THE NOBLE IDENTITY OF GAVIN DOUGLAS

This essay takes up Sally Mapstone’s contention that Scottish advice to princes was directed as much to magnates and their supporters as it ever was to the king, and applies it to Gavin Douglas’s Eneados . It considers the manner in which Douglas’s translation represents nobility, national identity, and political violence, with reference to Douglas’s own magnatial identity and that of the poem’s patron, William Sinclair. It considers both the prologues and the translated texts, examining further the relationship between them. In so doing, it places the Eneados in the context of Virgilian criticism as well as Older Scots poetic traditions, and demonstrates parallels in language choices regarding war, government, and rule.

other, that the Aeneid itself is a political poem, it is entirely legitimate to consider the Eneados as a text with advice for the Scottish nobility by a Scottish nobleman. 6 The Aeneid, written under Augustus, celebrating Rome's achievements and lamenting the civil wars that led to the Empire, had always carried political weight. By the sixteenth century, Aeneas, in some quarters, was understood as a model for Augustus. 7 That view Douglas could certainly have found in Badius Ascensius' commentary, but in other places as well. 8 If Aeneas was a model for Augustus, then he might also serve as a model for contemporary kingship, as had Alexander: translating the Aeneid might be seen simplistically as the humanist update on the fifteenth-century Scottish Alexander romances. 9 Douglas himself draws attention to this tradition in the prologue to Book 1, where he says that 'euery vertu belangand a nobill man/ This ornate poet bettir than ony can/ Payntand discryvis in person of Eneas' (I.Prol.325-7).
Furthermore, Virgil's narrative is also concerned with the divinely ordained foundation of Rome. To some degree modelled on the Aeneid, many European kingdoms had similar 6 For references to The Palice of Honoure, see The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas, edited by Priscilla Bawcutt, rev. ed. STS (Edinburgh, 2003): the dedication to James is at lines 2143-69. foundation narratives: the English had Geoffrey of Monmouth's Brutus foundation story, for instance, while the French had Pharamond, both narratives which were being replayed in scholarly circles at the turn of the sixteenth century. 10 The political importance of foundation myths was not lost on Douglas, even though the Scots were able to deploy Gathelos and Scota as Scottish founders in opposition to the Brutus myth. 11 Crucially, in the Aeneid, divine ordination and prophecy justifies Aeneas' leadership and his actions for a greater cause. That too might have had easy currency in some political discourse in sixteenth-century Scotland: while James VI's arguments for divine right were several decades away, James IV's accession required at the very least the management of parricide, so a text that allowed a hero to grow into his divine destiny might be deemed particularly appropriate. 12 On the other hand, examples of pessimistic readings of Virgil were also found in the early modern period. Such readers, including Ariosto and Shakespeare, are alive to the ambiguities of Aeneas' behaviour, and the problems with the Trojan invasion. In the case of the Eneados, it is obvious from the Prologues IV and VI that Douglas was troubled by the treatment of Dido and Aeneas' visit to the Underworld in those books. Those issues arise from the collision between Virgil's narrative and the tenets of Christian faith, and Douglas's understanding of previous vernacular representations of the text. Both of these in turn connect 10 See R.E. Asher, National Myths in Renaissance France: Francus, Samothes and the Druids (Edinburgh, 1993) and T.D. Kendrick, British Antiquity (London, 1950 early 1500s when the Eneados was composed; he also does not engage with the oddity of having a text about a prince written by a man who, even before 1513, might expect to wield significant political influence, simply by reason of who he is. The natural focus on Aeneas, moreover, overlooks the role of Turnus: presented in opposition to Aeneas, he is nevertheless a man who seeks to preserve the independence of his people in the face of determined invasion. In his opening prologue to the Eneados, Douglas identifies Henry, third Lord Sinclair, as the inspiration for the translation, saying that Sinclair had advised him to translate either Homer or Virgil. Sinclair is known as a patron of literary culture: he owned and curated the manuscript in which the Kingis Quair is preserved, as well as other significant texts. 16 Despite his literary interests, however, there is no evidence that he undertook advanced university studies; it might even be a reasonable speculation that he would have only had the most passing acquaintance with either Homer or Virgil, and those mostly through vernacular references. He first appears in the records when he was recognized as 'Chief of that blude' on 26 January 1488-89; he was married before 4 December 1488. 17 While it is hard to calculate his age precisely, given that he was still young enough to accompany the king on the invasion of England in late summer 1513 (in company with Douglas's elder brothers but in contrast to Douglas's father, the Earl of Angus), and that he would have most probably been in his late teens or early twenties when he married, it is likely that he was born around 1465-70, making him roughly Douglas's contemporary. Although Bawcutt suggests that Douglas might have hoped for some material reward from his patron, she also points out that Douglas addresses him as his peer, or his 'cousyng' (Direction 3). 