Professor Michael Brown (3:09)

Edinburgh Castle Toonan Tower God grant ye sink for sin, and that even for the Black Dinner. Earl Douglas gat therein.

Dr. Eleanor Jaenega (3:26)

It was a cold November night in 1440 as the Douglas boys made their way through Brustling crowds and narrow streets towards Edinburgh Castle, the House of Douglas had long entwined its fortunes with those of good King Robert the Bruce. Ever since the famous victory against the English at Bannockburn, the Douglas lineage had spread, each branch extending its influence over the realm. On the surface, they maintained a steadfast fealty to the descendants of Bruce, while their own ambition for land and power threatened the very crown for which they had once taken up arms. Called to meet the new King, James, the Earl Douglas and his brother processed towards the Great hall like the King himself. Earl Douglas and his brother were just boys themselves, prematurely placed in the position of power following the death of their father. At 16, the eldest, William, the 6th Earl of Douglas, drew closer to his birthright, and in doing so, renewed the shadow of threat that his house cast over the crown. And above all, the King's counselors. Sir William Crichton, custodian of the young king, was displeased that Earl Douglas did not have a yielding disposition. Though cloaked in courtesy, the summons to dine with the King and his council carried weight beyond mere ceremony. The King's Council had orchestrated this meeting with the Douglas boys for their part. Mindful of their house's ancient service to the crown, they received it with the quiet confidence of those accustomed to the King's table, little suspecting the peril that awaited them as the dinner commenced. James sat on his throne, a banquet laid out in front of him. A boy of 10, his legs swung from his chair, scarcely reaching the floor below. He looked over the dinner held in his name as great men, servants only in name, whispered with port poisonous anticipation. Over and around him, king, earl and heir sat breaking bread as trays of steaming food were brought out of the kitchens. As the door opened for a final time, a silver tray made its way towards the Douglas boys. It was a peculiar sight for the young king, who had never before seen a dish like it. The Douglases shared the same unease. Their confusion soon transformed into horror. It was the severed head of a black bull, its dead, glassy eyes fixed on the Douglas brothers. Before the boys were able to take in the horror of the scene, strong arms violently grasped them. James watched the events unfold, unable to stop these nobles dragging more lives into the fray. In a flurry of velvet, steel and blades, the boys were drawn into darkness, never to be seen again. The Black Dinner of 1440 stands as one of the most dark episodes that marked the reign of James II of Scotland. Ascending to the throne at just six, James ruled during a period in which powerful nobles, driven by relentless ambition for land and influence, played a decisive role in shaping the kingdom. To explore this turbulent chapter of Scottish history, I'm joined by Professor Michael Brown of the University of St Andrews. Together we'll look at the complex political society of medieval Scotland and the fraught relationship between the Crown and the aristocratic lordship of the time.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (7:49)

Well, Michael, welcome to Gone Medieval.

Professor Michael Brown (7:52)

Well, thank you for having me.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (7:54)

I am absolutely delighted to have you, because I think that this is probably one of the more dramatic medieval episodes that ever happened that we get to delve into today. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. Before we get in to James ii, the entire situation, I think it's probably best to set the scene. What did Scotland look like when he came in to power? Because he was king at about six years old as a result of his father being murdered. Right, so what happened there?

Professor Michael Brown (8:31)

Well, I mean, it's almost a second generation of an ongoing process of quite violent or at least forceful change. So Scotland's a country which is undergoing quite radical redrawing in the years around James II's birth. Mostly the work of his father, rather unimaginatively named James I, who has spent a lot of time in England, he's been a prisoner there and has grown up in England, and I think comes back to Scotland with a different set of, I suppose, concepts about how kingdoms should operate and how kings should be, if you, like, respected and their authority, if you, like, responded to. So it's a kingdom in flux, I suppose, would be one way of putting it. And James has been responsible in a way that previous Scottish kings haven't been for, I suppose, forcefully confronting members of his nobility, to the extent of the execution of his first cousin, his closest male relative at the time, and that cousin's family and that has a legacy as well. Servants of his cousin are amongst those who kill him in 1437. So it's a king with an agenda and people amongst the great noble families pushing back against that in a. In a violent way.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (9:54)

I suppose that makes sense. This is one of those ongoing medieval stories. We see it over and over again, kings coming in, especially kings who are raised at other courts. They come home and they have different ideas about how royal kingship can work, and they try to get a lot of power underneath the throne, very specifically, which the nobility are not huge fans of, I think, by and large. Is this when. When James is killed, would you classify this as an actual conspiracy, or is this a case of things just getting a little bit too rowdy at a point in time and James being at the wrong end of things.

Professor Michael Brown (10:36)

I mean, it's a conspiracy, it's a real revolutionary act in its own right. You can overplay how, if you like low key Scottish politics tend to be in the sense that you don't have the kind of things that you get in England in, say, the reign of Edward II or the reign of Richard ii, where kings are being confronting nobles, having them tried for treason and executed and then themselves being deposed. Scotland doesn't have that backstory. So what's happening in James I's reign is something quite new in terms of the king executing great nobles. And in a way his assassination, I think, is a recognition that for some people that is unacceptable and there's no way of dealing with him except to kill him. You've had previous Scottish kings being sort of sidelined and maintaining the royal title, being formally head of government, but their powers being curtailed. You can't really do that to someone like James I, who's relatively young, incredibly active and as a personality, I think, is quite forceful. So if you have to confront him, you have to kill him. And the kind of way in which violence, as we'll see, becomes a kind of indoor thing, I think is quite interesting. In this period, you're not seeing civil wars being played out on a huge scale in the way that you do in, say, contemporary England or France. You're seeing violence or coercive acts taking place inside, maybe the weather, I don't know.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (12:05)

Well, this is two incredibly interesting points because one, this idea that there almost is a traditional way for Scotland to deal with, with royalty when they get a little out of hand and James has just blown past this. And the second point there that you've made, I think is really interesting because, you know, arguably that's kind of the better option. I mean, if you are an ordinary person, say you're one of the peasants in Scotland, much nicer for you if the royalty and nobility decide that they're just going to stab one another in a castle somewhere and then you don't get dragged into it and it's not your crops being trodden upon. And so it's interesting because obviously we look at this and we have ideas about honor and clearly I'm not here to tell you that I think that murder is good, but to an extent this is quite politically expeditious, if absolutely nothing else, and it's good for the little people.

