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is also wholly mythical, since she was many years his junior and of a higher social station. In spite of the restoration, his pension was still withheld, and it is doubtful if Montgomerie ever regained favor at court. James was in Denmark from October, 1589, until May of the next year, and after his return there was another reordering and reduction of his household.
The King's Epitaphe (XXXIV) and a second sonnet referring to Montgomerie (XLV) may conveniently be considered at this point, since they make it highly probable that the poet's death occurred before the King's departure for England. After 1603, James wrote little verse, and could hardly have spoken of the Scottish writer as "our maistre poëte" and "the Prince of Poets of our land." In the Bodleian MS., XLV occurs on one side of a folio which contains an early paraphrase of one of the psalms.[1] The thirteenth line of the Epitaphe,
"Though to his buriall was refused the bell,"
shows that at the time of his death Montgomerie was not in the good graces of the clergy. The latest of other trustworthy references to the poet is a denunciation, July 14, 1597, of "Alexander Montgomerie, brother to the laird of Heslott," for "arte, parte" in Hugh Barclay of Ladyland's treasonable attempt to seize Ailsa Craig as a station for Spanish troops and refuge for Catholics.[2] It is perhaps significant as a clue to the date of his death that the two earliest editions of The Cherrie and the Slae appeared in this year, from different MSS., but neither with any announcement, preface, or complimentary verses such as one would expect with the work of a living writer. The second, it is true, was "Prented according to a Copie corrected by the Author himselfe"; but this may refer to the MS., and, according to Mr. Stevenson,[3] the edition contains errors which make it hard to believe that it was corrected by the author. In
