Scottish Text Society publications > Third series > Thomas Hudson's historie of Judith

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INTRODUCTION,
II.
THE HISTORIE OF JUDITH.
While Thomas Hudson’s Histone of Judith has usually
been dismissed in a few contemptuous words, it is not
wholly a contemptible piece of work. But interesting
as it is in itself it gains an additional importance from the
circumstances in which it was made.
In the early 1580’s, in the years when he was dividing
his time between hunting and poetry,1 King James VI.
of Scotland gathered round him a little group of intimates,
of varying age and rank, but chosen like the favourites
of his ancestor James IV., because their tastes and out¬
look chimed with his. One of them, probably the oldest
and certainly the lowest in rank, was His Majesty’s
violar and domestic servant, Thomas Hudson. It has
been suggested2 that the phrase “ Castalian Band,”
which occurs in the king’s epitaph for another member
of the group, the poet Alexander Montgomerie, gives the
coterie’s own name for itself. However that may be, it
1 " Generally hee seemeth desirous of peace, as appeareth by his
disposition and exercises—viz.: i. His great delight in hunting. 2. His
private delight in enditing poesies, &c. In one or both of these com¬
monly hee spendeth the day, when he hath no publique thing to doe.”
Letters of John Colville (Bannatyne Club. 1858), p. 315. The descrip¬
tion occurs in a document in the Record Office endorsed " The Present
State of Scotland, 1586,” which was prepared for the English govern¬
ment by one of its agents in Scotland. But it is equally true of the
earlier years of the decade.
2 Westcott, New Poems by James I. of England (New York. 1911),
p. 91.