18 If this is the case, then it is probable that they knew each other at James IV's court, in the 1490s and early 1500s, around the time of The Palice of Honoure. Sinclair was more successful than Douglas at keeping royal patronage: the Angus kin were not consistently in favour and Douglas had to wait for his bishopric until after James IV's death, while Sinclair rose in royal service, being appointed as Of course the parallels are not sustained: there is no suggestion that Sinclair will found an empire or visit the underworld. Nevertheless, Douglas's choice of dedicatee looks particularly pertinent in the light of one of the most provocative recent readings of the Eneados, by James Simpson. 19 Simpson sees the Eneados as a text that 'makes no genealogical claim whatsoever, and offers access to a model of nobility, both poetic and monarchical'. 20 As a bald statement, this fits more neatly with The Palice of Honoure, Douglas's first work, dedicated to James IV: that poem correlates poetic endeavour with martial success as a means of gaining honour. If the king is not the only recipient of honour, then the corollary is that the monarch may not be the only beneficiary of advice material. As Mapstone has argued, a good deal of Scottish material is directed towards audiences of magnates and lairds, so Simpson's view of the Eneados can find its place easily in Scottish tradition. 21 However, Simpson elaborates his view: Literate bureaucrats and poets had claimed nobility of soul against aristocratic privileges throughout the medieval period, but the political conditions of the early sixteenth century … give a dramatic impetus to the idea. In this social environment, literacy and the capacity to imitate classical models become the hallmarks of a newly defined nobility, according to which nobility is produced by analogy rather than genealogy. 22 Simpson goes on to describe Douglas's family background as a 'complication', but such a view underplays the significance of his family ties. The Douglases, Black and Red, had been a major, often disruptive, presence in Scottish politics since the fourteenth century; even as a younger son, Douglas cannot escape his kin. The Palice of Honoure might suggest that, in addition to his birth, Douglas had a claim on the 'nobility of the soul', if that term can be said to include writing as a legitimate path to honour. As the example of Cicero in the Palice of Honoure shows, rhetoric itself can be a winner for the realm, although more commonly it acts as judge for the honour of others (PH 1770-4).
At the very end of the paragraph quoted above, Simpson alludes to Douglas's readers.
However, Douglas does not address his poem to 'literate bureaucrats and poets', but to Sinclair in the first instance, and then more generally to schoolmasters ('translatar direkkis', 41-8) and 'euery gentill Scot' at the end ('Exclamatioun', 43). In the light of the opening dedication, Simpson's argument about 'nobility ... produced by analogy rather than genealogy' sits oddly. Neither Douglas nor Sinclair earned his position entirely through his skills, but were enabled by their inherited nobility and rank. The same might be said of Aeneas: while on the one hand, his journey from Troy to Italy refines him from one prince among many to the leader, firstly of his family, then his own followers, and then to the generalship of a larger army of various peoples, on the other, such a fate was divinely written and enforced, an argument used by many kings and nobles when regarding their own births.
For such an audience, the Aeneid would seem to be useful to remind Sinclair and Douglas how to reflect their noble births in their behaviour, rather than to transcend their origins with their literary responses. From a noble pen, such a reading of the Aeneid is harder to differentiate from medieval romance and indeed from the prevalent advice-to-princes motifs Mair complains that 'the [Scottish] gentry educate their children neither in letters nor in morals-no small calamity to the state'. Proper tutors 'learned in history, upright in character' would be able to inculcate from 'the example of the Romans, whose most illustrious generals were men well skilled in polite learning; and the same thing we read of the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Persians'. 24 Mair specifically identifies history and Roman practice: the Aeneid as a source text-a pseudo-historical account written for the first Roman emperor-might fit that brief. Without claiming that Douglas was participating in some national programme of noble education, nevertheless he directs his translation to a fellow nobleman, one enjoying a distinguished military career. By the end of the work, Douglas is more expansive-or perhaps less idealistic-about the likely audience for the Eneados. He refers to it as a crib for school masters, not necessarily Simpson's 'bureaucrats and poets', although possibly responsible for educating some of them. Such a socially polarized audience indicates the dangers of limiting the Eneados to a single message, as well as making such a message hard to identify; in that, Gray is right. However, given that the Latin protagonist was widely read as an exemplar, to ignore the potential 'relatability' of the Eneados to Scottish noble experience is also to elide some of its richness.
