Scottish King: James IV

JAMES IV
James IV (17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513) was the King of Scots from 11 June 1488 to his death. He assumed the throne following the death of his father, James III, after the Battle of Sauchieburn, a rebellion in which the younger James played an indirect role.

Seal of James IV

 He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but his reign ended with the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden, where he became the last monarch not only from Scotland, but from all of Great Britain, to be killed in battle.

James was the son of James III and Margaret of Denmark, probably born in Stirling Castle.

As heir apparent to the Scottish crown, he became Duke of Rothesay. In 1474, his father arranged his betrothal to Princess Cecily of England.

His father was not a popular king and faced two major rebellions during his reign. The marriage negotiations and dowry payments led to the invasion of Scotland and capture of Berwick in 1482 by his uncle Alexander, Duke of Albany and Richard, Duke of Gloucester while James remained at Stirling. James III's army rebelled against him and the English army reached Edinburgh.

During the second rebellion, the rebels set up the 15-year-old James as their nominal leader. They fought James III at the Battle of Sauchieburn on 11 June 1488, where the king was killed. The younger James took the throne and was crowned at Scone on 24 June. When he realised the indirect role which he had played in the death of his father, he decided to do penance for his sin. From that date on, he wore a heavy iron chain cilice around his waist, next to the skin, each Lent as penance, adding every year extra ounces.

James IV Billon Penny 1488-1513

James IV quickly proved an effective ruler and a wise king. He defeated another rebellion in 1489, took a direct interest in the administration of justice and finally brought the Lord of the Isles under control in 1493. For a time, he supported Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the English throne, and carried out a brief invasion of England on his behalf in September 1496. Then, in August 1497, James laid siege to Norham Castle, using his grandfather's bombard Mons Meg.

James recognised nonetheless that peace between Scotland and England was in the interest of both countries, and established good diplomatic relations with England, which was at that time emerging from a period of civil war. First he ratified the Treaty of Ayton in February 1498.

Master of James IV of Scotland (Flemish before 1465 about 1541)

Then, in 1502 James signed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Henry VII. He also maintained his relations with France. With rumours that James would renew the Auld alliance, in April 1508 Thomas Wolsey was sent to discuss Henry VII's concerns over this. Wolsey found "there was never a man worse welcome into Scotland than I, ... they keep their matters so secret here that the wives in the market know every cause of my coming."

James saw the importance of building a fleet that could provide Scotland with a strong maritime presence. James founded two new dockyards for this purpose and acquired a total of 38 ships for the Royal Scots Navy, including the Margaret, and the carrack Michael or Great Michael.

Henry VII gold coin

The latter, built at great expense at Newhaven and launched in 1511, was 240 feet (73 m) in length, weighed 1,000 tons and was, at that time, the largest ship in the world.

James IV was a true Renaissance prince with an interest in practical and scientific matters. He granted the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh (later the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh) a royal charter in 1506, turned Edinburgh Castle into one of Scotland's foremost gun foundries, and welcomed the establishment of Scotland's first printing press in 1507. He built a part of Falkland Palace, and Great Halls at Stirling and Edinburgh castles, and furnished his palaces with tapestries.

Henry VIII gold coin

James was a patron of the arts, including many literary figures, most notably the Scots makars whose diverse and socially observant works convey a vibrant and memorable picture of cultural life and intellectual concerns of the period. Figures associated with his court include William Dunbar, Walter Kennedy and Gavin Douglas, who made the first complete translation of Virgil's Aeneid in northern Europe. His reign also saw the passing of the makar Robert Henryson. He patronised music at Restalrig using rental money from the King's Wark.

In May 1493 John MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, was forfeited by the Parliament of Scotland. King James himself sailed to Dunstaffnage Castle, where the western chiefs made their submissions to him. John surrendered and was brought back as a prisioner to the royal court, then lived at Paisley Abbey. The Highlands and Islands now fell under direct royal control.

Young Henry VIII

John's grandson Domhnall Dubh (Donald Owre), one of the possible claimants to the Lordship, was peaceable, but the other, his nephew Alexander MacDonald of Lochalsh invaded Ross and was later killed on the island of Oronsay in 1497.

