James the Good: The Black Douglas

Preface

SIR JAMES THE GOOD, one of the finest soldiers Scotland ever produced, is better known by the name given to him by the English – the ‘Black Douglas’. And they gave him this name with some justification. He terrified the northern shires of England throughout the King Robert the Bruce years of the Wars of Independence.

I feel that the people of Scotland should know more about this remarkable man, and although I wrote of him in my book On the Trail of Robert the Bruce, he really deserves a book dedicated solely to him.

Much of what I write of here comes from John Barbour, Arch deacon of Aberdeen (1316–1395), who wrote a great work on Robert the Bruce around 1370. He gave details of many of James Douglas’s exploits in this book, allowing us an insight into the life of this remarkable man.

There is a triptych dedicated to Barbour in an aisle within St Machar’s Cathedral in Aberdeen. Barbour himself is buried beneath the floor there, and a plaque to his memory is at first-floor level on the old bank building on the corner of Marischal Street and Castle Street, at the eastern end of Union Street. (I do feel that in this day and age, this name should be changed to ‘Robert the Bruce Street’ or similar. After all, Bruce did great things for Aberdeen, starting the common good fund and the like, and should be recognised.) Barbour’s epic work on Bruce is one of the great early works of Scottish literature. I am humbled that nearly seven centuries on, I can draw on his patriotic ode, to pen one of my own.

Besides such works of literature, much of this book was of course compiled by my running around Scotland and England on my motorcycle, visiting the places that Douglas knew, and getting a feel for the way things were.

But I think it may be fitting here to quote some words of Barbour, ones I’m sure Douglas himself would wholly endorse:

A! Freedom is a noble thing!

Freedom gives man security and comfort

Freedom allows a man to be admired,

He who lives freely lives at ease!

CHAPTER ONE

The storm clouds gather

WE DO NOT KNOW the exact date on which James was born. This is not unusual for his day and age. For example, Wallace’s date of birth is down to conjecture, guesswork telling us sometime between 1270 and 1274. As Robert the Bruce came from one of the leading families of Scotland, we know his birth date, 11 July 1274. But as with Wallace, we need to use what detail we have available to try and get a rough idea of when James’s birth may have taken place.

His mother Elizabeth, who was a sister of James, the High Steward of Scotland (the moniker ‘Steward’ would soon be corrupted to ‘Stewart’, and that family, through marriage to Bruce’s daughter, would become the ruling house of Scotland) died at the end of 1288, so obviously he must have been born before then. In 1297 he was called ‘a little boy’ when he was required as a hostage by the English, so his birth cannot have been too many years before his mother’s death. Tradition states that James was born the same year that Alexander III, King of Scots, died, 1286, and this seems probable, or at the very least, it can’t be too far away from the truth.

James was a rare name in Scotland at this time, and so it is likely that he was named after James the Steward, his uncle, who was probably his godfather.

James’s likely birthplace was Douglas Castle, near Douglas village in Lanarkshire. I know kids tend to be born wherever their mother happens to be at the time, but as this castle was the family home it seems the most probable place. Only a fragment remains, standing in the old policies a mile or so east of the village. It should also be mentioned that although we tend to add second names to famous people from that time, he was actually called James ‘of’ Douglas, and it was not really a surname as we know it. Douglas, the village, takes its name from the nearby stream, the Dubh Glas, Gaelic for ‘Black Water’, which describes its sluggish dark meanderings perfectly. The locals call the village ‘Dooglas’, which is very close to the Gaelic pronunciation. There are now 56 towns and villages with the name Douglas across the planet, and this is the original, so the sons and daughters of this little place are far scattered.

At cliffs near Kinghorn in Fife, Alexander III, King of Scots, was fatally thrown by his horse. This began the chain of events that led to Edward I, King of England, trying to incorporate Scotland into his realm. A monu ment on the coast road between Burntisland and Kinghorn at Pettycur Bay marks where the body of Alexander III was discovered.