The first question has to be about the nature of nobility. Douglas helpfully offers some discussion of this in two of the prologues. Cited by Simpson as the most important, the ninth prologue addresses nobility directly. 25 There is a strong emphasis on moral behaviour, 'Honeste is the way to worthyness/ Vertu, doutless, the perfyte gait to blyss'(IX.Prol.7-8); only one line seems pointed, 'Oyss not thy mycht abufe thyne awin degre' (IX.Prol.15). Such a warning might apply to those climbing up to the Douglases, but also perhaps to his aristocratic peers. After the first eighteen lines, Douglas returns to rhymed couplets, for a longer discussion regarding register and translation: 'thar suld na knycht reid bot a knychtly taill' (IX.Prol.44). This means that broom should be replaced by laurels, spaniels rather than mastiffs, goshawks rather than gleds. It is a very particular view of the knightly life, one which is directed towards his patron: And for I haue my wark addressyt and dycht I dar sa, baith to gentil barroun and knycht, Quahis name abufe I haue done notyfy And now of prowess and hie chevelry Behuffis me to write and carp a quhile.  This reassertion of his patron's identity underlines Douglas's presentation of barony and knighthood as significant to Sinclair, and presumably himself, rather than-at this point-to an audience interested in art for its own sake. The initial verse form, and accompanying style of diction, therefore, are only one element of the entire work. The change in verse form, from intricate internal rhyme to relatively plain couplets, suggests perhaps that straightforward narrative is a more effective means of communicating nobility, even if that is never precisely defined; moreover a rollicking story is better placed to capture the intended audience. While the Eneados never reaches the 'lowness' of fabliau diction, its source means that it ranges widely, from philosophy to seamanship. Yet Douglas's statement equally implies that the range of the whole poem is entirely suitable for the nobility, because of its subject and because of its narrative: Book IX is merely a book where 'hie chevelry' and combat dominate.
Prologue XI returns to the question of nobility. Its opening looks promising: it talks about 'prowes, but vyce, is provit lefull thyng' (XI.Prol.9), but this too is qualified by the Of quham fuyl hardynes clepit is the tane That undertakis all perrellis but avice; The tother is namyt schamefull cowardyce, Voyd of curage, and dolf as any stane.  Most of this is conventional, but the pitch, of the virtues of princes, seems more particular.

Douglas presents an Aristotelian fine line between 'fuyl hardynes' (foolish boldness) and
'schamefull cowardyce'. His models step up to fight as required, but do not undertake battle without preparation. There is nothing radical about such a temperate view, although it might seem more pertinent when addressed to a military officer of a king known to be interested in chivalric endeavour. It also reflects on the figures of the narrative it frames: the standard presentation of Aeneas is as a man who grows into self-control and temperate government.
Yet, by the end, when Aeneas is held up as the model of one who suffers for his faith, the analogic rather than the literal model of nobility predominates, since his achievements (and those of other pagans) are necessarily still overwhelmed by Christ's sacrifice. 26  Although the prologues open questions about the nature and exercise of nobility, they are not explicitly an instruction manual for the elite. Douglas is apparently at least as much concerned with his representation of Virgil's text and hero. As indicated earlier, however, in representing Aeneas accurately, Douglas is necessarily engaged with a critical tradition that considers Aeneas as a model, whether of excellence or critique. Kallendorf describes the positive view of Aeneas as a pattern that repeats over centuries: moreover, he suggests that this model of Aeneas is particularly suited to imperial nations, for its narrative is a triumph of colonization and ultimate conquest. 28 Although James III had declared Scotland an empire in the 1480s, the Scots' national narrative was not consistently imperialist. 29 The incorporation of the Northern Isles (with which the Sinclairs were closely involved) and the suppression of the Lordship of the Isles were internal acts of conquest; 30 but national narratives, most obviously the Bruce and the Wallace, tended to represent the Scots as being subject to unwarranted invasion rather than seeking conquest themselves. So a straightforwardly Douglas maintains the metaphor of the body ('entrails') for Virgil's viscera, additionally stressed by the reassertion of Anchises' voice ('quod he'). 31 Douglas's patterning juxtaposes 'hevinly kin' with 'myn awin lynage' to stress the responsibility Caesar bears to behave well.
