Abstract
Edinburgh lawyer and jurist Thomas Craig was a prominent public figure in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Jacobean Edinburgh. Our appreciation of Craig's cultural and intellectual legacy has usually been understood only through the prism of his well-known vocational activities in the law. Craig, however, was much more than a lawyer. He was part of a vibrant humanist culture in Edinburgh that played a significant part in wider European intellectual debates pushing the Scientific Revolution forward. Craig was an engaged and enthusiastic member of a circle of friends and family who were at the forefront of the sixteenth century's radical and transformative astronomical and mathematical debates. Evidence from a cross-section of Latin literary material reveals Craig's part in a remarkable intellectual awakening that took place in Humanist Edinburgh, and whose significance is only now beginning to be understood.
Piscibus haerebat iunctus Phoebi igneus axis,
Ecce solum Cragus vitat, et astra subit.
The fiery wheel of Phoebus has joined the Fish and lingers there – look up! Craig departs the earth and rises into the stars!
Thomas Dempster, ChronographiconEpistolary evidence from the period offers some tantalising glimpses into the world of which Craig was part. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, Craig was in correspondence with Tycho Brahe, the famous Danish astronomer. He was both active correspondent and passive recipient of Brahe's letters, as well as the subject of Brahe's letters to other people. In itself this highlights that Craig was an active member of the community of people within Europe sharing their ideas in the medium of classicising Latin literature.6 However, Brahe's letters provide information of a more specific significance that helps to reveal something of the rhythms of cultural life in Edinburgh in the early modern period, and Thomas' place within this environment. First, they help to correct some of the mistakes contained in Tytler's account (see note 2 above) regarding the issue of Thomas's immediate family. Brahe had been involved in a heated argument with one John Craig over Brahe's views concerning the comet that appeared in the sky in the 1570s.7 From Brahe's letters on this dispute we learn that John Craig was actually Thomas' brother.8 It is also clear from these letters that both Thomas and his brother shared an interest in astronomy. In a letter written to Peter Young in 1593, Brahe stated his belief that Thomas, like his brother, had a sufficient knowledge of astronomy to be able to use his own ‘not unsophisticated’ (‘carminibus haud illepidis’) verses to explicate Brahe's cosmological opinions.9 This description of Thomas demonstrates both that his poetry was valued outside Scotland and that a leading astronomer knew that he had a keen interest in and knowledge of astronomy. More direct contact between Craig and Tycho is found in two letters that survive in Brahe's Opera. In them we find both men addressing the astronomical and mathematical origins of the dispute between Thomas' younger brother10 and Brahe. Craig asserts:
Nam licet in ea qua frater opinione sim, supra coelum Lunae nihil corruption obnixium gigni posse, tamen te virum tantum, tot annorum experientia confirmatum, tot Mathematicis organis instructum aliter sentire, aliisque viris magnis tuam sententiam probasse, nisi multa essent, quae tecum facerent, nunquam mihi persuadebo.
For even if I were of the same opinion as my brother that nothing beyond the region of the Moon can be subject to decay, nevertheless I will never convince myself that such a great man as you, assured by your many years of experience, versed in so many mathematical disciplines would think differently, and that your view has convinced many other great men, unless there were many things that proved your view.11
Brahe's letters highlight another interesting aspect of Thomas' familial links, which emphasises that the Craig brothers played a significant part in the development of scientific discourse in the early modern period. In 1592, John Craig wrote a letter to Tycho Brahe informing him that a certain noble consanguineus of his (Craig's) would soon publish an important work:
Canon mirificus a generoso quodam consanguineo nostro hic construitur, cui otii et ingenii ad tantum opus satis est: cum perfectus fuerit, tibi communicabitur.
