son and heir, was able to return from temporary exile in France. Balliol finally resigned his claim to the throne to Edward in 1356, before retiring to Yorkshire, where he died in 1364. The Stewarts: Robert II to James IV After David II's death, Robert II, the first of the Stewart kings, came to the throne in 1371. He was followed in 1390 by his ailing son John, who took the regnal name Robert III. During Robert III's reign (1390–1406), actual power rested largely in the hands of his brother, Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany. After the suspicious death (possibly on the orders of the Duke of Albany) of his elder son, David, Duke of Rothesay in 1402, Robert, fearful for the safety of his younger son, the future James I, sent him to France in 1406. However, the English captured him en route and he spent the next 18 years as a prisoner held for ransom. As a result, after the death of Robert III, regents ruled Scotland: first, the Duke of Albany; and later his son Murdoch. When Scotland finally paid the ransom in 1424, James, aged 32, returned with his English bride determined to assert this authority. Several members of the Albany family were executed, and he succeeded in centralising control in the hands of the crown, but at the cost of increasingly unpopularity and he was assassinated in 1437. His son James II when he came of age in 1449, continued his father's policy of weakening the great noble families, most notably taking on the powerful Black Douglas family that had come to prominence at the time of Robert I. His attempt to take Roxburgh from the English in 1460 succeeded, but at the cost of his life as he was killed by an exploding artillery piece. His young son came to the throne as James III, resulting in another minority, with Robert, Lord Boyd emerging as the most important figure. In 1468 James married Margaret of Denmark, receiving the Orkney and the Shetland Islands in payment of her dowry. In 1469 the King asserted his control, executing members of the Boyd family and his brothers, Alexander, Duke of Albany and John, Earl of Mar, resulting in Albany leading an English backed invasion and becoming effective ruler. The English retreated, having taken Berwick for the last time in 1482, and James was able to regain power.