[BITList] James, V00

[John Feltham]

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> To read this Life of the Day complete with a picture of the subject,
> visit http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2012-04-10
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> James V  (1512-1542), king of Scots, was born on 10 April 1512 at Linlithgow Palace, the fourth of the six children of James IV  (1473-1513) and Margaret  (1489-1541), eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. James was the only one of their offspring to survive infancy: two sons and a daughter had already died before he was born, a younger sister died probably in early 1513, and a younger brother, Alexander, duke of Ross (1514-1515), was born after James IV's death and lived for only twenty months.
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> Flodden and its aftermath, 1512-1515
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> The marriage of James IV and Margaret Tudor in August 1503 had been intended to cement a treaty of perpetual peace between England and Scotland. However, Scotland also had an 'auld alliance' with France. Following the accession of Henry VIII in 1509 and his subsequent resurrection of English claims to the French crown, Anglo-Scottish relations worsened. The birth of the future James V may have contributed to the tensions because at that time Henry VIII had no children, which made Margaret Tudor and her infant son the nearest heirs to the English throne. Furthermore, by 1513 James IV was pressing Louis XII to acknowledge officially the Scottish place in the English succession, whereas Henry VIII had committed himself to an anti-French continental alliance. Forced to choose between his two allies, James IV decided to support France against England and in August and September 1513, while Henry VIII was busy invading France, the Scottish host raided Northumberland. On 9 September James IV and many of his magnates were killed in battle at Flodden. Thus James V became king at the tender age of seventeen months and a long minority loomed.
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> In the aftermath of Flodden the Scots were afraid that the English might invade, and the coronation of the new king at Stirling on 21 September 1513 was therefore hurried and muted. Under the terms of James IV's will Queen Margaret was to be tutrix to her son during her widowhood, and this may have helped to lessen the English threat, since Henry VIII seems to have expected confidently to rule Scotland through his sister. A council of lords was appointed to advise her and in November a general council at Perth requested that John Stewart, fourth duke of Albany, should be sent to Scotland from France by Louis XII. Albany was the son of James III's exiled brother Alexander and his French wife, and was thus the heir presumptive to the Scottish throne after James V's unborn brother. The intention was that Albany would assist the Scots in the next phase of the war but by the spring of 1514, as Queen Margaret retired from public life for the birth of the duke of Ross, France and England were negotiating for peace. The treaty was finalized in August 1514, Scotland was comprehended in the terms without consultation, and Albany remained in France.
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> During the summer of 1514 factions emerged within the Scottish nobility and Queen Margaret provoked a sharp reaction when she allied herself with the Douglas kindred by her marriage to Archibald Douglas, sixth earl of Angus, in August. She was deprived of her regency powers and retreated to Stirling Castle with her sons while the council renewed requests for Albany to be sent from France. Even Henry VIII was outraged that his sister should contract a second marriage without consulting him, but he soon came to view Angus as a valuable ally against French influence in Scotland. The accession of Francois I in January 1515 produced a change in French policy. While officially maintaining his predecessor's peace with England, Francois permitted Albany to go to Scotland in the hope that some advantage might be gained thereby. The duke landed at Dumbarton in May 1515 and was acknowledged as lord governor for the young king in parliament in July. He then gave a powerful demonstration of the widespread support he commanded by leading an army to Stirling and forcing the queen mother to relinquish her custody of the king and his brother.
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> The minority regimes, 1515-1525
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> Until 1515 Lord Governor Albany had neither set foot in Scotland nor spoken a word of Scots. He was a peer of the French realm and a valuable agent of French policy. He exercised his governorship in person for only brief periods from May 1515 to June 1517, from November 1521 to October 1522, and from September 1523 to May 1524, and this timetable was dictated largely by French interests, particularly relations with England, rather than Scottish needs. Francois expected his Scottish allies to threaten the English borders when Henry VIII was planning campaigns in northern France (as he was in 1522-3) and to participate meekly as junior partners in peace treaties when this suited French diplomacy: such deals were forced upon the Scots in 1514-15 and 1525. When Albany was in Scotland he enjoyed considerable support from the magnates and prelates, was able to administer justice equitably, and had sufficient authority to deal with opponents: Lord Hume, an incorrigible rebel, was executed in October 1516, and the troublesome earl of Angus was exiled in France in 1522-4. Albany also obtained the treaty of Rouen from Francois in 1517 (ratified in 1522). This was an agreement for mutual assistance in the event of English aggression and promised James V one of the French king's daughters as a bride. The duke seems to have taken very seriously his responsibility for the care and education of the young king of Scots, who as an adult would show considerable respect for Albany's views.
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> When Albany left Scotland in 1517, 1522, and 1524, he tried to leave a balanced council of regency to exercise authority until his return, but invariably the arrangements broke down in his absence. In September 1517 Albany's agent, De la Bastie, was murdered by the Humes in revenge for the execution of 1516, and there followed a period of unrest in which the Hamilton faction of the earl of Arran struggled for supremacy with the Douglas supporters of the earl of Angus. The chaos was epitomized by the Edinburgh brawl of 1520 known as Cleanse the Causeway. During Albany's absence in 1522-3 the Scottish lords found it very difficult to maintain domestic order or to mount an effective defence against English raids. When Albany left again in May 1524 he promised to return before 1 September or forfeit his governorship, but Francois I was entering a period of uncharacteristically warm relations with Henry VIII and refused to release Albany for service in Scotland. Even before the duke's deadline expired Queen Margaret seized the chance to assert her authority once more. In July she brought James V from Stirling to Edinburgh and 'erected' him as king in his own right (with herself as the power behind the throne), revoked Albany's authority, and redistributed crown appointments; the arrangements were confirmed in parliament on 20 August.