Professor Michael Brown (13:02)

It may be, though, as we'll see, there's quite a lot of Crop trampling that goes on anyway, they're not getting away, I doubt. Scot free, you might say. And interestingly, one of James I's messages as king is that he's here to protect the little people. Kingship is about cutting through the ties of lordship and if you like, a special pleading amongst the nobility and saying the law is there for everyone and it's the king's law. So James is talking to those people. Whether he's delivering for those people, I think is a slightly different question. He's certainly a large scale taxer, so people are having to pay for that kind of kingship. But that's his selling point to the clergy, to the townspeople and I think to, if you like, lesser landowners, the richer peasantry in the countryside as well. So there's something going on there. I think it's not simply egos clashing. I think there is an understanding that kingship as James I presents it, is offering a different kind of Scotland. And that's the message that his son, as we'll see, we'll pick up on as well.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (14:03)

So James is murdered in 1437. Can you talk us through what happens in this instance?

Professor Michael Brown (14:11)

I mean, the terrible thing about Scottish history is it's just such good stories that they tend to dominate everything else. So it's a great story. So James I is staying in a. In a friary, in a Dominican friary on the outskirts of Perth. That's where he lives when he goes to Perth. There's no castle there, so he lives in the kind of guest houses which turned into a palace at the Blackfriars to the north of Perth. It's not fortified. And the conspiracy involves people in his household who leave and deliberately break the locks, allowing access to the royal apartment for a gang of murderers, assassins who then burst in. A very, well, really reasonably contemporary account goes into extensive detail about James hiding from them. He's in his wife's apartment, so he's in the queen's apartment. He rips up the floorboards and climbs into the drain, the privy running underneath the queen's chamber. He can't get out because he's had it blocked up, because his tennis balls keep going down the outlet for the drain. So he blocks up the exit. So he's kind of. It's like a judgment on him for his, you know, English sporting habits, probably that he's brought back with him. So the assassins find him there, they leap down one at a time. He wrestles two to the ground, but when the third one leaps in, he's able to kill him. So fantastic story. The assassins then talk about whether they should kill the Queen and they say she's but a woman. And of course the Queen then is responsible for rounding up and executing the assassins. So it's, it's a moral tale on, on multiple levels and ripping yarn as well.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (15:43)

This is an incredible yarn. Yes. In a show that is going to be full of such things. Who is responsible for this very dramatic killing?

Professor Michael Brown (15:53)

Well, there are two people I think, who certainly Scots regard as responsible. So the man in the background is James I's uncle, Walter Stuart, the Earl of Athol, a near with whose lands are kind of concentrated quite nearby. And should James I die leaving behind a child to succeed Athor, his uncle would be the closest male relative, maybe the natural regent. Chroniclers suggest he would then kill the young Prince James and take the throne for himself. So he's a kind of eminence, greed's behind it, he's in his 80s and people talk about having a life of evil doing this old serpent of ancient days. But there's another perhaps more interesting figure of Robert Graham, the leader of the actual assassins, who's been educated at the University of Paris. And in this kind of quite dramatized contemporary account he's given several speeches in which he accuses James I of tyranny from, for his taxation, for his execution of his close kinsmen. And so you're getting the kind of glimpses of perhaps what the assassins are arguing, that this king is not a legitimate ruler, he's a tyrant. So those are the two figures, Graham and Athel, who seem to catch the imagination.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (17:13)

I of course though immediately fell in love with Joan Beaufort upon hearing this story. You know, yes, she is but a woman, but oh man, did these guys really underestimate her. Can you tell us a little bit about what she does following her husband's death?

Professor Michael Brown (17:31)

Well, I mean she, she essentially masterminds the royal counter attack, if you like. She's at Perth and she and the King's counsellors immediately ride from Perth to Edinburgh and so about 50 miles southwards to get control of the young heir to the throne, James and to acclaim him as King and to start to plan for his coronation. She then mobilizes people to go back north to Perth, to seize control of the borough and to take the fight to the King's killers. And it seems a pretty one sided encounter, if you like. The killers are, are arrested and handed over by various lords from the area. So people who perhaps they thought they were sheltering with turn up and hand them over in return for being rewarded with lands and pensions, which is how we know who's handing over which rebels, because you have the record of what their rewards are. So Joan, I think, is both the figurehead and probably the kind of central focus. I mean, you think about queens in 15th century Europe, they are the other unimpeachably royal figure in the kingdom. They have a coronation, they have that status. And Joan is clearly using that and using the idea that she's protecting her son as the justification for her actions and avenging her husband. And James is the idea that James is a martyr, that his assassination has been, his death has been for the defense of the common good of the kingdom. And they have a papal legate in the kingdom who is made to kind of pronounce that and to kiss the King's wounds and things. So it's being presented, it is a very much a moral crusade against these criminals and that's the way the kingdom regards it. Their executions in Edinburgh are absolutely brutal. And again, this contemporary source called the Death of the King of Scots goes into enormous detail about the kind of two day execution of Robert Graham, which is very graphic.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (19:33)

Well, this is also quite an interesting point because I suppose it shows us that she is very much feeling the precarity of her situation, getting the papal legates involved right away, making sure that there are gruesome public executions, because she's got to be feeling at least somewhat marginalized at this juncture. We're talking about a woman here who is, is English. You know, her husband's just been killed for being a little too English. You know, I do think that you, you need to kind of move decisively to assure that your place and that of your son is recognized in these circumstances. I mean, again, this is sounding a lot like I'm just justifying murder.

