As Jeroen Duindam has noted, ‘The princely court was first and foremost a group of persons around the ruler’. This chapter explores the relationship between the structure of the household outlined in the previous chapter and the day-to-day reality of the people who made up court. It should come as no surprise, of course, to find that the household, or at least parts of it, was at the heart of the court. However, the history of household offices in Scotland and elsewhere shows that there is not always a direct link between the holding of household office and the performance of service at court. Offices could change or lose their practical functions. For instance, until the reign of James I, the chief financial officer of the Scottish crown had been the chamberlain. During that reign the chamberlain's financial duties were divided between the comptroller and the treasurer, and the office of chamberlain continued, but without most of its former practical functions. Also, titles like esquire and knight of the household, based on evidence for the attendance of household knights elsewhere, do not allow us to simply assume that men holding them were in regular attendance at court. Similarly, the broad definitions of the household outlined in the previous chapter include many individuals or groups that do not seem likely to have been in permanent attendance on the king. The magnates amongst the lords temporal and spiritual had their own local affairs to run, for instance, and could not have spent all their time at court.

By exploring a wider range of source material, it is possible to find evidence about the activities of members of the household which sheds some light on the nature of the relationship between the court and the household, and between the structures of the household and the actual attendance and activities of its members. This chapter will focus on attendance and activities that had the primary purpose of serving the king, whereas other aspects of attendance and activity at court will be discussed further in the following chapter.