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

160
LETTERS OF JAMES IV
[1509
which he read and repeated carefully and solemnly {omni¬
bus melioribus modo et forma quibus potuit) as was apparent
to the notaries, and he solemnly swore, with his hand on
the Holy Gospels to observe in every article the Treaty
of Perpetual Peace. Witnesses were the Archbishop of
Glasgow, the Bishops of Moray and Candida Casa, the
Abbot of Arbroath, the Earls of Angus, Huntly, Argyll,
Lennox, and Arran, Patrick Paniter, Robert Forman, Dean
of Glasgow and Moray, Sir John Musgrove, Sir Marmaduke
Constable and his son, William Constable, and John
Fabeane.
Batemanson, Apostolic and Imperial Notary, puts his
accustomed sign and signature to the public instrument
written out by another hand while he was otherwise occu¬
pied, as does John Sanchare, who has revised the record
written by another hand, and adds his accustomed sign
and signature.
282. Polydore Vergil to James IV, London, December 13,
1509. b.m. 101 ; R. 139 ; brodie, 275.
As he is not known to the King by any service or office,
he will explain briefly his reasons for writing. When he
was a raw beginner at Padua he wrote a little book of
Adagia, and then three little books, Be inventoribus rerum,
and published them at the request of the Duke of Urbino,
a student of Greek as well as of Latin. Such as they are,
the books have their readers. Coming to England on
business of the Papal Treasury, he began to study its
beauties, great resources, and the remarkable character¬
istics of the people, reading and comparing the most
ancient annals. He found so much that was memorable
and important regarding kings and other eminent persons
as to marvel that Greek and Latin writers, particularly
Caesar and Tacitus, who were in the island, had so little
to say. Unfortunately the annals are so various, confused,
ambiguous, and lacking in order—which history cannot
tolerate—that the great deeds were unknown not only to