166 Sir JoHNn Macsrair. 
and Barwick, wherein Knox, Mackbray, and Udal had sown 
their tares), all things have gone so cross and backward in 
our church that I cannot call the historie of these fortie years 
or more to mind or express my observations upon it but with 
a bleeding heart.’ 
Richard Barnes was Bishop of Durham from 1575 to 
1687. His immediate predecessor in the Bishopric (who 
occupied the see when Macbrair had the vicarage of New- 
castle given him by the patron of the living, the Bishop of 
Carlisle) was James Pilkington. 
I have seen no reference to any family that Macbrair had. 
He frequently figures as a witness in his parishioners’ 
wills, and Mr Welford, in his Chronological Hist. of Newcastle 
and Gateshead, gives an instance of a piece of gold, value 
tos, being left him for a funeral sermon.® 
Of his works Dempster makes no mention. 
APPENDIX. 
A Wodrow MS. in Glasgow University Library (Press 
Mark BEv7-d-24) a quarto volume, contains biographies of 
21 men famous in the Reformation Age, and among the 
number that of John M‘Brair (No. 4). It runs thus: 
‘* Which brings me to gather what I can as to John M‘Brair 
or M‘Bray as the Forraigners call him—Mr Knox and 
Calderwood Take no noittice of him, Taking him To be the 
same as far as see wt M‘bee. However, B. Spotswood Takes 
nottice of him as a honoured man Before and at the Reforma- 
tion, and I find traces of him among the celebrated preachers 
in England upon Queen Elizabeth’s accession. I shall begin 
at B. Spotswood’s account of this usefull person. He 
tells us He was a gentleman in Galloway qch probably agrees 
To what Gesner says of M‘Bee —ex preclara quadam 
Scotorum familia. He was Forced to leave his country for 
Religion ; whether it was In the 1539 at the best I cannot say. 
But he went to England and was a preacher of the Gospel 
8 For the Neweastle portion of this article I am indebted to. Mr 
John Oxberry, Gateshead, peteht 
