Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Poems of Alexander Montgomerie

INTRODUCTION.
Ixiii
yet he still desyreth that Edward Spencer for his faulte
may be deuly tryed and punished. Edin. 12 nov. 1596.”
(State Papers relating to Scotland, Record Office,
London.) The matter continued to rankle in the king’s
mind. As late as February 25, 1598, George Nicolson,
in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, after mentioning “ a book
by Walter Quin concerning the king’s title to England,”
which Waldegrave had refused to print “ until the Acts
of Parliament almost done should be ended,” goes on to
say, “ Quyn is also answering Spencer’s book whereat
the king was offended.”1
§ 31. In bringing to a conclusion these introductory
notes, the editor would offer his sincere thanks to
1 An earlier letter of Nicolson’s to Bowes, dated June 18, 1595, brings to
light an amusing instance of James’s annoyance with another English writer,
Barnaby Rich. In Rich’s ‘ Farewell to the Militarie profession : conteining
verie pleasant discourses fit for peaceable tyme,’ there appears a story of how
the devil enticed a girl unwittingly to marry him, and was afterwards so plagued
by her constant demands for new clothes to keep pace with the changing
fashions of the time, that in despair he fled into Scotland, “never staiying till
he came to Edenbrough where the Kyng kept his court. And now forgettyng
all humanitie which he had learned before in Englande, he began againe
afreshe to plaie the devill, and so possessed the King of Scots himself with
such straunge and unacquainted passions that by conjecture of phisitions and
other learned men, that were then assembled together to judge the kinges
diseases, thei al concluded that it must needes be some feende of hell that so
disturbed their prince. Whereupon proclamatiouns were presently sent forthe
that whosoever could give relief should have a thousand crounes by the yere
so long as he did live. The desire of these crounes caused many to attempt
the matter, but the furie of. the devill was such that no man could prevail.”
The humour of this story failed to commend itself to James, and his displeasure
is thus noted by the correspondent above mentioned : “ In the conclusion of
a booke in England called Rich his farewell printed by V. S. for Tho. Adams
at the signe of the white lyon in Paules churchyard 1594 such matter is noted
as the King is not well pleased thereat; so as one grief comes in thend of
another, it wold please the King some thinck that some order were taken
therew:t/i. The King sales litle but thinkes more.”—(State Papers relating to
Scotland, Vol. 56, No. 13, Record Office, London.) •