Ñàéò ïîå糿, â³ðø³, ïîçäîðîâëåííÿ ó â³ðøàõ :: James I of Scotland :: Á³îãðàô³ÿ

James I of Scotland :: Á³îãðàô³ÿ

James I (1394 – 21 February 1437) was nominal King of Scots from 4 April 1406, and reigning King of Scots from May 1424 until 21 February 1437. JAMES I, king of Scotland and poet, the son of King Robert III., was born at Dunfermline in 1394. After the death of his mother, Annabella Drummond of Stobhall, in 1402, he was placed under the care of Henry Wardlaw (d. 1440), who became bishop of St Andrews in 1403, but soon his father resolved to send him to France. On the way to France, however, James fell into the hands of some English sailors and was sent to Henry IV., who refused to admit him to ransom. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham, says that James's imprisonment began in 1406, while the future king himself places it in 1404; February 1406 is probably the correct date. On the death of Robert III. in April 1406 James became nominally king of Scotland, but he remained a captive in England, the government being conducted by his uncle, Robert of Albany. Dying in 1420, Albany was succeeded as regent by his son, Murdoch. At first James was confined in the Tower of London, but in June 1407 he was removed to the castle at Nottingham, whence about a month later he was taken to Evesham. His education was continued by capable tutors, and he not only attained excellence in all manly sports, but became perhaps more cultured than any other prince of his age. He is reported to have been acquainted with philosophy, and it is evident from his subsequent career that he had studied jurisprudence; moreover, besides being proficient in vocal and instrumental music, he cultivated the art of poetry with much success. When Henry V. became king in March 1413, James was again imprisoned in the Tower of London, but soon afterwards he was taken to Windsor and was treated with great consideration by the English king. In 1420, with the intention of detaching the Scottish auxiliaries from the French standard, he was sent to take part in Henry's campaign in France; this move failed in its immediate object and he returned to England after Henry's death in 1422. About this time negotiations for the release of James were begun in earnest, and in September 1423 a treaty was signed. By the terms of the treaty James was to wed a noble English lady, and on the 12th of February 1424 he was married at Southwark to Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, a lady to whom he was faithful through life. In April 1424 James and his bride entered Scotland. With the reign of James I., whose coronation took place at Scone on the 21st of May 1424, constitutional sovereignty may be said to begin in Scotland. He proceeded to rule Scotland with a firm hand, and achieved numerous financial and legal reforms. For instance, for the purpose of trade with other nations, foreign exchange could only be exchanged within Scottish borders. He also tried to remodel the Scottish Parliament along English lines. However, in foreign policy, he renewed the Auld Alliance, a Scottish-French (and therefore anti-English) alliance, in 1428. His actions throughout his reign, though effective, upset many people. During the later years of his reign, they helped to lead to his claim to the throne coming under question. James I's grandfather, Robert II, had married twice and the awkward circumstances of the first marriage, from which James was descended, led to it being disputed. Conflict broke out between the descendants of the first marriage and the unquestionably legitimate descendants of the second marriage over who should be on the Scottish throne. Matters came to a head in February, 1437, when James was assassinated by a group of Scots led by Sir Robert Graham while staying at the Friars Preachers Monastery in Perth. James was the author of two poems, the Kingis Quair and Good Counsel (a short piece of three stanzas). The Song of Absence, Peblis to the Play and Christis Kirk on the Greene have been ascribed to him without evidence. The Kingis Quair is an allegorical poem of the cours d'amour type, written in seven-lined Chaucerian stanzas and extending to 1379 lines. It was composed during James's captivity in England and celebrates his courtship of Lady Jane Beaufort. Though in many respects a Chaucerian pastiche, it not rarely equals its model in verbal and metrical felicity. Its language is an artificial blend of northern and southern (Chaucerian) forms, of the type shown in Lancelot of the Laik and the Quair of Jelusy.