An extraordinary canon is currently being brought together here by a certain noble relation of mine, who has enough time on his hands and enough talent for such a great task; after it has been completed, I'll share it with you.14
Evidence of Thomas's broader circle of colleagues and acquaintances is found in both official documentation and epistolary evidence. The close bond that the Craigs had with the Napier and Bellenden families continues to stand out, but the Craig family's relationships with other families are equally noteworthy. Adam Bothwell is particularly significant in this regard. Bothwell was a significant figure in early modern Scotland.23 He was commendator of Holyrood abbey (a contemporary poetic epitaph written by Hercules Rollock still survives in Holyrood Abbey today) and also crowned the infant James VI king of Scotland in 1567.24 Thomas's early career was helped by the patronage of his uncle, Sir John Bellenden, who was first cousin and close political ally of Adam Bothwell.25 Adam was also, of course, first cousin to Thomas' mother, and Thomas benefitted from this familial relationship, as he was employed by Adam Bothwell for a variety of legal duties across the 1570s and through to the 1580s.26 It was without doubt through this link that Thomas' friendship with two generations of the King family was established. Adam Bothwell's godfather was one Alexander King, advocate.27 From the evidence of letters sent between Bothwell and Alexander Napier, John Napier's father, we can see that the relationship between godfather and godson was a close one.28
Thomas Craig and Adam Bothwell's godfather, Alexander King, were both practising advocates in Edinburgh in the same period. As Professor Finlay has shown in his detailed prosopography, their early career trajectory took a similar path.29 They also did business and had close personal relations with the same individuals and families. Alexander and Thomas' relations with the Mossman family are a case in point. In 1569–70 Craig, acting as justice depute, freed John Mossman, a member of the family of goldsmiths who was under arrest for failing to pay his debts (as cautioner on behalf of James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell), much to the ire of Hepburn's creditors.30 Craig himself had previously acted in 1568 as cautioner for the Mossman family (John's parents) the year before this event, so a ‘client’ relationship may indeed explain the rather unusual step of releasing Mossman. What is interesting about the cautioner role that Craig took for the Mossmans is the fact that Alexander King acted as witness in the case.31 King's own relationship with the Mossmans was quite unusual. In the year following Craig's release of John Mossman, James Mossman, goldsmith to Mary, Queen of Scots (and who was executed in 1573 for his support for Mary), married Alexander's daughter, Janet King, barely two months after the death of James' first wife Mariota Arres.32 For Alexander to arrange for his daughter to marry James Mossman in such a short period of time (weeks after he became available) highlights how close the relationship between the families must have been. This fact is emphasised even more clearly when we consider what happened to Janet King after her husband's execution. In 1582, Alexander King arranged for Janet to marry again, this time to a relative from Aberdeen, also called Alexander King, who had moved to Edinburgh to practice as a public notary.33 Whatever the specific nature of the relationship between King and the Mossmans actually was, it was sufficiently close for Alexander to honour it as he would that of close kin. So both Thomas and Alexander were acting on behalf of, and, in Alexander's case, forming bonds of family with the Mossmans during this period.
One thing that these relationships and activities highlight is how distorting it is to place too much interpretative emphasis on the religious affiliation of anyone in this period. In his work on the lives of Scottish writers, David Irving states that one of Thomas Craig's main attributes (indeed one of his most positive attributes) was his Protestantism: ‘He is celebrated for his liberal style of hospitality, and, what is of higher moment, for his zealous adherence to the Protestant faith.’34 Moreover, in the vita which prefaces the 1655 edition of Craig's celebrated legal tract Jus Feudale, there is a curious story of Craig zealously converting his Catholic father to the Protestant faith:
Nam cum ipsius pater Robertus, ritibus Pontificiis etiam in provecta aetate addictissimus viveret, nunquam tamen destitit filius, donec patrem ad puriorem religionem traduxisset.
