James I, King of Scots: Part Two.

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Catherine ofValois, Charles VI of France, Duke of Albany, Henry IV, Henry IV of England, Henry V of England, James I of Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Murdoch of Albany, Robert Duke of Albany

King in captivity

James, now the uncrowned King of Scots, began what proved to be his 18-year period as a hostage while at the same time Robert, Duke of Albany transitioned from his position of lieutenant to that of Governor of Scotland, wielding immense power and was king in all but name. The Duke of Albany confiscated James’s lands and placed them under his own control. This deprived the young king of any income. The Duke of Albany also confiscated the regalia (the Honors of Scotland).

James was held in Windsor Castle and although technically a prisoner Henry IV treated the young James well, provided him with a good education. With James now a regular member of the Court of Henry IV he was ideally placed to observe Henry’s methods of kingship. Despite being a prisoner of the English king, and with his uncle ruling Scotland, James was kept abreast of the events and news within Scotland as he received personal visits from his nobles coupled with letters to individuals to maintain his visibility in his kingdom.

Henry IV died on March 30, 1413 and his son, Henry V, became King of England and Lord of Ireland and the policies and treatment of James changed immediately. The King of Scots became not just a prisoner in theory, he became a prisoner in reality as James’s comparative freedom was halted and Henry V moved him to the Tower of London along with the other Scottish prisoners.

Ironically, one of these prisoners being held at the same time was James’s cousin, Murdoch Stewart, the Duke of Albany’s son, who had been captured in 1402 at the Battle of Homildon Hill. Initially the cousins were held apart but from 1413 until Murdoch’s release in 1415 they were together in the Tower and at Windsor Castle.

James’s value to Henry became apparent in 1420 when he accompanied the English king to France where his presence was used against the Scots fighting on the Dauphinist side. Following the English success at the siege of Melun, a town southeast of Paris, the contingent of Scots were hanged for treason against their kings. These events changed James’s standing at Henry V’s court and his condition improved greatly; he ceased to be regarded as a hostage and more of a guest.

James attended Catherine of Valois’s coronation on February 23, 1421 and was honoured by being seated immediately on the queen’s left at the coronation banquet. Catherine of Valois was the wife of Henry V and the daughter of King Charles VI of France and his wife Isabeau of Bavaria. In March, Henry began a circuit of the important towns in England as a show of strength and it was during this tour that James was knighted on Saint George’s day. By July, the two kings were back campaigning in France where James, evidently approving of Henry’s methods of kingship, seemed content in supporting the English king’s claim for the French crown.

Henry appointed the Duke of Bedford and James as the joint commanders of the siege of Dreux on July 18, 1421 and on August 20, they received the surrender of the garrison. Henry died of dysentery on August 31, 1422 and in September James was part of the escort taking the English king’s body back to London. Henry V was succeeded on the English throne by his 9 month old son who became Henry VI.

Next: The King’s Marriage.

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James I, King of Scots: Part One.

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Archibald Douglas, Duke of Albany, Earl of Douglas, Henry IV, Henry IV of England, James I of Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Robert III of Scotland, Robert of Albany, The Earl of March

King James I of Scotland has an interesting and tragic history. I recently wrote about his father, Robert III of Scotland, and I have decided to do a small series on this tragic Scottish king. This will come in at least three sections, if not more.


James I, King of Scotland (late July 1394 – February 21,1437), was the the youngest of three sons to King Robert III and his wife Annabella Drummond. James was born in Dunfermline Abbey and was not suspected to become Kingof Scots but by the time he was eight both of his elder brothers were dead. The eldest, Robert, had died in infancy and his second brother, David, Duke of Rothesay, died suspiciously in Falkland Palace while being detained by his paternal uncle, Robert, Duke of Albany. Although the Duke of Albany was exonerated by parliament, the vast majority of scholars do believe that the Duke of Albany did have an active hand in the death of his nephew the Duke of Rothesay.

