Douglas, THE FAMILY OF. A legend of the 16th century told how, in the year 770, a Scottish king, whose ranks had been broken by the fierce onset of a Lord of the Isles, saw the tide of battle suddenly turned by an unknown chief; how, when the victory was won, the monarch asked where was his deliverer; how the answer ran in Erse, Sholto Du-glas ('Behold that dark-gray man'); and how the warrior was rewarded with that Clydesdale valley which, taking from him its name of Douglas, gave surname to his descendants. This fable has long ceased to be believed. Equal discredit has fallen on the theory which the laborious Chalmers advanced in the Caledonia, that the Douglasses sprang from a Fleming of the name of Theobald, who, between the years 1147 and 1164, had a grant of lands on the Douglas Water from the Abbot of Kelso. What was boasted of the Douglasses by their historian in 1644 still holds true: 'We do not know them in the fountain, but in the stream; not in the root, but in the stem; for we know not who was the first mean man that did by his virtue raise himself above the vulgar.' It was thought likely, in the beginning of the 15th century, that the Douglasses and the Murays had come of the same stock, and in this old and not improbable conjecture all that is known on the subject must still be summed up.
William of Douglas, the first of the family who appears in record, was so called, doubtless, from the wild pastoral dale which he possessed. He is found witnessing charters by the king and the Bishop of Glasgow between 1175 and 1213. He was either the brother or the brother-in-law of Sir Freskin of Murray, and had six sons, of whom Archibald, or Erkenbald, was his heir, and Brice rose to be Bishop of Moray. Sir Archibald is a witness to charters between 1190 and 1232, and attained the rank of knighthood. Sir William of Douglas, apparently the son of Sir Archibald, figures in record from 1240 to 1273. His second son, distinguished in the family traditions as William the Hardy, spoiled the monks of Melrose, and deforced the king's officers in the execution of a judgment in favour of his mother. He was the first man of mark who joined Wallace in the rising against the English in 1297. It appears that he possessed lands in one English, and in seven Scottish counties—Northumberland, Berwick, Edinburgh, Fife, Lanark, Ayr, Dumfries, and Wigtown.
The history of his son, the Good Sir James of Douglas, is familiar to every one, as Bruce's greatest captain in the long War of Independence (see BRUCE). The hero of seventy fights, he is said to have won them all but thirteen, leaving the name of 'the Black Douglas'—so he was called from his swarthy complexion—as a word of fear by which English mothers stilled their children. He was slain in Andalusia, in 1330, on his way to the Holy Land with the heart of his royal master. The 'bloody heart' in the Douglas arms commemorates Bruce's dying bequest to him. His son William fell at Halidon Hill; and the next Lord of Douglas, Hugh, brother of Lord James, and a canon of Glasgow, made over the now great domains of the family in 1342 to his nephew Sir William.
EARLS OF DOUGLAS.—The Douglasses had since the time of William the Hardy held the title of Lords of Douglas; but in 1358, Sir William of Douglas, who had fought at Poitiers, was made Earl of Douglas, and by marriage became Earl of Mar. In 1371 he disputed the succession to the Scottish crown with Robert II., claiming as a descendant of the Baliols and Comyns. He died in 1384. His son James, second Earl of Douglas and Mar, the conqueror of Hotspur, fell at Otterburn in 1388; and as he left no legitimate issue, the direct male line of William the Hardy and the Good Sir James now came to an end. His aunt had married for her second husband one of her brother's esquires, James of Sandilands, and through her Lord Torphichen, whose barony was a creation of Queen Mary in 1564, is now the heir general and representative at common law of the House of Douglas.
