Robert Blair (1593 – 27 August 1666) was a
Scottish presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
minister who became a
Westminster Divine
The members of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, sometimes known collectively as the Westminster Divines, are those clergymen who participated in the Assembly that drafted the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Long Parliament's initial ord ...
and
Moderator of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the sovereign and highest court of the Church of Scotland, and is thus the Church's governing body.''An Introduction to Practice and Procedure in the Church of Scotland'' by A. Gordon McGillivray ...
in 1646, after failing to emigrate to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
in 1636. Born in
Irvine Irvine may refer to:
Places On Earth Antarctica
*Irvine Glacier
*Mount Irvine (Antarctica)
Australia
*Irvine Island
*Mount Irvine, New South Wales
Canada
*Irvine, Alberta
* Irvine Inlet, Nunavut
United Kingdom
*Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotla ...
in 1593, the sixth son of John Blair of Windyedge, a merchant-adventurer and cadet of Blair, and Beatrix Mure of the Rowallan family, he gained an MA at the
University of Glasgow
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, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
in 1612 and became regent there in 1615. When the episcopalian
John Cameron was appointed
Principal, Blair resigned and went to Ireland, to become minister of a Presbyterian congregation at
Bangor, County Down
Bangor ( ; ) is a city and seaside resort in County Down, Northern Ireland, on the southern side of Belfast Lough. It is within the Belfast metropolitan area and is 13 miles (22 km) east of Belfast city centre, to which it is linked ...
. He was ordained for it by
Robert Echlin,
Bishop of Down and Connor
The Bishop of Down and Connor is an episcopal title which takes its name from the town of Downpatrick (located in County Down) and the village of Connor (located in County Antrim) in Northern Ireland. The title is still used by the Catholic Chur ...
, Blair was "very careful to inform... of what accusations had been laid against me of disaffection to the civil powers, whom he was the use of the English liturgy nor Episcopal government.... I declared my opinion fully to the Bishop at our first meeting...
hosaid to me, 'I hear good of you, and will impose no conditions on you'". Echlin, however, turned against him. In September 1631, he was suspended from his ministry and on 4 May 1632 deposed. Though bent on emigrating to New England, the ship in which he and other ministers sailed was driven back by weather, a sign, Blair thought, that his services were still required at home. He dodged an order for his arrest by escaping to Scotland and was admitted to the Second Charge of
Ayr
Ayr (; sco, Ayr; gd, Inbhir Àir, "Mouth of the River Ayr") is a town situated on the southwest coast of Scotland. It is the administrative centre of the South Ayrshire council area and the historic county town of Ayrshire. With a population ...
in July 1638. After periods in Scotland and Ireland, he accompanied the Scottish army to England in 1640 and helped to negotiate the 1641 Peace of Ripon. In 1646, Blair was elected
Moderator of General Assembly, then Chaplain-in-Ordinary to King Charles I. He was also on a committee endeavouring in 1648 to get
Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
to establish "a uniformity of religion in England". He was summoned to London by Cromwell in 1654, but excused himself on grounds of ill health. On the establishment of episcopacy he was removed from his charges in September 1661, confined to
Musselburgh
Musselburgh (; sco, Musselburrae; gd, Baile nam Feusgan) is the largest settlement in East Lothian, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh city centre. It has a population of .
History
The name Musselburgh is Ol ...
, then to
Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy ( ; sco, Kirkcaldy; gd, Cair Chaladain) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, ...
for three and a half years, and then to Meikle Couston,
Aberdour
Aberdour (; Scots: , gd, Obar Dobhair) is a scenic and historic village on the south coast of Fife, Scotland. It is on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, looking south to the island of Inchcolm and its Abbey, and to Leith and Edinburgh beyo ...
, Fife, where he died on 27 August 1666 and was buried.
Life
He was a native of
Irvine, Ayrshire
Irvine ( ; sco, Irvin,
gd, Irbhinn, IPA: University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
, where he took his degree of M.A. He is stated to have acted as a schoolmaster in Glasgow. In his twenty-second year he was appointed a regent or professor in the university. One of his students was the future author of
polemics
Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...
for the
Covenanters
Covenanters ( gd, Cùmhnantaich) were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. The name is derived from ''Covenan ...
,
Robert Baillie
Robert Baillie (30 April 16021662) was a Church of Scotland minister who became famous as an author and a propagandist for the Covenanters. . In 1616 he was licensed as a preacher of the gospel in connection with the established church (presbyterian) of Scotland. In 1622 he resigned his professorship.
Having gone over to Ireland, he was called to
Bangor, County Down
Bangor ( ; ) is a city and seaside resort in County Down, Northern Ireland, on the southern side of Belfast Lough. It is within the Belfast metropolitan area and is 13 miles (22 km) east of Belfast city centre, to which it is linked ...
