services, and obtained its name from the mode of investiture adopted by the king—the taking an emerald ring from his own finger and placing it upon that of his heroic subject. Another presentation which Bruce made to Douglas, it is said on his deathbed, was a large two-handed sword, which is still a treasured heirloom at Douglas Castle. It has inscribed upon it four lines of verse eulogising the Douglases, and a drawing of it is given in ‘The Douglas Book,’ by Dr. William Fraser, C.B.
Bruce, when dying, was concerned that he had not fulfilled a vow he had made to go as a crusader to the Holy Land, and he desired, as a pledge of his good faith, to send his heart thither. Douglas, ‘tender and true,’ as Holland, in his ‘Buke of the Howlat,’ describes him, vowed to fulfil his sovereign's dying wish; and, after Bruce's death, having received his heart, encased in a casket of gold, Douglas set out on his mission. After sailing to Flanders he proceeded to Spain, where he offered his services to Alfonso, king of Castile and Leon, who was at war with the Saracen king of Granada. A battle took place on the plains of Andalusia, and victory had declared for Alfonso. But Douglas and a few of his comrades pursued the Moors too far, who turned on their enemies. Douglas was in no personal danger, but observing his countryman, Sir William Sinclair of Roslin, sorely beset, dashed in to his assistance and was slain. Other accounts say that he fell in the thick of the fight, when, owing to an untimely charge, he was not supported by the Spaniards, and that to stimulate his courage he took the casket with the Bruce's heart from his breast where he wore it, and, casting it afar into the ranks of the enemy, exclaimed, ‘Onward as thou wert wont, Douglas will follow thee,’ and rushing into their midst was soon borne down and slain. Some also add that he was at this time on his way home from the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, after presenting the Bruce's heart there. It is, however, generally agreed that the battle in which he fell was fought on 25 Aug. 1330. His remains were brought to Scotland and interred in the church of St. Bride's in his native valley, where his natural son, Archibald, afterwards third earl of Douglas [q. v.], erected a monument to his memory, which still exists. The ‘Good’ Sir James was married and left a lawful son who inherited his estates, William, lord of Douglas, but he was slain in 1333 at the battle of Halidon.
Barbour describes the personal appearance of Douglas from the testimony of those who had seen the warrior. He was of a commanding stature, broad-shouldered and large-boned, but withal well formed. His frank and open countenance was of a tawny hue, with locks of raven blackness. He somewhat lisped in his speech. Naturally courteous and gentle, he was beloved by his countrymen; while to his enemies in warfare he was a terror, though even from them his prudent, wise, and successful leadership extorted open praise.
[Barbour's Bruce; Scalacronica; Trivet's Annals; Chronicon de Lanercost; Chronicon Walteri de Hemingburgh; Palgrave's Documents and Records; Fœdera; Acts of Parliaments of Scotland; Rotulæ Scotiæ; Munimenta de Melros; Walsingham's Historia; Froissart's Chronicles; Priory of Coldingham (Surtees Soc.); Hume of Godscroft's Houses of Douglas and Angus; Fordun à Goodall; Fraser's Douglas Book; &c.]
DOUGLAS, JAMES, second Earl of Douglas (1358?–1388), succeeded his father William in 1384. His mother, Margaret, was Countess of Mar in her own right. Froissart describes him as ‘a fayre young childe’ at the date of his first visit to Scotland, when he was entertained for fifteen days by Earl William at Dalkeith in 1365, which gives the probable date of his birth as 1358. On the accession of Robert II in 1371, to conciliate the Earl of Douglas to the succession of the new Stuart dynasty, his son was knighted and contracted in marriage to the king's daughter Isabel. A papal dispensation was obtained on 24 Sept. 1371, and the marriage appears to have been celebrated in 1373, after which date payments to account of the king's obligations for his daughter's dowry appear in the exchequer records. In 1380 her husband received a royal grant of two hundred merks from the customs of Haddington, in which he is designated Sir James Douglas of Liddesdale, that portion of the family estates having been probably settled on him by his father. In 1384, soon after his father's death, which occurred in May, the young earl took part in a dashing raid along with Sir Geoffrey de Charney and thirty French knights, justified, according to Froissart, by a similar attack on the Scotch borders under the Earls of Northumberland and Nottingham, from which the lands of the Earl of Douglas and Lord Lindsay seriously suffered. The Scots force, said to have numbered fifteen thousand, ravaged the lands of the English earls and returned to Roxburgh with a great spoil of goods and cattle.
Although the truce with England had come to an end at Candlemas 1384, negotiations were in progress for its renewal. In spite of repeated attempts to maintain peace, preparations for war were made on both sides.
