The Sterling genealogy

THE KEIR LINE 63
the lands of Ochiltree to them in joint fee, with some smaller
provisions ; as also to do his diligence for getting a remission
from the King for the said Thomas for " his alleged lying with
the said Janet " while she was the said James's wife.
Of the divorced lady little more is known. She was alive in
1588. She seems to have met treatment which was to be expected
from her second husband. A rhyme is still preserved, descriptive
of her fortunes
" First she was Lady Cawder
Syne she was Lady Keir
And Syne she was Tarn Bishop's wife
Wha clippit wis the shear."
Her paramour is more easily traced. He acted the part of
a notary public and a traitor to his country, having given assist-
ance to the English and gone with his wife to England, as a spy
and instrument there in the transactions of Lennox and Queen
Mary. He was afterwards a trader at Yarmouth, and finally an
adulterer at Perth, where he found means to sojourn. ("About
this same tyme, 1544, Lennox, seiuing himself so farr out stripit
by the Regent and his two cheiffe supports, Angus and Maxswoll,
detained closse prisoners ; he turns his coate and sends one Thomas
Bischope, priuiley to Henrey, the Englishe King, with offers to
assist the King in his demands." Balfour's Annals, Vol. I, p. 280.)
In 1586 Bishop was cast into the Tower of London for his
supposed authorship of, or connection with, a spirited satirical
rhyme against the Regent Murray. This poem is signed by