by Allan Massie
For all the lords of their land were left them behind,
Behind Brymstone in a brook breathless they lie
Gaping against the moon, their ghosts were away.14
Besides the King, his favourite bastard son, the Archbishop of St Andrews, Alexander15 was killed, as were the Bishop of the Isles, two abbots and the Dean of Glasgow. Nine of Scotland’s twenty-one earls fell at Flodden, and fourteen other lords of Parliament. At least 300 knights and lairds were among the dead. The Royal Burgh of Selkirk sent eighty men to Flodden; only one returned home.16
James’s body was found with ‘diverse deadly wounds’. It was stripped and taken to Berwick, where it was embalmed and placed in a lead coffin, which was later brought to London and placed in the Carthusian monastery of Sheen, near Richmond, until Henry VIII decided where his brother-in-law, the King of Scots, should be buried. It seems to have been a matter of no great moment to him, and the coffin was left at Sheen in a storeroom. It disappeared when that monastery was dissolved more than twenty years later, and no one knows where the bones of Scotland’s Renaissance king found their last resting place.
Chapter 8
James V (1513–42): People’s King or Tyrant?
James V was the first Scottish king for five generations to die in his own bed, which he did abruptly, aged only thirty, of no discernible cause. It is perhaps proper that his death should have been mysterious, for much in his life is baffling. His character, like that of his grandfather James III, was enigmatic; all the more so because, although we have more information about the fifth James, it is difficult, even impossible, to determine what manner of man he was.
On the one hand he was remembered fondly by the common people, stories about his habit of travelling in disguise among them being told for generations after his death. On the other hand he frequently showed himself to be harsh to the point, it has been suggested, of sadism, bitterly resentful, unforgiving to his enemies, greedy and covetous, willing to pervert justice when his interest was at stake. He alienated most of the Scots nobility, and eventually found himself unable to assemble a loyal army. ‘Taking into account his vindictiveness, his ruthlessness and his cruelty, as well as his acquisitiveness, he must,’ Gordon Donaldson judged, ‘have been one of the most unpopular monarchs who ever sat on the Scottish throne.’ He quotes an observer who, in 1537, declared: ‘So sore a dread king and so ill-beloved of his subjects, was never in that land. Every man that hath any substance fearing to have a quarrel made to begin therefore.’1
Only eighteen months old when his father was killed at Flodden, he never knew what it was not to be king. His mother, Margaret Tudor, was made regent and tutrix – that is, guardian – of her infant son. This testifies to her strength of character, given that her husband had been killed in a war against her brother. As regent, her power was provisional, her authority necessarily more limited than that of a king. Unlike a reigning monarch, an unpopular or incompetent regent could always be removed without threatening the stability of the state. All kings had to pay heed to the opinions of their Council, but a regent, being no more than first among equals, could be successful only if he or she pursued policies that had general approval.
The position of a female regent was especially precarious. There was no tradition of being governed by a woman, and it was generally accepted that a widow who had inherited great estates would marry again. When the widow was a queen and mother of the infant king, her choice of husband was politically important. Margaret married again in 1514, with what some considered indecent speed. Her new husband was Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, the grandson of old Bell-the-Cat. Few had much regard for him; one of his uncles had called him ‘a young witless fool’. The marriage was immediately unpopular with other magnates. Prompted by them, the Estates formally demanded that Margaret be deprived of both her position in the Council and the guardianship of the young King. In her place they summoned John Stewart, Duke of Albany, from France, where he had lived all his life, and appointed him governor of Scotland. He was the son of James III’s turbulent brother Alexander, and so the great-uncle of the little King. Fortunately Albany was a very different man from his violent and treacherous father, being sensible, public-spirited and trustworthy. Though he was heir presumptive to the throne, he had no ambition to occupy it, partly perhaps because he had been brought up speaking French and was fluent in neither Scots nor English. Next in line of succession was James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, another grandson of James II, but he did not dispute the appointment of Albany and may indeed have been one of those who proposed it.
Flodden had been as disastrous a battle as any in Scotland’s history, but it did not lead either to panic or a change of policy. Indeed, before Albany’s arrival from France, there were even tentative plans to renew the war the following year, though in the weeks after the battle, the Council, fearing an English invasion, gave orders for the fortifications of Edinburgh to be extended. A new wall was built that enclosed the suburbs on the southern side, including the convent of Greyfriars, the church of St Mary-in-the-Fields, and the country houses of rich merchants, lawyers and other notables. Portions of this Flodden Wall still stand, but the precautions proved unnecessary. Surrey made no attempt to follow up his victory. He had cleared the Scots out of England and that was enough. Besides, his own army had been badly mauled too, and he at once dismissed most of the feudal levies, smugly telling King Henry how much money he had saved him by doing so. In Scotland, talk of a new campaign evaporated, rendered unnecessary, even if ever practical, by the announcement of a peace treaty between England and France.
The years of James’s minority were dominated by the shifting alliances among the nobility. Inasmuch as any consistent thread can be discerned, it took the form of argument between those who held by the French alliance and those who favoured an accommodation with England. Some were motivated by patriotism, a consideration of what was best for Scotland; others, perhaps more numerous, by personal ambition. Those who promoted an English alliance could expect to be well rewarded by Henry. Given his background, it is natural that Albany should have stood by the Auld Alliance, but it is characteristic of the confusion and uncertainties of the time that the Queen Dowager, Margaret, should have belonged first to one party, then the other. In 1515, after her unpopular marriage, she and Angus withdrew to England, where she gave birth to a daughter, Lady Margaret Douglas.2 However, while Albany was temporarily absent in France, where he had gone to attend to his estates, Margaret and Angus were able to return to Scotland, hoping to re-establish their political position and leaving their infant daughter in the care of her uncle, Henry VIII. Soon, though, a quarrel broke out between the couple, partly because Angus had seized control of his wife’s revenues, partly because of his infidelity. They separated, the Queen Dowager now expressing her hatred for her husband,3 and despite being English herself, she joined the pro-French party. This weakened Angus’s position as a rival to Albany, but as a great nobleman and the chief agent of the English king in Scotland, he retained a deal of authority. Yet being wayward and quick-tempered, he soon fell out with almost everyone, even the Earl of Arran, despite their shared preference for an English alliance. In 1520 the feud betwen the two noblemen boiled over with a running battle in the capital between their followers, when Arran’s men were driven out by the Douglases; it became known as ‘Cleanse the Causeway’ and was symptomatic of the turbulence of these years of the King’s minority.
Albany returned, revived the pro-French party, made two unsuccessful raids into England, which cost him much support among the nobility, and in 1524 left Scotland for ever, returning to France, where he would act as the Scottish ambassador till he died in 1536. But he also served the French king, Francis I, acting as his envoy to the Pope, and arranging the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Henry II, to the Pope’s niece, Catherine de Medici (previously proposed as a bride for the young King James). While there he also obtained papal approval in 1527 for the annulment of Margaret’s marr
iage to Angus. Her brother, Henry VIII, already embroiled in his attempt to secure an annulment of his own marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which would enable him to marry Anne Boleyn, must have envied the ease with which his sister had been freed of an unwelcome husband.
