JAMES IV., king of Scotland from 1488 to 1513, participated in the rebellion which overthrew his father, James III., and succeeded him; but in remorse for his unfilial conduct wore an iron belt all his life; during his youth his supporters carried on the government in their own interests, and despoiled the nobles who had been loyal to the late king; but when he came of age he showed his independence in choosing good advisers, among them Sir Andrew Wood; his reign was marked by resistance to the claims of the Roman pontiff, by the firm and wise administration of law, the fostering of agriculture, of shipbuilding, and other industries; in 1503 James married Margaret, daughter of Henry VII.; after that king’s death relations between the two countries became strained; two English men-of-war captured Andrew Barton’s privateers; the jewels which the queen inherited from her father were retained by Henry VIII., and James maintained an alliance with Henry’s enemy, France; at the solicitation of the French queen, against the advice of his own queen and nobles, he invaded England in 1513, but the invasion ended in disaster at Flodden, where he and the flower of his army perished; he was an able but a headstrong, a pleasure-loving, and an extravagant man (1472-1513).
JAMES V., king of Scotland from 1513 to 1542, was only an infant when he succeeded to his father’s throne; his mother was regent till her marriage with young Angus, when the nobles called James IV.’s cousin, Albany, from France to assume the regency; French and English factions sprang up; Henry VIII. intrigued in the affairs of the country; anarchy and civil war ensued, and Albany retired to France in 1524; in that year the queen-mother, aided by Henry, took the young king from Sir David Lyndsay, to whom he had been entrusted, and assumed the government again in his name; the Douglas family usurped his person and the government in 1525; but James asserted himself three years later, and began to reign in person, displaying judgment and resolution, banishing the Douglases, keeping order in the Highlands and on the Borders, establishing the College of Justice, protecting the peasantry from the tyranny of the barons, and fostering trade by a commercial treaty with the Netherlands; he married (1) Princess Magdalene of France in 1537, and (2) Mary of Guise in 1538; Henry, aggrieved by James’s failure to meet him in conference on