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Medieval murder mystery: who killed King James III?
00:34:33
Gordon McKelvie explores the death of a 15th-century Scottish king and asks: could the killer have been his own son?
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- [00:04]
Spencer Mizzen
Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. On 11 June 1488, King James III of Scotland was hunted down and slain as he fled the field of battle. More than 500 years later, the identity of his killer still remains shrouded in uncertainty. Here, in conversation with Spencer Mizzen, the historian Gordon McKelvie explores this most enduring of royal murder mysteries. How, he asks, had James made so many enemies? And could the killer even have been his own son?
- [00:49]
Interviewer
Hi, Gordon, thank you for joining us today. So we're going to explore a 500 year old royal murder mystery. So, Gordon, could you start by explaining what we do know about what happened on that day in June 1488? Can you kind of talk us through the events leading up to James's death?
- [01:09]
Gordon McKelvie
I suppose there's two things. The events that led to his death and what actually we know about what happened on the day of Soheburn. Actually what happened on the day of Soheburon. We know a couple of basic facts. We know there was a battle. We know that the two sides of the battle, one was led by James as king, the other was led by his 15 year old son, Prince James, who was effectively the leader of the rebel army, although there was plenty of other people that were probably the real military commanders. We know at some point in the battle, we don't know how long it went on for, but we know at some point the king decides to leave the field. He ends up at a mill close to Bannockburn and there someone basically takes a knife and plunges it into him, which kills him. And then after that, his son, Prince James becomes James iv. So we know that, but how that happened and who wielded the knife is a bit uncertain. I suppose. James III himself was a very divisive figure in common with a lot of his ancestors in the 15th century. He became king in 1460 when he was only 8 years old. But obviously 8 year olds can't actually be king. Other people have to rule in their stead. So he really doesn't start taking the reins until 1469, when the final family who were in charge of things during his reign, the Boyd family, two of them are out of Scotland and the third one James has executed. And actually the start of his reign, I suppose how Sohybarn itself happened is because of how James ruled as king. And in many ways he was quite a divisive figure. In many ways. He made a lot of strategic blunders, as it were. So for instance, in Foreign policy. Early in his reign he has this grandiose plan to help the French king Louis XI invade Brittany, which doesn't really go anywhere. He's also very keen on a marriage alliance with Edward iv, the English king, which causes quite a lot of real concern within the Scottish political community. The wars of Independence for two centuries earlier, by this point the wounds were still deep. Interestingly, it's round about this time that we have an individual called Blind Harry write a poem called the Wallace which is actually the script for Braveheart as written in his reign. This is important because it's part of a longer process of alienating people, including his own family. So he's got two brothers, one the Earl of Mar, about whom we know very, very little. He shows up in a couple of documents. We know he seems to be arrested in late 1479, so about nine years before Sorghebun. And by January 1480 he's described as dead and four footed. That's all we know. So there's always the tent that he killed his brother. His other brother, the Duke of Albany, he indicts for treason because Albany is almost as bad as James at keeping people on side. Albany gets accused of treason for truce breaking, then flees to England and actually ends up the leader of an army that invades Scotland along with the future Richard iii. This is interesting because it gets us to an event a couple of years before. Sorry. Byrne called Lauder Bridge. So effectively what had happened future Richard III had burned Edinburgh and been paid off. James wants to effectively fight the English in battle. No one else thinks this is a good idea. James is actually arrested by a few of his nobles for a few months and actually a few of his what referred to as low Bond favorites. A low Bond favorite is effectively anyone the aristocracy don't like that close to the King, so they're effectively hanged and the King's put in prison for a few months and basically there's no long term solution. So this is six years before Sohebong. By 1488 he's got a 15 year old son who has a long term solution. And I think that's how we kind of get to the battle itself.
- [05:55]
Interviewer
Yeah. So he seems to have been a bit of a master at alienating people and rubbing people out the wrong way. Do we have many contemporary descriptions of James iii? Do contemporary chroniclers sort of tell us what he looks like or, you know, how he acted around people around him?
- [06:11]
Gordon McKelvie
I mean, interestingly, we don't really have any contemporary chroniclers. They're all quite A little bit later, they're all 16th century. Looking back, knowing that he ends up dying, he does get accused of killing his brother, the Earl of Mar. That is a recurrent feature. That's not just Scottish chronicles, French and Irish chronicles say that, you know, he probably killed his brother. He also is tainted with potentially killing his wife as well. His wife, Queen Margaret, was apparently poisoned and this story gets as far away as Italy. There's a life of the Queen written in Italy, in Bologna, a few years after this. So he's got a bad reputation generally as someone who will harm members of his own family.
