40 MEMOIR OF 



but was determined still to adhere to its religion. 

 The earl entertained no scruple of paying cour* 

 even by the sacrifice of both." But let us hear 

 Sir Robert Sibbald. 



" Now I come to the difficultest passage of my 

 life. The friendship I had with the Earle of 

 Perth was come to a great hight, though I had 

 improven it only for the good of the Colledge of 

 Physitians, and done very little for the bettering 

 of my fortune by it. I admired too much him, 

 and gave full scouth to my affection for him, 

 without considering him more narrowly : by my 

 extroversion towards the concerns of the Coledge, 

 and greate persute after curious bookes, I had lost 

 much of the assiet and firmnesse of mynd I had 

 formerly, and had by his meanes been ingadged 

 in a controversie about the antiquity of our 

 Country and our Kings, upon occasion of the 

 Bishop of Asaph, his reflections upon them. 

 This had taken me much up, for I wrott two 

 bookes in vindication of our history and histo- 

 rians upon that account, one in answer to the 

 Bishop xara croSas, and the other a vindication 

 of our history, and the contraverted points more 

 regularly. This had occasioned in me some 

 contempt of the English Clergy upon that 

 account, and some prevarications of some of our 

 own folks upon some heads, had loused the 

 attachment I had for our owne Religion. The 



