Sir William Alexander

Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, was a Scottish poet, courtier, and statesman born at the family estate of Menstrie, near Stirling, around 1580 (though biographer Dr. Charles Rogers conjecturally placed his birth in 1567). He was knighted by King James I in the early seventeenth century and was later created Earl of Stirling by King Charles I in 1633. Alexander spent much of his life in royal service and died in London on February 12, 1640, before being buried in the East Church of Stirling on April 12, 1640.

In the history of sacred music and Scottish hymnody, Alexander is chiefly remembered for his central role in completing the metrical Psalms attributed to King James I. Although published as the monarch's personal work, Bishop Williams of Lincoln noted in his funeral sermon for the king that James's own versification stopped at Psalm 31. Alexander undertook the primary share of translating the remaining psalms and revising the text, which Charles I attempted to enforce upon the Scottish Church between 1634 and 1637. A complete three-volume collection of his secular writings was published in Glasgow between 1870 and 1872 under the title The Poetical Works of Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling.