Page:New Poems by James I.djvu/39

 and otheris beyond sey. . . quheras he remanit continewallie sensyne, detaynit and halden in prison." His destination and the nature of his errand have remained unknown, though the time, just preceding the execution of Mary his intimacy with Constable and Keir, and references in his sonnets to Archbishop Beaton, Mary's representative in Paris, show that he was associated with members of the Catholic party. A hitherto unnoted letter from T. Fowler to Archibald Douglas in London, November 25, 1588, makes it likely that his imprisonment was in England. The given name is again omitted, but the date and the circumstances of the detention at once connect the reference with the poet. Fowler's statement that Montgomerie was "unacquainted with trouble" may be taken with many allowances.

During his absence, his pension was stopped, and a number of his sonnets (XIV-XXX) deal with his efforts by legal proceedings and direct appeal to the King to have it restored. Since they were all written during a short period and for a special purpose, one can hardly draw a general conclusion regarding the author's petulant melancholy of temperament or undignified servility. His "real and sincere" passion for Lady Margaret Montgomerie, to whom he addressed sonnets at the time of her marriage in 1582,