The Edinburgh Centre for Legal History is
having an event to celebrate the publication of ‘Law, Lordship and Tenure: The
Fall of the Black Douglases’.
About the book
This book is a new interpretation of the fall of later medieval Scotland’s
greatest noble family, the Black Douglases, in 1455. The discussion reaches
back in time to over a century before, as the family began its rise to the
pinnacle of Scottish society. The killing of William eighth earl of Douglas by
King James II in 1452 receives particular attention, as also the way in which
he, his brother James (his successor as earl), and their predecessors exercised
their power and authority as earls and lords, and it is suggested that their
identifiable failings in this provide the key to understanding the catastrophe
that befell the family in 1455. The principal analytical tool is the law
relevant to these events and the specific meaning and significance of the
documents (which is often a legal question) that evidence them. It is argued
that this form of analysis is at least as relevant as any more political
approach and that ‘legal consciousness’ was a vital feature of Scottish noble
society.
About the authors
Alan Borthwick has been one of the archivist staff of the now National Records
of Scotland for over 30 years, and in that time has worked in a variety of
posts. He has been Head of the Private Records section since 2007. Alan was the
lead curator for the NRS exhibition in 2005 at the Scottish Parliament when the
Declaration of Arbroath was last publicly displayed. He was also lead curator
for the two exhibitions of the "Wallace document" of 1300, at the
Scottish Parliament (2012) and at Stirling Castle (2014). His PhD thesis, on
the reign of King James II (1437-1460), was completed in 1989. He also
contributed a number of articles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(2004). Other contributions include "Montrose v Dundee and the
Jurisdiction of Parliament and Council over Fee and Heritage in the
Mid-Fifteenth Century", Parliamentary History xv (1) (1996) 33-53 and
"An Addition to Scotia Pontifica", Innes Review xxxix (1) 61-64.
Hector MacQueen is Emeritus Professor of Private Law at the University of
Edinburgh Law School, having previously been a member of staff from 1979 to
2021. He has worked on various aspects of Scottish legal history, especially in
the medieval period, where his best-known work is Common Law and Feudal Society
in Medieval Scotland (1993; reissued 2016). He also writes about 'legal
nationalism' in Scotland and on the history of copyright. Hector is currently
Vice-President of the Stair Society, having previously been its Literary
Director 1999-2017. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, having been Vice-President (Humanities) of the latter
2008-2011. He is a Vice-President of the Scottish Text Society. He was awarded
a CBE in the 2019 Birthday Honours list. Alan and Hector have previously
co-authored a number of published articles, focussed mainly on mid-fifteenth
century litigation.
Event Link
Source: University
of Edinburgh
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