CHAPTER II.

JAMES THE FIRST.
1424—1437.

In James the First Scotland was at
length destined to receive a sovereign
of no common character and endow­
ments. We have seen that when a
boy of fourteen he was seized by the
English, and from that time till his
return in 1424, twenty years of his
life, embracing the period of all others
the most important and decisive in
the formation of future character, had
been passed in captivity. If unjust
in his detention, Henry the Fourth
appears to have been anxious to com­
pensate for his infringement of the
law of nations by the care which he
bestowed upon the education of the
youthful monarch. He was instructed
in all the warlike exercises, and in the
high-bred observances and polished
manners of the school of chivalry; he
was generously provided with masters
in the various arts and sciences; and
as it was the era of the revival of
learning in England, the age especially
of the rise of poetic literature in
Chaucer and Gower, his mind and
imagination became deeply infected
with a passion for those elegant pur­
suits. But James, during his long
captivity, enjoyed far higher advan­
tages. He was able to study the arts
of government, to make his observa­
tions on the mode of administering
justice in England, and to extract
wisdom and experience from a per-

¹ Rymer, Fœdera, vol. x. pp. 333, 343.
Dated April 5, 1425.

sonal acquaintance with the disputes
between the sovereign and his nobility;
whilst in the friendship and confidence
with which he appears to have been
uniformly treated by Henry the Fifth,
who made him the partner of his cam­
paigns in France, he became acquainted
with the politics of both countries, re­
ceived his education in the art of war
from one of the greatest captains whom
it has produced; and, from his not
being personally engaged, had leisure
to avail himself to the utmost of the
opportunities which his peculiar situa­
tion presented. There were other
changes also which were then gradu­
ally beginning to manifest themselves
in the political condition of the two
countries, which, to his acute and dis­
cerning mind, must necessarily have
presented a subject of thought and
speculation—I mean the repeated ris­
ings of the commons against the in­
tolerable tyranny of the feudal nobility,
and the increased wealth and conse­
quence of the middle classes of the
state; events which, in the moral his­
tory of those times, are of deep interest
and importance, and of which the
future monarch of Scotland was a per­
sonal observer. The school, therefore,
in which James was educated seems
to have been eminently qualified to
produce a wise and excellent king;
and the history of his reign corrobor­
ates this observation.

On entering his kingdom, James

1424.]                                                JAMES I.                                                      51

proceeded to Edinburgh, where he held
the festival of Easter; and on the
twenty-first of May he and his queen
were solemnly crowned in the Abbey
Church of Scone. According to an
ancient hereditary right, the king was
placed in the royal seat by the late
governor, Murdoch, duke of Albany
and earl of Fife, whilst Henry Ward-
law, bishop of St Andrews, the same
faithful prelate to whom the charge
of his early education had been com­
mitted, anointed his royal master, and
placed the crown upon his head, amid
a crowded assembly of the nobility
and clergy, and the shouts and re­
joicings of the people. The king then
proceeded to bestow the honour of
knighthood upon Alexander Stewart,
the younger son of the Duke of Albany;
upon the Earls of March, Angus, and
Crawford; William Hay of Errol, con­
stable of Scotland, John Scrymgeour,
constable of Dundee, Alexander Seton
of Gordon, and eighteen others of the
principal nobility and barons; ¹ after
which he convoked his parliament on
the 26th of May, and proceeded to the
arduous task of inquiring into the
abuses of the government, and adopt­
ing measures for their reformation.

Hitherto James had been but im­
perfectly informed regarding the
extent to which the government of
Albany and his feeble successor had
promoted, or permitted, the grossest
injustice and the most unlicensed
peculation. He had probably sus­
pected that the picture had been ex­
aggerated ; and with that deliberate
policy which constituted a striking
part of his character, he resolved to
conduct his investigations in person,
before he gave the slightest hint of
his ultimate intentions. It is said,
indeed, that when he first entered the
kingdom, the dreadful description
given by one of his nobles of the un­
bridled licentiousness and contempt
of the laws which everywhere pre­
vailed threw him for a moment off his
guard. “ Let God but grant me life,”
cried he, with a loud voice, “ and there
shall not be a spot in my dominions

¹ Extracta ex Chronicis Scotiæ, MS. fol. 269,
270. Fordun a Groodal, vol. ii. p. 474.

where the key shall not keep the
castle, and the furze-bush the cow,
though I myself should lead the life
of a dog to accomplish it! " ² This,
however, was probably spoken in con­
fidence, for the object of the king was
to inform himself of the exact con­
dition of his dominions without excit­
ing alarm, or raising a suspicion, which
might foster opposition and induce
concealment. The very persons who
sat in this parliament, and through
whose assistance the investigation
must be conducted, were themselves
the worst defaulters; an imprudent
word escaping him, and much more
a sudden imprisonment or a hasty,
perhaps an unsuccessful, attempt at
impeachment, would have been the
signal for the nobles to fly to their
estates and shut themselves up in their
feudal castles, where they could have
defied every effort of the king to ap­
prehend them; and in this way all his
plans might have been defeated or in­
definitely protracted, and the country
plunged into something approaching
to a civil war.

The three estates of the realm hav­
ing been assembled, certain persons
were elected for the determination of
the “Articles" to be proposed to them
by the king, leave of returning home
being given to the other members of
the parliament. Committees of parlia­
ment had already been introduced by
David the Second, on the ground of
general convenience, and the anxiety
of the barons and landholders to be
present on their estates during the
time of harvest.³ From this period
to the present time, embracing an in­
terval of more than half a century,
the destruction of the records of the
parliaments of Robert the Second
and Third, and of the government of
Albany and his son, renders it impos­
sible to trace the progress of this im­
portant change, by which we now
find the Lords of the Articles “ certe
persone ad articulos,” an acknowledged
institution, in the room of the par­
liamentary committees of David the

²  Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 511.

³  Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, sub
anno 1424, History, supra, vol. i. p. 263.

52                                 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                     [Chap. II.

Second ; but it is probable that the
king availed himself of this privilege
to form a small body of the nobility,
clergy and burgesses, of whose fidelity
he was secure, and who lent him their
assistance in the difficult task upon
which he now engaged.

The parliament opened with an
enactment commanding all men to
honour the Church, declaring that its
ministers should enjoy, in all things,
their ancient freedom and established
privileges, and that no person should
dare to hinder the clergy from granting
leases of their lands or tithes, under
the spiritual censures commonly in­
curred by such prevention. A procla­
mation followed, directed against the
prevalence of private war and feuds
amongst the nobility, enjoining the
king’s subjects to maintain thencefor­
ward a firm peace throughout the
realm, and discharging all barons,
under the highest pains of the law,
from “ moving or making war against
each other ; from riding through the
country with a more numerous fol­
lowing of horse than properly belonged
to their estate, or for which, in their
progress, due payment was not made
to the king’s lieges and hostellars.
All such riders or gangars,” upon
complaint being made, were to be
apprehended by the officers of the
lands where the trespass had been
committed, and kept in sure custody
till the king declared his pleasure
regarding them; and, in order to the
due execution of this and other enact­
ments, it was ordained that officers
and ministers of the laws should be
appointed generally throughout the
realm, whose personal estate must be
of wealth and sufficiency enough to
be proceeded against, in the event of
malversation, and from whose vigour
and ability the “commons of the land “
should be certain of receiving justice.¹

The penalty of rebellion or treason
against the king’s person was declared
to be the forfeiture of life, lands, and
goods, whilst all friends or supporters

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 2. Statutes of the Realm, Rich, II. vol.
ii. pp. 9, 10. Statutes against Bonds or Con­
federacies.

of rebels were to be punished accord
ing to the pleasure of the sovereign.
The enactments which followed re­
garding those troops of sturdy men­
dicants who traversed the country,
extorting charity where it was not
speedily bestowed, present us with
some curious illustrations of the man­
ners of the times. The king com­
manded that no companies of such
loose and unlicensed persons should
be permitted to beg or insist on
quarters from any husbandman or
Churchman, sojourning in the abbeys
or on the farm granges, and devouring
the wealth of the country. An excep­
tion was made in favour of “ royal
beggars,” with regard to whom it is
declared that the king had agreed,
by advice of his parliament, that no
beggars or “thiggars” be permitted
to beg, either in the burgh or through­
out the country, between the ages of
fourteen and threescore and ten years,
unless it be first ascertained by the
council of the burgh that they are
incapacitated from supporting them­
selves in any other way. It was
directed that they who were thus per­
mitted to support themselves should
wear a certain token, to be furnished
them by the sheriff, or the alderman
and bailies; and that proclamation be
made that all beggars having no such
tokens do immediately betake them­
selves to such trades as may enable
them to win their own living, under
the penalty of burning on the cheek
and banishment from the country.²
It is curious to discern, in this primi­
tive legislative enactment, the first
institution of the king’s blue-coats or
bedesmen, a venerable order of privi­
leged mendicants, whose existence
has but ceased within the present
century.

During the weak administration of
Robert the Second and Third, and still
more under the unprincipled govern­
ment of Albany, the “ great customs,”
or the duties levied throughout the
realm upon the exportation or impor
tation of merchandise, had been di­
minished by various grants to private

² Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. pp. 2, 8.

