Series 3 > Foreign correspondence with Marie de Lorraine, Queen of Scotland, from the originals in the Balcarres papers > Volume 7

164
BALCARRES PAPERS
sante longue et heureuse vie. A Saint Germain en Laye,
ce xvijme jour de septembre 1553.
vostre tres humble et anssien serviteur
Urfe.1
Endorsed, M. d’Urfe du xvij septembre 1553.
CXYI
From Henri Cleutin, Seigneur d'Oysel, to the
Queen Dowager
1553. Vol. iii. 72.
After he had written from Guise on the previous day, the bearer,
M. de Bettencourt, followed the Court to St. Quentin, as did the winter
with the Cardinal, having left the Duke of Guise at Guise. They found
the Constable had been ill of a fever for about five or six days, which
will delay the departure of Captain Sarlebous. The writer thinks that
the Scots captains, the brother of the Earl of Glencairn and Jemmy
Dog, who arrived recently, do not know the duties of captains, nor how
to manage their companies, which has been the cause of some scandal.
Some soldiers of the companies of Jemmy Dog seized his ensigns and
went to the King, who caused them to be arrested, and the two men who
had taken the ensigns to be executed at once. The writer assures the
Queen that he has the captains’ interests at heart, and, with the help of
the Queen’s brothers, has arranged with the Constable that they each
should receive 660 dcus to pay for their transport, although their expenses
did not amount to that sum. He also gave them 1000 ecus to pay their
soldiers for the time between their embarkation and the review at Dieppe.
Thus they have had 3,340 ecus between them, and the Constable has also
repaid them 54 ecus, which had been deducted because they were not on
duty at Dieppe, and therefore not eligible for pay. Still he does not see
that they are careful to look after their soldiers. The brother of the
Earl of Glencairn is proving himself to be frivolous, obstinate and ex¬
ceedingly casual in all he does and thinks. The writer is not alone in
seeing this, for even his lieutenants and friends have told the writer that
they have never known so changeable a person; they are weary of it,
and begged the writer to tell the captain so and that they wish to leave
him. For what he orders at one moment he alters the next, is already
so tired of his profession, and wishes to be allowed to recruit 200 light
horsemen in Scotland. The writer explained to him the difficulties and
expense which his brother and friends would have, judging by the diffi¬
culties which the Queen herself had, even with the help of the nobility
and the whole country. He would like to be colonel, but has not yet
Urfe. See Letter XCII,