Professor Michael Brown (20:19)

But.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (20:19)

You know, I do see where she's coming from here.

Professor Michael Brown (20:23)

Yeah. I think the other thing is that whilst there are a group of people who clearly closely associated with James the first and there are the people who killed him, there are a lot of people waiting to see what's going to happen. So a lot of people who have, amongst the higher nobility who have been uncomfortable under James's rule, who have suffered displays of his, well, I suppose temper or judgment, depending on how you look at it, and therefore may not be too sorry the King's dead, but are not going to commit themselves one way or another until they see what's happened. So the Queen acting quickly to stamp this out is a way of telling those people, okay, so you might think that, but you cannot say it. You know, you have to side with the idea that the king's death was a horrific crime, it was the worst type of treachery, and to, if you like, sign up to that message.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (21:17)

Well, so, I mean, she plays a blinder in terms of the propaganda game here. And her son very much is recognized as the king. So how does James II then grow up? How is it that he comes to understand his role as king?

Professor Michael Brown (21:34)

That's a really interesting question. And, I mean, I think his succession, Scottish royal dynasties, and perhaps particularly the lessons of century and a half ago, where the royal line fails and the kingdom is then involved in a kind of existential struggle with England over what Scotland is and whether it should be a sovereign kingdom. That lesson leads people to think the succession of the king has to be secured. But who is going to run the kingdom while the king is grown up is a separate question. And equally, as you say, there's a question running through that, which is, who's going to educate the king? Who's going to give him the lessons to take forward as he grows older? And we have some glimpses of that, whether they're from people who are actually able to get their message to the king or are just articulating what they'd like the king to learn. We particularly have a man called Walter Bauer, who's the author of the. Perhaps the greatest medieval Scottish chronicle called Scottie Chronican. And he uses his final book, sixteen, to talk directly to James ii. It's introduced by the chronicler speaking to James and using James I as a model of kingship for his son to follow, and then spending a lot of time at the end idealizing James I, listing his good qualities, showing how he'd performed so well for the realm in his short reign, and lamenting the disrespect, the treachery of certain of his subjects against him. So it's a very, on one level, very direct message to James II to be like his father. Within it. There are kind of coded messages that suggest Bauer maybe had a few doubts about the way James I could behave. But he's not saying that. And I think that's interesting, you know, that the line has to be in the 1440s. We need this kind of king. And if you're Bauer, who's a churchman, and he's talking about the daily acts of tyranny that he sees in the oppression of the peasantry in his local area, which is western Fife, usually a relatively peaceful part of the kingdom. He sees the tyrants not as James I, but as. But of the members of the nobility who use the weakness of the crown to, if you like, oppress their own tenants or their neighbours. So he has a kind of very clear message that, in a sense, almost transcends what he himself experienced under James I's rule. He thinks it's actually much more important to tell this story about James I, rather than the sort of reveal or dig too deeply into the doubts that I have about his execution of members of his family. For example.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (24:18)

Who'S really running the kingdom during James II's minority? Is it his mother? Is it these noble families? What are we looking at in terms of who's running things at court?

Professor Michael Brown (24:28)

The consistent thing, I think, is the idea of a council. There's always a council made up of a shifting group of individuals who are there formally in control of government at the beginning. The Scots do what they've done in previous periods of royal absence or royal incapacity, and there have been a lot of those in the previous century, which is to appoint a single man as lieutenant general. And I say man because I think, as we were talking about, Queen Joan clearly has a degree of status and also political acumen in the aftermath of James I's death. But when the estates meet, when the kingdom gathers, they don't choose her to head the government. They choose instead the head of the, I suppose, the next greatest noble house, the Earl of Douglas, Archibald, 5th Earl of Douglas, and he becomes lieutenant. It's the kind of decision that Scots governments have traditionally made. And I think, to a degree, I think it would have worked. But Douglas dies of the plague in the summer of 1439, and it's then that things start to fall apart, because there's no sort of replacement figure that everybody can agree on as the lieutenant in there at that point. So that's when things start to change and the cracks start to open up.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (25:49)

Well, can we dig a little bit into the Douglases, because they're one of these incredibly powerful houses at the time. Can you tell us a little bit about who they are and where they hail from?

Professor Michael Brown (26:04)

Yeah, I mean, I have a long history with the Douglases, so stop me if I go too far. I mean, the Douglases are the kind of epitome of late medieval Scotland. In some ways. They're a family which, though it goes back to the 12th century, based around Douglas itself in South Lanarkshire, so in southwestern Scotland. But it's really their service to Robert Bruce, the hero king, if you like, almost the sort of secular saint of late medieval Scotland at the beginning of the 14th century. That boosts them in terms of their reputation, also in terms of their land holding and power. And they build this image of being the, I suppose, the archetypal defenders of Scotland against the English in the 14th and 15th century. There's a poem written for members of the family, the Book of the Hulett, the Book of the owl, in about 1450, which talks about them as the Barmkin and bar to Scottish blood. So the outworks, the defenses of Scottish blood, the war wall of Scotland. So the image of the family is militaristic. It's dominating in the Borders in particular, and it's using that role as if you like military defenders of Scotland to justify a kind of special status within the kingdom beneath the king, but not necessarily, if you like, wholly dependent on the King's will. And I think that's a tension that runs in the ideology of the family relative to that of the crown. In the poem, the Douglas arms are described at length and it says, sits next to the sovereign sign. So next to the King's arms, it's the Douglas family arms.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (27:42)

Oh, that is provocative.

