James II

CHAPTER 1

The Legacy of James I (1424-1437)

Bonfires were lighted, flagons of wine were free to all and victuals publicly to all comers, with the sweetest harmony of all kinds of musical instruments all night long proclaiming the praise and glory of God for all his gifts and benefits.1

With these words, the writer of the Book of Pluscarden conveyed the deep relief attendant on the birth of twin boys to James I and his queen, Joan Beaufort, on 16 October 1430. The queen had given birth to four daughters by 1430, and was to bear another two, but it was the securing of the male succession to the Scottish crown that occasioned the levels of joy described above, and Walter Bower, writing his Scotichronicon in the 1440s, states that the elder twin was called Alexander but he died in infancy, leaving his brother, James, as the only surviving son of James I. 2 Although the Stewarts owed their place on the Scottish throne to their descent from Robert Bruce, the choice of the name Alexander may have been intended as a link to the more distant ancestry of Alexander III, and the perceived image of peace, prosperity and strong kingship that he had come to represent. 3 Naming the second twin James offered continuity with his father’s name and was to be favoured significantly by subsequent Stewart monarchs. 4 The second Stewart king to bear this name was to rule Scotland, nominally and then personally, from 1437 to 1460; a reign that witnessed ongoing tensions in the presentation of monarchical power against the perceptions and expectations of those James II sought to govern.

The assassination of James I in 1437 ended the reign of a Stewart king determined to rule in a manner that would raise and extend the power and position of the royal dynasty to which he had fallen heir in 1406. Establishment of the Stewart dynasty had been fraught with difficulties, discussed more fully elsewhere, including periods of weak royal authority, factional politics and infirmity.5 Although it has been demonstrated that there was some continuity of government and administration, the principal regional lords (many of them members of the Stewart family or in alliance with them) acquired considerable power and autonomy and a strong sense of their personal rights and jurisdiction. From the accession in 1371 of the first Stewart king, Robert II, the Scots experienced a manner of rule by kings and governors that operated with a comparatively light touch, and the return of James I in 1424, after eighteen years as a captive in England, required a significant readjustment in perceptions of the exercise of political power; a readjustment achieved with a deliberate ruthlessness that culminated in the assassination of the king in an attack involving the collusion of members of his own household.

The stamp of monarchical authority and prestige which he had driven to establish, and which had largely eluded the first two kings of the Stewart dynasty, was a central factor in subsequent Stewart kingship. However, the consequences of the conspirators’ actions in 1437 were that the Scottish kingdom was faced with all the uncertainties and potential instability of a lengthy minority, as Prince James was only six years old. Those responsible for the assassination of the king were well aware of this, viewing it as an opportunity to direct and manipulate policy and, perhaps, mould the child-king into a monarch with a perception of the exercise of royal authority more acceptable to those with a vested interest in maintaining their local and regional authority.

Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, drew a largely positive portrait of James I in his Scotichronicon, written in the 1440s, praising the king for his strength and attention to the administration of justice. However, Bower’s admiration of strong kingship cannot obscure the fact that strength exercised arbitrarily had a negative as well as a positive impact, and the exercise of successful kingship in mediaeval Scotland required a measure of sensitivity, comprehension and ability to compromise when necessary or expedient. Authoritarian rule that took little account of regional structures or the complex vested interests of the nobility, and ignored the vital delegation of authority necessary to enforce royal policy in late mediaeval Scotland, was potentially vulnerable. Greatly as James I admired the more centralised government of England, witnessed first-hand during his eighteen-year captivity, and aspired to enjoy the fruits of regular taxation, he was unable entirely to emulate the kingship exercised by his English counterpart, Henry V. It is possible to perceive the fatal W aw in James I’s kingship stemming from having served his royal apprenticeship in a country whose government did not operate in precisely the same manner as the one he inherited, and frustration at what he would have seen as the thwarting of his legitimate plans and ambitions was mirrored in the frustration felt in many quarters at the king’s insensitivity, arbitrariness and intransigence.

