page_title: Gavin Douglas
section_title: Bishop of Dunkeld
hierarchical_section_title: Gavin Douglas / Life and career / Bishop of Dunkeld
caption_attribution_description: Seal of Gavin Douglas (1474-1522), Bishop of Dunkeld
context_page_description: Gavin Douglas was a Scottish bishop, makar and translator. Although he had an important political career, he is chiefly remembered for his poetry. His main pioneering achievement was the Eneados, a full and faithful vernacular translation of the Aeneid of Virgil into Scots, and the first successful example of its kind in any Anglic language. Other extant poetry of his includes Palice of Honour, and possibly King Hart.
context_section_description: In January 1515 on the death of George Brown, Bishop of Dunkeld, Douglas's hopes revived. The queen nominated him to the now vacant seat, which he ultimately obtained, though not without trouble. For John Stewart, 2nd Earl of Atholl had forced his brother, Andrew Stewart, prebendary of Craig, upon the chapter, and had put him in possession of the bishop's palace. The queen appealed to the pope and was seconded by her brother of England, with the result that the Pope's sanction was obtained on 18 February 1515. Some of the correspondence of Douglas and his friends incident to this transaction was intercepted. When Albany came from France and assumed the regency, these documents and the "purchase" of the bishopric from Rome contrary to statute were made the basis of an attack on Douglas, who was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, thereafter in St Andrews Castle (under the charge of his old opponent, Prior Hepburn), and later in Dunbar Castle, and again in Edinburgh. Papal intervention procured his release after nearly a year's imprisonment. The Queen, meanwhile, had retired to England. After July 1516 Douglas appears to have been in possession of his see and to have patched up a diplomatic peace with Albany.
  On 17 May 1517 the Bishop of Dunkeld proceeded with Albany to France to conduct the negotiations which ended in the Treaty of Rouen. He was back in Scotland towards the end of June. Albany's longer absence in France permitted the party faction of the nobles to come to a head in a plot by James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Arran to seize the Earl of Angus, the Queen's husband. The issue of this plot was the well-known fight of Cleanse the Causeway, in which Gavin Douglas's part stands out in picturesque relief. The triumph over the Hamiltons had an unsettling effect upon the Earl of Angus. He made free with the Queen's rents and abducted Lord Traquair's daughter. The Queen set about obtaining a divorce and used her influence for the return of Albany as a means of undoing her husband's power. Albany's arrival in November 1521, with a large body of French men-at-arms, compelled Angus, with the bishop and others, to flee to the Borders. From this retreat Gavin Douglas was sent by the earl to the English court, to ask for aid against the French party and against the Queen, who was reported to be the mistress of the Regent. Meanwhile, Douglas was deprived of his bishopric and forced, for safety, to remain in England, where he effected nothing in the interests of his nephew. The declaration of war by England against Scotland, in answer to the recent Franco-Scottish negotiations, prevented his return. His case was further complicated by the libellous animosity of James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow (whose life he had saved in the "Cleanse the Causeway" incident), who was anxious to put himself forward and thwart Douglas in the election to the archbishopric of St Andrews, left vacant by the death of Forman.
caption: Seal of Gavin Douglas as Bishop of Dunkeld
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