For although his father Robert continued to live most zealously attached to the Papal rites into ripe old age, nevertheless his son never relented until he had converted his father to the true religion.35
As we have already seen, the connection between Craig's family and the King family continued for many years into the next generation.40 Alexander King junior followed his father into law and was also drawn into contact with Thomas Craig. Alexander junior was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates on 20 December 1580; then almost twenty years after Craig became admiral depute, he was admitted to the Admiralty Court as Judge Admiral.41 His rise through the ranks was impressive. In addition to the benefit of familial contacts with the wider Bellenden family, Craig's rise perhaps also owed something to an ambition combined with a lack of scruples, as highlighted in an historical account by Robert Johnston published thirty-five years after his death:
Alexander Regius, Advocatus acer, et vehemens, illam labem et ignominiam ordinis callide observans, a clientibus suis pecuniam accepit, quam corruptis judicibus, pro suffragiis divideret:
Alexander King, a keen-witted and vigorous man, cunningly observing that wickedness and shame of his order, received money from his clients to dish out to corrupt judges for favourable decisions.42
Before leaving Craig and King, one final comment should be made on another person that Thomas mentions in his conversation with King, and through whom we move another degree closer to understanding Craig and his times: namely William Oliphant. We learn from the snippet of information contained in the above conversation that Craig, King, and Oliphant had private conversations on the law. Yet we know from his donation in 1620 to St Leonard's College, St Andrews, that William Oliphant like Craig had a humanist's love for classical literature. His autographed copy of Xenophon still survives in St Andrews University Special Collections.45 What makes this more interesting is that the book was originally owned by Alexander's brother, Adam, whose signature is prominently written across the title page. Adam refers to Xenophon in his large unpublished (and inexplicably long-ignored) manuscript edition of George Buchanan's De Sphaera. William must have acquired it before Adam's death on the 10 August 1620, as St Leonard's College had the donation by 1 August. This of course makes it likely that it was a gift from Adam and that Adam too was part of Thomas' circle of friends.46 Adam King was born in 1560, just as his father seems from the Napier letters to be particularly energetic in acting on behalf of his godson Adam Bothwell.47 Alexander's choice of name for his son would have certainly honoured the connection. Adam King's professional interests in mathematics and astronomy would have commended him even more to the wider Craig circle of friends and family. In his edition of De Sphaera, King deals in detail with the arguments Thomas and John Craig had been conducting with Tycho Brahe.48 Adam's De Sphaera reflects and projects a humanist culture in Edinburgh, in which religious boundaries are blurred (Islamic scholars are quoted at length, so too Jesuitical scholars) and alternative worldviews are given parity of esteem – Kepler, Brahe, Copernicus and Rothmann all feature alongside Sacrobosco and Ptolemy. With its astronomical supplementary poetry, its didactic tone, and its serious and current scientific concerns, Adam's edition of De Sphaera is an epitome of the cultural universe that both he and Thomas inhabited. Adam passed on his work to the next generation of his family, to William King, his nephew, who would use it for instruction at the University of Edinburgh.49 Through Adam's work, the next generation of Edinburgh humanists had a record of the previous generation's literary and intellectual culture, and an instrument for passing it on.