1424.]                                               JAMES I.                                                      53

persons ; and, in addition to this, the
crown lauds had been shamelessly
alienated and dilapidated. It was
declared by the parliament that in all
time coming the great customs should
remain in the hands of the king for
the support of his royal estate, and
that all persons who made any claim
upon such customs should produce to
the sovereign the deed or grant upon
which such a demand was maintained.¹
With regard to the lands and rents
which were formerly in possession of
the ancestors of the king, it was pro­
vided that special directions should be
given to the different sheriffs through­
out the realm to make inquiries of
the oldest and worthiest officers with­
in their sheriffdom, as to the particular
lands or annual rents which belonged
to the king, or in former times were
in the hands of his royal predecessors,
David the Second, Robert the Second,
and Robert the Third. In these
returns by the sheriffs, the names of
the present possessors of these lands
were directed to be included, and an
inquest was then to be summoned,
who, after having examined the pro­
per evidence, were enjoined to return
a verdict under their seals, adjudging
the property to belong to the crown.
To facilitate such measures, it was
declared that the king may summon,
according to his free will and pleasure,
his various tenants and vassals to
exhibit their charters and holdings, in
order to discover the exact extent of
their property.²

The next enactment related to a
very important subject, the payment
of the fifty thousand marks which
were due to England, and the deliver­
ance of the hostages who were de­
tained in security. Upon this sub­
ject it was ordained that a specific
sum should be raised upon the whole
lands of the kingdom, including regal­
ity lands as well as others, as it would
be grievous and heavy upon the com­
mons to raise the whole “finance” at

¹ See a statute of Richard the Second on
the same subject, pp. 41, 42, vol. ii. Statutes
of the Realm.

² Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 4,

once. For this purpose, an aid or
donative, expressed in the statute by
the old Saxon Word a zelde, and
amounting to the sum of twelve
pennies in every pound, was directed
to be raised upon all rents, lands, and
goods, belonging to lords and barons
within their domains, including both
corn and cattle. From this valuation,
however, all riding horses, draught
oxen, and household utensils, were ex-
cepted. The burgesses, in like man­
ner, were directed to contribute their
share out of their goods and rents.
In addition to this donative, the
parliament determined that certain
taxes should also be raised upon the
cattle and the corn, the particulars of
which were minutely detailed in the
record. As to the tax upon all grain
which was then housed, excepting the
purveyance of the lords and barons for
their own consumption, it was ordained
that the boll of wheat should pay two
shillings; the boll of rye, bear, and
pease, sixteenpence; and the boll of
oats, sixpence. With regard to the
green corn, all the standing crops were
to remain untaxed until brought into
the barn. As to cattle, it was de­
termined that a cow and her calf, or
quey of two years old, should pay
six shillings and eightpence; a draught
ox the same ; every wedder and ewe,
each at the rate of twelve pennies;
every goat, gimmer, and dinmont,
the same; each wild mare, with her
colt of three year old, ten shillings;
and lastly, every colt of three years
and upwards, a mark.³

For the purpose of the just collec­
tion of this tax throughout the coun­
try, it was directed that every sheriff
should within his own sheriffdom sum­
mon the barons and freeholders of the
king, and by their advice select cer­
tain honest and discreet men, who
should be ready to abide upon all
occasions the scrutiny of the sovereign
as to their faithful discharge of their
office in the taxation; and to whom
the task of making an “ Extent,” as
it was technically called, or, in other
words, of drawing up an exact inven­
tory of the property of the country,

³ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, p. 4,

54                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                        [Chap. II.

should be committed. These officers,
or “ extentours,” are directed to be
sworn as to the faithful execution of
their office, before the barons of the
sheriffdom; they are commanded, in
order to insure a more complete in­
vestigation, to take with them the
parish priest, who is to be enjoined by
his bishop to inform them faithfully
of all the goods in the parish; and
having done so, they are then to mark
down the extent in a book furnished
for the purpose, in which the special
names of every town in the kingdom,
and of every person dwelling therein,
with the exact amount of their pro­
perty, was to be particularly enume­
rated ; all which books were to be de­
livered into the hands of the king’s
auditors at Perth, upon the 12th day
of July next. It is deeply to be re­
gretted that none of these records of
the property of the kingdom have
reached our time.

It was further declared upon this
important subject, that all the lands
of the kingdom should be taxed ac­
cording to their present value, and
that the tax upon all goods and. gear
should be paid in money of the like
value with the coin then current in
the realm. It was specially enjoined
that no one in the kingdom, whether
he be of the rank of clerk, baron, or
burgess, should be excepted from pay­
ment of this tax, and that all should
have the money ready to be delivered
within fifteen days after the taxation
had been struck, the officers employed
in its collection being empowered,
upon failure, to take payment in kind,
a cow being estimated at five shillings;
a ewe or wedder, at twelve pence ; a
goat, gimmer, or dinmont, at eight-
pence ; a three-year-old colt at a mark;
a wild mare and her foal at ten shil­
lings ; a boll of wheat at twelve pen­
nies ; of rye, bear, and pease, at eight-
pence ; and of oats, at threepence.¹
If the lord of the land, where such
payment in kind had been taken, chose
to advance the sum for his tenants,
the sheriffs were commanded to de­
liver the goods to him; if not, they

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii.p,4.

were to be sold at the next market
cross, or sent to the king.

It was next determined by the par­
liament that the prelates should tax
their rents and kirks in the same
manner, and at the same rate, as the
baron’s land; every bishop in each
deanery of his diocese being directed
to cause his official and dean to sum­
mon all his tenants and freeholders
before him, and to select tax-gatherers,
whose duty it was to “extend” the
ecclesiastical lands in the same way as
the rest of the property of the coun­
try; it being provided, in every in­
stance where a churchman paid the
whole value of his benefice, that the
fruits of his kirk lands should next
year be free from all imposition or
exaction. In the taxation of the rents
and goods of the burgesses, the sheriff
was directed to send a superintendent
to see that the tax-gatherers, who were
chosen by the aldermen and bailies,
executed their duty faithfully and
truly; and it was directed that the
salary and expenses of the various col­
lectors in baronies, burghs, or church
lands, should be respectively deter­
mined by the sheriff, aldermen, and pre­
lates, and deducted from the whole
amount of the tax, when it was given
into the hands of the “ auditors " ap­
pointed by the king to receive the
gross sum, on the 12th day of July, at
Perth. The auditors appointed were
the Bishops of Dunkeld and Dunblane,
the Abbots of Balmerinoch and St
Colm’s Inch, Mr John Scheves, the
Earl of Athole, Sir Patrick Dunbar,
William Borthwick, Patrick Ogilvy,
James Douglas of Balveny, and Wil­
liam Erskine of Kinnoul. I have been
anxious to give the entire details of
this scheme of taxation, as it furnishes
us with many interesting facts illus-
trative of the state of property in the
country at this early period of its his­
tory, and as it is not to be found in
the ordinary edition of the Statutes of
James the First.

After some severe enactments against
the slayers of salmon within the for­
bidden time, which a posterior statute
informs us was in the interval between
the feast of the Assumption of Our

1424.1                                              JAMES I.                                                        55

Lady and the feast of St Andrew in
the winter, it was declared that all
yairs and cruves, (meaning certain me­
chanical contrivances for the taking of
fish by means of wattled traps placed
between two walls in the stream of
the river,) which have been built in
fresh waters where the sea ebbs and
flows, should be put down for three
years, on account of the destruction of
the spawn, or young fry, which they ne­
cessarily occasion. This regulation was
commanded to be peremptorily en­
forced, even by those whose charters
included a right of “ cruve fishing,”
under the penalty of a hundred shil­
lings; and the ancient regulation re­
garding the removal of the cruve on
Saturday night, known by the name
of “ Saturday’s Slap,” as well as the
rules which determined the statutory
width of the “ hecks,” or wattled inter­
stices, were enjoined to be strictly ob­
served.¹ The extent to which the
fisheries had been carried in Scotland,
and the object which they formed even
to the foreign fishcurers, appeared in
the statutory provisions regarding the
royal custom imposed upon all herring
taken within the realm, being one
penny upon every thousand fresh her­
ring sold in the market. Upon every
last of herring which were taken by
Scottish fishermen and barrelled, a
duty of four shillings, and on every
last taken by strangers, a duty of six
shillings was imposed; whilst, from
every thousand red herrings made
within the kingdom, a duty of four
pennies was to be exacted.²

With regard to mines of gold or
silver, it was provided that wherever
such have been discovered within the
lands of any lord or baron, if it can be
proved that three half pennies of silver
can be produced out of the pound of
lead, the mine should, according to
the established practice of other realms,
belong to the king—a species of pro­
perty from which there is no evidence
that any substantial wealth ever flowed
into the royal exchequer. It was en-

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 5.

² A last, according to Skene, contains
twelve great barrels, or fourteen smaller
barrels, pp. 139, 140.

acted that no gold or silver should be
permitted to be carried forth of the
realm, except it pay a duty of forty
pence upon every pound exported ;
and in the event of any attempt to
contravene this provision, the de­
faulter was to forfeit the whole gold
or silver, and to pay a fine of forty-one
pennies to the king. It was moreover
provided that in every instance where
merchant strangers have disposed of
their goods for money, they should
either expend the same in the pur­
chase of Scottish merchandise, or in
the payment of their personal expenses,
for proof of which they must bring
the evidence of the host of the inn
where they made their abode; or, if
they wished to carry it out of the
realm, they were to pay the duty upon
exportation.³ It was determined that
the money in present circulation
throughout the realm, which had been
greatly depreciated from the original
standard, should be called in, and a
new coinage issued of like weight and
fineness with the money of England.

It having been found that a con­
siderable trade had been carried on
in the sale and exportation of oxen,
sheep and horses, it was provided, in
the same spirit of unenlightened po­
licy which distinguished the whole
body of the statutes relative to the
commerce of the country, that upon
every pound of the price received in
such transactions a duty of twelve
pennies should be levied by the king.
Upon the same erroneous principle, so
soon as it was discovered that a con­
siderable trade was carried on in the
exportation of the skins of harts and
hinds, of martins, fumarts, rabbits,
does, roes, otters, and foxes, it was pro­
vided that a check should be given to
this flourishing branch of trade, by
imposing a certain tax or custom upon
each of such commodities, in the event
of their being purchased for exporta­
tion.⁴ It appears that many abuses

³ In England, by a statute of Henry IV.,
merchant strangers were permitted to export
one-half of the money received for their
manufactures. Statutes of the Realm, vol. ii.
p. 122.

