After the death of his mother in 1463, and of her principal supporter, James Kennedy, bishop of St Andrews, two years later, the person of the young king, and with it the chief authority in the kingdom, were seized by Sir Alexander Boyd and his brother Lord Boyd, while the latter's son, Thomas, was created earl of Arran and married to the king's sister, Mary. In July 1469 James himself was married to Margaret (d. 1486), daughter of Christian I., king of Denmark and Norway, but before the wedding the Boyds had lost their power. Having undertaken the government in person, the king received the submission of the powerful earl of Ross, and strengthened his authority in other ways. But his preference for a sedentary and not for an active life and his increasing attachment to favourites of humble birth diminished his popularity, and he had some differences with his parliament. About 1479, probably with reason both suspicious and jealous, James arrested his brothers, Alexander, duke of Albany, and John, earl of Mar; Mar met his death in a mysterious fashion at Craigmillar, but Albany escaped to France and then visited England, where in 1482 Edward IV. recognized him as king of Scotland by the gift of the king of England. War broke out with England, but James, made a prisoner by his nobles, was unable to prevent Albany and his ally, Richard, duke of Gloucester (afterwards Richard III.), from taking Berwick and marching to Edinburgh. Peace with Albany followed, but soon afterwards the duke was again in communication with Edward, and was condemned by the parliament after the death of the English king in April 1483. Albany's death in France in 1485 did not end the king's troubles. His policy of living at peace with England and of arranging marriages between the members of the royal families of the two countries did not commend itself to the turbulent section of his nobles; his artistic tastes and lavish expenditure added to the discontent, and a rebellion broke out. Fleeing into the north of his kingdom James collected an army and came to terms with his foes; but the rebels, having seized the person of the king's eldest son, afterwards James IV., renewed the struggle. The rival armies met at the Sauchieburn near Bannockburn, and James soon fled. Reaching Beaton's Mill he revealed his identity, and, according to the popular story, was killed on the 11th of June 1488 by a soldier in the guise of a priest who had been called in to shrive him. He left three sons--his successor, James IV.; James Stewart, duke of Ross, afterwards archbishop of St Andrews, and John Stewart, earl of Mar. James was a cultured prince with a taste for music and architecture, but was a weak and incapable king. His character is thus described by a chronicler: "He was ane man that loved solitude, and desired nevir to hear of warre, bot delighted more in musick and policie and building nor he did in the government of the realme."

JAMES IV. (1473-1513), king of Scotland, eldest son of James III., was born on the 17th of March 1473. He was nominally the leader of the rebels who defeated the troops of James III. at the Sauchieburn in June 1488, and became king when his father was killed. As he adopted an entirely different policy with the nobles from that of his father, and, moreover, showed great affability towards the lower class of his subjects, among whom he delighted to wander incognito, few if any of the kings of Scotland have won such general popularity, or passed a reign so untroubled by intestine strife. Crowned at Scone a few days after his accession, James began at once to take an active part in the business of government. A slight insurrection was easily suppressed, and a plot formed by some nobles to hand him over to the English king, Henry VII., came to nothing. In spite of this proceeding Henry wished to live at peace with his northern neighbour, and soon contemplated marrying his daughter to James, but the Scottish king was not equally pacific. When, in 1495, Perkin Warbeck, pretending to be the duke of York, Edward IV.'s younger son, came to Scotland, James bestowed upon him both an income and a bride, and prepared to invade England in his interests. For various reasons the war was confined to a few border forays. After Warbeck left Scotland in 1497, the Spanish ambassador negotiated a peace, and in 1502 a marriage was definitely arranged between James and Henry's daughter Margaret (1489-1541). The wedding took place at Holyrood in August 1503, and it was this union which led to the accession of the Stewart dynasty to the English throne.

