Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus (c. 1449October 1513), was a Scottish nobleman, peer, politician, and magnate. Tradition has accorded him the nickname Archibald 'Bell-the-Cat' due to his association with the 1482 rebellion against James III of Scotland. He became one of the most powerful nobleman in Scotland through his influential position on the Scottish Marches, and a willingness to be involved in multiple rebellions in the reigns of James III and James IV of Scotland. Parents and succession Archibald Douglas, eldest son of George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus, head of the Red Douglas line, was born at Tantallon Castle, East Lothian, around 1449. His mother was Isabella Sibbald, daughter of the Master of the Household of James II of Scotland. During the turbulent 1450s, when Archibald was growing up, his father came out in support of James II, thereby pitching himself against many of his own clan, and the Black Douglas line in particular, who were in rebellion against the king. He was also at the siege of Roxburgh in 1460. After the accidental death of the king during the siege, it was the earl, Archibald's father, who is said to have placed the crown on the new child king's head, reputedly declaring as he did so: "There! Now that I have set it upon your Grace's head, let me see who will be so bold as to move it." Archibald succeeded his father as fifth Earl of Angus about two years later, in 1462 or 1463, aged fourteen. Actions against James III In 1481, during a time of gathering war with England, Angus was appointed Warden of the East March by James III, but the following year took part in the surprise action against the king carried out by a league of Scottish nobles at Lauder on 22 July, 1482. This was at a moment when English forces had just invaded Scotland and the secretly disaffected nobles were ostensibly part of the army that James had mustered to repel the invasion. According to David Hume of Godscroft, writing in a later age, it was here that Archibald earned his nickname by offering to "bell the cat", initiating the action against the king's favourite, Thomas (or Robert) Cochrane, as a prelude to the arrest of the king. Angus is said to have begun the attack by seizing the gold chain from Cochrane's neck, then ordering him and others