A King of the Scots

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 8

A King of the Scots

James V, King of Scots. By Caroline Bingham. Collins. 197 pp. Notes, Appendices. Bibliography, Index.

James V of Scotland, the father of Mary, Queen of Scots, was born in 1512, his mother being Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry of England. Notwithstanding this royal blood relationship the two countries were at war, and the infant James was bom nine months before the battle of Flodden in which his father, King James IV, was killed. His coronation a few months later emphasised the enormous importance of anointed kingship in Scotland, for it ensured the physical safety of the child despite the internal conflicts which were always raging among the more powerful nobles, and the unpopularity of Margaret who openly retained her loyalty to England throughout her life. She compromised her position still further by marrying the Earl of Angus, whose family, the Douglasses, had always been rebels against the royal house of Stewart. Consequently she was denied the custody of her child by the Estates of the Realm (the Scottish Parliament) who, with a posthumously born younger brother who died at an early age, was put under the guardianship of the Duke of Albany, brother of James 111, the boys’ great uncle. Albany spent most of his life in France, and was at pains to maintain the “auld alliance” with that powerful country, an example followed by James V in later years, and a wise one, for his uncle Henry constituted a perpetual threat to the realm by at intervals proclaiming his own claims to sovereignty over Scotland. During his minority the young James was the centre of a grim struggle for power. Margaret and her husband were soon at loggerheads and while Albany was out of the country Angus seized the two little princes, and virtually held them captive in Edinburgh Castle, employing Douglas relatives to be their custodians. After the younger boy’s death, and during his own formative years James was kept in luxurious durance, his education being totally neglected. But his guardians encouraged him in precocious debauchery which was to have a bad effect on his later development. At the age of 14 he made the first of three attempts to gain his freedom but he was 16 before he successfully proclaimed his right to rule. These early experiences implanted in James a lifelong suspicion of his own nobles which was to result in his ultimate undoing.

Within a few years of his accession the young king had acquired several mistresses, and he was much tempted to marry one of them, Margaret Erskine, and would have done so but for the parlous state of the royal finances. Under James IV the Crown revenues had reached £30,000 but by 1526, this figure had diminished, through Angus's improvidence and Margaret's extravagance to £13,000 and James realised that he must marry a princess with a substantial dowry.

But first as a good Catholic prince he did not hesitate to despoil his faithful clergy by means of a tax levied on the prelacy "for the protection of the realm.” This piece of royal extortion remained in force until his death, bv which time the menace of the Reformation was beginning to erode the Church’s power and influence. James also managed to achieve a dynastic marriage with the daughter of his powerful ally the French king, but the poor girl was so sickly that she died within three months of her arrival in Scotland. His second wife, Marie de Guise, a strikingly handsome woman even by the expressionless portraits of the age, was destined to make a significant mark on history, for though she bore him two sons (both of whom died very young) it was the daughter, born during the last days of her father’s life who was to unite the thrones of England and Scotland through her son who became James VI of Scotland and First of England.

James V died at the early age of 30. By then, stricken with grief at the loss of his sons and at the failure of an expedition against English invaders which he himself was unable to lead; harassed by quarrels with his nobles; and suffering from a creeping illness which had begun to afflict him three years earlier, he went to his end without hope or solace. The author has written a vivid account of her subject’s life and times. He emerges as a not wholly unattractive personality, though not above sending his personal friends to their death wherever he thought he detected disloyalty—a fact for which history has condemned him. He was readily accessible to the pleas of the poor against oppression, and delighted in Haroun-al-Raschid-like adventures in disguise which reveals a human side to his dealings with the common people. He did much to unify his country, and managed to bring the lawless Outer Isles under Stewart rule. Had the English side of his heritage been more auspicious he might have made an accommodation with Henry VIII, but his mother’s inconsequent behaviour must have rendered such a rapprochement impossible. The author can be congratulated upon the use she has made of a massive bibliography.