⁴ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 6.

56                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                         [Chap. II.

had crept into the ecclesiastical state
of the country by the frequent pur-
chase of pensions from the Pope,
against which practices a special sta­
tute was directed, declaring that in
all time coming no person should pur-
chase any pension payable out of any
benefice, religious or secular, under
the penalty of forfeiting the same to
the crown; and that no clerk, without
an express licence from the king,
should either himself pass over the
sea, or send procurators for him upon
any foreign errand.

A singular and primitive enactment
followed regarding rookeries; in which,
after a preamble stating the mischief
to the corn which was occasioned by
rooks building in the trees of kirkyards
and orchards, it was provided that the
proprietors of such trees should, by
every method in their power, prevent
the birds from building; and, if this
cannot be accomplished, that they at
least take special care that the young
rooks, or branchers, were not suffered
to take wing, under the penalty that
all trees upon which the nests are
found at Beltane, and from which it
can be established, by good evidence,
that the young birds have escaped,
should be forfeited to the crown, and
forthwith cut down, unless redeemed
by the proprietor. No man, under a
penalty of forty shillings, was to burn
muirs from the month of March till
the corn be cut down; and if any such
defaulter was unable to raise the sum,
he was commanded to be imprisoned
for forty days.

The great superiority of the English
archers has been frequently pointed
out in the course of this history; and
the importance of introducing a more
frequent practice of the long­bow ap­
pears to have impressed itself deeply
on the mind of the king, who had the
best opportunity, under Henry the
Fifth, of witnessing its destructive
effects during his French campaigns.
It was accordingly provided that all
the male subjects of the realm, after
reaching the age of twelve years,
“busk them to be archers;” that is,
provide themselves with the usual
arms of an archer; and that upon

every ten pound land bow­marks be
constructed, especially in the vicinity
of parish churches, where the people
may practice archery, and, at the least,
shoot thrice about, under the penalty
of paying a wedder to the lord of the
land, in the event of neglecting the
injunction. To give further encourage­
ment to archery, the pastime of foot­
ball, which appears to have been a
favourite national game in Scotland,
was forbidden, under a severe penalty,
in order that the common people
might give the whole of their leisure
time to the acquisition of a just eye
and a steady hand, in the use of the
long-bow.¹

Such is an abstract of the statutory
regulations of the first parliament of
James; and it is evident that, making
allowance for the different circum­
stances in which the two countries
were situated, the most useful provi­
sions, as well as those which imply the
deepest ignorance of the true principles
of commercial policy, were borrowed
from England. Those, for instance,
which imposed a penalty upon the ex­
portation of sheep, horses, and cattle;
which implied so deep a jealousy of
the gold and silver being carried out
of the realm; which forbade the rid­
ing armed, or with too formidable a
band of servants; which encouraged
archery ; which related to mendicants
and vagabonds; to the duties and
qualifications of bailies and magis­
trates; which extended to the privi­
leges of the Church, and forbade the
interference of the Pope with the
benefices of the realm, are, with a few
changes, to be found amongst the sta­
tutes of Richard the Second, and the
fourth and fifth Henries; and prove
that the king, during his long detention
in England, had made himself inti­
mately acquainted with the legislative
policy of that kingdom.

It admits of little doubt that during
the sitting of this parliament James
was secretly preparing for those de­
termined measures, by which, eight
months afterwards, he effectually
crushed the family of Albany, and

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. pp. 5, 6.

1424.]                                               JAMES I.                                                       57

compelled the fierce nobility, who had
so long despised all restraint, to re-
spect the authority of the laws, and
tremble before the power of the crown.
But in these projects it was necessary
to proceed with extreme caution; and
the institution of the Lords of the
Articles seems to have furnished the
king with an instrument well suited
for the purpose he had in view, which,
without creating alarm, enabled him
gradually to mature his plans, and
conduct them to a successful issue.
Who were the persons selected for this
committee it is, unfortunately, impos­
sible to discover; but we may be cer­
tain that they enjoyed the confidence of
the king, and were prepared to support
him to the utmost of their power. With
them, after the return of the rest of the
most powerful lords and barons to their
estates, who, from the warmth and
cordiality with which they were re­
ceived, had little suspicion of the
secret measures meditated against
them, James prepared and passed into
laws many statutes, which, from the
proud spirit of his nobles, he knew
they would not hesitate to despise and
disobey, and thus furnish him with an
opportunity to bring the offenders
within the power of the laws, which
he had determined to enforce to the
utmost rigour against them. Amongst
the statutes, which were evidently
designed to be the future means of
coercing his nobility, those which re­
garded the resumption of the lands of
the crown, and the exhibition of the
charters by which their estates were
held, may be at once recognised; and to
these may be added the enactments
against the numerous assemblies of
armed vassals with which the feudal
nobility of the time were accustomed
to traverse the country, and bid de­
fiance to the local magistracy.

The loss of many original records,
which might have thrown some certain
light upon this interesting portion of
our history, renders it impossible to
trace the various links in the projects
of the king. Some prominent facts
alone remain; yet from these it is not
difficult to discover at least the outline
of his proceedings.

He suffered eight months to expire
before he convoked that celebrated
parliament at Perth, at which he had
secretly resolved to exhibit his own
strength, and to inflict a signal venge­
ance upon the powerful family of
Albany. During this interval he ap­
pears to have gained to his party the
whole influence of the clergy, and to
have quietly consolidated his own
power amongst a portion of the barons.
The Earl of Mar, and his son Sir Tho­
mas Stewart, William Lauder, bishop
of Glasgow and chancellor, Sir Wal­
ter Ogilvy, the treasurer, John Came­
ron, provost of the Collegiate Church
of Lincluden, and private secretary
to the king, Sir John Forester of Cor­
storphine, chamberlain, Sir John Stew­
art and Sir Robert Lauder of the Bass,
Thomas Somerville of Carnwath, and
Alexander Levingston of Callander,
members of the king’s council, were,
in all probability, the only persons
whom James admitted to his confi­
dence, and intrusted with the exe­
cution of his designs;^l whilst the
utmost secrecy appears to have been
observed with regard to his ultimate
purposes.

Meanwhile Duke Murdoch and his
sons, with the Earls of Douglas,
March, and Angus, and the most
powerful of the nobility, had sepa­
rated without any suspicion of the
blow which was meditated against
them; and, once more settled on their
own estates, and surrounded by their
feudal retainers, soon forgot the sta­
tutes which had been so lately en­
acted; and with that spirit of fierce
independence which had been nour­
ished under the government of Albany
and his son, dreamt little of producing
their charters or giving up the crown
lands or rents which they had received,
of abridging their feudal state or dis­
missing their armed followers, or,
indeed, of yielding obedience to any
part of the laws which interfered with
their individual importance and autho­
rity. They considered the statutes in

¹ See Hay’s MS. Collection of Diplomata,
vol. iii. p. 98, for a deed dated 30th December
1424, which gives the members of the king’s
privy council,

58                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                         [Chap. II.

precisely the same light in which there
is reason to believe all parliamentary
enactments had been regarded in Scot­
land for a long period before this : as
mandates to be obeyed by the lower
orders, under the strictest exactions
of penalty and forfeitures; and to be
attended to by the great and the
powerful, provided they suited their
own convenience, and did not offer any
great violence to their feelings of pride
or their possession of power. The
weak and feeble government of Robert
the Second and Third, with the indul­
gence to which the aristocracy were
accustomed under Albany, had riveted
this idea firmly in their minds; and
they acted upon it without the suspi­
cion that a monarch might one day be
found not only with sagacity to pro­
cure the enactment of laws which
should level their independence, but
with a determination of character, and
a command of means, which should
enable him to carry these laws into
execution.

On being summoned, therefore, by
the king to attend a parliament, to be
held at Perth on the 12th of March,
they obeyed without hesitation ; and
as the first subject which appears to
have been brought before the three
estates was the dissemination of the
heretical opinions of the Lollards,
which began to revive about this time
in the country, no alarm was excited,
and the business of the parliament pro­
ceeded as usual. It was determined
that due inquiry should be made by
the ministers of the king whether the
statutes passed in his former parlia­
ment had been obeyed; and, in the
event of its being discovered that they
had been disregarded, orders were
issued for the punishment of the
offenders. All leagues or confederacies
amongst the king’s lieges were strictly
forbidden; all assistance afforded to
rebels, all false reports, or “leasing-
makings,” which tended to create dis­
cord between the sovereign and his
people, were prohibited under the
penalty of forfeiting life and lands,,;
and in every instance where the pro­
perty of the Church was found to have
been illegally occupied, restoration was

ordered to be made by due process of
law.¹

The parliament had now continued
for eight days, and as yet everything
went on without disturbance; but on
the ninth an extraordinary scene pre­
sented itself. Murdoch, the late gov­
ernor, with Lord Alexander Stewart,
his younger son, were suddenly ar­
rested, and immediately afterwards
twenty-six of the principal nobles and
barons shared the same fate. Amongst
these were Archibald, earl of Douglas,
William Douglas, earl of Angus,
George Dunbar, earl of March, William
Hay of Errol, constable of Scotland,
Scrymgeour, constable of Dundee,
Alexander Lindesay, Adam Hepburn
of Hailes, Thomas Hay of Yester,
Herbert Maxwell of Caerlaverock,
Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, Alan
Otterburn, secretary to the Duke of
Albany, Sir John Montgomery, Sir
John Stewart of Dundonald, com­
monly called the Red Stewart, and
thirteen others. During the course
of the same year, and a short time
previous to this energetic measure,
the king had imprisoned Walter, the
eldest son of Albany, along with the
Earl of Lennox and Sir Robert Gra­
ham : a man of a fierce and vindictive
disposition, who from that moment
vowed the most determined revenge,
which he lived to execute in the mur­
der of his sovereign.² The heir of
Albany was shut up in the strong
castle of the Bass, belonging to Sir
Robert Lauder, a firm friend of the
king; whilst Graham and Lennox
were committed to Dunbar; and the
Duke of Albany himself confined in
the first instance in the castle of St
Andrews, and afterwards transferred
to that of Caerlaverock. At the same
moment, the king took possession of
the castles of Falkland, and of the
fortified palace of Doune, the favourite
residence of Albany.³ Here he found
Isabella, the wife of Albany, a daugh­
ter of the Earl of Lennox, whom he
immediately committed to the castle

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 7.

