English victory at Homildon was merely to create a new difficulty for Henry IV.  The sudden nature of the Percy revolt is indicated by the fact that, when Albany marched to relieve a Scottish stronghold which they were besieging, he found that the enemy had entered into an alliance with the House of Douglas, their ancient foes, and were turning their arms against the English king.  Percy and Douglas fought together at Shrewsbury, while the Earl of March was in the ranks of King Henry.

The battle of Shrewsbury was fought in July, 1403.  In 1405, Northumberland, a traitor for a second time, took refuge in Scotland, and received a dubious protection from Albany, who was ready to sell him should any opportunity arise.  A truce which had been arranged between Scotland and England expired in April, 1405, and the two countries were technically in a state of war, although there were no great military operations in progress.[53] In the spring of 1406, Albany sent the heir to the Scottish throne, Prince James, to be educated in France.  The vessel in which he sailed was captured by the English off Flamborough Head, and the prince was taken to Henry IV.  It has been a tradition in Scotland that James was captured in time of truce, and Wyntoun uses the incident to point a moral with regard to the natural deceitfulness of the English heart: 

  “It is of English nationn
   The common kent conditionn
   Of Truth the virtue to forget,
   When they do them on winning set,
   And of good faith reckless to be
   When they do their advantage see.”

But it would seem clear that the truce had expired, and that the English king was bound to no treaty of peace.  His son’s capture was immediately followed by the death of King Robert III, who sank, broken-hearted, into the grave.  Albany continued to rule, and maintained a series of truces with England till his death in 1420.  The peace was occasionally broken in intervals of truce, and the advantage was usually on the side of the Scots.  In 1409 the Earl of March returned to his allegiance and received back his estates.  In the same year his son recovered Fast Castle (on St. Abb’s Head), and the Scots also recovered Jedburgh.

Albany’s attention was now diverted by a danger threatened by the Highland portion of the kingdom.  Scotland, south of Forth and Clyde, along with the east coast up to the Moray Firth, had been rapidly affected by the English, French, and Norman influences, of which we have spoken.  The inhabitants of the more remote Highland districts and of the western isles had remained uncorrupted by civilization of any kind, and ever since the reign of Malcolm Canmore there had been a militant reaction against the changes of St. Margaret and David I; from the eleventh century to the thirteenth, the Scottish kings were scarcely ever free from Celtic pretenders and Celtic revolts.[54] The inhabitants of the west coast and of the isles were very largely of Scandinavian blood, and it was