The assassination of James I in February 1437 was in no sense the result of a popular revolt, but nor can its significance be down-played, as it was the culmination of frustration caused by a determined manner of kingship that had generated a dangerous level of fear, uncertainty and hatred in the minds of a group of personally aggrieved conspirators who believed, in the face of his resistance to persuasion or remonstration, that the removal of the king was the only course left to them.6 The killing of James I was no spur-of-the-moment action by heated opponents driven to impetuous anger, but a calculated gamble on redefining the mechanisms of royal authority. The involvement of the king’s uncle, Walter Stewart, earl of Atholl, and his grandson, Robert Stewart, show that this was an action intended to shift power into the hands of another branch of the Stewart family, as had occurred (although rather less dramatically) with the palace coups witnessed from 1384 onwards.7 Atholl would be the man best suited to assume the leadership of the minority government for his six-year-old great-nephew, and although Bower hints darkly that Atholl aimed for the crown itself, it may be that the removal of the intransigent James I and the opportunity to mould the young James II into a king better able to understand his responsibilities towards his subjects was the intended outcome. Certainly, Michael Brown pointed out that Atholl would have been ‘within one life of the throne’ and that his brother, Robert duke of Albany had not scrupled to remove his nephew and heir to the throne, David duke of Rothesay, in 1402 when his imminent succession threatened to challenge Albany’s regional interests, although the ultimate failure of the conspiracy means that this must remain a matter for speculation.8

Considerable detail concerning the events that led to the assassination of James I is given in two accounts, the earliest one by Piero del Monte, a Venetian envoy sent to Scotland in 1435 to collect the papal tenth. He was in London when he sent a letter to Pope Eugenius IV only one week after the assassination of James I, claiming that his information came from a letter sent by Queen Joan to her uncle, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester.9 However, del Monte was also in contact with Anthony Altani, bishop of Urbino and papal nuncio to Scotland, who had attended the General Council in Perth on 4 February and was still there at the time of the king’s death, making him an obvious source for del Monte.10 John Shirley was an English author, translator and scribe in the service of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and his account of events in 1437, The Dethe of the Kynge of Scotis, was translated from a Latin source, very similar in detail to French chronicle accounts.11 Shirley’s account is richest in detail and, even allowing for dramatic licence including the use of reported speech, it is possible to point to a reasonable degree of accuracy where details may be verified, and the work sheds fascinating light through contemporary eyes on the serious consequences of a breakdown of trust between crown and subjects. That this involved men very close to the king, by blood and service, only underlined the perilous weakening of the king’s personal authority as a result of riding roughshod over those whose co-operation was vital to the delivery of stable and effective rule.

Notwithstanding the role foreseen for Atholl and his grandson in the longerterm consequences of the action, it was Robert Graham, lord of Kinpunt in West Lothian, who is placed at the centre of the conspiracy in Shirley’s account. He was certainly a man with known antipathy to James I, dating at least from the attack on the Albany Stewarts launched by the king in 1425, and he had been chosen, probably through the influence of Atholl, to act the unusual role of speaker in the general council of October 1436.12 This was held in the aftermath of a disastrous royal campaign to the borders in August with the intention of recapturing the castle of Roxburgh; a Scottish stronghold that remained in English hands. The campaign should, on the face of it, have been a popular one demonstrating James I’s strong military leadership and royal authority in restoring a captured crown possession. However, any plans for a short, sharp strike against Roxburgh were doomed to failure, as the garrison was well-supplied and relief came speedily from a force led by Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, John Kemp, archbishop of York and Thomas Langley, bishop of Durham. Finding himself in the field facing an approaching English army and surrounded by a Scottish army containing many who would have been increasingly resentful towards him, the king appears to have taken fright and W ed from the siege in some disarray, leaving his precious artillery weapons behind.13 The details of James I’s ignominious failure to retake Roxburgh castle became embellished in the accounts of chroniclers in the sixteenth century, but it is clear from contemporary sources that there were some ugly undercurrents at Roxburgh that go some way to explaining the dramatic events that followed within six months of the campaign.