²  Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. p. 1269.

³  Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xx.
pp. 57, 60.

1424.]                                                JAMES I.                                                      59

of Tantallan; and with a success and
a rapidity which can only be accounted
for by the supposition of the utmost
vigour in the execution of his plans,
and a strong military power to over­
awe all opposition, he possessed him­
self of the strongest fortresses in the
country; and, after adjourning the
parliament, to meet within the space
of two months at Stirling, upon the
18th of May,¹ he proceeded to adopt
measures for inflicting a speedy and
dreadful revenge upon the most power­
ful of his opponents.

In the palace of Stirling, on the
24th of May, a court was held with
great pomp and solemnity for the
trial of Walter Stewart, the eldest son
of the Duke of Albany. The king,
sitting on his throne, clothed with the
robes and insignia of majesty, with
the sceptre in his hand, and wearing
the royal crown, presided as supreme
judge of his people. The loss of all
record of this trial is deeply to be
regretted, as it would have thrown
light upon an interesting but obscure
portion of our history. We know
only from an ancient chronicle that
the heir of Albany was tried for rob­
bery, " de roboria.” The jury was
composed of twenty-one of the princi­
pal nobles and barons; and it is a re­
markable circumstance that amongst
their names which have been pre­
served we find seven of the twenty-six
barons whom the king had seized and
imprisoned two months before at
Perth, when he arrested Albany and
his sons. Amongst these seven were
the three most powerful lords in the
body of the Scottish aristocracy—the
Earls of Douglas, March, and Angus;
the rest were Sir John de Montgomery,
Gilbert Hay of Errol, the constable,
Sir Herbert Herries of Terregles, and
Sir Robert Cuningham of Kilmaurs.²
Others who sat upon this jury we
know to have been the assured friends
of the king, and members of his privy
council. These were, Alexander Stew­
art, earl of Mar, Sir John Forester of
Corstorphine, Sir Thomas Somerville

¹ Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. p. 1270^.
2 Ibid. pp. 1269-71. See also Extracta ex
Chronicis Scotiæ, MS. p. 272.

of Carnwath, and Sir Alexander Lev-
ingston of Callander. It is probable
that the seven jurymen above men­
tioned were persons attached to the
party of Albany, and that the inten­
tion of the king in their imprisonment
was to compel them to renounce all
idea of supporting him and to abandon
him to his fate. In this result, what­
ever were the means adopted for its
accomplishment, the king succeeded.
The trial of Walter Stewart occupied
a single day. He was found guilty,
and condemned to death. His fate
excited a deep feeling of sympathy and
compassion in the breasts of the
people; for the noble figure and digni­
fied manners of the eldest son of
Albany were peculiarly calculated to
make him friends amongst the lower
classes of the community.

On the following day, Duke Mur­
doch himself, with his second son,
Alexander, and his father-indaw, the
Earl of Lennox, were tried before the
same jury. What were the crimes
alleged against the Earl of Lennox
and Alexander Stewart it is now im­
possible to determine ; but it may be
conjectured, on strong grounds, that
the usurpation of the government and
the assumption of supreme authority
during the captivity of the king,
offences amounting to high treason,
constituted the principal charge against
the late regent. His father undoubt­
edly succeeded to the regency by the
determination of the three estates
assembled in parliament; but there
is no evidence that any such decision
was passed which sanctioned the high
station assumed by the son; and if so,
every act of his government was an
act of treason, upon which the jury
could have no difficulty in pronounc­
ing their verdict. Albany was accord­
ingly found guilty; the same sentence
was pronounced upon his son, Alex­
ander Stewart; the Earl of Lennox
was next condemned; and these three
noble persons were publicly executed
on that fatal eminence, before the
castle of Stirling, known by the name
of the Heading Hill. As the condem­
nation of Walter Stewart had excited
unwonted commiseration amongst the

60                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                         [Chap. II.

people, the spectacle now afforded
was calculated to raise that feeling to
a still higher pitch of distress and
compassion. Albany and his two sons
were men of almost gigantic stature,¹
and of so noble a presence, that it was
impossible to look upon them without
an involuntary feeling of admiration ;
whilst the venerable appearance aud
white hairs of Lennox, who had
reached his eightieth year, inspired
a sentiment of tenderness and pity,
which, even if they admitted the jus­
tice of the sentence, was apt to raise
in the bosom of the spectators a dis­
position to condemn the rapid and
unrelenting severity with which it
was carried into execution. Even in
their days of pride and usurpation,
the family of Albany had been the
favourites of the people. Its founder,
the regent, courted popularity; and
although a usurper, and stained with
murders, seems in a great measure to
have gained his end. It is impossible
indeed to reconcile the high eulogium
of Bower and Winton² with the dark
actions of his life ; but it is evident,
from the tone of these historians, that
the severity of James did not carry
along with it the feelings of the people.
Yet, looking at the state of things in
Scotland, it is easy to understand the
object of the king. It was his inten­
tion to exhibit to a nation, long ac­
customed to regard the laws with con­
tempt and the royal authority as a
name of empty menace, a memorable
example of stern and inflexible justice,
and to convince them that a great
change had already taken place in the
executive part of the government.

With this view, another dreadful
exhibition followed the execution of
the family of Albany. James Stewart,
the youngest son of this unfortunate
person, was the only member of it
who had avoided the arrest of the

¹ Albany and his sons were buried in the
church of the Preaching Friars at Stirling, on
the south side of the high altar, "figuris et
armis eorundem depictis.”— Extracta ex
Chronicis Scotiæ, MS. p. 272. Fordun a
Goodal, vol. ii. p. 483. “ Homines giganteæ
staturæ.”

² Fordun a Hearne, p. 1228. Winton, vol.
ii. pp. 419, 420. See Illustrations, E.

king, and escaped to the Highlands.
Driven to despair by the ruin which
threatened his house, he collected a
band of armed freebooters, and, assisted
by Finlay, bishop of Lismore, and
Argyle, his father’s chaplain, attacked
the burgh of Dumbarton with a fury
which nothing could resist. The kings
uncle, Sir John of Dundonald, called
the Red Stewart, was slain, the town
sacked and given to the flames, and
thirty men murdered; after which the
son of Albany returned to his fast­
nesses in the north. But so hot was
the pursuit which was instituted by
the royal vengeance, that he and the
ecclesiastical bandit who accompauied
him were dislodged from their retreats,
and compelled to fly to Ireland.³ Five
of his accomplices, however, were
seized, and their execution, which im­
mediately succeeded that of Albany,
was unpardonably cruel and disgust­
ing. They were torn to pieces by
wild horses, after which their warm
and quivering limbs were suspended
upon gibbets : a terrible warning to
the people of the punishment which
awaited those who imagined that the
fidelity which impelled them to exe­
cute the commands of their feudal
lord was superior to the ties which
bound them to obey the laws of the
country.

These executions were followed by
the forfeiture to the crown of the im­
mense estates belonging to Albany
and to the Earl of Lennox; a season­
able supply of revenue, which, amid the
general plunder to which the royal
lands had been exposed, was much
wanted to support the dignity of the
throne, and in the occupation of a
considerable portion of which, there is
reason to believe, the king only re­
sumed what had formerly belonged to
him. With regard to the conduct of
the Bishop of Lismore, James appears
to have made complaint to the Pope,
who directed a bull, addressed to the
Bishops of St Andrews and Dunblane,
by which they were empowered to
inquire into the treason of the prelate,
and other rebels against the king.⁴

³ Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. p. 1270.

⁴ Innes’ MS. Chronology, quoted by Chal-

1424.]                                               JAMES I.                                                      61

The remaining barons who had been
imprisoned at the time of Albany's
arrest appear to have been restored
to liberty immediately after his execu­
tion, and the parliament proceeded to
the enactment of several statutes,
which exhibit a singular combination
of wisdom and ignorance, some being
as truly calculated to promote, as
others were fitted to retard, the im­
provement and prosperity of the
country. It was ordained that every
man of such simple estate as made it
reasonable that he should be a labourer
or husbandman should either combine
with his neighbour to pay half the
expense of an ox and a plough, or dig
every day a portion of land seven feet
in length and six feet in breadth. In
every sheriffdom within the realm,
“ weaponschawings, " or an armed
muster of the whole fighting men in
the county for the purpose of military
exercise and an inspection of their
weapons, were appointed to be held
four times in the course of the year.
Symptoms of the decay of the forest
and green wood, or perhaps, more
correctly speaking, proofs of the im­
proved attention of the nobles to the
enclosure of their parks and the orna­
mental woods around their castles, are
to be discerned in the enactment,
which declared it to be a part of the
duty of the Justice Clerk to make
inquiries regarding those defaulters,
who steal green wood, or strip the
trees of their bark under cover of
night, or break into orchards to purloin
the fruit; and provided that, where
any man found his stolen woods in
other lords’ lands, it should be lawful
for him on the instant to seize both
the goods and the thief, and to have
him brought to trial in the court of
the baron upon whose lands the crime
was committed.¹

With regard to the commerce of the
country, some regulations were now
passed, dictated by the same jealous
spirit which has been already remarked
as pervading the whole body of our

mers in his Life of James the First, p. 14,
prefixed to the Poetic Remains.

