David Kennedy, 1st Earl of Cassilis

David Kennedy, 1st Earl of Cassilis, was a Scottish nobleman from the Kennedy family of Carrick. He served James IV and was raised to the earldom of Cassilis in the early sixteenth century.

Kennedy was killed with the king and many other Scottish nobles at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. His death linked the fortunes of the Cassilis family to one of the most destructive defeats in Scottish aristocratic history.

Nigel Tranter’s Flame for the Fire makes David Kennedy of Carrick a courtier drawn from local family concerns into the service and friendship of James IV. Royal favour gives him access and advancement, but the novel also uses Kennedy to show how proximity to an energetic and impulsive king could make private loyalties inseparable from diplomacy, war and the risks of the Scottish court.