James’ mother was Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII, who ruled as regent on behalf of her son when he ascended the throne aged 17 months after James IV was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The odds weren’t good. The previous four kings before James V had all died violently and let’s face it, appointing Margaret as the boy’s guardian wasn’t necessarily the smartest move – it was his uncle’s army who had killed the king. Not that Henry VIII of England was wildly delighted. He had gone on campaign to France in 1513 leaving Katherine of Aragon as his regent and it was the Earl of Surrey who had the victory.
There was intermittent border warfare and Henry VIII didn’t oppose the idea of a truce. In fact he suggested that there should be a marriage alliance between the two countries. He even offered his only legitimate child (at that point), Princess Mary as a bride. When his overtures were rejected, the border warfare stepped up a notch. Various towns and towers were burned by men loyal to one side or the other. BY 1528, James V was approaching adulthood and was heartily fed up of his mother’s second husband, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, nor was he that keen on the earl’s opponent, the Earl of Arran. Seizing an opportunity the king fled Falkland Palace for Stirling leaving Angus behind him. Without the king in his power, Angus’s control of James’ council collapsed. They soon found themselves under siege in Tantallon Castle and were forced to escape to England. A five year truce was agreed with Angus staying south of the border.
In 1530, James took on the border reivers, men belonging to clans like the Grahams and Armstrongs, determined to bring law and order to his domain. There were rathe a lot of executions that summer and the king got very shirty with his troublesome aristocracy. While this mad him popular with ordinary people it did nothing for the ruling class or the men who lived on the borders between England and Scotland and who were accustomed to the regular skirmishes that occurred there.
James somehow found time to take royal mistresses. One of the most notable was Margaret Erskine, the daughter of his guardian at Stirling Castle. In 1536 as the five year truce came to an end Henry VIII offered Princess Mary, no longer legitimate, as a bride once again. Although the Scottish king accepted the Order of the Garter from his uncle, and recognised the legitimacy of Henry’s divorce, he declined to take his cousin as a wife. Undeterred, Henry encouraged James to reform the Scottish Church and to dissolve the monasteries in Scotland.
Francis I of France watched affairs from a distance and was alarmed by the bonhomie that was starting to grow between the old enemies. He was keen to resurrect the so-called Auld Alliance between France and Scotland. With that end in mind he dusted down the Treaty of Rouen which offered James a French bride. Francis didn’t want to send his daughter Madeline so suggested another French princess, Marie de Bourbon. James wasn’t particularly interested as he would have happily married Margaret Erskine, who needed to get divorced from her husband and then the pair would need a papal dispensation – which the pope did not feel the need to give.
When James travelled to France, however, Francis seems to have grown to like the young king and suddenly agreed that he could marry Madeleine – and James despite his love for Margaret was a king who understood the importance of alliances, not to mention the need for very large dowries and Francis was offering 100,000 livers with his daughter’s hand. James married Francis’ daughter on 1 January 1537 at the Notre Dame – which did not go down well with Uncle Henry but he had his hands full in 1536 with the Pilgrimage of Grace and in early 1537 was taking reprisals against his subjects.
Madeline died within a few months of arriving in Scotland so King Francis suggested Mary of Guise who came with a sizable dowry and connections to an increasingly important family. The couple married in May 1538 by proxy and the bride arrived in her new country in June. So now the Scottish borderers had a grievance against the king, he wasn’t popular with his nobility and Uncle Henry was more irritated than ever.
In 1541, Henry suggested a summit in York – the English king went north with wife number five – Catherine Howard and waited there for a fortnight. James V failed to show up – oddly he didn’t fancy being kidnapped by his uncle but Henry didn’t see it that way and saw the whole episode as a huge insult. Meanwhile the borderers continued to knock nine bells from one another and to steal each other’s cattle. Even so, James did not want to go to war with the English and he certainly didn’t want to hand his uncle an excuse for a campaign north of the border not least because despite his alliance with France, the French did not have men to spare to send assistance – Henry however, was determined on a war and the Duke of York mustered an army at York. It was the usual fare of burning towers and towns. But the Scots refused to answer James’ summons.
As a consequence James raised an army lead by Lord Maxwell, then changed his mind and gave command to his favourite, Oliver Sinclair, and advanced on the English West March by crossing the Esk. The intention was to take reprisals on Carlisle. The English were hugely outnumbered -but the confusion in the leadership of the Scottish army, the soldiers loyalty to Maxwell rather than Sinclair and English tactics which were more akin to a skirmish than a pitched battle had unexpected consequences. The Scots left the field, leaving men like Maxwell as prisoners. For James V, who was already ill, the result was a disaster. On 8th December he received word that Mary of Guise had given birth to a daughter, not a son to replace two infant princes who died within hours of one another in 1541. He died on 14th December leaving his infant daughter to become the first regnant queen of Scots.