You will notice that the term used to denote a monarch in Scotland is different from that used in England. It is ‘King of England’, but we do not use the term ‘King of Scotland’ north of the Border. He was the king of his people, and monarch by their decree, hence ‘King of Scots’, whereas in England the power of the monarch was more absolute.

Alexander was buried in Dunfermline Abbey. The throne should have passed to Margaret, the Maid of Norway, Alexander’s granddaughter, but she died in Orkney, en route to her new realm. It seems she was quite a weak, sickly child, and had suffered seasickness on the voyage over. At any rate, she died, and there was no clear heir to the throne of Scotland.

Margaret was taken back to Norway to be buried in Bergen Cathedral. The cathedral is now demolished, but a pillar marks the burial spot, and it bears Margaret’s name.

There was real threat of civil war in Scotland, many of the powerful nobles having some royal blood in their veins, and all eyeing up the chance to take the ultimate step to power by assuming the crown. So, who do you get to choose a king? Who better than another king? Bishop Fraser of St Andrews wrote to the King of England, asking him to arbitrate. There was no lack of patriotism in this act. Edward was the brother-in-law of the late King Alexander, and the Scots did not see the storm clouds gathering. Scotland and England had been reasonably good neighbours and were on friendly enough terms at this point, past troubles very much forgotten. Edward came north to Norham Castle on the English side of the River Tweed to begin pondering the problem.

Although many claimants to the throne came forward, there were only two real contenders. One was John Balliol, the other Robert Bruce, grandfather of the future king. They were both close relatives of the blood royal, closer by far than the other contenders, and were also heads of leading, powerful Scottish families. English Edward chose Balliol, who did have the marginally better claim, and he ruled from 1292 to 1296.

But the English king had a hidden agenda where Scotland was concerned. Edward began to browbeat Balliol as if the latter was an underling, and Balliol went into a mutual aid alliance with France. In Scotland today, we call this alliance with France ‘The Auld Alliance’, as it was the start of a long relationship between the two countries, each using the other to try to counteract aggressive English inroads.

Edward was outraged. He saw Scotland as his ‘sub-kingdom’, and mustered his armies to teach the Scots a lesson. Using the fords at Coldstream, this invasion force crossed the River Tweed, which marks the Border of Scotland and England at the eastern side of the country. This act opened the Scottish Wars of Independence. You can stand on the strip of parkland between the town of Coldstream and the Tweed, and imagine the huge invasion force, banners flying, beginning to cross the river.

Edward marched his force east to Berwick upon Tweed, at that time the largest town in Scotland, with perhaps 18,000 inhabitants. They appeared before the town on Friday 30 March 1296.

The Dragon Banner was unfurled, which meant that there would be no mercy, no quarter given to anyone. Edward’s Englishmen easily managed to breach the walls surrounding the town, and the horrific slaughter began. For three days the English killed anyone they found, regardless of age or sex. It is reported that some 15,000 lost their lives.

Apparently Edward only called his men off when he saw a woman in the act of childbirth being dragged from her home and then butchered by one of his soldiers. The Sack of Berwick is a huge stain on our history books; the most brutal slaughter ever carried out in these islands, and forever a warning to Scots of what English involvement can mean. From Berwick to the Clearances, to the closure of our industries, that involvement has never been to Scotland’s weal, no matter how indoctrinated Unionists may protest otherwise.

Berwick had a strong and important castle, its site now the town’s railway station, where fragments of walling remain. Probably very few of the passengers waiting to board trains from the platforms think too much about the stonework they see opposite them, but many decisions regarding Scotland’s future took place within those walls. A sign above the stairs leading to the platforms tells that this was the spot where Balliol was chosen to be King of Scots, for example.

At the time of the sacking, the governor of the castle was none other than the father of James: William, Lord of Douglas. He must have seen the English army approach from the castle battlements, and was forced to watch the depredations of the English from its walls.

