Volume 3

265
James III. who was a prince of beneficent temper, without talents, and without
ambition, and yet is represented by history in contradiction to record, as
a tyrant, was little calculated to struggle during rugged times with profligate
brothers and turbulent nobles. His affairs, while he was yet an infant,
were conducted with equal prudence and success by James Kennedy,
the virtuous and able bishop of St. Andrews. His brother, the Duke of
Albany, being sent to Gueldre for his education, in 1464, was, during
peace, carried a captive into England (a). But Bishop Kennedy sent to
Edward IV. a herald, carrying a request of deliverance in one hand, and a de-
claration of war in the other, and the Duke was immediately released, with
apologies for his capture. That excellent prelate died in 1466, to the irre-
parable loss of the king and the disquiet of the nation. James III., at the age
of fourteen, fell into the management of the Boyds, a family who set no
bounds to their ambition; and were ruined by the envy of the nobles. They,
however, negotiated a prudent match for the king, with Margaret, the princess
of Denmark, who brought him, as her dower, the Orkney and Shetland Isles,
in 1469, when he was of the age of seventeen and she was sixteen. The Boyds
were subverted by a forfeiture in parliament during the same year. The feeble
James, who came of age in 1473, now fell into the management of another
faction, who were equally interested and less scrupulous than the former. On
the 10th of March 1472-3, was born to the king a son, who was named James;
and who, when he had scarcely arrived at the age of sixteen, contributed to the
dethronement and demise of his father, on the 11th June 1488.
James II. in an evil hour, for the quiet and stability of his own family, very early
gave establishments to his younger sons. When Alexander, his second son, was
scarcely two years old, he was made Duke of Albany, Earl of March, Lord of
Annandale, warden of the East Marches (b), and, he was appointed, in 1472,
when he was still under age, Governor of Berwick and Lord Lieutenant of the
Borders (c). While he was still under one and twenty, he performed every act
of ownership over his own estates, as if he had been of the most mature years (d);
(a)   He was  sent  thither, it  seems,   by  the  death-bed desire of his mother, Mary of Gueldre.
Pitscottie,  126, says,  " he was sent to  France to learn the leed with other letters."    He had a
safe conduct from Edward IV., dated the 20th April, 1464, wherein his whole titles are recited.
Rym., xi. 520.
(b)   Rym., xi. 520 ; Parl. Rec., 147.
(c)   Black Acts of Parl. James II., ch. 47 ; Lindsay of Pitscottie, 133.
(d) Before the year 1471 he appears to have granted a lease of the customs and tolls of Annan-
dale. Parl. Rec., 163. In October, 1472, when the Duke was scarcely nineteen, he granted the
lands of Longformacus to James Sinclair. Dougl. Baronage, 249, who quotes the archives of that
family.
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