Unlike his uncle, Henry VIII, or his father-in-law, Francis I, James V of Scots has never had a reputation as a reader, book collector, or 'father of letters' .1 As his contemporaries saw it, James's chief interests (during the much briefer time of his reign) were less the 'clerkly' pursuits involving books than a variety of physical activities. Many of them were customary inclusions in the educational curriculum considered appropriate for royalty. Such were James's training in the martial arts (which, from the time he turned six, included riding practice, exercises with the sword, 'speris' [spears], 'culvering' [hand gun] and 'cors bow' [crossbow])2 and, later, his hunting and hawking.3 Others-those, for instance, glimpsed in the lines of some contemporary verses, where James is warned not to 'ryd orrin [run] ov[i]r rekleslie, I or slyde with ladis upoun the yce'4-are memorably unfitting to his position.
The University of Sydney acknowledges that its campuses and facilities sit on the ancestral lands of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples, who have for thousands of generations exchanged knowledge for the benefit of all.
Learn more