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. ii.
pp. 7. 8.

commercial legislation. It was strictly
enjoined that no tallow should be
exported out of the country, under the
penalty of being forfeited to the king;
that no horses were to be carried forth
of the realm till they were past the
age of three years; and that no mer­
chant was to be permitted to pass the
sea for the purposes of trade, unless
he either possess in property, or at
least in commission, three serplaiths
of wool, or the value of such in mer­
chandise, to be determined by an
inquest of his neighbours, under a
penalty of forty­ one pounds to the
king, if found guilty of disobeying the
law.

Upon the subject of the adminis­
tration of justice to the people in
general, and more especially to such
poor and needy persons who could not
pay an advocate for conducting their
cause, a statute was passed in this
parliament which breathes a spirit of
enlarged humanity. After declaring
that all bills of complaints, which, for
divers reasons, affecting the profit of
the realm, could not be determined by
the parliament, should be brought
before the particular judge of the
district to which they belong, to whom
the king was to give injunction to
distribute justice, without fraud or
favour, as well to the poor as to the
rich, in every part of the realm, it
proceeded as follows, in language re­
markable for its strength and sim­
plicity :—“ And gif thar be ony pur
creatur,” it observes, “ that for defalte
of cunnyng or dispens, can nocht, or
may nocht folow his caus ; the king,
for the lufe of God, sall ordane that
the juge before quhame the causs suld
be determyt purway and get a lele and
wyss advocate to folow sic creaturis
caus. And gif sic caus be obtenyt,
the wrangar sall assythe the party
skathit, and ye advocatis costis that
travale. And gif the juge refusys to
doe the lawe evinly, as is befor saide,
ye party plenzeand sall haf recours to
ye king, ye quhilk sall sa rigorusly
punyst sic jugis, yat it be ane en-
sampill till all utheris.” ²

² Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. ii.
p. 8.

62                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                        [Chap. II.

It was declared to be the intention
of the sovereign to grant a remission
or pardon of any injury committed
upon person or property in the Low­
land districts of his dominions, where
the defaulter made reparation, or, ac­
cording to the Scottish phrase, “as-
sythement,” to the injured party, and
where the extent of the loss had been
previously ascertained by a jury of
honest and faithful men; but from
this rule the Highlands, or northern
divisions of the country, were excepted,
where, on account of the practice of
indiscriminate robbery and murder
which had prevailed, previous to the
return of the king, it was impossible
to ascertain correctly the extent of the
depredation, or the amount of the
assythement. The condition of his
northern dominions, and the character
and manners of his Highland subjects,
—if indeed they could be called his
subjects whose allegiance was of so
peculiar and capricious a nature,—
had given birth to many anxious
thoughts in the king, and led not
long after this to a personal visit to
these remote regions, which formed an
interesting episode in his reign.

The only remaining matter of im­
portance which came under the con­
sideration of this parliament was the
growth of heresy, a subject which,
in its connexion as with the first feeble
dawnings of reformation, is peculiarly
interesting and worthy of attention.
It was directed that every bishop
within his diocese should make in­
quisition of all Lollards and heretics,
where such were to be found, in order
that they be punished according to
the laws of the holy Catholic Church,
and that the civil power be called in
for the support of the ecclesiastical,
if required^.1 Eighteen years had now
elapsed since John Resby, a follower
of the great Wickliff, was burnt at
Perth. It was then known that his
preaching, and the little treatises
which he or his disciples had dis­
seminated through the country, had
made a deep impression; and the
ancient historian who informs us of

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. pp. 7, 8.

the circumstance observes that, even
in his own day, these same books and
conclusions were secretly preserved by
some unhappy persons under the in­
stigation of the devil, and upon the
principle that stolen waters are sweet.²

There can be no doubt that at this
period the consciences of not a few in
the country were alarmed as to the
foundations of a faith upon which
they had hitherto relied, and that
they began to judge and reason for
themselves upon a subject of all
others the most important which can
occupy the human mind,—the grounds
of a sinner’s pardon and acceptance
with God. An under­current of re­
formation, which the Church denomi­
nated heresy, was beginning gradually
to sap the foundations upon which
the ancient Papal fabric had been
hitherto securely resting; and the
Scottish clergy, alarmed at the symp­
toms of spiritual rebellion, and pos­
sessing great influence over the mind
of the monarch, prevailed upon him
to interpose the authority of a legis­
lative enactment, to discountenance
the growth of the new opinions, and
to confirm and follow up the efforts
of the Church, by the strength and
terror of the secular arm. The educa­
tion of James in England, under the
direction of two monarchs, who had
sullied their reign by the cruel perse­
cution of the followers of Wickliff,
was little calculated to open his mind
to the convictions of truth, or to the
principles of toleration; and at this
moment he owed so much to the
clergy, and was so engrossed with his
efforts for the consolidation of the
royal power, that he could neither
refuse their request nor inquire into
the circumstances under which it was
preferred. The statute, therefore,
against Lollards and heretics was
passed; the symptoms of rebellion,
which ought to have stimulated the
clergy to greater zeal, purity, and
usefulness, were put down by a strong
hand; and the reformation was re­
tarded only to become more resistless
at the last.

In the destruction of our national
² Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. p. 1169.

1424-5.]                                           JAMES I.                                                      63

records many links in the history of
this remarkable parliament have been
lost; but the success with which the
king conducted this overthrow of the
house of Albany certainly gives us a
high idea of his ability and courage ;
and in the great outlines enough has
been left to convince us that the
undertaking was of a nature the most
delicate and dangerous which could
have presented itself to a monarch
recently seated on a precarious throne,
surrounded by a fierce nobility, to
whom he was almost a stranger, and
the most powerful of whom were con­
nected by blood or by marriage with
the ancient house whose destruction
he meditated. The example indeed
was terrible; the scaffold was flooded
with royal and noble blood; and it is
impossible not to experience a feeling
of sorrow and indignation at the cruel
and unrelenting severity of James. It
seems as if his rage and mortification
at the escape of his uncle, the prime
offender, was but imperfectly satisfied
with the punishment of the feeble
Murdoch; and that his deep revenge
almost delighted to glut itself in the
extermination of every scion of that
unfortunate house. But to form a
just opinion, indeed, of the conduct of
the king, we must not forget the
galling circumstances in which he was
situated. Deprived for nineteen years
of his paternal kingdom by a system of
unprincipled usurpation; living almost
within sight of his throne, yet unable
to reach it; feeling his royal spirit
strong within him, but detained and
dragged back by the successful and
selfish intrigues of Albany, it is not
surprising that when he did at last
escape from his bonds his rage should
be that of the chafed lion who has
broken the toils, and that the principle
of revenge, in those dark days esteemed
as much a duty as a pleasure, should
mingle itself with his more cool de­
termination to inflict punishment upon
his enemies.

But laying individual feelings aside,
the barbarism of the times, and the
precarious state in which he found
the government, compelled James to
adopt strong measures. Nothing but

an example of speedy and inflexible
severity could have made an impres­
sion upon the iron-nerved and ferocious
nobles, whose passions, under the go­
vernment of the house of Albany, had
been nursed up into a state of reck­
less indulgence, and a contempt of all
legitimate authority; and there seems
reason to believe that the conduct
pursued by the king was deemed by
him absolutely necessary to consoli­
date his own power, and enable him
to carry into effect his ultimate designs
for promoting the interests of the
country. Immediately after the con­
clusion of the parliament, James de­
spatched Lord Montgomery of Eliot-
ston, and Sir Humphrey Cunningham,
to seize the castle of Lochlomond,¹ the
property of Sir James Stewart, the
youngest son of Albany, who had fled
to Ireland along with his father’s chap­
lain, the Bishop of Lismore. Such
was the terror inspired by the severity
of James, that this fierce youth never
afterwards returned, but died in ban­
ishment ; so that the ruin of the house
of Albany appeared to be complete.

In the course of the preceding year
the queen had brought into the world
a daughter, her first-born, who was
baptized by the name of Margaret;
and, as the policy of France led those
who then ruled in her councils to
esteem the alliance of Scotland of
great importance in her protracted
struggle with England, it was deter­
mined to negotiate a marriage between
Louis of Anjou, the heir to the throne,
and the infant princess. In that king­
dom the affairs of Charles the Seventh
were still in a precarious situation.
Although the great military genius of
Henry the Fifth no longer directed
and animated the operations of the
campaign, yet, under the Duke of
Bedford, who had been appointed Re­
gent of France, fortune still favoured
the arms of the invaders ; and the
successive defeats of Crevant and Ver-
neuil, in which the auxiliary forces of
the Scots were almost entirely cut to

¹ “ In the south end of the island Inchmurin,
the ancient family of Lennox had a castle, but
it is now in ruins.” This is probably the
castle alluded to, Stat. Acct. vol. ix. p. 16.
Extracta ex Chronicis Scotiæ, fol. 273.

64                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                        [Chap. II.

pieces, had lent a vigour and confi­
dence to the councils and conduct of
the English, and imparted a propor­
tionable despondency to the French,
which seemed to augur a fatal result
to the efforts of that brave people.
It became necessary, therefore, to
court every alliance from which effec-
tual assistance might be expected;
and the army of seven thousand Scot­
tish men-at-arms, which had passed
over under the command of the Earls
of Buchan and Wigtown in 1420, with
the additional auxiliary force which
the Earl of Douglas led to join the
army of Charles the Seventh, con­
vinced that monarch that the assist­
ance of Scotland was an object, to at­
tain which no efforts should be spared.
Accordingly Stewart of Darnley, Lord
of Aubigny and Constable of the Scot­
tish army in France, along with the
Archbishop of Rheims, the first prelate
in the realm, were despatched in 1425
upon an embassy to negotiate the mar­
riage between Margaret of Scotland
and Louis the Dauphin, and to renew
the ancient league which had so long
connected the two countries with each
other.¹

James received the ambassadors
with great distinction, agreed to the
proposed alliance, and despatched
Leighton, bishop of Aberdeen, with
Lauder, archdeacon of Lothian, and
Sir Patrick Ogilvy, justiciar of Scot­
land, to return his answer to the Court
of France. It was determined that in
five years the parties should be be­
trothed, after which the Scottish
princess was to be conveyed with all
honour to her royal consort. About
the same time the king appears to
have sent ambassadors to the Court
of Rome, but it is difficult to discover
whether they merely conveyed those
general expressions of spiritual allegi­
ance which it was usual for sovereigns
to transmit to the Holy See after their
coronation, or related to matters more
intimately affecting the ecclesiastical
state of the kingdom. If we may
judge from the numbers and dignity
of the envoys, the communication was
one of importance, and may, perhaps^,
1 Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 484.

have related to those measures for the
extirpation of heresy which we have
seen occupying the attention of the
legislature under James’s second par­
liament. It was a principle of this en­
terprising monarch, in his schemes for
the recovery and consolidation of his
own power, to cultivate the friendship
of the clergy, whom he regarded as a
counterpoise to the nobles ; and with
this view he issued a commission to
Leighton, the bishop of Aberdeen,
authorising him to resume all aliena­
tions of the lands of the Church which
had been made during the regencies
of the two Albanies, commanding his
justiciars and officers of the law to
assist in all proper measures for the
recovery of the property which had
been lost, and conferring upon the
prelate the power of anathema in case
of resistance.²

During the same year there arrived
in Scotland an embassy from the
States of Flanders, upon a subject of
great commercial importance. It ap­
pears that the Flemings, as allies of
England, had committed hostilities
against the Scottish merchants during
the captivity of the king, which had
induced him to order the staple of the
Scottish commerce in the Netherlands
to be removed to Middelburgh in
Zealand. The measure had been at­
tended with much loss to the Flemish
traders; and the object of the em­
bassy was to solicit the return of the
trade. The king, who at the period
of its arrival was engaged in keeping
his birthday, surrounded by his barons,
at St Andrews, received the Flemish
envoys with distinction; and, aware
of the importance of encouraging the
commercial enterprise of his people,
seized the opportunity of procuring
more ample privileges for the Scottish
merchants in Flanders, in return for
which he agreed that the staple should
be restored.³

At this period, besides the wealthy
citizens and burghers who adopted
commerce as a profession, it was not
uncommon for the richer nobles and

²  MS. in Harleian Coll. quoted in Pinker-
ton’s History, vol. i. p. 116.

³  Forduu a Goodal, vol. ii. pp. 487, 509,

1425.]                                                JAMES I.                                                       65

gentry, and even for the sovereign, to
embark in mercantile adventures. In
1408 the Earl of Douglas freighted a
vessel, with one or two supercargoes,
and a crew of twenty mariners, to
trade in Normandy and Rochelle; in
the succeeding year the Duke of Al­
bany was the proprietor of a vessel
which carried six hundred quarters of
malt, and was navigated by a master
and twenty-four sailors; and at a still
later period a vessel, the Mary of
Leith, obtained a safe-conduct from
the English monarch to unship her
cargo, which belonged to his dear
cousin James, the King of Scotland,
in the port of London, and expose the
merchandise to sale.¹ At the same
time the Lombards, esteemed perhaps
the most wealthy and enterprising
merchants in Europe, continued to
carry on a lucrative trade with Scot­
land ; and one of their large carracks,
which, compared with the smaller
craft of the English and Scottish
merchants, is distinguished by the
contemporary chronicler as an “ enor­
mous vessel,” navis immanissima, was
wrecked by a sudden storm in the Firth
of Forth. The gale was accompanied
by a high spring­tide, against which the
mariners of Italy, accustomed to the
Mediterranean navigation, had taken
no precautions; so that the ship was
driven from her anchors and cast
ashore at Granton, about three miles
above Leith.²

The tax of twelve pennies upon
every pound of rent, and other
branches of income, which was di­
rected to be levied in the first parlia­
ment held at Perth after the king’s
return, has been already mentioned.
The sum to be thus collected was
destined for the payment of the ar­
rears which the king had become
bound to advance to England, as the
amount of expense incurred by his
maintenance during his captivity; and
it appears by the account of Walter
Bower, the continuator of Fordun,
who was himself one of the commis-

¹ Rotuli Scotiæ, vol. ii. p. 257. Ibid. 1st
Sept. 9 Henry IV., p. 187. 2d Dec. 11 Henry
IV., p. 193.

² Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 487.
VOL. II.

sioners for this taxation, that during
the first year it amounted to fourteen
thousand marks; which would give
nearly two hundred and eighty thou­
sand marks, or about three millions
of modern sterling money, as the an­
nual income of the people of Scotland
in 1424.

It must be recollected, however,
that this does not include the lands
and cattle employed by landholders in
their own husbandry, which were par­
ticularly excepted in the collection.
The tax itself was an innovation; and
in the second year the zeal of the peo­
ple cooled; they openly murmured
against the universal impoverishment
it occasioned; and the collection was
far less productive. In those primi­
tive times, all taxes, except in cus­
toms, which became a part of the
apparent price of the goods on which
they were charged, were wholly un­
known in Scotland. The people were
accustomed to see the king support
his dignity, and discharge his debts,
by the revenues of the crown lands,
which, previous to the late dilapida­
tions, were amply sufficient for that
purpose; and with equal prudence and
generosity, although supported by a
resolution of the three estates, James
declined to avail himself of this invi­
dious mode of increasing his revenue,
and gave orders that no further efforts
should be made to levy the imposi­
tion.³

Upon the 11th of March 1425, the
king convoked his third parliament
at Perth, and the institution of the
Lords of the Articles appears to have
been fully established. The various
subjects upon which the decision of
the great council was requested were
declared to be submitted by the sove­
reign to the determination of certain
persons to be chosen by the three
estates from the prelates, earls, and
barons then assembled; and the legis­
lative enactments which resulted from
their deliberations convey to us an
animated and instructive picture of
the condition of the country. After
the usual declaration, that the holy

³ Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 482. M’Pher-
son’s Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 640.
E

66                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                         [Chap. II.

Catholic Church and its ministers
should continue to enjoy their ancient
privileges, and be permitted without
hindrance to grant leases of their
lands, or of their teinds, there follows
a series of regulations and improve­
ments, both as to the laws themselves
and the manner of their administra­
tion, which are well worthy of atten­
tion.

It was first announced that all the
subjects of the realm must be gov-
erned by the statutes passed in par­
liament, and not by any particular
laws, or any spiritual privileges or
customs of other countries; and a new
court, known by the name of the
Session, was instituted for the admi­
nistration of justice to the people. It
was declared that the king, with the
consent of his parliament, had ordained
that his chancellor, and along with
him certain discreet persons of the
three estates, who were to be chosen
and deputed by himself, should, from
this day forth, sit three times in the
year, at whatever place the sovereign
may appoint them, for the examina­
tion and decision of all causes and
quarrels which may be determined
before the king’s council; and that
these judges should have their ex­
penses paid by the parties against
whom the decision was given out of
the fines of court, or otherwise as the
monarch may determine. The first
session of this new court was appointed
to be held the day after the feast of
St Michael the Archangel, or on the
30th of September; the second on the
Monday of the first week of Lent; and
the third on the morning preceding
the feast of St John the Baptist.¹

A Register was next appointed, in
which a record was to be kept of all
charters and infeftments, as well as of
all letters of protection, or confirma­
tions of ancient rights or privileges,
which, since the king’s return, had
been granted to any individuals; and,
within four months after the passing
of this act, all such charters were to
be produced by the parties to whom
they have been granted, and regularly

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 11.

marked in the book of record. Any
person who was a judge or officer of
justice within the realm, or any per­
son who had prosecuted and sum­
moned another to stand his trial, was
forbidden, under a penalty of ten
pounds, to sit upon his jury; and none
were to be allowed to practise as at­
torneys in the justice-ayres, or courts
held by the king’s justiciars, or their
deputies, who were not known to the
justice and the barons as persons of
sufficient learning and discretion. Six
wise and able men, best acquainted
with the laws, were directed to be
chosen from each of the three estates,
to whom was committed the examina­
tion of the books of the law, that is to
say, “Regiam Majestatem,” and “Quo-
niam Attachiamenta; " and these per­
sons were directed by parliament, in
language which marked the simple
legislation of the times, “ to mend the
lawis that needis mendying,” to re­
concile all contradictory, and explain
all obscure enactments, so that hence­
forth fraud and cunning may assist no
man in obtaining an unjust judgment
against his neighbour.²

One of the greatest difficulties which
at this early period stood in the way
of all improvement introduced by par­
liamentary regulations was the slow­
ness with which these regulations were
communicated to the more distant
districts of the country; and the ex­
treme ignorance of the laws which sub­
sisted, not only amongst the subjects
of the realm and the inferior ministers
of justice, but even amongst the nobles
and barons, who, living in their own
castles in remote situations, rude and
illiterate in their habits, and bigoted
in their attachment to those ancient
institutions under which they had so
long tyrannised over their vassals, were
little anxious to become acquainted
with new laws; and frequently, when
they did penetrate so far, pretended
ignorance, as a cover for their diso­
bedience. To obviate, as far as pos­
sible, this evil, it was directed by the
parliament that all statutes and ordi­
nances made prior to this should be

² Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 11.