About the same time James crushed a rebellion in the western isles, into which he had previously led expeditions, and parliament took measures to strengthen the royal authority therein. At this date too, or a little earlier, the king of Scotland began to treat as an equal with the powerful princes of Europe, Maximilian I., Louis XII. and others; sending assistance to his uncle Hans, king of Denmark, and receiving special marks of favour from Pope Julius II., anxious to obtain his support. But his position was weakened when Henry VIII. followed Henry VII. on the English throne in 1509. Causes of quarrel already existed, and other causes, both public and private, soon arose between the two kings; sea-fights took place between their ships, while war was brought nearer by the treaty of alliance which James concluded with Louis XII. in 1512. Henry made a vain effort to prevent, or to postpone, the outbreak of hostilities; but urged on by his French ally and his queen, James declared for war, in spite of the counsels of some of his advisers, and (it is said) of the warning of an apparition. Gathering a large and well-armed force, he took Norham and other castles in August 1513, spending some time at Ford Castle, where, according to report, he was engaged in an amorous intrigue with the wife of its owner. Then he moved out to fight the advancing English army under Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey. The battle, which took place at Flodden, or more correctly, at the foot of Brankston Hill, on Friday the 9th of September 1513, is among the most famous and disastrous, if not among the most momentous, in the history of Scotland. Having led his troops from their position of vantage, the king himself was killed while fighting on foot, together with nearly all his nobles; there was no foundation for the rumour that he had escaped from the carnage. He left one legitimate child, his successor James V., but as his gallantries were numerous he had many illegitimate children, among them (by Marion Boyd) Alexander Stewart, archbishop of St Andrews and chancellor of Scotland, who was killed at Flodden, and (by Janet Kennedy) James Stewart, earl of Moray (d. 1544). One of his other mistresses was Margaret Drummond (d. 1501).

James appears to have been a brave and generous man, and a wise and energetic king. According to one account, he was possessed of considerable learning; during his reign the Scottish court attained some degree of refinement, and Scotland counted in European politics as she had never done before. Literature flourished under the royal patronage, education was encouraged, and the material condition of the country improved enormously. Prominent both as an administrator and as a lawgiver, the king by his vigorous rule did much to destroy the tendencies to independence which existed in the Highlands and Islands; but, on the other hand, his rash conduct at Flodden brought much misery upon his kingdom. He was specially interested in his navy. The tournaments which took place under his auspices were worthy of the best days of chivalry in France and England. James shared to the full in the superstitions of the age which was quickly passing away. He is said to have worn an iron belt as penance for his share in his father's death; and by his frequent visits to shrines, and his benefactions to religious foundations, he won a reputation for piety.

JAMES V. (1512-1542), king of Scotland, son of James IV., was born at Linlithgow on the 10th of April 1512, and became king when his father was killed at Flodden in 1513. The regency was at first vested in his mother, but after Queen Margaret's second marriage, with Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, in August 1514, it was transferred by the estates to John Stewart, duke of Albany. Henceforward the minority of James was disturbed by constant quarrels between a faction, generally favourable to England, under Angus, and the partisans of France under Albany; while the queen-mother and the nobles struggled to gain and to regain possession of the king's person. The English had not followed up their victory at Flodden, although there were as usual forays on the borders, but Henry VIII. was watching affairs in Scotland with an observant eye, and other European sovereigns were not indifferent to the possibility of a Scotch alliance. In 1524, when Albany had retired to France, the parliament declared that James was fit to govern, but that he must be advised by his mother and a council. This "erection" of James as king was mainly due to the efforts of Henry VIII. In 1526 Angus obtained control of the king, and kept him in close confinement until 1528, when James, escaping from Edinburgh to Stirling, put vigorous measures in execution against the earl, and compelled him to flee to England. In 1529 and 1530 the king made a strong effort to suppress his turbulent vassals in the south of Scotland; and after several raids and counter-raids negotiations for peace with England were begun, and in May 1534 a treaty was signed. At this time, as on previous occasions, Henry VIII. wished James to marry his daughter Mary, while other ladies had been suggested by the emperor Charles V.; but the Scottish king, preferring a French bride, visited France, and in January 1537 was married at Paris to Madeleine, daughter of King Francis I. Madeleine died soon after her arrival in Scotland, and in 1538 James made a much more important marriage, being united to Mary (1515-1560), daughter of Claude, duke of Guise, and widow of Louis of Orleans, duke of Longueville. It was this connexion, probably, which finally induced James to forsake his vacillating foreign policy, and to range himself definitely among the enemies of England. In 1536 he had refused to meet Henry VIII. at York, and in the following year had received the gift of a cap and sword from Pope Paul III., thus renouncing the friendship of his uncle. Two plots to murder the king were now discovered, and James also foiled the attempts of Henry VIII. to kidnap him. Although in 1540 the English king made another attempt to win the support, or at least the neutrality, of James for his religious policy, the relations between the two countries became very unfriendly, and in 1542 Henry sent an army to invade Scotland. James was not slow to make reprisals, but his nobles were angry or indifferent, and on the 25th of November 1542 his forces were easily scattered at the rout of Solway Moss. This blow preyed upon the king's mind, and on the 14th of December he died at Falkland, having just heard of the birth of his daughter. His two sons had died in infancy, and his successor was his only legitimate child, Mary. He left several bastards, among them James Stewart, earl of Murray (the regent Murray), Lord John Stewart (1531-1563) prior of Coldingham, and Lord Robert Stewart, earl of Orkney (d. 1592).

