William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas

[http://www.thepeerage.com/p10920.htm#i109200] William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas was born circa 1424.2 He was the son of Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas and Lady Eupheme Graham.1 He married Janet Lindsay, daughter of Alexander Lindsay, 2nd Earl of Crawford and Marjorie Dunbar.3 He died on 24 November 1440 at Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, beheaded, without issue.3

    William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas succeeded to the title of Comte de Longueville on 26 June 1439.3 He succeeded to the title of Duc de Touraine on 26 June 1439.3 He succeeded to the title of 6th Earl of Douglas [S., 1358] on 26 June 1439.3 He has an extensive biographical entry in the Dictionary of Nationary Biography.4

Citations 1.[S6] G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume I, page 313. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage. 2.[S6] Cokayne, and others, The Complete Peerage, volume IV, page 437. 3.[S6] Cokayne, and others, The Complete Peerage, volume IV, page 435. 4.[S18] Matthew H.C.G., editor, Dictionary of National Biography on CD-ROM (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995). Hereinafter cited as Dictionary of National Biography.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Douglas,_6th_Earl_of_Douglas]

William Douglas (c. 1424 – 24 November 1440) was a short-lived Scottish Nobleman. He was Earl of Douglas and Wigtown, Lord of Galloway, Lord of Bothwell, Selkirk and Ettrick Forest, Eskdale, Lauderdale, and Annandale in Scotland, and de jure Duke of Touraine, Count of Longueville, and Sire of Dun-le-roi in France. He was the eldest son of Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas and Eupheme Graham.

He married Janet Lindsay, daughter of David Lindsay, 3rd Earl of Crawford, and succeeded to the earldom on the death of her father, who had served as regent of James II. Following Archibald Douglas's death, Sir William Crichton, Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar, and James Douglas, Earl of Avondale (William Douglas's great-uncle) shared power. Together they conspired to break the power of the late Archibald Douglas's family, and summoned William and his younger brother David to Edinburgh. The so-called 'Black Dinner' which followed saw the two boys summarily beheaded on trumped up charges, in the presence of the young King James II.

The lordships of Annandale and Bothwell fell to the crown; Galloway to Margaret Douglas (William Douglas's sister), and the Douglas lands and earldom passed to William's great-uncle James Douglas, the Earl of Avondale, who was accordingly seen later as the main perpetrator.

[edit] References This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. thepeerage.com