of June. Albany's longer absence
in France permitted the party-faction of the nobles to come to a head in
a plot by the earl of Arran to seize the earl of Angus, the queen's
husband. The issue of this plot was the well-known fight of
"Clear-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 of the queen's rents and
abducted Lord Traquair's daughter. The queen set about to obtain 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 he 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 Beaton,
archbishop of St Andrews (whose life he had saved in the
"Clear-the-Causeway" incident), who was anxious to thwart his election
to the archbishopric of St Andrews, now vacant by the death of Forman.
In 1522 Douglas was stricken by the plague which raged in London, and
died at the house of his friend Lord Dacre. During the closing years of
exile he was on intimate terms with the historian Polydore Vergil, and
one of his last acts was to arrange to give Polydore a corrected version
of Major's account of Scottish affairs. Douglas was buried in the church
of the Savoy, where a monumental brass (removed from its proper site
after the fire in 1864) still records his death and interment.

Douglas's literary work, now his chief claim to be remembered, belongs,
as has been stated, to the period 1501-1513, when he was provost of St
Giles. He left four poems.

1. _The Palice of Honour_, his earliest work, is a piece of the later
type of dream-allegory, extending to over 2000 lines in nine-lined
stanzas. In its descriptions of the various courts on their way to the
palace, and of the poet's adventures--first, when he incautiously
slanders the court of Venus, and later w