The palace at Stirling Castle, c 1538–40, the culmination of the architectural (?) career of Sir James Hamilton of Finnart, c. 1495–1540, was the most arresting achievement of the architectural patronage of King James V. Until James V had begotten an heir, the Earl of Arran, head of the Hamilton family, stood to inherit the Scottish crown and Finnart was Arran’s elder, but illegitimate, half-brother. During his brother’s minority, from 1529 to 1539, Finnart — ‘the bastard of Arran’ as he was known — was head of the house of Hamilton, one of the country’s elite, and familiar with the king. Curiously, he also displayed an unwonted interest in, and capability for, construction much remarked by his contemporaries. Of his buildings, the Palace at Stirling (Fig. 1) occupies a particular place, since this elaborate and expensive royal lodging may have been built at his own, rather than royal, expense, and gifted to his king in return for the formal grant of his enormous free barony of Avendale, and for legitimization (see below). It was a high price to pay for bastardy.