England, and seems to have spent a considerable part of his time in the court of his brother-in-law and sister. The following curious anecdote of one of his visits, is related in a volume entitled "Remaines concerning Britain," published in 1614. "Queen Maud was so devoutly religious, that she would go to church barefooted, and always exercised herself in works of charity, insomuch, that when king David her brother came out of Scotland to visit her, he found her in her privy chamber with a towell about her middle, washing, wiping, and kissing poore people's feete; which he disliking, said, 'verily, if the king your husband knew this, you should never kisse his lippes!' She replied, that the feete of the king of heaven were to be preferred before the lippes of a king in earth!" On the death of Henry, in 1135, his daughter Maud was displaced by the usurper Stephen, and, to enforce her right, David made a formidable incursion into England, taking possession of the country as far as Durham. Not being supported, however, by the barons, who had sworn to maintain his niece in her right, he was obliged, by the superior force of Stephen, to give up the country he had acquired, his son Henry, accepting at the same time, from the usurper, the honour of Huntingdon, with Doncaster, and the castle of Carlisle, for which he rendered homage. Next year, David made a new incursion, with better success. He is found in 1138 in full possession of the northern provinces, while Stephen was unable, from his engagements elsewhere, to present any force against him. The Scots ravaged the country with much cruelty, and particularly the domains of the church; nor was their pious monarch able to restrain them. The local clergy, under these circumstances, employed all their influence, temporal and spiritual, to collect an army, and they at length succeeded. On the 22nd of August, 1138, the two parties met on Cutton Moor, near Northallerton, and to increase the enthusiasm of the English, their clerical leaders had erected a standard upon a high carriage, mounted on wheels, exhibiting three consecrated banners, with a little casket at the top, containing a consecrated host. The ill-assorted army of the Scottish monarch gave way before the impetuosity of these men, who were literally defending their altars and hearths. This rencounter is known in history, as the battle of the Standard. Prince Henry escaped with great difficulty. Next year, David seems to have renounced all hopes of establishing his niece. He entered into a solemn treaty with Stephen, in virtue of which, the earldom of Northumberland was conceded to his son Henry. In 1140, when Stephen was overpowered by his subjects, and Maud experienced a temporary triumph, David repaired to London, to give her the benefit of his counsel. But a counter insurrection surprised Maud; and David had great difficulty in escaping along with his niece. He was only saved by the kindness of a young Scotsman, named Oliphant, who served as a soldier under Stephen, and to whom David had been godfather. This person concealed the monarch from a very strict search, and conveyed him in safety to Scotland. David was so much offended at the manner in which he had been treated by Maud, that he never again interfered with her affairs in England, for which he had already sacrificed so much. He was even struck with remorse, for having endeavoured, by the use of so barbarous a people as the Scots, to control the destinies of the civilized English, to whom, it would thus appear, he bore more affection than he did to his own native subjects. At one time, he intended to abdicate the crown, and go into perpetual exile in the holy land, in order to expiate this imaginary guilt; but he afterwards contented himself with attempting to introduce civilization into his country. For this purpose, he encouraged many English gentlemen and barons to settle in Scotland, by giving them grants of land. In like manner, he brought many different kinds of foreign monks into the country, settling them in the

