In Scotland the language had remained much more stationary than in England. In this period we find the chief Scottish poets writing in a diction far more unintelligible to the English reader than Chaucer's or Gower's was in the middle of the fourteenth century. Two of the Scots poets of that period—Barbour and King James I.—wrote in English, and, therefore, in a language far in advance of Gawin Douglas, Dunbar, and Sir David Lyndsay in the sixteenth century. One great reason of this probably was the constant strife and enmity between the nations, which made the Scots cling in confirmed nationality to their own language and customs, for the works and merits of the English poets were known and acknowledged. James I. called Chaucer and Gower "his maisters dear." Henryson, a succeeding poet, even wrote a continuation of Chaucer's "Troilus and Cresseide," under the names of the "Testament," and the "Complaint of Cresseide;" and Gawin, or Gavin, Douglas, the famous Bishop of Dunkeld, pronouncing his vernacular tongue barbarous, declared that rather than remain silent through the scarcity of Scottish terms, he would use bastard Latin, French, or English. A still greater and later poet, Dunbar, expresses repeatedly his admiration of "Chawcer of Makars flowir," of "the Monck of Berry," "Lydgate," and "Gowyr." Yet if we use the very language which he did to utter his admiration in, we find no advance towards the polish of these poets:
"O reverend Chawcer, rose of rethouris all,
As in our toung the flowir imperiall,
That ever raise in Brittane, quha reids richt,
Those biers of makars the triumphs ryall,
The fresche enamallit termes celestiall;
This matter thou couth haif ilumint bricht,
Was thou not of our Inglis all the licht;
Surmounting every toung terrestiall,
As far as Mayis fair morning does midnight.