JAMES II., King of Scotland (1437-60), was the son of James L and queen Joanna, and was b. in 1430. He was crowned at Edinburgh when only in the sixth year of his age. Sir William Crichton, the chancellor; and sir Alexander Livingston, contrived to keep possession of the person of the young king, and consequently to wield the royal authority until he had reached his fourteenth year. The power of the house of Douglas had now risen to so great a height as almost to overshadow that of the crown. In the hope of curbing it, Crichton had treacherously caused William, the young earl. and his brother to he put to death. The policy of the act proved to lie as bad as its spirit, for by the marriage of the heiress of the murdered youth with her cousin, the family was restored to more than its former power. The young king, tired of the rule of Crichton, put himself under the control of Douglas. A parliament was held, by which Crichton and Livingston were declared rebels, and their estates forfeited. Under the rule of the earl, the kingdom fell into complete anarchy, and became one scene of violence and disorder. Douglas, however, maintained the warlike renown. of his house; in 1418 the English having invaded Scotland, he gave them battle on the banks of the little river Sark, in Annandale, and defeated them with very considerable slaughter. In 1449 James married Mary, daughter of Arnold, duke of Gelderland. The character of the king appears to have been much strengthened after his marriage. Like most of the. Stuarts, he possessed great animal courage; he seems also to have possessed much of hi's father's clearness of perception in framing laws, and of his energy in enforcing their observation. Chafing under the sway of Douglas, he resolved to assert his independence.
Crichton, who had previously contrived to make terms for himself, was constituted the royal 'adviser. Douglas, driven from power, formed an alliance with the earl of Craw ford. By the union of two powerful nobles, it seemed that the royal authority in Scotland had virtually become extinct. James had recourse to treachery; he invited Douglas to visit him at Stirling castle, where, picking a quarrel with him, he murdered the earl with his own hand. But the power of the Douglas family was not yet broken. Through the aid of the house of York, then dominant in England, and by the martial influence of his name, the heir of the murdered earl was enabled to raise the standard of rebellion at the head of an army of 40,000 men. But James, listening to the wise advice of his councilor Kennedy, soon succeeded in quelling this insurrection. Douglas was compelled to flee; and his lands were granted to the earl of Amigos. In 1460, from causes not clearly known, James infringed an existing truce with England, by laying siege to the castle of Roxburgh, then in the hands of the English. While he was standing beside one of the rudely made cannons of that time, the gun burst, and a fragment striking him, produced almost immediate death. He died in the 29th year of his age, and 24th of his reign.