Chapter VIII: Reign of James I

THE return of James I. was an important event in the history of Scotland. He was crowned at Scone on the 21st of May 1424. He then with his Queen visited Dundee, and thence returned to Perth. His first parliament was opened in Perth on the 26th of May 1424, in which many important acts were passed. An inquiry was ordered to be made concerning the Crown lands and rents since the death of Robert I. onward to the regency of Murdoch, Duke of Albany. The object of this was plain. It was further announced that if the King thought fit, he could summon all his vassals and freeholders to produce their charters or other evidence, that it might be seen what lands lawfully belonged to them. This act was executed with a determination which convinced the turbulent nobles that the hand of a master was upon them. James I. had resolved to humble the power of the nobles, and his plans were well conceived, and carried out with remarkable energy. Acts were passed for restoring order and a more efficient administration of justice.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 2‒8.

On the 13th of May 1424, Sir Walter Stewart, eldest son of the Duke of Albany, Malcolm Fleming, brother-in-law of Albany, and Thomas Boyd, one of the Kilmarnock family, were arrested and imprisoned; and about the end of this year, the Earl of Lennox, father-in-law of Albany, and Sir Robert Graham, were seized and imprisoned. But these acts of the King were only the prelude of the tragedy, for he was then meditating a bold and desperate move.

James summoned a parliament which met at Perth on the 12th of March 1425. For eight days it was engaged in passing laws against the diffusion of heresy, bonds among the nobles, the reform of hospitals, and the restoration of the lands of the Church, which had been wrested from her and illegally possessed, the imposition of new customs, and an inquiry touching the execution of the acts passed in the last parliament. On the ninth day, the Duke of Albany and his son, Sir Alexander Stewart, the Earls of Douglas, March, and Angus; William Hay of Errol, Sir Alexander Seton of Gordon, Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum, and others, altogether about thirty nobles and knights were arrested. At the same time the King seized the castles of Falkland and Doune, and imprisoned Albany’s wife in the castle of ♦Tantallon. These proceedings astonished the aristocracy, and were presented as a lesson to the whole body of the nobles, but the move was specially directed against the Duke of Albany and his family. So the other nobles were released after a very short imprisonment.

♦ “Tantallion” replaced with “Tantallon”

Parliament reassembled at Stirling in May, and prepared to settle the fate of Albany and his family. A court was held in the palace of Stirling, and on the 26th of May 1425, Walter Stewart, the eldest son of Albany, was brought to trial before the King and a jury of twenty-one nobles. Walter was found guilty, condemned, and immediately beheaded. The next day the King’s own cousin Albany, and his son Alexander, and the aged Earl of Lennox, were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, and they were all executed before the castle of Stirling. No record has been preserved of these trials, so the nature of the crimes of which they were accused can only be conjectured; some of the chronicles report that they were accused of robbery. Albany and his sons were men of stalwart and commanding presence, and their fate excited much sympathy among the people.¹ Indeed this action of the King, which flooded the scaffold with the blood of his own kindred, cannot be justified. It was not even wise as a political measure. Although probably James intended to exhibit a striking example of severity, he may have wished the nobles to understand that a change had taken place in the government and the administration of justice, and that the lawlessness which had prevailed must henceforth cease.

¹ _Scotichronicon_, Volume II., pages 484, 485; _Extracta ex
variis chronicis Scotiæ_, page 228. It may be mentioned that
Alexander Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, son of Donald
who led at Harlaw, was one of the jurymen in the above
trials.

After the executions, it followed as a consequence that the large estates of the families of Albany and the Earl of Lennox were forfeited to the Crown. Unfortunately James I. had failed to forecast the inherent strength of the class whose feelings and passions he had aroused, and whose interests he had infringed. In 1425 the King, however, proclaimed his intention to grant a remission of any injury committed on persons or property in the Lowlands, on the condition that the offenders made reparation to the injured parties, in all cases where the extent of the loss could be ascertained by a jury of the good men, who were to modify and fix the amount of damages.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., page 8.