Professor Michael Brown (27:44)

It is.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (27:45)

I mean, I love this. I'm so interested in families in general who are using literature to basically put forward an argument for their own power. I love this form of propaganda. It's wonderful, mostly because then I get to read poetry. Fantastic. But it is interesting because these are clearly people who have a real understanding of how familial myths are made. Much, much is made, of course, to these connections to Robert the Bruce. I think that is incredibly smart in terms of presenting yourselves, especially if you're kind of a younger noble family. I mean, for us, 200 years seems like a long time, but not to medieval people. They're sort of like, oh, up jump kind of thing. But they're also sometimes referred to as the Black Douglases. Right. Is there a reason for that?

Professor Michael Brown (28:44)

I mean, there are different branches of the family is one thing. So it's a way of distinguishing yourself, but it's particularly. It's a senior line by this stage. Don't. Perhaps not initially. And they're claiming direct descent from Bruce's sidekick, James Douglas, known by the English as the Black Douglas, known by the Scots as the good Sir James. So they're deliberately, if you like, prioritizing the kind of scary reputation that English chroniclers give to the Douglases. He's a person who mutilates English prisoners. He's the person who mothers use to frighten their children in Northern England. So it's using that kind of ogre figure as the totem of their family. So I think that's where the Black Douglas idea comes from, that they're the line that descends directly from him rather than from other members of the family. So there's a Red Douglas branch as well, who have their own scary stories, but at this point, they're the junior branch, really.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (29:38)

Michael, I'm afraid you're gonna have to stop introducing good stories because we're never gonna get through this.

Professor Michael Brown (29:44)

But I can't. There's too many.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (29:46)

There's too many. It's too much. Okay. All right, listen, let's get down to brass tacks. We're Getting up to 1440. Who are the key characters that people should keep in mind who are going to be involved in the Black Dinner?

Professor Michael Brown (30:01)

Well, the ones we haven't mentioned are the. I suppose they're the counselors of the old king. So the people who've sat close to James I, who've helped him in his actions, and who the King has clearly entrusted with key roles within the kingdom, they tend not to be great landowners in their own right. They are people whose position is dependent on their access to royal resources. And in particular, I think we have to look at William Crichton, the not so admirable Crichton, you might call him. He's the chancellor of the kingdom, so in a sense, he's the head of the royal administration. He's the first layman to have that role in Scotland. So before that, it's always gone to bishops. So to appoint this man, I think, is saying something about the way James I and the way William Crichton see the government of the King as being something more politically directed in a way that previous kings haven't. Less routine, less bureaucratic, more political, I think. And Crichton is also the keeper of Edinburgh Castle, so one of the great royal strongholds. So combination of things in his hands. His counterpart, who's less prominent under James I, is a man called Alexander Livingstone, who's the constable of the other great royal fortress at Stirling. So they are both, if you like, have similar interests, but are also, as we'll see, rivals. And the third member of that group, slightly, I suppose, foot in both camps, is a member of the Black Douglas family, James Douglas. James Douglas of Balveny, also called James the Gross because he's very, very large, possibly very, very fat. And he's the uncle and then great uncle of The Earls of Douglas. So he's like a junior member of the family who's had to make his own career. He's not got a big inheritance, so he's had to work with James I. So that triumvirate, I think, of royal councilors are sitting there and they need to continue to exercise influence in royal government. If they lose that access, then their importance drops away, if you like. So that's their interest. And on the other side, I suppose you've got the Queen, the Queen Mother, Joan Beaufort, an English noblewoman, as we've seen, clearly able, clearly energetic and forceful as an individual. Like a lot of the Beaufort family who are major players in the wars of the Roses, it's her, her family in England who are, if you like, a big element in the factionalization that's going on there. You've also got members of the clergy, so the bishops of Glasgow and St Andrews who are part of that group. And a third person or a third individual is the new Earl of Douglas, who's a teenage boy, probably 16, maybe 16, 17 years old. William Douglas. William VI, Earl of Douglas, who succeeded when his father dies, as we were talking about. So it's complex, but on one side you've got, if you like, established powers in the bishops, the greatest Earl, the Queen Mother. On the other side, you have a group of royal councilors.

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Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (34:56)

Okay, well. Oh, we love it. A very young Earl. What could possibly go wrong at this point? I mean, what can we say about his influence even though he is quite young? I mean, is this a young man who's really stepping into his role as a Douglas or is this a 16 year old?

Professor Michael Brown (35:15)

Well, part of the problem with the Black Dinner is our best, juiciest accounts are all about a hundred, just under 100 years later. And those accounts present him as someone who's gone off the rails, who present him as a kind of adolescent joyrider, if you like. So someone who's allowing his retainers to cut loose and to ravage property. I suspect a lot of that is black propaganda, is something which is being used to portray him in a particular light and to make general complaints about the Douglas family which re emerge in the next decade or so. So it may be that he is less, if you like disorderly than some of the traditional accounts say. There are those signs that he's starting to be politically active. He's starting to appear in charters that he's giving, he's granting lambs to people, he's appearing as a witness to royal documents too. So he's clearly acting as an adult figure. And 16, 17, you know, it's an age where if formally in legal terms you're not considered adult, quite often kings and great lords coming out of minority peers will be active at that point. As we'll see with James II himself.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (36:22)

I can't imagine though that he's very active on the Royal Council or anything at this time. I don't think it makes quite as much sense.

