On 11 June 1488, a Scottish king gathered his army and marched to a field south of Stirling known as Sauchieburn. This man was James III – great-great-great-great grandson of Robert the Bruce, famed for his pivotal victory over the English at the battle of Bannockburn. James faced not a foreign invasion, but a rebellion by his own subjects. To counter this threat, and eager to be seen as a ‘new Bruce’, he wielded the sword of his famous ancestor. Rather than winning a heroic victory, though, by the end of the day James lay dead – killed by one of his own subjects as he fled the battlefield. But by whom? The answer is a mystery that’s endured for more than five centuries.

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James III was a divisive figure. He alienated many Scots with his determination to secure a marriage alliance with England, and his familial relations were little better: he fell out with one brother, Alexander, Duke of Albany, who then joined an English invasion of Scotland in 1482. He was also accused of ordering the death of his other brother, the Earl of Mar, and of being behind the alleged poisoning of his wife, Margaret of Denmark, in 1486.

As ruler, James proved unable to control feuds between rival noble families and debased the Scottish coinage, causing economic problems. In summary, he fell short in almost every way imaginable.

Writing perhaps three-quarters of a century later in The Historie and Chronicles of Scotland, Robert Lindsay said that James, standing on the field of battle in 1488, had “remembered the words of the witch that said to him before that he should be destroyed and put down by his nearest of kin” – a dramatic image reminiscent of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

The witch was not real, but the drama certainly was. The army that toppled James III had as its figurehead none other than the king’s eldest son who, on his father’s death, became James IV. Then just 14 years old, Prince James had left his residence in Stirling Castle in February 1488 and joined a group of individuals opposed to his father. At first, he probably merely wanted his status as heir better recognised, but he remained with the rebels when things became ugly, and a military campaign ensued.

James proved unable to control feuds between rival families, and debased the Scottish coinage

Despite the family feud, the younger James did not want to see his father harmed – a wish clearly not shared by his allies, one of whom took the opportunity to stab the king to death after the battle. James IV never forgave himself for his father’s demise; in penance, he reportedly wore an iron belt to which he added extra weights every year.

Yet the prince had not wielded the dagger himself. We know very little about what actually happened at the battle of Sauchieburn, as the clash was later named; reports that do exist are vague, and written many years after the event.

It seems that the royalist force was quickly overwhelmed, and that James III decided to flee. After his escape from the action, however, someone recognised the king and took their opportunity to kill him – though the specifics are unclear. The culprit took the secret to their grave, so what we’re left with is essentially rumour and speculation.

Enduring ambiguity

The earliest surviving account of the killing comes from the journal of an Englishman living in Dublin, which simply states that people spoke about the king of Scots being dead. It contains no information about how James III died, nor who – if anyone – was responsible. Such was the prevailing ambiguity, which continued for decades.

For the new king and his government, the killing of a monarch was not something to celebrate. At a parliament in October 1488, nearly four months after the battle of Sauchieburn, the first glimpses of a cover-up emerged. It was said that James III “happened to be slain” – a casual and equivocal phrase. The overall impression was that, though James IV was sad to see his father killed, everyone else just wanted to forget and move on.

There were some rumblings of disquiet about the episode. In January 1489, Alexander Gordon, eldest son of the Earl of Huntly, wrote to English king Henry VII, requesting help in challenging the new regime in Scotland and citing the “treasonable and cruel slaughter of my sovereign lord”.

He was not the only Scotsman seemingly appalled by the cold-blooded killing of an anointed king. At some point later in 1489, probably around Easter, Lord Forbes “carried the late king’s shirt, stained with blood, and torn with the marks of the wounds suspended upon a spear, through Aberdeen and the chief towns of the adjacent counties, and by public proclamation, called upon men to avenge the horrid deed”.

Because James III’s body had already been buried in the shirt he’d worn at his death, this could not have been the actual garment worn by the king on that fateful day – shirts and blood were both in plentiful supply, of course. But the item being carried through the streets acted as a powerful reminder of the crime.

As the year progressed, James III’s fate was weaponised in a war for public opinion that took place during a full-blown rebellion. This uprising had more to do with how James IV’s supporters had enriched themselves after Sauchieburn than with the former king’s death, but the erstwhile monarch’s uncertain fate was too good a smear to ignore.

