JAMES IV

the son of the former, ruled from 1488 to 1513. He was sustained by the party of nobles. He is the monarch whose follies are described so well in Scott's Marmion, and who paid the penalty of his life at the fatal field of Flodden.

JAMES V, the son of James IV, ruled from 1528 to 1542. His second wife was Mary of Lorraine, daughter of the Duke of Guise. Their daughter was the famous Mary, Queen of Scots. James became involved in a war with England and was defeated at the Battle of Solway Moss, in which he received a wound that proved mortal. He was the most popular of all the Scotch Stuarts. Mary was but seven days old when her father died.

JAMES VI of Scotland became JAMES I of England. He was the only child of Mary, Queen of Scots. His father was Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. He was born at Edinburgh Castle in 1566. He was crowned at Stirling the following year. During his childhood the kingdom was managed by factions. He was educated by George Buchanan, the greatest classical student of the age. When he came of age he allied himself with Elizabeth of England, and is believed, despite some show of intercession, to have been callous to his mother's long imprisonment and execution. In 1603, at the death of Elizabeth, he inherited the crown of England and transferred his court to London. The king's pedantry and cowardice, his subjection to favorites, and the crowd of needy Scots who followed him to London are described by a masterly hand in Scott's Fortunes of Nigel. This is the king James whose name is connected with the translation of the standard English Bible, and in whose reign Jamestown was founded and Sir Walter Raleigh beheaded. He was a true Stuart in the assertion of the "divine right of kings" to rule. He died in 1625. While naturally the subject of flattery, it is safe to assert that he was feared, loved and respected neither at home nor abroad.

JAMES II of England was the grandson of James I. He was the son of Charles I and the brother of Charles II. Like his brother whom he succeeded, James was a Catholic and clung to the fatal Stuart theory that the king ruled by divine appointment and was superior to his people. He came to the throne in 1685. He was driven out of England in 1688 and died in exile at Paris in 1701. His short reign of three years was filled with contentions with a Protestant parliament, an intriguing Protestant nobility, and a Protestant clergy. He accepted funds from France and strove to restore the Church of England to the fold of Rome. A rebellion led by the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth was put down, as it should have been; but an infamous judge--one Jeffreys--held court, the sittings of which were known as the Bloody Assizes, in the path of the rebellion and executed over 300 victims with little formality of law. In 1688 James was forced to flee to France. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Mary, and her husband, William, Prince of Orange. The event is known as the English Revolution.

See Stuart; Pretender; Boyne; Jacobite