To put the ruther in his hand.
Without Goddis grace is no refuge:
Geve thare be dainger ye may juge.
I gyf thame to the Devyll of Hell
Quhilk first devysit that counsell!
I wyll nocht say that it was treassoun,
Bot I dar sweir it was no reassoun.
I pray God, lat me never se ryng,
In-to this realme, so young ane Kyng!
Discharged from his duties, though, at the instance of James, his salary continued to be paid, Lyndsay retired to his estates, and occupied his leisure by casting into verse some of his reflections upon the events and character of his time. These, in the form of a scarcely veiled satire, with a finely poetic setting, he published under the title of “The Dreme,” probably in 1528. In the autumn of the same year, it is believed, he wrote his “Complaynt to the Kingis Grace,” a performance in which, as has been seen, he recounts his early services, and asks some token of royal recognition, declaiming fearlessly the abuses which have been practised by the recent governors of the realm, and ending with congratulations and sound counsel on James’s own sudden assumption of power.