Matters come to a head on February…

Matters come to a head on February 21, 1437, when a group of assassins led by Sir Robert Graham accosts the forty-three-year-old King James at the Dominican Friars Preachers Monastery in Perth.

He makes an unsuccessful attempt to escape his assailants through a sewer but, three days previously, he had had the other end of the drain blocked up because of its connection to the tennis court outside: balls were habitually lost in it.

Following the monarch’s murder, his seven-year-old son succeeds him as James II under a regency led by the lieutenant-general of the realm, Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas, a family notorious for its attempts to control the Scottish throne.

No general uprising follows the murder, and the king's widow quickly has the conspirators captured and put to death.

The following month sees a wave of executions of those who were alleged to have participated in the plot.

The authorities execute, among others, James's uncle, Walter Stewart, 1st Earl of Atholl, who had aspired to win the crown for himself, and Atholl's grandson, Robert Stewart, Master of Atholl—both of them descended from Robert II's second marriage.

Following the assassination of King James in 1437, Perth loses its centuries-long status as the Scottish capital.