COMMENTARY NOTES

1 in Levinia Scotiae provincia natus est Buchanan was the son of Thomas Buchanan and grandson of Laird Buchanan of Drumnakill. Information about Clan Buchanan can be found here.
1 Lutetiam amandavit From 1520 to 1522.
1 cum auxiliis Gallorum French troops brough tover by Albany. Buchanan witnessed the siege of Werk in 1523.
1 missus est ad Ioannem Maiorem In 1524 Buchanan went to St. Andrews to study under the celebrated Humanist John Mair or Major (a sketch of him may be read here). According to the D. N. B. life of Buchanan, he was “a man of acute intellect, who, like Erasmus, did not embrace the reformed doctrine, but prepared the way for it. His pupils did not stop where their master did, and Buchanan ungratefully refers to him in the epigram,”

Cum scateat nugis solo cognomine Maior,
Nec sit in immenso pagina sana libro.
Non mirum titulis quid se veracibus ornat:
Nec semper mendax fingere Creta solet.

Buchanan followed him to Paris in 1525.
1 in collegium Barbaranum accitus The college of St. Barbe, where he started to teach grammar in 1529.
1 in Scotiam una reduxit In 1536.
2 Iacobo filio nothi Not the future Regent, but another bastard son of James V, created Abbot of Melrose and Kelso by the Pope. Buchanan held this post until 1538.
2 pervenit ad Franciscanos elegidion The poem Somnium, imitative of Dumbar’s A Visitation of St. Francis.
2 cum Magdalena uxore suo James V married Madeleine, daughter of François I of France, in 1537; she died later in the same year.
3 advorsus eos carmen scribere The Franciscanus et Fratres.
3 cardinalem Betonium James Cardinal Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews (biographical article here). This occurred in 1539.
4 invitante Andrea Goveano Andrew Govea, Principal of the college of Guienne.
4 scripsi quatuor tragoedias Buchanan does not add that Montaigne acted in at least one of them.
4 regis Scotorum mors James V died in 1542.
5 Interea literae Buchanan omits to mention that he returned Paris in 1544 and had stayed there until 1547. This summons of King John III of Portugal may seem rather peremptory, but Govea was a Portuguese subject.
5 in medio velut cursu Not just in the middle of his course of life, but practically in the middle of the journey from Paris to Lisbon, since Govea died in 1548. The adventures that follow occupied the next four years.
8 in Angliam navigavit In 1552.
8 sub rege adolescente Edward VI.
8 cum Mellino Sangelasio Melinde de St. Gelais (“a poet of the school of Marot”— D. N. B.).
8 a Carolo Cossaeo Brixiacensi Charles de Cosse, Maréchal de Brissac, governor of the French territory on the Italian coast. The date of his return to Scotland after this sojourn was no later than 1562.
8 Scotis a tyrannide Guisiana liberatis James V’s consort Mary of Guise was Regent of Scotland, and her death in 1560 put an end to French domination and opened the way for the rise of the Protestant Kirk.
9 E superiorum autem temporum scriptis Buchanan alludes to the publication of Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica, nunc primum edita, authore Georgio Buchanano…Eiusdem Buchanani tragoedia quae inscribitur Iephthes. Caetera eius opera seorsum edita sunt. (London, 1566).
9 cui erudiendo erat praefectus In the Introduction I have already commented on the blatant falsehood of this statement.