The purpose of the general council that met on 22 October appears to have been to prepare the ground for a renewal of the campaign against the English and secure revenue to this end. The records show a particular focus on legislation designed to ensure that the crown would have authority over cross-border dealings involving private agreements and ransoms ‘of Inglismen’, prohibitions on certain trade and the imposition of currency restrictions. However, the accounts of Piero del Monte and John Shirley are explicit in stating that the focus of this meeting of the general council was the king’s demand for money. Given the costly debacle of the August campaign, this was royal insensitivity taken to extremes and it elicited a strong reaction from the estates as ‘all who heard it were provoked to hatred and indignation’.14 The choice of Robert Graham to act as speaker for the estates was indicative of the high state of tension created by the king’s actions. Well equipped through his legal training to remonstrate with James I on behalf of the three estates, Graham was nevertheless a man with significant personal enmity towards the king, and this appears to have over-ridden his remit to present the arguments for resisting the king’s unacceptable behaviour. In Shirley’s account, Graham chose to ‘sette handes uppoun the king his souerayne lorde, saying these wordes: I arest you, sir, in the name of the three astattes here nowe assembled in the present Perlement’.15 The stunned silence with which this action seems to have been met by those present indicates the degree to which there was still no political will to stage an outright coup and set the king aside, and James I must have sensed the weakness in Graham’s position when he had him arrested for his insolence. However, that he did not take the threat represented by this extraordinary action particularly seriously is shown in the fact that he contented himself with accepting Graham’s voluntary exile.16 This was a mistake, because the failure of the confrontation in parliament must have convinced Walter, earl of Atholl and his grandson, Robert Stewart, that there was no alternative to the removal of the king by force.

One of the features of the many accounts of the assassination and its aftermath was the speculation concerning motive, as contemporaries strived to understand why Atholl, in particular, would have turned so drastically against his nephew and sovereign. James I appears to have regarded this surviving branch of his family with favour and assumed their loyalty. However, Atholl’s sons, David and Alan, had died in the service of the king, and steady royal encroachments upon his territorial interests in Perthshire meant that Atholl was doubtful concerning how much of his inheritance would be permitted to pass to his grandson. Certainly, the focus of Atholl’s landed interests was the lucrative earldom of Strathearn, which he had fought hard to acquire, but James I’s insistence that he held this only in life-rent meant that it would revert to the crown as soon as Atholl was dead.17 Robert Stewart appeared to be close to the king, but it is questionable that this denoted more than physical proximity. Shirley describes Robert Stewart as being ‘right familiar with the king and had all his commandments in the chamber’, but adds that ‘he knew well the false treason that was purposed and was consented thereto’.18 This was written after the assassination and therefore with the benefit of hindsight, but it seems that, to James I, the pressures and tensions that he had placed on Atholl and Robert Stewart were no more than the necessary processes of exercising strong royal authority and promoting crown interests; a disastrous misreading of the willingness of these men to accept with docility all that the king’s actions presaged. Undoubtedly, ease of access to the king enabled Atholl and Stewart to plan the ground for a successful attack, calling upon suffciently alienated and disgruntled men from Perthshire and Fife to act as the foot-soldiers. Apart from Robert Stewart, Robert Graham and Graham’s son, Thomas, the other named conspirators were men with links to Duke Murdac’s family; Thomas and Christopher Chambers, burgesses of Perth, the Barclay brothers of Tentsmuir in Fife, John and Thomas Hall and Henry Macgregor, probably also from Perth, which proved to be a crucial recruiting-ground for those hostile to the king.19

The estates met at Perth on 4 February 1437, and the king had obviously planned to stay on in his quarters in the Dominican friary at Perth, providing the opportunity for the conspirators to finalise their plans and set a date for the deed.20 The role of Robert Stewart was to circumvent any security measures; an easy matter when he was in charge of the king’s domestic arrangements. According to Shirley, the assassination took place in the early hours of 21 February, with Stewart tampering with the locks and placing planks across the ditch that protected the garden by the king’s chamber to enable the assassins to enter. Dramatic details follow of James I, alerted by the noise of scuffles with his household servants, ordering the doors to be held while he sought escape, first through a window which he could not break, and then by pulling up W oor boards to drop down into a stone sewer. Ironically, the sewer’s outlet had earlier been sealed on the king’s orders because he had lost a number of tennis balls while playing at the friary. His hiding place was discovered by Thomas Chambers and the king fought his attackers until Robert Graham struck him through with his sword. Shirley states that ‘it was reportid by trew persoones that saw him dedde that he had xvi dedly woundes in his brest withowte manny other in diverse places of his body’.21 Such a concerted attack certainly demonstrated clear intention to kill, and Shirley states that this intention extended to the queen, but when the conspirators burst into her chamber and found her standing

