oece received the
degree of D.D. at Aberdeen; and on this occasion the magistrates voted
him a present of a tun of wine when the new wines should arrive, or,
according to his option, the sum of L20 to purchase bonnets. He appears
to have survived till the year 1536; for on the 22nd of November in that
year, the king presented John Garden to the rectory of Tyrie, vacant by
the death of "Mr Hector Boiss." He died at Aberdeen, and was buried
before the high altar at King's College, beside the tomb of his patron
Bishop Elphinstone.

His earliest publication, _Episcoporum Murthlacensium et Aberdonensium
per Hectorem Boetium Vitae_, was printed at the press of Jodocus Badius
(Paris, 1522). The notices of the early prelates are of little value,
but the portion of the book in which he speaks of Bishop Elphinstone is
of enduring merit. Here we likewise find an account of the foundation
and constitution of the college, together with some notices of its
earliest members. His fame rests chiefly on his _History of Scotland_,
published in 1527 under the title _Scotorum Historiae a prima gentis
origine cum aliarum et rerum et gentium illustratione non vulgari_. This
edition contains seventeen books. Another edition, containing the
eighteenth book and a fragment of the nineteenth, was published by
Ferrerius, who has added an appendix of thirty-five pages (Paris, 1574).

The composition of the history displays much ability; but Boece's
imagination was, however, stronger than his judgment: of the extent of
the historian's credulity, his narrative exhibits many unequivocal
proofs; and of deliberate invention or distortion of facts not a few,
though the latter are less flagrant and intentional than early
19th-century criticism has assumed. He professed to have obtained from
the monastery of Icolmkill, through the good offices of the earl of
Argyll, and his brother, John Campbell of Lundy, the treasurer, certain
original historians of Scotland, and among the rest Veremundus, of whose
writings not a single vestige is now to be found. In his dedication to
the king he is pleased to state that Veremundus, a Spaniard by birth,
was archdeacon of St Andrews, and that he wrote in Latin a history of
Scotland from the origin of the nation to the reign of Malcolm III., to
whom he inscribed his work. His propensity to the marvellous was at an
early period exposed in the following verses by Leland:--

"Hectoris historici tot quot mendacia scripsit