The issues that put the life of young Prince James in peril stems from a complex struggle for power amongst the various branches of the House of Stuart after it had only recently mounted the Scottish throne and faced threats from England. King Robert III was unpopular at this time and apposed by his brother the Duke of Albany. Along with the Duke of Albany, the other key noble opposing King Robert III was Archibald, 4th Earl of Douglas. The Earl of Douglas was the eldest legitimate son of Archibald Douglas, 3rd Earl of Douglas and Joanna de Moravia of Bothwell, he was born either at Threave Castle or at Bothwell Castle c.1372 and was known as the Master of Douglas until his accession to the Earldom. Prior to 1390 he had married the Princess Margaret of Carrick, a daughter of King Robert III of Scotland.

In 1399 the Earl of Douglas, along with the Duke of Albany and Albany’s son Murdoch, justiciar North of the Forth, and the bishops Walter of St Andrews and Gilbert of Aberdeen, met at Falkland Castle because the general council criticised Robert III’s governance for the failure to pacify the Gaelic areas in west and north. The outcome of this meeting was that King Robert III was forced to surrender power. He did not surrender power to Douglas or to Albany, but instead to his son and heir the Duke Rothesay. This release of power was to last for a period of three years. Many Scottish nobles supported Douglas and Albany rather than Rothesay. This also motivated Albany to get rid of the Duke of Rothesay. With the Nobles support of Douglas and Albany is considered the source of the reasoning why the two were exonerated so willingly by the Scottish Parliament for the death of the Duke of Rothesay.

Removing Douglas and Albany from the equation created a source of the friction between and the rest of the Scottish Royal house and the nobility because Douglas and Albany were considered to be the only fit antidote to George Dunbar, Earl of March and his renewed hostility with Robert III and the Duke of Rothesay. These hostilities would also involve Henry IV and his English troops.

The conflict between Earl of March and the Duke of Rothesay occurred when the Rothesay married decided to marry Mary Douglas, daughter of the Earl of Douglas rather than remarrying Elizabeth Dunbar as previously agreed. In consequence of this slight upon his family’s honour, the Earl of March renounced his allegiance to Robert III and retired into England, placing himself under the protection of King Henry IV. In 1401 he made a wasteful inroad into Scotland, and in June 1402 he was victorious against a small Scottish force at the Battle of Nesbit Moor. At the subsequent Battle of Homildon Hill he again fought on the English side.

With the death of the Duke of Rothesay fears for James’s safety grew through the winter of 1405–1406 and plans were made to send him to France to keep him out of reach of both the Duke of Albany (the Earl of Douglas died in 1400) along with the Earl of March and his garrisons. In February 1406 James was accompanying nobles close to his father when they clashed with supporters of the Earl of March, forcing the prince to take refuge in the castle of the Bass Rock, a small islet in the Firth of Forth. He remained there until mid-March when he boarded a vessel bound for France, but on March 22 while off the English coast, pirates captured the ship and delivered James to Henry IV of England. The ailing Robert III died on April 4, 1406 and the 12-year-old James, now the uncrowned King of Scots, was a prisoner of the English king.


Part II: Captivity in England.

Death of King Robert III of Scotland.

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David II of Scotland, Duke of Albany, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Henry IV, Henry IV of England, House of Stuart, James I of Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Robert III of Scotland, Robert the Bruce

On this date in History. April 4, 1406. Death of King Robert III of Scotland.

Robert III (c.1337/40 – April 4, 1406), born John Stewart, was King of Scots from 1390 to his death. He was known primarily as John, Earl of Carrick before ascending the throne. He was the eldest son of Robert II and Elizabeth Mure and was legitimated with the marriage of his parents in 1347.