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> For the time being Margaret commanded considerable magnate support and was also backed by her brother, who paid pensions to her followers, financed the king's royal guard, and started to discuss a possible peace treaty and marriage between James V and Mary Tudor. Yet Henry VIII considered Margaret to be on probation as an English agent in Scotland. He thought her unreliable and was harbouring her estranged husband, the earl of Angus, at the English court, whence the latter had escaped from France in June 1524. As regent, Margaret managed to alienate many lords by relying too heavily on a small group of favourites and by late 1524 she was largely discredited. Henry therefore sent Angus home as his preferred agent in Scotland and from then on channelled English pensions and influence through the Douglases. In February 1525 Angus was readmitted to the Scottish council against Margaret's wishes and in July 1525 a new rota of magnates to keep the king was established. Angus was given custody of James for the three months ending 1 November, when the earl of Arran would replace him, but at the appointed time Angus simply refused to hand over the king. His coup was simple and effective; by maintaining possession of the king, the Douglases were to rule Scotland for nearly three years.
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> The Scottish records of the period afford only glimpses of the arrangements made for the care and education of the young James V. Albany appointed a rota of trustworthy nobles such as lords Borthwick, Fleming, and Erskine to act as guardians or 'keepers' of the king. They were primarily responsible for security arrangements at the royal lodgings in the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Craigmillar. A team of domestic servants supervised by the king's master usher, Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, catered for his material needs; several chaplains under the master almoner, Sir James Haswell, looked after his spiritual welfare; and grooms and musicians provided training and entertainment. Periodically James received treats and presents such as clothing and miniature weapons from his uncle Henry VIII, the duke of Albany, and other foreign princes, as tokens of their interest in him. In February 1517 Gavin Dunbar, the future archbishop of Glasgow and chancellor, was appointed tutor or 'preceptor' to the young king and he retained this post until he was dismissed by Angus in 1525. In later years the deficiencies of James's education were remarked upon (he struggled with Latin and French) but if, as seems to have been the case, the king had no formal tuition beyond the age of thirteen for political reasons, it may not be fair to blame Dunbar for the problem. James was certainly able to express himself effectively in the Scots language, and is known to have written poetry and to have been a practising musician.
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> The young king seems to have been a much more able pupil in the field of courtesy and chivalry, however, than in the schoolroom. Sir David Lindsay later claimed some credit for teaching James music, dancing, games, and tales, in his own words:
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> Quhen thow wes young, I bure the in myne arme
> Full tenderlie, tyll thow begouth to gang,
> And in thy bed oft happit the full warme,
> With lute in hand, syne sweitlie to the sang:
> Sumtyme, in dansyng, feiralie I flang;
> And, sumtyme, playand fairsis on the flure;
> And, sumtyme on myne office takkand cure;
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> And, sumtyme, lyke ane feind transfegurate;
> And, sumtyme, like the greislie gaist of gye;
> In divers formis, oft tymes, disfigurate;
> And, sumtyme, disagysit full plesandlye.
> So, sen thy birth, I have continewalye
> Bene ocupyit, and aye to thy plesoure.
> (Works of Sir David Lindsay, 1, 4-5)

> The officers of his guard probably would have contributed to James's love of riding, shooting, tennis, archery, swordplay, and other chivalric pursuits. Prominent among these men were Alan Stewart, Andrew Towers, and Robert Borthwick during Albany's regime, Lord Avondale and his brother Henry Stewart (later Lord Methven) during Queen Margaret's ascendancy, and Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie under the earl of Angus. As he grew up it is unlikely that James would have been isolated from other children but it is impossible to say who might have been his classmates and sparring partners. His half-sister, Lady Margaret Douglas (1515-1578), was probably at court between 1525 and 1528 and he seems to have been close to the fourth earl of Huntly, who for a while also had the earl of Angus as his guardian; otherwise his youthful companions are unknown. Although James seems to have derived little benefit from his academic studies, he learned some sharp lessons in practical politics from the upheavals of his minority, which he would put to good use as an adult king.
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> The Angus hegemony and the coup of 1528
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> Initially the regime of the earl of Angus had only narrow support within the Scottish realm, but he presented himself as the one man who could bring stability to the borders and lasting peace with England, and this had some appeal to lords who knew that no further help would come from France. His custody of the king was also crucial. An armed rebellion involving Margaret, Arran, and Moray simply dissolved when James was brought to the field of battle near Linlithgow in January 1526, and both Arran and Moray subsequently made an uneasy peace with the Douglases. However, Margaret would never be reconciled with the man whom she was now determined to divorce, and Archbishop Beaton of St Andrews, who had originally been supportive, quickly became disillusioned with Angus and stepped down as chancellor in June 1526. Even so, a parliament of the same month made Angus's rule legitimate, 'erected' James V as king for a second time, and revoked all grants made under Margaret's regency, thus allowing Angus to control royal patronage. The key offices of state and of the king's household were packed with Douglas supporters and James was isolated; indeed he was effectively a prisoner.
