A passion for acting developed at age 9, he told PEOPLE in 1982, recalling his starring roles in such memorable school plays as Bell the Cat ("I played the Mayor of Ratville") and in puppet shows ("I didn't do the puppets, I did the voices—and I discovered I had an ability to mimic rather well").
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This is addressed in the lyrics of "Bell the Cat", a performance put out on DVD by the Japanese rock band LM.C in 2007. This is the monologue of a house cat that wants to walk alone since "Society is by nature evil". It therefore refuses to conform and is impatient of restriction: "your hands hold on to everything – bell the cat". While the lyric is sung in Japanese, the final phrase is in English.
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Arms of Archibald Douglas up until 1491.svg Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus (c. 1449October 1513), was a Scottish nobleman, peer, politician, and magnate. He became known as "Bell the Cat".
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"Who will bell the cat?", comes from the end of a story. Proverbs come from a variety of sources.Barbour, Frances M. "Some uncommon sources of proverbs." Midwest Folklore 13.2 (1963): 97-100.
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The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan on not only how desirable the outcome would be but also how it can be executed. It provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility, and how this affects the value of a given plan. The story gives rise to the idiom to bell the cat, which means to attempt, or agree to perform, an impossibly difficult task."To Bell the Cat" thefreedictionary.com.
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When he resigned in 1491 the title passed to "Bell-the-Cat", Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus. The title ultimately passed to the Earls of Home. The castle is a fine example of Gothic architecture. It consists of a great quadrangle with circular towers on the south.
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XV 1969, p.126 The refrain of Deschamps' ballade, Qui pendra la sonnette au chat (who will bell the cat) was to become proverbial in France if, indeed, it does not record one already existing. In the following century, the Italian author Laurentius Abstemius made of the fable a Latin cautionary tale titled De muribus tintinnabulum feli appendere volentibus (The mice who wanted to bell the cat)Fable 195 in 1499. A more popular version in Latin verse was written by Gabriele Faerno and printed posthumously in his Fabulae centum ex antiquis auctoribus delectae (100 delightful fables from ancient authors, Rome 1564), a work that was to be many times reprinted and translated up to start of the 19th century.
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Retrieved 9 November 2007. Historically it was the basis of the nickname given the Scottish nobleman Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus. In 1482, at a meeting of nobles who wanted to depose and hang James III's favourite, Robert Cochrane, Lord Gray remarked, Tis well said, but wha daur bell the cat? The challenge was accepted and successfully accomplished by the Earl of Angus.
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"I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighbourhood". This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said : "That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat ?". The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke.
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He declares someone has to "bell the cat," and posts his Ninety-five Theses. Confronted by Tetzel and Thomas Cardinal Cajetan de Vio at Augsburg in 1518, Cajetan warns that, if Luther does not retract his "errors and sermons", Christian unity would fall. Luther refuses, and Cajetan concludes, "That man hates himself, and if he goes to the stake, Tetzel, you can inscribe it: 'he could only love others.'" Luther burns the pope's bull Exsurge Domine and has a fit.
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The "Black" Douglases were forfeited in 1455, and their lands returned to the crown. James III granted Bothwell to Lord Crichton, and then to Sir John Ramsay, who were both forfeited in turn. In 1488 Bothwell was granted again to Patrick Hepburn, 2nd Lord Hailes, and the Earldom of Bothwell was created for him. Hepburn did not retain Bothwell Castle for long, however, exchanging it with Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus, known as "Bell-the- Cat", in return for Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale.
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A number of the well known sayings of Jesus, Shakespeare, and others have become proverbs, though they were original at the time of their creation, and many of these sayings were not seen as proverbs when they were first coined. Many proverbs are also based on stories, often the end of a story. For example, the proverb "Who will bell the cat?" is from the end of a story about the mice planning how to be safe from the cat.p. 68. Kent, Graeme. 1991.
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He became Master of the Household of Scotland and a Privy Councillor. He had previously been sent to England as a hostage in 1424 for the ransom of James I of Scotland. John Lyon, 6th Lord Glamis was a quarrelsome man with a quick temper. He married Janet Douglas, Lady Glamis, granddaughter of Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus who was known as Bell the Cat, and after Douglas died she suffered terribly for the hatred that James V of Scotland had towards all of the name of Douglas.
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Richardson, Tantallon Castle, p.13 In 1452, King James II granted Tantallon to the 4th Earl of Angus, brother of the 3rd Earl of Angus, who led the Royal force that defeated the Black Douglases at the Battle of Arkinholm in May 1455.Richardson, Tantallon Castle, p.14 The Red Douglases, in the person of Archibald "Bell-the-Cat" (1453–1514), the 5th Earl, turned against the Royal house in 1482. Around 1490, Angus struck a treasonable deal with Henry VII of England, against James IV of Scotland.