The life and times of Thomas Craig offer us a tantalising glimpse into the rich cultural landscape of early modern Scotland. As an individual, his life and work reveal an expansive, rounded, and incredibly rich picture of life in post-Reformation Scotland, which highlights the limited and limiting nature of overly political and religious historiographical approaches to understanding his life and times. Craig and his friends reflect a relatively broad humanist culture in this period of liminality and change in Scotland and northern Europe. They highlight the existence of an intellectual approach that openly explored the validity of opinions from Islamic and Christian traditions, Catholic and Protestant, Episcopal and Presbyterian, Aristotelian and Copernican, philosophical and scientific, and both generalist and specialist. Within a decade of Craig's death, the generation of people who made up this cultural landscape began to disappear from it. Nine years after Thomas' death in 1608, his cousin Napier died; and a year later, his younger brother John. The same year witnessed the death of his great friend and colleague Alexander King; and two years after that Alexander's brilliant younger brother Adam King died. The great Latin king himself, James VI and I died five years later in 1625. The generation of poets, scholars, philosophers, and politicians who provided the material backbone to this cultural awakening were gone. The next generation of humanist scholars was stripped of its support at a particularly dangerous time. For although Adam's nephew possessed the means to continue the tradition, dark clouds were looming. William and his colleagues at Edinburgh were exposing their students to the expanding universe focused upon by the Craigs, Kings, Napiers, and Brahe a generation earlier, but in doing so they had incited the enmity of more conservative elements in Scottish society.50 William Drummond of Hawthornden, the famed poet, in a letter to William King, suggests that there was an active element within the country who did not wish to let this learning see the light of day:
A more learned man than was your cousin this country has not brought forth; and now we see, by the incommodityes of this countrye, his excellent workes, especiallye his Spheare [sic], appeare not to the world … Hee [Adam] is a Phoenix: amid such great contempt of learning, and detraction of other's fame, who can escape oblivion? Envie ever followeth virtue … I would advise you to essaye publishing his works by the Germaines, who always render vertue her due.51
Dr David McOmish is a Research Fellow in the History of Science at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, Austria.
1 The couplet was printed in Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum huius aevi illustrium, ed. John Scot (Amsterdam, 1637) [Delitiae], 1.332. Thomas Dempster made a brief return to Edinburgh in 1608 at the time of Thomas Craig's death, so the composition of the poems dedicated to him, which were printed twenty-nine years later in the Delitiae were no doubt composed at the time of Craig's death. For an overview of scholarship on Dempster, see Alexander Du Toit, ‘Dempster, Thomas (1579–1625)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford, 2004) [ODNB], http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7473 (accessed 26 May 2016).
2 The only concerted effort to provide such a survey was Patrick Tytler, An Account of the life and writings of Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton (Edinburgh, 1823). Although a useful starting point for discussion of Craig's life, Tytler's account is hindered at times by a general lack of detail (citations of Craig's literary work, with little or no attempt at critical analysis of the texts), especially at 137–8, 279–85. One further issue, and perhaps a more serious one, is the inclusion of factually incorrect information, the most serious of which is Tytler's inability to distinguish Thomas Craig's son John Craig from Thomas' brother also called John Craig (322–3). Tytler's mistake was replicated by Mark Napier, Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston (Edinburgh, 1834), 363, and Aeneas Mackay, Dictionary of National Biography (First Series), ed. Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, 63 vols (London, 1885–1900), xii, 454–7.
3 John Finlay, ‘The early career of Thomas Craig, advocate’, Edinburgh Law Review 8:3 (2004), 298–328. See ODNB entry, note 4 below, for the various other works devoted to examining Craig's work on feudal law and proposed act of union of 1604. Dr Jamie Reid-Baxter has provided a helpful overview of the political background to Craig's two poems on the death of James Murray (1570) in the introduction to his online hypertext critical edition (2008; rev. 2014) at http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/craig/intro.html (accessed 22 August 2016).
4 John W. Cairns, ‘Craig, Thomas (1538?–1608)’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6580 (accessed 26 May 2016).
5 The AHRC-funded ‘Bridging the Continental Divide’ project, hosted by the University of Glasgow, translated and critically assessed a sample of 13 of the 37 poets found in the Delitiae the largest anthology of neo-Latin poetry from early modern Scotland. The project resource is now available on line at http://www.dps.gla.ac.uk. Thomas Craig's poetry is included in the electronic resource and will be available in hardcopy in an upcoming ASLS 2017 edition of the text.
6 Brahe's correspondence with notable figures from across Europe and Scotland can be found in Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera omnia, 15 vols, ed. J. L. E Dreyer (Hauniae, 1913–29) [hereafter Brahe, Opera], vi–ix. His correspondence with Thomas Craig is found in vol. vii. One further thing that the correspondence contained in Brahe, Opera (especially vol. vii) reveals is the extent to which so many individuals from Scotland are at the forefront of the heated astronomical debates in Europe in this period. For more on this aspect see: David McOmish, ‘A community of scholarship: the rise of scientific discourse in early-modern Scotland’, in Neo-Latin Literature and Literary Culture in Early Modern Scotland, ed. Steven J. Reid and David McOmish (Brill, forthcoming 2016).