1425-6.]                                             JAMES I.                                                      67

first transcribed in the king’s register,
and afterwards that copies of them
should be given to the different sheriffs
in the country. The sheriffs were
then strictly enjoined to publish and
proclaim these statutes in the chief
and most notable places in the sheriff-
dom, and to distribute copies of them
to prelates, barons, and burghs of
bailiery, the expense being paid by
those who made the application. They
were commanded, under the penalty
of being deprived of their office, to
cause all acts of the legislature to be
observed throughout their county, and
to inculcate upon the people, whether
burghers or landholders, obedience to
the provisions made by their sovereign
since his return from England; so that,
in time coming, no man should have
cause to pretend ignorance of the
laws.¹

The defence of the country was an­
other subject which came before this
parliament. It was provided that all
merchants of the realm passing be­
yond seas should, along with their
usual cargoes, bring home such a sup­
ply of harness and armour as could be
stowed in the vessel, besides spears,
spear-shafts, bows, and bow-strings;
nor was this to be omitted upon any
of their voyages. Particular injunc­
tions were added with regard to the
regulation of “ weaponschawings,’” or
the annual county musters for the in­
spection of arms, and the encourage­
ment of warlike exercises. Every
sheriff was directed to hold them four
times in the year within his county,
upon which occasion it was his duty
to see that every gentleman, having
ten pounds value in land, should be
sufficiently harnessed and armed with
steel basnet, leg-harness, sword, spear,
and dagger, and that all gentlemen of
less property should be armed accord­
ing to their estate. All yeomen of the
realm, between the ages of sixteen and
sixty, were directed to be provided
with bows and a sheaf of arrows. With
regard to the burghs, it was appointed
that the weaponschawing should be
held within them also, four times

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 11.

during the year, that all their inhabi­
tants should be well armed, and that
the aldermen and the bailies were to
be held responsible for the due ob­
servance of this regulation; whilst
certain penalties were inflicted on
all gentlemen and yeomen who may
be found transgressing these enact­
ments.²

The regulations relating to the com­
mercial prosperity of the country, and
its intercourse with other nations,
manifest the same jealousy and igno­
rance of the true prosperity of the
realm which influenced the delibera­
tions of the former parliaments. Taxes
were repeated upon the exportation of
money, compulsory regulations pro­
mulgated against foreign merchants,
by which they were compelled to lay
out the money which they received
for their commodities upon the pur­
chase of Scottish merchandise, direc­
tions were given to the sheriffs and
other ministers of the law, upon the
coasts opposite to Ireland, to prevent
all ships and galleys from sailing to
that country without special licence of
the king’s deputes, to be appointed
for this purpose in every seaport; no
merchant or shipman was to be al­
lowed to give to any Irish subject a
passage into Scotland, unless such
stranger could shew a letter or pass­
port from the lord of the land from
whence he came declaring the busi­
ness for which he desired to enter the
realm; and all such persons, previous
to their being allowed to land, were
to be examined by the king’s deputy
of the seaport where the ship had
weighed anchor, so that it might be
discovered whether the business they
had in hand were to the profit or the
prejudice of the king and his estate.
These strict enactments were declared
to proceed from no desire to break or
interrupt the good understanding which
had been long maintained between the
King of Scotland “ and his gud aulde
frendis the Erschry of Irelande;” but
because at that time the open rebels
of the king had taken refuge in that
country, and the welfare and safety of

² Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. pp. 9, 10.

68                                     HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                         [Chap. II

the realm might be endangered by all
such unrestrained intercourse as should
give them an opportunity of plotting
with their friends, or afford facilities
to the Irish of becoming acquainted
with the private affairs of the govern­
ment of Scotland.¹

A quaint and amusing provision was
introduced in this parliament, which
is entitled, “Anent hostillaris in vil-
lagis and burowyis.” It informs us
that hostlers or innkeepers had made
grievous complaints to the king against
a villanous practice of his lieges, who,
in travelling from one part of the
country to another, were in the habit
of taking up their residence with their
acquaintances and friends, instead of
going to the regular inns and hostel-
ries, whereupon the sovereign, with
counsel and consent of the three
estates, prohibited all travellers on
foot or horseback from rendezvousing
at any station except the established
hostelry of the burgh or village ; and
interdicted all burgesses or villagers
from extending to them their hospi­
tality, under the penalty of forty shil­
lings. The higher ranks of the nobles
and the gentry would, however, have
considered this as an infringement
upon their liberty, and it was accord­
ingly declared that all persons whose
estate permitted them to travel with
a large retinue in company might
quarter themselves upon their friends,
under the condition that they sent
their attendants and horses to be
lodged at the common hostelries.²

The remaining enactments of this
parliament related to the regulation
of the weights and measures, and to
the appointment of an established
standard to be used throughout the
realm; to the obligation of all barons
or freeholders to attend the parliament
in person; to the offering up of regu­
lar prayers and collects by all priests,
religious and secular, throughout the
kingdom, for the health and prosperity
of the king, his royal consort, and their
children ; and, lastly, to the apprehen­
sion of all stout, idle vagabonds, who

¹ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol.
ii. p. 11^.
2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 10.

possess the ability but not the inclina­
tion to labour for their own living.
These were to be apprehended by the.
sheriff, and compelled within forty
days to bind themselves to some law­
ful craft, so that they should no longer
devour and trouble the country. The
regulation of the standard size of the
boll, firlot, half firlot, peck, and gallon,
which were to be used throughout the
kingdom, was referred to the next par­
liament, whilst it was declared that
the water measures then in use should
continue the same ; that with regard
to weights there should be made a
standard stone, which was to weigh
exactly fifteen legal troy pounds, but
to be divided into sixteen Scots pounds,
and that according to this standard
weights should be made, and used by
all buyers and sellers throughout the
realm.

James had already increased the
strength and prosperity of his king­
dom by various foreign treaties of
alliance and commercial intercourse.
He was at peace with England; the an­
cient ties between France and Scotland
were about to be more firmly drawn
together by the projected marriage
between his daughter and the Dau­
phin ; he had re-established his ami­
cable relations with Flanders; and the
court of Rome, flattered by his zeal
against heresy, and his devotedness to
the Church, was disposed to support
him with all its influence. To com­
plete these friendly relations with
foreign powers, he now concluded by
his ambassadors, William, lord Crich-
ton, his chamberlain, and William
Fowlis, provost of the collegiate church
of Bothwell, his almoner, a treaty with
Eric, king of Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden, in which the ancient alliances
entered into between Alexander the
Third, Robert the First, and the
princes who in their days occupied
the northern throne, were ratified and
confirmed; mutual freedom of trade
agreed upon, saving the peculiar rights
and customs of both kingdoms; and
all damages, transgressions, and de­
faults on either side cancelled and for­
given. James also consented to con­
tinue the annual payment of a hundred

1426-7]                                 JAMES I.                                           69

marks for the sovereignty of the little
kingdom of Man and the Western Isles,
which Alexander the Third had pur­
chased in 1266 for the sum of four
thousand marks.¹ Their allegiance,
indeed, was of a precarious nature,
and for a long time previous to this
the nominal possession of the Isles,
instead of an acquisition of strength
and revenue, had proved a thorn in the
side of the country; but the king,
with that firmness and decision of
character for which he was remarkable,
had now determined, by an expedition
conducted in person, to reduce within
the control of the laws the northern
parts of his dominions, and confidently
looked forward to the time when these
islands would be esteemed an acquisi­
tion of no common importance.

Meanwhile he prepared to carry his
schemes into execution. Having sum­
moned his parliament to meet him at
Inverness, he proceeded, surrounded
by his principal nobles and barons,
and at the head of a force which ren­
dered all resistance unavailing, to
establish his residence for a season in
the heart of his northern dominions.²
It was their gloomy castles and almost
inaccessible fastnesses which had given
refuge to those fierce and independent
chiefs who neither desired his friend­
ship nor deprecated his resentment,
and who were now destined at last to
experience the same unrelenting se­
verity which had fallen upon the house
of Albany. At this period the con­
dition of the Highlands, so far as it is
discoverable from the few authentic
documents which have reached our
times, appears to have been in the
highest degree rude and uncivilised.
There existed a singular combination
of Celtic and of feudal manners.
Powerful chiefs of Norman name and
Norman blood had penetrated into
the remotest districts, and ruled over
multitudes of vassals and serfs whose
strange and uncouth appellatives pro­
claim their difference of race in the
most convincing manner.³ The tenure

¹ Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. pp. 1355, 1358.

² Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 488.

³ MS. Adv. Lib. Coll. Diplom. a Macfar-
lane, vol. i. p. 245. MS. Cart. Moray, p. 263.
See Illustrations, F,

of lands by charter and seisin, the
feudal services due by the vassal to
his lord, the bands of friendship or of
manrent which indissolubly united cer­
tain chiefs and nobles to each other,
the baronial courts, and the compli­
cated official pomp of feudal life, were
all to be found in full strength and
operation in the northern counties;
but the dependence of the barons,
who had taken up their residence in
these wild districts, upon the king,
and their allegiance and subordination
to the laws, were far less intimate and
influential than in the Lowland divi­
sions of the country; and as they ex­
perienced less protection, we have
already seen that in great public
emergencies, when the captivity of
the sovereign, or the payment of his
ransom, called for the imposition of a
tax upon property throughout the
kingdom, these great northern chiefs
thought themselves at liberty to resist
its collection within their mountain­
ous principalities.⁴

Besides such Scoto-Norman barons,
however, there were to be found in
the Highlands and the Isles those
fierce aboriginal chiefs who hated
the Saxon and the Norman race, and
offered a mortal opposition to the
settlement of all intruders within a
country which they considered their
own. They exercised the same autho­
rity over the various clans or septs of
which they were the heads or leaders
which the baron possessed over his
vassals and their military followers ;
and the dreadful disputes and colli­
sions which perpetually occurred be­
tween these distinct ranks of poten­
tates were accompanied by spoliations,
ravages, imprisonments, and murders,
which had at last become so frequent
and so far extended that the whole
country beyond the Grampian range
was likely to be cut off by these abuses
from all regular communication with
the more pacific parts of the kingdom.

This state of things called loudly
for redress, and the measures of the
king on reaching Inverness were of a
prompt and determined character.
He summoned the most powerful
⁴ History, supra, vol. i. pp. 227, 228.

