Stuart dynasty

28 THE STUART DYNASTY.
throne the rights and privileges which were his
birthright.
The young Earl of Carrick was terribly profligate,
and by his disregard of ordinary restraints to which
even monarchs' sons were subjected in the fourteenth
century, gave occasion for his enemies to plot and
conspire against him.
The King attempted to satisfy the ambition both
of brother and son by importing the title of Duke
from France and England into Scotland, creating
Fife Duke of Albany, and the prince Duke of
Rothesay ; but the latter, having been initiated into
acts of government in the Highlands, was not in
a mood to brook his uncle's continued pre-eminence.
This Albany recognised by calling a Parliament at
Perth on January 27, 1398, whereat the Duke of
Rothesay was made the King's lieutenant, and
Albany relegated to a principal place in the royal
council.*
Duke Robert of Albany has been charged by most
historians who have undertaken the narration of
succeeding events, with the crime of supplanting,
ruining, and at last cruelly doing to death this
attractive but erring nephew, his rival. Wynton,
prior of Lochleven — a contemporary — alone of the
chroniclers gives denial to the averment, although
later writers, Hill Burton especially, have in the
absence of direct evidence spoken with uncertainty.
The facts are as follows.
The Queen very naturally thought that a well-
* Tytler's ' History of Scotland,' vol. iii. p. 76.