who later, in the minority of James V., makes a figure in
history.

The death of Richard III. (August 18, 1485) and the accession of the
prudent Henry VII. gave James a moment of safety. He turned his
attention to the Church, and determined to prosecute for treason such
Scottish clerics as purchased benefices through Rome. He negotiated for
three English marriages, including that of his son James, Duke of
Rothesay, to a daughter of Edward IV.; he also negotiated for the
recovery of Berwick, taken by Gloucester during Albany's invasion of
1482. After his death, and before it, James was accused, for these
reasons, of disloyal dealings with England; and such nobles as Angus, up
to the neck as they were in treason and rebellion, raised a party against
him on the score that he was acting as they did. The almost aimless
treachery of the Douglases, Red or Black, endured for centuries from the
reign of David II. to that of James VI. Many nobles had received no
amnesty for the outrage of Lauder Bridge; their hopes turned to the heir
of the Crown, James, Duke of Rothesay. We see them offering peace for an
indemnity in a Parliament of October 1487; the Estates refused all such
pardons for a space of seven years; the king's party was manifestly the
stronger. He was not to be intimidated; he offended Home and the Humes
by annexing the Priory of Coldingham (which they regarded as their own)
to the Royal Chapel at Stirling. The inveterate Angus, with others,
induced Prince James to join them under arms. James took the
Chancellorship from Argyll and sent envoys to England.

The rebels, proclaiming the prince as king, intrigued with Henry VII.;
James was driven across the Forth, and was supported in the north by his
uncle, Atholl, and by Huntly, Crawford, and Lord Lindsay of the Byres,
Errol, Glamis, Forbes, and Tullibardine, and the chivalry of Angus and
Strathtay. Attempts at pacification failed; Stirling Castle was betrayed
to the rebels, and James's host, swollen by the loyal burgesses of the
towns, met the Border spears of Home and Hepburn, the Galloway men, and
the levies of Angus at Sauchie Burn, near Bannockburn.

In some way not understood, James, riding without a single knight or
squire, fell from his horse, which had apparently run away with him, at
Beaton's Mill, and was slain in bed, it was rumoured, by a priest,
feigned or false, who heard his confession. The obscurity of his reign
hangs darkest over his deat