Tudors Versus Stewarts

by Linda Porter

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  JAMES’S REMOTE STYLE of government and his Anglophile policy won him few friends. Reluctant to distribute patronage, reliant on parliament to raise money through extraordinary taxation and freely availing himself of money from forfeitures of land and casualty payments (revenues accruing to the Crown from the profits of justice), where remissions were being granted at a price and thus undermining the exercise of the law in Scotland, James ploughed on regardless. At home, he debased the coinage to help pay off debts and then hoarded bullion himself. Abroad, he abandoned the long-standing ‘Auld Alliance’ with France, Scotland’s traditional ally against England, for a treaty of peace and a marriage alliance with England. The intention was for the infant Prince James, then only one year old, to marry Princess Cecily, the second daughter of Edward IV. By the late 1470s, at the time his own third son was born to his increasingly estranged queen, James III’s unpopularity was deep-seated. He confined himself largely to Edinburgh, seldom travelling, careless of administering the law in the justice ayres, or travelling assizes, that were viewed as a key aspect of royal authority and visibility in Scotland. Perhaps he felt safe inside the massive walls of Edinburgh Castle, playing and listening to music with his group of favourites, most regarded with disdain as too low-born by his nobility. His distant style of government, his lack of interest in manly pursuits, even his indifferent horsemanship, were completely at odds with what most Scots, high or low, expected from their monarch. But at least his relations with his wife and sons still retained a semblance of normality. The same could hardly be said for his Stewart relatives. Here was animosity on a large scale that would breed the gravest of difficulties.

  The story of James III’s dealings with his half-uncles, his two brothers and two sisters (and, eventually, his eldest son) reads almost like a revenge tragedy by one of the Jacobean playwrights, though, of course, it took place much earlier. Determined to establish his authority in his own family as well as his kingdom, any affection that might, in previous years, have existed between the king and his sisters was long dead. Mary, his elder sister, had been tricked into returning to Scotland from the exile she had shared with the earl of Arran, her first husband, and forced to marry Lord Hamilton, a crony of James III. Margaret, the younger sister, was so appalled at the king’s attempts to force her into marriage with Anthony Woodville, brother-in-law of the king of England, that she deliberately became pregnant by Lord Crichton. Meanwhile, the three half-uncles, the earls of Atholl and Buchan and the bishop-elect of Moray, were all discontented with James’s policies and treatment and were by no means disposed to support him because he was of their blood. But James could live with the behaviour of his sisters, no matter how intensely they disliked him, and his uncles, though unreliable, did not present an immediate threat. The king’s sights were set, instead, on his two brothers, Alexander, duke of Albany, and John, earl of Mar.

  It was a signal disadvantage for a king like James III, utterly lacking in charisma, to have a younger brother who was amply possessed of all the qualities he so conspicuously lacked. His contemporaries saw the duke as a man of action and a true Scottish patriot. They drew the obvious conclusion that his energies and abilities made him a better prospect as king than the taciturn Anglophile currently occupying the throne in 1479. Five years earlier, he had not been on bad terms with James III, but the unpopular permanent alliance with England affected Albany and other Border lords directly, since it forbade their followers to raid into England. Such raiding was a way of life, encompassing family honour and affecting livelihoods, and its sudden cessation did not sit well with the duke of Albany and his neighbours. The Borders were a long-disputed area, full of romance and violence, and the passions that this beautiful country evoked could not be signed away in a treaty, no matter how beneficial peace might have been in the long run. There was much agreement with the anti-English sentiments expressed in the epic poem Blind Harry’s Wallace, published in 1478, which told the tale of the Scottish patriot William Wallace. Wallace’s hatred of the English struck a chord with the Scots:

  Then Wallace said, ‘O Southron! all man-sworn!

  For perfidy such rogues were never born;

  Their former treachery did we not feel?