- [07:02]
Interviewer
And so he'd been falling out with people around him for years. Some of the most powerful figures in Scotland. So tell us about the months leading up to the battle then. I mean, how did it sort of build up to this crescendo where he ended up being ousted in a rebellion?
- [07:16]
Gordon McKelvie
Yeah. So effectively things start to come to a head late 1487, early 1488. And it's really a couple of things coalesce. The first is as a king, he fails in one of his big jobs, which is to kind of put noble feuding in check. Low level feuding is generally acceptable in most parts of Europe at this point, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. And basically it starts getting out of hand, which. Which means local rivalries start matching on to national politics. So if someone's very close to James, their local rivals are opposed to James. There's also an issue of a priory in the Borders called Codingham Priory, and the suspicion is James wants those lands for himself and wants to suppress the Priory. This causes a fallout with a couple of local families, particularly the Hume family and the Hepburn family, neither of which are major aristocratic families, but they're powerful enough to kind of start a rebellion. The other person he seems to alienate at some point in early 1488 is the Earl of Argyle, Colin Campbell, who was his Chancellor and then stops being his chancellor. Now, we don't know if James sacked him or if there's a fallout as well. So there's effectively a coalition building up. Added to this is the death of his wife and the fact that his son James, only 14, is at Stirling Castle and effectively leaves Stirling Castle to join everyone else that's against his father.
- [09:03]
Interviewer
Yes, I wanted to ask you about that. This is a really interesting aspect to this story, is that the fact that his own son joins the rebellion and becomes a really prominent figure in the uprising against his father. I mean, what was going on there? What Led the son to rebel against his father.
- [09:19]
Gordon McKelvie
Yeah, so, I mean, that's a fascinating question. One explanation has been that he believes his father is responsible for the death of his mother. However, when it gets to the battle itself, it. It seems that James the Prince doesn't actually want his father to be harmed. He does make those in his army swear an oath that they won't harm him. Now, he's 15 years old, so he's not a child, but he's still young enough to be ignored. I would say that's the position. Ironically, we know he wears an iron belt at times during the rest of his life as supposedly a penance. But we also know there seems to be some concerns for his own safety as well. So we know a couple of things. We know soon after he leaves Stirling Castle, he goes to Linlithgow and there's a proclamation made there where he talks about his own safety. We also know a set of negotiations or failed negotiations during this rebellion. They're given the name the Articles of Aberdeen. Effectively nine pretty generic statements really about preliminary talks to peace talks, as it were. And several of them talk about no harm coming to the prince. So, you know, there may be a general concern about, you know, his father's actions. His father probably killed his wife, probably killed his brother, so is capable of.
- [10:53]
Interviewer
Killing his son as well, possibly capable.
- [10:56]
Gordon McKelvie
Of killing his son. We can never tell how much of this is propaganda after the fact and how much is this is maybe something the young king was genuinely concerned about. But you know, he does leave stolen castle. And as I said, he was not a child, but young enough to be ignored. But he must have known that a rebellion that leaves a king alive never succeeds either. So even if he wouldn't be punished, everyone around him would have been punished, as it were.
- [11:31]
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- [12:59]
Interviewer
Account so tell us about the battle then. The battle itself, how many people were involved and how did it unfold?
- [13:05]
Gordon McKelvie
The battle itself, we don't really know that much about it.
- [13:10]
Interviewer
So it's for safer Stirling, Is that right? Was it near the site of Bannockburn?
- [13:14]
Gordon McKelvie
It was. It was possibly on the exact site of Bannockburn. That may have been a coincidence or may not have been a coincidence. In one sense, Stirling is still geographically quite an important place. Stirling Castle is a very impressive fortress by this point, Edinburgh's real capital, but it's still an important place. So it's an obvious place for a big battle. However, James III is deliberately trying to present himself as a new Robert the Bruce.
- [13:44]
Interviewer
He was a descendant of Robert the Bruce, wasn't he?
- [13:46]
Gordon McKelvie
Yeah, the Stuarts in the sense of the Bruces, it's his great grandfather times about five or six, so it's a descendant. He apparently has Robert the Bruce's swords, a panic bonus as well. Whether that is the actual sword I don't think really matters. It's the symbolism that matters. You know, he's going to the most famous battle of his ancestor with his sword, so he is trying to present himself in that light. But the battle itself, we don't seem to know that much about the kind of comings and goings of the battle. We know from later chronicles a few things about deaths. So we know one or two prominent individuals on James's side are killed. We know a few people have taken prisoner for ransom as well, and it seems some of these ransoms are quite large ransoms because they're seen as almost a form of extortion. So some people are taken for ransom. No one's executed after the battle. People are killed in the battle. We don't even know how long the battle went on for. It seems that early on in the battle at some point, the game is up pretty quickly and the king is advised to flee. There's apparently a ship not far off at Leith that he can take to go abroad. Now, I think it's reasonable to assume that the King of the battlefield is not exactly an anonymous figure. And it seems that someone must have seen him fleeing the battlefield and there must have been some sort of a pursuit. But we don't know how far they were from him and how the pursuit happened. We just know there was a pursuit. They get to him now and then he's stabbed by someone.