, and ordained by
Robert Echlin, the
Bishop of Down
The Bishop of Down was an episcopal title which took its name from the town of Downpatrick in Northern Ireland. The bishop's seat (Cathedra) was located on the site of the present cathedral church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the Church ...
, on 10 July 1623. But he was suspended in the autumn of 1631, and deposed in 1632 for nonconformity; Echlin had turned a blind eye in the 1620s to presbyterian clergy in his diocese, but Blair (on his own account) didn't react to hints by
Theophilus Buckworth
Theophilus Buckworth, (b,d Wisbech) a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was an Irish Anglican priest: he was Bishop of DromoreAtkinson, 'Dromore - An Ulster Diocese', P 69 from 1613 until his death on 8 September 1652.
References
...
,
Bishop of Dromore
The Bishop of Dromore is an episcopal title which takes its name after the original monastery of Dromore in County Down, Northern Ireland. In the Roman Catholic Church the title still continues as a separate bishopric, but in the Church of Irela ...
, and was then interviewed by
James Ussher
James Ussher (or Usher; 4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656) was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656. He was a prolific scholar and church leader, who today is most famous for his ident ...
, who tried to persuade him with arguments current from
John Sprint. By the intervention of the king,
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
, he was restored in May 1634; but the former sentence was renewed, with excommunication, by
John Bramhall
John Bramhall, DD (1594 – 25 June 1663) was an Archbishop of Armagh, and an Anglican theologian and apologist. He was a noted controversialist who doggedly defended the English Church from both Puritan and Roman Catholic accusations, as well a ...
,
bishop of Derry
The Bishop of Derry is an Episcopal polity, episcopal title which takes its name after the monastic settlement originally founded at Daire Calgach and later known as Daire Colm Cille, Anglicised as Derry. In the Roman Catholic Church it remains a ...
, the same year.
Excommunicated and ejected, Blair, along with others, fitted out a ship, intending to go to
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
in 1635. But the weather proved so bad that they were beaten back, and, returning to Scotland, he lived partly in that country and partly in England. Orders were issued in England for his apprehension in 1637, but he escaped to Scotland, and preached for some time in
Ayr
Ayr (; sco, Ayr; gd, Inbhir Àir, "Mouth of the River Ayr") is a town situated on the southwest coast of Scotland. It is the administrative centre of the South Ayrshire council area and the historic county town of Ayrshire. With a population ...
. He was invited to go to France as chaplain to the regiment of Colonel
Patrick Hepburn of Waughton, but after embarking at
Leith
Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by '' Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world.
The earliest ...
he was threatened by a soldier whom he had reproved for swearing, and went ashore again. He also petitioned the privy council 'for liberty to preach the gospel,' and received an appointment at
Burntisland
Burntisland ( , sco, also Bruntisland) is a former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 6,269. It was previously known as Wester Kingho ...
in April 1638. He was nominated to
St. Andrews in the same year, and was admitted there on 8 October 1639.
In the Second
Bishops' War
The 1639 and 1640 Bishops' Wars () were the first of the conflicts known collectively as the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which took place in Scotland, England and Ireland. Others include the Irish Confederate Wars, the First and ...
of 1640, he accompanied the Scottish army on its march into England. He assisted in the negotiations for the treaty of peace presented by Charles I on 8 November 1641. After the
Irish Rebellion of 1641
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1641) was an uprising by Irish Catholics in the Kingdom of Ireland, who wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to partially or fully reverse the plantatio ...
he once more went to Ireland with several other clergymen of the Scottish kirk, the Irish general assembly (presbyterian) having petitioned for supplies for their vacant charges. He afterwards returned to St. Andrews.
In 1645 he attended the
lord president Robert Spottiswoode
Sir Robert Spottiswood (Spottiswoode, Spotiswood, Spotswood), Lord Newabbey of New Abbey and Dunipace (1596 – 20 January 1646), was a Scottish lawyer, Lord President of the Court of Session and member of the Privy Council to James VI of Sco ...
and others to the scaffold. In the same year, he was one of the Scottish ministers who went to Newcastle to speak very plainly to the king. In 1646 he was elected
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the ministers and elders of the Church of Scotland, minister or elder chosen to moderate (chair) the annual General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is held for a week i ...
(3 June). Later, on the death of
Alexander Henderson, he was appointed chaplain-in-ordinary to the king, supported by the revenues of the
Chapel Royal
The Chapel Royal is an establishment in the Royal Household serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the British Royal Family. Historically it was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also applie ...
. The Commission of the General Assembly, in 1648, named him one of those for 'endeavouring to get
Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
to establish a uniformity of religion in England.'
