JAMES 11I., King of Scotland, was, like hie father James IL, about seven years old at his accession 'to the throne, 3rd of August 1460. He had scarcely begun his reign when Donald, the Lord of the Isles, seeing the weakness of government and the distracted state of the kingdom, assembled a council of his friends and vassals at his castle of Ardtornish, and in the style of an independent prince granted a commission to ambassadors to confer with deputies from Edward IV., king of England, with a view to the settlement of the realm. The commissioners met at Westminster, and after a negotiation, concluded a treaty, dated at London, 13th of February 1462, the object of which was no less than the conquest of Scotland by the vassals of the chieftain and the auxiliaries to be furnished by Edward, with such assistance as could be given by the banished Earl of Douglas. While this rebellion was going on in the north, Robert lord Boyd, one of the lords of the regency, and also lord-justiciar south of the Forth, and lord-chamberlain of the kingdom, was grasping in another part of the country at all the chief honours and places of government, and it would seem that the minor offices of magistrates and common councilmen in the several burghs were also then objects of tumultuous contest : for it was at this time the Act 1469, c. 29, was passed,
by which the entiro system of burgh election was changed, on the pretence of such confuelon. This act was the foundation of tho 'close system; which was only remedied by the Burgh Reform Act for Scotland. The same year the Act 1469, c. 30, was passed, subjecting all notaries to the examination and authority of the Ordinary. This act was paned to please the clergy, who had the ear of the king. The latter indeed appears to have been the kuown slave of his eocle elastics, and Sir James Balfour (' Annals of Scotland,' an. 1481) records a trick played off upon him by King Edward IV. of England, who trimmed up a person in the habit of a papal legate, and sent him to James with injunctions and excommunications in the name of his Holiness. The imposition succeeded completely. The king took up also with low favourites, and on their account involved himself in a quarrel with his nobles, which ended in the encounter at Bannock burn. The king fled in fright from the field, and falling from his horse was 'hailed' into a miller's cottage, where, on being discovered, he was secretly killed and carried off, nobody knew where (Pitseottie, 220). The king's death took place in June 1488, in the thirty-fifth year of his age.