In the first place, if it be not impossible, it may be looked upon as at least improbable, that a lad of twelve was given to James as an attendant, under the peculiar circumstances of his visit to Halyards. It is still less likely that, whether the will attributed to James V. be genuine, or fraudulent, as was afterwards maintained, such a mere child should figure amongst the witnesses to it, and should, as the document, under any circumstances, fully establishes, have been allowed to be present at the King’s last moments. Nor does it agree with the description of Lady Grange as ‘an ancient matron,’ that the eldest of her nine children should have been so young at the time. As we have already seen, it is mentioned by Melville that, as early as 1542, a younger brother, James Kirkcaldy, had obtained ‘the ward and marriage of Kellie in Angus,’ and that his father, the Treasurer, had ‘gone there to take possession thereof’ whilst the negotiations with Henry VIII. were still pending. The difficulty of believing that the betrothal of James Kirkcaldy--if, indeed, the passage do not actually refer, as some have thought, to his marriage--took place when he was at most but eleven years old, naturally suggests doubts as to the accuracy of the date assigned to his elder brother’s birth. Such early matrimonial engagements were not, it is true, unknown, or even uncommon, in those days; but that the intended bride, at least, was no longer in her girlhood may fairly be inferred from the details of the discreditable plot against the Treasurer, in which the Prior of Pittenweem made her play a part. All that can be ascertained with regard to Kirkcaldy’s education is supplied by a letter, in which Randolph, the English agent, writing to him, makes allusion to their early acquaintance, as students, in France, at the time that the University of Paris was presided over by the Cardinal of Lorraine. As Randolph was born in 1523, he would have been Kirkcaldy’s senior by seven years, a disparity of age which still further diminishes the plausibility of the theory that the latter was born in 1530. Yet another objection to it may be gathered from a passage in _Master Randolph’s Fantasy_, a poem recording the events of what is known as the Round About Raid, in 1566. Sir William Kirkcaldy is mentioned in it, amongst the rebellious nobles; and the special reference to his ‘horye head’ would unquestionably seem to imply that he was more than thirty-six years old at the time. Finally, it is known that Kirkcaldy’s only daughter, Janet, was married to the Laird of St Colme’s Inch at the beginning of the year 1561; and it is assuredly not easy to make that fact accord with the assumed date of her father’s birth.