On 11 June 1488 at Sauchieburn near Stirling King James III of Scotland and a group of his court did battle with another group of men from his court, the latter group including his elder son James and the earl of Angus. By nightfall James III ‘had happinit to be slain’, as the Scottish parliament delicately put it. His son was king, the earl of Angus was preparing to visit the treasury in Edinburgh Castle to count the rumoured vast riches there, and in England James III’s close supporter, John Ramsay, Lord Bothwell, would soon hear that he had forfeited his title and his life.
The news of all this would have taken some time to reach the southwest of Scotland and would presumably have been of only passing interest to the young Janet Kennedy. It should however have been of more than passing interest. Within nine years she was to leave her husband to become first the partner of the earl of Angus, then of James IV and finally of Lord Bothwell, by then called simply Sir John Ramsay of Trarinzean. The twentieth-century word ‘partner’ perhaps fits ill with the fifteenth century, or does it?
The purpose of this book is to look at the life of one woman and through her at the life of the women at the courts of James IV and James V, and especially to consider what was then understood by the concept of marriage. Whatever the word meant then, it did not mean in practice the lifelong commitment of one person solely to another. That would have been truly exceptional at the courts of James IV and James V. Scotland was however a Catholic country, and except in very specific circumstances divorce was not allowed. This life of Janet Kennedy and her com patriots will show how in fact divorce and exchange of partners was easy, common and accepted simply as normal. It is also perhaps illustrative of our knowledge of Scottish women in the Middle Ages that this is the first attempt to write a biography of a mediaeval Scottish woman who was neither a queen nor a saint.
Janet Kennedy was the daughter of John, second Lord Kennedy, and his second wife Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of the earl of Huntly and the widow of Nicholas, earl of Errol. The Kennedy lands and influence lay in the south-west of Scotland around their castle at Dunure. The Gordon family interests had already split into two separate areas of lands and influence, in the north-east and in the south-west of Scotland. The marriage of Elizabeth Gordon and John Kennedy took place before June 1471; the dates of the births of their children are, as is usually the case in the fifteenth century, unclear but Janet had at least four brothers and three sisters. Her eldest brother, or he may have been her half-brother, was David, third Lord Kennedy, who became earl of Cassillis in 1509; her other brothers were Alexander, John and William; her sisters were Elizabeth, Margaret and Helen.
Of Janet’s childhood nothing is known. She would probably have received little or no education. There is some small evidence that she could read but she probably could not write. There would have been little need for her to do so. No writings of Janet Kennedy now exist and in this she is similar to virtually all fifteenth-century Scottish women. Any biography of her must therefore rely on what can be gleaned from contemporary legal, financial and administrative records and from the letters and reports of male acquaintances. It is perhaps well, then, to keep in mind E. M. Forster’s comment in Howards End that we should always realise ‘the chaotic nature of our daily life, and its difference from the orderly sequence that has been fabricated by historians. Actual life is full of false clues and signposts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes.’
Janet Kennedy would have received some religious instruction but it must be remembered that the word of God was then a Latin word and printed vernacular versions of any religious work only became available in Scotland when she was an adult. Her religion therefore existed in a language she would not have been taught and could officially only be interpreted to her by men. She would have been taught to sew and she later became a skilled embroiderer. Her childhood would also have been brief: the normal age of marriage for girls in Scotland was then about twelve.
We can be certain of the teachings of the Church in Scotland about marriage at that time because of the survival of the lecture notes on marriage of William Hay, a native of Angus, who was lecturing at the new university of Aberdeen from 1500 onwards. Hay lectured in theology there for over thirty years and he is described by his twentieth-century translator and editor, Monsignor John Barry, as giving ‘the impression of a sympathetic character and a sound but interesting lecturer’. It is important that Hay’s lectures survive because the records of the ecclesiastical courts in Scotland which dealt with marriage and divorce during the life of Janet Kennedy have virtually all been destroyed.
William Hay had this to say to his students about the proper age for marriage: ‘it should be observed that if a girl contracts marriage … Before the age of twelve years and a male before the age of fourteen, the contract can be dissolved at the request of one or both parties, since the law favours them. For the age of marriage is not determined for its own sake, but also in relation to capacity for intercourse, the use of reason and ability to fulfil the duties of marriage, all of which usually develop at that age, and the law always provides for what usually happens. We say in particular that all these usually develop at that age because sometimes malice makes up for the lack of age, in the sense that in some cases the natural vigour and capacity for intercourse, as well as the use of reason, develops before puberty and the ages mentioned. Thus if a girl has successful intercourse with several men before her twelfth year, or a male has had relations with several women before his fourteenth year, if they freely contract marriage they should not be separated, provided they are not insane, and have the use of reason.’ Hay returned to the subject in a later lecture: ‘The age for contracting marriage is fourteen years in the male and twelve years in the female … The reason why the Church laid down these times in such early youth was in order to avoid fornication, to which the young are very much inclined, and so easily incited to lust, and also because the carnal appetites usually awaken about that age.’ Hay then continues in fine mediaeval fashion to give his sources from the Fathers of the Church and to explain why the Church and Aristotle have such conflicting views on the subject.
