'Shall cause me stand content
With quiet life and sober rent,
And take me, in my latter age,
Unto my simple hermitage,
To spend the gear my elders won,
As did Diogenes in his tun.'
This 'Complaint' proved successful, and in the next year (1530) Lyndsay
was appointed Lion King-at-Arms--an office of great dignity in these
days. The Lion was the chief judge of all matters connected with
heraldry in the realm; was also the official ambassador from his
sovereign to foreign countries; and was inaugurated in his office with
a pomp and circumstance little inferior to those of a royal coronation,
the King crowning him with his own hands, anointing him with wine
instead of oil, and putting on his head the Royal Crown of Scotland,
which he continued to wear till the close of the feast. It is of Lyndsay
in the full accoutrements of this office that Sir Walter Scott speaks in
his 'Marmion,' although he antedates by sixteen years the time when he
assumed it:--
'He was a man of middle age,
In aspect manly, grave, and sage,
As on king's errand come;
But in the glances of his eye,
A penetrating, keen, and sly
Expression found its home--
The flash of that satiric rage
Which, bursting on the early stage,
Branded the vices of the age,
And broke the keys of Rome.
On milk-white palfrey forth he paced;
His cap of maintenance was graced
With the proud heron-plume;
From his steed's shoulder, loin, and breast
Silk housings swept the ground,
With Scotland's arms, device, and crest
Embroider'd round and round.
The double treasure might you see,
First by Achaius borne,
The thistle and the fleur-de-lis,
And gallant unicorn.
So bright the king's armorial coat,
That scarce the dazzled eye could note;
In living colours, blazon'd brave,
The lion, which his title gave.
A train which well beseem'd his state,
But all unarm'd, around him wait;
Still is thy name in high account,
And still thy verse has charms,
Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount,
Lord Lion King-at-Arms.'
Soon after this appointment, Lyndsay wrote 'The Complaint of the King's
Papingo,' in which, through the mouth of a dying parrot, he gives some
sharp counsel to the king, his courtiers and nobles, and administers
severe satirical chastisement to the corruptions of the clergy. It is an
exceedingly clever production, and has some beautiful poetry as well as
stinging sarcasm. Take the following address to Edinburgh, Stirling,
Linlithgow, and Falkland:--
Adieu, Edinburgh! thou high triumphant town,
Within whose bounds right blitheful have I been;
Of true merchandis, the rule of this region,
Most ready to receive court, king, and queen;
Thy policy and justice may be seen;
Were devotion, wisdom, and honesty,
And credence tint, they micht be found in thee.
Adieu, fair Snawdoun! [Stirling] with thy towers hie,
Thy chapel-royal, park, and table round;
May, June, and July would I dwell in thee,
Were I a man to hear the birdis sound,
Which doth against the royal rock rebound.
Adieu, Lithgow! whose palace of pleasance
Meets not its peer in Portingale or France.
Farewell, Falkland! the forteress of Fife,
Thy velvet park under the Lomond Law;
Sometime in thee I led a lusty life.
The fallow deer to see them raik on raw [walk in a row],
Caust men to come to thee, they have great awe, &c.
In the year 1535, Lyndsay wrote his remarkable drama, 'The Satire of the
Three Estates'--Monarch, namely, Barons, and Clergy. It is made up in
nearly three equal parts of ingenuity, wit, and grossness. It is a drama,
and was acted several times--first, in 1535, at Cupar-Fife, on a large
green mound called Moot-hill; then, in 1539, in an open park near
Linlithgow, by the express desire of the king, who with all the ladies
of the Court attended the representation; then in the amphitheatre of
St Johnston in Perth; and in 1554, at Edinburgh, in the village of
Greenside, which skirted the northern base of the Calton Hill, in the
presence of the Queen Regent and an enormous concourse of spectators.
Its exhibition appears to have occupied nearly the whole day. In the
'Pictorial History of Scotland,' chapter xxiv., our readers will find a
full and able analysis with extracts of this extraordinary performance.
It is said to have done much good in opening the eyes of the people to
the evils of the Papacy, and in paving the way for the Reformation.
In 1536 Sir David, in company with Sir John Campbell of Lundie, was sent
to the Court of France to demand in marriage for James V. a daughter of
the House of Vendome; but the King chose rather to take the matter in
his own hands, and, going over in person, wedded Magdalene, daughter of
Francis. She died two months after her arrival in Scotland, universally
regretted; and Lyndsay made the sad event the subject of a poem,
entitled 'Deploration of the Death of Queen Magdalene,' whom he
designates
'The flower of France, and comfort of Scotland.'
When James subsequently married Mary of Guise, Sir David's ingenuity was
strained to the utmost in providing pageants, masques, and shows to
welcome her Majesty. For forty days in St Andrews, festivities continued;
and it was during this prolonged festival that the Lion King, as if sick
and satiated with vanities, wrote two poems, one entitled 'The Justing
between James Watson and John Barbour,' a dull satire on tournaments, &c.,
and the other a somewhat cleverer piece, entitled 'Supplication directed
to the King's Grace in Contemptioun of Side Tails,' the long trains then
worn by the ladies. It met, we presume,with the fate of _Punch's_ sarcasms
against crinoline,--the 'phylacteries' would for a season, instead of
being lessened, be enlarged, till Fashion lifted up her omnipotent rod,
and told it to be otherwise.
King James died prematurely on the 14th of December 1542, and Lyndsay
closed his eyes at Falkland, and mourned for him as a brother. From that
day forth he probably felt that there was 'less sunshine in the sky for
him.' In the troublous times which succeeded this, he had to retire for
a season from the Court, having become obnoxious to the rigid Papists on
account of his writings. After the death of Cardinal Beatoun he wrote
the tragedy of 'The Cardinal,' a poem in which the spectre of the
Cardinal is the spokesman, and which teems with good advice to all and
sundry. The execution, however, is not so felicitous as the plan. In
1548 Lyndsay went to Denmark to negotiate a free trade with Scotland. On
his return in 1550 he wrote his very pleasing and chivalric 'History of
Squire Meldrum,' founded on the actual adventures of William Meldrum,
the Laird of Cleish and Binns, a distinguished friend of the poet, who
had gained laurels as a warrior both in Scotland and in France. This
poem is, in a measure, an anticipation of the rhymed romances of Scott,
and is full of picturesque description and spirit-stirring adventure. In
1553 he completed his last and most elaborate work, which had occupied
him for years, entitled 'The Monarchic,' containing an account of the
most famous monarchies which have existed on earth, and carrying on the
history to the general judgment. From this date we almost entirely lose
sight of our poet. He seems to have retired into private life, and is
supposed to have died about the close of 1557. He was probably buried in
the family vault at Ceres, but no stone marks the spot. Dying without
issue, his estates passed to his brother Alexander, and were continued
in the possession of his descendants till the middle of last century.
They now belong to the Hopes of Rankeillour. The office of Lord Lion was
held by two of the poet's relatives successively--Sir David, his
nephew, who became Lion King in 1591, and his son-in-law, Sir Jerome
Lyndsay, who succeeded to it in 1621.
Sir David Lyndsay, unlike most satirists, was a good, a blameless, and a
religious man. The occasional loftiness of his poetic vein, the breadth
of his humour, the purity of his purpose, and his strong reforming zeal
combined to make his poetry exceedingly popular in Scotland for a number
of ages, particularly among the lower orders. Scott introduces Andrew
Fairservice, in 'Rob Roy,' saying, in reference to Francis Osbaldistone's
poetical efforts, 'Gude help him! twa lines o' Davie Lyndsay wad ding a'
he ever clerkit,' and even still there are districts of the country where
his name is a household word.