The earldom of Douglas, meanwhile, was bestowed on an illegitimate son of the Good Sir James—Archibald, Lord of Galloway, surnamed the Grim. By his marriage with the heiress of Bothwell, he added that fair barony to the Douglas domains; and having married his only daughter to the heir-apparent of the Scottish crown, and his eldest son to the eldest daughter of the Scottish king, he died in 1401. His son and successor, Archibald, fourth Earl of Douglas, was, from his many misfortunes in battle, surnamed 'The Tineman,'—i.e. the loser. At Homildon, in 1402, he was wounded in five places, lost an eye, and was taken prisoner by Hotspur. Next year, at Shrewsbury, he felled the English king to the earth, but was again wounded and taken prisoner. Repairing to France, he was there made Duke of Touraine, and fell at Verneuil in 1424. He was succeeded by his son Archibald, who distinguished himself in the French wars, and dying in 1439, was buried in the church of Douglas, where his tomb yet remains, inscribed with his high titles of 'Duke of Touraine, Earl of Douglas and of Longueville, Lord of Galloway, Wigtown, and Annandale, Lieutenant of the King of Scots.' His son and successor, William, a boy of sixteen, is said to have kept a thousand horsemen in his train, to have created knights, and to have affected the pomp of parliaments in his baronial courts. His power and possessiveness made him an object of fear to the Scottish crown; and, having been decoyed into the castle of Edinburgh by the crafty and unscrupulous Crichton, he was, after a hasty trial, beheaded, along with his brother, within the walls of that castle, in 1440. It was before him that the black bull's head was presented at table, in 'token of death.' His Scottish earldom was bestowed on his grand-uncle (the second son of Archibald the Grim), James, surnamed the Gross, who in 1437 had been made Earl of Avondale. His son William was, for a time, all-powerful with King James II., who made him lieutenant-general of the realm; but afterwards losing the royal favour, he seems to have entered into a confederacy against the king, by whom he was killed in Stirling Castle in 1452. Leaving no child, he was succeeded by his brother James, who in 1454 made open war against King James II., as the murderer of his brother and kinsman (the sixth and eighth Earls of Douglas). The issue seemed doubtful for a time, but the Hamiltons and others being gained over to the king's side, Douglas fled to England. The struggle was still maintained by his brothers. They were defeated at Arkinholm (where Langholm now stands), in May 1455; and the earldom of Douglas came to an end by forfeiture, after an existence of ninety-eight years, during which it had been held by no fewer than nine lords. The last earl lived many years in England, leagued himself in 1484 with the exiled Duke of Albany, was defeated and taken prisoner at Lochmaben, and died in the abbey of Lindores in April or June 1488. So ended the elder illegitimate line of the Douglasses.
EARLS OF ANGUS.—Meanwhile a younger and illegitimate branch had been rising to great power. William, first Earl of Douglas, while securing the earldom of Mar, also secured the affections of the young widow of his wife's brother, Margaret Stewart, Countess of Angus and Mar. The issue of this amour was a son, George, who in 1389 had a grant of his mother's earldom of Angus. George, fourth Earl of Angus, took part with the king against the Douglasses in 1454; his loyalty was rewarded by a grant of their old inheritance of Douglas-dale and other lands; and so, in the phrase of the time, 'the Red Douglas put down the Black.' The 'Great Earl of Douglas' died in 1462, being succeeded by his son Archibald, surnamed Bell-the-Cat (see JAMES III.), who filled the highest offices in the state, and added largely to the family possessions. He was succeeded by his grandson, Archibald, who in 1514 married the queen-dowager of Scotland, Margaret, sister of Henry VIII. of England, and widow of James IV. of Scotland. The fruit of this marriage was a daughter, Margaret, who, marrying the Earl of Lennox, became the mother of Henry, Lord Darnley, the husband of Queen Mary, and father of James VI. The Earl of Angus had for a time supreme power in Scotland, but in 1528, the young king, James V., escaped from his hands, and sentence of forfeiture was passed against Angus and his kinsmen. On James's death in 1542, Angus was restored to his estates and honours. He was succeeded by his nephew, David, whose son, Archibald, the 'Good Earl,' died without male issue, and the earldom passed to a collateral branch. William Douglas of Glenbervie became ninth Earl of Angus.