James I., having thus far restored order in the Lowlands, next directed his attention to the Highlands and the Western Isles, and summoned a parliament to meet at Inverness. In 1427 he mustered an armed force and proceeded to Inverness, and summoned the Lord of the Isles and upwards of fifty of the most notable chiefs to attend his parliament. They obeyed and attended, and were instantly seized, put in fetters, and imprisoned. On this occasion, as when Albany and the other nobles were arrested and imprisoned, James I. exhibited a characteristic craftiness and duplicity. Amongst those arrested were, the Lord of the Isles and his mother; Angus Duff with his four sons, leader of four thousand men; Kenneth More with his son-in-law, leader of two thousand men; John Ross, Angus of Moray, William Leslie, and many others. A number of the chiefs were immediately executed, and the rest were conveyed to various prisons; and after a time some of them were executed and others liberated. The Lord of the Isles and his mother were among those who were liberated. But he seems to have been displeased with the whole proceedings of the parliament at Inverness, and after the departure of the King and his army he mustered his followers in Ross and the Isles. He then advanced on Inverness, wasted the Crown lands, and set the town on fire. The King returned to the north at the head of a strong force, and the Lord of the Isles retreated to Lochaber; and there the King attacked and defeated him, and pursued his retreating followers over the mountains and from glen to glen. At last he surrendered to the King, and in 1429 he was imprisoned in the castle of ♦Tantallon, and his mother was arrested and imprisoned in Inchcolm.¹

♦ “Tantallion” replaced with “Tantallon”

¹ _Scotichronicon_, Volume II., pages 488, 489; _Exchequer
Rolls_, Volume IV., pages 541, 621, 633.

But a rising in the Highlands under Donald Balloch, a cousin of the Lord of the Isles, ensued, and he encountered the royal army under the command of the Earls of Mar and Caithness, at Inverlochy in 1431. After a severe engagement, the royal troops were completely defeated, and the Earl of Mar, and many others were slain on the field. Shortly after this the Lord of the Isles was liberated, and the King appointed him to the office of Justiciary of Scotland north of the Forth.¹

¹ _Coronation of James I._, page 11; Dr. Skene’s _Celtic
Scotland_, Volume III., page 298.

In July 1428, a treaty of marriage was concluded between the Dauphin of France and the princess Margaret, daughter of James I. The marriage was celebrated at Tours in 1436, when the princess had attained her twelfth year and the Dauphin his thirteenth. It appears that the King’s ransom money promised to England was never paid, except a part of the first year’s instalment; and in consequence of this, the Scotch hostages were detained in England. Many of them died in England, some ransomed themselves, a few escaped; and in June 1453, the Earl of Strathern, who had gone to England as a hostage, was liberated from Pontefract castle, when his son Alexander surrendered himself in his stead, the Earl of Douglas and Lord Hamilton becoming sureties for his return in case of the escape of his son. Many allusions to the ransom hostages occur in the _Rotuli Scotiæ_ long after the death of James I.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume IV., Preface pages
133‒134.

James I. was an able legislator, administrator, and organiser, and it may be said that the regular statute law of Scotland commenced in his reign. The chief aim of his policy was to make the nobles more dependent upon the Crown, to restrain them from oppressing the people, and to rule the kingdom through Parliament, acting with the executive power of the Crown. He attempted to introduce the principle of representation in the election of members of Parliament. In his short reign Parliament was assembled fifteen times; and besides transacting other important business, his Parliaments passed upwards of one hundred and sixty distinct statutes, which were written and proclaimed in the language of the people. These Acts were admirably brief, incisive, and clearly expressed, and dealt with many important matters, especially the reform of the administration of justice.

At the outset it was announced that all the subjects of the kingdom should be governed by the King’s laws and statutes, not under any special laws or spiritual privileges of any foreign authorities. In 1426 a notable attempt was made to give precision to the common law of the kingdom, as it was then enacted by the King in Parliament that six wise and discreet men who knew the laws best should be selected from each of the three Estates, “and since fraud ought not to help any man, they should examine the books of the law of this realm, and amend the laws that needed amendment, and to carefully expunge all fraudulent and frivolous exceptions, so that no man might obtain an unjust judgment against another.” In the same year James I. instituted the court known under the name of “the Session.”