Although possessing a weak constitution, which was further impaired by his irregular manner of life, James showed great vigour and independence as a sovereign, both in withstanding the machinations of his uncle, Henry VIII., and in opposing the influence of the nobles. The persecutions to which heretics were exposed during this reign were due mainly to the excessive influence exercised by the ecclesiastics, especially by David Beaton, archbishop of St Andrews. The king's habit of mingling with the peasantry secured for him a large amount of popularity, and probably led many to ascribe to him the authorship of poems describing scenes in peasant life, _Christis Kirk on the Grene_, _The Gaberlunzie Man_ and _The Jolly Beggar_. There is no proof that he was the author of any of these poems, but from expressions in the poems of Sir David Lindsay, who was on terms of intimacy with him, it appears that occasionally he wrote verses.

JAMES I., the Conqueror (1208-1276), king of Aragon, son of Peter II., king of Aragon, and of Mary of Montpellier, whose mother was Eudoxia Comnena, daughter of the emperor Manuel, was born at Montpellier on the 2nd of February 1208. His father, a man of immoral life, was with difficulty persuaded to cohabit with his wife. He endeavoured to repudiate her, and she fled to Rome, where she died in April 1213. Peter, whose possessions in Provence entangled him in the wars between the Albigenses and Simon of Montfort, endeavoured to placate the northern crusaders by arranging a marriage between his son James and Simon's daughter. In 1211 the boy was entrusted to Montfort's care to be educated, but the aggressions of the crusaders on the princes of the south forced Peter to take up arms against them, and he was slain at Muret on the 12th of September 1213. Montfort would willingly have used James as a means of extending his own power. The Aragonese and Catalans, however, appealed to the pope, who forced Montfort to surrender him in May or June 1214. James was now entrusted to the care of Guillen de Monredon, the head of the Templars in Spain and Provence. The kingdom was given over to confusion till in 1216 the Templars and some of the more loyal nobles brought the young king to Saragossa. At the age of thirteen he was married to Leonora, daughter of Alphonso VIII. of Castile, whom he divorced later on the ground of consanguinity. A son born of the marriage, Alphonso, was recognized as legitimate, but died before his father, childless. It was only by slow steps that the royal authority was asserted, but the young king, who was of gigantic stature and immense strength, was also astute and patient. By 1228 he had so far brought his vassals to obedience, that he was able to undertake the conquest of the Balearic Islands, which he achieved within four years. At the same time he endeavoured to bring about a union of Aragon with Navarre, by a contract of mutual adoption between himself and the Navarrese king, Sancho, who was old enough to be his grandfather. The scheme broke down, and James abstained from a policy of conquest. He wisely turned to the more feasible course of extending his dominions at the expense of the decadent Mahommedan princes of Valencia. On the 28th of September 1238 the town of Valencia surrendered, and the whole territory was conquered in the ensuing years. Like all the princes of his house, James took part in the politics of southern France. He endeavoured to form a southern state on both sides of the Pyrenees, which should counterbalance the power of France north of the Loire. Here also his policy failed against physical, social and political obstacles. As in the case of Navarre, he was too wise to launch into perilous adventures. By the Treaty of Corbeil, with Louis IX., signed the 11th of May 1258, he frankly withdrew from conflict with the French king, and contented himself with the recognition of his position, and the surrender of antiquated French claims to the overlordship of Catalonia. During the remaining twenty years of his life, James was much concerned in warring with the Moors in Murcia, not on his own account, but on behalf of his son-in-law Alphonso the Wise of Castile. As a legislator and organizer he occupies a high place among the Spanish kings. He would probably have been more successful but for the confusion caused by the disputes in his own household. James, though orthodox and pious, had an ample share of moral laxity. After repudiating Leonora of Castile he married Yolande (in Spanish Violante) daughter of Andrew II. of Hungary, who had a considerable influence over him. But she could not prevent him from continuing a long series of intrigues. The favour he showed his bastards led to protest from the nobles, and to conflicts between his sons legitimate and illegitimate. When one of the latter, Fernan Sanchez, who had behaved with gross ingratitude and treason to his father, was slain by the legitimate son Pedro, the old king recorded his grim satisfaction. At the close of his life King James divided his states between his sons by Yolande of Hungary, Pedro and James, leaving the Spanish possessions on the mainland to the first, the Balearic Islands and the lordship of Montpellier to the second--a division which inevitably produced fratricidal conflicts. The king fell very ill at Alcira, and resigned his crown, intending to retire to the monastery of Poblet, but died at Valencia on the 27th of July 1276.

