Torched and Massacred

The story of the famous Borders family, the Douglases, is so closely interwoven with that of the Scottish throne and the momentous events which shaped Scotland’s story you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the Douglas line were kings in their own right.

Although the family are today primarily identified as a Borders outfit, Dubh-glas is a Gaelic phrase which means ‘black stream’ and it seems likely that the Douglases took their name from such a stream in Lanarkshire.

Although the earliest family history is obscured by the mists of time, Theobaldus Flammaticus or Theobold the Fleming is almost certainly the progenitor of the Douglas dynasty having, in 1147, received lands by the Douglas Water in Lanarkshire in return for services performed for the Abbot of Kelso.

By 1179 William de Douglas was in place and we find him signing charters up till 1213. It seems likely that he was Theobold’s son and heir and is the first to have taken the Douglas name.

Flourishing thereabouts in the late 1200s was another William Douglas nicknamed ‘Le Hardi’ because of his bold and chivalrous exploits, being the first Scots nobleman to to have risen up in support of William Wallace as he struggled to overthrow English occupation of Scotland. The English king, Edward I, had Le Hardi locked up and awarded his castle and lands to one of his own knights.

On to the scene at this juncture trots arguably the most famous of all the legion of Douglases and one of the most charismatic characters in the crowded pages of Scots history – William’s son, Sir James, a cohort of the patriot king, Robert the Bruce.

The recapture by Sir James (1286-1330) of the family seat led to an incident which has become known to history as the affair of the ‘Douglas Larder’. When he eventually stormed the castle of Douglas, James then proceeded to destroy his own property, putting all the buildings to the torch, slaying the garrison and throwing their bodies along with the castle’s salt supply and the contents of the wine cellar into the well to render the fortress unusable.

This bloody incident was only the first in a series of dramatic episodes in which Sir James features as a freedom fighter. During the Wars of Independence which saw Scotland secure its freedom from England, Sir James was considered by most contemporary observers to be Bruce’s most ardent and skilled commander.

In the run up to Bannockburn the recovery of Roxburgh Castle in 1313 added greatly to his reputation as a military strategist and imaginative thinker and for centuries this incident was recalled as one of the most romantic incidents of the Wars.

In the half-light of dusk Sir James’s men crawled forward through a herd of black cattle blending into the scene under their black cloaks until they were directly under the castle walls.

Before the garrison realised they had been duped the Scots scaled the battlements and took control, the battle cry ‘A Douglas A Douglas’ ringing round the fortress. Strategically this was a crucial success helping regain Teviotdale, an important gateway to Scotland, for Bruce and at the same time striking a telling psychological blow in the overall campaign.

But surely Sir James’s most famous exploit came in an attempt to fulfil a vow of Robert the Bruce to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. When Bruce died in 1329 Douglas took the king’s embalmed heart with him on a crusade.

En route, in the South of Spain where the Christian forces were struggling to drive the Moslems back to North Africa, he joined the campaign and was feted as one of Europe’s greatest knights. However, near the castle of Teba in Andalusia, he was killed.

Every Scots schoolchild used to know the story of how Douglas, seeing all avenues of escape sealed off, threw the precious casket into the fray and charged after it to his death. Bruce’s heart was recovered and buried in Melrose Abbey where, in its leaded container, it was unearthed and subjected to scientific tests in 1996.

Douglas himself, known to history as the ‘Good Sir James’ was returned to Scotland for burial in St Bride’s Kirk in his native valley of Douglas.

By the Middle Ages the Douglas family had blossomed into two distinctive lines, the Black and the Red Douglases. Good Sir James was the first to carry the cognomen of the Black Douglas, supposedly because of his swarthy complexion, while the other branch gave rise to the line of the Red Douglases, the Earls of Angus, so-called because of their ruddy complexions and/or their red hair.

The adventures of both these important houses have been significant in Scottish history and they could, just occasionally, find themselves in opposing camps.

Sir James’s nephew William became the first Earl of Douglas during the reign of David II (1329-1371) and by marriage added the Earldom of Mar to the family’s possessions. His son, another James, the Second Earl, was the hero of the Battle of Otterburn (1388), the individual whose death in the conflict was kept from his troops as they fought, thereby securing victory over Henry Percy, ‘Hotspur’, son of the Earl of Northumberland. This particular Douglas has become known by the strange memorial – ‘The Dead Man who won a Battle’.

The Third Earl, ‘Archibald the Grim’, is not remembered for his exploits on the battle-field but for his skills as a diplomatist, cleverly contriving the development of the family through strategic marriages which greatly increased the Douglases already vast estates. Two of his children married into the royal family.

