=3. Murder of James.=--The policy of James was to reduce the power of the baronage, and to balance it by strengthening the clergy and encouraging the commons. He made strict search into the titles by which the several nobles held their lands, and more especially into the actual state of the estates which had been held by the Crown in the time of Robert the First. He deprived the Earl of March of his earldom, on the ground that Albany, who had restored it to him, had not the power to confer upon him the estates which he had once forfeited by the transfer of his allegiance to England. James also took from _Malise Grahame_ his earldom of _Strathearn_, which he had inherited through his mother, on the ground that it was a male fief. He therefore transferred it to the next male heir, _Walter Stewart, Earl of Athole_, grand-uncle of Grahame, the only surviving son of Robert the Second. These measures roused the dislike and distrust of the class they were aimed at, and a conspiracy was formed against the King. At its head was _Sir Robert Grahame_, uncle of Malise, who had been banished for denouncing the King's doings in Parliament. Through the connivance of the Earl of Athole, the High Chamberlain, the conspirators got entrance to the King's quarters, when he was keeping his Christmas in the monastery of the _Black Friars_ at _Perth_, and there they treacherously murdered him, 1436. James left one son and five daughters. _Margaret_, the eldest, was married to the _Dauphin_, afterwards _Louis the Eleventh of France_.