Notes |
- From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
[...] William was still under age in 1256, but had begun to earn his sobriquet of le Hardi, 'the Tough', by 1267, when he was severely wounded defending his father's house. Before 1288, when he was a widower, he had married Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Stewart and sister of James Stewart, both stewards of Scotland. In that year, at Tranent in Haddingtonshire, he seized Eleanor de Lorain, the widow of William de Ferrars, who was in Scotland to take sasine of her third of Ferrars's sixth of the lordship of Galloway. Imprisoned in Leeds Castle (Kent) in 1290, Douglas fined for £100 on 18 February 1291 for the marriage of the lady. He was not named in the Great Cause of 1291–2, except that he swore fealty to Edward I as overlord, near Dunbar on 5 July 1291.
During these two years, when three men of John de Balliol came to Douglas Castle, William threw them into the dungeon, beheaded one, allowed another to die, and (most unwisely) let the third escape to John, now king. Douglas was fined for absence from John's first parliament in February 1293, but attended the August 1293 parliament to answer for his misdeeds. About 1292 he had refused to deliver her terce (or widow's portion) to his mother, and when she successfully took legal action against him, he seized the justiciar's officials who had come from Lanark to Douglas Castle to levy damages of 140 merks and to deliver sasine to the lady, detained them overnight, promised to release them, but still delayed doing so; his excuse was that he needed time to raise the money.
Whatever fine was imposed on this trouble-maker did not prevent his being placed in command of Berwick Castle in 1295 by the council set over King John to resist Edward I. When the town fell quickly to Edward I's invading army on 30 March 1296, the castle garrison of 200 surrendered for life, limb, lands, and goods, but Douglas was to be attached to Edward's household until the campaign ended. On 10 June 1296 he swore fealty to Edward, the fourth rebelling magnate to do so, and on 28 August his lands were restored. On 24 May 1297, along with other barons, he was told to hear and obey the king's agents in Scotland—doubtless to join Edward in service in France. The threat of that service may have been the factor which pushed Douglas, before the end of May, into joining the rising of William Wallace by attacking the king's justiciar at Scone. Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick (the future Robert I), to prove his loyalty to the king, ravaged Douglasdale and seized William's wife and children, but soon launched his own rebellion with James Stewart; William Douglas, possibly to save his family, joined them, both in rebelling and in their submission at Irvine on 7 July 1297.
Surrendered to the English by his allies, Douglas was taken to Berwick, and, 'very wild and very abusive', was imprisoned in Berwick Castle in irons. His gaoler begged the king 'let him not be freed, not for any profit or influence', and he was indeed transferred south for safe keeping after the English defeat at the battle of Stirling Bridge in September. From 13 October 1297 he was a prisoner in the Tower of London, attended by one valet, until he died there on 9 November 1298. The story in Barbour's Bruce that Edward I had him poisoned (after spending 4d. per day keeping him alive) is to be dismissed; but Edward certainly gave his estate of Douglas to Sir Robert Clifford, perhaps while he was still alive. It was a suitably dismal end of the road for a career of political expediency and physical violence.
|