Thus the Murrays had gained their object, so far. The family of Concraig was ruined. But they were foiled in their attempt upon the Stewardship. They had tried for that many ways. In 1441, Sir David Murray of Tullibardine had attempted "to wind himself once in possession of the Stewartrie" by proposing a marriage alliance between his daughter, Isabella, and Malcolm Drummond, son of Sir John. The scheme fell through somehow. Meantime, King James I. had put new life into the central governing body. Parliament was now waking up to a sense of its rights and duties. The actual reign of James I. only lasted for thirteen years (1424-1437), but he held no fewer than thirteen Parliaments during these years. It was his object to break the power of the nobles and local dignitaries. The unique position of the Earldom of Strathearn and the hereditary Stewardships which had grown up alongside of it attracted his attention. The Earldom was the only Palatinate within the bounds of Scotland; the only Earldom possessing Royal privileges. King James I. was a reformer of the "hot-haste" school. The execution of a plan of action followed hard upon the heels of the conception of it. An Act of his first Parliament directed an inquest to be made by the Sheriff--"what lands pertain to the King, or has pertained during the reign of the last three kings, and in whose hands they now are." In terms of this statute, King James I. resumed the Earldom of Strathearn on the ground that it was a male fee, and did not pass to the wife of Patrick Graham, the heir-female. This happened in 1436, and it cost the King his life the following year at the hands of Robert Graham, uncle and tutor of the young heir, Malise, who was still detained as a hostage in England in security for the payment of the King's ransom. But the impulse had been given; though dead, the reformer King still spoke to the nation, and in 1442 James II, and his Parliament declared that the Earldom had fallen to the Crown. In 1455 it was enacted that all regalities in the King's hands should be annexed to the royalty, and subject to the King's Court. This action in Scotland had the support of the Murray faction. They had come to see the futility of any attempt upon the Stewardship. In the year 1474--the very year in which Maurice Keir Drummond of Concraig had parted with lands and office to his kinsman, the Laird of Cargill--Sir William Murray of Tullibardine obtained from King James III. a discharge or dishonouration of the Seneschalship of Strathearn. The effect of this was that his person and his lands were emancipated from the jurisdiction of the Steward's Court. This example was followed by the Laird of Abercairny, who held a tack of the lands of Tullichettle, which Sir William Stirling of Keir, the granter, was called on to warrant. In 1483, the Laird of Abercairny, Humphrey Murray, appeared at the Stayt of Crieff and withdrew his suit--"_Levavit sectam suam de predicta curia_," which was transferred by Crown charter to the King's Sheriff Court at Perth. Thus terminated the jurisdiction of the Earls Palatine of Strathearn. It was followed up by a declaration of date 16th February, 1505, to the effect that "the Baroneys of new create and maid within the King's Earldom of Strathearn within thir three years bipast" were released of all service in the Steward Court of the King's Earldom of Strathearn. Such service was now due to the King's Sheriff Court of Perth "in all times to cum."