People and Power in Scotland

Essays in Honour of T.C. Smout

Roger A. Mason, Norman Macdougall, Roger A. Mason, Norman Macdougall

• Publisher: John Donald
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781788854146
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Teoria e critica storica

Few Scottish historians are better known than T. C. Smout and fewer still more deserving of the high esteem in which they are held. He has made an outstanding contribution to Scottish historical studies both as an academic discipline and as a subject of wide popular appeal. His retirement in 1991 after twelve years as Professor of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews diminished neither his interest not his output. It did, however, provide a fitting opportunity to honour his accomplishments. This collection of ten essays by his friends and colleagues at St Andrews is a measure of his enormous success in promoting Scottish history there and of their respect for his achievements. Ranging widely over the Scottish past – from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, from high politics to popular protest, from shipwrecks to railway mania, form local social studies to the problem of national identity – the essays pay tribute to the depth of Smout's historical understanding by reflecting the breadth of research that he has done so much to encourage.

1

The Man who would be King: The Lieutenancy and Death of David, Duke of Rothesay, 1378–1402

STEPHEN BOARDMAN

The death in 1402 of David, duke of Rothesay, the eldest son, heir and lieutenant of Robert III, has remained a rather mysterious episode despite a detailed account of Rothesay’s “arrest” by the reliable contemporary chronicler Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm. Bower, revealing his clerical prejudices, judged that Rothesay’s death came about as the result of the young duke’s own moral failings, his dissolute, immoral and headstrong lifestyle.¹ The political objectives of the chief protagonists in the events of 1402, Rothesay and his uncle Robert, duke of Albany, and Rothesay’s brother-in-law Archibald, 4th earl of Douglas, remain largely unexplored and unexplained.

Bower’s description of Rothesay’s arrest and death is a well-known and simple narrative. According to Bower, Rothesay was travelling to St. Andrews in order to occupy the episcopal castle when he was treacherously captured by members of his own retinue, namely Sir John Ramornie and Sir William Lindsay of Rossie, at Strathtyrum just outside St. Andrews city walls.² After his arrest Rothesay was imprisoned for a short period in the episcopal castle while his uncle Robert, duke of Albany, and Archibald, 4th earl of Douglas, held a council at Culross to decide what should be done with the young heir to the throne. After their deliberations Rothesay was moved from St. Andrews, heavily disguised, to Albany’s own castle of Falkland where, on 25 or 26 March 1402, the young duke died of dysentery or starvation.³ The dramatic events in and around St. Andrews in early 1402 were, to some extent, a reflection of long-term political tensions between Rothesay and his uncle which can only be fully explained by an examination of the origins of Rothesay’s three year lieutenancy.

Rothesay’s lieutenancy began in January 1399, in the wake of a disastrous royal siege of Dumbarton Castle in the autumn of 1398. The aim of the siege had been to remove Walter Danielston, the militant and secularised cleric who had seized control of the royal castle in 1397/8.⁴ Walter Danielston was the younger brother of two prominent Renfrewshire lairds, Sir Robert and Sir William Danielston.⁵ Sir Robert Danielston had been the custodian of Dumbarton Castle and sheriff of Dumbarton/Lennox, dying on some date between 26 April 1396 and 8 May 1397.⁶ Sir Robert had succeeded his father Sir John Danielston as both sheriff of Dumbarton and custodian of the castle,⁷ so that by 1397 the Danielston family had occupied these offices for at least thirty-seven years and probably considered that they were heritable. After Sir Robert’s death Walter Danielston had forcibly occupied the royal castle in defence of his family’s heritage. Walter, as a cleric, had no heirs of his own; however, Sir Robert had died leaving two daughters, one married to Sir William Cunningham of Kilmaurs, and the other to Sir Robert Maxwell, who was associated with Walter Danielston in an indenture of 18 December 1400 issued at Dumbarton.⁸ In addition, Walter had a nephew, Patrick, who seems to have been a son of Sir William Danielston.⁹ The reaction of the royal government to Danielston’s occupation of Dumbarton had been to organise a huge siege of the fortress in 1398. For at least three months between early August and the end of October 1398, Robert III was at Dumbarton with a considerable army¹⁰ which required substantial supplies of iron, wood (presumably for siege operations) and foodstuffs.¹¹ The intensity of the siege is shown by the fact that there was a three year hiatus in the rendering of accounts by the bailies of the burgh of Dumbarton between May 1397 and 13 May 1400,¹² on which later date the burgh was allowed to give in a reduced burghal ferm because of “guerre de uno anno dictorum trium annorum”.

The ultimate failure of the royal siege to remove Danielston from Dumbarton seems to have seriously weakened the prestige of Robert III’s government in general, and Robert, duke of Albany, in particular. Wyntoun, commenting on Danielston’s occupation of Dumbarton, remarks that “Lithcow menyt in Louthiane, And syndry athir landis sare, Menyt, that evyr he gat in thare”.¹³ Linlithgow’s displeasure would seem to have been based on the fact that the keeper of Dumbarton Castle was due an eighty merk pension from the burghal fermes, although there is no evidence to suggest that Danielston ever received this payment.¹⁴ The discontent engendered by the collapse of the Dumbarton siege would seem to be reflected in the general council of January 1399, held in Perth, which appointed David, duke of Rothesay, as the king’s lieutenant.¹⁵ The council complained that “the mysgovernance of the reaulme and the defaut of the kepyng of the common law salde be imput to the kyng and his officeris”, and decided that the king, because of his personal infirmity, was incapable of governing the realm or restraining transgressors and rebels. Walter Danielston’s successful resistance to royal forces in late 1398 would have been uppermost in many men’s minds as an example of royal ineffectiveness in January 1399. Rothesay’s appointment as lieutenant may also have reflected a change in political influence within the government as a result of the confrontation with Danielston.

The political impetus behind the siege of Dumbarton came from the king’s brother Robert, duke of Albany, who had a considerable interest in the fate of Dumbarton Castle and the sheriffship of Lennox after the death of Sir Robert Danielston. By the terms of an indenture of February 1392¹⁶ between Robert, then earl of Fife, and Duncan, earl of Lennox, Robert’s eldest son, Murdoch, was to marry Lennox’s eldest daughter, to whom the right to the entire earldom of Lennox was to descend. By the same agreement Robert’s son Murdoch and Lennox’s daughter were to be given the lands and barony of Redhall, in Lothian, in conjunctfeftment. On 8 November 1392¹⁷ Robert III gave his consent to the entailing of the earldom of Lennox to Murdoch Stewart and his heirs. From 1392 onwards, then, Robert, earl of Fife (later Albany), had a vested interest in augmenting the territorial and jurisdictional power of the earl of Lennox in the expectation that the ultimate beneficiary of his patronage would be his own son Murdoch.

In the marriage contract of February 1392¹⁸ Robert, earl of Fife, who at that stage was guardian of the kingdom, transferred half of the revenues produced by the justiciary courts of Dumbarton and Stirling from lands within the earldom of Lennox to Duncan, and in a charter which is probably misdated 6 March 1401¹⁹ Robert granted Duncan and his heirs under the terms of the 1392 entail the office of coroner of all the earldom of Lennox. The most important royal officer operating within the bounds of the earldom of Lennox was the sheriff of Dumbarton or Lennox, who also acted as custodian of the royal castle of Dumbarton. Duncan, earl of Lennox, and his father, Walter of Faslane, had already restricted the sheriff’s influence within the earldom by obtaining formal royal grants of the ‘wapinschawings’ or ‘weaponshowings’ of the earldom, specifically exempting the earl, his men, tenants and vassals from the sheriff’s authority in this respect.²⁰ Robert Danielston’s death in 1396–7 raised the possibility that the sheriffship of Dumbarton and the custody of the castle could also be transferred to the earl of Lennox or one of his vassals and thus, in the long term, to the control of Murdoch Stewart. On 8 December 1396,²¹ at Stirling, Robert III confirmed a resignation of the lands and barony of Redhall by his nephew Murdoch Stewart in favour of Sir William Cunningham, the younger, of Kilmaurs. Murdoch’s resignation and the regrant to Sir William Cunningham may well have been part of a deal over the sheriffship of Lennox and the keepership of Dumbarton between Cunningham, who was married to Sir Robert Danielston’s eldest daughter and heiress, and the earls of Fife and Lennox in the wake of Robert Danielston’s death in the winter of 1396. Redhall was the barony which had been given to Murdoch Stewart and the earl of Lennox’s daughter in conjunct fee by the indenture of February 1392, so that Duncan, earl of Lennox, must have given his approval to Murdoch’s resignation. ...