ROBERT III., King of Scotland, son of the preceding, was b. about 1340. His bap tismal name was John, but this name, for reasons not ascertained, was changed on his accession to the throne in 1390, by an act of the Scottish estates or parliament. His imbecility as a ruler virtually placed the reins of government in the hands of his ambitious brother, Robert, earl of Menteith and Fife, whom, in 1398, he created duke of Albany—during whose regime the Scottish barons first began to exercise that anar chic and disloyal authority, which, in the reigns of the first three Jamescs, threatened to destroy the power of the sovereign altogether. The principal events in Robert's reign were the invasion of Scotland, in 1400, by Henry IV. of England, who, at the head of a large army, penetrated as far as Edinburgh, but did not inflict DRIP]) injury on the country, more, however, from clemency than impotence; and the retaliatory expedition of the Scotch, in the following year, under Archibald Douglas, son of the grim earl, which resulted in the terrible disaster at Homildon hill (q.v.). Robert had two sons, the of whom was David, duke of Rothesay, a youth not destitute of parts, but shockingly licentious. As long as his mother lived lie kept within bowels, compara
tively speaking; but after her death, says Buchanan, "lie gave an unbridled license to his passions; laying aside fear and shame, he not only seduced married ladies and virgins of good family, but those whom he could not entice, he forced to his embraces." Albany received orders from the king to act as his guardian, and after a short time, starved him to death in his castle of Falkland—for which he underwent a mock trial by his own creatures, and was of course declared innocent.. Sir Walter Scott has given the traditionary version of this tragedy iu his romance, The Fair Maid of Perth. Robert now became anxious for the safety of his younger son, James; and after consulting with Wardlaw, archbishop of St. Andrews, he resolved to send him to France; but, while proceeding thither, the vessel in which he sailed was intercepted by an English cruiser, and James was taken prisoner in 1405. When his father received the melan choly news, he gave way to paroxysms of grief, and died at Rothesay in the following year.