astonyed as creatur that had lost kyndely resoun, oone of the traytourse wounded her vilaynosly and wolde have slayn her ne had nott be on of Sir Robert Grame’s soones that thus speke to him and sayde, ‘What wolle ye do for schame of youreselfe to the queene? Sche is bot a womman, lett us go and seke the king.22

The clemency shown by one of Robert Graham’s sons, possibly Thomas, was to prove disastrous for the conspirators, and they appear to have realised that at the time. After killing the king, the account states that they returned to seek the queen, but she had W ed the scene and a sufficient stir had been created by then to prompt the assassins to leave Blackfriars with all haste.23

As Robert Graham reportedly observed during his W ight from Blackfriars, the failure to kill the queen meant that ‘wee have cause to dreede gretly leste sche wolle purswe us and labour to do vengeaunce uppon us’.24 Within the context of mediaeval royal marriages, James I seems to have involved his queen in government to a greater extent than his predecessors, and she fulfilled one of the principal duties of a mediaeval queen in the aftermath of the assassination by moving with speed, despite the wounds sustained in the attack on her husband, to secure the position and interests of her six-year-old son. The young prince, James duke of Rothesay, was in Edinburgh at the time in the charge of John Spens, who had served as his steward since 1431. This must have increased the immediate fears of the queen’s party, as Spens had been a prominent servant of Walter earl of Atholl, who would by then have been viewed with deep suspicion regarding his involvement in the conspiracy. It may be that one of the other men in Rothesay’s household, John Balfour, pre-empted any danger from Spens by securing the prince on behalf of Queen Joan, who had arrived in Edinburgh by 27 February. Balfour was certainly a major recipient of lands that may have been forfeited by Spens as the result of his execution, although this is not stated explicitly in extant records.25 William Crichton, the keeper of Edinburgh castle, was a prominent member of the queen’s party, having secured and enhanced his position through administrative service to James I, and this made Edinburgh the logical choice for establishing the royal council in the aftermath of the assassination, with the queen acting as unofficial regent for her son. As regarded pursuit of the conspirators, the queen’s energy and determination demonstrated the truth of Graham’s observations when leaving the scene of the murder.

Contemporary sources reveal shock and revulsion at the assassination and although this is hardly surprising given the nature of the sources and their intended audience, it may nevertheless reflect a genuine sense that such actions were reprehensible and damaging to the principles of law and the sanctity of the office of the crown, whatever the provocation. Regicide was the ultimate crime in mediaeval society as it challenged not only accepted political structures but, through the sacerdotal rights of coronation and unction, constituted an act against God. The unpopularity of James I was such that many of his subjects may have breathed a sigh of relief at his removal without necessarily endorsing the methods used to bring it about. However, the central point regarding the assassination of James I was that he had crossed a line (if not several) in the principles of good lordship, and the sense that he had acted as a tyrant is evident in contemporary accounts. The manner in which power was exercised and determination of those who were to be instrumental in exercising that power, was at the root of what preceded and followed the murder of the king. Initially, the effective transition of authority to the queen cannot have been a foregone conclusion, and there would have been a period of uncertainty while the queen and council endeavoured to establish the scale of the threat and formulate their response.