7 John Craig was a respected mathematician and doctor, who had many and varied claims to fame. See John Henry, ‘Craig, John (d. 1620?)’, in ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/view/article/6575 (accessed 1 June 2016) for a brief overview of John Craig's life, and a selection of secondary work on him. For the progress of Craig's dispute with Brahe, see Adam Mosley, ‘Tycho Brahe and John Craig: the dynamic of a dispute’, in Tycho Brahe and Prague: Crossroads of European Science (Prague, 2002), 71–83. A sizable fragment of John Craig's refutation of Brahe's position survives in Brahe, Opera, iv, 478–488.
8 See Brahe, Opera, vii, 355, for positive identification of John and Thomas as brothers.
9 Brahe, Opera, vii, 355–6; and in Thomas Craig's own words: vii, 364. For Craig's poetry see notes 3 and 5 above.
10 John Craig calls Thomas ‘his most outstanding elder brother Thomas’ (P[raestantissimus] T[homas] natu maior): Brahe, Opera, vii, 364.6–7. The reverence John pays his elder brother here, allied to Thomas' own adroit defence of his younger brother to Brahe, reveals something of the warmth of affection both brothers had for each other.
11 Brahe, Opera, vii, 364.35–9.
12 For Thomas' poetic tendency to dispute his own attributes see his Stephanophoria especially Thomas Craig of Riccarton, Serenissimi et Invictissimi Principis Iacobi Britanniarum et Galliarum Regis Στεφανοφόρια (1603) (‘A poem on the coronation of James, the most serene and unconquerable prince of the British and Gallic realms’), ed. and trans. David McOmish and Steven J. Reid, on line at www.dps.gla.ac.uk/delitiae/display/?pid=d1_CraT_004 (accessed 1 June 2016).
13 Brahe, Opera, vii, 364–6. See Mosley, ‘Tycho Brahe and John Craig’, for Brahe's notoriously short temper.
14 Brahe, Opera, vii, 335.
15 George Molland, ‘Napier, John, of Merchiston (1550–1617)’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/view/article/19758 (accessed 1 June 2016).
16 Katherine Bellenden was John Napier's maternal grandmother; Napier, Memoirs of John Napier, 48–50. Katherine’ brother, Thomas Bellenden was Thomas and John's maternal grandfather; see Finlay, ‘The early career of Thomas Craig’, 299, note 4.
17 For an overview of this branch of the Bellenden family, see Theo Van Heijnsbergen, ‘The interaction between literature and history in Queen Mary's Edinburgh: the Bannatyne Manuscript and its prosopographical context’, in The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History, and Culture, ed. Alasdair MacDonald, Michael Lynch and Ian Cowan (Leiden, 1994), 183–225, at 191–6.
18 John Napier, A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St John (Edinburgh, 1593). My thanks to Dr Jamie Reid-Baxter for pointing out in convivio the coincidence of the dates between the Brahe letter and A Plaine Discovery.
19 In the form of the mathematical trigonometric shorthand prosthaphaeresis, contained in his edition of Copernicus; see David McOmish, ‘A community of scholarship’, 59–60, for a fuller account of this method and Craig's role in bringing it to Scotland.
20 Napier, Memoirs of John Napier, v–vi.
21 This process will be made immeasurably easier by reference to the studious and detailed introductory surveys contained in some of the vocational accounts highlighted in the introduction to this article. Of especial importance here are Finlay, ‘The early career of Thomas Craig’, and Professor John Ford's forthcoming introduction to the work of Alexander King (on whom see below).