Angus, however, was not finished. In Albany’s absence he dominated the Council, and as the head of the pro-English party became in fact, though not in name, regent. He was powerful enough by 1526, the year before the annulment of his marriage, to take possession of the young King, now aged fourteen, and to make a treaty with England. A previous Council decree had stipulated that the King should reside in turn with four great magnates – Angus, Arran, the Earl of Lennox and his own mother – but Angus felt powerful enough to disregard this decree and refused to surrender the King’s person. Meanwhile, he sought to bolster his position by granting lands and the principal offices in the state and the royal household to his supporters and members of his extended family. According to Pitscottie, ‘The tyranny of the house of Douglas became every day more intolerable to the nation. To bear the name was esteemed sufficient to cover the most atrocious crime, even in the streets of the capital; and during the sitting of parliament, a baron who had murdered his opponent on the threshold of the principal church, was permitted to walk openly abroad, solely because he was a Douglas.’4
Angus’s supremacy did not last. It provoked the resentment of the young King, of all those nobles excluded from power and influence, and of the pro-French party, now headed by James Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews and chancellor from the year of Flodden until he was displaced by Angus. The young King, eager to escape the Earl’s control, contrived to resume communication with his mother, now married to her third husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Methven.5 She held Stirling Castle, and as soon as James was assured of a welcome and refuge there, he made plans to escape.
In the late summer of 1528, Angus had left him at Falkland Castle in Fife, under the guard of his own uncle, Archibald, his brother George, and another kinsman, James Douglas of Parkhead, captain of the guard. A few days after Angus’s departure, Archibald went to Dundee on private business and George to St Andrews, apparently to investigate some matter connected with the finances of the diocese, leaving the King in the charge of James Douglas and a hundred-strong guard. The King then proposed that they should spend the next day hunting and that invitations be sent to certain Fife lairds, for, he said, ‘he was determined to slay a deer or two for his pleasure’. He asked for his ‘disjeuner’6 to be served at four in the morning, and urged James Douglas to go to bed early so that he might rise the sooner. Then, when all was quiet, he eluded the sentries – one wonders if they were bribed or perhaps drunk – and with only two servants, one a stable boy named Jockie Hart, who provided the horses, escaped and rode hard for Stirling, reaching the castle as dawn was breaking. The gates were closed behind him, in case of a pursuit, and the captain of his mother’s guard ‘laid the King in his bed, because he had ridden all that night’.
Pitscottie in his chronicle takes up the story:
We will lat him sleep in his bed, and return to George Douglas, who came home to Falkland at eleven hours at night, and required at the porters what the King was doing, who answered that he was in his own chamber sleeping, who was to rise tymous to the hunting, and right so said the watchmen. George hearing this went to his bed, till on the morn that the sun rose. Then came Patrick Carmichael, Baillie of Abernethie, and knocked at George Douglas’s chamber door, and inquired of him what the king was doing. George answered that he was not waked as yet in his own chamber. The Baillie answered: ‘Ye are deceaved; he is along the bridge of Stirling this night.’ Then George Douglas gat up hastily and went to the porters and watchmen and inquired for the King, who still answered that he was sleeping in his own chamber. Then George Douglas came to the king’s chamber door and found it locked, and dang it up, but found no man in it. Then he cried, ‘Fye, treason, the King is gone.’7
Pitscottie’s account is vivid and suitably dramatic, yet open to question. How, one wonders, could Baillie Carmichael have had the information he relayed? And if he did somehow know that the King had ridden to Stirling, it was surely bold to the point of rashness to reveal it to George Douglas. Moreover, there is some confusion in his narrative, for he goes on to relate that some said the King had slipped out ‘to visit a gentlewoman’ at Bambriefe. This seems to have been thought credible, for though James was only sixteen, it is said that Angus had not neglected to supply him with women who might serve as a distraction – and indeed he would have at least three illegitimate children before he was twenty. But the Douglases’ hope was soon disappointed. The bird had indeed flown. Angus was sent for urgently and hurried from his castle of Tantallon on the other side of the Forth, and then they mustered their forces and headed for Stirling in a desperate attempt to retrieve the situation.
They were met with news that a herald had been sent to the town cross to proclaim a royal decree that neither Angus nor any of his company should approach within six miles of the King upon pain of death. Some would have defied the command, but perhaps they were too weak; perhaps the Earl’s nerve cracked. At any rate they withdrew to Linlithgow to await events. By this time other nobles were congregating at Stirling protesting their loyalty, among them Archbishop Beaton. A few months earlier he had been so fearful of Angus that he had gone into hiding disguised as a shepherd. Then he had apparently made peace with the Earl, resuming control of his diocese and entertaining Angus and the King for the Easter feast. It may be, however, that he already knew of the King’s plans and had perhaps detained George Douglas at St Andrews in order to facilitate the escape. Certainly some must have been apprised of it; otherwise it is difficult to see how so many of the nobility could have rallied so quickly to the King.
