William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas

For other people named William Douglas, see William Douglas (disambiguation).

William Douglas
Earl of Douglas
Arms of the 6th Earl of Douglas
Titles	Duke of Touraine(de jure) Earl of Wigtown Lord of Galloway Lord of Bothwell, Selkirk and Ettrick Forest, Eskdale, Lauderdale, Liddesdale and Annandale Count of Longueville (de jure) Seigneur de Dun-le-Roi (de jure)
Born	1424
Birthplace	Scotland
Died	1440
Place of death	murdered at Edinburgh Castle
Buried	St Bride's Kirk Douglas, South Lanarkshire, 1440
Predecessor	Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas
Successor	James Douglas, 7th Earl of Douglas
Dynasty	Douglas
Father	Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas
Mother	Euphemia Graham

William Douglas (c. 1424 – 24 November 1440) was a short-lived Scottish Nobleman. He was Earl of Douglas and Wigtown, Lord of Galloway, Lord of Bothwell, Selkirk and Ettrick Forest, Eskdale, Lauderdale, and Annandale in Scotland, and de jure Duke of Touraine, Count of Longueville, and Sire of Dun-le-roi in France. He was the eldest son of Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas and Eupheme Graham.

He married Janet Lindsay, daughter of David Lindsay, 3rd Earl of Crawford, and succeeded to the earldom on the death of her father, who had served as regent of James II. Following Archibald Douglas's death, Sir William Crichton, Sir Alexander Livingston of Callendar, and James Douglas, Earl of Avondale (William Douglas's great-uncle) shared power. Together they conspired to break the power of the late Archibald Douglas's family, and summoned William and his younger brother David to Edinburgh. The so-called 'Black Dinner' which followed saw the two boys summarily beheaded on trumped up charges, in the presence of the young King James II.

The lordships of Annandale and Bothwell fell to the crown; Galloway to Margaret Douglas (William Douglas's sister), and the Douglas lands and earldom passed to William's great-uncle James Douglas, the Earl of Avondale, who was accordingly seen later as the main perpetrator.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• thepeerage.com

Peerage of Scotland
Preceded by Archibald Douglas	Earl of Douglas 1439–1440	Succeeded by James Douglas