22 The astronomical origins of Napier's work on logarithms are often recognised in secondary evaluation of his work but, perhaps because of lack of historical context, are never fully explored. Julian Havil, like many, guesses at potential motivations based upon a consideration of the practical application of Napier's work; see John Napier: Life, Logarithms, and Legacy (Princeton NJ, 2014), 83. Contemporary sources often present Napier's work as essentially astronomical; Nathanael Brooke, in his seventeenth-century edition of Marcus Manilius, presents Napier and Galileo together in the catalogue of ancient and modern astronomers; see Nathanael Brooke, The Sphere of Marcus Manilius Made an English Poem: with Annotations and an Astronomical Appendix (London, 1675), 81–2.
23 See Duncan Shaw, ‘Bothwell, Adam (1529?–1593)’, ODNB, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2961 (accessed 1 June 2016) for overview and select bibliography.
24 See Napier, Memoirs of John Napier, 122–3; and Gordon Donaldson, All the Queen's Men: Power and Politics in Mary Stewart's Scotland (London, 1983), 85.
25 Finlay, ‘The early career of Thomas Craig’, 306.
26 Ibid., n. 33.
27 Adam refers to Alexander as ‘my gossop, Alexander King’ in a letter to John Napier's father, Alexander, laird of Merchiston; Napier, Memoirs of John Napier, 64. John Ford, Chair of Civil Law at the University of Aberdeen, in his forthcoming edition of Alexander King's son's (also called Alexander) work on maritime law, draws attention to the importance of the bond between godfather and godson in early modern Scotland to account for Adam treating Alexander like kin (in his bibliographical notes Ford highlights William McMillan, The Worship of the Scottish Reformed Church, 1550–1638 (London, 1931), 248–50, especially in this regard). I would like to thank Professor Ford for allowing me access to the work in advance of publication. Finlay, ‘The early career of Thomas Craig’, 304, provides a general vocational introduction to Alexander King senior. Professor Ford, in the introduction to his edition of Alexander King junior's work, provides a comprehensive account of Alexander King senior and his life.
28 Napier, Memoirs of John Napier, 62–9, for all the letters.
29 Finlay, ‘The early career of Thomas Craig’, 304 especially, but passim.
30 Ibid., 310–11. Professor Finlay suggests that Craig's role in the Mossman affair may be explained by a patron-client relationship between Craig and the Mossman family. Interestingly, as Finlay also noted, Craig's father (on whom see below) was also one of the cautioners.
31 Ibid., n. 61.
32 Peter Miller, ‘John Knox and his Manse, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 25 (1891), 138–54, at 152–3.
33 My thanks again to Professor John Ford for sharing his research on the King family's genealogy, which has helped me to develop a more detailed picture of the above relationships. His meticulous research confirmed Janet and Alexander's marriage. Professor Ford's work on the family's genealogy will be published in his forthcoming Stair Society edition of Alexander King's work on the sea laws of Scotland. See also Thomas Craufurd, History of the University of Edinburgh, from 1580 to 1646 (Edinburgh, 1808), 66, for evidence of Janet's son, William King, as also the son of Alexander King, notary. For evidence that this ‘northern’ Alexander King was also a paternal relative of Alexander King advocate, see William Drummond, Extracts from the Hawthornden manuscripts: and notes by William Drummond of conversations with Ben Jonson, at Hawthornden, January 1619, ed. David Lang (Edinburgh, 1832), 85.
34 David Irving, Lives of Scottish Writers, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1839), i, 159.
35 Thomas Craig, Jus Feudale, ed. James Baillie (Edinburgh, 1732), xvii.
36 David Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, 8 vols (Edinburgh, 1842–49), iv, 414. For his 1589 activities, see Calendar of State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547–1603, ed. Joseph Bain et al., 13 vols (Edinburgh, 1898–1969), x, 138.
