Clan Douglas

George Douglas, master of Angus.

So you had two major divisions with the very powerful Clan Douglas.

The one branch, what were referred to as the Black Douglases, led by the Earl of Douglas.

They challenged the king a few generations before this and lost, and that kind of crushed the power of that branch, although cadet branches would go on to be a viable force.

This other branch, who were the earls of Angus, sometimes referred to as the Red Anguses, they were...

Much of the fighting force on both sides consisted of border reivers, men drawn from the great riding families of the borders.

On Angus's side were members of the Kerrs, Douglases, and some Maxwells, and opposing them were perhaps 600 or more Scotts and Elliots.

This was, in effect, a confrontation between border factions rather than a traditional battle between national armies, and there was a king caught in the middle.

The confrontation became known as the Battle of Melrose, although it is also called the Battle of Darnick or the Battle of Skirmish Hill.

In the orchard, in the dark, someone was waiting, and the plea overheard by the neighbors, if it happened, suggests he recognized the men who took hold of him.

The word kinsman has always pointed suspicion at the Douglases, his own relatives, and years later testimony implicated Archibald Douglas directly.

The explosion on this analysis went off on schedule to destroy the body of a victim who was no longer inside, but Darnley had already escaped.

Alternatively, Darnley's body was supposed to be tossed back inside the building, but the explosion went off too soon.

Okay, so this is an AI picture of the Douglas clan.

So the Douglas clan, specifically the Black Douglases, and I'll show you a map so that later on where you'll understand the differences.

They held vast lands, wealth, and military strength in Scotland in the lowlands.

And they easily rivaled and often exceeded the power of the crown itself, hence the reason they were a threat to the crown.

So that was the concern.

So I'll show you a picture of What I was talking about, if you see off to here, it says the red with the little cross pattern.

It says Black Douglases.

You can see here, this is the top portion of Scotland.

In Melrose Abbey lies the heart of Robert Bruce, and also the body of the strong king, Alexander II, he who first subdued and made obedient the wild tribes of Argyll.

Here, too, is buried the brave Douglas, who died so gallantly on the field of Otterburn, and also of another brave Douglas, who got his death wound at Poitiers.

Sir Walter Scott, who did more than any other man to spread all over the world the knowledge of Scotland, Scottish history, Scottish romance, and Scottish character, lies buried on the southern side of Eildon, in the rival abbey of Dryburgh.

But Melrose can claim a man who in his day was an object of the deepest wonder and terror, Michael Scott, the famous wizard of the thirteenth century, he who brought the learning of Aristotle to expound to Western Europe, he whom Dante described as learned in every deep spell of the magic arts.

Chapter Eleven.

Otterburn and Chevy Chase.

It fell about the Lammas-tide, when moor men win their hay, that doughty Douglas bound him to ride into England to drive a prey.

The Ballads of Otterburn and Chevy Chase record the Scottish and English versions of a most stubborn border battle.

This new act of firmness showed Huntly that the young queen was not disposed to allow the Scottish lords a resumption of the almost sovereign power humbled by her father.

So that, in spite of the extremely kind reception she accorded him as he learned while in camp that his son, having escaped from prison, had just put himself at the head of his vassals, he was afraid that he should be thought, as doubtless he was, a party to the rising, and he set out that same night to assume command of his troops, his mind made up, as Mary only had with her seven to eight thousand men to risk a battle, giving out, however, as Buckleuch had done in his attempt to snatch James V from the hands of the Douglases, that it was not at the queen he was aiming, but solely at the regent, who kept her under his tutelage and perverted her good intentions.

Mary, who knew that often the entire peace of a reign depends on the firmness one displays at its beginning, immediately summoned all the northern barons whose estates bordered on his to march against Huntly.

All obeyed, for the House of Cordon was already so powerful that each feared it might become still more so.

He thought that in ridding himself of Rizzio he could not fail to gain the day, since, as he believed, he alone was opposing the grant of this great desire of his, the crown matrimonial.

Consequently, as Rizzio was disliked by the nobles in proportion as his merits had raised him above them, it was easy for Darnley to organize a conspiracy, and James Douglas of Morton, Chancellor of the Kingdom, consented to act as chief.

This is the second time since the beginning of our narrative that we inscribe this name Douglas, so often pronounced in Scottish history, and which at this time, extinct in the elder branch, known as the Black Douglases, was perpetuated in the younger branch, known as the Red Douglases.

It was an ancient, noble, and powerful family, which, when the descent in the male line from Robert Bruce had lapsed, disputed the royal title with the first Stuart, and which since then had constantly kept alongside the throne, sometimes its support, sometimes its enemy, envying every great house, for greatness made it uneasy.

They think they're going to be able to show up in the southeast of Scotland with James say, you know, this is a royal force that has come down to enforce royal will, but they're actually imposing their own and it goes horribly wrong and the locals won't have it.

The sort of chief local kindreds, the Black Douglases and the Red Douglases kind of team up and smash this army to bits.

I mean, James initially flees onto Bass Rock, which is a big lump of rock out in the Firth of Forth.

There is a castle there.

So sometimes what he will do is he will promote the interests of a certain magnate in one area where a different magnate is particularly powerful.

For example, in the South, we have the Black and the Red Douglases that I mentioned.

Well, the Black Douglases are the really powerful ones.

When James comes back to Scotland and the Red Douglases are less powerful, less influential, both the sort of key figure in the Black Douglases archibald the fifth earl of douglas and william douglas the second earl of angus are both james's nephews remember robert the second had a whole raft of kids

She leaned nearly fainting against the stone wall, passing her hand once or twice across her terror-filled eyes.

Great God, she moaned, do not tell me that you are James, King of Scotland, here and alone in this den of Douglases.

Douglas? cried the king, roused at the hated name.

How can there be Douglases in the castle of Doune, my mother's house, constable by my friend young Stuart? Your mother's house, said the girl with an uncanny laugh.

When has the Lady Margaret set foot in Doune? Not since she was divorced from my uncle Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus.

And the constable? Aye, the constable is in Stirling.

But in Stirling, with the young king, there are masks and hunting and gaiety.

Young Stuart draws the revenues of his charge, but pays slight attention to the fulfillment of his duty.

While Douglas was visiting Rome in 1450, the Livingstons had been forfeited, and Crichton became Chancellor.

Fall of the Black Douglases The Douglases, through a royal marriage of an ancestor to a daughter of the more legitimate marriage of Robert II, had a kind of claim to the throne which they never put forward.

The country was thus spared dynastic wars, like those of the White and Red Roses in England, but nonetheless the Douglases were too rich and powerful for subjects.

The Earl at the moment held Galloway and Annandale.

His house was proclaimed traitorous.

Their wide lands in southern and southwestern Scotland were forfeited and redistributed, the Scots of Buchlach profiting largely in the long run.

The leader of the royal forces at Arkinholm, near Langholm, was another Douglas, one of the Red Douglases, the Earl of Angus, and till the execution of the Earl of Morton under James VI, the Red Douglases were as powerful, turbulent, and treacherous as the Black Douglases had been in their day.

When attacked and defeated, these Douglases, Red or Black, always allied themselves with England and with the Lords of the Isles, the hereditary foes of the royal authority.