n of Edward III. The story of their wooing (of course in the
allegorical manner of the age, and with poetical conventions in place of
actual details) is told in James's poem, "The King's Quair," a beautiful
composition in the school of Chaucer, of which literary scepticism has
vainly tried to rob the royal author. James was the ablest and not the
most scrupulous of the Stuarts. His captivity had given him an English
education, a belief in order, and in English parliamentary methods, and a
fiery determination to put down the oppression of the nobles. "If God
gives me but a dog's life," he said, "I will make the key keep the castle
and the bracken bush keep the cow." Before his first Parliament, in May
1424, James arrested Murdoch's eldest son, Sir Walter Fleming of
Cumbernauld, and the younger Boyd of Kilmarnock. The Parliament left a
Committee of the Estates ("The Lords of the Articles") to carry out the
royal policy. Taxes for the payment of James's ransom were imposed; to
impose them was easy, "passive resistance" was easier; the money was
never paid, and James's noble hostages languished in England. He next
arrested the old Earl of Lennox, and Sir Robert Graham of the Kincardine
family, later his murderer.

These were causes of unpopularity. During a new Parliament (1425) James
imprisoned the new Duke of Albany (Murdoch) and his son Alexander, and
seized their castles. {57} The Albanys and Lennox were executed; their
estates were forfeited; but resentment dogged a king who was too fierce
and too hurried a reformer, perhaps too cruel an avenger of his own
wrongs.

Our knowledge of the events of his reign is vague; but a king of Scotland
could never, with safety, treat any of his nobles as criminals; the whole
order was concerned to prevent or avenge severity of justice.

At a Parliament in Inverness (1427) he seized the greatest of the
Highland magnates whom he had summoned; they were hanged or imprisoned,
and, after resistance, Alastair, the new Lord of the Isles, did penance
at Holyrood, before being immured in Tantallon Castle. His cousin,
Donald Balloch, defeated Mar at Inverlochy (where Montrose later routed
Argyll) (1431). Not long afterwards Donald fled to Ireland, whence a
head, said to be his, was sent to James, but Donald lived to fight
another day.

Without a standing army to garrison the inaccessible Highlands, the Crown
could neither preserve peace in those regions nor promote justice. The