37 Moreover, Adam Bothwell, close to both Craig and King, was suspected of Catholic and Marian sympathies by the church for his role as presiding officer at the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots to the earl of Bothwell. See Duncan Shaw, ‘Bothwell, Adam (1529?–1593)’.
38 On whom more generally, see: David McOmish, ‘Adam King: a man for all seasons’ in IR 66:2 (2015), 191–207.
39 Craig achieved this office, no doubt, as Professor Finlay has argued (‘The early career of Thomas Craig’, 309, 311), because of his family links with the Bellendens, who had by that time become political enemies of James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell.
40 A cursory glance through Robert Pitcairn's list of criminal trials in Scotland shows that Thomas Craig and Alexander King senior routinely served as co-counsel during trials: Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1833).
41 On Alexander's career and his large (still extant) manuscript treaties (in Latin) on the law of the sea, see A. R. G. Macmillan, ‘Admiralty and maritime law’, in An Introductory Survey of the Sources and Literature of Scots Law, ed. H. McKechnie (Edinburgh, 1936), 331; and George Joseph Bell, Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland, 2 vols (Edinburgh 1870), ii, 546. See notes above for John Ford's up-coming work on King.
42 William Blackwood, ‘Observations on the early administration of justice in Scotland’, The Edinburgh Law Journal 1: 4 (1832), 321–33, at 322–3. The Latin account of Alexander King is taken from Robert Johnston, Historia Rerum Britannicarum (Amsterdam, 1655), 231.
43 Illay Campbell, The Acts of Sederunt of the Lords of Council and Session; from the institution of the College of Justice, in May 1532, to January 1553 (Edinburgh, 1811), 62–3. A fuller biographical account of Alexander's life is contained in Professor Ford's edition of King's work on sea law.
44 John Ford, Law and Opinion in Scotland during the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 2007), 236.
45 Ξενοφωντος … omnia que extant opera Joanne Lewenklaio interprete. Editio secunda (Basel, 1572; St Andrews, University Library, Special Collections, Scot.PA4494.A2B72 (Gk. & Lat. texts).
46 Adam and Thomas also worked together on education reform commissions set up by King James: see McOmish, ‘Adam King’, n. 38.
47 The correspondence between Bothwell and Napier found in Napier, Memoirs of John Napier, dates from the late 1550s and early 1560s, the time in which Adam must have been born; he had matriculated at St Andrews by 1576. See: David McOmish, ‘Adam King’, 191–207.
48 King's prose commentary at Chapter 5 (especially) contains an extended mathematical and astronomical evaluation of Brahe's theories. See the website ‘Bridging the Continental Divide’, feature articles, June 2015 – The universe of Adam King part 2: the scholar, David McOmish, on line at www.dps.gla.ac.uk/features/display/?fid=adamking2 (accessed 1 June 2016) for the intellectual climate in Edinburgh in which King began his edition of De Sphaera.
49 William was the son of Alexander and Adam's sister Janet, the widow of James Mossman (confirmed by Ford in his forthcoming work, but first revealed by Thomas Craufurd in his history of the University of Edinburgh). See McOmish, ‘A community of scholarship’, for William's background and a discussion on how the Sphaera was used at Edinburgh.
50 See McOmish, ‘Adam King’, 204–5.
51 Contained in Archaeologia Scotica, or, Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 5 vols (1792–1890), iv (1857), 85.
52 For William's fellow radical regents at Edinburgh's use of Adam's work and the unhappy fate that befell them in the 1620s see: McOmish, ‘A community of scholarship’, 70–71.
53 The majority of Thomas' poetic corpus will be published in a critical edition with parallel translation by the ASLS in 2017, edited and translated by David McOmish and Steven J. Reid. In 2015, the Stair Society commissioned an edition of Craig's monumental prose legal work Jus Feudale. Dr Reid-Baxter's edition of Craig's work can be found at note 3 above.
54 Adam and Alexander's work will appear in several critical editions over the next two years: see notes referring to John Ford's work above, and my up-coming critical edition of Adam King's work.
