CHAPTER II THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCOTTISH POETRY THERE is no more brilliant period in the history of Scotland than the quarter of a century during which James IV. occupied the throne (1488-1513), and its splendour is but emphasised by the overwhelming nature of the catastrophe with which it terminated. In every department of national life substantial progress was made. Strenuous efforts were put forth to maintain law and order, and even in the highlands the power of the central authority made itself felt. The trade and commerce of the country expanded to an unprecedented extent, and the statute by which sub-infeudation was authorised, and so encouraged, marks an important stage in the transition from a purely military to a civil state of society. Arts and manufactures were diligently fostered, and the printing press was set up in Scotland for the first time by Chepman and Myllar in 1507 under the express authority of the Crown. Education became an object of solicitude to the governing I Ayala, the Spanish ambassador, reports in 1498 that Scotland is worth three times more now than formerly, on account of foreigners having come to the country and taught the people how to live. See The Days of James IV., ed. G. Gregory Smith, 1890, which furnishes a most useful bird's-eye view of the King's reign. classes; the King's College was founded in Aberdeen in 1495; and a significant enactment of the legislature provided for the eldest sons of all barons and freeholders of substance being sent to the grammar schools and thereafter to the schools of Art and Law in order that they might be qualified for the task of administering justice in after life. Some years later an attempt was made to counteract the influence of the barons as exercised in their own courts by the establishment of a permanent tribunal sitting continually in Edinburgh or elsewhere, but the successful accomplishment of this salutary design was deferred until 1532.3 While her domestic affairs were in this satisfactory train, Scotland had acquired an importance in the eyes of Europe to which she had hitherto been unaccustomed. Her ships, under captains like Sir Andrew Wood, held their own upon the seas even against the ships of England, and the foundations were laid of a maritime power which, but for the disaster of Flodden, might have attained formidable proportions. National defence on land was no less assiduously cared for. Pursuing its traditional policy, the Parliament endeavoured to secure that all men capable of bearing arms should, according to their rank and station, have arms to bear, and to that end enjoined "wapinschaws" to be held in each sheriffdom four times a year.4 Scotland, in short, took her place among the nations. of Europe, played her part in their high politics, and, in the words of Mr. Mackay, "became from a second- almost a first-class power."5 And in all this process of development there can be no doubt that the moving spirit was the King, though he was fortunate in at least one of his counsellors, the wise, public-spirited, and pious William Elphinstone, Bishop Act, 1496, c. 3 (1494, C. 54). 3 Act, 1532, c. 2 (1537, cc. 6 et seq.) 2 Act, 1503, c. 2 (58). 4 Act 1491, c. 13 (31 and 32). The same Act prohibited football, golf, or "other sic unprofitable sports," which were obviously serious competitors with archery. 3 Dic. Nat. Biog., art. James IV. of Aberdeen. Indomitable energy and unquenchable interest in everything around him were the keynotes of the sovereign's character, and in these respects he suggests a resemblance to one of his remote descendants. His intelligence was ever alert, and his mind receptive of new ideas. That he dabbled in alchemy and lent too ready an ear to quacks like John Damian, the Dousterswivel upon whom he conferred the Abbey of Tungland, and who was one of the objects of Dunbar's satire,1 means no more than that, in the language of our own day, he was keenly interested in the latest discoveries of science, and disposed to heap rewards upon inventors. To quote Mr. Mackay's admirable summary once more, "He was a wise legislator, an energetic administrator, and no unskilful diplomatist, a patron of learning, the Church, and the poor.": Had his impetuosity been tempered by calculation, all might have been well. But the situation in which he found himself placed was no easy one. To hold the balance equally between France and England, and to play off the one country against the other, were tasks which might have tried the coolest nerve, the most unwearying patience, and the steadiest hand. As it was, he precipitated his country and his people into an abyss from which they were not able to emerge, and then only after much suffering and humiliation, for more than two hundred years. 