#It just feels patently unrealistic when people portray Scotland as being full of people waiting to usurp the throne | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the-busy-ghost · 4 years ago

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Also in other news we now have confirmation over which Alexander Stewart that guy is meant to be and it IS the Duke of Albany’s half-brother. I mean it’s probably not worth pointing out that he was Albany’s OLDER brother so it’s a bit weird he looks much younger. And also it’s not really accurate that they portrayed him as having a lot of power during James IV’s reign, when I would describe his position as ‘poorer cousin being supported financially by the Crown’ at best- and he was never on the secret council in 1511.

Equally despite the propaganda that began circulating in the late 1510s and 1520s- in my opinion there is no real evidence that James V’s position as king was ever seriously threatened. The real thing is that, no matter what Albany or Angus or Arran or whoever may have wanted, it seems very unlikely that they would have actually been able to get away with a Princes in the Tower situation and I think they knew that.

#Like really #You're going to usurp a baby whose much-respected father just died in the worst military defeat in a hundred years #Also the main line Stewart dynasty for all its problems was not particularly vulnerable to that kind of intrigue in the early sixteenth cent #Only two kings had been 'removed' in the last two hundred years #One of them was murdered by a very small clique who were almost immediately hunted down by the rest of the political community #And the second either died in battle or was murdered by a few people afterwards #Although there was certainly opposition to James III the army that he faced was led by his own son #And it was his son who followed him onto the throne #Now James III did face opposition from his younger brother Alexander Duke of Albany in earlier years #But even then Albany was never able to make any of his bizarre attempts to become king stick #And James III was genuinely a bit of an incompetent king #So like it would have been fair if people wanted to get rid of him- even then though they stopped short of deposition when they could #James IV was not and his son was a baby so there it's not like anyone could really make the case that James V was a bad ruler yet #Scots were used to minorities- the real quarrel tended to lie in which party had control of the infant king #Not who was gunning to usurp him #Anyway that's my opinion; it's in line with most recent thinking on Scottish politics in the sixteenth century but you don't have to take it #It just feels patently unrealistic when people portray Scotland as being full of people waiting to usurp the throne #Rather than people desperate to gain control over the person who was actually sitting on it #It also comes down to a lot of different factors- Scotland was less centralised than England for example #So if the king was bad in England it caused Problems whereas in Scotland it was something people could work with until it got too much #It's just different systems- not necessarily better or worse just different- but we have a tendency to project ideas onto Scotland #that are influenced by our knowledge of England (which is also actually a legitimate frame for analysis sometimes)#Funnily enough folk in the sixteenth century sometimes did that too #Ok I'm getting off topic #Interesting way to take Alexander Stewart's character though; I'm a bit surprised they decided to give him so much screentime #Also John Duke of Albany was raised in France and didn't have much knowledge of Scotland either #His father (the abovementioned Duke Alexander) got himself killed in a tournament jousting against the future Louis XII #(Also fun fact - Catherine de Medici was Albany's niece)#Still with all the freaking tartan and 'clan warfare' nonsense though

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