Professor Michael Brown (36:28)

I think we have to think of these people as heads of corporations themselves. So just as there are people who are looking at the Royal Council and thinking my best way of accessing and influencing power is through my membership of the Royal Council, there are similar people who are coming round the Earl of Douglas and are telling him what to do, are using him in that way. And again, he's an individual, it's who he listens to, it's whose advice he takes. So whether or not he's really making good decisions or whether or not he's, if you like, initiating things, he's a focal point for other groups within the kingdom and he's the son of the Lieutenant General. He's also, through his grandmother, the first cousin of the King. So a close Male relative of James ii. And he's someone, therefore, who has a claim to a significant role in the kingdom, possibly even claiming to be the lieutenant general, the regent for James ii. And I think that may be an issue. There are people who think the Queen Mother, the Earl of Douglas, that they have a better right to be running the kingdom than this group of councillors. You know, if you think about the natural order of things. Yeah.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (37:44)

All right. Okay. So here we are, we're in Edinburgh Castle. It's 1440. Can you set the scene for us? Who's there? Where are they from? And why are we here in the first place?

Professor Michael Brown (37:58)

Well, it's late 1440. It's November 1440. And interestingly, the royal council has been at Crichton Castle, which is a fabulous castle just south of Edinburgh. I advise people to go and visit it. It's up on the edge of the hills. And the council, unusually, has met in baronial castle and then has moved to Edinburgh. And we don't know what goes on at Crichton. We don't know the planning behind the scenes. They're very careful to keep it as far away from the deed as possible. But what the accounts tell us is that the Earl of Douglas and his younger brother David are both present in the great hall of Edinburgh Castle. We know at least one of the people who've come with them who is an important baron from the same area of the kingdom, from the Valley of the Clyde, called Malcolm Fleming. And he's there with them. He may be one of those advisors that I was just talking about. Clearly, there isn't an expectation of anything untoward happening. And the narratives tell us the young king, William Crichton, sitting down to dinner with the Earl of Douglas and his brother David. And during the meal, the head of an animal. I think a black bull's head is favorite, though some accounts say a black boar's head is brought and placed on the table, and it's recognized as a symbol of treason. So by bringing that out, you're making a tacit approval of treason. The Earl leaps to his feet, but is then arrested. He and his brother are taken out into the castle yard and immediately executed. Three days later, after some kind of trial, Malcolm Fleming is then executed. The Earl of Douglas is given no kind of trial. It's a kind of. It's an assassination. It's a murder more than any kind of judicial act, but it's being done in front of the king. And I think it is a shocking, deeply shocking event for people in the 17th century. A historian of the Douglas family talks about there being a rhyme which says, edinburgh Castle, tower and town, God grant you sink for sin. Even for the Black Dinner, Earl Douglas got within. And this is supposed to be a kind of ditty that people chant to each other. So the kind of penetration into the popular, if you like, consciousness is clearly something which is quite strong during the next century, two centuries, people don't forget this event. You know, in a. In an era in which such things or are recurring, the Black Dinner seems particularly shocking, possibly because of the age of the two people.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (40:36)

Can we talk a little bit about the differentiation of what we think the history is and these narratives? Because, as you say, you know, we've got. We've got rhymes. We have, you know, was a boar's head or a bull's head served? To me, that seems a little bit, let's say, a bit of poetic license, you know, these sorts of things. And granted, you know, it is. It is shocking, it is absolutely wild to execute dinner guests. Obviously, this is a story that ends up reaching really far as a result of some interesting propaganda.

Professor Michael Brown (41:13)

Yes. And it's hard to know, it's hard to project back from the later accounts today. This is what happened, this is what they're telling us. We have a contemporary account which is more or less three lines long, which simply says that they are beheaded at Edinburgh Castle on this date and three days later Malcolm Fleming was executed. Interesting. What we then have are Malcolm Fleming's family's efforts to, if you like, recover their estates because they've actually been forfeited. So they are going to various people and getting statements from them that they had no part in it, they had no part in Fleming's death or his forfeiture. So the people they go to are Alexander Livingstone and James Douglas. They don't go to Crichton. I think that's quite interesting. So Crichton is being left as the person who is seen as responsible for the act and as the Constable of Edinburgh Castle, in a sense, is happening on his patch, it's his responsibility that he's responsible for the safety of guests within the castle. So he is clearly being isolated. There are political reasons why that's happening a few years later, but I think it may also tell us what people at the time thought that he was the architect of the killing. And what he is doing is removing people who could ease him off the council, who could remove him as Chancellor, could take his offices away from him. He's very vulnerable to someone like the Earl of Douglas. Should he become Lieutenant General. So he has a strong motive in doing that. James Douglas, the other counsellor, is the man who inherits the Douglas estate. So he has a very strong motive for the, not simply the earl, but his younger brother being executed. It leaves him as the heir. So all these people have got their guilty in some respects, they're certainly guilty in benefiting for the, from the, from the act. But there, there's very little material from this next few decades. It's really only when you get past 1500 that people are telling these much more elaborate dramatized stories, which is actually unlike the other killings of the period where we have more contemporary evidence. And it's, I think the Black Dinner may be just too difficult to deal with. It's too shocking and too many people are implicated it, including the young James ii. You know, he is there and of course the later accounts say how shocked he is about this. But you know, we, we don't know exactly what the, the 10 year old James II would have known or learned from this event.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (43:48)

Well, you know, a little dose of medieval PTSD that'll.

Professor Michael Brown (43:53)

Oh man.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (43:53)

Yeah, I'll age him up really quickly, you know, kind of ready to.

Professor Michael Brown (43:56)

So many things that James II witnesses as a child, which may have a psychological effect, as we'll see.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (44:01)

Yeah, so, but I mean, eventually this story gets out of even Scotland. You know, there are European chronicles that talk about this. Is that, is that correct?

