Opposition: Good Sir James of Douglas

While Sir William Wallace and Robert (the) Bruce are household names for anyone of Scottish ancestry, there was another Scottish leader who struck terror into the hearts of Englishmen during the Scottish Wars of Independence.  Sir James of Douglas (c 1289-1330), called Good Sir James, or The Black Douglas.  Black, in this case, not referring to complexion or skin color, but of his fearsome reputation in battle and it was well deserved.

James of Douglas was born in Lanarkshire, the son of Sir William Douglas and Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of Alexander Stewart, High Steward of Scotland.  Sir William was a supported of William Wallace and would die in the Tower of London for his loyalty to Scotland's cause.  James was sent to France for safety but later returned to Scotland to take up the fight where his father left off.  Because his ancestral lands had been confiscated by the English, he had to make his own way in the world.  He had nothing to lose by throwing in his lot with Bruce.  The two men soon came to be more than commander and lieutenant, but also firm friends.  Douglas would go wherever Bruce needed him and Bruce could count implicitly on Douglas's loyalty, something that couldn't always be said for some of Scotland's nobles at the time.

There are numerous escapades associated with James of Douglas, who soon gained a reputation as a guerilla fighter who was liable to be anywhere and everywhere when the English least expected.  In 1307, Douglas decided to reclaim his own ancestral seat of Douglas Castle, which contained an English garrison at the time.  With local support, Douglas and his men were able to sneak into the castle and ambush the garrison.  Then, knowing that he likely couldn't hold the castle against the inevitable retaliation by the English, Douglas decided to deny his enemy the benefit of his home.  The foodstuffs for the garrison were piled together in the cellar, the headless corpses of his enemies piled on top of them, and their wine casks burst and drained over the mess for fuel.  Douglas lit the bonfire himself.  The episode became known as the Douglas Larder and served notice to the English that they had something worse than Bruce or Wallace on their hands.

In 1314, while the garrison of Roxburghe Castle were celebrating Lent, Douglas and his men drew their cloaks around themselves and snuck close to the castle walls, letting themselves up with ropes.  A woman sat on the battlements, rocking her baby with the lullaby, "don't fret ye, little pet ye, the Black Douglas shall not get ye."  Someone stepped from the shadows and clamped a gloved hand on her shoulder.  She looked up into a strange and terrifying face.  "Don't be so sure of that!" Douglas told her.  He spared her, but took the castle by storm and killed the defenders of the garrison.  Douglas was present at the Battle of Bannockburn, commanding the left wing of Bruce's army.  He requested and was given the honor of pursuing Edward II and his fleeing knights who, "didn't have time to make water" and had to scurry to Dunbar castle to get away from Douglas' vengeful pursuit.  Hopefully, they found a loo somewhere. 

Bannockburn didn't end the enmity between the English and Scots, far from it.  With Edward II's army in shambles, Douglas was free to wreak havoc on the borders of England, which he did until he joined Bruce's invasion of Ireland and struck terror into the English occupational forces there.  His military successes in Ireland confounded the English and further endeared him to Bruce, who decreed that James of Douglas would be the guardian of his son if Bruce died in battle.  He captured Berwick from the English in 1318.  In 1327, he nearly captured the young King Edward III in a daring night-time raid that got as far as the royal tent in the center of Edward's camp before his forces were able to rally around and beat Douglas back.  He and Bruce would have only two years more of adventures before Bruce died of the skin disease that had been ravaging him the last years of his life.  His dream, once Scotland was secure, was to go to the Holy Land, or at very least fight the Saracens somewhere.  He asked James of Douglas to take his heart on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to carry the fight to the Saracens on his behalf.

Douglas went to Spain, where Alfonso XI of Castile was fighting a campaign against the Moors of Granada.  He was with Alfonso's forces when they besieged the Castle of Teba.  When the ruler of Granada marched to relieve the castle, Douglas was one of those who went out to do battle.  Though sources differ as to what exactly happened, the bottom line was that Douglas, ever impetuous in battle, got too far ahead of the rest of his men and was surrounded.  Knowing he was at the end of his glory days, Douglas fought to the last.  Legend, though unsubstantiated by contemporary evidence, has him throwing the heart it its case ahead of him and charging after it, crying out that wherever Bruce led, Douglas would follow or die.  However he died, or whatever he said or did, his body and the heart were recovered and returned to Scotland.  Bruce was buried in St. Bride's Church, where his ruined effigy rests today.  The heart of Bruce was buried in its case in Melrose Abbey.  Sir James' arms were a white field with three stars on a stripe of blue.  Later descendants bore the red heart, or a crowned heart, in commemoration of his final errand with Bruce's heart.  This became the arms of most branches of Clan Douglas to this day.