Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/275

 Albany. On 19 March 1483, Albany, whose intrigues with England had been discovered, entered into an agreement with the king, by the terms of which he and Angus renounced their unlawful league with Edward IV, in return for a pardon of their treason, and Albany promised to secure peace between the two countries and the hand of the Princess Cecilia for James, the heir-apparent of Scotland. His principal adherents were to give up their offices, and among them Angus is named, who was to resign that of justiciary south of the Forth, of steward of Kirkcudbright, sheriff of Lanark, and keeper of Thrieve. Albany was himself to give up the post of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, but was to remain warden of the marches.

Instead of fulfilling his part of the agreement, Albany fortified Dunbar against the king, and went back to England, where he renewed his treasonable communications with Edward IV, and after his death, with Richard III. For these and other offences he was forfeited by the parliament which met in February 1484. Soon after, on St. Magdalen's day, 22 July, he and the Earl of Douglas made an unsuccessful raid on Lochmaben, where Douglas was captured, but Albany escaped to France. How far Angus had been privy to these later acts of Albany is not known, but as he did not go to England or incur the forfeiture which befell Albany, it appears not unlikely that he may now have separated himself from the councils of Albany. This is confirmed by his presence in the Scottish parliaments of 1483, 1484, and 1487. But in the last of these years he took part in the conspiracy of which the Humes and Hepburns, Lords Gray, Lyle, and Drummond were the leaders against the king, in name of the heir-apparent, afterwards James IV, which, after an attempted pacification at Blackness, ended by the king's defeat and death at Sauchieburn on 11 June 1488. The ostensible occasions of this conspiracy were the favours shown by James to Ramsay, one of his old minions, and his annexation of the revenues of Coldingham Priory to found the Chapel Royal at Stirling, which especially alienated the Humes. Angus had undoubtedly personal reason to fear that the king, who was supported by the Earl of Crawford (created Duke of Montrose) and other northern lords, would use the first opportunity to punish him for his share in the English intrigues of Albany.

After the accession of James IV Angus retained for a short time the wardenship of the eastern marches, and was appointed guardian of the king's person, but the chief offices of state were monopolised by the Humes and Hepburns. Next year his office of warden was transferred to Alexander, chief of the Humes and great chamberlain. In 1491 Angus, probably offended at the overweening influence of the Humes, returned to his old tactics of English intrigue with the new king, Henry VII, and there are indications in the treasurer's accounts that he fortified his castle of Tantallon, which was besieged in the name of the young king. To reduce his power the king, or those who were then carrying on the government in his name, forced Angus to surrender or exchange his Liddesdale estates and the castle of the Hermitage to the Earl of Bothwell, one of the Hepburns, for Kilmarnock, and that lordship in turn for the lordship of Bothwell. In 1493, perhaps on account of these concessions, Angus was again received into royal favour and made chancellor, an office he appears to have ably occupied for five years. During this period he was much in personal contact with the young king, and several entries occur in the treasurer's records of their playing together at cards and dice.

In 1496 Angus received a grant of the lands of Crawford Lyndsay, whose name was changed to Crawford Douglas, in Lanarkshire, and the following year of those of Braidwood in the same county. In 1498 he resigned the chancellorship, and the Earl of Huntly succeeded to it; but what caused this change is not known. From this time till the year of Flodden (1513) Angus disappears from history. He attended the great muster on the Borough Muir and went with James to England, but on the eve of the battle did his utmost to dissuade the king from engaging with Surrey at a manifest disadvantage. When he failed in his remonstrances he quitted the field, saying he was too old to fight, but would leave his two sons to sustain the honour of his house. Both sons and two hundred gentlemen of the name of Douglas fell on that fatal day. The old earl himself did not long survive the disaster. He died in the beginning of 1514, at the priory of Whithorn in Wigtownshire, whither he had gone to discharge his duties as justiciar. The tradition that he became a monk is disproved by the records.

George, master of Douglas, having been killed at Flodden, he was succeeded by his grandson, Archibald [q. v.], as sixth earl. Besides the master and Sir William Douglas of Glenbervie, who also fell at Flodden, he had by his first wife, Elizabeth Boyd, Gavin Douglas [q. v.], the famous bishop of Dunkeld, and translator of Virgil, and several daughters. He had married, after her death, Lady Jane Kennedy, a discarded mistress of James IV,