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> Shortly afterwards Angus took James on a justice ayre to the borders and on 20 July at Darnick, near Melrose, an armed force led by Walter Scott of Buccleuch unsuccessfully attempted to liberate the king from his custodians. James apparently then tried to slip away from Holyrood Palace with the earl of Lennox, to whom he had given a bond promising pre-eminence in a post-Angus government, but this plan was foiled too. Finally, on 4 September Lennox was defeated and killed in battle near Linlithgow in another futile attempt to challenge Douglas power. Thereafter Angus's opponents took no further action, but absented themselves from court and bided their time. Meanwhile, Angus's government became more narrow, partial, and heavy-handed. In August 1527 the earl appointed himself chancellor of the realm, but he was gradually losing control of the royal finances and was finding it difficult to keep order in the borders. Angus presumably imagined that he was indispensable to Henry VIII and therefore secure in his position but he seems to have underestimated the mettle of James V. Throughout 1527 the young king's resentment of his stepfather festered, and by 1528 he was ready to forge an anti-Douglas coalition of his own.
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> April 1528 was a crucial month. James celebrated his sixteenth birthday on the 10th and clearly began to desire to rule as an adult king. He may also have had a major disagreement with Angus at an Easter session of the council. Furthermore, his mother made public her new marital status. Her divorce from Angus had been pronounced in Rome in March 1527 but the decree did not reach Scotland until April 1528, when she announced that she had taken as her third husband Henry Stewart (c.1495-1553/4), younger brother of Lord Avondale and her favourite of some years. As a magnate of the realm in her own right she needed the king's consent for such a match to be politically acceptable. Angus's reaction was to place Stewart in ward. In the following weeks James clearly struck a deal with his mother independently of Angus. He would accept her remarriage if she would make over to him Stirling Castle, which was part of her jointure as consort of James IV. He planned to use the lofty fortress as a base from which to challenge the rule of Angus.
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> On 20 May James was in Edinburgh attending a session of the council with Angus. Somehow he managed to escape from the Douglases and by 30 May he was probably in Stirling with Queen Margaret. Between 19 June and 6 July James V established himself at the head of the Scottish government. Many Douglases were dismissed from office and replaced by men loyal to the king, such as Gavin Dunbar, archbishop of Glasgow and former royal tutor, who became chancellor. Other lords who rallied to the newly assertive monarch included the earls of Arran, Argyll, Eglinton, and Moray, and the abbots of Scone and Cambuskenneth. The new council ordered Angus into ward north of the River Spey and his brother and uncle into ward at Edinburgh Castle; when the Douglases refused to comply they were summonsed for treason and forfeited in their absence in parliament at Edinburgh on 5 September. The king then began a series of largely futile campaigns against key strongholds held by the Douglases such as the castles of Douglas, Newark, and Kilmarnock, the tower of Cockburnspath, and the priory of Coldingham. These actions culminated in the (unsuccessful) siege of Tantallon Castle between 25 October and 5 November. The following day the lords of the council swore a solemn oath to pursue the Douglases to their 'utter destruction'  (Hannay, 290). Nevertheless, it was clear that James's attempt to use force against Angus had failed. Instead he made a deal with Henry VIII in December 1528 (ratified in March 1529) allowing the Douglases refuge in England, giving him possession of their Scottish properties, and agreeing a five-year truce between the two realms. Angus finally crossed the border into exile in May 1529. It had taken the king a full year to be rid of his erstwhile guardian.
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> The assertion of royal authority, 1529-1534
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> Having demonstrated his determination to be an active adult monarch, James's next priority seems to have been to enforce royal authority and justice throughout the realm. In June 1529 he presided at justice ayres in the borders, where he received bonds and 'pledges' (hostages) for good rule from his lieges. In September he went hunting in the same area and in November he held justice ayres in Dumfries, Galloway, and Ayrshire. Yet lawlessness continued, and in 1530 the king became more energetic. In May two border reivers, William Cockburn of Henderland and Adam Scott of Tushielaw, were executed in Edinburgh, sixteen border magnates were placed in temporary ward, and fifty lairds gave pledges to underlie the law. In July, James led an army on a border raid; he took some prisoners and executed other outlaws, among them the notorious Johnnie Armstrong of Staplegordon. Meanwhile the earl of Moray, as lieutenant of the north, was bringing order to Caithness and Sutherland, and the fourth earl of Argyll, as lieutenant of the west, was failing to control Maclean of Duart and Macdonald of Islay. In 1531 the king planned a show of strength in the west and arranged for an army to gather under his command at Ayr to meet with a force under Moray at Kintail for a joint campaign. The raid seems to have been cancelled when Macdonald and Maclean submitted to the king. James accepted offers of good service from these highland chiefs and dismissed Argyll from his office as chamberlain of Kintyre.
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> The king's concern that justice should be administered effectively was clearly evident in 1531-2. With Henry VIII pursuing his divorce case and Francois I maintaining the Anglo-French accord, there was an opportunity for closer ties between the king of Scots and both pope and emperor. At this time Chancellor Dunbar and the royal secretary, Sir Thomas Erskine, seem to have developed a scheme to establish a college of justice as a permanent court of professional judges to hear civil cases, and both Clement VII and Charles V gave their approval. A papal bull of September 1531 authorized taxation of the Scottish clergy to pay for the new institution, on 26 April 1532 James V was admitted to the order of the Golden Fleece, and on 27 May the king presided at the inauguration of the college of justice in Edinburgh. It is possible that the imperial party was still in Edinburgh and witnessed the ceremony, and it is likely that the papal nuncio, Sylvester Darius, was also there. James V was making his mark not only within Scotland but also further afield.
