Lyndsay or Lindsay, Sir David c.1486-1555
Scottish poet

Born probably at The Mount, near Cupar, Fife, or at Garmylton (Garleton), near Haddington, East Lothian, he was appointed 'usher' (1512) of the newborn prince who became James V. In 1538 he appears to have been Lyon King-of-Arms. He went on embassies to the Netherlands, France, England and Denmark, and he (or another David Lyndsay) represented Cupar in parliament (1540-46). The earliest and most poetic of his writings is the allegorical The Dreme (1528), followed by The Complaynt of the King (1529) and The Testament and Complaynt of Our Soverane Lordis Papyngo (1530). He also wrote a satire on court life called Ane Publict Confession of the Kingis Auld Hound Callit Bagsche (1536), The Historie of Squyer Meldrum, and Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, his most remarkable work, which was performed at Linlithgow in 1540 and revived at the Edinburgh Festival.

Bibliography: W Murison, Sir David Lindsay (1938)