Securing the person of the, as yet, uncrowned James II was crucial, and the queen’s success in this dealt a blow to any hope Atholl and his fellow conspirators may have had of benefiting from the removal of James I. Although a precise date is not given, Shirley’s account states that Robert Stewart and Christopher Chambers were the first of the conspirators to be captured, and this provided an opportunity for the queen’s party to underline both their authority and their effectiveness by having Stewart paraded round Edinburgh, tortured publicly and made to proclaim his guilt. That the queen was aware of the advantages in promoting a positive impression of the murdered king and the villainy of his attackers is clear in the action taken to display the body of James I prior to his burial in the Carthusian Priory founded by him just outside Perth. Further dramatic impact had been provided by the papal envoy, Bishop Altani, who declared that he had confessed the king eight days earlier and ‘uttered a great cry with tearful sighs, and kissed the piteous wounds; and he said before all the bystanders that he would stake his soul on his having died in a state of grace, like a martyr, for his defence of the common weal and his administration of justice’.26 Such an endorsement could not but strengthen the queen’s efforts to bolster her position, and the executions of Stewart and Chambers are described by Shirley and the writer of the Book of Pluscarden in pitiless detail, culminating in their heads being placed on spikes on the gates of Perth. The Pluscarden account states that the Barclay brothers of Tentsmuir escaped secretly to France, but were captured and taken to John duke of Brittany who meted out the punishment suffered by their co-conspirators in Scotland.27 It is not clear exactly when Walter earl of Atholl was seized, but he may have been taken by William earl of Angus in mid-March after he had taken the heads of Stewart and Chambers to Perth for display, and Michael Brown has suggested that Atholl may have remained in his castle at Methven, by Perth, aware of the failure of the plot, but trusting in a defence based on denial of complicity beyond being aware of his grandson’s intentions.28

Although there was undoubtedly a period of uncertainty and confusion in the aftermath of the assassination, this does not mean that the government of Scotland lacked focus or direction. Indeed, there was considerable continuity of personnel in this transitional administration, supporting nobles with experience and aM nities who could offer stability and authority on behalf of the crown. Of particular relevance to this stability was the role of the three estates, sitting in parliament and general council, although the summoning of parliament for March 1437 must have been a hasty aO air that could not have allowed for the traditional forty-days’ notice. For the trial of so important a magnate as Atholl, with his place in the royal line of succession, the authority of parliament was required, and this was also to be the occasion of the formal coronation of the new king. The traditional site for the inauguration and, since 1329, the coronation of Scottish kings was Scone, but proximity to Perth and the knowledge that others involved in the assassination, such as Robert Graham, were still at large, would have made it expedient to choose a more secure location. A charge had been delivered by the new king’s council to the community of Perth on 7 March to fortify the burgh as a result of the murder of James I, and the burgh of Perth was to seek a pardon in April for the part its inhabitants played in the death of the king.29 It was therefore in Edinburgh that the coronation of James II took place, and the first parliament after the assassination of James I was held there on 25 March 1437, the primary business of which was to direct the coronation of the new king and confer public legitimacy on the actions of the minority government.30

The earliest source for this assembly states that ‘the three estates of the realm compearing at Edinburgh, all the earls, nobles and barons, and the freeholders, of the said kingdom coming to Edinburgh castle, they lead forward our aforementioned lord king with great applause and pomp for the praise of God and gladness of all the people to the monastery of Holyrood of Edinburgh for solemnly receiving the crown of the kingdom of Scotland in the same place’.31 Holyrood abbey was to have particular significance for James II as it was the site of his birth, coronation, marriage and burial, but the consequent celebrations appear to have taken place back in Edinburgh castle under greater security than could be offered at Holyrood.32 James II was crowned by Michael Ochiltree, bishop of Dunblane, rather than the more senior bishops, Wardlaw of St Andrews, Cameron of Glasgow or Lichton of Aberdeen. Cameron was out of the country on diplomatic business, and the speed of the arrangements may explain the choice of Ochiltree, in addition to the fact that he was a staunch supporter of the queen, although it seems puzzling that Wardlaw could not have travelled from St Andrews to perform this important function.33 The symbolic act of coronation accomplished, those assembled in Edinburgh proceeded to the trial and execution, on 26 March, of Walter earl of Atholl, who was led from the tolbooth and forced to wear a paper crown intended to mock him for his failed pretensions. Shirley claims that, because it was Easter week, Atholl was spared the hideous torture suffered by the other conspirators but was merely beheaded.34