In 1368 David II, King of Scots created John Earl of Carrick. His father became king Robert II in 1371 after the unexpected death of the childless King David II. Robert II’s claim to the throne of Scotland was as the nephew of David II and also as a grand son of Robert I (Robert the Bruce). Robert II was the son of the son of Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce by his first wife Isabella of Mar. This made Robert II the first Scottish king of the House of Stewart (Stuart)*

John Stewart, Earl of Carrick was influential in the government of the kingdom but became progressively more impatient at his father’s longevity. The Earl of CarrickRobert II died at Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire on April 19, 1390 and was buried at Scone on April 25. The Earl of Carrick was 53 years old when he ascended the Scottish throne.

In May 1390 the Scottish Parliament granted John permission to change his regnal name to Robert III probably in part to maintain the link back to Robert I but also to disassociate himself from unpopular King John Balliol.

In 1367 Robert III, then Earl of Carrick, married Annabella Drummond the daughter of Sir John Drummond, 11th Thane of Lennox and Mary Montifex, daughter of Sir William Montifex. They had seven children. The heir to the throne was David Stewart (24 October 1378 – 26 March 1402). He was the first Duke of Rothesay from 1398. He was named after his great-great-uncle, David II of Scotland, and also held the titles of Earl of Atholl (1398–1402) and Earl of Carrick (1390–1402).

In late February 1402, while travelling officially to St Andrews, David was arrested just outside the city at Strathtyrum in a sting operation which had been arranged by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany (c. 1340 – 3 September 1420), the younger brother of Robert III, King of Scots a ruthless politician. The Duke of Albany, at that time in complicit alliance with Archibald, fourth Earl of Douglas. (David’s father-in-law, the highly influential third Earl, had died two years before, in 1400.) concocted the pretext for David’s arrest was that his lieutenancy had expired. He was initially held captive in St Andrews Castle, and soon afterwards taken to Falkland Palace, Albany’s residence in Fife. At Falkland David remained a prisoner and shortly died there, reputedly of starvation. A few weeks later, in May 1402, a public enquiry into the circumstances of David’s death exonerated Albany of all blame.

Following David, the Duke of Rothesay’s death, and with the restoration of the lieutenancy to Albany and the Scottish defeat at the battle of Humbleton, Robert III experienced almost total exclusion from political authority and was limited to his lands in the west.

By October 28, 1405 Robert III had returned to Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire. With the king’s health failing, it was decided in the winter of 1405–6 to send the young prince James, now heir to the throne after his brothers death, to France out of the reach of the Duke of Albany. On March 22, 1406 the ship was taken by English pirates off Flamborough Head, who delivered James to King Henry IV of England. Robert III had moved to Rothesay Castle where, after hearing of his son’s captivity, died on April 4, 1406, and was buried in Paisley Abbey, which had been founded by the Stewarts.

James Stewart, succeeded Robert III as James I, King of Scots (although at that time remaining uncrowned and in captivity in England) while the Duke of Albany secured himself as de facto ruler of Scotland.

* Stewart was the original spelling for the name of the Royal House. It was after the reign of Mary I, Queen of Scots and her time in France did the spelling of the Royal House change to Stuart, the French form of the name.

Why the Queen cannot give the throne to the Duke of Cambridge.

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Act of Settlement 1701, Edward VI, Elizabeth II, Henry IV, Kingdom of England, Louis XIV of France, Parliament, Prince Charles, Prince William of Wales, The Duke of Cambridge

Frequently on social media I will see posts by people that think the Queen should give the throne to the Duke of Cambridge, bypassing the Prince of Wales. These people generally are not fans of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. The Queen has no power to give the crown to anyone. She cannot bypass the Prince of Wales and give the crown to the Duke of Cambridge. The succession to the throne is regulated by Parliament and this authority has been in the hands of Parliament for centuries. Therefore, it would take an Act of Parliament to alter the succession and remove the Prince of Wales from his rightful place in the order of the succession. There is no plans to do so, nor is there any reason or need to alter the succession.

