29& James I,indsay, Provost of Lincluden. 



met with in the contemporary records, for by reason of his office 

 he was a witness to most of the royal charters and a party to most 

 of the public and to many of the private transactions of the time. 

 Having also been appointed chamberlain to the Queen, receiving 

 her rents and other allowances, and supervising the expenditure of 

 her privy purse, he won her esteem and confidence to an extent 

 that raised him to a position of high influence in the country at a 

 later date.i° 



But the days of peace were soon to end. For reasons not 

 definitely ascertained the King and his advisers resolved on the 

 destruction of the Black Douglases, and speedily carried this 

 resolution into effect. All their lands and honours were forfeited, 

 never to be restored ; and the Provost of Lincluden as a partisan 

 of their house was deprived of his office and expelled from 

 Court. 11 Whether he had continued actively to serve them we 

 know not, but that he had remained loyal is evident from the fact 

 that his lands were distrained for the value of some of the for- 

 feited estate of the Countess Beatrix, which apparently he had 

 tried to save from the wreck of the family fortunes. ^^ For a time 

 he lived out of the main current of public life, not wholly in dis- 

 favour, however, since he was permitted to use the royal authority 

 in compounding for and remitting fines at the Justice Ayre of 

 Dumfries. i'^ Then in 1460 came another of those tragic happen- 

 ings which dogged like a fate the footsteps of the Stuart Kings. 

 James II. was killed by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of 

 Roxburgh, leaving as his heir a boy of eight years of age. Im- 

 mediately the widowed Queen, Mary of Gueldres, a woman of 

 energy and strength of character, assumed the regency, and sum- 

 moned the Provost of Lincluden to resume the custody of the 

 Privy Seal and to join with Crichton, the Chancellor, Kennedy, 

 Bishop of St. Andrews, and George, Earl of Angus, in a council 

 of government ; and if the chronicler ma_\- be believed, she made 

 the Provost her chief adviser, as we know she again appointed 

 him her chamberlain. i'* Lindsav was now associated with those 



10. R'xcheq. Holls, Vol. V., pp. 524, 554, etc. 



11. Excheq. Bolls, Vol. VI., p. 87 ; Anchinleck Chronicle, p. 22. 



12. Exnheq. Bolls, Vol. VI., p. 162. 



13. Excheq. Bolls, Vol. VI., pp. 555-557. 



14. Excheq. Bolls, Vol. VII., pp. 2; 7, 31, 60; Auchinhck Chronicle, p. 2i 



