xxxi
and otheris beyond sey . . . quheras he remanit continewallie sensyne, detaynit and halden in prison." His destination and the nature of his errand have remained unknown, though the time, just preceding the execution of Mary his intimacy with Constable and Keir, and references in his sonnets to Archbishop Beaton, Mary's representative in Paris, show that he was associated with members of the Catholic party. A hitherto unnoted letter from T. Fowler to Archibald Douglas in London, November 25, 1588,[1] makes it likely that his imprisonment was in England. The given name is again omitted, but the date and the circumstances of the detention at once connect the reference with the poet. Fowler's statement that Montgomerie was "unacquainted with trouble" may be taken with many allowances.
During his absence, his pension was stopped, and a number of his sonnets (XIV-XXX)[2] deal with his efforts by legal proceedings and direct appeal to the King to have it restored. Since they were all written during a short period and for a special purpose, one can hardly draw a general conclusion regarding the author's petulant melancholy of temperament or undignified servility. His "real and sincere" passion for Lady Margaret Montgomerie, to whom he addressed sonnets at the time of her marriage in 1582,
- ↑ Cal. Hatfield MSS., Pt. III, p. 374. Fowler complains of the seizure of his papers by the English authorities: "Always if they would deliver my house and stuff, I shall be glad, and more of Montgomery's release, which I beseech you to procure as much as you may, for he is honest and not acquainted with trouble, and what they have to say to him God knows. I wot not, but I would gladly know whereupon they examined him, and what he hath done with my books." Fowler was an Englishman resident in Edinburgh and connected with the Lennox family. He was executor of the Countess of Lennox's will, and was intrusted by Queen Mary with jewels intended for Lady Arabella Stuart. These got into the hands of James; hence, perhaps, the seizure of Fowler's papers.
- ↑ The mention in one of these sonnets (XXV) of the poets Alexander Scott and Robert Semple shows that they were still alive in 1588. But Scott, the references to whom as a burgess of Edinburgh are pointed out by T. F. Henderson (Scottish Vernacular Lit., p. 241), was perhaps also the burgess of that name mentioned in Cal. S. P. Sco., July 20, 1591, who had sent letters of complaint to England regarding the debts of an English agent in Edinburgh