On 12 September 1489, the rebels produced a manifesto noting four grievances, the first of which was that the “treasonable and vile persons” who killed James III had not been identified. The other complaints centred around the use of royal finances, how justice was administered, and the exaction of ransoms for those taken prisoner the previous year.

Continuing cover-up

The revolt ended with a negotiated settlement, but no real efforts were made to identify James III’s killer – to the chagrin of those protesting to his son, who wrote that the failure to bring to justice the late king’s killers was “to the perpetual defamation of our sovereign lord [James IV] and the whole realm [of Scotland]”. They did not name the killers, but hinted that various “partial persons” had been involved in a cover-up.

James IV later called a parliament to patch things up with those who rose up against him, and to try to bring back stability to his kingdom. Yet even among them there was no serious attempt to find the culprit. In reality, it was useful for the rebels to raise the late king’s fate to show how unjust the new regime was; once that purpose had been served, the matter was not raised again.

This outcome did not silence everyone, however. By 1492, the government was forced to act once again in response to “the heavy rumour and gossip of the people about the death and killing of our sovereign lord’s late father”. Anyone who came forward with information about the former king’s death would be granted 100 marks of land. Even though this was a substantial amount of land that could have been of lasting benefit to the informant and their heirs, no one ever claimed the reward.

James IV later called a parliament to patch things up with those who rose up against him, and to try to bring back stability to his kingdom. Yet even among them there was no serious attempt to find the culprit

Unsurprisingly, at that point James III’s fate stopped being a concern for James IV or his government, who had nothing to gain from uncovering the killer’s identity. The new king was generally more successful and popular than his father; often referred to as a “renaissance prince”, he combined an affable public image with sound financial management.

He did, though, make a fatal blunder in foreign policy. Some 25 years after his own father’s death, in late summer 1513, James IV took a Scottish army over the border into Northumberland, where it was met by English troops led by the Earl of Surrey. The ensuing battle of Flodden was a disaster for the Scots, many thousands of whom were slaughtered. Among the dead was James himself – the last king in the British Isles to die on the battlefield.

In the decades that followed, various writers began to embellish the story of James III’s murder – in particular, specifying the location of his death. In the 1530s, Adam Abell stated that James IV had evil counsel who ignored his orders not to harm his father, and that the king had been killed near a mill at Bannockburn.

Bishop John Lesley extended the story further, saying that certain “wicked men” who hated James III waited for him to flee the battle before slaying him at the mill. Giovanni Ferreri, a well-travelled Italian monk who spent time in Scotland, claimed that James III’s horse was spotted outside the mill while he was resting. The assassins, he said, had long held grudges against the king.

Eventually, two chronicles provided names. In his Historie, Robert Lindsay claimed that, having fallen off his horse, James III was escorted to the mill by the miller and his wife. When the king asked for a priest to hear his confession, he was stabbed to death by an assassin dressed as a cleric – a man said to be a servant of Andrew, 2nd Lord Gray, a rebel and long-standing opponent of James III.

When the king asked for a priest to hear his confession, he was stabbed to death by an assassin dressed as a cleric

George Buchanan, again writing in the mid-16th century, described James being pursued by three men: Patrick Gray, Andrew’s son; one ‘Stirling of Keir’; and a priest, Borthwick, who actually killed James and his companions.

One other candidate for the crime suggested recently by historians is William Hepburn, whose family supported Prince James in the rebellion. He was briefly mentioned in a few records early in James IV’s reign, but disappeared after a few months – perhaps because his presence at court would be an embarrassment to his family.

All of these men are plausible culprits, but nothing can be proved. We know that James III died after fleeing the battle, and that his son’s regime did not want to dwell too much on how he perished. The resulting conspiracy of silence allowed rumour and speculation to flourish, with various pet theories emerging.

In truth, everyone was glad to see the back of the little-loved monarch. Though they could not openly celebrate the killing of a king in cold blood, plenty of individuals would have happily shaken the culprit’s hand and thanked him for what he’d done. James III’s murder was too good a crime to warrant punishment.

Gordon McKelvie is senior lecturer in medieval history at the University of Winchester

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This article was first published in the Christmas 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine

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