41* 



CRAIG. JOHN. 



CUAIK, GEORGE LILL1E. 



4*0 



Reformation. He preached for a short time in Latin to the learned in 

 St. Magdalen's chapel, when, having recovered bin native language, lie 

 wu appointed minister of Holjrood Hoiue, and became a principal 

 coadjutor of Knoz, the great Scottuh reformer, in the work of refor- 

 mation. He waa afterward" appointed minister of Hontroae, and in 1574 

 minister of Aberdeen, in which capacity he was choeeu Moderator of 

 the General Assembly of the church of Scotland, which met in Octobrr 

 1676. The following Tear he wai removed to Edinburgh; and in 

 1579 wai associated with the learned John Duncanaon as minuter 

 to the royal houtehold. 



Craig drew up the National Covenant in the year 1580; be was 

 also the author of two theological works ; the one an answer to an 

 attack on the Confession of Faith, the other a form of examination 

 entitled 'Craig's Catechism,' which was appointed by the General 

 As*embly to be used In schools and families in place of the ' Little 

 Catechism.' He died at Edinburgh on the 12th of December 1600, 

 at the advanced age of 89 ; but for some years before had performed 

 no public duty. 



(Mfrie, MclriUt; Tytler, Life of Sir Thonuu Craig.) 



CRAIG, JOHN. The dates of his birth and death are unknown ; 

 but he wu alive in the interval 1(3>5-1718. He was a Scotchman by 

 birth, and was rector of Gillingham, in Dorsetshire. He deserves 

 remembrance as one of those who were active in developing the 

 principles of the theory of fluxions after its appearance. His writings 

 are partly in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' and partly published 

 separately. The latter are, 'Do Calculo Fluentium,' London, 1718, 

 with two books, ' De Opticft Analytical ' De Figurarum, &c., Quadra- 

 turis,' London, 1693. There had previously, in 1635, appeared a 

 tract on the same subject ' Theologise Christiana) Principia Matho- 

 matica,' London. 1699, a very silly attempt to apply numerical reason- 

 ing to historical evidence. He concludes from a formula that the 

 evidences of Christianity will be extinct by lapse of time in 1454 years 

 from 1696, or A. D. 8150, at which date he therefore places the commence- 

 ment of the Millenium. Craig is called by some continental writers 

 the introducer of the Leibnitz' theory of fluxions into England. 



CRAIG, SIR THOMAS, of Uiccartou, was, according to Baillie'i) 

 biographical notice of him prefixed to the last edition of his celebrated 

 treatise on the ' Feudal Law,' the son of Mr. Robert Craig, merchant 

 in Edinburgh, and born about the year 1518 ; but this is plainly a 

 mistake, for in 1552 he was sent to the university of St. Andrews, and 

 entered as a student of St. Leonard's College. He remained at St 

 Leonard's only till he proceeded Bachelor of Arts, when he went to 

 France to prosecute his studies in the University of Paris. On his 

 return to Scotland, about 1561, the Reformation had just been accom- 

 plished there; and under the care of his distinguished relative, the 

 Rev. Dr. John Craig, then minister of Holy rood House, the religious 

 views of young Craig were changed ; and, devoting himself entirely to 

 study, he left nearly all his youthful contemporaries in literature far 

 behind him. He passed advocate in the Court of Session at Edinburgh 

 on the 2nd of February 1563, and in July of that year we find him 

 justice depute to Archibald, fifth earl of Argyll, hereditary lord 

 juaticiar of Scotland (' Abstract Books of Adjournal, MS. Adv. Libr.'), 

 an ardent friend of the Reformation. In May 1.164 he had a grant 

 from the crown of the escheat of Alexander Innes of Crombie, and in 

 the following January another grant from the crown of the unlaws or 

 auiercianient-H of any six penons he might choose among those unlawed 

 in the justice courts, and this so long as he should enjoy the office 

 of justice depute. In October of the following year the grant was 

 extended for his life. His fi ret appearance as an author was on occasion 

 of the queen's marriage with her cousin Darnley, for which ho com- 

 posed an epitbalamium, or marriage-song. The piece, which is not to 

 be found among Craig's poems in the ' Dolitue Poetarum Scotorum,' 

 was only discovered a few years back. 



In his office of j untie* depute Craig appears to have been particularly 

 cealoua, On the 18th of December be had a grant from the crown of 

 the escheat of Alexander Dunning of Wrstercrieff, and tho week 

 following a grant of the escheat of James Johnston in Middlegill and 

 other*. In looking at these grants of escheat, we must bear in mind 

 that in those times the judges were commonly paid out of the issues 

 of their court, and it is probable that Craig had then no other source 

 of remuneration. In 1574 however, when he was promoted in his 

 profession, he received from the lord treasurer 1202., being his fee as 

 justice depute for three yean from Whit-Sunday 1571, at the rate of 

 401 a year, which was an allowance equal to that then paid to the 

 lord advocate. Craig presided in the court of justiciary held in April 

 1560, where Thomas Scot, the sheriff depute of Perth under Lord 

 Ruthven. the hereditary sheriff, and Henry Taire, a priest, servant to 

 the Lord Ruthven, wire adjudged to bo hanged and quartered, and 

 their bead* set upon the turret of the buildings adjoining the royal 

 palace, on the charge of having been accomplices in the murder of 

 Kiuio, who was openly assassinated in the queen's presence by the 

 Lord Ruthven, the Lord Chancellor Morton, and others, at the head 

 of whom was Darnley himself. On the 19th of June following, the 

 queen wan delivered of a son, and Craig again appeared as a court- bnrd, 

 hailing the birth of the young prince in a ' Genethliacum in Jacob! 