- [15:41]
Interviewer
So this is where the element of mystery comes into this whole episode. Who are the main contenders? Robin know struck the fatal blow to the King.
- [15:50]
Gordon McKelvie
We don't start getting proper names from any Scottish chroniclers from decades later. So almost immediately after it happens, the big thing is to try to cover it up. So at the Parliament a few months later, this is where the new regime has to start writing the history of what just happened. And effectively they say the King happened to be slain by a vile person, which is ambiguous as you can get. It's as non committal as you can get. Interestingly, some of the earliest accounts we have are Irish accounts. So for instance, the Annals of Kanak say that he was killed by his son. The Arrows of Ulster say again. He was killed by his son. The son was responsible for his death because James was responsible for his mother's death, that being James III's wife. So it gets explained in kind of family feuds, as it were. But in Scotland, everyone seems to be hoping nobody says anything about it.
- [16:59]
Interviewer
So it's in everybody's interest that this is covered up then, basically, and I guess I included James iv.
- [17:04]
Gordon McKelvie
Yeah, James IV doesn't seem to want people talking about this. Opponents of the regime, however, do want to talk about this and do think it's something that people need to know about. So actually, a few months after, there's a lot of agitation, not about who exactly done it, but why is this not being investigated? Why is this horrible act being allowed to just go unpunished?
- [17:31]
Interviewer
So why was that? Why were people sort of complaining about this? Given that James III was such an unpopular king, why were people so angry that he'd been killed? You know, angry enough to publicly voice their displeasure at it?
- [17:45]
Gordon McKelvie
Again, it's a tricky one to say. You can take a quite cynical view that it's just something you have to say. So there's a rebellion in 1489 against not really James IV himself, but the people around him. And the death of James III is mentioned quite a lot. So, for instance, one individual that's key in plotting all of this is Alexander Gordon, who is the son of the Earl of Huntly. Now, the Earl of Huntly had been with James early in the Civil war the previous year, but had left the army. A few nobles seem to have left the army, so there may have been familial guilt there. Interestingly, when Alexander Gordon writes to Henry VII of England saying, you know, we need help avenging this, trying to say, look, a king's been killed. You can't let this go unpunished. So there is something about killing a king that is just seen as not what you do. Regardless, really interesting story, roundabout, this rebellion as well, where someone called Alexander Forbes is going about various towns in the northeast, particularly Aberdeen, with a bloodstained shot that claims to be the shot that James III was killed with, you know, saying, this needs to be avenged. Now, you can find a shot in some blood pretty easily. So it's probably not that. But again, there is this kind of big appeal of this is a horrific crime that needs to be punished, that needs to be dealt with.
- [19:25]
Interviewer
So take us into the mind of James IV then. So he's been crowned king following his father's death. I mean, how does he react to all this? How does he handle the fallout to his father's killing?
- [19:37]
Gordon McKelvie
There's two ways. There's the public way and the private way. Privately, he does seem to have quite a bit of guilt about this. We know from his kind of financial records, which are pretty personal. They're not things that are publicly known. We know about a legend of an iron belt and we can see payments for what seems to be an iron belt that he wears his penance, really every year because of the guilt. Publicly, he seems to wish they'll do talk about this. So the rebellion the previous year fizzles out. He's able to kind of quash it, but come to some sort of an accommodation by 1492. So this is four years into the reign. Eventually, there's another parliament, and in that parliament, they offer a rewards of 100 marks worth of land to anyone who can identify the killer, or they will pardon the killer if they bring themselves forward. In other words, people are still talking about this. And this is basically hoping people will shut up. It's as blunt as that. There is a. I think there's a hope that people will forget about James, forget what happened and sort of move on. And I think that's what he's hoping for more than anything else.
- [21:02]
Interviewer
So James is kind of remembered now as a bit of a Renaissance prince, near Renaissance king. Do you think his style of rule was in any way shaped by his father's reign and his father's bloody end?