At the height of their influence the Douglas family held most of the Southwest of Scotland and could call on a force of tens of thousands when their cause seemed endangered. Naturally, this almost regal power caused jealousy and anxiety not only among the noble families but even in the royal councils.

Bearing this in mind, the next Earl of Douglas who is encountered is exceptional. He was Archibald, nicknamed the ‘Tyneman’ or ‘Loser’. At the Battle of Homildon Hill (1402), he failed to sanction a cavalry charge and the Scots were defeated, Douglas being wounded and captured by Hotspur. He then joined his captor against the English king Henry and was again taken prisoner this time at Shrewsbury. His contribution to these historic events earned him a place in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

Gathering a force of 10,000 Scots we next find him setting off for France to help in the campaign against the English where he received the singular honour of being appointed Lieutenant General of the French forces – a pointer to the solidity of the Auld Alliance at this particular period. At the same time he was given the prestigious title of Duke of Touraine.

Maintaining the family’s strong ties with the power bases in Scotland the ‘Tyneman’ had married Margaret, a daughter of Robert III, but fighting in the French cause he was killed at the Battle of Verneuil (1424), when with John, Earl of Buchan as his co-commander the Scots were defeated by an English army under the Duke of Bedford.

The Black Dinner

When the Douglases were among the great powerbrokers of Medieval Scotland it was inevitable that their own story would be tinged with tragedy as well as triumph. Of all the many tales concerning the clan, perhaps the saga of the ‘Black Dinner’ at Edinburgh Castle which concerns the ‘Tyneman’s’ grandson William, the handsome, teenage Sixth Earl of Douglas, is the most heart rending and gory.

James II was still a minor and the Regency was being shared between Sir William Crichton, the chancellor of Scotland and Livingston of Callendar, Governor of Edinburgh Castle. These men feared that their influence at the court would evaporate once the personable young Douglas grew to a man. They were determined to seize the moment and take control of events.

William and his younger brother David with a youthful attendant Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld were wined and dined at the castle and it seems that the young king was delighted to have struck up a friendship with youths nearer his own age, rather than the old men who surrounded him.

However, at the conclusion of the dinner the head of a black bull on a salver was placed in front of the boys. Although the young Earl demanded to know the meaning of this act, the more senior members of the company knew that a death sentence had been passed on the Douglas boys. The three youths were hustled into the courtyard to be beheaded with the minimum of ceremony and the king pleading vainly for mercy on their behalf. In his last act William asked that his younger brother be executed first to spare him the horror of watching the sword fall. Terrible times indeed.

Gluttony was a rare vice in Medieval Scotland where starvation was a more common experience but the executed William’s successor James the Gross had one claim to fame. On his death in 1443 he was found to have four stones of tallow in his stomach.

Twelve years after the dreadful dinner at Edinburgh the Douglases once again found themselves spectacularly in the spotlight – this time James II taking the initiative himself in dealing a substantial, if unpremediated blow against the Douglases.

In no way had the atrocious execution of the boys diminished the power of the family. The Eighth Earl, another William, shared much of the administration of the kingdom with James II but perhaps, quite naturally, the king began to grow jealous of Douglas’s power. When the Earl signed a pact of mutual protection with a group of other influential noblemen including the Earl of Ross and the Earl of Crawford, (only recently in revolt against the king) that was too much for James who sensed rebellion in the air.

Once more the power of the family had reached a dangerous level. One commentator suggested that they were so numerous and wielded such power and potency – ‘that the king reigned but by their licence and courtesy, as it were’.

Under promise of safe conduct the Earl was invited to Stirling Castle. When Douglas refused to go back on the pact with Crawford and Co., James flew into a rage, a characteristic of this fiery monarch, and stabbed Douglas. Medical records show that his body carried 26 clearly identifiable knife wounds.

After this event the power of the Douglases was soon restricted. William’s young brother James declared against the Scottish king but the monarch was not going to miss his chance and in March, 1455, James attacked the Douglas stronghold at Inveravon near Linlithgow. By this time James Douglas was in open rebellion having pinned a notice renouncing his allegiance to the door of Parliament House... but the game was up.

The King demolished Inveravon and marched into the Borders. Douglas remained defiant but his army, sensing a dramatic downturn in the family fortunes, began to drift away. James eventually fled to England and in a last stand at Arkinholm near Langholm in May, 1455, his brothers were defeated by royal forces. Effectively it was the end of the road for the Black Douglases. James died in a monastic retreat.

In a remarkable twist, however, it also meant a fresh beginning for that other branch of the family, the Red Douglases. The Fourth Douglas Earl of Angus, George (d. 1462) profited by the fall of his kinsfolk and was, in fact, in command of the royal forces at Arkinholm.