various abbeys of Melrose, Newbottle, Cambuskenneth, Kinloss, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh, as well as the priory of Lesmahago, and the Cistercian convent of Berwick, all of which were founded and endowed by him. The effects which these comparatively enlightened bodies of men must have produced upon the country, ought to save David from all modern sneers as to his apparently extreme piety. Sanctimoniousness does not appear to have had any concern in the matter: he seems to have been governed alone by a desire of civilizing his kingdom, the rudeness of which must have been strikingly apparent to him, in consequence of his education and long residence in England. The progress made by the country, in the time of David, was accordingly very great. Public buildings were erected, towns established, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce promoted. Laws, moreover, appear to have been now promulgated for the first time. David was himself a truly just and benevolent man. He used to sit on certain days at the gate of his palace, to hear and decide the causes of the poor. When justice required a decision against the poor man, he took pains to explain the reason, so that he might not go away unsatisfied. Gardening was one of his amusements, and hunting his chief exercise; but, says a contemporary historian, I have seen him quit his horse, and dismiss his hunting equipage, when any, even the meanest of his subjects, required an audience. He commenced business at day break, and at sunset dismissed his attendants, and retired to meditate on his duty to God and the people. By his wife, Matilda, David had a son, Henry; who died before him, leaving Malcolm and William, who were successively kings of Scotland; David, earl of Huntingdon, from whom Bruce and Baliol are descended, and several daughters. David I. is said, by a monkish historian, to have had a son older than Henry, but who perished in childhood after a remarkable manner. A person in holy orders had murdered a priest at the altar, and was protected by ecclesiastical immunity from the punishment due to his offence. His eyes, however, were put out, and his hands and feet cut off. He procured crooked irons or hooks to supply the use of hands. Thus maimed, destitute, and abhorred, he attracted the attention of David, then residing in England as a private man. From him this outcast of society obtained food and raiment. David's eldest child was then two years old; the ungrateful monster, under pretence of fondling the infant, crushed it to death in his iron fangs. For this crime, almost exceeding belief, he was torn to pieces by wild horses. On losing his son Henry in 1152, king David sent his son Malcolm on a solemn progress through the kingdom, in order that he might be acknowledged by the people as their future sovereign. He in like manner recommended his grandson William to the barons of Northumberland, as his successor in that part of his dominions. Having ultimately fixed his residence at Carlisle, the pious monarch breathed his last, May 24th, 1153; being found dead in a posture of devotion. David I., by the acknowledgment of Buchanan himself, was 66 a more perfect exemplar of a good king than is to be found in all the theories of the learned and ingenious.”1

DAVIDSON, JOHN, an eminent divine, was born, we may suppose, some time about the year 1550, as he was enrolled a student of St Leonard's college in the university of St Andrews, in the year 1567; where he continued

1 James I. is recorded by Mair to have pronounced this sentence over the grave of his illustrious ancestor-"Rest there, thou most pious monarch, but who didst no good to the commonwealth, nor to kings in general;" which Bellenden has rendered "he was ane soir sanct for the crown.' ." This only shows that the utility of monasteries was less in the time of James I. than in the days of David I., and that king James regarded nothing as useful but what was conducive to his grand object, the increase of the royal authority. The death of James I. is a sufficient answer to his apophthegm: he was assassinated in consequence of his attempts to render himself useful to kings in general-that is to say, his attempts to rise upon the ruins of the nobility.

until 1570. Being educated for the ministry, he early displayed much fervour in his piety, and a fearless boldness and constant zeal in the cause of the reformation in Scotland. When the regent Morton, in the year 1573, obtained an order in the privy council, authorizing the union of several parishes into one, Davidson, then a regent in St Leonard's college, expressed his opposition to, and displeasure at that crying abuse in the church, in a poem, which, although printed without his knowledge, brought him into great trouble. He was summoned to a justice-ayre held at Haddington, when sentence of imprisonment was pronounced against him; he was, however, soon after liberated on bail, in the hope that the leniency thus shown would induce him to retract what he had written, or at least that his brethren might be prevailed upon to condemn the poem. But these expectations were disappointed, and Davidson, finding the intercession even of some of the principal gentry in the country unavailing, and that nothing but a recantation would save him from punishment, fled to the west of Scotland, and thence into England, where he remained until the degradation of the regent, when he returned home. He ultimately attended the earl, along with other clergymen, when his lordship was about to suffer on the scaffold, and on that occasion a reconciliation took place between them.

