Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany and younger brother of Scotland’s King James III, covets his brother’s throne and plots with king Edward IV of England to seize it.

Archibald “Red” Douglas joins Albany, who James arrests and imprisons in 1479; Albany escapes, fleeing to France.

The rebellious Duke of Albany, having moved from France to take refuge in England in 1482, leads an invading English army into Scotland, where he is joined by Archibald “Red” Douglas and other nobles.

Albany captures his brother, King James III of Scotland, at Lauder, where Douglas humiliates James by hanging his favorites from a bridge and ordering him home to Edinburgh.

The unpopular James remains king, but Douglas, with Albany, actually rules the country.

The English invaders, before departing the country in 1482, recapture Berwick, lost in the Scottish War of 1314-18.

Conspirators directed by Douglas in 1488 capture James’ fifteen-year-old son.

After James attempts, unsuccessfully, to come to terms with the conspirators, he flees to Stirling, where the keeper of the castle refuses, treasonously, to grant his monarch admission.

James then faces the conspirators’ army at Suachie Burn, where, injured by a fall from his horse, James is stabbed to death by an unknown assailant.

His grieving son is released and crowned James IV, with Douglas named as regent.

The Douglas family assumes a pivotal role in Scotland’s public affairs during the minority of James V. Three weeks after the Battle of Flodden, Gavin Douglas, still Provost of St Giles, had been admitted a burgess of Edinburgh.

His father, the "Great Earl," is the civil provost of the capital.

The Scottish nation is beginning its painful recovery, and Angus has won appointment as one of the councilors of Margaret Tudor the queen regent; but he dies soon afterwards at the end of October 1513 in Wigtownshire, where he had gone as justiciar.

His two eldest sons having perished on Flodden Field, the succession falls to Gavin's nephew, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus.