The Dictionary of National Biography, From Earliest Times to
1900, volume II, Edited by Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sydney
Lee, 1964, pages 1003 to 1004
"Robert Boyd, Scotch
statesman was created a peer of parliament by King James Stewart
II by the title of Lord Boyd,
and took his seat on 18 July 1454. In 1460 he was appointed one
of the regents during the
minority of the young king, James III. In 1464 (11 April) he was
joined with the Bishop of
Glasgow, the Abbot of Holyrood, his brother, Sir Alexander Boyd of
Duncole, and three others,
in a commission to negotiate a truce with Edward IV. In 1466 he
obtained the appointment of
his brother, Sir Alexander, as instructor to the young king in
knightly exercises, and conspired
with him to obtain entire control of the affairs of the kingdom.
To this end they, in defiance
of the protests of Lord Kennedy, one of their co-regents, took
possession of the person of
the king, and carried him from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, where, in a
parliament summoned (9 October),
a public expression of approval of their conduct was obtained
from the king, and an act
was passed constituting Boyd sole governor of the realm. He now
governed autocratically, but
he appears by no means to have abused his power. On the contrary,
some of the measures which
he introduced must have been eminently salutary. Commendams were
abolished, and religious foundations
which had deviated from their original purposes were
reformed. He also passed
enactments designed to promote the interests of the mercantile and
shipping community, prohibiting
the freighting of ships without a charter-party by subjects of
the king, whether within the
realm or without it, and also fostering the importation and
discouraging the exportation
of bullion. He negotiated a marriage between the king and Margaret,
only
daughter of Christian, king
of Norway, thereby obtaining the cession of Orkney (8 Sept. 1468)
and
the formal release of the
annual tribute of 100 marks, which was still nominally payable to
the king of Norway, in the
church of St. Magnus, Kirkwall, though it had long ceased to be paid.
On
25 August 1467 he obtained
for himself the office of great chamberlain for life, while his
eldest son, Thomas (by Mariota,
daughter of Sir Robert Maxwell of Calderwood) was created
Earl of Arran and Baron of
Kilmarnock, and married to the king's elder sister, the Lady
Mary. This last step
was more than the jealousy of the Scotch nobles could endure, and
they
determined to strike a blow
at the supremacy of the Boyds. Accordingly, in November 1469, Lord
Robert and his brother were
arraigned before the parliament on a charge of treason based
on their conduct of three
years previously in laying hands on the person of the king. They
were found guilty and sentenced
to death (22 Nov.). Boyd, however, anticipating the issue of
the trial, fled to Alnwick
in Northumberland, where he soon afterwards died. His brother
was detained in Scotland by
illness, and lost his head on the Castle Hill.
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