30 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



was superintendent of the Merse and Lothian in the early days of Presbytery 

 in Scotland, an office which he discharged with advantage to the church, 

 honour to himself, and benefit to posterity. His son, the archbishop, it may 

 be remembered, had the honour of placing the Scottish crown on the head 

 of Charles I. at Holyroodhouse, and was afterwards vested with the official 

 dignity of Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom.* His son. Sir Robert 

 Spottiswoode, attained the high distinction of Privy Counsellor, Lord of 

 Session, and, subsequently, President of that Coui-t. The prominent part, 

 however, which he assumed in the cause of royalty, gave deep offence to the 

 Presbyterian party, and excluded him fi.-om the benefits of the Act of " ObUvion," 

 in 1641. After a short imprisonment, and having found security for liis future 

 conduct as respected " the peace and quietness of the kingdom," he was 

 made Secretary of State in 1643 ; but wliile personally engaged in the duties 

 of that office in Scotland, he was taken prisoner at Philiphaugh, tried by 

 parliament at St. Andrew's, and sentenced to be beheaded at the market 

 cross. John Spottiswoode, another member of tliis family, was the first 

 Professor of Law in the University of Edinburgh, and the author of several 

 excellent works on jurisprudence. A fourth distinguished himself as a general 

 in the service of George II., and died while Governor of Virginia. 



The Homes of Bassendean have long held a patrician station among the 

 famihes of the Border. George Home, a zealous Protestant at a time 

 when zeal was indispensable for the consolidation of the new doctrine, was 

 proscribed in consequence of the active part he had taken, in conjunction with 

 Polwarth, Torwoodlee, and others, to secure for their countrymen freedom 

 of conscience, and the uninterrupted exercise of their religion. Thus rendered 

 obnoxious to political persecution, officers were despatched to apprehend 

 liim, and were only foiled by his seeking refuge in a vault contiguous to his 

 own house at Bassendean. Here, watched for a time by the tender assiduities 

 of his wife, he at length found means of escape to Holland, the sanctuary 

 of Scottish patriots, and thence had the happiness of returning to enjoy, on 

 his paternal estate, the precious fruits of that revolution wliich he had sacrificed 

 so much to establish. James Bassantin, a learned progenitor of the same 

 family, became so famous as a mathematician in the time of James IV., that 

 he was invited to a chair in the University of Paris, where his lectures were 

 attended by students from all parts of Europe. Quitting, however, this high 



• He was so keenly affected, it is said, by the unconipromising resistance witli which every effort to 

 introduce the liturgy into Scotland was met, that he died of grief; and was honoured with the last mark 

 of public distinction — a grave in Westminster Ahl)ey. 