  Eve’n when the truce was signed with their great seal’3

  From 1474 onwards, when the treaty with England was signed, Albany found that he had a cause and followers. He was plunged into conflict with his brother that grew worse over the next few years. It is no coincidence that Blind Harry’s poem was written with the involvement of Albany’s own steward, Sir James Liddale of Halkerston. Consistently favouring his own affinity, at odds with royal officials, one of whom he was accused of murdering, the final straw for Albany seems to have come early in 1478 when he was pressured into divorcing his first wife, probably to pave the way for an English marriage desired by the king. A year later, James III decided that only military might could bring the duke to heel. Albany was besieged in Dunbar Castle by the king’s forces but managed to flee to France. James’s failure to capture his brother was compounded by the refusal of a recalcitrant parliament to brand the duke a traitor and forfeit his estates.

  Having achieved the worst of all possible outcomes and with his brother now a focus for discontent beyond his reach, with powerful backers, James turned his attention to his youngest brother, John, earl of Mar. The earl had spent most of the 1470s in the north, living in Aberdeen, where he defended the king’s interests. In 1479 he came south to attend parliament but his attitude to the vicious dispute between his two elder brothers is not known. Evidently, it was not positive enough in its support of the king to assuage any fears James might have had about Mar’s loyalty. At the beginning of 1480 he was under arrest and by the summer he was described as dead and forfeited. It seems unlikely that the death was a natural one and while lurid tales of his having been bled to death or drowned in a brewer’s vat cannot be verified, contemporaries certainly believed that the king had ordered Mar’s death. James paid for Masses to be said in St Andrews for his brother’s soul, but this show of remorse did nothing for his reputation and the continued downward spiral of his popularity. Even the collapse of the English peace and renewal of Anglo–Scottish warfare could not salvage James III’s position. Still, he managed to totter on for two more years, until, in the summer of 1482, the long-expected crisis broke. Its focus was the intractable rivalry between James and Albany but it would have the unanticipated outcome of irreparably damaging relations between the king, his wife and his eldest son.

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  THOUGH HE HAD been welcomed in France and provided with a new, very rich wife (Anne de la Tour, daughter of the count of Auvergne), Alexander, duke of Albany, was aiming for the Crown of Scotland and he was prepared to forget his anti-English scruples if this helped him in his goal. It should be stressed that this was not just a flight of fancy on Albany’s part; many Scots, including James III’s unreliable half-uncles, preferred the duke. By June 1482 he had left France and gone to England, where he signed a treaty with Edward IV promising to do homage (an unwelcome reminder of the restraints so hated by William Wallace) and return Berwick and other lands in the Borders in exchange for English support in his quest for the throne of Scotland. In July, accompanied by Richard, duke of Gloucester, and with twenty thousand men at his back, he entered Scotland to confront his brother. James himself, whatever his other deficiencies, was never one to give up meekly. Using the ancient Scottish feudal custom, he had summoned the Scottish host to meet him at Lauder in Berwickshire, there to confront the huge force coming up from England. But battle was never joined because, on 22 July 1482, the king was seized by a group of nobles led by his own half-uncle, the earl of Buchan, and the earl of Angus. Several of his closest favourites – men accused, as was traditional, of giving him bad counsel – were hanged over Lauder Bridge. James III himself was taken back to Edinburgh, where the great castle that had long been his chosen residence now became his prison. But his
captors refused to give up their king while the English army remained on Scottish soil. By mid-August, Gloucester and his forces had left, allowing Albany himself to claim that he had helped avoid bloodshed and devastation. And while James III remained confined for his own good, Albany went to Stirling to discuss his brother’s future, and that of the heir, Prince James, with Queen Margaret.

