John Ireland

John Ireland (born c. 1435—died c. 1500) was a Scottish writer, theologian, and diplomatist, whose treatise The Meroure of Wyssdome is the earliest extant example of original Scots prose. Ireland left the University of St. Andrews without taking a degree and attended the University of Paris (licentiate, 1460). He lived in France until 1483–84, becoming a doctor of theology and being sent on several diplomatic missions by Louis XI. On Louis’s death he returned to...