Two kings called James I
The name James I can refer to two different monarchs. The one covered here is James I of Scotland, who lived from 1394 to 1437. The other is James VI of Scotland, who also became James I of England in 1603 when Elizabeth I died without children. That later king belongs to the early modern period, and his reign of the united crowns is a separate story. In the middle ages, before 1603, there was no English King James, so a reference to “King James I” in a medieval setting means the Scottish king.
A prince taken at sea
James was the son of Robert III, king of Scots, whose rule was weak and who relied on his brother, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany. In 1406, when James was around twelve, he was sent by ship toward France, partly for safety and education. The ship was captured by English sailors off the English coast, and the boy was taken to Henry IV. Robert III died soon afterward, and James became king in name, though he was in English hands.
England and Scotland were not formally at war in a way that required a prompt ransom, and the English had reasons to keep him. A Scottish king at court was a useful bargaining chip, and a Scotland governed by regents, first Albany and then his son Murdoch, was easier to deal with. James stayed in England for about eighteen years, mostly in comfortable confinement. He received a good education. He is also traditionally credited with writing The Kingis Quair, a long poem in Scots that shows the influence of Geoffrey Chaucer, though scholars have debated the attribution and the dating.
During this time James was taken along on military campaigns in France by Henry V, partly to persuade the Scots who fought for the French to leave. That fact shows how the Hundred Years War reached into Scottish politics, because Scottish troops had been fighting for the French side.
Return and marriage
An agreement was reached in 1424, with Scotland agreeing to pay a large sum described as costs for his upkeep, which functioned as a ransom. The exact amount is not necessary here, and the sum was not fully paid. Before his release, James married Joan Beaufort, a member of an important English noble family and a relative of the English king. The marriage tied him to the English elite, though he was no English puppet once back in Scotland.
He and Joan were crowned at Scone in 1424. James had returned to a Kingdom of Scotland that had spent two decades without an active king. Noble families had enlarged their lands and their local control, and royal revenue was low.
Reasserting royal authority
James’s chief aim was to restore the crown’s authority. He moved against some of the leading families, particularly the Albany Stewarts. In 1425 Murdoch, Duke of Albany, and two of his sons were tried and executed, and the family’s lands passed to the crown. This was a bold stroke, and it made the king’s power more visible, but it also made enemies, since it showed that even great families could fall.
He held parliaments that issued laws about justice, public order, weights and measures, and military readiness, and he tried to raise money through taxation. These attempts were not always popular. A tax of the kind he wanted was unusual in Scotland, and the amounts that came in were limited. Some historians see him as a vigorous reformer who rebuilt the monarchy, and others as a ruler whose harshness created the conditions of his own end. The evidence supports both views in part. The fair summary is that he understood what a stronger crown required but found it difficult to carry nobles with him. The tension between the king and noble power was the defining thread of his rule.
He also dealt with the Highlands, summoning a number of chiefs to Inverness in 1428, where some were arrested. Dates and details in later accounts of this event vary, so it is best to treat it as an example of a king trying to extend authority northward, not as a precisely documented story.
Murder at Perth
In February 1437 James was killed at the Dominican friary in Perth by a group of conspirators led by his uncle, the Earl of Atholl, and Robert Graham. The queen was wounded but survived, and the conspirators were captured and executed in a brutal fashion. His six-year-old son became James II, and the young king’s minority brought another period of regency and noble contests.
How he is remembered
James I of Scotland is remembered as a king who came home from captivity determined to rule, and who was killed partly because of how he went about it. His story also connects to Scotland’s wider political history, which includes descent from Robert the Bruce, since his great-great-grandfather was the victor of Bannockburn. The later Stewart kings carried on his project of strengthening the crown with varying success.