Although the rounding up and punishment of the remaining conspirators would have been regarded as important, the serious danger had passed. The men involved in the assassination were steadily turned in to the government authorities by those who wished their loyalty to be recognised, and the capture of Sir Robert Graham by Robert Duncanson of Struan and John Stewart Gorme of Atholl was of particular significance given his pivotal role in the assassination.35 The court was no longer in Edinburgh, but had relocated to Stirling castle by the time that Graham was tried and executed in April. Unlike Atholl, who protested his innocence to the last, Graham was openly defiant and unrepentant, with Shirley recording his final speech from the scaffold in which he declared, ‘I have thus slayne and delyvered you of so cruelle a tirant, the grettest enemye the Scottes or Scottland myght have.’36 The severe and public punishment of the perpetrators of regicide would have been portrayed as upholding the principles of law and natural justice, and notwithstanding the ambivalence that may have been felt concerning the merits of James I’s removal, many would have welcomed the opportunity to draw a line under the events of February 1437 and move forward with the reign of the new king.

NOTES

CHAPTER 2

Protecting the Rights of the Crown (1437-1440)

But alas that our kings should so often be young men in whose time justice is often halting.1

The vagaries of life-expectancy in the middle ages meant that acceptance of the principle of primogeniture led to the strong possibility of kings dying while their successors were still minors. Although not desirable, it was hardly an insurmountable problem when government institutions and administrative practice could proceed even without an adult male monarch in personal control. The king’s council would be constituted to include men who had experience through their social position as members of the higher nobility or as practised administrators and churchmen, and these were supported by officials who saw to the day-to-day administration of government in terms of finance, justice and diplomacy. Serious political and economic instability was highly undesirable, and although perceptions of royal minorities as inherently and persistently volatile and chaotic may be questioned, they could offer an opportunity for personal aggrandisement amongst ambitious members of the nobility. The minority of James II was no different and the competing ambitions of factions and individuals are apparent in the records for this period, although the actual position of the king and preparations for power to pass into his hands, when his minority was deemed to be at an end, were not challenged seriously. In fact, recent research into the records of the mediaeval Scottish parliament has demonstrated a greater degree of administrative continuity under competent and experienced personnel than previous studies of the reign have appreciated. 2

The initiative seized by the queen following the assassination of James I allowed her to secure and protect her son, thus bolstering her own position in the political manoeuvrings that led up to the coronation in March. However, if she had intended to capitalise on the oaths of fidelity sworn to her by the three estates at her husband’s insistence in having her role as regent for her son recognised in 1428 and 1435, she was to be disappointed.3 Decisions regarding the minority government would have been made during the assembly held at Edinburgh in March, and although no official record survives, it is possible to infer the nature of these arrangements from later sources. The appointment of Archibald Douglas, duke of Touraine and 5th earl of Douglas as lieutenant-general was made, almost certainly, at a meeting of the three estates in a general council which took place around 6 May.4 He was the obvious choice to head the royal minority government, as he had the bloodline (as James II’s cousin through his mother, Margaret Stewart, sister of James I), status and backing to make decisions and enact policy.5 The office conferred quasi-regal authority on Douglas to act as the king’s representative and guard crown rights and privileges until such time as James II could assume personal control. However, there may have been a certain coolness between himself and the queen, as Douglas had been on the receiving end of James I’s arbitrary treatment in 1431, when the king had imprisoned him briefly in reaction to suspicions concerning his involvement with his cousin, John Kennedy, in pursuit of the latter’s ambitions in Carrick.6 The father of the lieutenant-general, Archibald 4th earl of Douglas, had been granted the dukedom of Touraine by Charles VII in recognition of assistance provided by the Scots, under the leadership of Douglas and James Stewart, earl of Buchan (son of Murdac, duke of Albany), in fighting his campaign against English forces led by Henry V in his own campaign to be recognised as king of France. This involved fighting against an English army in which James I was himself present, and such was James’s view of his own position and authority, he looked askance at the independent actions of a noble who had grown wealthy and powerful through his own efforts and private agreements rather than as the result of direct patronage from the crown. However, the choice of Douglas to fill the role of lieutenant-general after the death of James I was logical not only because he had authority as a border magnate with a sizeable affinity, but through his close connections to existing members of the king’s council.7

