Joan Beaufort

Scottish king James I is generally considered to be the author of The Kingis Quair ("The King's Book"), a long poem about his captivity and about his romance with Joan Beaufort.

Scotland’s King James I, still captive at the English court, marries Joan Beaufort, a cousin of the late Henry V of England, on February 12, 1424, at St Mary Overie Church in Southwark.

They are feasted at Winchester Palace this year by her uncle Cardinal Henry Beaufort.

James had met Joan, a daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, and Margaret Holland, and a half-niece of King Henry IV of England, during his time as a prisoner in England and has known her from at least 1420.

She is said to have been the inspiration for James's famous long poem, The Kingis Quair, written during his captivity after he saw her from his window in the garden.

However, the marriage is at least partially political as their marriage is part of the agreement for his release from captivity, and from an English perspective an alliance with the Beauforts is meant to establish his country's alliance with the English, rather than the French.

Negotiations results in Joan's dowry of ten thousand marks being subtracted from his substantial ransom.

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.