The troublous reign of James I gave him but little time for conducting a foreign war, and the truce which was made when the king was ransomed continued till 1433.  It had been suggested that the peace between England and Scotland should extend to the Scottish troops serving in France, but no such clause was inserted in the actual arrangement made, and it is almost certain that James could not have enforced it, even had he wished to do so.  He gave, however, no indication of holding lightly the ties that bound Scotland to France, and, in 1428, agreed to the marriage of his infant daughter, Margaret, to the dauphin.  Meanwhile, the Scottish levies had been taking their full share in the struggle for freedom in which France was engaged.  At Crevant, near Auxerre, in July, 1423, the Earl of Buchan, now Constable of France, was defeated by Salisbury, and, thirteen months later, Buchan and the Earl of Douglas (Duke of Touraine) fell on the disastrous field of Verneuil.  At the Battle of the Herrings (an attack upon a French convoy carrying Lenten food to the besiegers of Orleans, made near Janville, in February, 1429), the Scots, under the new constable, Sir John Stewart of Darnley, committed the old error of Halidon and Homildon, and their impetuous valour could not avail against the English archers.  They shared in the victory of Pathay, gained by the Maid of Orleans in June 1429, almost on the anniversary of Bannockburn, and they continued to follow the Maid through the last fateful months of her warfare.  So great a part had Scotsmen taken in the French wars that, on the expiry of the truce in 1433, the English offered to restore not only Roxburgh but also Berwick to Scotland.  But the French alliance was destined to endure for more than another century, and James declined, thus bringing about a slight resuscitation of warlike operations.  The Scots won a victory at Piperden, near Berwick, in 1435 or 1436, and in the summer of 1436, when the Princess Margaret was on her way to France to enter into her ill-starred union with the dauphin, the English made an attempt to take her captive.  James replied by an attempt upon Roxburgh, but gave it up without having accomplished anything, and returned to spend his last Christmas at Perth.  His twelve years in Scotland had been mainly occupied in attempts to reduce his rebellious subjects, especially in the Highlands, to obedience and loyalty, and he had roused much implacable resentment.  So the poet-king was murdered at Perth in February, 1436-37, and his English widow was left to guard her son, the child sovereign, now in his seventh year.  It was probably under her influence that a truce of nine years was made.