As it is a primary requisite that the laws should be made intelligible to the people, and more especially to those who have to administer the law, therefore the King, with the consent of Parliament, commanded that all the statutes should be recorded in the King’s register, and copies of them given to all the sheriffs throughout the kingdom. Every sheriff was directed to proclaim the statutes in the chief towns of the sheriffdom and in other places, and also to give copies of them to the bishops, the barons, and burghs of barony. The sheriffs were ordered to cause the tenor of the Acts to be obeyed in town and country, and to declare to the people that it was their duty to obey the laws, so that no man might have any ground to allege ignorance as an excuse for his crime. To render the administration of justice free from outside influence it was enacted that parties coming to the courts with their causes should not appear with a multitude of their armed followers, but simply accompanied only by their counsel and the necessary witnesses for the trial of their causes. The King commanded that justice should be equally distributed in every quarter of the kingdom, “to the rich as to the poor, without fraud or favour”; and it was further enacted that “If there be any poor creature who, for want of means, cannot follow his case, then the King, for the love of God, shall ordain that the judge provide and get a wise advocate to follow such a one’s case; and if such a case be gained, the wrongdoer shall pay the injured party and the advocate’s expenses: and if any judge refuses to obey this law, then the party who has been defrauded shall have recourse to the King, who shall so punish such a judge that he shall be a striking example to all others.”

It was enacted that the statutes should be interpreted according to their real tenor and the intention of the legislature. With a similar aim it was ordered that no one should be permitted to practice in the King’s courts unless they were known to have sufficient knowledge and discretion for the proper performance of such functions; while no judge or officer of justice in the kingdom, nor any man who had indicted another for any action, should be allowed at the trial to sit as a juryman under a penalty of ten pounds. Many acts bearing on the internal order of the kingdom, and the arrestment and punishment of criminals were passed. Rebellion against the king was proclaimed to entail the loss of life and lands. Various attempts were made to attach more responsibility to all those in positions of authority throughout the nation.

Measures were passed relating to commerce, the coinage, and weights and measures. Careful regulations were framed for preventing and extinguishing fires in the towns, which were ordered to be strictly observed. Every burgh was enjoined to provide a number of ladders at the public cost――six, seven, eight, or more, according to the extent of the town――and to keep them always in a convenient place ready for use in case of fire; they were also to keep in readiness three or four saws, and six or more iron clicks to pull down the timber and roofs at fires. These and many other minute regulations were to be enforced under penalties.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
2‒24.

James I. was a firm friend of the Church. His Parliaments passed several acts in favour of the privileges of the Church and the searching out of heretics, and it was stated that the secular power would support the Church in her mission of executing heretics. In the year 1433 the Church found a heretic, Paul Crawar, a native of Bohemia. He was a skilful physician, but it was reported that he embraced every opportunity of sowing opinions contrary to the doctrines of the Church, so he was seized and accused of heresy, and, although he argued and defended his views with much force and clearness, that only rendered his conviction more certain. He was convicted and condemned, and as he declined to renounce his opinions, he was brought to the stake and burned at St. Andrews on the 23rd of July.¹ It seems that he had made some converts in Scotland.

¹ _Ibid._, pages 3, 7, 9; _Scotichronicon_, page 495.

But the King was aware of the state of the Church. On the 8th of June, 1425, he sent a mandate to the Bishop of St. Andrews commanding him to take immediate steps to recover the possessions of his See, which had been robbed by the greed and the nepotism of his predecessors. The same year he addressed a letter to the abbots and the priors of the Benedictine and Augustine monasteries of Scotland, which exhorted them to shake off their torpor and sloth and set themselves to restore their fallen discipline and rekindle their decaying fervour, that they might save their houses from the ruin which menaced them.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
24, 25.

James I. encouraged industry and commerce; he had an establishment of his own at Leith, which was used as a shipbuilding-yard, a workshop, and a storehouse. He had several ships, and entered into trading on his own account. The wool and hides of the crown lands, instead of being sold to the Scotch merchants, were directly exported by the King to Flanders duty free. The remissions of custom show that in one year the King had exported wool and hides representing a value of about £900. The King’s ships were frequently mentioned in the records; and John Hannay, a burgess of Aberdeen, Andrew Baxter, and Henry of Crawford, were named as masters of King’s ships. James I. commenced to rebuild the palace of Linlithgow, and in many other ways left traces of his energy.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume IV.

