Edinburgh Castle, Town, and Tower (The Black Dinner)

DESCRIPTION: "Edinburgh castle, toun and tour [i.e. Edinburgh castle, town, and, tower], God grant that you sink for sin, And that even for the Black Dinner Earl Douglas got therein."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1849 (Scott, Tales of a Grandfather, but quoted from a fifteenth century source)
KEYWORDS: sin nobility accusation political
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Feb 21, 1437 - Assassination of Scotland's King James I
Nov 24, 1440 - The "Black Dinner," at which William Douglas, the new Earl of Douglas, and his brother David are tricked into attending a banquet and then murdered
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Sir Walter Scott, _Tales of a Grandfather_, R. Cadell, 1849 (available on Google Books), p. 140, "(no title)" (1 short text)
NOTES [1784 words]: This does not seem to have survived in oral tradition long enough to have been collected by modern collectors, but it is said to have been widely known at the time of the events. I'm including it on that basis -- and on the basis that I seem to have heard some modern singer (Jean Redpath?) singing a song that I thought was based on it.
I do find myself with questions about its origins; it is said to be old, but no one seems to cite an early source, and neither the Index of Middle English Verse nor the Digital Index of Middle English Verse seems to include it.
The verse arose out of the "Black Dinner" of 1440, one of those numerous instances of ugly Scottish politics that took place during the seemingly endless minorities of the Stuart princes. It all began when James I was murdered in 1337 while visiting Blackfriars Friary near Perth (Magnusson, pp. 243-244; on pp. 247-248, Magnusson quotes several authors disputing whether James was a strong king who brought law and order or a despot who exerted too much control. The assassins seem to have thought he was a despot). A group of conspirators -- who seem to have belonged to the parties of several earls and even members of the royal family -- broke into the royal apartment, giving the king sixteen wounds and injuring Queen Joan Beaufort, though she managed to escape as the conspirators made their getaway (Magnusson, p. 245).
The Queen fled to Edinburgh, gathered up her son, and denounced the conspirators (Oram, p. 211).
That made the king's son James, not yet seven years old, King James II.
The result, as usual in Scotland in circumstances like this, was a quarrel over who would govern the country until James II reached adulthood. The situation was particularly fraught because chance and James I's vigorous acts to control his nobles meant that only three earldoms were active and were held by men who were in the country (Magnusson, p. 251); there was no one to provide continuity of government. The situation was so bad that his guardians didn't even dare take him to the traditional site at Scone to be crowned; he was crowned at Holyrood (Oram, p. 212).
It started as a conflict between Queen Joan and Walter, Earl of Atholl, the king's uncle who was also one of the conspirators. At first, Queen Joan had the upper hand; the conspirators had made a mistake when they had not finished her off. Atholl and his grandson Sir Robert Stewart were among those placed on trial and executed. Atholl was given a clean death, but Stewart was subjected to extreme torture (Magnusson, p. 246).
In May, a great council met at Stirling, but it did not make Queen Joan the regent. Instead, Archibald Douglas, the fifth Earl of Douglas, who till then hadn't played much role in the conflict, was made lieutenant-general of the realm (Brown, p. 246), though Magusson, p. 251, considers him a figurehead who didn't do much. (On the other hand, Brown, pp. 247-248, thinks he helped increase the power of several lords, who became major factors in the kingdom as a result.)
Queen Joan, to try to preserve her position, married again, to James Steward of Lorn, a man of relatively low standing but strong connections (Brown, p. 257). They would have three sons, but she died in 1445 -- after a great deal of trouble including a period of imprisonment -- without really regaining power (Oram, p. 213). Her husband and their sons would end up fleeing to England (Magnusson, p. 254) -- Joan was, after all, English, and then-King Henry VI was fond of his other Beaufort relatives, who were arguably his heirs if their dubious legitimacy was ignored.
And Douglas himself died unexpectedly, of "a fever," on June 26, 1439 (Brown, p. 250; according to Oram, p. 213, 1439 was a plague year). Suddenly Scotland had an even bigger problem.... With the queen out of power and Douglas dead, lesser nobles such as William Crichton and Sir Alexander Livingston managed to seize power, based largely on violence and having control of the king (Oram, p. 213; Brown, pp. 255-258; Magnusson, p. 251, notes that they have been consistently regarded by historians as bandits and ruffians). They did not often work together... but one of the times when they did was to pull down the new Earl of Douglas.