Even during the reigns of the Saxon kings the power to regulate or name your successor was not in the hands of the monarch. That power was in the hands of the Witenagemot (Witan) a council of elders. At the time the English kingship was elective and semi-hereditary. The Witenagemot had the power to name and elect the king and although they limited their choices to the House of Wessex, they would often select a brother of the pervious King especially if the king left children too young to reign.

In 1066 when William I “the Conqueror” became king he abolished the Witenagemot and held the power and right to name his successor. Although the king did hold this power, the will of the king was not always followed. Case in point was Henry I of England (1100-1134) who named his daughter, the Empress Matilda, as his successor. However, despite the Barons swearing an oath to uphold the succession of the Empress Matilda, this oath was ignored upon King Henry’s death allowing the King’s nephew, Count Stephen of Blois, to usurp the throne and plunging England into many years of civil war.

Eventually the crown evolved into the male preferred primogeniture that remained up until recently which ended with the Crown Act of 2013 and left the succession to the Crown to the eldest child regardless of gender. Also, concurrent with the settling into the tradition of male preferred primogeniture, came the rise of Parliament which also tried influence the crown in matters of succession. When Henry IV (1399-1412) usurped the crown from Richard II (1377-1399) he had his kingship sanctioned by Parliament to give his reign legal status.

Even when monarchs such as Henry VIII (1509-1547) and his son Edward VI (1547-1553) tried to alter the succession they were unable to assert their will without Parliamentary approval. Henry tried to exclude the descendants of the union of his sister Margaret to King James IV of Scotland and Edward tried to bypass his sister Mary and give the throne to his cousin, Lady Jane Grey. In each case Parliament either ignored the king’s will, as was the case with the union of Margaret to King James IV of Scotland, and Parliament did not sanction altering the succession that Edward VI attempted. This was another reason Lady Jane is considered a usurper.

Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) was the last monarch who had power to name her successor given the fact that she left no heir. This was a power she refused to use as she did not name her successor, although historians debate whether or not she did name her distant cousin, King James VI of Scotland, as her successor. In 1679 King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland actually stopped Parliament from removing his brother, James, Duke of York from the succession due to his Catholicism via the Exclusion Bill. The almost lead to another English civil war.

The Duke of York became King James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1685 and it was his abandonment of the throne in 1688 which lead to Parliament calling William III of Orange and Princess Mary, daughter of the deposed king, to the throne which they held jointly. This was made legal with the passing of the English Bill of Rights in 1689. With the Passing of the Act of Settlement in 1701, which regulated the throne to the Protestant descendants of the Electress Sophia of Hanover, Parliament has held the power to regulate the succession to the crown ever since.

Although not England, even the great powerful Louis XIV of France and Navarre (1643-1715), an absolute monarch, was unable to alter the succession to the French throne when he wanted to give succession rights to his legitimized children after the Princes of the Blood. This demonstrates how difficult it is for a monarch to alter the succession to the crown.

I hope this short history lesson demonstrates why the Queen cannot alter the succession to the crown by giving the throne to the Duke of Cambridge bypassing the Prince of Wales.

Legal Succession: Henry VII part 2

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Battle of Bosworth Field, Duke of Lancaster, Earl of Richmond, England, Henry IV, Henry Tudor, Henry VII of England, House of Lancaster, House of York, John of Gaunt, Kings and Queens of England, Richard II, War of the Roses

As we saw in the last installment Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, had a tenuous claim to the English throne. As descendents of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (son of Edward III) via a third marriage which later legitimized his children, Henry Tudor’s line once had succession rights but those rights were then legally removed. As I mentioned before, the victors  get to rewrite the rules and this is evident in the rise to the throne of Henry VII.

With the death of Henry VI and the death of his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, the collateral branch of the Plantagenet, known as the House of Lancaster had come to an end. However, there were other descendants of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster to take up the Lancastrian claims. The Beaufort House, from John of Gaunt’s third marriage, were given the title Duke of Somerset and after the extinction of the male line only the female line remained, represented by Lady Margaret Beaufort and her son Henry Tudor. The year after the Battle of Tewkesbury Lady Margaret married Lord Stanley, who had been a devoted supported of King Edward IV. Stanley did not support Richard III and instrumental in putting Henry Tudor on the throne.

