296 James Lindsay, Provost of Lincluden. 



upon to aid him in the unfamiliar art of writing. His tastes, his 

 talents, his experience, his social connections, all tended to make 

 him a participator in the schemes of his patron ; and in particu- 

 lar he was well fitted to bring into being as a negotiator the league 

 of the three earls. He was bound in dutiful service to the Earl 

 of Douglas. The Earl of Crawford was his hereditary chief, and 

 although this bond might be merely a sentimental one, there is 

 evidence also of actual association between them, for Master 

 James was a witness to at least one of the earl's charters, while 

 his brother and nephew were the baron bailies of Crawford.^ 

 To him, then, Douglas might very well entrust the task of secur- 

 ing the participation of Crawford in the league, an object worth 

 striving for, since he was the greatest noble in midland Scotland, 

 as Douglas was in the south, and Ross in the north. With his 

 accession the league would hold a preponderance of material 

 power and influence throughout the length of the country. Who- 

 ever carried through the business, it could have been no light 

 undertaking to bind together in a common cause three such youth- 

 ful potentates ; for Douglas was under twenty-five, Crawford could 

 have been only a few years older, while Ross was still a minor 

 when his father died in 1447. Then, too, whatever the char- 

 acter of Douglas, Crawford was a man of such fierce and turbu- 

 lent disposition that in the course of his short life he succeeded 

 in earning for himself the ominous nickname of the Tiger Earl; 

 while Ross at an advanced age closed a career that had been a 

 troubled one, and altogether futile from his own vanit\' and 

 weakness. 



Now, whatever may have been the purpose of the earls' 

 league, it was inimical to the Government, if only because by its 

 very strength it belittled the authority of the Crown ; and it would 

 surely have been checked in its inception had the acting Ministers 

 of State been aware of what was afoot. To bring the scheme to 

 the point of effectiveness secrecy was imperative, and such secrecy 

 was maintained that it was accounted for special shrewdness in 

 Bishop Kennedy that he was the first to suspect the existence of 

 the conspiracy. For the finesse in management that achieved this 

 result are we to look to any of the young men who were the 



8. Reg. Mag. Sig., X., 133 (18th June, 1449) ; Hist. MSS. Com., 15th Rep., 

 Append. VIII , pp. 64, 65. 



