'When kirkmen yairnis [desire] na dignity,
Nor wives na soveranitie.'
Still finer the last lines of the poem. 'If not,' he says, 'my God
'Shall cause me stand content
With quiet life and sober rent,
And take me, in my latter age,
Unto my simple hermitage,
To spend the gear my elders won,
As did Diogenes in his tun.'
This 'Complaint' proved successful, and in the next year (1530) Lyndsay was appointed Lion King-at-Arms—an office of great dignity in these days. The Lion was the chief judge of all matters connected with heraldry in the realm; was also the official ambassador from his sovereign to foreign countries; and was inaugurated in his office with a pomp and circumstance little inferior to those of a royal coronation, the King crowning him with his own hands, anointing him with wine instead of oil, and putting on his head the Royal Crown of Scotland, which he continued to wear till the close of the feast. It is of Lyndsay in the full accoutrements of this office that Sir Walter Scott speaks in his 'Marmion,' although he antedates by sixteen years the time when he assumed it:—
'He was a man of middle age,
In aspect manly, grave, and sage,
As on king's errand come;
But in the glances of his eye,
A penetrating, keen, and sly
Expression found its home—
The flash of that satiric rage
Which, bursting on the early stage,
Branded the vices of the age,
And broke the keys of Rome.
On milk-white palfrey forth he paced;
His cap of maintenance was graced
With the proud heron-plume;
From his steed's shoulder, loin, and breast
Silk housings swept the ground,
With Scotland's arms, device, and crest
Embroider'd round and round.
The double treasure might you see,
First by Achaius borne,
The thistle and the fleur-de-lis,
And gallant unicorn.
So bright the king's armorial coat,
That scarce the dazzled eye could note;
In living colours, blazon'd brave,
The lion, which his title gave.
A train which well beseem'd his state,
But all unarm'd, around him wait;
Still is thy name in high account,
And still thy verse has charms,
Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount,
Lord Lion King-at-Arms.'
Soon after this appointment, Lyndsay wrote 'The Complaint of the King's Papingo,' in which, through the mouth of a dying parrot, he gives some sharp counsel to the king, his courtiers and nobles, and administers severe satirical chastisement to the corruptions of the clergy. It is an exceedingly clever production, and has some beautiful poetry as well as stinging sarcasm. Take the following address to Edinburgh, Stirling, Linlithgow, and Falkland:—
Adieu, Edinburgh! thou high triumphant town,
Within whose bounds right blitheful have I been;
Of true merchandis, the rule of this region,
Most ready to receive court, king, and queen;
Thy policy and justice may be seen;
Were devotion, wisdom, and honesty,
And credence tint, they micht be found in thee.
Adieu, fair Snawdoun! [Stirling] with thy towers hie,
Thy chapel-royal, park, and table round;
May, June, and July would I dwell in thee,
Were I a man to hear the birdis sound,
Which doth against the royal rock rebound.
Adieu, Lithgow! whose palace of pleasance
Meets not its peer in Portingale or France.
Farewell, Falkland! the forteress of Fife,
Thy velvet park under the Lomond Law;
Sometime in thee I led a lusty life.
The fallow deer to see them raik on raw [walk in a row],
Caust men to come to thee, they have great awe, &c.
In the year 1535, Lyndsay wrote his remarkable drama, 'The Satire of the Three Estates'—Monarch, namely, Barons, and Clergy. It is made up in nearly three equal parts of ingenuity, wit, and grossness. It is a drama, and was acted several times—first, in 1535, at Cupar-Fife, on a large green mound called Moot-hill; then, in 1539, in an open park near Linlithgow, by the express desire of the king, who with all the ladies of the Court attended the representation; then in the amphitheatre of St Johnston in Perth; and in 1554, at Edinburgh, in the village of Greenside, which skirted the northern base of the Calton Hill, in the presence of the Queen Regent and an enormous concourse of spectators. Its exhibition appears to have occupied nearly the whole day. In the 'Pictorial History of Scotland,' chapter xxiv., our readers will find a full and able analysis with extracts of this extraordinary performance. It is said to have done much good in opening the eyes of the people to the evils of the Papacy, and in paving the way for the Reformation.