2 Such was the monarch to whose Court was attached, during almost the whole of his career, the poet who by common consent is justly regarded as the greatest of Burns's predecessors. William Dunbar 3 (1460?-1520?) was a native of East 1 Ane ballat of the fenyeit freir of Tungland. 2 Dic. Nat. Biog., art. James IV. We may compare Lyndsay's fine panegyric on James in the Papyngo, II. 486–506. 3 Poems, ed. Schipper, Vienna, 1891; ed. Small, Gregor, and Mackay, S. T. S., 3 vols., Edin., 1893: this latter a truly admirable edition and the one always cited here. See also Laing's edition, 2 vols. Edin., 1834. Reference may also be made to Schipper's William Dunbar, sein Leben und seine gedichte, Berlin, 1884. Lothian, and is conjectured to have been descended from the once powerful Earls of Dunbar, more than one of whom were celebrated for their defection from the national cause. It is not known where he was educated, but he is believed to be the William Dunbar who graduated Bachelor of Arts at St. Andrews in 1477, and Master in 1479. He certainly became a novice of the order of St. Francis, and in the capacity of a begging friar travelled over the whole of England "from Berwick to Kalice." "In freiris weid full fairly haif I fleichit, Throw Picardy, and thair the people teichit." 2 But the experiment was apparently not a success. The vision of St. Francis which appeared to him exhorting him to become a monk, turned out to be that of a fiend in the likeness of a friar, and vanished away "with stynk and fyrie smowk." Henceforth Dunbar abandoned all thought of the cowl, and he joined the ranks of the secular clergy with tolerable prospects of preferment. It is conjectured that he acted as Secretary to an Embassy from the Scottish Court to that of France in 1491, and in 1500, as appears from the Lord High Treasurer's accounts, the King bestowed upon him a pension of £10, which was raised to £20 in 1507, and to £80 in 1510. In short, he seems to have been emphatically bien vu in the highest quarters. But he never obtained the bishopric which his nurse had predicted for him as he lay on her knee,3 and which he suggested to St Francis as a preferable alternative to the Walter Kennedy facetiously avers that the first Dunbar was "generit betuix ane sche beir and a deill." He adds that the name was originally Dewlbeir, not Dunbar, a sufficiently far-fetched and feeble pun. See The Flyting, 11. p. 257 et seq. Ed. S. T. S. ut sup., ii. p. 132, ll. 35-40. 3 Ibid., ii. p. 106, 1. 62. D friar's habit. He did not even obtain a benefice, and he had the mortification of seeing himself outstripped in the race by persons of birth and breeding inferior to his own-" upolandis Michell," who has "twa curis or thre," or "Jok that wes wont to keip the stirkis," and can now "draw him ane cleik of kirkis." 2 It was not for want of pressing his claims upon the King and Queen that Dunbar was baulked of his reward; for I confess myself unable to concur in the ingenious view, propounded by Mr. Gregory Smith,3 that Dunbar wrote all his petitions and complaints "with his tongue in his cheek.” It is true that he sometimes pleads his cause with a well contrived semblance of jocularity. But even in the Petition of the Gray Horse, Auld Dunbar, and God gif ye war Johne Thomsounis man-much more in poems such as Dunbar's Complaint, Dunbar's Remonstrance to the King, and of the Warldis Instabilitie-I cannot help thinking that we catch the tones of anxious sincerity, and that Dunbar really "means business "though doubtless the form in which he gives vent to his aspirations is conventional enough. Despite, then, an importunity by no means maladroit, he was doomed to remain on at Court; and the demoralising effect which the attitude of expecting "something to turn up" almost invariably produces in such circumstances is, I venture to think, palpable enough in his writings. Dunbar was a member of the Embassy sent by James to England in 1501 to negotiate his marriage with Margaret Tudor. On this occasion, he composed a poem in the literary dialect of England in honour of London, which is as handsome a compliment as was ever paid by rhymer to a great city, and for which he received a gratuity of £6 13s. 4d. from Henry VII. Here are two stanzas : Ed. S. T. S., ii. p. 132, 1. 24. 2 Ibid., ii. p. 106, 11. 66 et seq. 3 The Transition Period (in Periods of European Literature), p. 55. |