James II of Scotland

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James II of Scotland (October 16 1430 — August 3 1460) reigned as king of Scots from 1437 to 1460.

James II, the son of James I of Scotland and of Joan Beaufort (daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and of Margaret Holland), had an elder twin, Alexander Stewart, Duke of Rothesay, who lived long enough to receive a knighthood, but died in infancy. James II became the father of James III. He gained the nickname "Fiery face" because of a conspicuous vermilion birthmark on his face. James had six sisters, who married into various European royal dynasties.

1 Child King
2 Struggles with the Douglases
3 Effective ruler
4 Marriage and children

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Child King

Inheriting the throne at under seven years old, James saw the government in the hands of others for most of his reign. The assassination of his father James I had formed part of an attempt to usurp power by Walter Stewart, 1st Earl of Atholl, but it failed miserably, and James's guardians had Atholl and his allies captured and executed in the months after the assassination.

From 1437 to 1439) Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas, as lieutenant-general of the realm, headed the government. After his death, and with a general lack of high-status earls in Scotland because of deaths, forfeiture or youth, power became shared uneasily between William, 1st Lord Crichton, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (sometimes in co-operation with James 'the Gross' Douglas, Earl of Buchan), and Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar, who had possession of the young king as the warden of the stronghold of Stirling Castle.

In 1440 Stirling became the location for the 'Black Dinner', which saw the summary execution of the young William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas and of his brother. Commentators tend to place the blame for the Black Dinner at the feet of Crichton, Livingston and particularly Buchan, as Douglas's death brought him the earldom of Douglas (as 7th earl of Douglas), and the position of the most powerful magnate in Scotland.

The precise details of who ran the government year by year between 1439 and 1445 appear complex and far from certain, but in 1445 the Livingstons co-operated with William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas, son of the recently-deceased 7th Earl, to drive Crichton from power. Douglas now took the lead in governing Scotland until 1449, placing his brothers and other family members in positions of power. Yet the wily Crichton soon returned to influence, now co-operating with the Douglases.

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Struggles with the Douglases

In 1449 James II emerged into adulthood, yet in many ways his 'active kingship' differed little from his minority. The Douglases used his coming of age as a way to throw the Livingstons out of the shared government, as the young king took revenge for the brief arrest of his mother (in turn as a means to remove her from political influence) that had taken place in 1439. Douglas and Crichton continued to dominate political power, and the king's ability to rule without them remained arguably limited.

But James did not acquiesce with this situation without argument, and between 1451 and 1455 he struggled to free himself from the power of the Douglases. Attempts to curb Douglas power took place in 1451, during the absence of the Earl of Douglas from Scotland, and culminated with the murder of the 8th Earl of Douglas at Stirling Castle on February 22, 1452.

The king had accused the earl (probably with justification) of forging links with John Macdonald, 11th Earl of Ross (a.k.a. the Lord of the Isles) and with Alexander Lindsay, 4th Earl of Crawford. This bond would have created a dangerous axis of powerful and independently-minded men tand formed a potentially major threat to the royal power. When, allegedly, Douglas refused to break the bond with Ross, James flew into a temper and stabbed Douglas to death. His court officials (many of whom would rise to great influence in later years, often in former Douglas lands) then joined in the bloodbath, one even striking out the earl's brains with an axe.

This murder did not remove the power of the Douglases, but rather created a state of intermittent civil war between 1452 and 1455. James attempted to seize Douglas lands, but his opponents repeatedly forced him to climb down, whereby he returned the lands to James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas and a brief and uneasy peace ensued.

Military campaigns ended indecisively, and some have argued that James stood in serious danger of overthrow, or of having to flee the country. But James' patronage of lands, titles and office to allies of the Douglases saw their erstwhile allies begin to change sides, most tellingly the Earl of Crawford, and in 1455 James could finally strike a decisive blow against the Douglases, and they finally suffered defeat at the battle of Arkinholm in May 1455.

In the months that followed the Parliament of Scotland declared the extensive Douglas lands forfeit and permanently annexed them to the crown, along with many other lands, finances and castles. The earl fled into a long English exile. James finally had the freedom to govern as he wished, and one can argue that his successors as kings of Scots never faced such a powerful challenge to their authority again. Along with the forfeiture of the Albany Stewarts in reign of James I, the destruction of the Black Douglases saw royal power in Scotland take a major step forward.

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Effective ruler

Between 1455 and 1460 James II proved an active and interventionist king. Ambitions to take Orkney and Shetland and the Isle of Man to Scotland did not succeed. The king travelled the country, and seems to have originated the practice of raising money by giving remissions for serious crimes. In 1458 an Act of Parliament seems to criticise the king, but one cannot say how his reign would have developed had he lived longer.

James enthusiastically promoted modern artillery, which he used with some success against the Black Douglases. His ambitions to increase Scotland's standing saw him besiege Roxburgh castle in 1460, one of the last Scottish castles still held by the English after the Wars of Independence. On August 3 one of his cannons exploded, killing the King of Scots. (The Scots carried on with the siege and took the castle.)

Lindsay of Pitscottie wrote (in his Historie, first published about 1728) concerning the accident that befell King James II as he stood near a piece of artillery that "his thigh-bone was dung in two with a piece of misframed gun that brake in shooting, by the which he was stricken to the ground and died hastily".

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