The Earl of Arundel’s northeast Lordship around Oswestry and Clun submits in July.

The Lordships begin one by one to surrender.

Power in Scotland, after the death of the regent Douglas in 1439, and with a general lack of high-status earls because of deaths, forfeiture or youth, becomes shared uneasily between William, 1st Lord Crichton, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, and Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar, who has possession of the young king as the warden of the stronghold of Stirling Castle.

A dynastic feud now erupts over possession of the Scottish crown.

William Douglas, the eldest son of Archibald Douglas and Eupheme Graham, had become 6th Earl of Douglas on his father’s death and married Janet Lindsay, daughter of David Lindsay, 3rd Earl of Crawford.

Crichton and Livingston, together with James Douglas the Gross, Earl of Avondale, conspire to break the power of the late Earl's family, and in November 1440 summon William and his younger brother David to Edinburgh Castle.

The so-called 'Black Dinner' that ensues sees the two boys summarily beheaded on trumped up charges, in the presence of the young King.

The family estates are divided between Avondale, who is the son of the third earl (Archibald the Grim) and Margaret, the sixth earl's sister.

Commentators tend to place the blame for the Black Dinner at the feet of Crichton, Livingston and particularly Avondale, as Douglas's death brings him the earldom of Douglas (as 7th earl of Douglas), and the position of the most powerful magnate in Scotland.

The power of the Black Douglases, lost after the execution of the 6th Earl, has been restored by the 8th Earl, who has recovered the lordships of Wigtown, Wigtownshire, Galloway and Bothwell by marriage (by papal dispensation) to his cousin, Margaret Douglas, Fair Maid of Galloway (daughter of the 5th Earl).

He was soon high in favor with James II, and had procured the disgrace of Sir William Crichton, presumed murderer of his kinsman the 6th Earl, by an alliance with his rival, Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar.

James II had reached adulthood in 1449, yet in many ways his "active kingship" has differed little from his minority.

The Douglases had used his coming of age as a way to throw the Livingstons out of the shared government, as the young had king taken revenge for the brief arrest of his mother (a means to remove her from political influence) that had occurred in 1439.

Douglas and Crichton had continued to dominate political power, and the king's ability to rule without them remains arguably limited.

James has not acquiesced with this situation without argument, however, and between 1451 and 1455 he will struggle to free himself from the power of the Douglases.

James II had raided the Douglas lands in 1452 during the Earl’s absence on a pilgrimage to Rome.

Despite this, their relations seemed outwardly friendly.

However, in 1452, the king sends one of Douglas's friends, Sir William Lauder of Haltoun, with an invitation to Douglas to come to Stirling Castle under a safe-conduct, in itself, however, a proof of strained relations.

Jameson February 22 there demands the dissolution of a league into which Douglas has entered with Alexander Lindsay, the 'Tiger' earl of Crawford, and John of Islay.

Upon Douglas's refusal, the king murders him with his own hands, stabbing him twenty-sixtimes, and his body is thrown out of a window.

Since Douglas dies without issue, his titles pass to his brother James.

He denounces his brother's murderers and takes up arms against the king, and he and his brothers attack Stirling, driving a horse through the town with the safe conduct given to William attached to its tail.

He is forced to back down when some allies desert him.