The irony of Anchises' wish is key to the irony of the prophecy, since for all the good he can predict, there is necessarily ill too. Nevertheless, Douglas, following Virgil, chooses to put the responsibility for peace on Julii, rather than on those challenging their authority.
If Caesar and Pompey are at the heart of this chapter, Quintus Fabius Cunctator concludes it. Fabius Cunctator is famous for winning by not fighting, but by constantly delaying (hence his cognomen). Douglas describes him thus: Thow are that ilk mast souerane Fabius bald Quhilk only, throu thy slycht and tareyng Restoris the common weill of our ofspryng. (VI.14.100-2) Virgil's description is briefer: unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem (Aen. 6: 846). Two features stand out. The first is the use of 'common weill' for 'res'. This becomes Bellenden's standard translation of res publica, although the first DOST citation is in fact Dunbar. 32 Douglas's modification of 'common weill' with 'of our ofspryng' however needs some attention. Virgil's nobis allows an expansive interpretation, where 'us' means 'us Romans' rather than 'us Anchisidae'. In contrast, Douglas's translation is more exclusive, unless Anchises' paternalism here (unlike his specific rebuke to Caesar (68-9)) incorporates all Romans. The broader incorporation would make more sense at the end of a long list of a single vision of Roman identity. In a Scottish context, such alignment would equate the royal line with the realm. That alignment is reinforced by 'common weill'. In addition, the term also possibly puns on 'well', a source of water, suggesting something nourishing from which all Romans ('our ofspryng') will come to draw, whether that be identity or well-being.
This small section then stresses a common cause between the son of Aeneas and the Roman nobility-appropriate enough for a text directed to a magnate and royal servant.
The second point to query is Douglas's introduction of 'slycht', cunning rather than brute force. Arguably, it reflects the initial Roman response to Fabius, as described by Livy; but it nevertheless stands in contrast to the physical aggression of Pompey and Caesar, rather as 'entralis' sit oddly with 'common weill'. The conclusion of the chapter celebrates the intellectual approach to warfare rather than the physical. Such a contrast stands out still further because of the equivocal attitude to Caesar and Pompey as warriors: Fabius' approach of minimizing damage and casualties by drawing the alien enemy away is the counterpoint to the civil war mentioned earlier, and it gains further attention from Douglas's location of it at the end of the chapter. The inference of a political message seems to be supported by Douglas's chapter heading immediately following:

Anchises gevis Eneas gud teching
To gyde the pepill vnder his governing. (VI.15 heading) At the very least, the heading forces the reader to consider what teaching Eneas might already have had.
Chapter 12, the last and the longest chapter in Book VIII-135 lines-is headed 'Eneas mervellys of the storeys seir/ Wrocht be Wlcanus in hys armour cleir' (VIII.12). Although there are several scenes in this section, there really is only one story: the battle of Actium and its aftermath. Douglas's heading, therefore, is not particularly informative, stressing more Eneas' reaction. The narrative contrasts to Anchises' reflection on Caesar and Pompey, discussed above, for while the conflict between Caesar and Pompey was unequivocally a civil war, the battle here is between Cesar August Octuyan and the Italyanys and Romans, and Marcus Antonyus and 'ane huge rowt and multitude' (VIII.12.30) of 'barbaryanys' (VIII.12.24). In the triumphal narrative, set in Rome, Octavian's victory procession allows him to be justified in his warfare: the suppression of rebellion from the east is to be celebrated. In 1497, the Lordship of the Isles was incorporated into the direct authority of the Scottish crown: to map that event, some sixteen years earlier, on to this scene is precisely the kind of political reading that recent critical practice would rightly resist. 33

Suffir me forto plege my death in wage,
For gloryus renovn of vassillage.'  In contrast to Juturna's speech, this extract does not foreground the patriotic element. Instead, it focuses on the chivalric: 'honour', 'gloryus renovn of vassilage'. Most of the chapter has been given to Latinus, who attempts to dissuade Turnus from war, arguing that 'Now of our recent blude, as noterly kend is/ The flude of Tibir walxis hait agane' (XII.1.88-9). For Latinus, his duty as King is to preserve his people from war, and from the 'chance of batale variabill' (XII.1.105). Turnus speaks at the end of the chapter, and his speech gives the impression that he is interested in his reputation rather than his people; for a moment, the cause-repelling the invader-is lost. Here, not least because of the way in which Douglas arranges the chapter to give far greater length to Latinus, and to make Turnus' response seem rather abrupt, is the other side of the chivalric ideal. Despite Turnus' cause being more in tune with Scottish self-presentation, his focus on his own reputation and his accusations of cowardice against Eneas rather diminish his chivalric glamour. While the poem does not necessarily critique directly James IV's hostilities with England in 1512-13, the language nevertheless suggests some anxieties about the presentation and purposes of war.