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> Henry VIII seems to have been alarmed by this evidence of warmth between his nephew, the pope, and the emperor, and decided to test the resolve of the young king. In the summer and autumn of 1532 he urged the earl of Northumberland to goad the Scots: a series of raids provoked reprisals and a border war ensued. James and his council reacted with determination. In October 1532 the earl of Moray was appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom to command the Scottish host, which was called up in turn from four 'quarters' of the kingdom in the winter and spring of 1532-3. The earl of Bothwell was warded for manifestly treasonable dealings with the earl of Northumberland, and the archbishop of St Andrews was placed under temporary house-arrest on suspicion of communicating with Henry VIII. Furthermore, Hector Maclean of Duart and Alexander Macdonald of Islay were authorized to harry the English by making trouble in Ireland, raiding the Isle of Man, and preying on English ships, two of which were captured and presented to James V. Francois I was saddened by the hostilities between his two allies and sent an envoy, De Beauvais, to engage in shuttle diplomacy and bring Henry and James to terms. As a result a ceasefire was effected by May 1533, a formal truce agreed in September 1533, and a peace treaty concluded in May 1534.
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> The French marriages, 1536-1538
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> James V had been promised a daughter of Francois I in the treaty of Rouen of 1517, and in the mid-1520s the prospect of marriage with his cousin Mary Tudor had been raised but nothing had been settled. After 1528 James began to pursue actively a marriage that would bring him personal prestige and political advantage and he naturally turned first to France. Yet Francois was reluctant to jeopardize his delicate relationship with Henry VIII and prevaricated. Mindful of the overtures from emperor and pope, James started to consider alternative candidates from the houses of Habsburg and Medici. Between 1529 and 1535 fifteen ladies from six countries were discussed as potential consorts. Yet as the years passed and no conclusion was reached it became clear that princes were offering prospective brides not out of enthusiasm for a Scottish match but from a desire to disrupt James's negotiations with rival powers if they looked too promising. Therefore in March 1536 James found himself engaged not to one of Francois's own daughters but to a less prestigious and diplomatically more acceptable alternative, Marie de Bourbon, daughter of the duc de Vendome. In September James sailed to France to secure his bride, but having inspected her he rejected the match and persuaded Francois to honour the treaty of Rouen. The French king hesitated until he had gauged the likely English reaction and discovered that Henry was too preoccupied with domestic problems to do more than write a few letters of complaint; the pope was also consulted. The contract of marriage between James V and Madeleine de Valois  (1520-1537) was signed at Blois on 26 November 1536 and the couple were married in Paris on 1 January 1537. The day before the wedding James was given a Parisian royal entry as if he had been the dauphin. This marriage was a triumph not only for the Scottish king but also for the international standing of his realm.
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> The young couple returned to Scotland in May 1537 but the rigours of the journey and the Scottish climate proved too much for Madeleine's delicate health and she died at Holyrood Palace on 7 July. James immediately requested a replacement from Francois. Having now obtained the prestige attached to marrying the eldest daughter of a king, James was quite willing to accept a lady of lesser rank as his second wife. Furthermore, Francois's relationship with Henry VIII was beginning to cool while an imperial friendship was emerging and so the new Scottish match was arranged swiftly. Marie de Lorraine, usually known as Mary of Guise  (1515-1560), daughter of Claude, duc de Guise, and widow of Louis, duc de Longueville, married James V at St Andrews on 17 June 1538. The wedding was intended to symbolize Scottish commitment to the new Catholic alliance which was developing in Europe and threatening to launch a crusade against the 'heretic' king of England. Queen Mary was crowned at Holyrood on 22 February 1540 and gave birth to James, duke of Rothesay, on 22 May at St Andrews. A second son, probably called Robert, duke of Albany, was born at Stirling in April 1541. Both boys died soon afterwards and were buried at Holyrood. A third child was born at Linlithgow Palace on 8 December 1542 and within a few days had ascended the throne as Mary, queen of Scots  (1542-1587). James V also had a considerable illegitimate progeny-including James Stewart, later first earl of Moray  (1531/2-1570), and Robert Stewart-born of liaisons with at least seven, and perhaps nine, identified mistresses [see James V,  mistresses and children of].
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> James V's court
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> Even before his trip to France, James V had already indicated a desire to emulate the most fashionable developments at the Renaissance courts of Europe, and the time he spent with Francois I inspired him to even greater efforts. He used the limited resources at his disposal effectively and his cultural patronage propagated multi-layered images of royal power. Continuity with the traditions of his forebears was stressed, but the chivalric, imperial, and humanist themes popular at foreign courts were also adopted enthusiastically.
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> The architectural patronage of the court was particularly rich and encompassed buildings in the ornate high-Gothic style pioneered in the Burgundian Netherlands, and in a more restrained Italianate classicism borrowed from France. James V's earliest building, a new tower at Holyrood constructed between 1528 and 1532, and a new west range of 1535-6, fell into the former category, as did a new gateway for Linlithgow Palace of 1534 and an entrance tower and south front for Falkland Palace built from 1537. All of these works incorporated crenellations, gun-loops, armorial bearings, gilded weather-vanes, and gargoyles. However, the courtyard facades at Falkland were reconstructed between 1537 and 1541 by French masons in the Francois premier style, while the new palace block at Stirling Castle of about 1540 owes more to the architecture of Louis XII's reign. The 'Stirling heads', a series of carved Renaissance roundels from the ceiling of the king's presence chamber, are of the same period. There is very little portraiture surviving from the court but queens Madeleine and Mary sat for Corneille de Lyon, and a companion piece from the same atelier is probably the best contemporary likeness of the king; it suggests an impressive physical presence.
