The Kingship of James IV of Scotland - 'The Glory of All Princely Governing'?
Norman Macdougall explores the vicissitudes of James IV's reign; although regarded as a paragon amongst Scottish kings, his downfall owed much to his failings.
Even if we take into account the tendency towards exaggeration of most, if not all, sixteenth-century Scottish writers, Sir David Lindsay's famous epithet about James IV appears more than fulsome in its praise of the ruler of a small, geographically remote, and economically poor European country. Obviously James IV cannot be compared in terms of power, wealth, and international importance with his contemporaries, Henry VII and Henry VIII of England, the Emperor Maximilian, or Louis XII of France. But Lindsay was writing in 1530, at the end of the longest and most factious royal minority in medieval Scottish history, and therefore at a time when the relatively well-ordered and peaceful years of James IV's reign – the period of Lindsay's own youth – must have seemed like a distant golden age, lost forever on one ghastly afternoon at Flodden. We may therefore allow Lindsay some poetic licence, the more so as his view of King James echoes those of contemporaries who knew the King well; and James IV's reputation as an outstanding ruler has stood the test of time, for he is widely regarded today as a paragon amongst medieval Scottish kings.
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