Douglas and his men would have known that there was no way they could be relieved from their plight, trapped inside the castle, having no doubt that the victorious and bloodthirsty English would soon find a way in.

The garrison of the castle surrendered on terms, and William Douglas was taken north with Edward as he marched his army over the land of Scotland to show who was now in charge.

The Scots did mount a resistance, of course. Their feudal host gathered at Caddonlea, near the village of Caddonfoot, upstream on the Tweed. They caught up with the English invaders as they were besieging the castle of Dunbar while advancing up the east coast. The garrison of the castle took heart from the appearance of the Scottish army, and began to taunt the besiegers with cries of ‘Tailed dogs! We will cut your tails off!’ This was because the Scots constantly related the story that Englishmen had tails that they kept tucked away hidden in their trousers. It was said that some Englishmen had dishonoured a holy man (variously cited to be Thomas à Becket or St Augustine) and so God had given them tails to their everlasting shame. I don’t think that the Scots truly believed this, but it was a suitable stick to beat Englishmen with, and it did seem to enrage them.

On Friday 27 April 1296, the two armies clashed in the fields above the Spott Burn, and the Scots were, quite frankly, far outclassed and cut to pieces. William Douglas would have been forced to watch this from a distance, and must have despaired at the twist of fate that was befalling Scotland at this time.

I have often wondered if William Wallace was present at the battle of Dunbar. If so, although escaping with his life unlike so many of his fellow countrymen, he got a hard lesson on the power of the English army in the field. Certainly, his future co-commander at the battle of Stirling Bridge, Andrew Murray, was captured here, but was later able to escape from his prison at Chester and make his way north to raise his clansmen.

Medieval warfare had rules of a sort, and losers were expected to acknowledge the fact in a gentlemanly way. It would take Wallace’s, Bruce’s and then Douglas’s example to finally erase this notion from the minds of Scots, and let them see that there should be no rules when it came to freeing your country from the grasp of an aggressor.

Edward marched ever further north. The Steward surrendered Roxburgh Castle, Edinburgh held out for a week, and Stirling Castle was merely abandoned. John Balliol, King of Scots, was captured and brought before Edward at Stracathro Kirk near Brechin. A new plaque on the churchyard wall commemorates this. He was humiliated, having his crown and lion rampant surcoat torn from him. He was taken south to the Tower of London, and then exiled to his family lands in France. Ordinary Scots were slain out of hand by Edward, but he saw Balliol as part of the feudal mechanism that supported his own style of life, and so treated him in a more lenient fashion.

Edward then turned his attention to ‘asset stripping’ Scotland. He looted the crown jewels, and all the plate and jewellery he could find in Edinburgh, and sent it all south. But the greatest loss to the Scottish people was Edward’s removal of our historical records. A nation is a result of its shared history, and Edward tried to destroy ours. He took the Holy Rood of St Margaret, the country’s most precious relic, and had it sent to London too. ‘Rood’ is the old Scots for ‘cross’, and this venerated item was believed to be a piece of the True Cross on which Christ was crucified. Holyrood Abbey was built to accommodate this relic, hence its name. It has been an important place to the people of Scotland over the centuries, and still is today. Holyrood Palace, built alongside the old abbey, was the favourite residence of many kings of Scots, and the modern Scottish Parliament building is usually just called ‘Holyrood’ by the media.

When Edward reached Perth, he commanded that the Stone of Destiny be taken from nearby Scone Abbey, and that it too be sent to England’s capital, as an offering to Edward the Confessor. It was to remain in his chapel inside Westminster Abbey for seven centuries, before it was rightfully returned to Scotland.

The Stone is supposedly Jacob’s Pillow from the Bible, brought from North Africa by the people who first made Scotland their home, and an old legend states that wherever the Stone is found, from there the Scots shall be ruled. It was returned to Scotland in 1996 to go on display in Edinburgh Castle, and a year later the Scots voted for a parliament of sorts again, also in Edinburgh, so the old legend has proven true! There has been much debate over the last century whether the Stone that was looted by Edward was the ‘real’ Stone, or whether he took a fake that was substituted by the monks at Scone. As this is all down to supposition and as there is no concrete evidence to back up such claims, we have to assume that the Stone currently in Edinburgh is the true Stone.

