King James III
King James III - King of Scotland
James III (1452 - 1488, king from 1460) was the son of James I and Mary of Guildres. The early years of James III's minority passed peacefully under the efficient rule of Bishop Kennedy who concluded a 15-year truce with Edward IV of England in 1463. The consolidation of the kingdom was assisted by James's marriage to Margaret of Denmark in 1469; the Queen's dowry consisted of Orkney and Shetland which thus became incorporated into the kingdom in 1472. James's tastes were those of a renascence prince but he was forced to bridle his brothers, Alexander Duke of Albany and John Earl of Mar, whose intrigues threatened the king himself and were a focus for the disaffection of the nobility. Mar was killed in prison in 1479, but Albany secured a brief period of ascendancy in 1482 after the army refused to follow the king against the English. More serious opposition to James by a group of Lowland nobility finally led to the rising of 1488 in which the king was murdered after being thrown from his horse at the battle of Sauchieburn.
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