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Cochrane's downfall came during an invasion by an English army led by the king's younger brother, the Duke of Albany, and the Duke of Gloucester, the future King Richard III of England. Albany had promised to give part of Scotland to England in exchange for being placed on the throne. A cabal of aristocrats, led by Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus, decided that they must get rid of Cochrane and the other favourites in order to secure the Scottish crown. Angus chose to "bell the cat", as he put it.
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The phrase "to bell the cat" comes from the fable "The Mice in Council", erroneously ascribed to Aesop, and refers to a dangerous task undertaken for the benefit of all. Subsequently, he joined Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany, in league with Edward IV of England on 11 February 1483, signing the convention at Westminster which acknowledged the overlordship of the English king. However, in March Albany and Angus returned, outwardly at least, to their allegiance, and received pardons for their treason. After a period of peace between them, Angus and the king again started to quarrel.
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An illicit affair between Margaret Stewart, Countess of Mar and Angus, and her brother in law, William Douglas, 1st Earl of Douglas (married to the sister of her husband) produced George Douglas, 1st Earl of Angus (c. 1380–1403). The Countess secured a charter of her estates for her son, to whom in 1389 the title was granted by King Robert II. He was taken prisoner at Homildon Hill in 1402, and died in captivity in England. Archibald "Bell-the-Cat" (1453–1514) the powerful adversary of James III, was his great-grandson. William Douglas (1589–1660) 11th Earl of Angus, was created Marquis of Douglas in 1633.
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King James IV was suspicious of the then Earl of Angus, Archibald, Bell the Cat and his relationship with Henry VII of England, and ordered him to relinquish The Hermitage to the Crown. On 6 March 1492 Patrick Hepburn, 1st Earl of Bothwell had a charter of the lands and lordship of Liddesdale, including The Hermitage Castle, etc., upon the resignation of the same by Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, the latter getting the lordship of Bothwell (but not the Earldom) which Patrick in turn had resigned for the exchange. The Hepburns of Bothwell, then rising in favour with the king, became keepers and lords of The Hermitage. In time, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell held the castle.
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When the 5th earl, "Bell-the-Cat", came of age in 1470, William Douglas came before the King and ad eius genua prouolutus — resigned ward of Tantallon and the lordship of Douglas per fustem et baculum in the said earl's favour. The lands which he received upon the forfeiture of his kinsmen, comprising Sunderlandhall in Selkirkshire, Cranston in Midlothian, and Traquair and Leithenhope in Peeblesshire, were erected on 16 January 1464 into the barony of Sunderland in his favour. William Douglas of Cluny, sometimes styled lord of Sunderland and sometimes lord of Traquair, died, probably unmarried, before 1475, when his lands of Cluny appear in possession of the 5th Earl of Angus.
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An early fortalice was held by the Spens, or Spence, family, possibly vassals of their over lord, the Gospatric Earls of Dunbar. The Douglas family acquired Kilspindie around the start of the 16th century when, in a feud with Spens of Kilspindie, Archibald "Bell-the-cat", 5th Earl of Angus, tore off Spens' leg with one stroke of his great sword. The Douglas family came into ownership of the lands of Aberlady through rights bestowed by the Crown and Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, perhaps indicating a transfer of the name Kilspindie from the village of the same name in Perthshire. Later use by Sir Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie of the title "Greysteil" may refer to the sword stroke used to obtain the lands of Kilspindie.
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Prologue: The poem begins in the Malvern Hills between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. A man named Will (which can be understood either simply as a personal name or as an allegory for a person's will, in the sense of 'desire, intention') falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress (donjon) in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a 'fair field full of folk', representing the world of mankind. A satirical account of different sections of society follows, along with a dream-like fable representing the King as a cat and his people as rodents who consider whether to bell the cat. Passus 1: Holy Church visits Will and explains the tower of Truth, and discusses Truth more generally.
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Angus, born about 1449 at Tantallon Castle in East Lothian, succeeded his father, George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus, in 1462 or 1463 at the age of just fourteen. In 1481, Angus became Warden of the East March, but the next year he joined the league against James III and his favourite, Robert Cochrane, at Lauder. Here he is said to have earned his nickname by offering to "bell the cat"—specifically, to deal with Cochrane—beginning the attack upon him by pulling his gold chain off his neck, and then ordering the hanging of Cochrane and others of the king's favourites from Lauder old bridge (the site of which is in the grounds of Thirlestane Castle). The earliest written source for the story is in David Hume of Godscroft, the Douglas family biographer.
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