Professor Michael Brown (44:10)

The Douglas family are known in Europe. The grandfather of the earl killed at the Black Dinner has fought in France for Charles vii as indeed the earl's father has done as well. They've got French titles and they are actively, they actively try and keep that French connection going. France being Scotland's main European ally during this whole period. So the French are interested in that. There are also any stories about a king being killed. So the murder of James the First is being recounted in French and Burgundian chronicles quite widely and some of the murderers free flee to the continent. So news goes that way as well. And I think quite often those continental chroniclers then move from the murder of James the First straight to the Black Dinner. They see, I mean, why wouldn't you see these two events as I suppose linking together and encapsulating the same kind of issues. So the killing of James the First and then killing the Earl of Douglas, that's just, God, you know, what's next kind of thing. So, yeah, I think people like murder stories in the 15th century, same as we do now, and particularly the killing of kings and Princes are, you know, they're not. They're shocking and unusual events which make people reflect on their own political situations and their own rulers.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (45:28)

I mean, to be fair, as we've been saying repeatedly, and I'm not going to stop saying it, it's a cracker of a story, right. And I mean, this is.

Professor Michael Brown (45:35)

We.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (45:36)

We are repurposing it even now. This is also one of the big inspirations for the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones. So, you know, it's something that still really intrigues us. It's still something that culturally, we just think this is wrong. There is something about tricking people, people into coming to a dinner and then killing them that we just cannot really stomach, I think. And, and I think that is quite interesting. I mean, granted, we have very different sets of moral ideals than medieval people do, but I think this is one that we can all come together. It's a bit off, right?

Professor Michael Brown (46:16)

Yeah. I think the culture of, of hospitality is very strong in medieval society. The idea that when people come into your. Your house, whatever it is, that they are, to a degree, under your protection, whether or not you've guaranteed that directly yourself. So it, it's transgressing against all kinds of rules. And also, you know, it's. We don't know what the deal Douglas is like, but you imagine a dashing young prince being brutally cut down by cynical older figures. And the Red Wedding is, you know, you can see exactly where that's drawing upon to, to get to the Black Dinner, you know, the influence one to the other.

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Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (48:51)

One way or another. You know, let's fast forward nine years and here it is. James II has reached his majority.

Professor Michael Brown (48:57)

Yes. Miraculously, yeah.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (48:58)

I mean, yeah. Against all odds, it really has to be said. Do we know anything about what he was like personally, what he looked like when he comes to the throne?

Professor Michael Brown (49:09)

There's a depiction of him in the later 1450s by a visiting Austrian knight who goes around the European courts and then he does these paintings of various rulers. And of course, the striking thing about James II is the fiery face. He has a red birthmark that covers half his face. It's depicted on that drawing. He looks young, athletic, slightly sinister, all in black, clutching a dagger. I mean, just good sense, really. And it's hard not to read that into some of his actions. He's a king who, I think, learns the lessons of his father's reign in all sorts of ways, but also has a deep personal interest in warfare and in taking the field in person, which his father is. I mean, his father does campaign, but it seems less, I suppose, personally interested in those facets of kingship. So those might be lessons from a minority where you've been continually placed in positions not when perhaps you're in personal danger, but where you're kind of being moved around, swapped between different custodians. You've seen your mother arrested, you've seen Earl of Douglas killed. It's just a kind of personal insecurity and sense of menace going around. I think there must be an element to that. I think we maybe can overplay that, but it's got to be an element in James the second experience of use and his education.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (50:36)

Yeah, Just call me Sigmund Freud. But I do think seeing your mother arrested and watching a couple of people get killed in front of you at the age of 10 might have an effect. I mean, I don't know where I'm getting up, but it's rather a lot.

Professor Michael Brown (50:49)

Yeah. And I mean, he goes out of his. Yeah, he goes out of his way to reward someone who's clearly a junior member of the royal household for trying to defend his mother. So 10 years later he, he remembers that that's been done and specifically gives him this land and says that's why he's doing it. So it's something which is clearly not being forgotten by the young James ii. Why would it be?

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (51:12)

I mean, what's his rule like? I mean, we've got a man who's, he's out on the, he's out on the battlefield, he's avenging his mother. These don't seem like hallmarks of a guy who is a particularly peaceful rule.

Professor Michael Brown (51:27)

I mean, you're not going to be surprised if I say there's a significant element of internal and external warfare that goes on. So he, he marries in 1449 to a princess from Gelders in the Low Countries, Mary of Gelders. It's a very prestigious and beneficial marriage, financially and in a sense, I think that empowers James to seek to impose his authority on the kingdom. But again, given what we've been saying, not surprisingly, the family which proves to be most obstructive to that are the Black Douglases. So the first five years of his personal rule through the early 1450s are a series of, of clashes between himself and the Earls of Douglas. So the leaders of this family, so the minority in one sense continues, but now the King is very clearly the leader of one party, interestingly, with his principal psychic, William Crichton, the Chancellor who we've been talking about, the great survivor of Scottish politics during this period in many ways. And of course, I suppose the defining point of the reign, and again, a kind of return to the events of the Black Dinner in some ways, is a meeting at Stirling in February 1452 where William, Earl of Douglas, the 8th Earl of Douglas, turns up with a safe conduct from the King. The two men argue and James stabs Douglas in the neck and then his servants, his household guards, pile in and essentially cut the Earl of Douglas to pieces and cue a major civil war. But also cue a quite a crisis in terms of what you do with a king who's committed murder in person and one of his principal subjects. It's a very tricky point and James II in some ways is quite lucky to survive it.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (53:26)

I think that's a really important point because we do have this tendency to look at kings as though they have undisputed power or that it's, you know, totally unimpeachable. I think that's a very modern outlook. You know, the idea of the King as having a specific God given right to do whatever he wants is something that is invented in the early modern period. Medieval people think that there are rules that kings have to abide by. And one of the big rules is you don't Go around killing nobles willy nilly.

