Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/583

JAMES 557 Oaigmillar castle in circumstances so suspicious that he was generally believed to have been murdered ; and the duke of Albany the elder, making his escape from Edinburgh castle to France, afterwards in 1482 came to an agreement with Edward IV. to hold the kingdom as his vassal. The rivalry of Albany was the more formidable because James by the preference which he showed for artists and musicians and by his retired and reserved manners had alienated the majority of the nobility. While James in the summer of this year was leading an army against England, the nobles, headed by Douglas, suddenly at Lauder seized Cochrane and several of the king s other favourites, and, having hanged them before his eyes, returned with their royal captive to Edinburgh castle. On this Albany suddenly made his appearance, and, having demanded and received the king s liberty, assumed with apparently no objection on the part of James the sovereignty of the kingdom, until an accusa tion for treasonable connexions with England compelled him to flee thither. For some years after this Scotland enjoyed both outward and inward tranquillity, but the jealousy of the nobles against the king s favourites induced them ^n 1488, along with the young prince, afterwards James IV., to raise the standard of rebellion. The two armies met at the stream of Sauchieburn, near Stirling, but hardly had they come to blows when the king fled in panic from the field. In his flight he was thrown from his horse, and being received into the cottage of a miller near Bannock- burn, was there (June 11) stabbed to death by a person unknown, undoubtedly a straggler from the hostile army. JAMES IV. (1472-1513), king of Scotland, son of James III., was born March 17, 1472, and on the death of his father in 1488 was crowned king at Scone, probably on June 26th. As he not only adopted an entirely opposite policy with the nobles from his father, but also showed great affability towards the lower classes of his subjects, among whom he delighted to wander incognito, few kings of Scot land won such general popularity or passed a reign so un troubled by intestine broils. His libertinism was overlooked on account of his open and friendly bearing, and was to some extent atoned for by his hardiness and courage and his just and temperate rule. So slight were the attempts at insur rection on his accession to the throne that they scarcely required repression; and, although in 1491 Lord Both- well and others entered into an agreement with Henry VII. to seize his person, the circumstances were always such as either not to require or not to favour the carrying out of the project. Indeed, Henry seems throughout to have greatly preferred the friendship of the Scotch monarch either to his active hostility or his enforced submission; and accordingly, although James- had welcomed " Perkin Warbeck," the pretender to the English throne, and made a futile invasion of England in support of his claims, Henry after Warbeck left Scotland in 1497 was willing to forget all old causes of enmitj 7 . In September of that year a truce of seven years was negotiated between the two monarchs, and in August 1503 the alliance was confirmed by the marriage of James with the princess Margaret of England, a union which led eventually in default of the Tudors to the accession of the Stuart dynasty to the English throne. Of the peace with England James took ad vantage to establish order in the Highlands, where he intro duced a more complete legal jurisdiction. After the accession of Henry VIII. it became apparent that the friendly relations with England were no longer possible; and, James, having several private grounds of quarrel, was induced by the king of France to venture in 1513 on an invasion of England. His methods of warfare seem, however, to have been formed chiefly according to notions borrowed from the knightly tourneys, the organization of which had made him famous throughout Europe ; and on the threshold of his enterprise he was slain on the 9th September at Flodden Field, his death and the disastrous rout of his army being due to his rash and quixotic bravery. JAMES V. (1512-1542), king of Scotland, son of James IV., was born at Linlithgow 10th April 1512, and crowned king at Scone in October 1513. At first the regency was vested in his mother, but after her marriage with the earl of Angus in 1514 the office was transferred by the estates to the duke of Albany. The English forebore to follow up their victory at Flodden, but the close connexion of Albany with France now aroused thejealousyof Henry VIII., and Scotland was continually exposed to more or less serious attacks from the English until Albany, to whose arrogant bearing and French manners and habits not even the enmity against him of Henry could reconcile the estates, finally in 1524 took his departure to the country of his choice. Upon this James, through the scheming of Henry, was " erected " king in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, ruling the kingdom by the advice of his mother and the lords in council. In 1526 James was persuaded to choose as his governor the earl of Angus, who kept him in close confine ment until May 1528, when he made his escape from Falkland, and put such vigorous measures in execution against Angus as compelled him to flee to England. In 1532 Angus, taking advantage of the discontent in the south of Scotland caused by the king s conduct towards the Armstrongs, and of the distracted condition of the Highlands, aided an English raid on the borders ; but shortly afterwards negotiations for peace were begun, and a treaty was finally signed in 1534. In January 1537 James was married to Madeleine of France, but, she dying in July of the same year, he in June 1538 espoused Mary of Lorraine. Henry VIII. was by no means satisfied with the influence he exercised in Scotch affairs, or the amount of deference he received from his nephew; and, his jealousy receiving special provocation from the interest taken by James in foreign politics, he in 1542 despatched an expedi tion against Scotland, which failed from want of a com missariat. James determined to make reprisals, but owing to the indecision of the nobles, who had no love of the enterprise, his army was scattered at the rout of Solway Moss on the 25th November. On the 14th December fol lowing James died at Falkland. His successor was his daughter Mary, born seven days before his death. Though possessing a weak constitution which was further impaired by his irregular manner of life, James manifested great vigour and independence as a sovereign, both in withstand ing the machinations of his uncle and opposing the influence of the nobles. The persecutions to which the Protestants were exposed during his reign were, however, due to the excessive influence exercised by the ecclesiastics, especially David Beaton, archbishop of St Andrews. The king s habit of mingling with the peasantry secured him a large amount of popularity, and has led many to ascribe to him the authorship of three poems descriptive of scenes in lower class life Christis Kirk on the Grene, The Gaberlunzie Man, and The Jolly Beggar. There is no proof that he was the author of any of these poems, but from expressions in the poems of Sir David Lyndsay, who was on terms of special intimacy with him, it would appear that he occasion ally wrote verses. JAMES I. (1566-1625), king of England. This sovereign, James VI. of Scotland, in whom the crowns of Scotland and England were united, was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and of Henry, Lord Darnley, and was born in the castle of Edinburgh 19th June 1566. His mother while in captivity having been forced to abdicate the sovereignty, James was crowned king at Stirling July 29, 1567. The regency was vested in the earl of Murray, who by his masterly political skill and force of character held