Douglas's heir was a son William; he had a second son, David (Brown, p. 255). They were too young to assume their father's duties; William was still a teenager (thirteen, according to Oram, p. 213, though others make him a few years older) and I've seen estimates that make David as young as ten. William soon was showing signs of ambition (perhaps even haughtiness; Magnusson, p. 252; Brown, p. 259, mentions "youthful pride.") Plus the very strength of the Douglas affinity made them important political players. Or at least important pawns. Magnusson, p. 253, has the most graphic description of what followed:
"Chrichton and Livingston invited the young earl to dine with them and the king at Edinburgh Castle on 24 November 1440. Douglas and his younger brother David went there trustingly with only one attendant, and were received with every mark of friendship. At table they 'banquetted royally with all delicacies which could be got.' At the end of the dinner, however, a black bull's head was served on a great dish -- traditionally a symbol of doom. The youths were seized, despite the king's entreaties, and subjected to a mock trial for treason; after that the brothers and their friend were hustled from the hall into the courtyard, where an execution block had already been set up. Douglas apparently begged for their lives, but his please were futile; he then requested that his young brother be executed first, so that the boy might not suffer the added agony of watching him die. The helpless ten-year-old king wept as his friends were beheaded. The grim occasion has been known as the 'Black Dinner' ever since."
Brown, p. 260, quotes the contemporary Auchinleck Chronicle which is a little more restrained: "Erll William of Douglas, Archibaldis son... and his brother David Douglas was put to died at Edinburgh and Malcolm Fleming [the third member of the party] was put to deid in that samyn place within thre days." He thinks the symbol of the bull's head was a later elaboration of the story, but the truth was bad enough!
In the aftermath of the death of the Sixth Earl, his great-uncle James, known as "James the Gross," became the seventh Earl of Douglas (the Douglas earldom and most of its possessions were entailed so that they could only pass in male line; Brown, p. 261). Oram, p. 214, tells the tale in a very sinister way, seeming to imply that James the Gross encouraged the death of his predecessor in addition to profiting from it, and Magnusson, p. 253, also thinks "he may well have been party to the conspiracy, for he took no revenge for their murders." Brown, p. 261, states explicitly that the murder was intended to benefit Avondale (James the Gross's title before he became the Earl of Douglas) and Crichton, and declares that he was "at least guilty by association with in the violent deaths of his great nephews." Eventually James Douglas (who was around seventy, and was given his nickname because of his obesity) married his son to Margaret, the sister of the Sixth Earl, so arguably the lines re-converged (although at the cost of a marriage within the prohibited degrees; they finally got a dispensation in 1444; Brown, p. 273).
James the Gross became Scotland's greatest landowner, but died (of natural causes) in 1443 (Magnusson, p. 253). His son William became the eighth earl, and at once started to interfere in national politics, exploiting disagreements between the Crichton and Livingston factions at court. William moved against the Crichtons, eventually forcing Crichton out of the government (Brown, pp. 272-273).
James II grew up to be a reasonably competent king, but he was prone to fits of anger. Anger is a common sign of depression, and of trauma disorders (PTSD and others). One wonders if James's childhood experiences played a role here. James moved against the Douglas affinity almost from the moment he assumed personal control of the government in 1449. His first move, in that year, was against the Livingstons, the Douglas allies who had been in charge of James's upbringing; the leading members were deprived of their offices or, in some cases, executed (Brown, pp. 285-286). Earl Douglas, oddly, went on a European and pilgrimage the next year Brown, p. 287). In his absence, the king started to put pressure on his allies (Brown, pp. 288-289).
In 1452, James promised William Douglas a safe-conduct to come to Stirling Castle. The king tried to talk Douglas out of his loyalty to other lords; when Douglas refused, James drew a dagger and personally stabbed him (Magnusson, p. 254; according to Brown, p. 293, when James demanded that Douglas give up his allies, "The earl replied that 'he mycht nocht or wald nocht, than the king said, false traitour sen you will nocht I sall' [i.e. the earl said 'he might not nor would not, then the king said, False traitor, if you will not, I shall.'] James drew his knew and stabbed his guest in the neck" -- after which James's adherents stabbed and axed him repeatedly.)
William's brother James then became earl, and he began to actively attack the king's servants and lands (Brown, p. 295); eventually the king gathered an army to attack the Douglases -- and faced so much backlash that he had to offer a settlement (Brown, p. 298). The murder of the Sixth Earl had not destroyed the Douglases, but with the death of the Eighth Earl, the Douglases were finally broken. In 1455, the king's forces inflicted a great defeat on Douglas's allies at Erkinholme, leaving Earl Douglas's position in ruins. The last of the Black Douglases was forced to flee; he became an 'Ingls man'" (Brown, pp. 307-308).
He didn't stop trying to get back, of course, but this was the period of the Wars of the Roses; the English government was too distracted to do anything for his cause in the immediate aftermath, and by the time Edward IV was ready to take action, it was probably too late.
This wasn't the end of the Douglases in Scotland, to be sure -- only of the Black Douglases. The Red Douglases by then had gained the Earldom of Angus, and Angus remained in favor (Brown, pp. 318-320). Eventually James Douglas and another exile, the Duke of Albany, brother of James III, were given support for an attack on Scotland, but were defeated (Brown, p. 320). After 1491 (to vastly oversimplify), James Douglas, who was childless, and his nephew and heir turned their inheritances over to Angus, and the Black Douglas dynasty was done and soon to be extinct. - RBW
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