King's College is the first university in Aberdeen, the third in Scotland and the fifth in the British Isles.

William Elphinstone, the relatively newly appointed Bishop of Aberdeen, has petitioned Pope Alexander VI on behalf of King James IV to create the facility to cure the ignorance he has witnessed within his parish and in the north generally.

A papal bull is issued in February 1495 (1491 in the calendar of the day) founding the university; a royal charter later this year recognizes Aberdeen's status as equal to that of Scotland's two existing universities at Glasgow and St Andrews.

As a former professor at the University of Paris, Elphinstone models the university very much on the continental European tradition.

Hector Boece, a fellow professor at Paris, is awarded the status of first principal of the new institution.

The marriage of the young Earl of Angus to James IV's widow on August 6, 1514 does much to identify the Douglases with the English party in Scotland, as against the French party led by the Duke of Albany, and incidentally to determine the political career of his uncle Gavin.

During the first weeks of the queen's sorrow after the battle, Gavin, with one or two colleagues of the council, acts as personal adviser, and it may be taken for granted that he supports the pretensions of the young earl.

His own hopes of preferment have been strengthened by the death of many of the higher clergy at Flodden.

The first outcome for Gavin from the new family connection was his appointment to the Abbacy of Aberbrothwick by the Queen Regent, as Margaret Tudor was before her marriage, probably in June 1514.

Soon after the marriage of Angus to Margaret she nominates him Archbishop of St Andrews, in succession to William Elphinstone, archbishop-designate.

But John Hepburn, prior of St Andrews, having obtained the vote of the chapter, expels him, and is himself in turn expelled by Andrew Forman, Bishop of Moray, who has been nominated by the pope.

In the interval, Douglas's rights in Aberbrothwick have been transferred to James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, and he is now without title or temporality.

The breach between the Queen's party and Albany's has widened, and the queen's advisers have begun an intrigue with England, to the end that the royal widow and her young son should be removed to Henry's court.

In these deliberations Gavin Douglas takes an active part, and for this reason stimulates the opposition that successfully thwarts his preferment.