Alix then turned and hurried from the hall.
"You would indulge her and let her believe she is free when the truth is you are slowly tightening the bonds about her," Ferguson noted. "You are sly, Nephew."
"How long do you intend to stay with us?" the laird asked, amused.
"Your hall offers more peace than mine does," Robert Ferguson admitted. "I have been cooped up all winter with my Maggie and our offspring. She is breeding again, Malcolm. This will make an even dozen. I but look at the wench lasciviously and her belly swells. Well, maybe this time it is the hoped-for heir. Eleven daughters are more than a man can bear. Other men breed on their wives, lose them in childbed, or lose the bairns. My wife is as strong as an ox and our daughters stronger. God only knows how I shall find husbands for them all, Nephew, and even the church requires a dower."
"I'm sure eventually you will offer me one," the laird teased his uncle.
Robert Ferguson laughed. "If you are not wed by the time the eldest is marriageable, which will be in another two years, I probably will. I have to get rid of them somewhere, and Maggie agrees with me. We must keep praying for a son. All men want sons, Nephew."
"I have an heir in Fiona," Malcolm Scott said stubbornly.
"If you manage to get that pretty wench who now mothers your daughter into your bed," the Ferguson of Drumcairn said, "you are certain to get her with child. Will you let your son be born a bastard?"
"I only managed to get a daughter on Robena, and if I do indeed entice Alix to my bed, she bore no child to her husband. It is unlikely she would bear me one."
"Then she would be the perfect mistress," his uncle noted, "if all she gave you was pleasure but no encumbrances. 'Tis a rare occurrence, but I have heard of such."
"You have not answered my question, Uncle. How long do you mean to stay?"
"A few days, a week, perhaps," the Ferguson answered. "I should be ready to face my wife and daughters again by then. The new bairn isn't due until autumn."
"You are welcome as always, Uncle, provided you do not speak of marriage again," the Laird of Dunglais said.
"I will hold my peace for now," Robbie Ferguson said with a grin. "You have my word on it, Malcolm."
Chapter Six
In August of 1460 James II of Scotland had been killed when a cannon misfired during the siege of Roxburgh Castle. A special salvo had been arranged to greet Queen Marie, who had arrived to view the proceedings. The canon, however, had been overcharged with gunpowder. It exploded and a piece of the metal had shattered the king's leg as he stood nearby. He died almost instantly, and once again Scotland was faced with a child king. James II had been six years old when his father had been murdered. James III was eight.
Queen Marie took no time to mourn. Instead she hastened to fetch her eldest son, James. Bringing him before the commanders of Scotland's armies she asked them to make her husband's death not a defeat, but a victory for Scotland's new king, James III. Encouraged by her bravery, Scotland's army responded to the queen's words and the sight of their young boy king standing proudly before them. Within a few days Roxburgh fell, and the new king was crowned at nearby Kelso Abbey on the tenth day of the month.
The queen mother quickly took charge of the situation. The bishop of St. Andrew's, Bishop Kennedy, was out of the country when the king was killed. This allowed Queen Marie to put her own people into place, much to the bishop's annoyance when he returned. Still, the bishop's powerful family was amenable to compromise. So was the queen. Although she had given sanctuary to her kinswoman, Margaret, and her mad husband, King Henry of England, she quickly saw the way the winds were blowing to the south. While she would do nothing to harm the English fugitives, she would do nothing to help those who would pursue them either. Still she made a long-term peace with the new English king, Edward IV, who was being tempted into supporting a war against Scotland in order to partition it. The south would be held by the exiled Earl of Douglas, and the north by the MacDonald Lord of the Isles, both of whom would rule as vassals of England's king. Queen Marie's signature and that of her son's on a document put a stop to that treasonous plan.
The Douglas family had been a thorn in her husband's side since his youth. The fifth earl of Douglas had been governor of the realm when James II was a child, but he had proved a poor one. His weakness had allowed two lesser lords, Sir William Crichton, keeper of Edinburgh Castle, and Sir Alexander Livingstone, keeper of Stirling Castle, to seize the king. When Lord Douglas died, Crichton and Livingstone took the opportunity to murder his sons in the presence of the ten-year-old James II. It was believed the young Douglases' uncle, known as James the Gross, who now inherited the title, was involved.
James II learned a lesson that terrible night when he begged for the life of the two Douglases. And ten years later, encouraged by his queen, he finally asserted his authority, executing several of the Livingstone family and destroying their power. The Douglas family now headed by James the Gross's eldest son, William, however, was a more difficult problem. The Douglas earl had immense holdings in the borders. But when James II discovered him involved in treasonous dealings with England, and that he had formed a traitorous alliance with the Lord of the Isles, he called the Earl of Stirling and ordered him to repudiate his alliances and reaffirm his allegiance to Scotland's king.
William Douglas refused, and after two days of negotiation James II lost his temper and stabbed the earl in his throat. The men with the king joined the fray. Considering that the Douglas earl had insisted on a safe conduct before coming to Stirling to see the king, the murder was a breach of the medieval code of honor. James II moved quickly, however, to shore up his defenses in the matter. Moving his pregnant queen to the bishop's palace at St. Andrew's, he quickly gained the support of his earls by a means of various reassurances and rewards for their loyalty. And considering that William Douglas's brother, the new earl, arrived at Stirling with a large force of armed men, crying for vengeance, and then burned the town in their defiance of James II, who had already departed Stirling, the king's actions were suddenly considered reasonable. The Douglases had obviously grown way too powerful in too short a time.
James II went to war against the Douglases. Fascinated by the new science of gunnery, he systematically battered down the walls of the Douglas strongholds with his great canon, Mons Meg, which he had acquired from his wife's uncle, the Duke of Burgundy, and which had been brought from Edinburgh Castle. Defeated at the battle of Arkinholm, James, the ninth Douglas earl, escaped to England. Of his two remaining brothers, one died at Arkinholm and the other was captured and executed.
In England at that time the War of the Roses had broken out, and James Douglas allied his fallen fortunes with the Yorkist faction. The king of Scotland, however, chose to support the Lancaster side of the quarrel. And then James II proved himself a worthy successor to his father, reestablishing the rule of law in Scotland. His patronage of his nobility extended to creating several new earldoms, namely Rothes, Morton, Erroll, Marischal, and Argyll. Then, having stabilized his domestic affairs, the king devoted himself to foreign diplomacy, including arranging the marriage of his eldest son, James, with Margaret of Denmark.
In 1460 war broke out again as James II thought to strike a blow for his ally, King Henry VI, laying siege to Roxburgh Castle, which was currently held by a Yorkist governor. Roxburgh had always been hotly contested between England and Scotland, but it had been in English hands since the reign of David II of Scotland, over a hundred years previously. And while the Scots regained Roxburgh that summer, they lost a capable king and once again found themselves ruled by a regency in the name of James III.
Although the Highlands were fraught with disorder, Scotland remained basically at peace, thanks to Queen Marie and Bishop Kennedy. Even the borders were quiet but for a small raid now and again.