History of the Stewarts | Famous Stewarts
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His mother became joint regent but was arrested after marrying James Stewart, who was Lord of Lorne and a noble of lesser rank. From 1437 to 1439 the King´s first cousin Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas, headed the government as lieutenant-general of the realm. After his death, and with a general lack of high-status earls in Scotland due to deaths, forfeiture or youth, political power became shared uneasily among William Crichton, 1st Lord Crichton, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (sometimes in co-operation with the Earl of Avondale), and Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar, who had possession of the young king as the warden of the stronghold of Stirling Castle. Taking advantage of these events, Livingston placed Queen Joan and her new husband, Sir John Stewart of Lorne, under "house arrest" at Stirling Castle on 3 August 1439. They were released on 4 September only by making a formal agreement to put James in the custody of the Livingstons, by giving up her dowry for his maintenance, and confessing that Livingston had acted through zeal for the king´s safety.
In 1440, in the King´s name, an invitation is said to have been sent to the young 6th Earl of Douglas and his brother, eleven-year-old David, to visit the king at Edinburgh Castle in November 1440. They came, and were entertained at the royal table, from which they were hurried to their doom, which took place by beheading in the castle yard of Edinburgh on 24 November. Three days later Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld, their chief adherent, shared the same fate. This infamous incident took the name of "the Black Dinner".
In 1449, nineteen-year-old James married fifteen-year-old Mary of Guelders, daughter of the Duke of Gelderland. That year, James II reached 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 (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 agree with this situation without argument, and between 1451 and 1455 he struggled to free himself from the power of the Douglases. Attempts to curb the Douglases´ power took place in 1451, during the absence of the Earl of Douglas from Scotland, and culminated with the murder of Lord Douglas at Stirling Castle on 22 February 1452. The main account of Douglas´s murder comes from the Auchinleck Chronicle, a near contemporary but fragmentary source. According to its account, the king accused the Earl (probably with justification) of forging links with John Macdonald, 11th Earl of Ross (also Lord of the Isles), and Alexander Lindsay, 4th Earl of Crawford. This bond, if it existed, created a dangerous axis of power of independently-minded men, forming a major rival to royal authority. When Douglas refused to break the bond with Ross, James broke into a fit of temper and stabbed Douglas 26 times and threw his body out of a window. 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 allegedly striking out the Earl´s brain with an axe.
This murder did not end the power of the Douglases, but rather created a state of intermittent civil war between 1452 and 1455. The main engagements were at Brodick, on the Isle of Arran; Inverkip in Renfrew; and the Battle of Arkinholm. James attempted to seize Douglas lands, but his opponents repeatedly forced him into humiliating climbdowns, whereby he returned the lands to James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas, and a brief and uneasy peace ensued. But James´s patronage of lands, titles and office to allies of the Douglases saw their erstwhile allies begin to change sides, most importantly the Earl of Crawford after the Battle of Brechin, and in May 1455 James struck a decisive blow against the Douglases, and they were finally defeated at the Battle of Arkinholm.
The Douglases supported the House of York whilst James, the House of Lancaster. While cultivating alliances abroad and negotiating with both the Yorkists and the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses, James assaulted Berwick in 1455, mounted a sally into Northumberland in 1456, raided the English-held Isle of Man and attacked Berwick again in 1457.
The English had held Roxburgh Castle in the Borders, one of the last castles still held by England after the wars of Independence so in 1460 James led an army to besiege it. He was standing close to one of his prized cannon when he ordered it to be fired, possibly to salute the arrival of Queen Mary. The cannon exploded and James was mortally wounded. According to Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, writing a hundred years later, his thigh was snapped in two and he was ‘stricken to the ground and died hastily’. The Scots carried on with the siege, led by George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus, and the castle fell a few days later. Once the castle was captured James´ widow, Mary of Guelders, ordered its destruction. James´s son became king as James III and Mary acted as regent until her own death three years later.
James married Mary of Guelders at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, on 3 July 1449. They had seven children:
An unnamed son. (Born and died on 19 May 1450)
James III of Scotland (10 July 1451 – 11 June 1488)
Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran (13 May 1453 – May 1488)
Alexander Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany (c. 1454 – 1485)
David Stewart, Earl of Moray (c. 1455 – July 1457)
John Stewart, 1st Earl of Mar and Garioch (July 1457 – 1479)
Princess Margaret Stewart of Scotland
By his unknown mistress, James also left one illegitimate son:
John Stewart of Sticks and Ballechin (d. 21 September 1523)
Reference: Scottish National Portrait Gallery