But the great aim of James I. was to reduce the overgrown power of the nobles. To accomplish this he endeavoured to raise the influence of the small barons and freeholders as a counterpoise to the higher nobles. Although it is impossible not to admire the legislative and administrative abilities of James I., still some of his proceedings against the nobles were not wise politically, or morally defensible. After the execution of the Duke of Albany and his family, the Earldoms of Fife and Monteith became the property of the Crown. In the case of the Earl of Lennox, though no sentence of forfeiture was pronounced against him, yet the King took possession of his estates and Earldom, and retained them in his own hands during his reign. Yet James went further, and in 1431, in a parliament held at Perth, it was decided that the late regent Albany had no power to alienate any lands which, by the death of a bastard, might have fallen to the Crown, and on this ground, a grant of land to Adam Ker was declared to be invalid. In this way the King prepared for a great stroke. The Earl of March, who usually commanded the castle of Dunbar, and held large estates in the south of the kingdom, had often been a cause of annoyance to the Crown. As we have seen, the Earl of March fled to England in the reign of Robert III., renounced his allegiance, and fought in the English ranks against the Scots in several engagements; but he returned to Scotland, and in 1409 his estates were restored to him by the regent Albany. He died in 1420, and his son George succeeded to the lands of the Earldom; and it was this man that the King resolved to humble. His loyalty was not questioned, and he had rendered service to James I. in many ways; but in 1434 his castle of Dunbar was seized, and he was arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh, on the ground that Albany had exceeded the powers of a regent in restoring his father. A parliament was assembled at Perth in January ♦1435, and proceeded to discuss the cause of the Earldom of March. It was debated on both sides at length:――First, touching the treason and forfeiture of the late Earl, and the consequent reversion of his estates to the Crown; and second, the position and claim of his son then in possession. After a long debate, it was affirmed that Albany had exceeded his powers, and, therefore, the verdict of the judges was against the Earl, and all the lands of the Earldom were annexed to the Crown. The dispossessed Earl and his family retired to England.¹

♦ “1335” replaced with “1435”

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages
22, 23.

In 1435 the Earl of Mar, Alexander Stewart, the hero of Harlaw, died, and on the ground of his illegitimacy, the Earldom reverted to the Crown. The King ignored the claim of Robert, Lord Erskine, the rightful heir to the Earldom of Mar. The Scotch nobles were greatly alarmed and enraged at the proceedings of the King. One of James’ bitterest enemies was Sir Robert Graham, uncle of the deprived Earl of Strathern, mentioned in a preceding page as one of the ransom hostages detained in England. Graham in the parliament of 1435 had delivered a vehement speech, in which he touched on the encroachments of the King upon the nobles, and in his presence denounced him as a cruel tyrant. He was immediately arrested and banished. Graham retired, brooding on revenge, and matured the plot against the King. He addressed a letter to the King renouncing his allegiance, and stating that James had ruined his family and rendered himself houseless and landless; and, therefore, he warned the King that he would pursue him to the utmost as his enemy and slay him. The King issued a proclamation for his apprehension, and offered a sum of gold for his head.¹

¹ _Contemporary Account of the Death of James I._

Yet it appears from circumstantial and direct evidence that Graham was not the originator of the plot against the King, although he was one of the chief actors in the tragedy. The real originator of the dismal plot was Walter Stewart, Earl of Athole, son of Robert II., and uncle of the King. In the preceding chapter, it was stated that Robert II. had been twice married, and at the date of his settlement of the succession to the crown in the male line (which was quoted at length) there were three sons of the first marriage, and two of the second, named in the instrument of the succession, these were all dead, except Walter, Earl of Athole, who was the second son of Robert’s second wife. Then it had been known that several of Robert’s children by his first wife were born before he married their mother, and in spite of the solemn settlement of the succession, a doubt hung over the legitimacy of the first family of Robert II., and the children of the second marriage cherished the idea that they had been unjustly excluded from the throne; and the Earl of Athole was the representative of this branch in the male line. It was suspected that he had been concerned in the proceedings which terminated in the death of the young Duke of Rothesay. He was one of James’ most trusted advisers, and he was one of the jury who sanctioned the execution of the Duke of Albany and his sons; then only James I. and his boy stood between him and the throne. It seems that the King had no suspicion of Athole, and conferred on him honours and wealth. He was appointed Justiciary of Scotland, and the _Exchequer Rolls_ from year to year contain remissions of custom and gifts to him, and his grandson and heir was made private Chamberlain to the King. Meanwhile Athole had been devising his plot against the King, with his grandson as his accomplice, and Graham and others as his tools.¹

¹ _Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_, Volume IV.