Dr. Eleanor Jaenega (54:02)

Right.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (54:02)

You know, or what are you going to do? You know that these are incredibly wealthy, powerful people. You can't just kill them because you get kind of annoyed.

Professor Michael Brown (54:10)

Yeah. I mean, there's, I suppose, two sides of looking at. I think if the Earl of Douglas family get hold of James II in the weeks that follow the killing of the Earl, they will kill him. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And then they'll deal with the consequences. On the other hand, I think for. You could argue that for a wide cross section of the Scottish nobility and the wider community, there's a problem. James II is the King. Does anybody want to have that role on their hands? They remember what happened to the killers of James I. Against that, ironically, is the fact that James II's queen, Mary of Gelders, has just given birth to a son in St Andrew's Castle, where she's been sent for safekeeping. So there is an alternative king. If you can get hold of the young prince. You know, he's a. He's a baby and we all know infant mortality is pretty high in the 15th century, but there is an alternative. So I think, you know, James II can't be confident that people won't see his actions killing in hot blood rather than cold, calculated murder. And people are making that differentiation, but it's still an act that requires him, in a sense, to be exonerated by Parliament. Parliament meets and issues this long justification about how the Earl of Douglas had asked for it, even though he was under the King's safe conduct.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (55:32)

Oh, I love this. I get getting Parliament to say, well, he shouldn't have put you in that position where you had to kill him. Wow. I guess it is good to be King. That's not so bad.

Professor Michael Brown (55:43)

But I think by that stage, the crisis has kind of passed. I mean, I don't think you do that until you can. You've counted the vote before you get them in the chamber, really. And the Douglases are outside and they're. They're nailing letters to the door accusing the King of being. And the King's counselors of. Of being traitors and enemies of the kingdom. So there's a kind of propaganda war going on in the streets of Edinburgh in, in 1452, in terms of the King inside the Parliament building justifying things and people outside the Parliament sending out other messages.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (56:12)

That's interesting. Right. Because obviously this is incredibly shocking to people. We're having to call Parliament propaganda Bay is being created in order to get ahead of this. But fundamentally, this is just kind of hit after hit. We've got death after death, we've got assassinated kings, we've got people being killed at dinner, you know, at this point in time, I mean, to a certain extent, this is why you have to have that guarantee of safety before you go hang out with James ii, because everybody knows that at this point in time, you never know, you might get stabbed 26 times, you know.

Professor Michael Brown (56:49)

But, yeah, I think that the stabbing is going to be a bit of a shock. But even the. If you look at the reign of James the first, James I arrests people at his court, people come to Parliament or people come to the royal court and they find themselves being arrested and the King sending officials to take custody of their lands. It's a tactic that he uses. And again, it's that indoor thing. People are coming to meetings with the King and are paying a price. You get a safe conduct. But it turns out, actually it's not really worth the paper it was written on or parchment it was written on. So it's difficult. And not surprisingly, after 1452, the Douglases won't meet James II. They negotiate with him through intermediaries, they don't attend Parliament. They. Even when they've been reconciled, they clearly. There's clearly no, for obvious reasons, trust between them.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (57:41)

Well, good for them. I can't say that I blame them there, you know, but, okay, so they get. They have. They've. They've negotiated enough of a peace that they're able to take care of their lands back home. But they're now coming into Parliament.

Professor Michael Brown (57:55)

I will grant them that, in a sense, they. That the King is having to deal with them as rivals, as not exactly equals, but they're making the kind of agreements that nobles make with each other to bring about these peace settlements, so. Which is quite revealing. So James II can't simply now talk to them as subjects because of that act. I mean, part of it, they say, we forgive you for the killing of the Earl of Douglas, but it's a bond between two individuals. It's. It's a private agreement rather than, if you like, a statute or a royal writ or something like that.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (58:32)

Oh, yeah. And, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not going to trust a private agreement at this point from James ii. We all know what those are good for.

Professor Michael Brown (58:40)

I think both sides know. Yeah, I think both sides know this is. This is probably a temporary sort of suspension of hostilities rather than anything permanent. And, you know, in. In 1455, and it's hard exactly to see who starts the conflict. But a full scale civil war blows up between Douglas and James ii. But this time James II has been very careful about the level of support he has. He also isn't at that point being stigmatized for anything he's done. So he can use the powers of king kingship and the mobilization of the royal army, the, the use of the king's artillery train and things like that. And quite systematically he dismantles the Douglases in their areas of power across southern Scotland in particular. So he gets his ducks in a row, I guess, in the three years between 1452 and 1455, and quite skillfully dismantles them at a point when, you know, the Douglases are looking to support from England through this crisis, their lands are in the south. All that stuff about being the defenders against the English. Well, if it's going to work, we'll get English support and they'll keep us in the manner which we're accustomed. But James II is able to combine his attacks exactly when a period of English political discord is breaking out. The first battle of St. Albans in the spring of 1455. The lead up to that is exactly when James II targets the Douglases. And whether that's deliberate or accidental, it's hard to say. But I think there is a degree of like, conscious reading of English politics and recognizing that Douglasses are not going to get any help from across the border.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (60:21)

Oh, that's good ruling. I mean, what can I say, you know, he's in many ways living the royal dream. Yeah, it's, it's, it's happening.