  After the birth of her third son, the queen seems to have spent most of her time at Stirling, living in the impressively sited castle above the town. If she had not played a major role in Scottish politics before 1482, the events of that summer propelled her centre stage. Entrusted with the education and upbringing of Prince James (then known as the duke of Rothesay, the traditional title of the heir to the Scottish throne), in stark contrast to England, where queens consort played little part in the preparation of their sons for kingship, Margaret now found herself consulted by her brother-in-law and those who held her husband. How much she knew in advance of the plans to seize and hold James III cannot be stated with certainty but she was definitely involved from the moment the king returned, in captivity, to Edinburgh. For the preceding five years, the queen had held the custodianship of Edinburgh Castle, a position that allowed her to dispense patronage by nominating her choices for its staff. The keeper of the castle was Lord Darnley, grandfather of the second husband of Mary Queen of Scots. In 1482, the older Darnley acted as the king’s jailer. He was, as has been pointed out, Margaret’s man. So, too, was James Shaw of Sauchie, keeper of Stirling Castle, who would play a significant role in the final crisis of James III’s reign six years later. During the king’s detention, Shaw supplied food to the king’s half-uncles in Edinburgh Castle. Though this lends credence to the view that the queen knew beforehand of the intention to incarcerate her husband, it does not mean that she wanted him overthrown, even if her eldest boy might become king in his place. In fact, she began to negotiate for James III’s release, while discussing with Albany plans for the education and development of Prince James.

  Albany sought out the queen and the prince in August or September of 1482 because he needed their support. His aim was to become lieutenant general of Scotland, either ruling for his hamstrung brother or for his young nephew. By now he had accepted that deposition of James III was not acceptable to the queen or the majority of Scots and that any hopes he might have entertained of ruling himself were lost. During his visit to Stirling, Margaret seems to have persuaded him that her husband must be released while being open to his taking some part in the education of Prince James. Well aware of the danger that continued instability posed, and perhaps genuinely concerned to limit the humiliation of her husband, she had to tread carefully in what was an unprecedented situation. The king languished under restraint, frightened that he might be assassinated at any moment, while his rebellious brother sought to influence his wife and eldest son on the future shape of the monarchy.

  We do not know what passed between Margaret, Albany and Prince James. No record of their conversation survives and it would, in any case, have been unwise to commit anything to paper. When Albany went back to Edinburgh he rather ostentatiously besieged the castle, thereby securing the release of James III. He then placated the greedy and duplicitous half-uncles with lands and titles and proceeded to style himself lieutenant general of Scotland and earl of Mar, an unsubtle reminder of the mysterious fate of his younger brother. But he was not trusted by many of the nobility. His ambition seemed too vaunting and his involvement with England was hard to stomach. During the winter of 1482–3, as the struggle for power continued, some of the northern lords and the Scottish parliament swung away from Albany, remembering belatedly that their primary allegiance should be to the king. The death of Edward IV of England deprived Albany of a key supporter and for a couple of years, as the English struggled with their own dynastic crisis, James III was left to recoup his position. Not that his flamboyant brother was done quite yet, for the duke made several more attempts to impose himself on Scotland, one of which culminated in a daring escape from Edinburgh Castle, before he met what might be viewed as a fitting end, dying of wounds sustained while jousting in a Paris tournament in late 1485.

  The events of 1482 brought home to the young Prince James, in a way that no formal education could have done, the harsh realities of late fifteenth-century Scottish politics. Suddenly thrust into the limelight, he knew how close he was to the throne. It was, though, a realization that was as uncomfortable as it was thrilling. Although he did not live in a bubble in Stirling, his days up until now had been predictable, passed under the guidance of his mother and the precepts of his tutors, with his two younger brothers for companionship and support. We do not know how often he saw his father but there is no reason to suppose that their relationship was in any way difficult before 1482. However, in that year the prince learned that the king had been imprisoned by his own relatives and had seen his mother acting as an arbiter in dealings with James III’s captors and his uncle, a potential usurper. In front of this man who had brought an English army to humble his own father, James heard the queen discuss plans for his continuing education, listening as views on the best way to equip him for the throne were exchanged. For a nine-year-old, accustomed to seeing his mother as a gentle but firm shaper of his general behaviour and conduct, witnessing how she handled herself in a time of such crisis must have been a revelation. His own importance to Scotland had been vividly brought home to him. Yet the comforting certainties of childhood had gone, to be replaced by an altogether more complex existence. For though the prince could scarcely be held accountable for what had happened, James III could not forget that his eldest son had been sought out by a traitor and knew well that he had nearly lost his throne. What ambitions might have entered the boy’s mind he did not know, but he suspected that they were there and that they would only increase with the passing years. The threat to his throne was contained for the time being but it had not truly gone away.

