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JAMES I.
On March 28, 1424, James I.was released, on a ransom of 40,000 pounds, and after his marriage with Jane Beaufort, grand-daughter of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III.

The story of their wooing (of course in the allegorical manner of the age, and with poetical conventions in place of actual details) is told in James's poem, "The King's Quair," a beautiful composition in the school of Chaucer, of which literary scepticism has vainly tried to rob the royal author.

James was the ablest and not the most scrupulous of the Stuarts.

His captivity had given him an English education, a belief in order, and in English parliamentary methods, and a fiery determination to put down the oppression of the nobles.