Stirling, WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF, minor Scottish poet, a contemporary and dear friend of Drummond of Hawthornden, was born at Menstrie House near Alloa, most probably about 1567—hardly so late as 1580, the usual date formerly given. He studied at Glasgow and Leyden, travelled through France, Spain, and Italy with Archibald, seventh earl of Argyll, and began his career as a poet by publishing at Edinburgh, in 1603, his tragedy of Darius, quickly followed by Aurora, a collection of sonnets (Lond. 1604), Cræsus (together with Darius, 1604), the Alexandrian Tragedy (1605), and Julius Cæsar (1607). These were collected as The Monarchic Tragedies in 1607. He was knighted by 1609; in July 1613 was attached to the household of Prince Charles, as before he had been to Prince Henry's; in 1614 was made Master of Requests for Scotland, publishing the same year the first part of his great poem of Doomesday (second part, 1637), which extends to 11,000 verses, and which himself even allows in the dedication to be of 'too melancholic a nature for young minds.' He received in 1621 the grant of 'Nova Scotia'—a vast tract of Canada and the northern part of the modern United States—his charter being renewed in 1625; and in 1631 he received the patent of sole printer for thirty-one years of King James's version of the Psalms, a work to which he had contributed greatly, but which proved an utter failure. In 1626 he was made Secretary of State for Scotland, which office he held till his death, despite his unpopularity. Baillie writes of him as 'extremely hated of all the country, for his alleged bribery, urging of his psalms, and the books for them.' In 1627 he was made Keeper of the Signet, a Commissioner of Exchequer in 1628, and one of the Extraordinary Judges of the Court of Session in 1631. The French pushed their conquests in America, and Alexander's grant of lands thereby became useless. He was promised £10,000 compensation, but the money was never paid. In 1630 he was created Lord Alexander of Tullibody and Viscount Stirling. In 1633, at the crowning of Charles in Holyrood, he was made Earl of Stirling and Viscount Canada, in 1639 also Earl of Dovon, but he sank into insolvency, and died in London, 12th September 1640. His body was embalmed and buried at Stirling a few months later. The title died out with the fifth earl in 1739. His tragedies are not dramatic, but their quatrains are gracefully written, albeit the quantities are monstrous—witness Ixion, Nicænor, Orion, and Eumenes. The Parenesis to Prince Henry is perhaps his finest work; the songs, sonnets, elegies, and madrigals forming the Aurora are sadly marred by conceits, yet show rich fancy and ingenuity, though scarce even a Scotchman can claim for them that they sparkle still the right Promethean fire. These amatory poems the author did not include in his collected Recreations with the Muses (folio, 1637). A complete edition of his poems appeared at Glasgow, in 3 vols., in 1870.
See the Rev. Charles Rogers, Memorials of the Earl of Stirling and the House of Alexander (2 vols. 1877).