Lord James Douglas (1617–1645) was a Scottish nobleman and soldier.
He was born at Douglas Castle, Douglas, South Lanarkshire, the son of William Douglas, 1st Marquess of Douglas, and his wife Margaret Hamilton, a daughter of Claud Hamilton, 1st Lord Paisley.
Douglas was sent at an early age to the court of Louis XIII, where he was served the King as a Page, where he steadily moved through the levels of the Maison du Roi.
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Thirty Years War [link]
At the age of twenty, he was appointed colonel of the Scots Regiment, the first of three brothers to do so.
The Scots Regiment, was raised as its name suggests in Scotland in 1625 ,and had fought in Sweden in the early part of the Thirty Years' War, it returned to Scotland as the Royal regiment of Foot in 1633. In 1635, the regiment was bound to King Louis, "in all service except against the King of Great Britain". Originally it was commanded by Sir John Hepburn, who was killed at the siege of Saverne in 1636; it was then taken over by his nephew, Sir John Hepburn who was killed in action the following year. Douglas was appointed the new Colonel, and the name of the corps was altered to the Régiment de Douglas, and numbers increased to twenty companies of 100 Scotsmen.[1] The regiment fought with distinction, under Douglas, occasionally under the ultimate command of Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne. Douglas was injured in August 1645, and received a letter of sympathy from Cardinal Mazarin. He was killed in a skirmish on the road between Arras and Douai on 21 October 1645, in an attempt to take the latter city from the Habsburgs. According to Fraser, Louis XIV had indicated his wish to raise Douglas to the rank of Field Marshal, on the very day that he died.[2]
Douglas' body was returned to Paris and buried at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, beside other members of his family, including William Douglas, 10th Earl of Angus, his grandfather. A fine memorial was erected to his memory in the Chapelle de Sainte-Thérèse, within the Abbey Church.
Douglas was succeeded as Colonel by his elder brother, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. The Régiment de Douglas returned to British service in 1662, and by 1812 it took its more famous name: The Royal Scots.
References [link]
Notes [link]
Sources [link]
- Regiments.org Timelines and Colonels of the Royal Scots
- Balfour Paul, Sir James. Scots Peerage Vol I. Edinburgh 1907
- Fraser, Sir William Fraser. The Douglas Book IV Vols. Edinburgh 1885.
- Maxwell, Sir Herbert. A History of the House of Douglas. London 1902
External links [link]
"Douglas, James (1617-1645)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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James Douglas
James Douglas may refer to:
Scottish noblemen
Lords of Angus
Lords of Douglas
Lords of Morton
James Douglas (physician)
James Douglas FRS (21 March 1675 – 2 April 1742) was a Scottish physician and anatomist, and Physician Extraordinary to Queen Caroline.
Life and works
One of the seven sons of William Douglas (died 1705) and his wife, Joan, daughter of James Mason of Park, Blantyre, he was born in West Calder, West Lothian, in 1675. His brother was the well-known lithotomist John Douglas (died 1759).
In 1694 he graduated MA from the University of Edinburgh and then took his medical doctorate at Reims before going to London in 1700.
He worked as an obstetrician, and gaining a great reputation as a physician, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1706, FCP in 1721.
One of the most respected anatomists in the country, Douglas was also a well-known man-midwife. He was asked to investigate the case of Mary Toft, an English woman from Godalming, Surrey, who in 1726 became the subject of considerable controversy when she tricked doctors into believing that she had given birth to rabbits. Despite his early scepticism (Douglas thought that a woman giving birth to rabbits was as likely as a rabbit giving birth to a human child), Douglas went to see Toft, and subsequently exposed her as a fraud.
James Douglas, Lord of Douglas
Sir James Douglas (also known as Good Sir James and the Black Douglas) (c. 1286 – 1330) was a Scottish knight and feudal lord. He was one of the chief commanders during the Wars of Scottish Independence.
Early life
He was the eldest son of Sir William Douglas, known as "le Hardi" or "the bold", who had been the first noble supporter of William Wallace (the elder Douglas died circa 1298, a prisoner in the Tower of London). His mother was Elizabeth Stewart, the daughter of Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward of Scotland, who died circa 1287 or early 1288. His father remarried in late 1288 so Douglas' birth had to be prior to that; however, the destruction of records in Scotland makes an exact date or even year impossible to pinpoint.
Douglas was sent to France for safety in the early days of the Wars of Independence, and was educated in Paris. There he met William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, who took him as a squire. He returned to Scotland with Lamberton. His lands had been seized and awarded to Robert Clifford. Lamberton presented him at the occupying English court to petition for the return of his land shortly after the capture of Stirling Castle in 1304, but when Edward I of England heard whose son he was he grew angry and Douglas was forced to depart.