At the division of the church, in 1650, into
Resolutioners
The Act of Classes was passed by the Parliament of Scotland on 23 January 1649. It was probably drafted by Lord Warriston, a leading member of the Kirk Party, who along with the Marquess of Argyll were leading proponents of its clauses. It bann ...
and Protesters, he leaned to the former, but lamented the strife. Summoned with others to London in 1654, that 'a method might be devised for settling affairs of the church', he pleaded ill-health and declined to go. In the same year he was appointed by the council of England 'one of those for the admission to the ministry in Perth, Fife, and Angus.'
At the Restoration, he came under the notice of Archbishop
James Sharp, had to resign his charge in September 1661, and was confined to certain places, first of all to
Musselburgh
Musselburgh (; sco, Musselburrae; gd, Baile nam Feusgan) is the largest settlement in East Lothian, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh city centre. It has a population of .
History
The name Musselburgh is Ol ...
, afterwards to
Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy ( ; sco, Kirkcaldy; gd, Cair Chaladain) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, ...
(where he remained three and a half years), and finally to
Meikle Couston near
Aberdour
Aberdour (; Scots: , gd, Obar Dobhair) is a scenic and historic village on the south coast of Fife, Scotland. It is on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, looking south to the island of Inchcolm and its Abbey, and to Leith and Edinburgh beyo ...
. As a
Covenanter
Covenanters ( gd, Cùmhnantaich) were members of a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement, who supported a Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the primacy of its leaders in religious affairs. The name is derived from ''Covenan ...
he preached outdoors. He died at Aberdour on 27 August 1666, and was buried in the parish churchyard.
Works
*''Autobiography'' was published by the
Wodrow Society
The Wodrow Society, established in Edinburgh in 1841, was a society 'for the publication of the works of the fathers and early writers of the Reformed Church of Scotland'.
The society, established in May 1841, was named after Robert Wodrow, the h ...
(1848); fragments were published in 1754.
*Preface to Durham's Treatise on Scandal.
*Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, (ready but not published)
*Answer to Bishop Hall's Remonstrance, ready for the Press, but these were never published.
Bibliography
*Edin. Guild. Reg. ;
*Edin. Marr. Reg. ;
*Reg. Sec. Sig. ;
*G. R. Sas., iii. 164, ix. 106;
*Lamont's Diary;
*Tombst. ;
*Baillie's Letters ;
*Hill's Life of Hugh Blair ;
*Reid's Ireland, i., 101 et seq. ;
*Dictionary Nat. Biog.
*Reed's Presbyterianism of Ireland, i.;
*Row and Stevenson's Hist.;
*Rutherford's and Baillie's Letters;
*Kirkcaldy Presb. Reg.;
*Connolly's Fifeshire;
*Chambers's Biogr.;
*Scott's Fasti, ii. 91;
*Hill's Life of Hugh Blair
Family
He married first Beatrix, daughter of Robert Hamilton, merchant, in right of whom he became a burgess of Edinburgh on 16 July 1626; she died in July 1632, aged 27. Their issue were two sons and a daughter: James, one of the ministers of
Dysart, Robert, and Jean, who married
William Row
William Row (1563–1634) was a Scottish presbyterian divine.
Early life and education
William Row was born in 1563. He was second son of John Row, the reformer and minister of Perth. His mother was Margaret, daughter of John Beaton of Balfo ...
, minister of
Ceres
Ceres most commonly refers to:
* Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid
* Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture
Ceres may also refer to:
Places
Brazil
* Ceres, Goiás, Brazil
* Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...
. His second wife was Katherine, daughter of Hugh Montgomerie of Braidstane, afterwards Viscount Airds. Their issue were seven sons and a daughter. One of these sons, David, was the father of
Robert Blair, the poet of the ''Grave'', and another, Hugh, grandfather of Dr.
Hugh Blair
Hugh Blair FRSE (7 April 1718 – 27 December 1800) was a Scottish minister of religion, author and rhetorician, considered one of the first great theorists of written discourse.
As a minister of the Church of Scotland, and occupant of the Ch ...
.
He married (1) on 16 July 1626, Beatrix (died July 1632, aged 27), daugh. of Robert Hamilton, merchant, burgess of Edinburgh, and had issue – James, min. of Dysart; Robert; Jean (marr. William Row, min. of Ceres). He married (2) Katherine, daugh. of Hugh Montgomerie of Braidstane, Viscount Airds, and had issue – William; David, min. of Old Kirk Parish, Edinburgh
ather of Robert B., min. of Athelstane-ford, author of The Grave Samuel; John, writer, Edinburgh, born 1640; Archibald; Alexander in Edinburgh; Andrew, born 1644; Montgomery, born 1646; Hugh, merchant, Edinburgh; Catherine (marr. George Campbell, min. of Old Kirk, Edinburgh, and Professor of Divinity).
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Blair, Robert
1593 births
1666 deaths
Moderators of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
Scottish Commissioners at the Westminster Assembly
People from Irvine, North Ayrshire
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
17th-century Irish Presbyterian ministers
People from Bangor, County Down