Scottish Authors > Sir David Lindsay Poet & Playwright c.1486-1555

Sir David Lindsay (c.1486-1555) came of a land-owning family in Fife, and throughout his life was closely associated with the Scottish court. His earliest work, The Dreme (1528), contains an affectionate account of James V as a child, and Lindsay's care of him.

Some time before 1530 Lindsay became a herald, an office that took him on diplomatic missions to France and England, and involved him in court entertainments, pageants, and other ceremonial duties. By 1542 he had received a knighthood and later became Lyon King of Arms. After James V's death he continued in royal service during the Regency of Mary of Guise, and died early in 1555.

Although Lindsay was a prolific poet, there is no evidence that he started writing until his forties. His shorter poems are intimately concerned with the court: The Deploratioun (1536) is a formal elegy for James's first queen, Madeleine; others, such as The Complaint, The Testament of the Papyngo, and The Complaint of Bagsche, are satires, attacking the vices of greedy courtiers and worldly churchmen. Lindsay's tone towards the King himself is lightly jesting, but often admonitory and remarkably outspoken. Stylistically, these works owe much to Dunbar and other earlier Scottish poets.

Lindsay's undoubted masterpiece is Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, a political morality play. This seems to have existed in two forms: a version for indoor performance at court (c1540), and a much longer version designed for public performance out of doors, at Cupar in 1552 and at Edinburgh in 1554. In structure the play drew upon the traditions of medieval drama, but Lindsay's target was contemporary society: the corruption of the King's councillors, the dishonesty of craftsmen, and the superstition and greed found in all sections of the church. The play voiced a passionate appeal for the reform of the Scottish church and state:

Get up,thou sleipis all too lang, O Lord,

And maksum ressonabill reformatioun!

(1160-61)

Whether Lindsay was wholly committed to the Protestant cause, however, is much debated. The play is dramatically effective: it consists of a series of lively, sometimes farcical scenes, couched in vivid and trenchant dialogue.

To Lindsay's last years belong two very different works: The Monarche, or ane dialogue betwix Experience and ane courteour, is a weighty account of world history; Squire Meldrum is a verse biography of a friend, cast in the form of a chivalric romance.

For several centuries Lindsay was by far the most popular of early Scottish poets, largely because he was perceived as a champion of Protestantism. Today he is remembered chiefly for Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, which has had many performances since its successful revival at the Edinburgh Festival of 1948.

The Works of Sir David Lindsay, ed. Douglas Hamer, 4 vols. Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh, 1931-1936.

Carol Edington, Court and culture in Renaissance Scotland: Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, East Lothian, 1995.

Priscilla Bawcutt

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