dislike to handing them and their fine district over to a foreigner, and when they heard that the letters patent were in contemplation sent a deputation to Tours to inquire whether the king had actually made the grant. The deputation was assured he had, and ‘that they should not be at all alarmed at it, for the people of Tours and county of Touraine will be very gently and peaceably governed.’ After this assurance they too acquiesced, and met Douglas at the gates of Tours with the customary honours and presents to a new duke on 7 May, where he made his entry with great pomp, took the oaths, and was made a canon of the cathedral. Next day he was installed a canon of the church of St. Martin. Shortly after he appointed his cousin, Adam Douglas, governor of Tours. The honours of Douglas were enjoyed for a brief space. Soon after his arrival he had to turn his attention to the war vigorously carried on by the Duke of Bedford, the regent in France for his young nephew, Henry VI. The castle of Ivry in Perche besieged by Bedford had agreed in July 1424 to surrender unless relieved within forty days, and the French army having come too late the surrender was made. The French about the same time took the town of Verneuil, three leagues distant from Ivry, having deceived the inhabitants by the stratagem, it was said, invented by Douglas, of passing off some of the Scotch as English prisoners. On hearing that Verneuil had been taken, Bedford at once advanced to recover it, and sent a herald to Douglas informing him that he had come to drink with him. The earl replied that he had come from Scotland to meet Bedford, and that his visit was welcome. The battle which ensued on 17 Aug. began as usual with a signal advantage gained by the English archers, which the men-at-arms followed up and turned into a rout. The slaughter was immense. Besides the chief leaders as many as 4,500 of the combined forces of the French and Scots were said to have been slain. Among those who fell were Douglas, his son-in-law, Buchan, his second son, James Douglas, and many other leaders. As often happens, recriminations were the result, perhaps the cause of this fatal defeat. The French and Scotch, between whom there was much jealousy, accused each other of rashness. It is even said there had been a dispute who was to have the command, ending in the foolish compromise of leaving it to the Duke d'Alençon, a prince of the French blood royal, then scarcely fifteen years of age. The small remnant of the Scotch who survived formed the nucleus of the celebrated Scots guard, but after that day no large contingent of Scotch troops was sent to France. Douglas was honourably buried at Tours. The character of an unsuccessful general was indelibly stamped on his memory by the issue of Verneuil. In Scottish history he received the by-name of ‘Tyneman,’ for he lost almost every engagement he took part in from Homildon to Verneuil. In this he was contrasted with the rival of his house, the Earl of March, who was almost invariably on the winning side. Nor can the claim of patriotism be justly made to cover his dishonour. His plots with Albany against Robert III and his sons are not redeemed by his anxiety for the release of James I, which was due to his preference for a young king over the headstrong son of his old confederate. Ambition is the key to his character. He was ready to fight on the side of France or England, for Henry V or for Hotspur, for any cause he thought for the advantage of his house. Personal courage, a quality common in that age, he possessed; but when Hume of Godscroft urges that his ‘wariness and circumspection may sufficiently appear to the attentive and judicious reader,’ he had in view the family and not the national verdict.
[Acts of Parliament and The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, edited with valuable prefaces by G. Burnett, and the Rotuli Scotiæ; Rymer's Fœdera; the English Chronicles of Walsingham and Holinshed; the Scotch History of Fordun continued by Bower; the Book of Pluscarden and the French Chronicle of Monstrelet. Of modern writers besides the Scottish historians, Pinkerton, Tytler, and Burton, the work of M. F. Michel, Les Écossais en France, les Français en Écosse, is valuable for the French campaign.]
DOUGLAS, ARCHIBALD, fifth Earl of Douglas and second Duke of Touraine (1391?–1439), was the eldest son of Archibald, fourth earl [q. v.], by his wife, Margaret, daughter of Robert III. In his father's life he was created earl, or perhaps only lord (dominus), of Wigton. In 1420 he accompanied his brother-in-law, the Earl of Buchan, the son of the regent Albany, to France in aid of Charles VI, fought in the battle of Beaugé, 23 March 1421, and was rewarded by a grant of the county of Longueville. The French nobles, jealous of the honours lavished on the Scottish leaders, called them ‘wine bags and mutton gluttons,’ but Charles treated their complaints with silent contempt till Beaugé had been won, and then asked his nobles what they thought of the Scots now. In 1423, returning to Scotland with Buchan, he helped to persuade his father to head the reinforcements sent to the French war, but remaining himself at home in ill-health escaped
