Scotland by Fiona Watson

Author:Fiona Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752496368
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

Robert III, who succeeded his father in 1390, perhaps does deserve his own epitaph as ‘the worst of kings and most miserable of men’. But, yet again, it’s difficult to trace the effects of a superficial weakening in central power on the wider community as the Stewarts began to tear themselves apart. The Scottish nobility, with notable exceptions like the earl of Douglas, largely left them to it.

Robert III also had little difficulty in producing sons, and eventually his eldest, David, began to challenge his uncle, Robert, duke of Albany, to be the power behind the throne. It was a tussle the young prince ultimately lost with his life, prompting the despairing king to send his next son to France for his ‘education’ in 1406. Disaster struck when English pirates boarded Prince James’s boat and took him off for an English education instead. King Robert finally gave up on life completely, leaving his brother to continue as guardian of Scotland without the encumbrance of any near relatives.

Albany perhaps had to accommodate his fellow nobles more convincingly than a king, but it’s hard to point to any real break with tradition in terms of overall crown-magnate relations and the way the country was run. Relations with England continued to be frosty/vaguely accommodating, depending on the circumstances, and we shouldn’t forget that Albany’s own son, Murdoch Stewart, also languished in England after yet another unsuccessful military attempt to regain Berwick in 1402.

Albany died in his eighties in 1420, and Murdoch, released from prison a few years previously, took over as guardian. Four years later he failed to prevent his cousin returning to reassert the active rights of the eldest branch of the family and the first James was crowned king of Scots. Within two years of his return, the Albany Stewarts had been destroyed (Murdoch himself was executed), bringing considerable lands, and therefore income, to King James. A plethora of legislation from parliaments held in the early years of the reign left no-one in any doubt that the new monarch meant business – things had, according to the king, been left to go to the dogs and he was the man to sort it out. Such an attitude was highly likely to put a few noble noses out of joint, since they had been getting on quite happily with the business of running the country without an active king for nearly forty years.

Fourteen years after his return from England, James I paid the ultimate price for increasing arbitrariness and the alienation of key members of the political community. But, yet again, it was members of his own extended family who were responsible for his assassination in 1437. The rest of the nobility were quite prepared to take him to task, refusing to follow him to a siege of Roxburgh (still held by the English) in 1436, but they would not sanction regicide. The dynasty, in the person of the next six-year-old King James, was secure.

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