SIR ROBERT SIBBAED. 
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 who 
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 Janies the Sixth, dated July 3, 1621, 
directed to the Commissioners and Estates of 