Professor Michael Brown (60:29)

Yeah, well, I mean, you can see James II in a sense learning lessons as he goes along. And I mean, he is, he is a, it's not a man you'd want to spend much time over dinner with, for obvious reasons. But he is certainly effective as a king. He is successful. He creates a degree of unanimity behind himself, even bringing back families who have supported the Douglases until very late on finding ways to lure them in. So the Douglases essentially are left isolated, ultimately in English exile, while their supporters are brought back into the fold. And I think that's good politics for a king rather than having a kind of blanket attempt to forfeit people and to drive them out of the kingdom, picking off the kind of key figures from the opposing faction, if you like. And part of that, I think, is that James is able to go directly from attacking the Douglases to launching an attack on Berwick, a Scottish borough which is still in English hands and turning the struggle into, if you like, a patriotic war giving inverted commas there between the Scottish and English kingdom with the old enemy. And the Douglases are very much on the wrong side of that conflict. So James is using those kind of old messages about what is king, what Scottish kings are for, and ironically what the Douglases were supposed to be doing and saying, well, look, I'm defending you against England. Now they're on the other side. So that's, I mean it. James likes war, that's clear. But also James knows how to use war against England at a point when England is quite weak as a way of, if you like, building consensus behind his authority.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (62:05)

Well, I agree we're not going to call it a pretty rule, but it seems like he's a fairly effective king for the rest of his reign.

Professor Michael Brown (62:13)

Yeah, I think he's a smart cookie. In the late 1450s he's won the difficult conflicts and then in a sense both internally and externally can play the kind of games he wants.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (62:24)

Well, we've got time for one more good story, Michael. Let me guess, how does James II die?

Professor Michael Brown (62:31)

Well, it's the way he'd have wanted to go, I suppose is what we could say. I mean he, he's. So the English hold two strongholds within southern Scotland. They hold Berwick, which is a town and it's quite hard to take. And the Scots try and besiege it and fail. The other other stronghold is Roxburgh Castle near Kelso. It's more isolated. It doesn't by this stage have a town outside the walls. And James I think starts to focus on that as something which he can capture as a demonstration of his, if you like, recovery of the final lost territories lost in the wars of Independence to the English in the borders. And he exploits again a period of English civil war, so the wars of the Roses really starting in earnest in 1459-60. And James will deal with anybody in that conflict. He deals with the Yorkists and then when they win, he immediately starts going up to the Lancastrians because the losers are always going to offer you more. The winners are sitting in position and they're going to want to defend the English kingdom. So he just moves between different camps and during the kind of period of turmoil in summer 1460, takes a large army south to Roxburgh with the Royal Artillery train and is supervising a very much hands on way the siege. And unfortunately one morning before he's heard mass, as we're told by the chronicles, he goes to see One of his great guns firing. The gun bursts as is quite common in 15th century artillery. And a fragment of metal strikes the king in the leg, I think probably severing his artery. And he. He bleeds to death. So interestingly, and I suppose it's the way what he'd have wanted, that the army stays in place and captures Roxburgh and then moves on to. To take other castles in northern England. So in a sense, you know, there's a kind of. It's a kind of posthumous legacy is that he takes the castle posthumously. And there's a. Again, of course, there's a later reference to a prophecy that Roxburgh will only fall to a dead man. So hurrah. But nobody mentions that prophecy before James is killed. So it's that over very convenient prophecy. More interested in guns and became a king, you know, shouldn't be leaving us. It leads us to the kind of tradesman. But James obviously is. Wants to see the guns he's paid good money for do their job.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (64:50)

Well. He died doing what he loved, violence.

Professor Michael Brown (64:54)

He did indeed.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (64:56)

All right, well, okay. We talked a bit at the beginning of the episode. The sort of Scotland that James II had entered into in his minority. What was the kingdom that he left to James III like?

Professor Michael Brown (65:11)

I think it's one in which he. He's largely, you could argue, completed the program that his father had begun. And I suppose one obvious demonstration of that is that you have a nobility whose sense of itself is in relation to their service to the king. So he's created a group of new earls, all of whom have been the people who've. Who've, if you like, most closely backed him in. In the previous part of the reign. And the nobility in general, I think, look to the royal court and the royal household as the route by which they progress their careers. Now, in many other kingdoms, that kind of goes without saying. But I think it's something which. Going from a period in 1424 when personal kingship has been, or forceful or effective, personal kingship had been relatively rare in the previous century to 1460, is one where that kingship is seen as the norm. And if we think about what happens in James III's minority, because again, James II dies, he's only 30 and his son is 8. So it's back to where you were and you have another minority. But in James III minority, you don't have those kind of deep fractures between groups within the kingdom. There is a sense of, I suppose the council working quite coherently together during what turned out to be quite difficult times. And interestingly, the Queen, Mary of Guelders, the Queen Mother is the person who people accept as the head of that council until her death in 1463. So unlike Joan Beaufort, who's kind of squeezed out of power. Mary. And I think because Mary is that royal personage, she is queen by the grace of God, she steps into that role. And I think again, the fact that they're willing to serve under the Queen in that way is indicative of a greater unanimity and recognition of, if you like, the need to maintain stable royal administration as being the principal priority of these people. I mean, that's a big change from what we're seeing in the 1440s.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (67:20)

Well, I suppose it just goes to show you can't underestimate what can be achieved through through unlimited violence.

Professor Michael Brown (67:28)

Yeah, you kill enough people, you're going to get to some kind of solution eventually. I suppose. Might be one lesson. If you kill the right people, I suppose they're called Douglas particularly. Yes, get rid of those troublemakers.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (67:42)

Michael, what an incredible time I've had speaking with you. Thank you so much for coming along to talk about one of the the more ridiculous series of events in medieval history.

Professor Michael Brown (67:55)

It's been my pleasure.

Dr. Eleanor Jaenega (67:57)

Thanks to Professor Michael Brown and to you for listening to Gone From History hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film the Trials of Joan of Arc and ad free podcasts by signing up@historyhit.com remember, you can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can leave us.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (68:22)

Comments and suggestions or wherever you get.

Dr. Eleanor Jaenega (68:24)

Your podcasts and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval.

Podcast Host (possibly Matt Lewis or another host) (68:30)

Until next time.

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