Richard Holland or Richard de Holande (died in or after 1483) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

cleric and poet, author of the ''

Buke of the Howlat ''The Buke of the Howlat'', often referred to simply as ''The Howlat'', is a humorous 15th century Scots poem by Richard Holland. Description The poem is a comic allegory in which all the characters are birds with human attributes, with a howle ...

''.

Life

Holland was secretary or

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a Minister (Christianity), minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a laity, lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secularity, secular institution (such as a hosp ...

Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray (1426 – 1 May 1455) was a Scottish nobleman during the reign of King James II of Scotland. He was one of the five brothers from the Black Douglas family who clashed with the king. Life Douglas was the son o ...

(c. 1450) and

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

Halkirk Halkirk ( gd, Hàcraig) is a village on the River Thurso in Caithness, in the Highland council area of Scotland. From Halkirk the B874 road runs towards Thurso in the north and towards Georgemas in the east. The village is within the parish o ...

, near Thurso. He was afterwards rector of Abbreochy, Loch Ness, and later held a chantry in the cathedral of Norway. He was an ardent partisan of the Douglases, and on their over-throw retired to Orkney and later to

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

. He was employed by

Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...

in his attempt to rouse the Western Isles through Douglas agency, and in 1482 was excluded from the general pardon granted by James III to those who would renounce their fealty to the Douglases.

Works

The poem entitled the

, written about 1450, shows Holland's devotion to the house of Douglas: "On ilk beugh till embrace Writtin in a bill was O Dowglass, O Dowglass Tender and trewe!" (ii. 400–403). and is dedicated to the wife of a Douglas "Thus for ane Dow of Dunbar drew I this Dyte, Dowit with ane Dowglass, and boith war thei dowis." But all theories of its being a political

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

in favour of that house may be discarded. Sir Walter Scott's judgment that the Buke is "a poetical apologue ... without any view whatever to local or natural politics" is certainly the most reasonable. The poem, which extends to fool lines written in the irregular alliterative rhymed

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...

, is a bird-allegory, of the type familiar in the ''Parlemsnt of Foules''. It has the incidental interest of showing (especially in stanzas 62 and 63) the antipathy of the "Inglis-speaking Scot" to the "Scots-speaking Gael" of the west, as is also shown in Dunbar's ''Flyting with Kennedy''. The text of the poem is preserved in the Asloan (c. 1515) and Bannatyne (1568) manuscripts, though the poem is thought to be 50–70 years older than the earlier manuscript. Fragments of an early 16th-century black-letter edition, discovered by

D. Laing D. or d. may refer to, usually as an abbreviation: * Don (honorific), a form of address in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and their former overseas empires, usually given to nobles or other individuals of high social rank. * Date of death, as an abbreviati ...

, are reproduced in the ''Adversaria'' of the Bannatyne Club. The poem has been frequently reprinted, by * Richard Holland, Bangor, 1989 * John Pinkerton, in his ''Scottish Poems'' (1792) * David Laing (Bannatyne Club 1823) * in "New Club" series, Paisley, 1882) * the Hunterian Club in their edition of the Bannatyne Manuscript * A. Diebler (Chemnitz, 1893) * F. J. Amours in ''Scottish Alliterative Poems'' (Scottish Text Society, 1897), pp. 47–81. (See also Introduction pp. xx.-xxxiv.)

References

* * ''British Authors Before 1800: A Biographical Dictionary'', edited by

Stanley J. Kunitz Stanley may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film * ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy * ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short * ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...

and Howard Haycraft, New York, The H. W. Wilson Company, 1952.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holland, Richard 15th-century deaths Scots Makars People associated with Orkney People associated with Shetland Shetland writers Scottish Renaissance writers Year of birth unknown 15th-century Scottish writers 15th-century Scottish poets Early Scots poets Middle Scots poets 15th-century Scottish Roman Catholic priests