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  GIVEN THE SERIOUSNESS of the crisis that had nearly engulfed him, a less stubborn man than James III might have re-examined his policies, sought to build reliable friendships among the leading men of Scotland and strengthened family relationships. Such was not James’s way, however. Resentful and suspicious, he would not change. Encouraged by papal support and the improvement of relations with England that followed on the succession of Henry VII, he continued to assume that international success would keep him secure on the Scottish throne. It was later claimed by Margaret’s Italian biographer that he never forgave his wife for her role in 1482: ‘After his release, he reposed more hatred than previously in the Queen, because of her consent to his arrest; as a result he kept her at a distance of thirty miles … He was unwilling ever to see her again, either in life or in death – a period of three years.’4 There is no firm evidence to support this assertion, since Margaret’s main residence had been at Stirling for some years. Details of James’s itinerary for this period are lost, so we cannot be certain that he never saw his wife or sons again and his dislike of the queen, if such was indeed the case, did not extend to removing her children from her or lessening her influence on their upbringing. When Margaret died in July 1486, she was buried with full regal pomp at Cambuskenneth Abbey and her husband endowed daily Masses for her soul. It is unlikely that he did this merely for form’s sake but her death left the king free to marry again, if he chose, and to give serious consideration to the future of his eldest son. And it is in the king’s attitude towards Prince James at this time that a clearer picture of the tensions that had grown over four years begins to emerge.

  The prince was thirteen years old at the time of his mother’s death and her loss was hard to bear. She had raised him carefully, to be mindful of who he was but not puffed up with pride. ‘By her wish, he carved at table and gave her water for her hands, although she had plenty of servants. She said she did this so that he might know how to command servants when he grew up.’5 The deathbed exhortations to her eldest son ar
e no doubt overdramatized, but they probably do express sentiments that she genuinely held:

  James, my eldest boy, I am speeding towards death; I pray you, through your obedience as my son, to love and fear God, always doing good, because nothing achieved by violence, be certain, can endure. Hold your brothers as dear to you as your own soul. When you succeed to your father’s Kingdom, above all else love the people as yourself, with justice, mercy, generosity and affection. Be ready to hear them. Do not fear toil. Take care to keep your subjects united and to preserve the kingdom in peace and tranquillity. See that justice is not violated by greed, which vitiates glory … be generous with moderation, as is the custom of wise Kings … Finally, see that, as the sun is known by the clouds, you are too; as a King is different from the people in dress, so must he be in conduct and virtue.6

  There is much in this little homily that seems like an implicit criticism of the boy’s father. Prince James would soon learn that his father did not set much store by either the family or national unity that his mother valued so highly.

  As heir to the throne, the prince might have expected his father to take a more personal interest and to include him in the life of the court, perhaps even allow him to attend council meetings and gain some direct experience of administration. But no such move was made. Young James remained at Stirling with his brothers, in isolation made more poignant without his mother, under the supervision of James Shaw. It was a quiet existence only occasionally enlivened by talk of a new potential marriage with a niece of Richard III. The battle of Bosworth put paid to such prospects and in the first years of Henry VII’s reign the diplomatic negotiations for Scottish royal marriages revolved around James III himself, with Elizabeth Woodville, mother-in-law to the new king of England, as a potential bride for the Scottish king (an intriguing union indeed, but one that never took place) and the marquess of Ormonde, middle son of James III and Margaret of Denmark, who was proposed as the husband of another of Edward IV’s daughters, Katherine. Prince James found himself sidelined, left out altogether from discussions in 1486 and linked only to an unspecified daughter of Edward IV the following year – a curious circumstance, since there were no further Yorkist princesses available by then. Possibly James III was considering a grander foreign match for his eldest son but it certainly looked as though the king was ignoring him, especially when the marquess of Ormonde was given the title of duke of Ross in January 1488 in preparation for the match with Princess Katherine. It was almost certainly no coincidence that within a month of his younger brother’s elevation, Prince James, duke of Rothesay, slipped out of Stirling Castle without the king’s permission, on 2 February 1488, to join a growing band of rebels who once again threatened his father’s throne.