The Complaynt of Scotland Author:John Leyden Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: work was published at an important crisis, imme- ediately after the battle of Pinky. The principles of the Reformation had already made considerable progress in ... more »that country; and the opposition of private interests soon assumed the appearance of a religious contest. But if we regard the influence of religion on the political relations of Scotland, instead of mentioning the Catholic and Protestant parties, we may with propriety speak of the French and English factions. The prevalence of the Protestant interest, which, in the most early struggles, had been chiefly supported by the assistance of England; and afterwards, the union of the Crowns, in the person of James VI., tended to moderate that spirit of rancour which reiterated injuries and insults had produced between the sister kingdoms, and which pervades the Complaynt of Scotland in all its acrimony. These causes conspiring, may, without the intervention of a proscription, have sunk this politici-.l and satirical work into that neglect, in which it continued for 160 years. The first person by whom the Complaynt of Scotland is mentioned, is James Watson, who published, from his own press, a short history of printing in 1713; but as he assigns, as its date, 1540, in contradiction to the work itself, the composition of which, from a calculation which it contains, is undeniably referred to 1548, it is doubtful whether he intended the present work, or some other, of the same title. The Complaint of Scotland seems to have been a common title about this period. One of the divisions of Lindsay's Dreme, addressed to James V, is denominated " The Complaint " of the Commounweill of Scotland," and may probably be the work alluded to by Watson. A ballad, entitled, entitled, " The Complaint of Scotland," occurs in M.i- jor Pierson'...« less