Alexander Montgomerie - Courtier

Courtier

As early as 27 July 1583 Montgomerie was granted a pension by the king, drawn from the revenues of Glasgow Cathedral. His career had evidently survived the temporary imprisonment of James by a militant Protestant faction led by the Earl of Gowrie, and the exile and death of Esmé Stewart, whom James had made Duke of Lennox. But there seems to have been a fundamental change in the culture of the court towards the end of 1585, when the king took personal control of the government, and in the summer of 1586 Montgomerie joined an enlarged Scottish contingent fighting for the Dutch Republic against the Spanish.

He stayed there for more than two years, serving at Zutphen at the same time as the unfortunate Sir Philip Sidney, and eventually experiencing severe financial difficulties as a result of non-payment by the Dutch authorities. He eventually struck a deal with the States of Holland in February 1588, and was back in Scotland by the end of the year.

Life at court was now very different from what it had been before Montgomerie’s departure, not least because of (justified) allegations of intrigue between leading Catholic aristocrats and the Spanish. On a more personal level, the poet’s pension had been claimed by someone else during his absence, and a long legal struggle ended in defeat for Montgomerie in July 1593. This battle produced some of his most remarkable poetry, increasingly embittered sonnets encouraging, cajoling, and eventually attacking the judges and lawyers involved, and even the king himself. At the same time, he continued to write formal poems about life at court, while some of the undated songs and other verses may well also come from this period.