By the time of the death of King Robert the Bruce, his great captain, James, the Black Douglas, was one of the most powerful and richest men in Scotland. But even in James' father's time they were neither rich nor particularly powerful, and it is an good question where they came from and how they ended up so powerful they were seen as a threat to the monarch.
Like a great many medieval families, the surname Douglas was originally a place name and title. It came from the river Douglas. In Scots Gaelic 'dubh' means black or dark and glas means grey-green. Near the banks of that river the first of the Douglases known to history, named not surprisingly William of Douglas, built his castle and took the name as a title. But where did he come from?
It is notable that the Douglas escutcheon and that of the very important Murrays are nearly identical, three white stars on a blue band. (In heraldry azure, three mullets argent) That has led to speculation that the two families were related, but speculation is not necessary. In 1362 when Archibald the Grim was preparing to marry the Murray heiress, he had to send to the pope for a dispensation because they were related within six generations which confirms that they were related. It is known exactly where the Murrays, or Morays as they were known earlier, came from. They were originally Flemish and fought as mercenaries for King David I in his war to claim the crown of Scotland. He rewarded them with lands and they became an important family in the Scottish court.
I think we can safely conclude that the Douglases were a cadet branch of the Murrays. It is likely that William of Douglas set off to build his own power base. He signed various charters as a witness between 1175 and 1215, so he is firmly placed in history.
However, they had neither their relatives wealth or status, and were not of great significance on the national stage. They worked to build their power base, which was land in medieval Scotland, but little is heard of them. In 1263, William of Douglas, known by the sobriquet 'Longlegs', fought for the Scots at the Battle of Largs, in 1263, a battle between the Norwegian army and the Scots which the young Scottish king Alexander III won. It would surprise many that Scotland was at peace with England but fighting the King of Norway who wanted to claim western Scotland.
It was Longleg's son, yet another William of Douglas referred to as William le Hardi (William the Bold) who began the family's real climb to prominence. In 1270 and still in his twenties, he accompanied David, Earl of Atholl, and many other Scottish nobles on the Eighth Crusade. By 1289, the ambitious young man was styling himself Lord of Douglas, the first time that title was used. He had become important enough to marry Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of the High Stewart of Scotland. She died shortly after giving birth to James of Douglas, probably of complications of child birth.
At about that time King Alexander, after a long and successful reign, died when thrown from his horse.
William le Hardi was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet. Pretty shortly after his first wife's death, he laid siege to Castle Fa'side and kidnapped Eleanor, widow of William de Ferrers, a considerable landowner in both England and Scotland. The Scots arrested him but then released him, and the two were married. She obviously could have escaped his grasp while he was imprisoned so one must make of that what you will. At any rate, King Edward I of England was enraged as usual and demanded that William be turned over to him, a demand the Scottish guardians of the realm chose to ignore.
Sadly the long peace between England and Scotland was rapidly coming to an end. It was the mistake of the Scots to think that they could trust Edward of England. They should have taken his brutal conquest of Wales as an example but did not.
When King Alexander's last direct heir of his body, his granddaughter Margaret, died on her way to Scotland, there was no clear heir to the throne. The Scots asked King Edward to mediate between the several claimants, prominently Robert the Bruce, called the Competitor and grandfather of Scotland's hero king, and John of Comyn. Primogenitor had still only been loosely adopted in Scotland and laws of inheritance in Scotland differed from those in England. Because of later events, it is largely assumed that King Edward decided to declare John the king because he was a weakling. Edward may have believed that. Certainly, in Scottish tradition, which Edward ignored, Robert the Bruce had a better claim. He was closer by one generation to the late king.
Edward lost no time in trying to force King John and the Scots into subservience to him and his rule. He even overturned a ruling by a Scottish court and demanded that King John appear before him in England. John at first gave way, but the Scottish nobles forced him into defiance. Thus began the war. After the disastrous Battle of Dunbar in which thousands of Scots died and hundreds taken prisoner, King Edward stripped King John of the throne of Scotland and declared Scotland his personal possession by conquest.
It did not take long for rebellion to rise. Douglas's cousin in the north of Scotland, Andrew de Moray, son of the Lord of Petty, raised his banner in rebellion while in the south of Scotland, the more renowned William Wallace did the same. William the Hardi promptly joined with Wallace in fighting the English. He was twice taken prisoner. The second time, he died of maltreatment in the Tower of London, but the English had failed to gain possession of William's young son. James of Douglas was safely in France, but he soon joined the household of Bishop Lamberton as a squire.
When Robert the Bruce, Earl of Carrick, raised his banner and seized the throne, young James threw his lot in with the new king.
It was James who earned the title of Black Douglas and fought, side by side, through the long years of struggle and war with King Robert the Bruce. In that was richly rewarded with vast land holdings and powers as they pushed the English out of Scotland. King Robert on his deathbed tasked James with carrying his heart on crusade. James died doing so and ever since the Douglas escutcheon has shown a heart below the three stars.
Only three years after James's death, the English once again invaded Scotland, for a time pretending to do so on behalf of the son of the man they had stripped of the crown. James's only legitimate son, young William, died on the field as a squire to his uncle Archibald. Through forty more horrendous years of fighting, the Douglases led the fight for Scotland's freedom, but with great power and wealth too often comes arrogance. It was unweaning arrogance that was a few decades later their downfall.
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