Continuity of council personnel is apparent in the records, with John Forrester of Corstorphine, chamberlain, William Foulis, archdeacon of St Andrews and keeper of the privy seal, Walter Ogilvy of Lintrathen, treasurer and William Crichton, master of the king’s household, continuing to act as charter witnesses at the beginning of the new reign.8 John Cameron, bishop of Glasgow, had been serving on the Council of Basle from 1434, arguing his royal patron’s case in the dispute over ecclesiastical policies. He was in Bruges at the time of James I’s assassination in February, but had returned to Scotland by April and resumed the office of chancellor. Douglas had strong connections to Cameron, who had served as his secretary in 1423, while Archibald was earl of Wigtown, but had been recruited into royal service soon after James I’s return to Scotland.9 William Crichton was a Lothian baron whose father, Sir John Crichton, had built a tower house at the barony of Crichton, south of Edinburgh, in the late fourteenth century.10 Crichton’s connections with the house of Douglas may have provided the entrée into royal service, but it was his assiduous application in that service which brought about his advancement from James I’s personal chamberlain to the enhanced position of master of the king’s household, sheriff of Edinburgh and keeper of Edinburgh castle.11 These positions enabled Crichton to make important connections and possibly also to advance the careers of members of his own family, such as his cousin, George Crichton, who managed to attain through royal patronage the sheriffdom of West Lothian and built the castle of Blackness on the river Forth, designed in the form of a ship, reflecting Crichton’s role as Admiral of Scotland.12

However, most significant of all in the political manoeuvring that unfolded during the minority of James II, was the position of James Douglas of Balvenie, younger brother of Archibald 4th earl of Douglas and uncle to the new lieutenant-general. Although a member of the comital house of Douglas, it was not territorial influence upon which James Douglas based his career, but service to his kinsmen and to the crown. As Michael Brown has demonstrated, he stepped in to provide focus for the tenants and adherents of his brother, Archibald, after he was captured at Homildon Hill in 1402 and imprisoned in England, and he was rewarded in 1408 with lands in Moray, Aberdeenshire and on the Black Isle, securing in addition the castle of Balvenie in Banffshire. This northern focus to the new possessions of James Douglas, who was thenceforth styled lord of Balvenie, was to be used by him early in the next reign to advance the interests of his own sons; offspring of a late marriage in 1423 to Beatrice Sinclair, sister of William earl of Orkney.13 However, his personal focus was on his possessions in the south, centring his lordship on his castle of Abercorn in West Lothian on the banks of the river Forth. This placed him within easy access of the court, generally to be found in Edinburgh, and had allowed him also to exploit the revenues of nearby Linlithgow.14 From the return of the king in 1424, James Douglas of Balvenie was a frequent royal councillor offering his experience and service to the king as administrator and diplomat and establishing himself firmly in the ranks of James I’s inner council formed principally, although not exclusively, from the ranks of Lothian barons who recognised the advantages of direct service to the crown rather than through the traditional conduit of service to great regional magnates.15 The promotion of James Douglas of Balvenie to the earldom of Avandale in 1437 in addition to the role of justiciar south of the Forth, demonstrates the reliance placed upon his uncle by Archibald 5th earl of Douglas. However, the relationship was one of mutual benefit rather than blind allegiance, as men such as Avandale and Crichton recognised the advantages provided by their own positions of influence constructed during the 1430s and were more concerned to advance these than to offer slavish devotion to the lieutenant-general.16

The role of the queen in the minority government of her son needed to be defined, and it was in the March parliament, or more probably the general council held in May, that she was assigned 4,000 merks and the keepership of Stirling castle, where she was to reside with her children. Further light may be shed on these arrangements by the credible interpretation of an incomplete entry in the Auchinleck Chronicle as referring to May 1437:

of the law and the kingis proffettis and of all the Realme and that the king suld come be him selfe and his and the queen be hir self and hirris bot the king suld ay remane with the queen. Bot scho suld nocht intromet with his proffettis bot allanerlie with his person.17

