Robert III.

Robert III., king of Scotland 1390-1406, son of the preceding, was born about 1340. His baptismal name was John, but this name, out of hatred to the memory of John Baliol, was changed on his accession to the throne by an act of the Scotch Estates. His imbecility as a ruler virtually placed the reins of government in the hands of his ambitious brother, Robert, Earl of Menteith and Fife, in 1398 created Duke of Albany, during whose regime the Scottish barons first began to exercise that anarchic and disloyal authority which, in the reigns of the first three Jameses, threatened to destroy the power of the sove- reign altogether. The principal events in Robert's reign were the invasion of Scotland in 1400 by Henry IV. of England, who, at the head of a large army, penetrated as far as Edinburgh, but did not inflict much injury on the country—more, however, from clemency than impotence—and the retaliatory expedition of the Scotch, two years after, under Archibald Douglas, which resulted in the terrible disaster at Homildon Hill (q.v.). Robert had two sons, the eldest of whom was David, Duke of Rothesay (1378–1402), a youth not destitute of parts, but shockingly licentious. As long as his mother lived he kept within bounds, comparatively speaking; but after her death, says Buchanan, 'he gave an unbridled license to his passions; laying aside fear and shame, he not only seduced married ladies and virgins of good family, but those whom he could not entice he forced to his embraces.' Albany received orders from the king to act as his guardian, and after a short time starved him to death at Falkland; for which he underwent a mock-trial by his own creatures, and was of course declared innocent. Robert now became anxious for the safety of his younger son, James, and, after consulting with Archbishop Wardlaw of St Andrews, he resolved to send him to France; but, while proceeding thither, the vessel in which he sailed was intercepted by an English cruiser, and James was taken prisoner (1405). When his father received the melancholy news he gave way to paroxysms of grief, and died at Rothesay Castle, 4th April 1406.