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350 J.
Maitland Anderson
the Council turned out to be the most brilliant assemblage of
clergy and laity ever witnessed in mediaeval Europe. Scotland
officially held aloof from the Council, but individual Scotsmen
found their way there all the same. 1
Among them was Finlay de
Albania, Bachelor of Theology, a Dominican Friar, Provincial of
the Order in Scotland, and special
confessor to Robert, Duke of
Albany, governor of the realm. How he came to be at Constance
is not at all clear, but that he was there is made certain by the
diary of Cardinal Fillastre. In 1416 he was sent to Scotland as
an ambassador of the Council, to invite and exhort the King and
the Governor, as well as the clergy and nobles, to send representatives
to the Council to aid in procuring the union of the church.
He duly fulfilled his mission and the letters of which he was the
bearer were published at St. Andrews, in presence of Bishop
Wardlaw and a great gathering of clergy, nobles, and people.
The University and the clergy appear to have made no response
to the Council's appeal ; but the Governor wrote a letter to the
Council dated from his castle of Doune, November 4, 1416. He
acknowledged receipt of the communication which Finlay had
brought to him ; assured the Council that nothing lay nearer his
heart than the promotion of union and the extirpation of strife
with its evil consequences ; and explained that he had intended to
send ambassadors to the Council but that many impediments had
come in his way, not the least of these being the constant risks of
wars, plunderings, and other calamities between Scotland and
England. He promised to send ambassadors at the earliest
opportunity and to empower them to do everything they could to
procure the peace and reform of the church and he invoked the
;
Divine power to
strengthen and prosper the efforts that were
being made to reach the happy issue of a holy and salutary union
of the mother church.
Finlay was forthwith sent back to Constance with the Governor's
letter, which also empowered him to inform the Council more
fully of the position of affairs in Scotland. Finlay's account of
the result of his mission to Scotland was heard by the Council on
January 4, 1417. When the Governor's letter was read, an
unnamed English doctor spoke in
praise of the King of Scotland
1 In Richental's Chronik des Constanzer Conciis there are various references to the
presence of Scotsmen ; and Kitts may be trusted to have authority for saying that
' at the tables outside the inns sat scholars from Prague or Heidelberg, singing
songs of the fatherland, while stern English or Scotch knights looked stolidly on '
(Pope John the Twenty-third, p. 248).