In contrast to Turnus, Aeneas is the politician (or coward, as Turnus might say): Gif that sa fair fortoun betydis me Ne will I not command Italianys Eneas also deploys the language of liberation ('fre', 'onthrall', 'onvenquyst') and emphasizes the alliance. At this point in Book XII, Turnus' rashness and aggression determine his annihilation, whether or not the reader sympathizes with his position as a defender of his homeland from invasion. For at the end of the twelfth book of the Aeneid Aeneas fails to maintain his pragmatism when Turnus begs for mercy, instead avenging the death of Pallas when he lays eyes on the baldrick Turnus looted from the body. 37 Douglas divides Book XII into fourteen chapters: the last two divisions seem particularly significant in determining the reader's response. Chapter 13 has the heading: 'Quhou Iupiter and Iuno dyd contend/Eneas stryfe and Turnus fortill end' (XII.13). What that outcome of the duel will be is underlined by the word ordering in the second, where Eneas is the primary figure, closely associated with the fight, and Turnus-an equally important grammatical item-seems merely doomed to die. That the outcome is almost entirely dependent on the divine will of Jupiter is evident from the heading and from the chapter itself. Juno turns out to be willing to sacrifice Turnus, provided that Jupiter 'ne wald the ald inhabitantis/ Byd change thar Latyn name nor natyve landis/ ne charge thame nother tobe callit Troianys' (XII.13.77-9). When Jupiter grants her request, her attitude to Turnus is cavalier: Iuno annerdit, and gaue consent heirto, [...] And in the meyn tyme onto the hevyn hir drew, And left the cloud, and bad Turnus adew. (XII.13.118, 'Bad Turnus adew' is Douglas's addition: Douglas emphasizes that his rights, his service, even his prayers, do not demand Juno's loyalty to his cause, provided she gets her wish. The 37 For further discussion, see Gray, 'Gavin Douglas and Eneas', rest of the chapter demonstrates the first effects of Juno's abandonment, as Turnus is assaulted by the Dirae, a sign by which Juturna realizes her defence of her brother is pointless. Overall, the chapter stresses Turnus' vulnerability to figures and decisions beyond his control, for it does not matter if his quest, as a fight for maintained sovereignty, is right, it will be sacrificed to a more powerful will. Other figures in Scottish narratives face similar crises, including the fictional Golagros and the slightly less fictional Wallace of Hary. Again, without reducing the Eneados to a direct political commentary, there are unexpected parallels to draw. Juno's withdrawal has already confirmed the outcome of the last chapter in Book XII. Its heading is curious: 'At Eneas Turnus a stane dyd cast/ Bot Eneas hass slane hym at the last.' (XII.14).While it refocuses attention on Eneas and Turnus as the only figures in the chapter, it also characterizes them differently, Eneas as victor, Turnus as stone-thrower. For an audience versed in Biblical narrative, such an image is wrong: David the stone-thrower is the victor over Goliath. Of course, Turnus is no shepherd boy: the stone he hurls ineffectually is one that usually takes twelve men to lift (XII.14.33). He is also well aware of his impending doom for as he says to Eneas, 'Thy sawis makis me not agast, perfay; It is the goddis that doith me affray/ And Iupiter becummyn my ennemy . Nevertheless, a hint of irony remains, for David won because God was on his side, whereas Turnus will lose because the gods have abandoned him. Extend na forthir thy wraith and matalent. 23) In classical readings, the plea to return the body evokes Hector and Antigone; in contemporary Scottish readings, Turnus' humility in defeat and his request for an end to hostilities after his death might be more reminiscent of Golagros, and his defeat by Gawain.
Eneas' response draws attention back to him (124-51), so it is shocking when Eneas has his mind changed by a desire for revenge. At the end, Eneas ceases to act like a statesman and a politician, and returns to violence.
