LINDSAY, SIR DAVID

(David Lyndsay of the Mount)

(ca. 1486–ca. 1555)

Sometimes called “the last Scottish Chaucerian,” Sir David Lindsay had a career that straddled the late medieval and early modern periods. Like CHAUCER’s, his verse is often satiric, and his persistent use of ALLEGORY is certainly inspired by medieval tradition; his attacks on the Catholic Church in Scotland were a factor in the Scottish Reformation. Lindsay was a poet, a courtier, and a diplomat who was closely attached to the court of the Scottish king James V. His best-known work is the dramaAne Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis(1540), the only complete extant Scottish MORALITY PLAY.

Lindsay’s father, also called Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, had estates near Cupar in Fife, and also near Haddington in East Lothian. Lindsay may have been born at either. He may have gone to school at Haddington, and is believed to have graduated from Saint Andrews University in 1508. He is believed to have entered the service of King James IV that same year. He is first mentioned as taking part in a play that was presented before the king and his wife,Margaret Tudor (sister of Henry VIII), at Holyrood in October of 1511, where he is described as wearing a colorful yellow and blue coat. He seems to have impressed the royal family, because the following year he was appointed usher to the newborn prince, the future James V. As usher his tasks were to be a companion, storyteller, and general playmate for the young prince. On September 9, 1513, James IV was killed at the Battle of Flodden Field in an ill-advised attempt to invade England, leaving the 17-month-old James V as king of Scotland. But Lindsay continued in his position as usher to the new king until about 1524, when James fell under the power of the earl of Angus, his new stepfather, along with Angus’s powerful family, the Douglases. Lindsay was expelled from the court, and Angus kept the child king confined as a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle until 1528, when the Queen Mother,Margaret, having divorced Angus, rescued the boy and the Douglas faction was overthrown.James, now 16, assumed power and began to rule in his own right.

Lindsay was restored to his position at court upon James’s return to power, and was made herald of the court in 1529.At this point, Lindsay began his writing career, producing his first poem,The Dreme, in 1528. The poem is a DREAM VISION in which Dame Remembrance shows the poet earth, hell, and heaven, from which he can look down and see the troubled political situation of Scotland. The poem is in the “Mirror for Princes” tradition. Lindsay followed this poem with aCompleynt to the King(1529), written in octosyllabic (eight-syllable) couplets, wherein he focuses particularly on the corrupt state of the Scottish church. Lindsay blends humor with satire in his next work,Testament and Complaynt of our Soverane Lordis Papyngo(1530), which mixes advice to the king and satire of the clergy put into the mouth of a dying pet parrot. Lindsay again puts satire into the mouth of an animal inThe Complaynt and Publict Confession of the King IS Auld Hound(ca. 1536),where the sage advice comes from a dog. This sense of humor that must have kept the young king entertained and sustained Lindsay’s close personal relationship with him is evident in hisAn Answer Quhilk Schir David Lyndsay Maid to the Kingis Flyting(An answer which Sir David Lindsay made to the king’s flyting [1536]), apparently part of an exchange of poetic abuse with the king himself (a practice called aFLYTING, popularized by William DUNBAR).

In the meantime Lindsay was engaged in diplomatic missions for the king. He visited the Hapsburg emperor Charles V in 1531. In 1536 he was part of a royal mission to France to negotiate a marriage alliance for the king. At some point before 1540, he was given the title Lyon king-at-arms, the chief herald of Scotland. Part of his duties involved entertainment and instruction of the court, and it is in this capacity that he seems to have written hisPleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, an entertainment for Epiphany produced before the king at court in 1540. Like most of his works, this morality play contains a good deal of ribald comedy, but is didactic in its intent, focusing particularly, once again, on abuses of the clergy.

After the untimely death of King James in 1542, his week-old daughter Mary was named Queen of Scots. Lindsay stayed on at court and continued his diplomatic role, visiting the court of Henry VIII in 1544 and the Danish court of King Christian III in 1548. Beyond this we know little of Lindsay’s final years, except that his literary output continued: He wrote a “Tragedy” of the murdered Cardinal Beaton in 1547, in which the cardinal (assassinated by Protestant nobles hoping to topple the Catholic Church in Scotland) speaks his own warning, offering his life as an admonition to other powerful figures, whether of church or state. In 1542, he finished—in his role as Lyon king-at-arms—a document called theRegister at Arms of the Scottish Nobility, still the most authoritative text on Scottish heraldry, though it was not published until 1821.The Historie of Squyer Meldrum(ca. 1553) is part biography, part courtly ROMANCE, influenced somewhat by John BARBOUR’sBRUCE. Of all Lindsay’s works, it is the one most likely to please modern readers. In 1,594 lines of octosyllabic couplets, it follows the military and amorous exploits of an early 16th-century Scottish laird from Fife, Lindsay’s own neighborhood.

Lindsay’s last and longest poem is calledThe Monarchie(1554), otherwise known as theDialogue Between Experience and a Courtier. This 6,000-line poem is a history of the world from the Creation through Doomsday, in which Lindsay focuses on four ancient empires and then discusses the spiritual empire of Christ—and, characteristically, the anti-Christian empire of the papacy. Six years after Lindsay penned this poem, the Church of Scotland was organized under Calvinist principles.

■ Happé, Peter, ed.Four Morality Plays. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1979.

■ Kinsley, James, ed.Squyer Meldrum. London: Thomas Nelson, 1959.

■ Lyall, Roderick, ed.Ane Satire of the Thrie Estaitis. Canongate Classics no. 18. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1989.