Robert Wedderburn (ca. 1510 – between 1555 and 1560), the third son of James Wedderburn and Janet Barrie, was born in Dundee, and attended

St Andrews University (Aien aristeuein) , motto_lang = grc , mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best , established = , type = Public research university Ancient university , endowment ...

. Having entered St Leonard's College in 1526 he graduated BA in 1529 and MA in 1530, with his name listed at the head of the roll of graduates. In 1528 he was granted the reversion of St Katherine's Chapel in Dundee, despite being under age. In the mid-1530s he came under suspicion of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

and fled to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, where he attended the university. He may also have spent some time with his brother John Wedderburn at

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the River Elbe, north o ...

in the 1540s, a suggestion given credence by the fact that on his return journey to Scotland in 1546 he embarked at

Frankfurt an der Oder Frankfurt (Oder), also known as Frankfurt an der Oder (), is a city in the German state of Brandenburg. It has around 57,000 inhabitants, is one of the easternmost cities in Germany, the fourth-largest city in Brandenburg, and the largest German ...

. Crawford relates that when Robert was journeying back to Scotland and his ship had put in on the coast of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, a dispute arose between the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

and

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

passengers, which led Robert and his fellow reformers to burn

Cardinal David Beaton David Beaton (also Beton or Bethune; 29 May 1546) was Archbishop of St Andrews and the last Scottish cardinal prior to the Reformation. Career Cardinal Beaton was the sixth and youngest son of eleven children of John Beaton (Bethune) of Ba ...

in effigy. Beaton was assassinated in St Andrews that same day. In conjunction with his brothers

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

and

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, he wrote a number of sacred parodies on popular ballads, which were published apparently at first as broadsheet ballads, and were afterwards collected and issued in 1567, under the title '. Only one copy of the edition of 1567 is known to exist, and there is no clue to the date of the first edition referred to on its title-page. As some of the songs plainly refer to incidents that took place in Scotland about 1540, the theory that these were circulated as broadsheets is not unreasonable. Robert succeeded his uncle, John Barry, as vicar of Dundee in 1546. He remained in this post until his death, in Dundee, some time between 1555 and 1560. With Isobel Lovell he had two illegitimate sons, David and Robert, who were declared legitimate in 1552–3. Isobel Lovell married David Cant in 1560 and had died by 1587. It has been suggested that Robert Wedderburn was the author of ''

The Complaynt of Scotland ''The Complaynt of Scotland'' is a Scottish book printed in 1549 as propaganda during the war of the Rough Wooing against the Kingdom of England, and is an important work of the Scots language. Context and authorship The book was part of the wa ...

'' (1549), and, although that work's positive attitudes towards the established church made it seem unlikely to some that the ascription was accurate, the editor of the 1979

Scottish Text Society The Scottish Text Society (STS) is a text publication society founded in 1882 to promote the study of Scottish literature. The Society publishes scholarly editions of important texts from the country's literary history, and has played a significa ...

edition of the work and the National Library of Scotland support the Wedderburn attribution.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wedderburn, Robert 1510s births 16th-century deaths People educated at the High School of Dundee Alumni of the University of St Andrews People from Dundee Poets from Dundee 16th-century Scottish Roman Catholic priests