Albany seems to have made all due efforts to obtain his nephew's release, and James was in constant communication with Scotland. He had been forced to accompany Henry V to France, and was present at the siege of Melun, where Henry refused quarter to the Scottish allies of France, although England and Scotland were at war. Although constantly complaining of his imprisonment, and of the treatment accorded to him in England, James brought home with him, when his release was negotiated in 1423-24, an English bride, Joan Beaufort, the heroine of the Quair. She was the daughter of Somerset, who had been captured at Baugé, and grand-daughter of John of Gaunt.
The troublous reign of James I gave him but little time for conducting a foreign war, and the truce which was made when the king was ransomed continued till 1433. It had been suggested that the peace between England and Scotland should extend to the Scottish troops serving in France, but no such clause was inserted in the actual arrangement made, and it is almost certain that James could not have enforced it, even had he wished to do so. He gave, however, no indication of holding lightly the ties that bound Scotland to France, and, in 1428, agreed to the marriage of his infant daughter, Margaret, to the dauphin. Meanwhile, the Scottish levies had been taking their full share in the struggle for freedom in which France was engaged. At Crevant, near Auxerre, in July, 1423, the Earl of Buchan, now Constable of France, was defeated by Salisbury, and, thirteen months later, Buchan and the Earl of Douglas (Duke of Touraine) fell on the disastrous field of Verneuil. At the Battle of the Herrings (an attack upon a French convoy carrying Lenten food to the besiegers of Orleans, made near Janville, in February, 1429), the Scots, under the new constable, Sir John Stewart of Darnley, committed the old error of Halidon and Homildon, and their impetuous valour could not avail against the English archers. They shared in the victory of Pathay, gained by the Maid of Orleans in June 1429, almost on the anniversary of Bannockburn, and they continued to follow the Maid through the last fateful months of her warfare. So great a part had Scotsmen taken in the French wars that, on the expiry of the truce in 1433, the English offered to restore not only Roxburgh but also Berwick to Scotland. But the French alliance was destined to endure for more than another century, and James declined, thus bringing about a slight resuscitation of warlike operations. The Scots won a victory at Piperden, near Berwick, in 1435 or 1436, and in the summer of 1436, when the Princess Margaret was on her way to France to enter into her ill-starred union with the dauphin, the English made an attempt to take her captive. James replied by an attempt upon Roxburgh, but gave it up without having accomplished anything, and returned to spend his last Christmas at Perth. His twelve years in Scotland had been mainly occupied in attempts to reduce his rebellious subjects, especially in the Highlands, to obedience and loyalty, and he had roused much implacable resentment. So the poet-king was murdered at Perth in February, 1436-37, and his English widow was left to guard her son, the child sovereign, now in his seventh year. It was probably under her influence that a truce of nine years was made.
When the truce came to an end, Scotland was in the interval between the two contests with the House of Douglas which mark the reign of James II. William the sixth earl and his brother David had been entrapped and beheaded by the governors of the boy king in November, 1440, and the new earl, James the Gross, died in 1443, and was succeeded by his son, William, the eighth earl, who remained for some years on good terms with the king. Accordingly, we find that, when the English burned the town of Dunbar in May, 1448, Douglas replied, in the following month, by sacking Alnwick. Retaliation came in the shape of an assault upon Dumfries in the end of June, and the Scots, with Douglas at their head, burned Warkworth in July. The successive attacks on Alnwick and Warkworth roused the Percies to a greater effort, and, in October, they invaded Scotland, and were defeated at the battle of Sark or Lochmaben Stone.[56] In 1449 the Franco-Scottish League was strengthened by the marriage of King James to Marie of Gueldres.
Now began the second struggle with the Douglases. Their great possessions, their rights as Wardens of the Marches, their prestige in Scottish history made them dangerous subjects for a weak royal house. Since the death of the good Lord James their loyalty to the kings of Scotland had not been unbroken, and it is probable that their suppression was inevitable in the interests of a strong central government. But the perfidy with which James, with his own hand, murdered the Earl, in February, 1451-52, can scarcely be condoned, and it has created a sympathy for the Douglases which their history scarcely merits. James had now entered upon a decisive struggle with the great House, which a temporary reconciliation with the new earl, in 1453, only served to prolong. The quarrel is interesting for our purpose because it largely decided the relations between Scotland and the rival lines of Lancaster and York. In 1455, when the Douglases were finally suppressed and their estates were forfeited, the Yorkists first took up arms against Henry VI. Douglas had attempted intrigues with the Lord of the Isles, with the Lancastrians, and with the Yorkists in turn, and, about 1454, he came to an understanding with the Duke of York. We find, therefore, during the years which followed the first battle of St. Albans, a revival of active hostilities with England. In 1456, James invaded England and harried Northumberland in the interests of the Lancastrians. During the temporary loss of power by the Duke of York, in 1457, a truce was concluded, but it was broken after the reconciliation of York to Henry VI in 1458, and when the battle of Northampton, in July, 1460, left the Yorkists again triumphant, James marched to attempt the recovery of Roxburgh.[57] James I, as we have seen, had abandoned the siege of Roxburgh Castle only to go to his death; his son found his death while attempting the same task. On Sunday, the 3rd of August, 1460, he was killed by the bursting of a cannon, the mechanism of which had attracted his attention and made him, according to Pitscottie, "more curious than became him or the majesty of a king".
The year 1461 saw Edward IV placed on his uneasy throne, and a boy of ten years reigning over the turbulent kingdom of Scotland. The Scots had regained Roxburgh a few days after the death of King James, and they followed up their success by the capture of Wark. But a greater triumph was in store. When Margaret of Anjou, after rescuing her husband, Henry VI, at the second battle of St. Albans, in February, 1461, met, in March, the great disaster of Towton, she fled with Henry to Scotland, where she had been received when preparing for the expedition which had proved so unfortunate. On her second visit she brought with her the surrender of Berwick, which, in April, 1461, became once more a Scots town, and was represented in the Parliament which met in 1469. In gratitude for the gift, the Scots made an invasion of England in June, 1461, and besieged Carlisle, but were forced to retire without having afforded any real assistance to the Lancastrian cause. There was now a division of opinion in Scotland with regard to supporting the Lancastrian cause. The policy of the late king was maintained by the great Bishop Kennedy, who himself entertained Henry VI in the Castle of St. Andrews. But the queen-mother, Mary of Gueldres, was a niece of the Duke of Burgundy, and was, through his influence, persuaded to go over to the side of the White Rose. While Edward IV remained on unfriendly terms with Louis XI of France, Kennedy had not much difficulty in resisting the Yorkist proclivities of the queen-mother, and in keeping Scotland loyal to the Red Rose. They were able to render their allies but little assistance, and their opposition gave the astute Edward IV an opportunity of intrigue. John of the Isles took advantage of the minority of James III to break the peace into which he had been brought by James II, and the exiled Earl of Douglas concluded an agreement between the Lord of the Isles and the King of England. But when, in October, 1463, Edward IV came to terms with Louis XI, Bishop Kennedy was willing to join Mary of Gueldres in deserting the doomed House of Lancaster. Mary did not live to see the success of her policy; but peace was made for a period of fifteen years, and Scotland had no share in the brief Lancastrian restoration of 1470. The threatening relations between England and France nearly led to a rupture in 1473, but the result was only to strengthen the agreement, and it was arranged that the infant heir of James III should marry the Princess Cecilia, Edward's daughter. In 1479-80, when the French were again alarmed by the diplomacy of Edward IV, we find an outbreak of hostilities, the precise cause of which is somewhat obscure. It is certain that Edward made no effort to preserve the peace, and he sent, in 1481, a fleet to attack the towns on the Firth of Forth, in revenge for a border raid for which James had attempted to apologize. Edward was unable to secure the services of his old ally, the Lord of the Isles, who had been again brought into subjection in the interval of peace, and who now joined in the national preparations for war with England. But there was still a rebel Earl of Douglas with whom to plot, and Edward was fortunate in obtaining the co-operation of the Duke of Albany, brother of James III, who had been exiled in 1479. Albany and Edward made a treaty in 1482, in which the former styled himself "Alexander, King of Scotland", and promised to do homage to Edward when he should obtain his throne. The only important events of the war are the recapture of Berwick, in August, 1482, and an invasion of Scotland by the Duke of Gloucester. Berwick was never again in Scottish hands. Albany was unable to carry out the revolution contemplated in his treaty with Edward IV; but he was reinstated, and became for three months Lieutenant-General of the Realm of Scotland. In March, 1482-83, he resigned this office, and, after a brief interval, in which he was reconciled to King James, was again forfeited in July, 1483. Edward IV had died on the 9th of April, and Albany was unable to obtain any English aid. Along with the Earl of Douglas he made an attempt upon Scotland, but was defeated at Lochmaben in July, 1484. Thereafter, both he and his ally pass out of the story: Douglas died a prisoner in 1488; Albany escaped to France, where he was killed at a tournament in 1485; he left a son who was to take a great part in Scottish politics during the minority of James V.
Richard III found sufficient difficulty in governing England to prevent his desiring to continue unfriendly relations with Scotland, and he made, on his accession, something like a cordial peace with James III. It was arranged that James, now a widower,[58] should marry Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV, and that his heir, Prince James, should marry a daughter of the Duke of Suffolk. James did not afford Richard any assistance in 1485, and after the battle of Bosworth he remained on friendly terms with Henry VII. A controversy about Berwick prevented the completion of negotiations for marriage alliances, but friendly relations were maintained till the revolution of 1488, in which James III lost his life. Both James and his rebellious nobles, who had proclaimed his son as king, attempted to obtain English assistance, but it was given to neither side.
The new king, James IV, was young, brave, and ambitious. He was specially interested in the navy, and in the commercial prosperity of Scotland. It was scarcely possible that, in this way, difficulties with England could be avoided, for Henry VII was engaged in developing English trade, and encouraged English shipping. Accordingly, we find that, while the two countries were still nominally at peace, they were engaged in a naval warfare. Scotland was fortunate in the possession of some great sea-captains, notable among whom were Sir Andrew Wood and Sir Andrew Barton.[59] In 1489, Sir Andrew Wood, with two ships, the Yellow Carvel and the Flower, inflicted a severe defeat upon five English vessels which were engaged in a piratical expedition in the Firth of Forth. Henry VII, in great wrath, sent Stephen Bull, with "three great ships, well-manned, well-victualled, and well-artilleried", to revenge the honour of the English navy, and after a severe fight Bull and his vessels were captured by the Scots. There was thus considerable irritation on both sides, and while the veteran intriguer, the Duchess of Burgundy, attempted to obtain James's assistance for the pretender, Perkin Warbeck, the pseudo-Duke of York, Henry entered into a compact with Archibald, Earl of Angus, well-known to readers of Marmion. The treachery of Angus led, however, to no immediate result, and peace was maintained till 1495, although the French alliance was confirmed in 1491. The rupture of 1495 was due solely to the desire of James to aid Maximilian in the attempt to dethrone Henry VII in the interests of Warbeck. Henry, on his part, made every effort to retain the friendship of the Scottish king, and offered a marriage alliance with his eldest daughter, Margaret. James, however, was determined to strike a blow for his protegé, and in November, 1495, Warbeck landed in Scotland, was received with great honour, assigned a pension, and wedded to the Lady Katharine Gordon, daughter of the greatest northern lord, the Earl of Huntly. In the following April, Ferdinand and Isabella, who were desirous of separating Scotland from France, tried to dissuade James from supporting Warbeck, and offered him a daughter in marriage, although the only available Spanish princess was already promised to Prince Arthur of England. But all efforts to avoid war were of no avail, and in September, 1496, James marched into England, ravaged the English borders, and returned to Scotland. The English replied by small border forays, but James's enthusiasm for his guest rapidly cooled; in July, 1497, Warbeck left Scotland. James did not immediately make peace, holding himself possibly in readiness in the event of Warbeck's attaining any success. In August he again invaded England, and attacked Norham Castle, provoking a counter-invasion of Scotland by the Earl of Surrey. In September, Warbeck was captured, and, in the same month, a truce was arranged between Scotland and England, by the Peace of Aytoun. There was, in the following year, an unimportant border skirmish; but with the Peace of Aytoun ended this attempt of the Scots to support a pretender to the English crown. The first Scottish interference in the troubles of Lancaster and York had been on behalf of the House of Lancaster; the story is ended with this Yorkist intrigue. When next there arose circumstances in any way similar, the sympathies of the Scots were enlisted on the side of their own Royal House of Stuart.
FOOTNOTES:
[52] George Dunbar, Earl of March, must be carefully distinguished from the child, Edmund Mortimer, the English Earl of March, grandson of Lionel of Clarence, and direct heir to the English throne after Richard II.