JAMES I., King of Scotland, was a younger son of King Robert III., who, hearing of the licentious conduct of his other son, David, prince of Scotland, directed Robert duke of Albany, the boy's uncle, to seize him and keep him a prisoner till be promised amendment. This order was readily obeyed by Albany, who wished nothing better than an opportunity to usurp the throne; and in a short time the prince died of dysentery, as it was said, but, as was believed, of hunger in confinement. The king now began to fear Albany, and accordingly had his remaining son James secretly put on board a vessel for France.
He did not escape however ; for when but a short way on her voyage the vessel was taken by an English ship of war, and the prince carried prisoner to Loudon. His weak old father was so affected by the news that in a few hours after receiving the intelligence he died of a broken hearts The Duke of Albany was thereupon made regent of the kingdom.
James, now In the thirteenth year of his age, was on the 14th of April 1405, conducted to the Tower, where he was detained till the 10th of June 1407, when he was removed to the castle of Nottingham.
He was carried back to the Tower again on the let of March 1414 ; but a few months afterwards he was taken to Windsor, where he remained till the summer of 1417, when King Henry V. took him with him on his second expedition to France. The Duke of Albany died in 1419, and from that time measures began seriously to be taken for his release. During all this period James was receiving the best education which could be procured. He became familiar with sights of regal pomp and power, and with the manners and customs of the English court, at a time when there was much to interest and captivate the youthful mind. His habits were active, his conduct prompt and resolute, and at his return to his native kingdom he was in the spring and vigour of his life. He was long afterwards remembered in Italy as the inventor of a plaintive sort of melody, which had been admired and imitated in that country. He was one of the best harpers of his time, and excelled all the Irish and Scotch Highlanders in their use of that instrument; and in the three pieces of his which have come down to our day—' Christ's Kirk on the Green,' the King's Quhair ' (or Book), and Peebles at the Play '—we have no mean specimens of intellectual power and literary skill.
At his accession, in 1424, Scotland was in many respects a perfect contrast to England; it was in fact rather an aggregate of rival powers than a settled and united kingdom. There were still two justiciary of co-ordinate authority, one on the north and the other on the south of the Forth; and in the former portion of the realm, which alone was properly denominated Scotland, and where the seat of authority atilt principally lay, there were numerous and powerful clans. The regencies, in the absence of James, had contributed to the national disorder—the two Albaniea sacrificing to their own ambitious projects the just authority of government and the supremacy of the law.
James entered on the administration of his kingdom with a spirit and energy suitable to the high notions of prerogative which he had imbibed. Immediately on his arrival he proceeded against the family and adherents of the late regents, and eventually had several of them condemned and forfeited. All the customs of the realm, great and small, were annexed to the crown, and every valuable mine of gold or silver. A new coinage was 'struck, of like weight and fineness with the money of England; hospitals were to be visited and reformed; Idleness and begging were forbidden; the law records of the kingdom (which seem to have been in a state of neglect) were to be inspected and ascertained; and the statutes of parliament were ordered, for the first time, to be regularly enrolled. This was not all however; for in the spirit of King Henry IV.'s time, which had witnessed some detest able examples of religious persecution, an act was passed 'anent heretics,' that inquisition bo taken by every bishop in his diocese, and, “gif it miateris,' that secular power be called in support and aid of the Church. In his time the chancellor and clergy first got a footing in the administration of the common law. This was in the year 1425, when the chancellor and certain persons of the three estates chosen by the king were empowered, under the name of the Court of Session, to hear and finally determine all complaints, cause; and quarrels competent before the king and his council.