Albany rewarded Douglas for his support by allowing him to resume hostilities with England[22] but their fortunes suffered a serious reversal in September 1402 when English troops defeated their large army at the Battle of Homildon Hill.

[24] Douglas's absence allowed King Robert's allies Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, and Sir David Fleming of Biggar to become the main political force in the Lothians and Scottish Marches.

[23] In December 1404 the king granted the royal Stewart lands in the west (Ayrshire and around the Firth of Clyde), to James in regality, protecting them from outside interference and providing the prince with a territorial centre should the need arise.

Although Douglas was the pre-eminent Scottish magnate, his position in the borders and Lothians was jeopardised — not only did he have to forcibly retake Edinburgh Castle from his own designated warden, but was very likely under threat from the Earls of Angus and March.

Also, the relationship between Murdoch—now Duke of Albany following his father's death in 1420 — and his own appointee, Bishop William Lauder, seemed to be under strain, perhaps evidence of an influential grouping at odds with Murdoch's stance.

The coronation parliament of the Three Estates witnessed the king perform a knighthood ceremony for eighteen prominent nobles, including Alexander Stewart, Murdoch's son, likely aimed at fostering loyalty to the crown within the political community.

[51] James the Fat led the men of Lennox and Argyll in open rebellion against the crown and may have been what the king needed to bring a charge of treason against the Albany Stewarts.

[59] James demonstrated a ruthless and avaricious side to his nature in the destruction of his close family, the Albany Stewarts, that yielded the three forfeited earldoms of Fife, Menteith and Lennox.

[60] An inquiry set up by James in 1424 into the dispersal of crown estates since the reign of Robert I exposed legal defects in several transactions where the earldoms of Mar, March and Strathearn, together with the Black Douglas lordships of Selkirk and Wigtown, were found to be problematic.

Part of James's solution was to create an assembly of overseeing abbots and followed this up by establishing a Carthusian priory at Perth to provide other religious houses with an example of internal conduct.

It was the council and not the pope who requested that James send representatives of the Scottish church, and it is known that two delegates — Abbot Thomas Livingston of Dundrenanan and John de Winchester, canon of Moray and a servant of the king — were in attendance in November and December 1432.

[73] Even in the midst of the Basel general council, Pope Eugenius instructed his legate, Bishop Antonio Altan of Urbino, to meet with James to raise the issue of the king's controversial anti-barratry laws of 1426.

The council initially resisted granting James the funds — even with royal support from the powerful Earls of Mar and Atholl — but eventually gave in to the king's wishes.

Alexander, probably under pressure from his close kinsmen Donald Balloch, John Mór's son, and Alasdair Carrach of Lochaber, led an attack on the castle and burgh of Inverness in the spring of 1429.

[86] The Islesmen rose again in September 1431 and inflicted two important defeats on the king's men — Mar's army was beaten at Inverlochy and Angus Moray's in a fierce battle near Tongue in Caithness.

[90] The rules parliament attached to the taxation indicated a robust stand against further conflict in the north and probably led to the turnaround that took place on 22 October when the king 'forgave the offence of each earl, namely Douglas and Ross [i.e. Alexander]'.

[96] In the spring of 1436 Princess Margaret sailed to France, and in August Scotland entered the war, with James leading a large army to lay siege to the English enclave of Roxburgh Castle.

[18] The campaign was to prove pivotal, the Book of Pluscarden describes ' a detestable split and most unworthy difference arising from jealosy ' within the Scottish camp and the historian Michael Brown explains that a contemporary source has James appointing his young and inexperienced cousin, Robert Stewart of Atholl, as the constable of the host ahead of the experienced march wardens, the earls of Douglas and Angus.

Brown explains that both earls possessed considerable local interests and that the effects of such a large army living off the land may have created resentment and hostility in the area.

[105] The retreat from Roxburgh exposed the king to questions regarding his control over his subjects, his military competence and his diplomatic abilities yet he remained determined to continue with the war against England.

[112] A general council was held in Atholl's heartland in Perth on 4 February 1437 and crucially for the conspirators, the king and queen had remained in the town at their lodgings in the Blackfriars monastery.

[118] The position of Atholl and his circle of close supporters only collapsed after Earl Walter's heir Robert Stewart had been captured and who, in Shirley's account, confessed to his part in the crime.

[120] Sir Robert Graham, the leader of the band of assassins, was captured by former Atholl allies and was tried at a session of the council sitting at Stirling Castle and subsequently executed sometime shortly after 9 April.

[123][124] The king, was of medium height, a little on the short side, with a well-proportioned body and large bones, strong limbed and unbelievably active, so that he ... would challenge any one of his magnates of any size to wrestle with him.– Walter Bower, Abbot of Inchcolm (written c. 1424)[125] ... [the king was] stocky and weighed down with fat [with] clear and piercing eyes – future Pope Pius II, Eneas Silvius Piccolomini (written 1435)[125] James was a paradoxical figure.

[18][128] John Shirley's account of the events leading up to James's murder in the work The Dethe of the Kynge of Scotis provided an accurate narrative of politics in Scotland and which must have depended upon knowledgeable witnesses.

[130] Late in the 16th century the early historians George Buchanan and Bishop John Lesley from opposite ends of the religious spectrum both looked favourably on James's reign but were uneasily mindful of an enduring aggressive history regarding the king.

Balfour-Melville in 1936 and continued the theme of James as the strong upholder of law and order and, when describing Albany's trial and execution, he writes "the King had proved that high rank was no defence for lawlessness; the crown was enriched by the revenues of Fife, Menteith and Lennox".

[133] Stephen Boardman takes the view that by the time of his death James had succeeded in breaking down the constraints on the exercise of royal authority which were rooted in the "settlement of the kingdom" by Robert II.

She also provides the opposite viewpoint that the king was seen as giving "strong leadership against magnate excesses" and that the murder "was a disaster for the Scottish people, leaving them to endure the instability of years of consequent faction fighting".

Michael Brown describes James as an "able, aggressive and opportunistic politician" whose chief aim was to establish a monarchy that had stature and was free from the confrontations that had beset his father's reign.