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> James V was a keen musician. He played the lute, could sight-read vocal scores, and employed a large staff of musicians and minstrels. The consort of viols was first introduced to Scotland under his patronage, as was the French chanson style. Composers associated with his court included Robert Carver, John Fethy, and Robert Johnson, but the only surviving piece specifically dedicated to the king is the motet Si quis diligit me (c.1530) by David Peebles. The influence of the English and Flemish schools as well as the music of France and Italy can be detected in Scottish compositions of the period and the king employed musicians from all of these countries.
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> The literary patronage of the court was of a remarkably high quality. During the minority both John Mair and Hector Boece dedicated their histories of Scotland (1521 and 1527 respectively) to the king. Both works were scholarly neo-Latin tomes with humanist influences, but Mair's work, which advocated a union of the realms of England and Scotland, did not find favour with the adult king, who preferred the forthright nationalism of Boece. James commissioned John Bellenden to translate Boece's history and Livy's History of Rome into Scots. Many poets were patronized by the king, the most distinguished of them being Sir David Lindsay of the Mount. Eight of Lindsay's earliest surviving poems were written for James and are set at his court. They cast some light on the character of the king, revealing his boisterous nature and his sexual promiscuity; mention is also made of chivalric tournaments, the wedding and funeral of 1537, and even the royal pets. At Epiphany 1540 an interlude written by Lindsay was performed for the king at Linlithgow. It has not survived but seems to have had a heavily anti-clerical tone and to have been a prototype for his play, Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (1552). Anti-clerical poetry was also written at the king's behest by George Buchanan when he was tutor to the eldest Lord James Stewart between 1536 and 1539. The young Pierre Ronsard visited the Scottish court briefly as a page to Queen Madeleine, and when James was in France Clement Marot and others made poetical offerings.
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> James V was a dedicated exponent of the cult of chivalry. Jousts and tournaments were staged to mark all the major feasts and celebrations of the reign, and while in Paris James spent much time jousting with the dauphin. He was particularly proud of his membership of the most prestigious European orders of chivalry: the Golden Fleece (1532), the Garter (1535), and St Michael (1536). The insignia of these orders were carved above his new gateway at Linlithgow alongside the emblems of the Scottish Order of the Thistle. James was careful to keep up to date in other aspects of royal symbolism and ceremonial. Scottish kings had depicted themselves on coins, seals, and documents, wearing an arched 'imperial' crown since the reign of James III, but James V was probably the first actually to wear such regalia. The closed crown which is today on display in Edinburgh Castle was remodelled for James V in 1540 and his diadem may have had arches attached to it as early as 1532, to signify that he acknowledged no superior authority in his realm before God.
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> James V and the church
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> James V's piety was of the conventional rather than convictional kind and his policy towards the church was highly pragmatic. His assumption of royal powers coincided with Henry VIII's divorce case, which led to the English schism and dissolution of the monasteries. With his uncle of England ever eager to coax him into similar policies, James V was able to portray himself as a loyal but embattled son of the church, while exploiting the wealth and power of the Scottish clergy for his own ends. To encourage him to keep faith, the papacy made significant concessions. Much of the clerical taxation granted for the establishment of the college of justice was diverted into the royal palace-building programme without comment, and in 1540 the clergy agreed to contribute £10,000 a year towards the royal household. In 1532 it was recognized that no Scottish case under ecclesiastical jurisdiction could be called to Rome in the first instance, but was to be heard before the king's appointed clerical judges. In 1535 the pope confirmed the crown's right to nominate to vacant benefices and extended the period of nomination (during which the revenues belonged to the king) from eight months to a year. Dispensations were also issued permitting the king's under-age and illegitimate sons to hold five of the most lucrative benefices: the abbeys of Holyrood, Melrose, and Kelso, and the priories of St Andrews and Coldingham. Until the boys reached maturity the king would possess their temporalities. In February 1537, while he was still in France, James received the papal gift of a blessed cap and sword as a mark of particular regard, and there was even a suggestion that the pope was considering reassigning Henry's title of Fidei defensor to James, though the latter seems never to have adopted this style officially.
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> Like many monarchs of the age, James employed large numbers of clerics in his court and government so that ecclesiastical energies were often focused on the king's service rather than on God's. Such prelates as Archbishop Dunbar of Glasgow (chancellor), Abbot Alexander Mylne of Cambuskenneth (president of the college of justice), and Cardinal David Beaton (keeper of the privy seal) had decidedly worldly careers, but James was nevertheless capable of offering patronage to the church as well as exploiting it. He made regular visits and gave gifts to pilgrimage centres including the shrines of St Ninian at Whithorn, St Duthac at Tain, St Adrian on the Isle of May, and the Virgin of Loretto near Musselburgh. He was also an active patron of the Observant Franciscans, the Dominican convent of Sciennes, the abbey of Cambuskenneth, the collegiate church of Restalrig, and Trinity College, Edinburgh. James endowed the Chapel Royal at Stirling with splendid new vestments and ornaments and was on good terms with its staff. The ritual year of the Catholic church largely shaped the itinerary and customs of the Scottish court, and the cycle of feasts and fasts, including the meat-free season of Lent, was rigorously observed.
