JAMES II. (1430-60). King of Scotland from 1437 to 1460. He was the son of James T., and was crowned at Edinburgh in the sixth year of his age. Sir William Crichton. the Chancellor, and Sir Alexander Livingstone vont rived 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 noise 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 I reacherously caused William, the young Earl of Douglas, and his brother to be put to death. The policy of the net proved to be as had as its spirit, for by the marriage of the heiress of the murdered youth with her cousin the family wean restored to more than its former power. The young King, weary of the rule of Crichton, put himself under the control of another Earl of Douglas. Crichton and Livingstone were declared rebels, and their estates forfeited. Under the rule of the Earl. the Kingdom NI into complete an archy, and became a scene of violence and dis order. in 1149 denies married Mary of Gelder land, and thereafter his character appears in a 'letter light. Like most of the Stuarts, he pos
sessed great animal courage; he seems also to have possessed much of his father's clearness of pereeption in framing laws, and of his energy in enforcing their observation. Chafing under the sway of Douglas, he resolved to assert his inde pendence. Crichton regained his former position as royal adviser, and Douglas, driven from power, formed an alliance with the Earl of Crawford. By the union of these two powerful nobles, it seemed that the royal authority in Scotland might virtually become extinct. James, how ever, treacherously murdered Douglas with his own hand in Stirling Castle (1452), and Douglas's son, after a vain resistance, fled. The lands were granted to the Earl of Angus. 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. On August 3d he was killed by the bursting of a cannon. Boece's statements in his Chronicle about this period aro frequently untrustworthy, but his account is the fullest.