The Teenage King’s Historically Bad Sex Education

As James V came of age, his evil ex-stepfather and a counsel of unscrupulous gatekeepers hatched a scheme to keep him from power: distract him with an ungodly amount of intercourse.

Illustrations by Siobhán Gallagher | Edited by Farah Mohammed

It was around 1535, and 23-year-old King James V was engaged in a rap battle — or the 16th-century Scottish royal court equivalent of it. King James was in a public insult poetry battle with his lifelong tutor and companion, Sir David Lyndsay. James’s poem accused Lyndsay — a married man approximately 26 years his senior — of being impotent, while Lyndsay responded by roasting the king for his out-of-control sexual behavior: “Like a roaring bull, you rudely run and ride,” wrote Lyndsay, “constantly fucking like a raging fornicator.” (Yes, he really did publicly accuse his king of a furious amount of “fucking.” The original Middle Scots reads, “Ay fukkand lyke ane furious fornicatour.”)