By 1492 plans were being made for the marriage of Janet Kennedy; it would thus seem she was born about 1479 or 1480. The custom then was for marriages to be arranged but not forced. Janet’s mother, Elizabeth Gordon, seems to have been in charge of the arrangements and indeed to have had doubts about her husband’s willingness to pay her daughter’s tocher or dowry. She therefore had the following document drawn up and copied into the protocol book of her notary, James Young, on 17 July 1492. James Young writes that John Lord Kennedy has signed the following document: ‘John Lord Kennedy has given to Sir John Kennedy of Twynam, two hundred merks for the utility and profit of Jane Kennedy, his daughter, in part payment of her tocher for marriage to be completed between Jane and Alexander Gordon, son and apparent heir of John Gordon of Lochinvar as is contained in the agreements already made, and agrees that the said Sir John Kennedy delivers the two hundred merks to John Gordon of Lochinvar if Alexander his son completes and fulfils marriage with Jane’. If Alexander does not complete marriage with Jane, John Lord Kennedy agrees that Sir John Kennedy of Twynam should deliver the two hundred merks to any other person that Jane ‘sall happin to mary be avise and sicht of frendis’. The notary, James Young, added that ‘Elizabeth, countess of Erole and lady Kennedy, mother of the said Jonet, asked the instrument’.
The document thus makes perfectly clear what was understood by everyone. Janet’s father would pay her tocher to her husband, a husband chosen by Janet, her family and friends. Janet could not make the choice by herself; nor could her family and friends make the choice without her agreement. The busy lawyer James Young was well aware of this; his protocol book contains the following entry on behalf of another family, the Ruthvens, two years later in June 1494: ‘William Lord Ruthven and his wife Isabella required Margaret their daughter to contract marriage, in the face of the Church, with John Oliphant, grandson of Laurence, Lord Oliphant, as Lord Ruthven and his wife had promised in agreements already made since John and Margaret were now of lawful age to contract matrimony. Margaret replied that she did not wish to marry John Oliphant and when her father asked for her reason she answered that she had no love (carnalem aff ectionem neque favorem) for John, as she had declared to her father and mother for the space of a year or more past. Lord Ruthven and his spouse protested that Margaret’s refusal should not prejudice them because they were not responsible for the failure to carry out the marriage but were ready to fulfil the agreement.’ Margaret got her way, later married Alexander, earl of Buchan, and presumably peace was restored to the Ruthven household.
Christiana Pennycuk was prepared to go even further than Margaret Ruthven. James Young recorded yet another instrument stating that Christiana declared that although a rumour had arisen that Edmund Rutherford had ravished her, yet he had not taken her by violence; he had often asked her in marriage from her father, her kindred and friends, and on their refusal to agree to the marriage, Christiana, for love and with a view to marriage, had agreed a place, day and time when he would come and take her away with the intention of making her his wife; Edmund, with some of his friends, came at the appointed time, and Christiana, of her own will, went with him and was lawfully betrothed to him.
Two hundred merks is the sum given as being part of Janet Kennedy’s tocher. The whole subject of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Scottish tochers and marriage contracts still merits more research but some tentative conclusions can already be drawn. Among the noble or rich families in Scotland at the time women’s tochers were usually made up of both lands and money. It is not yet possible to make generalisations about their overall value but some examples can put Janet’s tocher into some kind of context. In 1476 the tocher of Margaret Robertson of Strowan was worth five hundred merks, in 1517 the tocher of Katherine Adamson was worth seven hundred merks, in 1522 Elizabeth Haliburton’s tocher was worth three hundred and sixty merks, in 1526 Christian Kennedy’s tocher was worth two hundred merks, and in 1528 Margaret Erskine’s tocher was worth four hundred merks. In other words among women of the court three or four hundred merks would have been normal.
The matter of Janet’s tocher having been settled and her agreement presumably given, Elizabeth Gordon had yet another difficulty to overcome, a difficulty about which William Hay lectured at length in Aberdeen: the difficulty of the forbidden degrees of marriage. This difficulty much exercised the canon lawyers of Scotland and indeed the whole of Europe in the fifteenth century; the Scots laity however used the difficulty, as we shall see, as an opportunity. The problem began from the veto in Leviticus 18 on marriages between certain persons related by blood etc. By the thirteenth century in Scotland parties within the fourth degree of consanguinity were prohibited from marriage; canon law then ‘applied this extension of the notion of consanguinity under the name of affinity to the relatives of anyone with whom a person had full sexual relations whether in or out of marriage, freely or by force’ and a further leap was made when the doctrine was extended to forbid marriage between persons ‘spiritually’ related through the parent-like relationship between all those involved in the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and the recipient of the Sacrament. What this meant in practice in a small country like Scotland was that virtually everyone was related to everyone else within the forbidden degrees and therefore technically could not marry. As the life of Janet Kennedy will demonstrate, this allowed two things. Either a dispensation could be bought from Rome before the marriage or the whole thing could be conveniently ignored but then remembered if divorce was wanted by either party. A further option also existed, simply to ignore the Church’s tortured thinking altogether. The courts of James IV and James V used all these various options.
In the case of Janet’s marriage to Alexander Gordon the correct legal paths were followed, Alexander and Janet were related within the forbidden degrees and a dispensation had therefore to be sought from Rome. At Rome in May 1491 a dispensation was duly granted to Alexander Gordon and Janet Kennedy. The dispensation itself did not cost much but the expense of obtaining it would not have been negligible. However, the legal practicalities having been cleared up, the marriage probably followed in 1492.
Ishbel Barnes
View cart
