James II

Christine McGladdery

• Publisher: John Donald
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781904607892
• eBook ISBN: 9781788853651
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

In this study of the reign of James II of Scotland, the king is viewed in the context of the Stewart monarchy, from his struggles to overcome his early adversity and the legacy of his father's style of kingship, to the serious political crises of his reign. The relations between the king and his subjects, and the complex balance of power in medieval Scotland are examined, particularly the significant crisis precipitated by James II's attack on the Black Douglases, the greatest of all late medieval magnate families. The changing nature of political involvement among the nobility and the role of Parliament in influencing events are explored, as are the efforts of the king to recover and promote royal authority in the final years of his reign. The role of James II in the wider European context is also studied with a view to shedding light on contemporary perceptions of the Stewart monarchy both at home and abroad. The study is based on contemporary chronicle and official sources, and consideration is also given to later, highly coloured views of James II, which have influenced popular views of the king to the present day.

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...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Foreword
• Preface: The King with ‘the fyre mark in his face’
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Maps and Genealogical Tables
• Chapter 1: The Legacy of James I (1424-1437)
• Chapter 2: Protecting the Rights of the Crown (1437-1440)
• Chapter 3: The Principle of Consent (1440-1445)
• Chapter 4: The Rise of the ‘New’ Black Douglases (1445-1449)
• Chapter 5: Ambition and Assertion (1450-1452)
• Chapter 6: Confrontation and Crisis (1453-1455)
• Chapter 7: Recovery and Compromise (1455-1456)
• Chapter 8: Consolidation and the Road to War (1457-1460)
• Chapter 9: Profile of a King – the Sources
• Chapter 10: Establishing Perceptions
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Appendix: The Auchinleck Chronicle
• Bibliography
• Index