popular verse preserved by Hume of Godscroft—
Edinburgh Castle, Tower, and Town,
God grant thou sink for sin,
And that even for the black dinner
Earl Douglas got therein—
are embellishments too romantic to be implicitly credited, yet resting on a tradition which cannot be altogether rejected from history. The chief authors of the execution were Crichton, who had become chancellor; Sir Alexander Livingstone, at this time reconciled to his rival; and (it has been conjectured) their kinsman, James Douglas, earl of Avondale, called the ‘Gross,’ who at least profited by their death and succeeded to the earldom of Douglas. The Galloway estates of the family passed to the sister of the murdered earl, Annandale and the March estates reverted to the crown of Scotland, and the claim to the duchy of Touraine, granted only to heirs male, was abandoned. Thus without an absolute forfeiture the great inheritance of the Douglases was for a time dispersed, and their power, which had grown too great for any subject, was broken.
[The continuation of the Scotichronicon by Bower and a Short Chronicle of the Reign of James II, commonly called the Auchinleck Chronicle, are the only original authorities; the fuller narrative of Boece's History of Scotland has been followed, though in parts doubted by subsequent historians, including the family historians, Hume of Godscroft and Sir W. Fraser in The Douglas Book.]
DOUGLAS, WILLIAM, eighth Earl of Douglas (1425?–1452), was son of James ‘the Gross,’ seventh earl, to whom he succeeded in 1443, and Beatrix Sinclair, daughter of Henry, earl of Orkney. He early gained the favour of his young sovereign, James II, who regarded him as more his equal in age and rank than Sir William Crichton, the chancellor, who wished to govern both the king and kingdom. On 25 Aug. 1443 Douglas by the king's command, the king's council and household being with him, took Barnton, near Edinburgh, a castle held for Crichton by his cousin, Andrew Crichton. In November, at a general council in Stirling, Sir William Crichton, his brother, and their chief followers were forfeited, and Crichton deposed from his office. In revenge they harried the lands of Douglas, burnt his castles of Abercorn, Strabrook, and Blackness, and took five other of his strongholds. A papal dispensation in the following year, 24 July 1444, allowed Douglas to marry his cousin, the Fair Maid of Galloway, and so to unite the two principal estates of the family. In 1445 the castle of Edinburgh, still held by Sir William Crichton, after a stout defence of eleven weeks, capitulated to Douglas on terms which permitted Crichton to recover or retain the office of chancellor. But Douglas, who exercised the power, and perhaps received the title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, maintained his ascendency in the royal councils. In 1448 he retaliated on the English, who had burnt Dunbar and Dumfries, by a raid, along with the Earls of Orkney, Angus, and his brother Hugh, earl of Ormonde, in which Alnwick was burnt on 3 June, and on 18 July, when he renewed the war with a force of forty thousand men, Warkworth shared the same fate. In 1449 the marriage of the king to Mary of Gueldres, which had been negotiated by Crichton and the Bishop of Dunkeld, who brought the bride to Scotland, was celebrated. This marriage led to the king assuming a large personal share in the government, and its first effect was the downfall of the powerful family of the Livingstones, whose chief members were separately arrested and forfeited in the parliament held by James in person at Edinburgh on 19 Jan. 1449. Their head, Sir Alexander Livingstone, lord Callendar, escaped with his life, but his son and heir, James, and his cousin Robin of Linlithgow the controller, were beheaded. Archibald of Dundas, one of their adherents, held out in the tower of Dundas, but after a siege of three months surrendered, when it was demolished, and the spoil divided between the king, the Earl of Douglas, and Sir William and Sir George Crichton. This division proves that Douglas and Crichton still retained their power and acted together in the overthrow of the Livingstones. The earl also received a considerable part of the forfeited estates of the Livingstones; the fine payable to the king on the marriage of his wife was remitted; Strathavon erected into a burgh of barony in his favour, and other rewards given him. A new charter was issued in the parliament of 1449 of the Douglas estates to him and his heirs male, whom failing, his heirs general.
In November 1450 Douglas, who had procured a safe-conduct for three years from the English king, went to Rome, attended by a great retinue. Of these are specially mentioned by Pitscottie the ‘Lords of Hamilton, Graham, Saltoun, Seaton, and Oliphant, and of meaner estate, such as Calder, Urquhart, Campbell, Forrester, Lauder, also knights and gentlemen.’ So large and dignified a company and the lavish expenditure of Douglas attracted the admiration and envy of his countrymen, and the unwonted spectacle of
