Janet Kennedy - Mistress of King James IV

Recently I read the excellent 'Janet Kennedy,  Royal Mistress' by Ishbel Barnes.

As the history of the Kennedys has been a major obsession for some years I was delighted to find this book.  The book is filled with fascinating detail concerning Janet and her family,  and the people who were her lovers,  friends and occasionally - husbands...or maybe not.

Janet was daughter of John Lord Kennedy and Elizabeth Gordon.  She was born in the latter part of the 1470s into a family who were mad, bad, dangerous and fantastically powerful in the South West of Scotland as you will read in 'The Historie Of The Kennedies',  elsewhere in this blog.

By virtue of her good looks and noble birth,  Janet became doyen of the Scottish court.  She became the mistress of,  or married, Alexander Gordon (the difference was fairly moot in Scotland at the time),  then having given birth to a daughter Janet,  she graduated to become mistress of the immensely powerful Archibald Douglas,  Earl of Moray.

James III had recently been murdered and various figures in court were implicated, though nobody was convicted.  His young heir was crowned James IV and quickly became the Renaissance Monarch of Scotland,  a popular,  cultured king.  All concerning his father's violent demise was apparently forgotten.

Janet's brother David was made Earl of Cassilis in 1508 when he married Margaret Boyd,  daughter of the powerful Earl of Arran.  By this time she had become the pre-eminent mistress of King James IV who was about to marry Henry VIII's sister Margaret Tudor.

Although Douglas was an enemy of the king at this time,  Janet was not a party to the dispute and she continued to keep on good terms with him,  as she did with her first,  Alexander Gordon.

James had many mistresses as his accounts attest,  even including some rough denizens of the streets.  He was generous to Janet who was made mistress of Darnaway Castle in the North East of Scotland and a fabulous array of outfits,  hats and accoutrements.

Despite being married to Henry VIII's sister he could not resist the French invitation to launch an attack on the border near Berwick.  James was no general and fell along with 10,000 fellow Scots in the catastrophic defeat at Flodden. Scotland's renaissance came to an abrupt end.  James V,  his son, still a boy, was to prove to be a brutal and unimaginative ruler, by contrast with his father.

Janet's eldest son by James IV, James Stewart Earl of Moray became the close ally and right-hand man of James V,  infamously enforcing the mass extermination of Clan Chattan in the North East,  at other times working to arrange a suitable marriage for James.  The Earl was an immensely influential figure and never forgot his Kennedy roots,  being a friend of Hew Kennedy of Girvanmains,  a family allied to Bargany according to the 'Historie'.

Janet maintained the Kennedy tradition of having a dark side.  She later became mistress of a particularly shady figure at court,  John Ramsay of Trarinzcan.  He was one of those implicated in the murder of James III but managed to keep in favour with James IV and V.

Janet was a devout Catholic,  which will have caused her sadness in her later years as the Reformation broke up all the ancient abbeys and priories,  where she had been a generous supporter of the Church.  She even paid for prayers to be said for her former beau Archibald Douglas.

There is no sign of a will from Janet and her death date is not recorded,  though it seems to have been in the 1540s.  It seems she spent her declining years in comfort and remained on good terms with Margaret Tudor,  who like her managed to outlive nearly all of her many men.