Early Life
James was son of King James IV of Scotland and his queen Margaret Tudor, a daughter of Henry VII of England, and was the only legitimate child of James IV to survive infancy. He was born on 10 April 1512, at Linlithgow Palace, Linlithgowshire and christened the next day, receiving the titles Duke of Rothesay and Prince and Grand Steward of Scotland. He became king at just seventeen months old when his father was killed at the Battle of Flodden Field on 9 September 1513.
James was crowned in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle on 21 September 1513. During his childhood, the country was ruled by regents, first by his mother, until she remarried the following year, and then by John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, who was next in line to the throne after James and his younger brother, the posthumously-born Alexander Stewart, Duke of Ross. Other regents included Robert Maxwell, 5th Lord Maxwell, a member of the Council of Regency who was also bestowed as Regent of Arran, the largest island in the Firth of Clyde. In February 1517, James came from Stirling to Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, but during an outbreak of plague in the city he was moved to the care of Antoine d'Arces at nearby rural Craigmillar Castle. At Stirling, the 10-year-old James had a guard of 20 footmen dressed in his colours, red and yellow. When he went to the park below the Castle, "by secret and in right fair and soft wedder (weather)," six horsemen would scour the countryside two miles roundabout for intruders. Poets wrote his own nursery rhymes, advising him on royal behaviour. William Stewart in his Princelie Majestie counselled against ice-skating:
To princes als it is ane vyce,To ryd or run over rakleslie,
Or aventure to go on yce,
An impression of the Scottish court at Holyroodhouse on All Saints' Day 1524 is given by a letter of an English diplomat, Thomas Magnus: "trumpets and shamulles did sounde and blewe up mooste pleasauntely." Magnus saw the young king singing, with his horses, and playing with a spear at Leith, and was given the impression that he preferred English manners over French fashions. In 1525, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, the young king's stepfather, took custody of James and held him as a virtual prisoner for three years, exercising power on his behalf. When James and his mother came to Edinburgh on 20 November 1526, she stayed in the chambers at Holyroodhouse which Albany had used, and James used the rooms above. In February 1527, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, gave James twenty hunting hounds and a huntsman. Magnus thought the Scottish servant sent to Sheriff Hutton Castle for the dogs was intended to note the form and fashion of the Duke's household, for emulation in Scotland. James finally escaped from Angus's care in 1528 and assumed the reins of government himself.
Read more about this topic: James V Of Scotland
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