Douglas book > Angus memoirs

APPOINTED ABBOT OF HOLY ROOD, 1526. 17:!
the appointment was confirmed by Parliament, ratifying the letters to the Pope which
recommended the promotion of Orichton to Dunkeld, and of William Douglas to the
Abbacy of Holyrood, and appointing that, if necessary, letters should be directed with
the authority of Parliament. In this Act of Parliament he is called Provost of
Methven, under which title he sat and acted as one of the Lords of Articles. 1 Under
the same name he is mentioned two months previously as receiving the gift of a vacant
benefice in the diocese of Dunkeld. 2 From loth June 1526 until 7th July 1528,
William Douglas, as Abbot of Holyrood, witnessed numerous charters by King James
the Fifth, while the kingdom was under the sway of his brother, the Earl of Angus,
as Chancellor, 3 and he is mentioned as watching the young king nightly in the lodgings
of the Bishop of St. Andrews in Edinburgh, alternately with his brother George. 4 This
vigilance was necessary in order to prevent the king passing into the hands of the
faction opposed to the Douglases, a catastrophe which ultimately occurred, when, as a
result, the Douglases were forced into a long exile of fourteen years.
William Douglas did not share this exile. His brother, the Earl of Angus, first
fortified himself in his castle of Tantallon, and when it was besieged by King James
the Fifth, retired to his brother's priory of Coldingham. Here he remained for several
months, and thence corresponded with King Henry and the English Wardens about
protection to himself and friends in England. 5 On the 2d October King James came
in person to Coldingham with five hundred men and took it, but, warned beforehand,
Angus, with two hundred followers, escaped before it was invested. Placing Lord
Home and his brother, the Abbot of Jedburgh, in the Abbey to keep it, the king-
retired, and was chased by Angus to the gates of Dunbar. Angus then returned to
Coldingham, turned out the Homes, and made it his residence until he had completed
his arrangements for retiring to England. Before this expedition by the king reached
Coldingham, William Douglas, the prior, was dead. 6 He was buried, according to
Codscroft, in the church of Preston in the Merse. 7
1 Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 6 10th September to 14th November,
vol. ii. pp. 300, 305. Vol. iv. of this work, pp. 129-138.
Letter, the Earl of Northumberland to
Wolsey, 9th October 1528; Letters and
2 Registrum Secreti Sigilli, 19th April 1526,
Lib. vii. fol. 3.
3 Kegistrum Magui Sigilli, vol. iii. Nos.
358-606, passim.
* Letters and Papers, etc., Henry viii., 7 MS. History at Hamilton Palace, Pt. u
Papers, etc., Henry viii., vol. iv. No. 4830.
7 M
vol. iv. No. 2449. p. 65.