John Mosman (apothecary)

[1] Mosman worked for the households of James IV of Scotland and the queen consort Margaret Tudor supplying medicines and spices, herbal remedies, and providing treatments.

[6] Mosman supplied sweetened and spiced "Hippocras" wine at the Edinburgh wedding of James IV and Margaret Tudor at Holyrood Palace, at a cost of 18 Scottish shillings.

The English herald John Young, who wrote an account of her journey to Scotland, said there was "plenty of Ypocras", served in fellowship to the 41 men that James IV knighted for the queen.

[10] In August 1505 he helped to heal the arm of Elizabeth Barlay, an English lady in waiting to Margaret Tudor, who married Lord Elphinstone.

The others alchemists at Stirling were supervised by the Captain of the Castle Andrew Aytoun, and included Caldwell, Valentine McLellane,[15] and the Italian John Damian, who is known for his attempt at flying, the subject of a poem by William Dunbar, The Fenyeit Freir of Tungland.

[16] The "quintessence" was an imagined healing substance with some of the properties of distilled alcohol or aqua vitae, particularly associated with the 14th-century French alchemist Jean de Roquetaillade.

[17] James IV's furnaces may have been intended to represent an image of successful rule and well-being to the king's subjects, his command of supernatural and literal elemental force.