King James was the author of a chronicle of his own life, written or
dictated apparently at different times, which is a very fine example
of autobiographical literature. A translation into English by J.
Forster, with notes by Don Pascual de Gayangos, was published in
London in 1883. See also _James I. of Aragon_, by F. Darwin Swift
(Clarendon Press, 1894), in which are many references to authorities.

JAMES II. (c. 1260-1327), king of Aragon, grandson of James I., and son of Peter III. by his marriage with Constance, daughter of Manfred of Beneventum, was left in 1285 as king of Sicily by his father. In 1291, on the death of his elder brother, Alphonso, to whom Aragon had fallen, he resigned Sicily and endeavoured to arrange the quarrel between his own family and the Angevine House, by marriage with Blanca, daughter of Charles of Anjou, king of Naples.

JAMES II. (1243-1311), king of Majorca, inherited the Balearic Islands from his father James I. of Aragon. He was engaged in constant conflict with his brother Pedro III. of Aragon, and in alliance with the French king against his own kin.

JAMES III. (1315-1349), king of Majorca, grandson of James II., was driven out of his little state and finally murdered by his cousin Pedro IV. of Aragon, who definitely reannexed the Balearic Islands to the crown.

JAMES (JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART) (1688-1766), prince of Wales, known to the Jacobites as James III. and to the Hanoverian party as the Old Pretender, the son and heir of James II. of England, was born in St James's Palace, London, on the 10th of June 1688. The scandalous story that he was a supposititious child, started and spread abroad by interested politicians at the time of his birth, has been completely disproved, and most contemporary writers allude to his striking family likeness to the Royal Stuarts. Shortly before the flight of the king to Sheerness, the infant prince together with his mother was sent to France, and afterwards he continued to reside with his father at the court of St Germain. On the death of his father, on the 16th of September 1701, he was immediately proclaimed king by Louis XIV. of France, but a fantastic attempt to perform a similar ceremony in London so roused the anger of the populace that the mock pursuivants barely escaped with their lives. A bill of attainder against him received the royal assent a few days before the death of William III. in 1702, and the Princess Anne, half-sister of the Pretender, succeeded William on the throne. An influential party still, however, continued to adhere to the Jacobite cause; but an expedition from Dunkirk planned in favour of James in the spring of 1708 failed of success, although the French ships under the comte de Fourbin, with James himself on board, reached the Firth of Forth in safety. At the Peace of Utrecht James withdrew from French territory to Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine. A rebellion in the Highlands of Scotland was inaugurated in September 1715 by the raising of the standard on the braes of Mar, and by the solemn proclamation of James Stuart, "the chevalier of St George," in the midst of the assembled clans, but its progress was arrested in November by the indecisive battle of Sheriffmuir and by the surrender at Preston. Unaware of the gloomy nature of his prospects, the chevalier landed in December 1715 at Peterhead, and advanced as far south as Scone, accompanied by a small force under the earl of Mar; but on learning of the approach of the duke of Argyll, he retreated to Montrose, where the Highlanders dispersed to the mountains, and he embarked again for France. A Spanish expedition sent out in his behalf in 1719, under the direction of Alberoni, was scattered by a tempest, only two frigates reaching the appointed rendezvous in the island of Lewis.

