wrote of the Scots as "his rebels of Scotland," and in the alternations of fortune between the Houses of York and Lancaster, James held with Henry VI.

When Henry was defeated and taken at Northampton (July 10, 1460), James besieged Roxburgh Castle, an English hold on the Border, and (August 3, 1460) was slain by the explosion of a great bombard.
James was but thirty years of age at his death.

By the dagger, by the law, and by the aid of the Red Douglases, he had ruined his most powerful nobles--and his own reputation.

His early training, like that of James VI., was received while he was in the hands of the most treacherous, bloody, and unscrupulous of mankind; later, he met them with their own weapons.

The foundation of the University of Glasgow (1451), and the building and endowment of St Salvator's College in St Andrews, by Bishop Kennedy, are the most permanent proofs of advancing culture in the reign of James.
Many laws of excellent tendency, including sumptuary laws, which suggest the existence of unexpected wealth and luxury, were passed; but such laws were never firmly and regularly enforced.