Douglas book > Angus memoirs

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Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, third Son of Archibald,
Fifth Earl of Angus.
1474_1522.
He was born, it is said, about the year 1474, and was educated for the Church.
He became highly distinguished in literature, and his biography has been frequently
written. He was a student of the University of St. Andrews from 1489 to 1494,
and afterwards became at a later date parson of East Linton and rector of Prestonkirk,
both in East Lothian. He was also entitled to draw the teinds or tithes of the
parish of Monymusk, in Aberdeenshire, and in 1497 the king's writ was issued to
enforce payment of his dues. 1 About the year 1501, Gavin Douglas was made
provost of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles, in Edinburgh, a situation of dignity and
emolument which he may have owed partly to his family influence, and partly to his
allegorical poem, The Palice of Honour, written not long before, and addressed to
King James the Fourth. Between his appointment to St. Giles and the battle of
Flodden in 1513, little is known of him, but three weeks after the battle he was
made a burgess of Edinburgh, of which towii his father was then provost. 2
After 1513, Douglas, who had devoted himself to literature, especially his great
work, the translation of the iEneid of Virgil, turned his attention also to politics.
The marriage of his nephew, Archibald, sixth Earl of Angus, with Queen Margaret,
the widow of King James the Fourth, led Douglas to hope for Church preferment, and
also, it would appear, for office in the State. As regards this, however, though at first
his hopes seemed likely to be realised, he was not wholly successful. He was appointed
to act on behalf of the queen before the Lords of Council, and at a later date, in
September 1514, his nephew arrested the Archbishop of Glasgow, Chancellor of Scot-
land, and compelled him to deliver up the great seal to Gavin Douglas, who held it
for about two months. At this time he was a postulate for, or in expectation of the
Abbacy of Arbroath, of which, however, he was disappointed. In the beginning of
1515, the Queen of Scots and her brother, Henry the Eighth of England, made
strenuous efforts to obtain the archbishopric of St. Andrews for him, and he is said to
1 Antiquities of Aberdeen, etc., vol. iii. 2 Charters of the Collegiate Church of St.
p. 483. Giles, Bannatyne Club, 1859, pp. xxxiii-xxxvi.