Although undated in the chronicle, this appears to relate to Joan Beaufort and lays stress on the queen’s role being the care of her children rather than control of royal finances, indicating that she had not been granted the extensive powers of regency that she may have wished. Such relegation may have been the result of attitudes to gender and her English nationality, but she was not left entirely without influence, as this recognised her right to have access and authority over raising her children, and she continued to manoeuvre for the maintenance of those rights and provide an alternative political focus until her death in 1445. Part of the problem underlying the establishment of authority in the first few weeks following the assassination of the king may have been the close association of the queen and her principal adherent, William earl of Angus, with the unpopular policies of James I. Although Angus had been instrumental in rounding up those implicated in the assassination of James I, there was little desire to see a regime that would continue in exactly the same vein as before, and despite clear continuity in personnel, those in control were prepared to make changes. Also, there was considerable rivalry and distrust between the Black Douglases and the Douglases of Angus (later known as the Red Douglases), which would have affected the attitude of Archibald 5th earl of Douglas to the queen’s inner circle when he assumed the mantle of lieutenant-general. Having stipulated the extent of Queen Joan’s remit, tensions were relieved further by the death of Angus in October 1437, and although his son James was to continue his father’s allegiance to the queen, he was only eleven years old when he succeeded as 3rd earl of Angus. William Crichton had also been a prominent supporter of the queen and may have been with the royal party at Blackfriars at the time of the assassination, but although he owed his position to advancement in the king’s service, he proved to be a great political survivor and was prepared to adjust his loyalties to maintain his position at the heart of royal government; a strategy he pursued successfully despite being ousted temporarily in the faction struggles of the 1440s.

Archibald 5th earl of Douglas exercised the office of lieutenant-general in a manner that recalled the methods used by earlier lieutenants and governors in the fourteenth century. This entailed heavy reliance on the support and co-operation of regional lords and those with experience in royal administration, and one of the first pieces of legislation enacted by the new regime was the revocation of all alienations made since the death of James I. This was an important action to take as early as possible after confidence and stability had been restored, and reflects concern that the rights and privileges of the crown should be protected, with no injudicious use of patronage by the new regime involving crown possessions without ‘the advice and consent of the three estates’. To ensure that this was policed, an inventory was to be made and all such grants recorded, until the king attained the age of twenty-one. Any alienations ‘made in hindering of the crown [. . .] shall be of no avail, force nor effect’.18 Given that the act is undated, it has been the subject of some debate concerning to which assembly it belongs, but in a statement issued by the royal burgh court of Aberdeen on 6 May 1437, reference is made to a general council currently being held in Stirling.19 The reason why this act may be supposed to belong to this council, rather than the March parliament, or the following year, is that this was arguably a more representative body than the hastily assembled March parliament, and the arrest of Robert Graham would have created a far stronger sense of security and stability. If it was also the occasion of the appointment of Archibald Douglas as lieutenant-general, it makes sense for the three estates to lay the ground rules for the long minority in prospect.

The role of the three estates acting in consultation over any such alienations indicates determination on the part of those who regarded conciliar government as an important safeguard against misuse of power to place certain restrictions on Douglas’s lieutenancy. This does not necessarily denote any outright hostility to Douglas himself, as he would certainly have been a party to the revocation legislation, but insistence on the lieutenancy being carried out with the aid and due consultation of the council recalls documents such as the appointment of David duke of Rothesay as lieutenant in 1399.20 The use of patronage was pivotal in the exercise of political power, but could be misused to the detriment of the ‘common weal’, therefore it was necessary to place tight restrictions on the lieutenant, compelling him to consult and secure the approval of a wider political body than his own personal council. Application of this legislation is apparent in the royal charter granted on 1 June to David Ogilvy and his wife, confirming a grant of Inchmartin and other lands, given at Edinburgh under the great seal and witnessed by John Cameron, chancellor, John Forrester of Corstorphine, chamberlain, Walter Ogilvy of Lintrathen, treasurer, William lord Crichton, master of the king’s household and William Foulis, archdeacon of St Andrews and keeper of the privy seal. The charter was issued ‘ex deliberatione consilii nostri generalis’, and Roland Tanner has pointed out that this grant was on terms previously endorsed by James I and