ABSTRACT
Charles’s entry into this world was far less noteworthy than the manner in which he left it. He was born shortly after midday on Wednesday, 19 November 1600, in Dunfermline castle, the second son and third surviving child of Anne of Denmark and James VI of Scotland. Although the birth was a difficult one, the midwife, Janet Kinlock, being amply rewarded for her services, the boy’s father was not pacing anxiously up and down outside the delivery room, but was, instead, a day’s ride away in Edinburgh supervising the distribution of the remains of the Gowrie brothers, who had been hung, drawn and quartered for treason. Even though Dunfermline was her favourite castle, the surrounding countryside reminding the queen of her native land, Charles’s birth did not bring his mother and father closer together, their marriage having long since gone sour. No outburst of popular rejoicing welcomed the baby into this world, only the official three-gun salute from Edinburgh castle. No bonfires were lit in Edinburgh town, no Latin paeans came from the dons at St Andrews, not a dram recorded tippled to wet the bairn’s head in the Highlands, not a kirk bell tolled. In fact the only man who bothered to record the exact moment of the baby’s birth was an unknown astrologer, who fearing perhaps that the conjunction of the planets or else the expectations from a second son promised so little, did not bother to continue to cast Charles’s fortune. 1
