Looking out from my farmhouse window towards Castle Huntly, I find myself thinking about the past that sits so quietly in the landscape.

I’m drawn to the young King James VI of Scotland and his early closeness with Patrick Grey of Castle Huntly, one of those first friendships that history leaves partly in shadow.

Inspired by Gareth Russell’s Queen James, I began to imagine what it meant to grow up at court, where affection and influence were never far apart.

This poem is written from that place between the view I see every day, and the history it keeps bringing back to me.