70                                       HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                       [Chap. II.

chiefs to attend his parliament, and
this command, however extraordinary
it may appear, these ferocious leaders
did not think proper to disobey. It
may be that he employed stratagem,
and held out the prospect of pardon
and reconciliation ; or perhaps a dread­
ful example of immediate execution
in the event of resistance may have
persuaded the Highland nobles that
obedience gave them a chance for
their lives, whilst a refusal left them
no hope of escape. But by whatever
method their attendance was secured,
they soon bitterly repented their fa­
cility, for instantly on entering the
hall of parliament they were arrested,
ironed, and cast into separate prisons,
where all communication with each
other or with their followers was im­
possible. So overjoyed was James at
the success of his plan, and the ap­
parent readiness with which these
fierce leaders seemed to rush into the
toils which had been prepared for
them, that Bower described him as
turning triumphantly to his courtiers
whilst they tied the hands of the
captives, and reciting some leonine or.
monkish rhymes, applauding the skill
exhibited in their arrest, and the de­
served death which awaited them.
Upon this occasion forty greater and
lesser chiefs were seized, but the
names of the highest only have been
preserved,—Alexander of the Isles;
Angus Dow, with his four sons, who
could bring into the field four thou­
sand men from Strathnaver; Kenneth
More, with his son-in-law, Angus of
Moray and Makmathan, who could
command a sept of two thousand
strong; Alexander Makreiny of Gar­
morau, and John Macarthur, a potent
chief, each of whom could muster a
thousand men; along with John Ross,
William Lesley, and James Campbell,
are those enumerated by our contem­
porary historian, whilst the Countess
of Ross, the mother of Alexander of
the Isles, and heiress of Sir Walter
Lesley, a rich and potent baron, was
apprehended at the same time, and
compelled to share the captivity of
her son.¹
1 Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. pp. 1283, 1284.

Some of these, whose crimes had
rendered them especially obnoxious,
the king ordered to immediate execu­
tion. James Campbell was tried, con­
victed, and hanged for his murder of
John of the Isles; Alexander Mak-
reiny and John Macarthur were be­
headed, and their fellow-captives dis­
persed and confined in different prisons
throughout the kingdom. Of these
not a few were afterwards condemned
and executed, whilst the rest, against
whom nothing very flagrant could be
proved, were suffered to escape with
their lives. By some this clemency
was speedily abused, and by none
more than the most powerful and
ambitious of them all, Alexander of
the Isles.

This ocean lord, half prince and
half pirate, had shewn himself willing,
upon all occasions, to embrace the
friendship of England, and to shake
himself loose of all dependence upon
his sovereign ; whilst the immense
body of vassals whom he could muster
under his banner, and the powerful
fleet with which he could sweep the
northern seas, rendered his alliance or
his enmity a matter of no inconsider­
able consequence. After a short con-
finement, the king, moved, perhaps,
by his descent from the ancient family
of Lesley, a house of high and heredi­
tary loyalty, restored him to liberty,
after an admonition to change the evil
courses to which he had been addicted,
and to evince his gratitude by a life of
consistent attachment to the throne.
Alexander, however, after having re­
covered his liberty, only waited to see
the king returned to his Lowland do­
minions, and then broke out into a
paroxysm of fury and revenge. He
collected the whole strength of Ross
and of the Isles, and, at the head of
an army of ten thousand men, griev­
ously wasted the country, directing
his principal vengeance against the
crown lands, and concluding his cam­
paign by razing to the ground the
royal burgh of Inverness.²

James, however, with an activity for
which his enemy was little prepared,
instantly collected a feudal force, and
² Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. p. 1285.

1427.]                                               JAMES I.                                                       71

flew, rather than marched, to the
Highlands, where, in Lochaber, he
came up with the fierce but confused
and undisciplined army of the island
chief. Although his army was pro­
bably far inferior in numbers, yet the
sudden appearance of the royal banner,
the boldness with which he confronted
his enemy, and the terror of the king’s
name, gave him all the advantage of a
surprise; and before the battle began
Alexander found himself deserted by
the clan Chattan and the clan Came­
ron, who to a man went over to the
royal army. It is deeply to be re­
gretted that the account of this expe­
dition should be so meagre, even in
Bower, who was a contemporary. All
those particular details, which would
have given interest to the story, and
individuality to the character of the
persons who acted in it, and which a
little pains might have then preserved,
are now irrecoverably lost. We know
only that the Lord of the Isles, with
his chieftains and ketherans, was com­
pletely routed, and so hotly pursued
by the king that he sent an embassy
to sue for peace. This presumption
greatly incensed the monarch ; he de­
rided the idea of an outlaw, who knew
not where to rest the sole of his foot,
and whom his soldiers were then hunt­
ing from one retreat to another, arro­
gating to himself the dignity of an
independent prince, and attempting to
open a correspondence by his ambassa­
dors; and sternly and scornfully re­
fusing to enter into any negotiation,
returned to his capital, after giving
strict orders to his officers to exert
every effort for his apprehension.

Driven to despair, and finding it
every day more difficult to elude the
vigilance which was exerted, Alexan­
der resolved at last to throw himself
upon the royal mercy. Having pri­
vately travelled to Edinburgh, this
proud chief, who had claimed an
equality with kings, condescended to
an unheard-of humiliation. Upon a
solemn festival, when the monarch
and his queen, attended by their suite,
and surrounded by the nobles of the
court, stood in front of the high altar
in the church of Holyrood, a miserable-

looking man, clothed only in his shirt
and drawers, holding a naked sword
in his hand, and with a countenance
and manner in which grief and desti­
tution were strongly exhibited, sud­
denly presented himself before them.
It was the Lord of the Isles, who fell
upon his knees, and delivering up his
sword to the king, implored his cle­
mency. James granted him his life,
but instantly imprisoned him in Tan-
tallan castle, under the charge of
William, earl of Angus, his nephew.
His mother, the Countess of Ross, was
committed to close confinement in
the ancient monastery of Inchcolm,
situated in an island in the Firth of
Forth.¹ She was released, however,
after little more than a year’s im­
prisonment ; and the island lord him­
self soon after experienced the royal
favour, and was restored to his lands
and possessions.

This unbending severity, which in
some instances approached the very
borders of cruelty, was, perhaps, a
necessary ingredient in the character
of a monarch who, when he ascended
the throne, found his kingdom, to use
the expressive language of an ancient
chronicle,² little else than a wide den
of robbers. Two anecdotes of this
period have been preserved by Bower,
the faithful contemporary historian of
the times, which illustrate in a striking
manner both the character of the king
and the condition of the country. In
the Highland districts, one of those
ferocious chieftains against whom the
king had directed an act of Parliament,
already quoted, had broken in upon a
poor cottager, and carried off two of
her cows. Such was the unlicensed
state of the country, that the robber
walked abroad, and was loudly accused
by the aggrieved party, who swore
that she would never put off her shoes
again till she had carried her com­
plaint to the king in person. “ It is
false,” cried he; “ I’ll have you shod
myself before you reach the court;”
and with a brutality scarcely credible,
the monster carried his threat into

¹  Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. p. 1286.

²  MS. Chronicon ab anno 1390 ad annum
1402. Cartulary of Moray, p. 220.

72                             HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                   [Chap. II.

execution, by fixing with nails driven
into the flesh two horse shoes of iron
upon her naked feet, after which he
thrust her wounded and bleeding on
the highway. Some humane persons
took pity on her; and, when cured,
she retained her original purpose,
sought out the king, told her story,
and shewed her feet, still seamed and
scarred by the inhuman treatment
she had received. James heard her
with that mixture of pity, kindness,
and uncontrollable indignation which
marked his character; and having
instantly directed his writs to the
sheriff of the county where the robber
chief resided, had him seized within a
short time, and sent to Perth, where
the court was then held. He was
instantly tried and condemned; a
linen shirt was thrown over him, upon
which was painted a rude representa­
tion of his crime; and, after being
paraded in this ignominious dress
through the streets of the town, he
was dragged at a horse’s tail, and
hanged on a gallows.¹ Such examples,
there can be little doubt, had an ex­
cellent effect upon the fierce classes,
for a warning to whom they were in­
tended, and caused them to associate
a degree of terror with the name of
the king; which accounts in some
measure for the promptitude of their
obedience when he arrived among
them in person.

The other story to which I have al­
luded is almost equally characteristic.
A noble of high rank, and nearly re­
lated to the king, having quarrelled
with another baron in presence of the
monarch and his court, so far forgot
himself, that he struck his adversary
on the face. James instantly had him
seized, and ordered him to stretch out
his hand upon the council table ; he
then unsheathed the short cutlass
which he carried at his girdle, gave it
to the baron who received the blow,
and commanded him to strike off the
hand which had insulted his honour
and was forfeited to the laws, threat­
ening him with death if he refused.
There is little doubt, from what we
know of the character of this prince^,
1 Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 510.

that he was in earnest; but a thrill of
horror ran through the court, his pre­
lates and council reminded him of the
duty of forgiveness, and the queen,
who was present, fell at his feet, im­
plored pardon for the guilty, and at
last obtained a remission of the sen­
tence. The offender, however, was
instantly banished from court.²

One of the most remarkable features
in the government of this prince was
the frequent recurrence of his parlia­
ments. From the period of his return
from England till his death, his reign
embraced only thirteen years; and in
that time the great council of the
nation was thirteen times assembled.
His object was evidently to render the
higher nobles more dependent upon
the crown, to break down that danger­
ous spirit of pride and individual con­
sequence which confined them to their
separate principalities, and taught
them, for year after year, to tyrannise
over their unhappy vassals, without
the dread of a superior, or the restraint
even of an equal, to accustom them
to the spectacle of the laws, proceed­
ing not from their individual caprice
or authority, but from the collective
wisdom of the three estates, sanc­
tioned by the consent, and carried
into execution by the power, of the
crown acting through its ministers.

In a parliament, of which the prin­
cipal provisions have been already
noticed, it had been made incumbent
upon all earls, barons, and freeholders
to attend the meeting of the estates
in person; and the practice of sending
procurators or attorneys in their place,