SIR ROBERT SIBBALD. 35 



dans. The business being concluded, Dr Sibbald 

 suggested, that as that was the first occasion on 

 which they had all met together, the meeting 

 might be improved for their general interest : was 

 it not possible to form a collegiate establishment, 

 not only to secure their own privileges, but to 

 resist the encroachments of these obnoxious apo- 

 thecaries ? The idea was favourably received, 

 and frequent meetings were subsequently held to 

 consider of the best mode of proceeding. 



No event could have happened more favour- 

 able to their views than the arrival of the Duke 

 of York at Holyrood, followed by Sir Charles 

 Scarborough, his majesty's principal physician 

 to whom they immediately applied, and wfw 

 promised to afford them every assistance both 

 with the King and the Duke. This high patron- 

 age alarmed the corporate bodies of the city, 

 who thought themselves likely to be aggrieved 

 by the new college ; and the magistrates, the 

 university, and the surgeon-apothecaries, all 

 strenuously opposed the design, together with 

 the bishops and many of the nobility. Sib- 

 bald's influence with the Earl of Perth, and 

 his brother, Lord Melfort, however, was the 

 means of winning over many of the nobility. He 

 also recovered a warrant, upon this subject, of 

 King James the Sixth, dated July 3, 1621, 

 directed to the Commissioners and Estates of 



