The work was so highly esteemed by James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, that he recommended Queen Mary to bestow on him the office of counsellor or judge of the parliament of Poitiers, the province of Poitou having by letters patent from Henry III been assigned to her in payment of a dowry.

At Poitiers he collected an extensive library, and, encouraged by the success of his previous work, he set himself to the hard and ambitious task of grappling with George Buchanan, whose views he denounced with great bitterness and severity in Apologia pro Regibus, adversus Georgii Buchanani Dialogum de Jure Regni apud Scotos, Pictavis, (1581) and Parisiis, (1588).

The title of the work is Martyre de la Royne d'Escosse, Douairiere de France; contenant le vray discours des traïsons à elle faictes à la suscitation d'Elizabet Angloise, par lequel les mensonges, calomnies, et faulses accusations dressées contre ceste tresvertueuse, trescatholique et tresillustre princesse son esclarcies et son innocence averse.

It was reprinted at Antwerp in 1588, and again in 1589, and is also included in Samuel Jebb's collection, De Vita et Rebus gestis Mariae Scotorum Regime Autores sedecim, vol.

[6] The work contains no contribution of importance towards the settlement of the vexed question regarding the character of the unhappy queen, but is of special interest as a graphic presentment of the sentiments and feelings which her pitiable fate aroused in her devoted adherents.

In 1606 Blackwood published a poem on the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne, entitled Inauguratio Jacobi Magnæ Britanitæ Regis, Paris, (1606).

He was also the author of pious meditations in prose and verse, entitled Sanctarum Precationum Procemia, seu mavia, Ejaculationes Animæ ad Orandum se præparantis, Aug. Pict.

His daughter Helen Blackwood married then lawyer in the Parlement of Paris and future skeptic philosopher François de la Mothe le Vayer in 1622.