Ayrshire > Volume 1

CENTURIES ON THE ANVIL 117
III. (1460-1488) succeeded to the throne at the age of
eight, he was spared to give him for five years the
benefit of his sagacious counsel and guidance. His
death in 1465 was regarded as a national calamity.
When Kennedy died, the youthful Sovereign fell into
the hands of Lord Boyd of Kilmarnock and his brother,
who abused their power. They humoured their royal
charge in everything, and gave him a dislike for public
business. He was permitted to indulge his love of
pleasure and amusement at will, with the result that he
was, as has been said, " shaped into a feeble idler, a
crowned trifler, incapable of a King's work, or a man's."
Kennedy had appointed Sir Alexander Boyd, Lord
Boyd's brother, tutor of the Prince in his martial
exercises. According to the popular histories of this
reign, Alexander Boyd was a mirror of chivalry in all
noble and knightly accomplishments, and he had
therefore no difficulty in gaining an influence over his
royal charge and in transferring it to his brother. Lord
Boyd formed a powerful league for the concentration of
influence and for securing the perquisites and privileges
of office in his own hands, and in those of his friends.
The league included Gilbert, Lord Kennedy, the elder
brother of the Bishop, Lord Montgomerie, and Lord
Cathcart, and the members of it bound themselves,
during the whole continuance of their lives, to stand
together and to oppose any who might endeavour to
remove the King's person from the hands of the lord of
Kilmarnock, and of Lord Kennedy, whom he had most
closely associated with himself in maintaining his
guardianship of the royal ward. The ambitious project
of the Boyds was not long in being realised. Lord Boyd
and his friends, among whom was Andrew Ker of
Cessford, proceeded to Linlithgow, July 10, 1466, and
persuaded the King to dismiss from his presence those
who had been ordered to attend upon him by the Estates,
and to accompany them to Edinburgh. Lord Kennedy
seems to have appreciated the dangers of such an
enterprise, and, probably with a view to the exculpation