The King was gifted with a bold and fearless spirit, and he seems to have forgot or disregarded the threats of Graham. James had resolved to hold his Christmas at Perth, in the Black Friars Monastery. Thus he unwittingly placed himself in the midst of his enemies; although he had been warned of the impending danger to his life before he had crossed the Forth, still he disregarded it and proceeded to Perth. The King was cheerful and bent on enjoying himself; and on the arrival of the royal party at Perth, day after day was spent in the pleasures and amusements which were then customary at that happy season. It seems that the King had not the slightest suspicion of the fate that was hanging over him. The Earl of Athole, the arch-conspirator, and his grandson the Chamberlain, were amongst the royal guests, and contributing their share of mirth to the company, while everything was going on in the most harmonious style.

The outside and subordinate agents of the conspiracy, headed by Sir Robert Graham, had completed the arrangements, and they resolved to execute the horrid crime on the night of the 20th of February 1437. They proceeded in their dismal work with great calmness and surprising cunning; the hour of the attack was fixed, and the conspirators inside the monastery executed their part in the tragedy. Stewart the Chamberlain removed the bolts of the doors which made communication in the interior of the building easy. On this night the amusements of the court were continued till past midnight, and the Earl of Athole remained till a late hour, and when the King called for a parting cup, the company retired, and Stewart, the Chamberlain, was the last to leave the apartment. The King had undressed, and was standing in his nightgown before the fire talking with the Queen and the ladies of the bedchamber, when suddenly he was alarmed by the clang of arms and the glare of torchlights in the outer court. The Queen and the ladies rushed to secure the door, but the bolts were gone. The King instantly saw his peril, and called to the ladies to keep the door as long as they could; he tried to force the windows, but they were barred with iron stanchions; he then seized the tongs, wrenched up a flag, and descended to a vault below. The Queen and the women replaced the flag, and tried to barricade the door; but the cruel ruffians soon forced it, and broke Catherine Douglas’ arm, which she had heroically thrust into the staple to replace the removed bolt. The conspirators on not finding the King in the room, rushed in fury through the buildings and feared that their victim had escaped. But Thomas Chambers suspected what had happened, and returned to the bedchamber, and seeing that the floor had been newly broken, instantly tore it up, and their victim appeared. Although the King was unarmed and half naked, he made a desperate resistance. Sir John Hall leaped down with a dagger in his hand, the King seized him by the throat and threw him under his feet. A brother of Hall’s followed and met with the same fate. Sir Robert Graham then entered the room, and sprang down with his drawn sword, and the King implored for mercy; but Graham called him a cruel tyrant, who had never shown mercy to his own kindred, and in an instant thrust his sword through the King’s body. Thus perished, by the hands of atrocious villains, the ablest King of all the Stuart line.

By this time the citizens of Perth were hastening to the monastery with torches and weapons, and on their approach the conspirators fled and escaped. The pursuit of the murderers and conspirators was prosecuted with the utmost energy, and within a month after the murder the principal culprits and actors were captured and executed. The record of their trials has not been preserved, but the chronicles present details of the horrible modes in which they were tortured and put to death. The Earl of Athole was seized by the Earl of Angus, tried, condemned, tortured, and executed. Robert Stewart, the Chamberlain, Graham, Chambers, and others, were captured and executed, and the public feeling was at last appeased.¹

¹ Contemporary account.

James I. was cut off in the forty-fourth year of his age and the thirteenth of his reign. He was popular among the people, who appreciated the advantages and the effects of his Government. He struggled hard to redress the oppression and to reform the intolerable evils which Norman feudalism had generated in Scotland. He clearly understood and thoroughly realised in his mind that which all his ♦predecessors had failed to see, namely, that Norman feudalism contained in itself the essence of anarchy and injustice. He had a true conception of the form of government which the people of Scotland needed; though, unhappily, his ideas were too far in advance of his time. No historian who has studied his legislation can fail to admire his grasp of the fundamental principles of effective government, and the efficient administration of justice. Still the historian may not justify all his proceedings, and it seems to me that James I. sometimes pushed his depression of the nobles beyond the limits of justice and political wisdom.

♦ “precedessors” replaced with “predecessors”