James made his way to Edinburgh where he summoned a Council that proclaimed Angus, his brother and uncle to be traitors, forbidding anyone to have intercourse with them or offer them help or risk being held as their accomplices. The King laid forth all the grounds of his complaints. The Douglases were dismissed from all offices and the Council sent an envoy to England to inform Henry that the government of Scotland was now in the King’s own hands. For a few weeks Angus held out in Tantallon Castle, but his position was hopeless. He sued for peace, surrendering the castle in return for a promise (which, surprisingly perhaps, was kept) that he should be allowed to go into exile in England. Other members of the family would be less fortunate. Angus’s brother-in-law, the Master of Forbes, was charged with plotting to kill the King and was executed. The Earl’s sister Lady Glamis was condemned for conspiring to poison James and was burned. (She had previously been acquitted of an attempt to poison her own husband.) James Douglas of Parkhead, the jailer the King had outwitted, was also put to death, and other members of the family, including the young Earl of Morton, found their estates forfeited.
The reversal, which may even be described as a royal coup, had political consequences. Angus, inasmuch as he had any political aims other than the securing of his own power, had been the leader of the pro-English faction. It was natural that James, in his detestation of his former stepfather, should be confirmed in his preference for the French alliance. Andrew Lang, nineteenth-century historian, essayist, poet and collector of folklore, marked its significance:
James became implacable to the whole Douglas name. But to shake off and break down the Douglases, a thing desirable in itself, was to turn away from England, the patron of the Douglases, to turn away from Protestantism, to court France, and to choose the doomed cause of Catholicism in the north…These dull and squalid intrigues of a selfish, sensual termagant [Margaret Tudor] and her unscrupulously ambitious husband Angus, determined the fate of the Stuart line. They were to lean on France and lose three crowns for a mass. Exile, the executioner’s axe, and broken hearts were to be their reward in a secular series of sorrows flowing from the long minority and unhappy environment of James V.8
This was to read h
istory backwards, or to interpret it in deterministic fashion. The fate of the Stuart line would indeed unfold in the manner Lang describes. But it need not have done so. There were to be many moments in the following two centuries when different decisions might have been taken, different policies pursued. What happened – the ultimate failure of the Stuarts – was the course history took. Nothing can alter that. Yet one does not have to be a devotee of what is called counter-factual history to believe that the course of the river of history might have been diverted into other channels.
Freed from the control of the Douglases, James, at the age of seventeen, took charge of the government himself. His first aim was to restore the authority of the Crown and to bring the country to a degree of order. With this intention he made an expedition in 1529 into the notoriously lawless Borders. That country had been ravaged by the recurrent wars with England, and the Border clans or families made raids indifferently across the frontier, into the Lowlands, and on each other. They were thieves and murderers, but not lacking in a certain glamour, and their wild way of life is immortalised in the great ‘Riding Ballads’ of the borderland.
James was determined to pacify the Borders. The exercise was billed as a ‘justice ayre’ (or eyre), but was really a punitive miliary expedition. He seized several of the most prominent Border barons, among them the Earl of Bothwell, Scott of Buccleuch, lords Home and Maxwell, Ker of Fernihurst, and various Elliots, and imprisoned them. Then he summoned one of the most celebrated reivers (brigands), Johnnie Armstrong of Gilknockie, to meet him at Carlinrig on the road between Hawick and Langholm. Armstrong was a notable scoundrel, guilty of many thefts and murders either side of the border – a sixteenth-century mafioso; but one with a style and panache that had won him the admiration of many. According to a ballad published by Scott in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, the King had sent him a promise of safe conduct:
