200
the reign of James 111. there were two or three
vessels called ?royal,? and among them often
appears the name of this famous Ydow Caravel,
latterly called Admiral Wood?s ship, as if it were
his own private, and at other times a royal, vessel.
The supposition has been that she belonged originally
to either Wood or Barton, who sold her
to King James.
Wood had been a faithful servant to the latter,
says Scotstarvit, and was knighted by him in 1482,
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH,
have taken place in r481. Prior to 1487 Sir
Andrew Wood is supposed to have relinquished
commerce for the king?s service, and to have
married a lady, Elizabeth Lundie (supposed to be
of the Balgonie family), by whom he had several
sons, two of whom became men of eminence in after
years.
Thus, from being a merchant skipper of North
Leith, he became an opulent and enterprising
trader by his own talent and the course of public
[Leith.
LEITH HARBOUR, 1829. (Afier Sk)hcrd.)
when there was granted to him (Alexander Duke
of Albany being then Lord High Admiral) a iach
of the estate of Largo to keep his ship in repair,
and on the tenure that he should be ready at the
call of the King to pilot and convey him and the
queen to the shrine and well of St. Adrian in the
Isle of May. James afterwards gave him the heritage
of the estate on which he had been born by
a charter under the Great Seal, which recites his
good service by sea and land. This was confirmed
by James IV. in 1497, with the addition that one
of his most eminent deeds of arms had been his
successful defence of the castle of Dumbarton
against the English navy, an exploit buried in
obscurity, and which Pidkerton suggests must
events, ??a brave warrior and skilful naval commander,?
says Tytler, ? an able financialist, intimately
acquainted with the management of commercial
transactions, and a stalwart feudal baron,
who, without abating anything of his pride or his
prerogative, refused not to adopt in the management
of his estates those improvements whose good
effects he had observed in his travels over various
parts of the continent?
He was blunt in manner yet honest of purpose,
and most loyal in heart to his royal master, lames
111. ; and when the troubles of the latter began
in his fierce war with the lawless, proud, and turbulent
Scottish barons-troubles that ended so tragically
after the temble battle of Sauchieburn in
