EARLS OF ANGUS. —Meanwhile a younger illegitimate branch had been rising to great power. William, first earl of Douglas, was the faithless husband of a faithless wife. She was believed to have had a paramour in sir William Douglass of Liddesdale. Her jealous husband, who slew that "flower of chivalry," had himself shared the affec tions of the wife of his wife's brother, Margaret Stewart, countess of Angus and Mar. The issue of this amour, which in that age was accounted incestuous, was a son George, who, in 1389, had a grant of his mother's earldom of Angus; married, in 1397, the youngest daughter of king Robert III. ; was taken prisoner at Homildon in 1402, and died of the plague in England in the following year. He was succeeded by his son William, who, dying in 1437, was succeeded by his son James, who died without issue, when the title reverted to his uncle. George, fourth earl of Angus, took part with the king against the Douglases in 1454; his loyalty was rewarded by a grant of their old inheritance of Douglas-dale; and so, in the phrase of the time, "the Red Douglas"— such was the complexion of Angus—" put down the Black." He died in 1462, being succeeded by his son Archibald, surnamed Bell-the-Cat, and sometimes also called the great earl. After filling the highest offices in the state, and adding largely to the family possessions, he retired to the priory of canons regular at Whithorn, in Galloway, where he died in 1514. Having outlived his eldest son, he was succeeded by his grandson, Archibald, who, in 1514, married the queen-dowager of Scotland, Margaret, sister of Henry VIII. of England, and widow of James IV. of Scotland. The fruit of this mar
riage was a daughter, Margaret, who, marrying the earl of Lennox, became the mother of Henry, lord Darnley, the husband of queen Mary, and father of king James VI_ The earl of Angus had, for a time, supreme power in Scotland, but in 1528, the young king, James V., escaped from his hands, and sentence of forfeiture was passed against Angus and his kinsmen. The king swore that while he lived the Douglases should have no place in his kingdom; and he kept his vow. On his death in 1542, Angus returned to Scotland, and was restored to his honors and possessions. He died at Tan tallon in 1556. His nephew, who succeeded him, died two years afterwards, leaving an only son, Archibald, eighth earl of Angus. This "good earl," as he was called, died in 1588, when his title devolved on his kinsman William, the grandson of sir William Douglas of Glenbervie, second son of Archibald Bell-the-Cat. Dying in 1591, he was succeeded by his son William, who next year obtained from the crown a special recog nition of his high privileges as earl of Angus, of taking the first place and giving the first vote in of leading the vanguard in battle, and of bearing the crown in parliament. He seems to have been a man of scholarly tastes, and is said to have writ ten a history of the Douglases. Having turned Roman Catholic, he was forced to leave Scotland, and spent his latter years in exercises of devotion at Paris, where he died in 1611, being succeeded by his son.