In 1718 James had become affianced to the young princess Maria Clementina Sobieski, grand-daughter of the warrior king of Poland, John Sobieski. The intended marriage was forbidden by the emperor, who in consequence kept the princess and her mother in honourable confinement at Innsbruck in Tirol. An attempt to abduct the princess by means of a ruse contrived by a zealous Jacobite gentleman, Charles Wogan, proved successful; Clementina reached Italy in safety, and she and James were ultimately married at Montefiascone on the 1st of September 1719. James and Clementina were now invited to reside in Rome at the special request of Pope Clement XI., who openly acknowledged their titles of British King and Queen, gave them a papal guard of troops, presented them with a villa at Albano and a palace (the Palazzo Muti in the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli) in the city, and also made them an annual allowance of 12,000 crowns out of the papal treasury. At the Palazzo Muti, which remained the chief centre of Jacobite intriguing, were born James's two sons, Charles Edward (the Young Pretender) and Henry Benedict Stuart. James's married life proved turbulent and unhappy, a circumstance that was principally due to the hot temper and jealous nature of Clementina, who soon after Henry's birth in 1725 left her husband and spent over two years in a Roman convent. At length a reconciliation was effected, which Clementina did not long survive, for she died at the early age of 32 in February 1735. Full regal honours were paid to the Stuart queen at her funeral, and the splendid but tasteless monument by Pietro Bracchi (1700-1773) in St Peter's was erected to her memory by order of Pope Benedict XIV.

His wife's death seems to have affected James's health and spirits greatly, and he now began to grow feeble and indifferent, so that the political adherents of the Stuarts were gradually led to fix their hopes upon the two young princes rather than upon their father. Travellers to Rome at this period note that James appeared seldom in public, and that much of his time was given up to religious exercises; he was _dévot à l'excès_, so Charles de Brosses, an unprejudiced Frenchman, informs us. It was with great reluctance that James allowed his elder son to leave Italy for France in 1744; nevertheless in the following year, he permitted Henry to follow his brother's example, but with the news of Culloden he evidently came to regard his cause as definitely lost. The estrangement from his elder and favourite son, which arose over Henry's adoption of an ecclesiastical career, so embittered his last years that he sank into a moping invalid and rarely left his chamber. With the crushing failure of the "Forty-five" and his quarrel with his heir, the once-dreaded James soon became a mere cipher in British politics, and his death at Rome on the 2nd of January 1766 passed almost unnoticed in London. He was buried with regal pomp in St Peter's, where Canova's famous monument, erected by Pius VII. in 1819, commemorates him and his two sons. As to James's personal character, there is abundant evidence to show that he was grave, high-principled, industrious, abstemious and dignified, and that the unflattering portrait drawn of him by Thackeray in _Esmond_ is utterly at variance with historical facts. Although a fervent Roman Catholic, he was far more reasonable and liberal in his religious views than his father, as many extant letters testify.