THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!
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JAMES II
THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART
KING OF SCOTLAND
♱
James II's reign began as an unsteady compromise with domestic and foreign powers. His father, a weak ruler, who was the victim of a court conspiracy, now was replaced by a nervous boy who would grow to be a man of resolute power in Scotland, but weakness abroad.
In 1445, the first War of Swedish Independence presented a chance for Scotland to seize control of Orkney and Shetland, the troublesome Northern Isles from which the Norwegians had attempted to invade the realm before. This ended centuries of Scandinavian influence in the islands, and cemented Edinburgh's authority over the fringes of the north sea. Going further, the isles of Faroe were added to the Scottish Realm as further concessions from Denmark, severing their route to the Atlantic and furthering the reach of the Scottish navy.
To the south, the One Hundred Years War entered another bloody phase of futile struggle; as France combined with Scotland's clans to re-conquer the lands ceded to England under the 1420 Treaty of Troyes. While French success on the continent saw some lands occupied, the war in Scotland was a disaster; defeated at the Battle of Gretna, the Scottish and French fell back into the Highlands. Edinburgh was occupied by English forces - a humilation that James II would never recover from.
The following peace signed away some of England's French land, defeated on the continent, Scotland was saved the wrath of an English occupation.
Following the French reconquests, Scotland's ally found itself at war against a coalition of Dutch states looking to ingratiate themselves to Pope Gregarious XIII - the French king had been excommunicated for his war upon England. As a result of this complex dispute, Scotland found itself under blockage from Flanders, Holland, and a number of other states.
Without the ability to import food from the south, and a third concurrent harvest failure, Scotland entered a famine that would result in the deaths of thousands.
All this; foreign entanglements, drained finances, unrest and famine, proved too great a strain. After a second intervention in Sweden came after the Dutch were defeated by the French, the Orcadian rebellion of 1453 saw over a year of insurrection sweep the Northern Isles. Their demands for reunification of Norway were denied - and the rebellion was crushed with force by Chief Douglas in the winter of 1454.
The following winter, the clans of Sutherland and Caithness rose in revolt against James and were ultimately defeated at the Battle of Tain. After years of imprisonment, Lord Keir Maxwell of Golspie was sentenced to death for leading the rebel army. He was hanged at Edinburgh Castle in 1460.
In the same year, the Lordship of the Isles, their rights already curtailed by the Statutes of Iona, was partitioned as the Outer Hebrides, in particular Innes Gall, were seized by Scottish mercenaries in what has been called 'The Hebridean Crisis'. Historians now understand this to be a conspiracy of James II to illegally annex the isle. Lord MacDonald of the Isles fled to the safety of Skye (An t-Eilean Sgitheanach), the last nominally independent holding inside Scotland's realm.
James II died in 1462.
♱
JAMES III
THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART
KING OF SCOTLAND
♱
James III inherited the problems of his father; an unruly realm, a dislocated economy, a lack of credible military power - the difference would lie in what he did with the tools available to him.
Upon his ascension in 1464, James dispatched ten thousand riders to police and garrison the Highlands; collecting taxes, extracting value from crops and livestock where possible, ensuring the seditious Gaels did not rise again. For this task, he selected his most ambitious and feared commander Black Douglas, the new Chieftan of Clan Douglas, who was famed for his cruelty.
Black Douglas would face a coalition of Highlanders led by Lord Gordon and Lord MacGregor at the Battle of Dunkeld, ending in a Government victory and smashing the power of the Gaelic speaking clans.
In 1469 the colony ship 'Unicorn' was launched. Initially comissioned to assist the plantation of the Faroe Isles, James III's court had heard reports of a rich land beyond the western sea of the Atlantic, a land of snow and timber. A scholar at heart, James was fascinated by this notion and surrounded himself with information from the New World. The Portuguese and Spanish, who had tried to cover up their discovery, were targeted - their sailors kidnapped from Scottish taverns and interrogated for information. Eventually, one agreed to lead the first voyage, assisting Captain Thomas Nairn on a voyage set to occur in 1470.
Yet, just as plans were in place to deliver this colonial mission, the Clan McKenzie rose and seized the capital, ending all other plans and plunging the realm into crisis. James fled to Stirling where, from afar, he he organised the raising of clans loyal to the crown to march and retake the capital. Still, it was not enough to overcome Chief McKenzie's 12,000 clansmen - who James now feared may declare themselves as sovereign and, in their darkest fears, enter into an alliance of military assistance with the English King Edward. James dispatched a request to Stockholm and an expeditionary force of 10,000 Swedish volunteers arrived in the Moray Firth several months later. The capital was retaken in 1471.
The Unicorn was launched without further delay. It would return with news of a newly found land.
On the continent, England had now lost every French possessions barring the fortress of Calais. Plans were made for an eventual invasion.
In 1476, Scottish forces arrived in Sweden to assist them in their own internal struggle. They would arrive in Stockholm and defeat the Uppsala nobles, preventing a Swedish civil war.
Years later, in 1483, the Lorship of the Isles passed from the heirless Lord MacDonald into the hands of the Scottish crown, unifying all Scottish lands under James' control.
In the same year, James III invited Clan Douglas to a royal dinner in Stirling - ostensibly to discuss preparations for war with England. Towards the end of the meal, the head of a black bull, a Scottish symbol of death, was brought before Black Douglas and he and his men were slaughtered, the army encamped outside were surrounded and slain in a one-sided battle that has since become known as the 'Black Dinner'. With the power of the Stuarts finally secure, James could turn his attention south.
In 1486, the invasion of England began with a southern advance of Spanish, French, and Scottish forces. Although outnumbered by European allies, Scotland took command of the war effort, and directed forces at the sieges of Newcastle and London, overcoming the English armies at Oxford and York.
The six year long campaign in England would see the English army collapse and reform several times, rising from redoubts in the southwest or Wales, surging from their holdings across the Irish Sea. Yet, the combined effort of the coalition was able to overcome their foe, and once a second French army crossed the channel into Kent in 1490 it became too late to save the English Kingdom from partition.
In the Treaty of Oxford that followed the collapse and abdication of the English King Edward, the Kingdom of Scotland was handed the marches directly south of Dumfries and Roxburgh, expanding the Scottish frontier south into Cumbria. Across the Irish Sea, Scotland annexed Ulster - the beginning of a new chapter in the Scottish nation in a foreign and ancient land.
Meanwhile, France was handed ports along the southeast of the Channel, while Spain laid claim to Cornwall, a northern fringe of its growing overseas possessions.
In 1496, the Unicorn was once again dispatched, this time with 3,000 colonists under the command of Thomas Nairn, to settle in the New World and establish a permanent Scottish presence in this land. However, a storm beset the colonists as they came within sight of the coastline and they were torn north, eventually settling on the barren coastline of what Danish merchants call 'Grønland'. There, the colonists were unable to repair their ships and slowly, over the course of a year, withered away from disease and hunger, all law and God banished from their plight, resorting to cannibalism and sacrifices to lead them to rescue. None came. Their bodies were discovered by colonists over a decade later.
James III died in 1498.
♱
DUNCAN I
THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART
KING OF SCOTLAND
♱
King Duncan I was was crowned in Scone in the winter of 1498.
He would oversee the rebuilding of Scotland's army and navy following the costly English war and the failed colonisation in the New World.
His story is yet to be told.
...
end of part 1