When English Edward crossed the Border south again, we do not really know what had become of William Douglas, James’s father. He had somehow been removed from Edward’s retinue. His movements over the next few months are unrecorded. When Wallace began his career in May 1297, after slaughtering Heselrig, the English sheriff of Lanark, he struck north and made a raid on Scone, hoping to capture or kill the English-appointed justiciar of Scotland, William Ormsby. William Douglas joined him on this raid. In fact, Douglas was one of the few noblemen who joined Wallace’s desperados in the early days. Ormsby barely escaped with his life, jumping out of a window as the Scots came through the door, leaving all his valuables behind.

William Douglas has left a reputation for wildness and recklessness behind him. After the death of his wife Elizabeth Stewart (James’s mother) in 1288, he abducted and forcibly married Eleanor Ferrers, an English widow, while she was visiting relatives in Scotland. As she was an English noblewoman, the matter was brought to the attention of King Edward, who was not best pleased with Douglas’s actions. Douglas had carried out executions without consulting the proper authorities in Scotland, and it seems he could be very difficult to deal with. His aggression probably suited the early days of Wallace’s campaign.

What is more surprising is that the 22-year-old Robert Bruce, future King of Scots, joined Wallace’s band. He had been a favourite of King Edward, but suddenly joined his fellow countrymen. The Chronicle of Guisborough states that he ‘joined the Scots because he was a Scot’. Surely a simple enough explanation?

Bruce had to have an excuse to amass his men, and one came when he was asked by the English to mount a raid on Douglasdale. When they reached the walls of Douglas Castle, Bruce suddenly changed his allegiance. He carried those within Douglas Castle to safety, among whom is likely to have been the young James, then about 11 years of age. Neither James nor Robert would have guessed what fate had in store for them both – how their lives would be intertwined in the fateful struggle for the freedom of their nation.

On 11 September 1297, the battle of Stirling Bridge took place. Wallace and Murray, against all odds, defeated an English army as it tried to cross the River Forth. Unfortunately Murray received wounds that were to kill him later in the year. Wallace went on to invade England. The foll owing year Edward of England came north, leading his army in person. He clashed with Wallace and the Scots at Falkirk on 22 July 1298. Woodend Farm near the Westquarter Burn marks the site of the Scots’ positions. A new commemorative cairn in the grounds of Callendar House in Falkirk has been raised in memory of this battle. The Scots were defeated with heavy losses. Wallace went back to fighting a guerrilla campaign, and then went abroad to France and Italy to try and elicit help for Scotland’s cause.

I can imagine the news of these events being carried across Scotland by word of mouth, and the young James hearing of them. He was a patriot, bred to be a leader of men. How did his emotions cope with these reports of the resistance of his countrymen? Did he long to be of an age where he was able to take the field on Scotland’s behalf? At some point during these campaigns James ended up living in Paris. Barbour tells us that when James’s father was eventually captured by the English and led south to the Tower of London in chains, his lands given over to the English Lord Clifford, James was left without his inheritance. Whether he was sent by members of his family to prevent him being taken hostage by the English, or whether he travelled on a whim looking for adventure, James did indeed move to France. Barbour tells us he lived simply, sometimes in ribald company, and that he learned much of life in the Parisian streets. I can imagine him there, gazing up at the towers of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, still under construction, or pausing to look into the depths of the River Seine.

We are told that he spent a total of three years in the French capital. During this sojourn came the fateful day when a messenger came looking for him, bearing ill news. His father, William Douglas, was dead.

Barbour tells us that he was murdered by the English while a prisoner in chains in the Tower of London. James swore there and then that he would do all in his power to recover all that had been his father’s; that he would dedicate his life to redeeming his inheritance.

He travelled back to Scotland and made