The spreit of lyfe fled murnand with a grone, And with disdeyn vnder dyrk erth is goyn.  The last line of the Aeneid, vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras (Aen 12:952), has already occurred in Virgil's poem at 11.831 to describe the death of Camilla. 38 Douglas's translation in Book XI is very similar as well: 'The spreit of lyfe fled murnand with a grone/ And with disdene dovn to the gostis is goyn' . Thus, Douglas follows Virgil in linking the deaths of Camilla and Turnus, and so his presentation of Turnus' death benefits from the transferred pathos: Camilla's role as noble fighter is much less ambivalent than Turnus', not least because she does not meet Aeneas in single combat, and her death scene is more elaborated. In Book 12, despite Aeneas being the main actor, at the point of death the reader's attention is returned to Turnus and the effects of violence. One of the most striking 38 I would like to thank Professor Bawcutt for pointing this out. features is the Latin indignata, translated by Douglas as 'with disdeyn'. In the Aeneid, this must mean 'raging at the unfairness of fate'; 39 'disdeyn' usually carries connotations of contempt and indignation, but here anger would seem a better reading. 40   The focus is carefully weighted here. Turnus' fate is presented as matter of fact, what happens in war, but its statement in the first two lines and the use of 'as' to reinforce its contemporaneity with and necessity to Eneas' triumph. Eneas' presence is delayed, but he is surrounded by description, particularly as 'victor full of magnanymyte', so the reader's attention is delayed. However, the Latin people, at the end of the sentence dominate the next forty lines. In their response to Turnus' death, they lament their own, now vulnerable, situation: That bargan and that weir fast wary thai, And gan abhor of Mars the wild luf, Quhilk laitly thay desyrit and dyd appruf.
The brydyll now refuss thai nocht to dre, Nor yok thar nekkys in captiuite, And to implor forgyfnes of all greif, Quyet, and end of harmyss and myscheif.  For all the glorification of Eneas in the first sentence, here there is no celebration of the right man winning, but a grim appreciation of the cost of war. The common thread here is Turnus' wilfulness and his dedication to war as a means of solving the Trojan threat, and attention is given to what his death has destroyed. These laments, in short, articulate the pity of war rather than its triumphs. In contrast to the Wallace, though, such pity is a motivation towards peace rather than revenge. Latinus moves quickly to discuss a marriage alliance with Eneas (XIII.6); Eneas responds in such a way that 'the Latynys .../ With vissage still beheld hym stupifak .../ Mayr evidently gan mervell he and he/Of hys gret warkis of reuth and sik piete' (XIII.6.205-10). Book XIII allows Eneas to reclaim his pietas and to proceed on his destiny; at the same time, it also emphasizes the destruction caused by war. Turnus is blamed in the same way that Dido is blamed, but the overall effect is to equivocate over the value of Eneas' destiny.
What, then, of the Eneados as advice to princes? The critical consensus against reading particular texts as direct and particular comments on specific political situations is based on sound argument: for the Eneados, such arguments rest on the probable length of its genesis (assuming Douglas alludes to his plans to translate in the Palice of Honoure), its status as a translation, and Douglas's commitment to reproducing the Virgilian poem. Moreover, the Scottish experience of war is hardly unique to the second decade of the sixteenth century.
Nevertheless, there is something particularly poignant in the depiction of war's futility in last two books, which in turn reinforces some of the anxieties underpinning the visions in Books VI and VIII. As a piece of political argument, the Eneados is far too long and too ambivalent to be useful; as a provocation to reflecting on chivalric values and their impact on the rest of the commonweal, it might have had more success, particularly when circulating in the aftermath of Flodden in September 1513.
As The Palice of Honoure had suggested a move from erotic poetry to epic, so the Conclusion to the Eneados already suggests Douglas's withdrawal from poetry altogether ('My muse sal now be cleyn contemplative,/ and solitar, as doith the byrd in cage' (16-17)).
Six weeks after the completion of the Eneados, Henry Sinclair and both of Douglas's elder brothers were killed at Flodden, alongside James IV; when the fifth Earl died in November of that year, Douglas's nephew, Archibald, became Earl, married the dowager Queen, and started a new chapter in Douglas relations with the crown. It may well be that Sinclair never saw the work dedicated to him, and even if he had, he would not have had time to reflect on the definitions of nobility explored within it. Nonetheless, the Eneados did attract an active noble reader, in the Earl of Surrey, for Surrey's translations of Aeneid 2 and 4 are in places dependent on it, although Surrey seems to have modelled his behaviour more on Turnus than on Aeneas. Such advice as Douglas offers in his translation and in his prologues is not clearcut moralizing; rather, it highlights the ambivalences and challenges of operating at high rank, and the responsibilities that brings. That in itself might have been interesting enough to Henry Sinclair and his contemporaries.