Note 689 — PREFACE (continued 4)
Reading edition
David Panter, or Panyter, who held several Church livings, was much employed in public negotiations abroad. His uncle Patrick Panter, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, and David Panter, were successively Secretaries of State in the reigns of James the Fourth and Fifth, and "being admirably versed in the Latin tongue," their names are honourably distinguished by the series of Letters of our Kings, addressed to Foreign Princes, which Ruddiman published under the title of "Epistolæ Regum Scotorum," &c., in the years 1722 and 1724, in 2 vols. 8vo. In the Treasurer's Accounts, 1544, we find this entry,—
"Item, the thrid day of Aprile, gevin for vjc. (600) crownis of the Sonn, of fynance deliverit in France to Maister David Panyter, Secretar Ambassatour thair, the sowme of viijc. x lib." (£810.)
On the same day, a similar payment of 400 crowns (or £540) was delivered to Sir John Campbell of Lundy, Ambassador in France. Panter was promoted to the See of Ross in the latter part of 1545. Sir James Balfour, in his Annals, calls him "a notable adulterer."—(Annals, vol. i. p. 312.) He died, says Holinshed, of a lingering illness, at Stirling, on the 1st of October 1558.—(Keith's Catal. of Bishops, p. 192.)