Series 3 > Letters of James the Fourth, 1505-1513

XXXVI
LETTERS OF JAMES IV
failed to deter the seekers after either consistorial or lesser
benefices. The King himself sometimes failed to let his
right hand know what his left hand was doing, and through
policy or forgetfulness promised to secure the same benefice
for two different candidates. As a precaution against his
supplications being impeded or misinterpreted, James had
recently appointed Domenigo Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia
and Cardinal of St. Mark, protector of his interests—
imperii nostri Protector—at the Papal court.
Neither piety nor wit, as both William Elphinstone and
William Dunbar had discovered, was a recommendation to
James in the dispensation of ecclesiastical preferment.
‘ How suld I leif, and am not landit,
Nor yet with benefice am blandit ?
I say not sir, you to reprieff,
Bot doutles I go rycht neir hand it,’
complained the poet. The great and good Elphinstone
might with more justice have complained of royal ingrati¬
tude when James secured the archbishopric of St. Andrews
first for his younger brother, James, Duke of Ross, and
then, in 1504, for his illegitimate son, the eleven-year-old
Alexander Stewart—a feat, the King admitted, really
difficult, and scarcely to be hoped for, rem sane difficilem
vix sperandam.
The King consolidated his own authority and augmented
his own revenues still further by securing for the boy a
year or two later the Abbey of Dunfermline and the
Priory of Coldingham. Other consistorial benefices he
used to recompense assiduous servants of the crown, like
Paniter, or the two Betouns. His eloquently expressed
anxiety to purge his father’s soul and right ancient wrongs
in the tangled matter of Melrose, was really anxiety to
promote Robert Betoun, Abbot of Glenluce, lately postu¬
lated for the Abbey of Coupar Angus, to the larger and
wealthier Abbey of Melrose. So, his concern for the health
of the Bishop of Dunkeld, disabled by age, he averred,
from attendance at court, was really concern for the ad¬
vancement of his Treasurer, James Betoun, already Abbot