MARQUISES AND DUKE OF DOUGLAS, AND LORDS DOUGLAS.—William, eleventh Earl of Angus, his grandson, was created Marquis of Douglas in 1633. The third Marquis was created Duke of Douglas in 1703, and died childless in 1761, when his dukedom became extinct, and his marquiseate devolved on the Duke of Hamilton, as descended in the male line from William, Earl of Selkirk, third son of the first Marquis of Douglas. His grace's sister, Lady Jane Douglas, born in 1698, and married in 1746 to Sir John Stewart of Grandtully, was said to have given birth at Paris to twin sons in 1748. One of them died in 1753; the other in 1761 was served heir of entail and provision general to the Duke of Douglas. An attempt was made to reduce his service, on the ground that he was not the child of Lady Jane Douglas; but the House of Lords, in 1771, settled the famous Douglas Cause by giving final judgment in his favour. He was made a British peer in 1790, by the title of Baron Douglas of Douglas Castle, which became extinct on the death of his son James, fourth Lord Douglas, in 1857, when the Douglas estates devolved on his niece, the Countess of Home. The title of Earl of Angus was claimed in 1762, as well by the Duke of Hamilton as by Archibald Stewart, afterwards Lord Douglas; but neither urged his claim to a decision, and the title is still in abeyance. The right attached to it of bearing the crown of Scotland was debated before the Privy-council in 1823, when it was ruled that Lord Douglas's claim to that honour, being a claim of heritable right, fell to be decided in a court of law.
EARLS OF MORTON.—Sir Andrew of Douglas, who appears in record in 1248, was apparently a younger son of Sir Archibald, or Erkenbald, of Douglas, the second chief of the house. His great-grandson (?), Sir William of Douglas of Liddesdale, the Knight of Liddesdale—as he was called by his contemporaries, who regarded him as 'the flower of chivalry'—was assassinated in 1353 by his kinsman,
William, first Earl of Douglas. The grandson of his nephew, the scholarly and princely Sir James of Douglas of Dalkeith, married a daughter of King James I., and in 1458 was created Earl of Morton. His grandson, the third earl, dying without male issue in 1553, the earldom devolved on his youngest daughter's husband, the Regent Morton—James Douglas, great-grandson of Archibald Bell-the-Cat (see MORTON). Aberdour and some other old domains of the family still remain with his successor, the Earl of Morton, who, there is every reason to believe, descends legitimately in the male line from William of Douglas, the great progenitor of the race in the 12th century.
James, second Earl of Douglas and Mar—the hero of Otterburn—had an illegitimate son, Sir William Douglas of Drumlanrig, whose descendants were created Viscounts of Drumlanrig in 1628, Earls of Queensberry in 1633, Marquises of Queensberry in 1681, Dukes of Queensberry in 1683, Earls of March in 1697, and Earls of Solway in 1706. On the death of the fourth Duke of Queensberry in 1810, that title went to the Duke of Buccleuch; the title of Marquis of Queensberry went to the heir male of the family, Sir Charles Douglas of Kelhead; and the title of Earl of March went to the Earl of Wemyss.
In 1646 the third son of the first Marquis of Douglas was created Earl of Selkirk. In 1651 the eldest son of the same marquis was created Earl of Ormond, and in 1661 Earl of Forfar. In 1675 the fourth son of the same marquis was created Earl of Dumbarton. In 1641 the second son of the tenth Earl of Angus was created Lord Mordington. In 1633 Sir Robert Douglas of Spott, a descendant of the Morton family, was created Viscount of Bellhaven. Of all these titles, that of the Earl of Selkirk belonging since 1885 to the Duke of Hamilton, and that of Earl of Bellhaven, survive; the others are dormant or extinct.
See the History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, by David Hume of Godscroft (1644, 1 vol. fol.; reprinted in 1748 in 2 vols. 8vo); and the Douglas Book, by Sir William Fraser, prepared from the family muniments (4 vols. 4to, 1885). The Douglas cause produced a large literature of its own.