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> In spite of this James's personal response to the spread of Lutheranism was rather ambiguous. He seems to have favoured a group of men within his household who would later become known as reformers and to have encouraged some criticism of ecclesiastical corruption by such commentators as Sir David Lindsay and George Buchanan. At the same time he also patronized those of the opposite persuasion and allowed heresy prosecutions to go ahead, sometimes attending in person. The king was present at Holyrood in 1534 when two heretics were executed and one of his kinsmen, Sir James Hamilton of Kincavil, was exiled; and again in 1539 when six men were burned on Castle Hill, a chorister of the Chapel Royal recanted, and Buchanan fled. James's flirtation with reform was probably designed to maintain the simultaneous solicitude of both the pope and Henry VIII, and while he seems to have been willing to enjoy some ribald anti-clerical humour in court entertainments his international profile was consistently Catholic.
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> James V's government
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> James seems to have regarded it as his primary duty to ensure that Scotland was well governed. His early determination to bring order to the borders and the western and northern isles, to defend his realm from English attacks, and to establish the college of justice has already been noted, and this approach did not waver in subsequent years. Legal reforms continued into the 1530s with acts improving the operation of sheriffs' courts and regulating notaries, and the office of advocate for the poor was revived. James was a restlessly peripatetic monarch, often supervising justice ayres in person and making his presence felt in even the most far-flung corners of the land. In June and July of 1540 he sailed around the entire Scottish coastline from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde, taking in the Orkneys and the Hebrides. Pledges for good rule were taken from highland chieftains along the way and the first known coastal chart ('rutter') of the Scottish seas was produced. James also encouraged nobles and lairds to fortify the castles and tower houses of the coasts and borders, while spending heavily on new royal fortifications in strategic sites such as Rothesay, Burntisland, Blackness, Tantallon, Crawfordjohn, and Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale. A new royal arsenal was established in Edinburgh Castle and well stocked with artillery pieces and munitions, while a fleet of warships was constructed virtually from scratch. James was also concerned to stabilize crown finances, which had been 'superexpended' during the minority. Through enforcing his property rights and judicial authority the revenues of the treasury and exchequer were steadily increased throughout the 1530s; to this James added the income obtained from the church, the dowries of his two queens, revenues from the lands of forfeited lords, the profits of crown mining and sheep-farming operations, and taxes levied to support royal embassies and military campaigns. Expenditure on the royal household, pageantry, diplomacy, and defence also increased over time, but James seems to have managed his finances effectively and to have largely lived within his means. This was a remarkable achievement in an age when other monarchs routinely amassed heavy debts.
> 
> Although a study of English diplomatic papers and post-Reformation Scottish narratives gives the strong impression that James was unpopular with his nobles, who feared and mistrusted him as a covetous and predatory overlord, a different impression emerges from the surviving records of James V's own government. There, magnates who included the earls of Moray, Huntly, Arran, Argyll, and Eglinton, as well as Lord Maxwell, appear regularly serving on diplomatic, military, administrative, and judicial missions. Four of them (Montrose, Huntly, Eglinton, and Maxwell) along with the two archbishops, were entrusted with regency powers in the absence of the king in France in 1536-7. James was also served well by prelates such as Cardinal Beaton, lawyers such as Sir Thomas Erskine of Brechin, and lairds such as Sir James Kirkcaldy of Grange, all of whom were capable and experienced officers of state. Furthermore, James's reputation for gratuitously prosecuting key magnates in order to benefit from their forfeited estates does not tell the whole story. Cameron has shown that there were sound political reasons for the charges of treason brought against the Douglases in 1528, the earl of Bothwell in 1531, Lady Glamis and the master of Forbes in 1537, Sir James Colville in 1538, and Sir James Hamilton of Finnart in 1540. James might have been prepared to wait for a propitious moment to act, but he would not allow disloyalty to go unpunished. In this he generally had the support of his nobility. Nevertheless, James did benefit personally from these forfeitures, as did such magnates as Huntly and Arran, and the prospect of such gains would not have been unwelcome to any of them.
> 
> In foreign affairs James maintained his alliance with France and a cordial relationship with the pope and emperor alongside the peace with England which had been settled in 1534. As the Anglo-French accord broke down in 1537 and Francois I and Charles V started to consider launching a 'crusade' against the schismatic English realm in 1538-40, relations with Scotland became vital to English diplomacy. Henry sent Sir Ralph Sadler to try to detach James from France, advising that he could profit from a dissolution of the Scottish monasteries and a royal supremacy over the Scottish church. There was also a suggestion that a change of heart by the Scottish king might lead to the recognition of his place in the English succession. Henry hoped that he could meet James in person to resolve their differences, but he was proposing an English venue and the Scottish council feared a kidnap attempt and advised James to decline the invitation. By 1541 Franco-imperial amity had evaporated and Henry, no longer isolated, was negotiating a continental alliance with either Francois or Charles. He wanted to gauge the Scottish attitude to European developments and had high hopes that James would meet him at York in September. However, James had never formally agreed to attend and when the king of Scots failed to appear Henry, who had travelled to York specifically for the meeting, was exasperated.
