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James V the borderers, he succeeded in reducing Angus's castle of Tantallon before the end of the year. Angus fled to England. On 14 Dec. a truce for five years was concluded at Berwick between James and Henry VIII, Angus being allowed to live in England, and the sentence of death alone of the penalties for treason being remitted. The next year James was occupied with reducing the borders, which had relapsed, owing to the change of government, into a state of lawlessness. Lords Maxwell, Home, Scot of Buccleuch, Ker of Fernihurst, Polwarth, Johnston, and other border chiefs were put in ward, and James in person, having summoned the highland chiefs to come as if to a hunting match, rode through the border dales, when he seized and executed Cockburn of Henderland, Scott of Tushielaw, and Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie [q. v.] A rising in the Orkneys, headed by the Earl of Caithness, was put down by the islanders themselves, and a revolt of the Western Isles, under Hector McLean of Duart, against the authority of the Earl of Argyll as royal lieutenant, was checked by the prudent course of accepting the personal submission of the chiefs to James himself. James, like his forefathers, found many enemies among the nobles, and had to follow the hereditary policy of crushing their power. In the west Argyll was imprisoned. In the north Crawford was deprived of a great part of his estates. Bothwell, who intrigued with the English king, was thrown into Edinburgh Castle. Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie (1480?–1540?) [q. v.], the friend of James's youth, was banished. The king relied chiefly on the clergy, whose support he gained by repressing heresy, and on the commons, whom he protected, and with whom he mingled freely, sometimes openly, sometimes under the incognito of the ‘Gudeman of Ballinbreich.’ To him specially was given the title of the ‘king of the commons,’ though at least two of his ancestors had as good a title to the name. In 1531 he entertained an English embassy under Lord William Howard [q. v.] at St. Andrews, when his mother was with him, but he declined the proposal that he should wed the Princess Mary of England. The relations of James to his mother seem to have been friendly, for he gave his consent soon after this to her recovery of the Forest of Ettrick, which had been part of her dower.

In 1532 James took a step, aimed at by successive kings since James I, for centralising justice and reducing the arbitrary power of the baronial courts. Albany had already obtained leave of the pope to assign a portion of the revenues of the Scottish bishops for the payment of royal judges; but it was not carried into effect until 13 May 1532, when the parliament passed an act concerning ‘the order of justice and the institution of ane college of prudent and wise men for the administration of justice.’ Gavin Dunbar, archbishop of Glasgow, has the credit of being the chief promoter of this measure. The opposition of the bishops was overcome by giving the clerical estate, to which almost all the lawyers belonged, half the places, as well as the presidency in the new court of fifteen. This court, called the College of Justice, was to hold its sittings constantly in Edinburgh. In Leslie's opinion the institution gave eternal glory to James, but Buchanan pronounces a less favourable judgment, and complains that it placed too much power in the hands of fifteen men in a country where ‘there are almost no laws, but decrees of the estates.’

From 1532 to 1534 Henry VIII, taking advantage of the unpopularity of James with many of his own nobles, and urged by refugees in England, encouraged border hostilities, and James retaliated by counter-raids and by allowing some of the western islanders to support the Irish rebels. Peace was made on 11 May 1534, for the joint lives of Henry and James and one year longer. Henry was eager to secure the support of his nephew in his new ecclesiastical policy. James did not much favour the policy of separation from Rome, though he for a time wavered in appearance, and seems to have been really disposed to reform the abuses of the church. He recognised the validity of his uncle's divorce and marriage to Anne Boleyn, and on 4 March 1535 he was invested by Lord William Howard with the Garter as a reward for this concession. Henry still offered James the hand of his daughter in marriage. But the emperor sent him the order of the Golden Fleece, and gave him the choice of three Marys: his sister Mary, widow of Louis in Hungary, his niece, Mary of Portugal, and his cousin, Mary of England. The French king also conferred on him the order of St. Michael, and offered him either of his two daughters. James, proud of these honours, carved the arms of the emperor and French king along with his own on the gate of Linlithgow Palace. Henry thereupon sent Sir Ralph Sadler with a proposal to meet his nephew at York, but James declined to go further than Newcastle. Though conscious of the value of the English alliance, his personal inclination was more favourable to that with France, and this view was seconded by Pope Paul III, who sent, in 1537, Campeggio to Scotland to present the cap and sword annually blessed at Christmas and presented to the most favoured