Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/155

James IV called the Bay of Campbelton. He received there the homage of Alexander Macleod of Dunvegan and Torquil Macleod of the Lews, and attempted to suppress the feud between the Clan Huistean of Sleat and the Clanranald of Moydart. Remaining only a week in Kintyre, he returned to Duchal, where on 16 March, having now completed his twenty-fifth year, he executed a revocation of all grants in his minority. In April 1499 he made Archibald Campbell, second earl of Argyll [q. v.], lieutenant of the Isles, and gave various grants to him and other chiefs who had been serviceable, and thus strengthened the royal authority in the outlying parts of the highlands and isles. In 1499 a plague, still more fatal during 1500, caused a suspension of the royal activity.

On 28 July 1500 Henry obtained a papal dispensation for James's marriage with Margaret. James and Margaret Tudor were related only in the fourth degree through the marriage of James I with Joan Beaufort, the great-grandmother of James, whose brother John, duke of Somerset, was the great-grandfather of Margaret. In October 1501 plenipotentiaries went to England to conclude the marriage, and on 24 Jan. 1502 the treaty was agreed to at Richmond. When it was confirmed by James by oath on the evangels and the mass on 10 Dec. the title of king of France had been entered in the titles of Henry; but James on the same day executed a notarial instrument declaring that this was ‘by inadvertence,’ and signed a copy in which the objectionable title was cancelled. Margaret, attended by the Earl of Surrey and a large suite, left Richmond on 27 June 1503, and reached the border before the end of July. On 3 Aug. James met her at Dalkeith. Next day he paid a private visit, and found Margaret at cards. She left her game, and to show her accomplishments danced a bass dance with Lady Surrey while James played on the harpsichord and lute. At leaving, to show his agility, he leapt on his horse without a stirrup. On the 7th she made her entry into Edinburgh, and the marriage was celebrated at Holyrood on the 8th. It was accompanied and followed by festivities of all kinds, but the English visitors reported that they admired the manhood more than the manners of the Scots. The ‘Controller's Accounts’ show an expenditure of more than 6,000l. It was, perhaps, in honour of the marriage that a new order of knighthood, which took its pattern from the round table of Arthur with the thistle as its symbol, was instituted. Though this cannot be proved from records, it is certain that the national symbol then first began to be common in connection with the royal arms. The windows at Holyrood were painted with the device of the union of the English flower with the Scottish wild plant, and Dunbar wrote, as poet of the court, ‘The Thistle and the Rose.’

Amid all the festivities, the bride, not yet fourteen, was sad, homesick, and petulant. Soon after the wedding James visited Elgin, Inverness, and Dingwall. About this time the Western Isles once more broke out into open revolt under Donald Dubh (the Black), an illegitimate son of Angus, and grandson of John, lord of the Isles. The royal forces under Huntly having proved insufficient, James in person, with his whole southern levy, took the field and crushed the rebellion. The parliament of 1504 introduced royal law by justiciars or sheriffs for the north and south isles, the former at Inverness or Dingwall, and the latter at Loch Kilkerran or Tarbert, and provided that the western highlands of the mainland were to attend the ayres of Perth and Inverness, and for the appointment of sheriffs of Ross and Caithness. Such important steps towards the civilisation of these districts were supplemented by further expeditions in April 1504. During summer and early autumn James made a raid in Eskdale, reducing the Armstrongs, Jardines, and other border clans, and after returning to Stirling in the end of September went his usual progress to the autumn ayres in the north, as far as Forres and Elgin. In 1505 he was again in the Western Isles; the McLeans of Mull and other minor chiefs of Mull and Skye submitted. Next year Stornoway Castle, the fort of Torquil Macleod of the Lews, was taken. The Earls of Argyll and Arran, Macleod of Harris, and Y or Odo Mackay of Strathnaver had all along supported the king. A poem of Dunbar blames James for sparing the life of the agile highlander, Donald Dubh, who was captured in 1506. Measures were taken in 1505 and 1506 to bring the isles south of Ardnamurchan, as well as Trotternish in Skye, into subjection by leases for short terms to the occupiers or others, on condition of their becoming loyal subjects. But well devised as these plans were, the chronic rebellion of the Western Isles was not overcome. James began, however, to introduce law and order among the islanders, whose language, it is worthy of notice, he is said to have spoken.

The important parliament of Edinburgh, on 4 June 1504, sat by continuation on 3 Oct. and 31 Dec. A daily council was instituted to meet in Edinburgh instead of the movable sessions. This was the first attempt to constitute a central fixed royal court for civil causes, a blow to the arbitrary justice of the