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of the same year, we learn that "the King's old household servants were changid for the most part, and the rest were likewise to be removed, as James Murray of Powmaes, Captain Montgomerie, etc."[1] This change it is difficult to explain, unless it was a concession to the demands of the Kirk following James's escape in June from the control of the Ruthven nobles. But it is quite unlikely that it represents any withdrawal of favor; Montgomerie was now placed on a pension of five hundred merks a year, granted by James, July 7, 1583, and paid regularly until 1586, when the poet left Scotland on an errand abroad for the King.[2]
In November of 1583 the interesting packet of political tracts and French verse was brought from Stirling to Holyrood, 3 and in the ensuing winter James seems to have settled down to the examination of Scottish histories, the censorship of treasonable documents, and the study and composition of poetry. The Phœnix, lamenting the death of Lennox and referring to the arrival of his son, 4 was written at this time, and is the longest and best of the poems which appeared the next year in The Essayes of a Prentise. 5 The translation from Du Bartas in the Essayes may belong to the same period, but the boyish crudity of the Reulis and cautelis and the twelve "sonnets and suites to the gods" suggests that they were composed still earlier. The "Song, the first verses that ever the King made" (LIII), was written, according to the heading in Calderwood, when he was "fyfteene yeere old," and there is other evidence that his
3 Cf. p. xxiii. Buchanan's De Jure Regni, which was in the packet, and his History were condemned by act of Parliament the next year (Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Vol. Ill, p. 296).
4 Ludovic landed at Leith, November 13, 1583.
5 There seem to have been two issues of this volume; some copies bear the date 1584 and others 1585.
- ↑ Ibid., Vol. VIII, App., p. 250. Since Montgomerie appears as a "sirvitour of the Kingis Majestie" in a document dated December 30, 1584 (Stevenson, p. 304), it is reasonable to conclude that these earlier references are to him.
- ↑ Cf . the grant authorizing the restoration of his pension, Reg. of the Privy Seal of Scotland, March 21, 1588-1589