> 
> The crisis of 1542
> 
> In summer 1542 Henry VIII and Charles V agreed to launch a joint attack on France in the following year. Since the king of Scots persisted in his 'auld alliance', Henry needed to secure his northern border before departing for continental adventures. He calculated that a pre-emptive strike would inflict sufficient damage on the Scots to prevent them invading England in support of France, as had happened in 1513. In August 1542 Henry sent Sir Robert Bowes and the earls of Rutland and Angus to Northumberland to prepare for war, with the excuse that the Scottish king was harbouring English rebels and refusing to give redress. James responded by appointing the earl of Huntly as his lieutenant and the Scottish host was put on alert. By the middle of the month a series of border raids was under way and on 24 August an English force was scattered and Bowes captured in a skirmish with Huntly's men at Hadden Rig near Kelso. Henry then appointed the duke of Norfolk, the old victor of Flodden, to be his lieutenant for an invasion of Scotland, as acrimonious peace talks were foundering. The English army was desperately short of supplies and managed to raid only the area around Kelso and Roxburgh between 22 and 28 October before Norfolk returned to Berwick and scaled down his forces. James was determined to repel the English invasion, which he probably thought would head for Edinburgh. Huntly's forces were ordered to gather at Smailholm Tower, while a second army under Moray and the king had reached Lauder by late October. They probably planned to crush Norfolk's force in a pincer movement. Finding that their prey had eluded them and that they in turn were running short of supplies, the Scottish forces were also stood down and James returned to Edinburgh to rethink his strategy.
> 
> In November 1542 James decided to take the offensive. Again he divided his forces in two and seems to have disguised his movements to confuse the English. A force under James and Lord Maxwell mustered at Lauder on 20 November, which suggested an attack on the east march, but it then moved swiftly to Langholm in the west while the king based himself at Lochmaben Castle. Meanwhile, the earl of Moray was in charge of another force at Haddington. Cardinal Beaton was also there and the plan seems to have been to await news of successful raids in the west and then to dash across the border at Coldstream and pronounce the papal interdict in an English church. This would have been hugely embarrassing to the English king. However, the plan collapsed on 24 November when a Scottish raiding party in the west was trapped on the edge of a salt marsh by a smaller English force under Sir Thomas Wharton. At the battle of Solway Moss the Scots fought a difficult rearguard action for most of the day, while trying to find a safe crossing of the Esk estuary to take them back home. Eventually they were forced to capitulate, and hundreds of prisoners were taken including the earls of Glencairn and Cassillis, lords Maxwell, Fleming, Gray, Oliphant, and Somerville, and two senior members of the king's own household, Oliver Sinclair of Pitcairn (named in some accounts as the Scottish commander in the battle) and John Ross of Craigie.
> 
> Disappointed and humiliated King James returned to Edinburgh to consult his council. He seems to have ordered his lords to prepare for further raids into England while he paid a visit to his pregnant wife at Linlithgow. In the second week of December James fell ill. By 12 December he had retired to Falkland Palace and taken to his bed. At seven o'clock on the morning of 14 December James V appointed Cardinal Beaton, the earls of Moray, Huntly, and Argyll, and Queen Mary to act jointly as tutors and governors to his newly born daughter during her minority in a notarial instrument which was subsequently set aside on a technicality. Later the same day he died. The exact nature of his final illness is unknown. It is often said to have been a nervous collapse, but a virulent disease is more likely and one contemporary account gives a graphic description of deathbed agonies. The body was probably embalmed, and the king's household remained at Falkland during the season of Christmas when solemn mourning was observed. On 7 January the funeral cortege was escorted to Kinghorn by the lieges of Fife and ferried across the Firth of Forth. James V was buried at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, on Monday 8 January 1543 in the presence of the second earl of Arran, lord governor for Mary, queen of Scots.
> 
> James V's reputation
> 
> Many of the official records of the reign of James V are formal, incomplete, and occasionally obscure; some are still unpublished. There are very few contemporary narrative accounts of the reign, and private letters which might illuminate the personality of the king are scarce. Historians have therefore been driven to rely heavily on the English diplomatic record. The accounts of events in Scotland provided for Henry VIII were often produced by envoys who were experienced and knowledgeable eye-witnesses, but rumours of dubious origin were also passed on, and there were undoubtedly moments when they told their master what he wanted to hear. Thus James V's apparent interest in reforming the Scottish church in 1540 was probably exaggerated to please an uncle who hoped to win his co-operation, while stories of the Scottish clergy dominating his council, turning him into a 'priests' king', and sabotaging the proposed summit conference excused the failure of the English policy of persuasion. Similarly, stories of noble disaffection with a greedy and predatory king, James the 'ill-beloved', circulated most energetically during his absence in France in 1536-7 and during the hostilities of 1532-3 and 1542, when Henry was hoping to restore the earl of Angus to power in Scotland. The claim that Cardinal Beaton provided James with a 'black list' of heretical nobles which the king could use to threaten and bully his magnates only surfaced after his death, in March 1543, when the earl of Arran was trying to convince Sir Ralph Sadler that he would rule Scotland in a manner very different from that of his erstwhile monarch.
> 
> Some of the most enduring images of James V date from shortly after the Scottish Reformation of 1560. The malice Knox and Buchanan felt for a king who frustrated the advancement of 'true' religion has moulded his reputation. In Knox's Works and Buchanan's History, James is presented as very much a priests' king, credulous of superstition and idolatry, tolerant of burnings, and susceptible to bribes in the form of cash, lands, and nubile young women. His nobles find him rapacious, suspicious, and intimidating, closeted with bishops and household familiars of low rank; at Lauder in 1542 they steadfastly refuse to invade England in pursuit of the duke of Norfolk, and James angrily accuses them of cowardice; at Solway Moss they mutiny and willingly enter captivity upon hearing that the king's favourite, Oliver Sinclair, has been given military command. The oft-quoted deathbed lament for the loss of Sinclair and the comment that the Stewart crown 'cam wi' a lass and it'l gang wi' a lass' were words placed in James's mouth by Knox  (Works, 1.90) and also by Pitscottie  (Historie and Cronicles, 2.406). However, both Knox and Buchanan and the more picturesque accounts of Pitscottie and Leslie acknowledge James's cultural patronage and his interest in law and order. They also recognize his concern for the commons, and suggest that he liked to learn about his subjects by circulating among them incognito. Here is depicted the 'poor man's king', 'the king of the commons', and the origins of the flamboyantly romantic 'gudeman of Ballengeich' presented in Sir Walter Scott's Tales of a Grandfather.