It was the defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in August of 1485 that placed the new Tudor Dynasty on the throne. Ever since Henry IV usurped the throne from Richard II in 1399 the legality of all the subsequent kings has been a pretty messy situation. Although Henry had a slim blood claim to the throne his legal standing was even weaker given that his line had lost its succession rights. Therefore, his succession to the throne was more of a conquest than a usurpation.

One of the things the new Henry VII did was to unite the warring factions while also strengthening his position on the throne. To do that he desired to marry Elizabeth of York, daughter of King Edward IV. This would unite both the houses of York and Lancaster. However there was some resistance to that. Those that were against the union claimed that Richard III’s Act of Parliament, Titulus Regius, that had declared the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville invalid and the children illegitimate still stood as law. Henry VII disagreed with that position and had the act repealed. When he was crowned Henry VII took the throne not as a conqueror but as a legitimate descendant of John of Gaunt.

Henry and Elizabeth married on January 18, 1486. Their first son, Arthur, born on September 20, 1486 had a strong blood and legal claim to the throne. He was a descendant of the now legal King Henry VII of England and he was a multiple descendant of Edward III and heir to both the houses of York and Lancaster.

As we shall see in the next section of this series Arthur never lived to become king and the throne passed to his brother who became King Henry VIII of England. Although the succession of Henry VII and his marriage to Elizabeth of York ended the Dynastic Wars struggles for the throne would also plague the Tudor Dynasty.

Legal Succession: Henry VII Part One.

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Buckingham Palace, Constance of Castile, Duke of Lancaster, Henry III of Castile, Henry IV, Henry VII of England, King Richard III of England, Kings and Queens of England, Letters Patent 1397, Pope Eugene IV, War of the Roses

This is the Legal succession issue which inspired me to do this series. It is complex so I will divide it into a couple of blog entries.

Many know that Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field on August 22 1485 in the last battle of the War of the Roses and that the victor on the field of battle, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a scion of the House of Lancaster, mounted the English throne to become King Henry VII. The question I ask is, did Henry VII have any legal claims to the throne? Was he a usurper or did he obtain the crown by conquest? My assertion is that his blood claim to the throne was weak, there were many ahead of him in the order of succession, therefore that he obtained the throne by right of conquest.

First of all I would like to examine his blood claim to the throne of England. His claim to the throne begins with his descent from King Edward III via his son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. As we have already seen The House of Lancaster came to power when Henry IV usurped the throne from Richard II in 1399. Henry IV was the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and his first wife, Blanch of Lancaster. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, married a second time, Constance of Castile, daughter of King Pedro the Cruel of Castile. John of Gaunt and Constance of Castile had one daughter, Catherine, who married her cousin, King Enrique III of Castile. From this union descends the Kings and Queens of Spain.

The descent from John of Gaunt which gave Henry Tudor a weak claim to the throne was through John of Gaunt’s third union with Katherine Swynford née (de) Roet. Initially Katherine was the governess to Gaunt’s daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth. After the death of Gaunt’s first wife, Blanch, John and Katherine entered into a romantic relationship which produced 4 children, all illegitimate being born out-of-wedlock. However, two years after the death of Constance of Castile, John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford legally married at Lincoln cathedral 1393.

Subsequent Letters Patent in 1397 by Richard II and a Papal Bull issued by the Pope Eugene IV legitimized the adult children of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford with full rights to the throne. However, an Act of Parliament in the reign of Henry IV confirmed their legitimacy but barred the children from having rights to the throne. Later historians would argue whether or not the barring of the children of this union from the English throne was legal or not. This Act of Parliament did weaken the claims of Henry Tudor.

I will stop here and continue this series next week.