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APPENDIX K.
surrender their privileges without a struggle. There was always the
possibility that the law-courts, biassed by the strong running currents
of political feeling, might endeavour to thwart this attempt to force
the King to undo his former gifts to his friends. Erskine was not
slow to put the matter to the test. Within twenty-five days of
the date of his appointment, an action is filed in his name in the
Commissary Court of Edinburgh against James Boyd, second son of
James Boyd of Kipps, to have his pension from the revenues of the
see of Glasgow reduced.1 Other suits of a similar kind follow in
rapid succession. He even sues Robert Montgomerie “to make
payment of the soumis and rentis of }?e bischoprik of Glasgow
of sindrie Jeiris bigane,:! which shows that Montgomerie, despite
the Kirk, had succeeded in intromitting with the revenues of the
diocese.2
It is not until the very end of 1586 that we come on the first
documentary evidence of proceedings against the poet. This is an
Interlocutor of the Court of Session, dated December 24. The
record, however, shows that earlier in the year proceedings had
been taken against Montgomerie in the Commissary Court of Edin¬
burgh. But for some reason not specified it had been agreed to
transfer the action to the higher Court. The Interlocutor of the
Lords of Session accordingly discharges the Commissary Court
from all further proceeding in the matter. This is explicitly stated
to have been done “with consent of the parteis concerned.” The
Interlocutor further fixes January 6, 1586/7, and days following,
for the hearing of the case. Unfortunately, at this point the
records fail us, the ‘Register of Acts and Decreets’ containing no
account of what happened when the action was resumed. There
is, of course, the possibility that in the interval of twelve days
some arrangement had been come to which for the time being obvi¬
ated the necessity of further litigation.
An explanation of the difficulty may perhaps be found in the
fact that some time in the year 1586 Montgomerie, under a royal
licence, left the country to proceed to “ Flanderis, Spane, and vthiris
beyond sey.” It is not stated in the ‘ Register of the Privy Seal,’
from which this information is derived, in which month Montgomerie
set out. The year, it is to be remembered, did not end till March
24, of what in the new style would be 1587. It is thus possible
that the poet’s departure had been forced upon him at the very
time the case was in the Court, and that proceedings were by
arrangement suspended during his absence. One thing at least
is certain, that when Montgomerie started for the Continent no judg¬
ment had been given against him, since the record in the ‘Privy
1 • Commissariot of Edinburgh—Decreits,’ 15th January 1585/6.
2 He is described in this record (‘Register of Acts and Decreits,’vol. 104, f.
399a) as “ Robert, allegit Archibischope.”