r Perrow — The Last Will and Testament in Literature. 729 
ment. Among other metaphorical bequests she leaves to the 
people of France all the disasters that she can enumerate. 
In Scotland, too, during the latter half of the century, this 
type of literature Was not without its representatives. The Testa¬ 
ment and Tragedie of umquhile King Henrie Stewart , a poem 
printed in Edinburgh in 1567, represents Henry Stewart, Lord 
Darnley, as telling after his death how he was lured into Scot¬ 
land and flattered by the queen’s offer of marriage, how he had 
loved and admired the queen, how her love had grown cold,, 
and how she had treacherously murdered him. He then ex¬ 
claims against the treachery of women and warns others to be¬ 
ware of them. His babe he leaves to the care of the Lords; for 
revenge he leaves “My saikless bluid, my murther and iniure.” 
He closes by urging the Scots to look to God and their liberties. 1 
In the Bischoffs Lyf and Testament (1571) the confession 
element is the most prominent. 2 In this John Hamilton, arch¬ 
bishop of St. Andrews, is made to give an account of his life 
and to confess his many crimes. The author represents him¬ 
self as meeting the archbishop’s spirit in the park, where the 
latter makes his testament. When the apparition has con¬ 
cluded the confession, it vanishes, and the author returns to the 
castle to see the body of the archbishop swinging from the gib¬ 
bet. The poem is both well conceived and w r ell executed. 
There is a kind of grimness about these verses which makes one 
feel that he has been listening to a strong bold spirit that with 
wide open eyes chose its own bad way and never once faltered 
therein. 
As evidence of the fact that the testament was regarded in 
1 By Robert Sempill. Printed by T. G. Stevenson in the Sempill Sat¬ 
iates, Edinburgh, 1872; also by J. G. Dalyell, Scottish Poets of the Six- 
tetnth Century, Edinburgh, 1801. This poem, as its title indicates, is 
related to another familiar type of mediaeval literature, the Tragedie, 
of which Chaucer’s Monk's Tale, Boccaccio’s De Casihus, Lydgate’s 
Fall of Princes, and the Mirrour for Magistrates furnish examples. 
For discussion of the Tragedie see Wilhelm Cloetta, Beitrsige zur lit¬ 
ter aturgeschichte des mittelalters und der renaissance, Halle, 1890, vol. 
I. As it was customary in this form of literature to let the sufferer 
of the tragedie tell his own story, it was almost inevitable that this 
form should, in some cases, amalgamate with the autobiographical 
testament. 
2 Sempill Ballatee, p. 133. 