- [21:15]
Gordon McKelvie
In some ways, yes. He doesn't make his father's mistakes. So, for instance, one of the kind of big concerns about James was he thought everyone should come to him for justice. Whereas James IV is happy to travel the kingdom and do things as they used to be done. However, he's not always the affable person that he's always portrayed as. He's probably a better politician than his father, but he's more than happy to squeeze money out of people when he wants to and when he needs to. He does provoke some rebellions, but he never gets a grand coalition against them. He also doesn't have a son until pretty late on. His son is very, very young when he's killed Flodden, so there's never that obvious alternative that there was in the 1480s when he rebelled against his father.
- [22:11]
Interviewer
I wonder if I could just zoom out a little bit, just quickly and just turn our attention to England specifically, and also northwest Europe. How did Scotland's neighbours react to the death of James iii? What did they make of all this?
- [22:28]
Gordon McKelvie
But it's interesting because the late 15th century is really the great age of rebellions and civil wars across Europe. I mean, this is happening at the same time as the wars of the Roses. Similar things are happening in France and Spain. English commentators don't really seem to talk that much about what happened to James in the immediate years anyway. I mean, Henry VII has plenty of problems of his own to be dealing with. I mean, it's interesting. One chronicler, the French chronicler, Philip de Combine, talks about what's happening where father's fighting son, but this isn't the kind of whole story of this is kind of happening everywhere. An interesting English comment on this comes in the reign of Henry VIII, actually, so about 50 years later, and it's the Privy Council in England talking about the Anglo Scottish Bondo and talking about two families, the Hume family and the Hepburn family, and basically saying that they had a reputation for killing their king in the past. But that's really in the context of what's happening in the 16th century and the kind of legacy that these families had more than this is definitely what happened. So, yeah, there's no obvious reaction from England at this point. I mean, Scottish kings had been killed by their subjects before the 15th century with little comment. English kings had been killed by their subjects with little comment from Scotland.
- [24:11]
Interviewer
So you wouldn't say that Scotland was any more unstable than any of his neighbors then. It's just this is what happened in the 15th or 16th centuries.
- [24:20]
Gordon McKelvie
Yeah, I mean, there's always a danger about trying to over dramatize what's happening in the 15th century in Scotland or in England, to be honest. Talking about the constant battles, the constant, you know, killings. Yes, there's a lot, but then you can go years without much happening. I think what's happening in Scotland is a little bit interesting at this point because this is also the time in Scotland where we start seeing public opinion becoming much more important than it had been before. In England and in France, particularly, when these kind of big fallouts between kings and the nobles happen, they're writing manifestos, they're getting people on side. This hadn't really happened in Scotland before. Usually these clashes were pretty self contained and they didn't bother anyone else. What happens with James, the th starts bothering everyone else. You know, there's much more devastation to the land right about this time. There's much more violence kind of associated with the battle. But anyway, Scotland's not that more violent or less violent. It's violent, but it's not always violent.
- [25:41]
Interviewer
Gordon, can I finish with a double question, please? I would like to ask you one, do you think there's any prospect of this mystery as to who was actually responsible for killing James iii? Do you think there's any prospect of it ever being solved? And two, if you had to put forward your own sort of candidate for the most likely culprit, who would it be?
- [26:08]
Gordon McKelvie
Okay, so I think the first question, if we're ever going to definitively work out who killed James, we are probably going to have to start inventing time machines. And I suspect it'll be a little bit down the kind of cure things we need to use the time machine for. However, more seriously, I suppose in terms of who killed James or who was responsible for his death, I think there's two different things here. I think who killed James will never know. I think who's responsible for his death. I think there's two candidates. The first candidate is his son. Now, it's not the fact that James IV took a knife and killed his father. That's not what happened. However, if we work out how James III got to that mouth where someone then stabbed him, A few accounts say it was a priest or someone dressed up as a priest. James III would never have been there if his son had not joined that rebellion, it wouldn't have had the kind of strength behind it. It would have also had a credible new king. And James IV must have known that. He was 15 and he wasn't stupid. So he must have known that even if he didn't want to admit it to himself. So James IV is one candidate. However, the real candidate is James himself. You know, James is the one that went back on his world a few times. He's the one that alienated people. And there wouldn't have been that rebellion. There wouldn't have been Sorhry Byrne if James had done his job better as king. So even though, you know, he didn't stab himself, but he was more responsible for his own death than anyone else was.
- [27:59]
Spencer Mizzen
In truth, that was Gordon McKelvey. For more on Scottish history, head to our website historyextra.com thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Daniel Kramer Arden. American Giant makes great clothing, sweatshirts, jeans and more right here in the US visit american-giant.com and get 20% off your first order with code STAPLE20. That's 20% off your first order at american-giant.com codestaple20.