April 10th, 1512
King James V was born at Linlithgow Palace on 10 April 1512, son of King James IV and Margaret Tudor (daughter of King Henry VII of England). He was only 17 months old when his father, King James IV, was defeated by an English army at Flodden on September 9 1513. This was the heaviest defeat ever experienced by a Scottish army, with the slaughter of the King and the flower of Scottish nobility.
Despite being only an infant, he was crowned at Stirling Castle on 21 September 1513. So, yet again, Scotland was ruled by various regents and nobles, this time until the king was 15 years old. Initially, his mother acted as Regent, then the Duke of Albany and then a series of other nobles. For two years from 1626 James was a virtual prisoner of Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas, who proceeded to pack all the important government and church posts with his own relations. When James escaped, the Douglases were outlawed and their lands confiscated.
His education (and distrust of the nobility) led him to have sympathy for the common people and he wandered amongst them as the Gudeman of Ballengeich. But his treatment of the nobility caused him to be referred to by them as the Ill-Beloved.