Davidson again involved himself in difficulties by the active part which he took against Robert Montgomery, minister of Stirling. Robert Montgomery, it appears, had made a Simoniacal purchase of the archbishopric of Glasgow from the earl of Lennox; after which, accompanied by a number of soldiers, Montgomery came to Glasgow, and proceeded to the church. He there found the incumbent in the pulpit, when going up to him he pulled him by the sleeve, and cried "Come down, sirrah." The minister replied, " He was placed there by the Kirk, and would give place to none who intruded themselves without orders." Thereupon much confusion and bloodshed ensued. The presbytery of Stirling suspended Montgomery, and were supported in their authority by the General Assembly; but the earl of Lennox, not inclined to submit to this opposition, obtained a commission from the king, to try and bring the offenders to justice. Before this court could be held, however, the earl of Gowrie and other noblemen seized upon the young king, and carried him to the castle of Ruthven, and there constrained him to revoke the commission, and to banish the earl of Lennox from the kingdom. But the king having afterwards made his escape from his rebel nobles, banished all those who had been engaged in this treasonable enterprise. Montgomery, who in the meanwhile had made submission to the church, again revived his claim to the archbishopric of Glasgow, whereon Mr Davidson, then minister of Libberton, was appointed by the presbytery of Edinburgh to pronounce sentence of excommunication against him; which duty he performed with great boldness. was also appointed one of the commission sent to Stirling to remonstrate with the king on account of this measure in favour of Montgomery. In consequence, however, of the faithfulness with which he had admonished his majesty, Davidson found it expedient to make a hurried journey into England, where he remained for a considerable time.

He

Having returned to Scotland, Mr Davidson signalized himself in the year 1590, by his letter in answer to Dr Bancroft's attack on the church of Scotland. In 1596, while minister of Prestonpans, he took an active part in acHe was chosen to complishing the renewal of the national covenant. minister unto the assemblage of divines and elders which congregated for confession and prayer in the Little Church of Edinburgh, as a preparatory step to the introduction of the overture for that purpose into the general assembly;

and on this occasion "he was so assisted by the Spirit working upon their hearts, that within an hour after they had convened, they began to look with quite another countenance than at first, and while he was exhorting them, the whole assembly melted into tears before him." "Before they dismissed, they solemnly entered into a new League and Covenant, holding up their hands, with such signs of sincerity as moved all present." And "that afternoon, the (general) assembly enacted the renewal of the covenant by particular synods." have been many days of humiliation for present judgments or imminent dangers; but the like for sin and defection was never seen since the Reformation."Calderwood's Church History.

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"There

In the general assembly, held at Dundee in the year 1598, it was proposed that the clergy should vote in Parliament in the name of the church. Davidson, looking upon this measure as a mere device for the introduction of bishops, opposed it violently. "Busk, busk, busk him," he exclaimed, as bonnily as you can, and fetch him in as fairly as you will, we see him weel eneugh-we can discern the horns of his mitre." He concluded by entreating the assembly not to be rash; for, "brethren," said he, "see you not how readily the bishops begin to creep up." He would have protested against the measure-which, notwithstanding the efforts to pack the assembly, was carried only by a majority of ten-but the king, who was present, interposed and said, "That shall not be granted: see, if you have voted and reasoned before." "Never, Sir," said Davidson, “but without prejudice to any protestation made or to be made." He then tendered his protestation, which, after having been past from one to another, was at last laid down before the clerk; whereon the king took it up, and, having showed it to the moderator and others who were around him, he put it in his pocket. The consequences of this protest did not, however, end here; Davidson was charged to appear before the council, and was by order of the king committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh; but, on account of the infirm state of his health, the place of his confinement was changed to his own manse. Afterwards his liberty was extended to the bounds of his own parish, in which he was allowed to perform the duties of his charge: and there, after labouring in his vocation for some years, during which he suffered much from bad health, he died at Prestonpans in the year 1604.