> 
> James V's reputation has not moved far beyond these late sixteenth-century interpretations. Knox, Leslie, Pitscottie, and Buchanan colour vividly all subsequent accounts by commentators from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, including Caroline Bingham's popular biography. However, more recent research has attempted to unravel the history from the mythology by close examination of the surviving record sources, and important studies by W. K. Emond and J. Cameron provide a narrative of the reign which both extends and challenges the analyses of the most successful general histories of the period by Gordon Donaldson and Jenny Wormald. Whereas the latter both judge James very harshly, describing him as rapacious, vindictive, and aggressive, and repeat many of the chroniclers' tales, Cameron presents the adult James as a king who wanted to rule effectively and was determined to enforce his will. The humiliations and frustrations of a long minority were to be set aside and royal authority would be restored. His approach was rational and practical and he borrowed his strategies from earlier Stewart kings, contemporary monarchs, and legal advisers. Had he lived to consolidate and develop the remarkable achievements of the years 1528-42, his historical reputation might have been as glorious as his father's. In the event, his death at the age of thirty cut off in his prime a very promising Renaissance prince.
> 
> Andrea Thomas 
> 
> Sources  R. K. Hannay, ed., Acts of the lords of council in public affairs, 1501-1554 (1932) + APS, 1424-1567 + J. B. Paul, ed., Compota thesaurariorum regum Scotorum / Accounts of the lord high treasurer of Scotland, 4-8 (1902-8) + LP Henry VIII, vols. 1-18 + The letters of James V, ed. R. K. Hannay and D. Hay (1954) + T. Thomson, ed., A diurnal of remarkable occurrents that have passed within the country of Scotland, Bannatyne Club, 43 (1833) + The works of Sir David Lindsay, ed. D. Hamer, 4 vols., STS, 3rd ser., 1-2, 6, 8 (1931-6) + J. H. Mackenzie, R. Graham, and J. Mackenzie, eds., Excerpta e libris domicilii domini Jacobi Quinti Regis Scotorum, Bannatyne Club, 54 (1836) + Sixth report, HMC, 5 (1877-8) + MSS, libri emptorum of James V, 1531-43, NA Scot., E 32/2-8 + J. Cameron, James V: the personal rule, 1528-1542, ed. N. Macdougall (1998) + W. K. Emond, 'The minority of James V, 1513-1528', PhD diss., U. St Andr., 1988 + A. Thomas, 'Princelie majestie': the court of James V of Scotland, 1528-1542 (2001) + The works of John Knox, ed. D. Laing, 6 vols., Wodrow Society, 12 (1846-64) + The history of Scotland translated from the Latin of George Buchanan, ed. and trans. J. Aikman, 4 vols. (1827) + J. Lesley, The history of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson, Bannatyne Club, 38 (1830) + J. Leslie, The historie of Scotland, ed. E. G. Cody and W. Murison, trans. J. Dalrymple, 2 vols. in 4 pts, STS, 5, 14, 19, 34 (1888-95) [1596 trans. of De origine moribus, et rebus gestis Scotorum libri decem (Rome, 1578)] + The chronicles of Scotland, ed. J. G. Dalyell, 2 vols. (1814) + The historie and cronicles of Scotland ... by Robert Lindesay of Pitscottie, ed. A. J. G. Mackay, 3 vols., STS, 42-3, 60 (1899-1911) + G. Donaldson, Scotland: James V to James VII (1965), vol. 3 of The Edinburgh history of Scotland  (1965-75) + J. Wormald, Court, kirk and community: Scotland, 1470-1625 (1992) + E. Bapst, Les mariages de Jacques V (Paris, 1889) + Scots peerage + C. Bingham, James V, king of Scots, 1512-1542 (1971) + C. P. Hotle, Thorns and thistles: diplomacy between Henry VIII and James V, 1528-1542 (1996) + J. Paterson, James the Fifth or the 'Gudeman of Ballangeich': his poetry and adventures (1861) + W. Scott, Tales of a grandfather, another edn (1872) + S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (1972) + R. J. Knecht, Renaissance warrior and patron: the reign of Francis I (1994) + A. L. Murray, ed., 'Accounts of the king's pursemaster, 1539-1540', Miscellany ... X, Scottish History Society, 4th ser., 2 (1965), 11-51
> Archives NA Scot., letter-books + NA Scot., MSS, libri domicilii of James V, E 31/1-8 | NA Scot., Tynninghame letter-books
> Likenesses  attrib. C. de Lyon, oils, c.1536 (of James V?), Polesden Lacey, Surrey · attrib. C. de Lyon, oils, c.1536-1537 (of James V?), Weiss Gallery, London · double portrait, oils, c.1538-1540 (with Mary of Guise), Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire · double portrait, oils, c.1538-1540 (with Mary of Guise), Blair Castle, Perthshire · oils, c.1538-1540, Royal Collection · oils, c.1540, Scot. NPG [see illus.] · W. Essex, enamel miniature (after unknown artist), Scot. NPG · oil paintings, Scot. NPG · watercolours, Scot. NPG
> Wealth at death  left £26,000 Scots contingency fund in treasure chests: Murray, 'Accounts of the king's pursemaster'
> 
> 
> 
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