Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Historie and cronicles of Scotland > Volume 1, 1899

INTRODUCTION.
civ
1522 that he made this move, if he was not rather the
victim of a plot. We should have expected him to
take refuge in England rather than in France. The
expressions in Pitscottie that “ he remainit ane sessoun
but companie of aney Scottisman, skantlie knowand in
quhat part of the world he was in,” is very peculiar; and
perhaps the explanation may be that he was in hiding,
and it was not really known where he went. The state¬
ment that he “ convoyit himself quyetlie out of France to
Ingland quhare he was weill ressavit,” rather confirms this
conjecture. The blunder in ascribing the death of Squire
Meldrum to a period of fifty years after the assault by
the Laird of Keir is one of the most curious in Pitscottie,
though not in itself of much consequence to Scottish
history. Pitscottie, we should have thought, from his
relationship to the Lindesays of the Byres, who gave the
Squire the hospitality of Struthers, must have known
the true date of his death. Perhaps Laing gives the
most probable explanation — that “ fiftie ” is a miscopy
for “fifteen,” and that he died about 1532, after which
date we find no trace of him. This mistake is, how¬
ever, in all copies of the MS. as well as in the printed
editions, and, if Laing’s conjecture is correct, it is another
example of the inaccuracy of the copyists.
The siege of Wark, at which Buchanan was present,
was certainly in 1523 — not in 1520, as Pitscottie puts
it. It was during Albany’s third visit to Scotland, which
Pitscottie has omitted ; and its failure, through the barons
not co-operating with Albany, was the cause of his final
return to France. Something very wrong—it is hard to
say what—has confused the dates of this period. Thus
the length of Albany’s three visits, which is too expressly