He was a man of sincere piety, and of an ardent and bold disposition, which fitted him to take a leading part in the great movements of the period. Davidson is particularly deserving of notice on account of the exertions which he made for the religious and literary instruction of his parishioners in Prestonpans. At his own expense he built the church, the manse, and the school, and schoolmaster's house. The school was erected for teaching the three learned languages, and he bequeathed all his heritable and movable property for its support. But by much the most extraordinary feature in his character was his reputation for prophecy. Calderwood tells, that Davidson "one day seeing Mr John Kerr, the minister of Prestonpans, going in a scarlet cloak like a courtier, told him to lay aside that abominable dress, as he (Davidson) was destined to succeed him in his ministry; which accordingly came to pass." On another occasion, when John Spottiswood, minister of Calder, and James Law, minister of Kirkliston, were called before the synod of Lothian, on the charge of playing at foot-ball on Sabbath, Davidson, who was acting as moderator, moved that the culprits should be deposed from their charges. The synod, however, awarded them a slighter punishment; and when they were ordered in to receive their sentence, Davidson called out to them, “Come in, you pretty foot-ball men, the synod ordains you only to be rebuked." Then, addressing the meeting in his usual earnest and prophetic manner, he said, "And now, brethren, let me

tell you what reward you shall get for your lenity; these two men shall trample on your necks, and the necks of the whole ministry of Scotland.” The one was afterwards archbishop of St Andrews, and the other of Glasgow.-We quote the following from Wodrow's MS. "Lives of Scottish Clergymen." When Davidson was about to rebuild the church of Prestonpans, “a place was found most convenient upon the lands of a small heritor of the parish, called James Pinkerton. Mr Davidson applied to him, and signified that such a place of his land, and five or six acres were judged most proper for building the church and churchyard dyke, and he behoved to sell them." The other said "he would never sell them, but he would freely gift those acres to so good a use;" which he did. Mr Davidson said, "James, ye shall be no loser, and ye shall not want a James Pinkerton to succeed you for many generations :" and hitherto, as I was informed some years ago, there has been still a James Pinkerton succeeding to that small heritage in that parish, descending from him; and after several of them had been in imminent danger when childless.

DEMPSTER, THOMAS, a learned professor and miscellaneous writer, was born at Brechin, in the shire of Angus, sometime in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Of his family or education nothing certain has been preserved, farther than that he studied at Cambridge. In France, whither he went at an early period of his life, and where probably he received the better part of his education, he represented himself as a man of family, and possessed of a good estate, which he had abandoned for his religion, the Roman catholic. He was promoted to a professor's chair at Paris, in the college of Beauvais. Bayle says, that though his business was only to teach a school, he was as ready to draw his sword as his pen, and as quarrelsome as if he had been a duellist by profession; scarcely a day passed, he adds, in which he did not fight either with his sword or at fisty cuffs, so that he was the terror of all the school-masters. Though he was of this quarrelsome temper himself, it does not appear however that he gave any encouragement to it in others; for one of his students having sent a challenge to another, he had him horsed on the back of a fellowstudent, and whipped him upon the seat of honour most severely before a full class. To revenge this monstrous affront, the scholar brought three of the king's lifeguards-men, who were his relations, into the college. Dempster, however, was not to be thus tamed. He caused hamstring the lifeguards men's horses before the college gate; themselves he shut up close prisoners in the belfrey, whence they were not relieved for several days. Disappointed of their revenge in this way, the students had recourse to another. They lodged an information against his life and character, which not choosing to meet, Dempster fled into England. How long he remained, or in what manner he was employed there, we have not been informed; but he married a woman of uncommon beauty, with whom he returned to Paris. Walking the streets of Paris with his wife, who, proud of her beauty, had bared a more than ordinary portion of her breast and shoulders, which were of extreme whiteness, they were surrounded by a mob of curious spectators, and narrowly escaped being trodden to death. Crossing the Alps, he obtained a professor's chair in the university of Pisa, with a handsome salary attached to it. Here his comfort, and perhaps his usefulness was again marred by the conduct of his beautiful wife, who at length eloped with one of his scholars. Previously to this, we suppose, for the time is by no means clearly stated, he had been professor in the university of Nîmes, which he obtained by an honourable competition in a public dispute upon a passage of Virgil. "This passage," he says himself, "was proposed to me as a difficulty not to be solved, when I obtained the professorship in the royal college of Nîmes, which was disputed for by a great number of candidates, and