In Chapter 2, I quoted the eulogy of Sir David Lyndsay, poet and herald at the court of James V, for William Dunbar, ‘quhilk language had at large’. Dunbar is one among twelve deceased vernacular poets named as paragons of their art in the prologue to Lyndsay's Testament and Complaynt of Our Soverane Lordis Papyngo (1530). First comes the English literary triumvirate, ‘Chawceir, Gower, and Lidgate laureate’ (line 12); next, a series of Scottish writers: Walter Kennedy, Dunbar, and seven further names all also mentioned either in Dunbar's Lament for the Makars or The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie. Lyndsay praises these poets in terms of their ‘rethorick’ (line 11) and ‘sweit sentence’ (line 14), claiming that ‘Thocht thay be ded, thar libels bene levand’ (line 20). But in the stanzas that follow, all are surpassed by the superlative skill and learning of ‘Albione’'s pre-eminent poet, Gavin Douglas:

Lyndsay's eulogy evidences Douglas's high literary reputation in Scotland and, though to a lesser degree, England throughout much of the sixteenth century. It also suggests some of the important differences between Douglas and the other English and Scottish poets examined in this book, not least, his particular agon with the concept of authorship. The most obvious difference is Douglas's noble status, both as a member of the powerful ‘Red’ Douglas family and, from 1516, bishop of Dunkeld. Douglas's material ‘prerogative’ would have greatly exceeded that of the court servitors and minor ecclesiastics Skelton, Dunbar, and Hawes.