ABSTRACT
In the Epistil of the Dreme Lyndsay adopts a strategy of gentle coaxing, employing his rhetorical skills and using his experience as a herald in order to further the king's education. Lyndsay's knowledge of the necessity of diplomatic counsel is also apparent here, prompting the young king to a specific course of action without alienating his addressee. Sir David Lyndsay's immersion in the court cultures of medieval Europe, there is no doubt that his close association with the Scottish court heavily influenced his thinking. Throughout his literary corpus, Lyndsay demonstrates a concern with the interrelationship of kingship, good governance, and the state of the kingdom of Scotland. Carol Edington observes that heralds constituted a specialized branch of the lay intelligentsia', and in his classic study of Renaissance diplomacy, Garrett Mattingly suggests that, by the fifteenth century, heralds and kings-at-arms were deemed the most appropriate bearers of solemn warnings, ultimatums and defiances'.