 Prinoipis Scotorum.' He seems toon afterwards to have married Helen 

 Heriot, daughter <( the influential laird of Traborun, in the county of 

 1 (aldington ; and in 1569 bis eldest son Lewis was born. 



Craig continued in the office of justice depute till the end of tho 

 year 1573, when he waa appointed sheriff depute of Edinburgh under 

 the Earl of Morton above mentioned, the hereditary sheriff; and 

 Craig's younger brother Robert was made justice depute in his room. 

 From the beginning of the year 1576 Craig was in the courts as a 

 practising counsel down to the beginning of the year 1581. Morton 

 was that year committed to Dumbarton Castle for his supposed concern 

 in the murder of Darnley, and the lame year Craig was ordered to 

 cuter his person in ward in the same castle of Dumbarton. Craig at 

 last obtained hU liberty, but was not replaced hi the office of sheriff 

 depute. In April of the above year 1576 Craig got a crown charter 

 of the estate of Craigfintray, in the county of Aberdeen, to himself and 

 bis he'irs male. In April 1588 ho obtained a crown charter 

 lands of St Lawrence Houses, in the county of Haddingtou, to '.. 

 and Helen Heriot, his wife ; and from about that time forward v. 

 him again in practice at the bar. He resumed also his poet: 

 and wrote tome commendatory lines to Jacks Onomastichon, pu) . 

 in 1592. 



It waa probably about this time that Craig contemplated his great 

 work on the feudal law. Such a work was in a manner new to the law 

 literature of Scotland. l!ut Craig narrowed his powerful mind, its 

 fancy and genius, and all its accumulated stores of learning and 

 experience, to a temporary object; and to adopt tho sentiment if not 

 the language of one who had weighed his merits, instead of seizing the 

 precious opportunity he enjoyed of presenting to his country 

 system of her national jurisprudence, he not only passed by tin- 

 evidences of her common law which lay beside him, but endeav 

 to sink them into oblivion in favour of the civil and feudal law*. 

 (Ross's ' Lectures,' voL ii. pp. 9, 10.) He had scarcely risen from his 

 learned labours however when he found that Elizabeth was on the eve 

 of her demise, and that various intrigues were carrying on and cabals 

 formed to secure her crown, with a view to the king's succession, to 

 which his treatise on ' Feuds ' was composed. On the 1st of January 

 1603 therefore, he dedicated to the king a treatise on the ' Succession 

 to the Throne of England,' which he hod written in confutation of 

 the Jesuit Parsons' ' Conference on the Disputed Succession,' wherein 

 the right of the people to choose their king was boldly reasoned, and 

 the crown indirectly claimed for the Infanta of Spain. But in less 

 than three months after, the queen repeated on her death-bed her 

 former declaration that her cousin the king of Scots should be her 

 successor. James accordingly ascended the throne of England without 

 dispute, and Craig's reply to Dolemou was never printed. 



On the king's departure for England with his family, Craig wrote a 

 ' Pancneticon ' of congratulation, and on the same occasion a ' Pro- 

 peinpticon,' or farewell pooin, to the young prince Henry. The same 

 year he composed bis ' Stephanaphorio,' in honour of the kiug'x 

 coronation ; of which ceremonial Craig seems to have been a v. . 

 having in all likelihood accompanied tho royal party into England ; 

 and previous to his return home he addressed to the king a short 

 poem, in which he took a solemn farewell of his majesty, and at the 

 same time of the Muses. 



Soon after his return Craig was appointed one of the commissioners 

 nominated by the parliament to meet with commissioners from I'.; 

 and treat of a union between the two kingdoms, and thereupon in the 

 summer of 1005 he wrote his treatise on the union. About the same 

 time he wrote his treatise on homage, to vindicate Scotland from the 

 charge of feudal dependence on the crown of England, brought against 

 it in the chronicles of Hollinshed. Neither of these works was ever 

 published. In tho year 1606 Craig held the office of advocate for tho 

 Church of Scotland, and some time before his death, as he would n ; 

 formally accept tho honour of knighthood, the king commanded that 

 he should be everywhere saluted by the style accorded to that honour. 

 He died on the 26th of February 1608, when he hod been upwards of 

 forty-five years at the bar, and probably therefore when he was not 

 much short of seventy-five years of age. 



CRAIK, GEORGE LILL1E, was born in Fifrshire in 171': 

 son of a schoolmaster. At tho university of St Andrews he went. 

 through the usual course of a divinity student, but be did not take 

 licence as a preacher. He had contracted an early taste for lite- 

 rature, and after giving some lectures on poetry in Scotland he came 

 to London in 1824. For a short time, among other thing-*, he was 

 connected with the ' Verulam,' a weekly literary and scientific news- 

 paper, started under high patronage, but which had a very short 

 existence. Soon after the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know- 

 ledge commenced its operations, Mr. Craik wrote the ' Pursuit of 

 Knowledge under Difficulties,' forming two volumes of the series of 

 'Entertaining Knowledge' edited and published by Mr. C. Knight. 

 These volumes appeared in 1831, and though issued without his name, 

 established a reputation fr Mr. Craik oa a writer of extensive and 

 varied acquirements. Mr. Craik, from the commencement to the close 

 of tho ' Penny Cyclopaedia,' was one of the most valuable contributors 

 in history and biography. In 1 839 Mr. Craik became the editor of the. 

 ' Pictorial History of England,' and he principally wrote the ch . 

 on K.-ligion, Constitution, Government, and Laws, National Industry, 

 and Literature. Some of these chapters were subsequently fum.e.1, 

 with additions, into separate works; namely, ' Sketched of the History 

 of Literature and Learning in Kngl.md from the Norman Conquest to 

 the Present Time,' in 6 vols ; and a ' History of British Commerce from 



