Some Letters of John of Lancaster as Warden of the East Marches Towards Scotland

At the time of the appointment, in 1404, of John of Lancaster, Henry IV's third surviving son, to the office of warden of the east marches towards Scotland, the affairs of the Scots border had been in a state of doubt and disorder ever since the fall of Richard II. The kingdom of Scotland in 1399 was nominally ruled by the degenerate Robert III, but the real power rested with his son Rothesay, who acted as guardian of the realm, and with his uncle, the duke of Albany, the chamberlain. From the earliest days of his rise to power, Henry IV of England began to negotiate for a truce with the Scots. There survives a letter from Robert III, dated 6 October, 1399, a week after Richard's abdication, addressed to Henry, duke of Lancaster, earl of Derby and seneschal of England, in which acknowledgment is made of the receipt of a request for continuance of the then ten-years-old truce. In his reply to Robert, by the grace of God king of Scotland, Henry was careful to indicate that by the same grace he was then king of England and France and lord of Ireland, and urged the arrangement of a general truce. But the Scots were in no mood for peaceful counsels, and they commenced a series of raids and ravagings into the northern counties. In parliament, in November, Henry declared he would lead an expedition to chastise them; but his hands were too full at that time to make such a course expedient or practicable, and he afterwards expressed himself as still willing to negotiate. At a great council in the following February he had to announce that the borders were still being ravaged by the Scots, and that no reply had yet been received from Robert III. But the question assumed a different aspect when, in the spring of 1400, George Dunbar, earl of the march of Scotland, alienated by Rothesay's breach of promise to his daughter, and by his marriage with a daughter of the earl of Douglas, deserted Robert, and allied himself with Henry of England. About the same time, too, the French and Scottish interests were prudently separated by the settlement of the problem of Richard's widow, Isabella, the daughter of the French king.