In October 1496 the Royal Council ordered that the clan chiefs in the region would be held responsible by the king for crimes of the islanders. This act for the governance of the region was unworkable, and after the Act of Revocation of 1498 undermined the chiefs' titles to their lands, resistance to Edinburgh rule was strengthened.

James waited at Kilkerran Castle at Campbeltown Loch to regrant the chiefs' charters in the summer of 1498. Few of the chiefs turned up. At first, Archibald Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll was set to fill the power vacuum and enforce royal authority, but he met with limited success in a struggle with his brother-in-law, Torquil MacLeod of Lewis. Torquil was ordered to hand over Donald Dubh, heir to the lordship of the Isles, to James IV at Inverness in 1501. James waited, but Torquil never came.

After this defiance, Alexander Gordon, 3rd Earl of Huntly, was granted Torquil's lands. He raised an army in Lochaber and also cleared the tenants of that area, replacing them with his supporters.

Pope Julius II coat of arms

 After the parliament of 1504, a royal fleet sailed north from Ayr to attack the Castle of Cairn-na-Burgh, west of Mull, where, it is thought, Maclean of Duart had Donald Dubh in his keeping.

As progress at the siege was slow, James sent Hans the royal gunner in Robert Barton's ship and then the Earl of Arran with provisions and more artillery.

Cairn-na-Burgh was captured by June 1504 but Donald Dubh remained at liberty. In September 1507, Torquil MacLeod was besieged at Stornoway Castle on Lewis.

Donald Dubh was captured and imprisoned for the rest of his life, and Torquil MacLeod died in exile in 1511.

The Earl of Huntly was richly rewarded for his troubles, a price that James was prepared to pay.

When war broke out between England and France as a result of the Italian Wars, James found himself in a difficult position as an ally by treaty to both France and England. Henry VIII of England invaded France, and James reacted by declaring war on England.

James had already balked at the interdict of his kingdom by Pope Julius II, and he opposed its confirmation by Pope Leo X, so he was not in a good position with the pontiff.

Pope Leo X

 Leo sent a letter to James, threatening him with ecclesiastical censure for breaking peace treaties, on 28 June 1513, and James subsequently was excommunicated by Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge.

James summoned sailors and sent the Scottish navy, including the Great Michael, to join the ships of Louis XII of France, so joining in the war of the League of Cambrai. Hoping to take advantage of Henry's absence at the siege of Thérouanne, he led an invading army southward into Northumbria, only to be killed, with many of his nobles and common soldiers, at the disastrous Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513.

Both English and Scottish accounts of Flodden emphasise the King's determination to fight.

Pope Leo X

 In his otherwise flattering portrayal of James, Pedro de Ayala remarks on James's ability as a military commander, portraying him as brusque and fearless on the battlefield:

He is courageous, even more so than a king should be. I am a good witness of it. I have seen him often undertake most dangerous things in the last wars. On such occasions he does not take the least care of himself.

He is not a good captain, because he begins to fight before he has given his orders. He said to me that his subjects serve him with their persons and goods, in just and unjust quarrels, exactly as he likes, and that therefore he does not think it right to begin any warlike undertaking without being himself the first in danger. His deeds are as good as his words.

A body, thought to be that of James, was recovered from the battlefield and taken to London for burial. James had been excommunicated, and although Henry VIII had obtained a breve from the Pope on 29 November 1513 to have the King buried in consecrated ground at St. Paul's, the embalmed body lay unburied for many years at Sheen Priory in Surrey.

Louis XII coin

The body was lost after the Reformation, which led to the demolition of the priory. John Stow claimed to have seen it, and said the king's head (with red hair) was removed by a glazier and eventually buried at St Michael Wood Street. The church was later demolished and the site redeveloped many times; it is now occupied by a pub. James's bloodstained coat was sent to Henry VIII (then on campaign in France) by his queen, Catherine of Aragon.

Erasmus provided an epitaph for the King in his Adagia. Later, in 1533, he wrote to James V of Scotland pointing out this essay on duty under the adage Spartam nactus es, (You who were born to Sparta shall serve her), on the subject of the Flodden campaign and the death of James and his son Alexander.