Goerge Buchanan a So-called Negroe who tutor King James VI and I when he was a child developing into Kingship. The Chief Scottish exponent of this point of view was, in fact, George Buchanan , James childhood tutor who had, all to strenuously, attempted to instill his principles into the young kings mind. Perhaps because of that circumstance, Buchanans De jure regni apud cotos, or The Powers of the Crown in Scotland, was the work James Trew Law most directly contradicted. Buchanans treatise was evidently written in the aftermath of the successful attempt to force Jamess mother Mary Queen of Scots off the throne - an action in which Buchanan was very much involved. The treatise was dedicated to James when it was eventually published in 1579. The King, then twelve years old, was still under his teachers care and would remain so for the next few years. Buchanans theory, developed in an imaginary dialogue with Tomas Maitland, a brother of Sir William Maitland of Lethington, a key though not unwavering supporter of Mary Queen of Scots, stressed that Kings owed their political authority to the people over whom they ruled. Limitation expressed in law were placed by the people on kings to curtail their excesses. Laws were enacted not by kings alone but jointly with representatives of the people in a public proceeding. Nor were kings the sole interpreters of the laws, since the laws would then serve as little restraint. Kings who abused their powers by becoming tyrants could be called to account by their subjects, imprisoned, exiled, or put to death. Such actions had frequently occurred in Scottish history, Buchanan argued. Indeed, he devoted many years to composing a Historia to support the theory developed here. When Maitland asked what would happen if an accused King would not submit to a trial, Buchanan answered that robbers who are so powerful that they cannot be dealt with by the ordinary process of law are pursued as in a war with force of arms. To Maitlands objection that subjects are sworn to obey their king, Buchanan answered that there is a mutual compact between king and citizens and that the one who first withdraws from the covenant breaks the agreement. Tyrants, he argued, were to be regarded as the most savage of all monsters. From Jamess point of view, Buchanans theory was a formula for civil war and chaos of a king form which Scotland, under his leadership, was just emerging. t was also, he felt, based on a misunderstanding of Scottish history as well as the countrys political institutions. George Buchanan (February 1506 – 28 September 1582) was a Scottish historian and humanist scholar. Brown says that Buchanan was the most profound intellectual sixteenth century Scotland produced. His ideology of resistance to royal usurpation gained widespread acceptance during the Scottish Reformation. Brown says the ease with which King James VII was deposed in 1689 shows the power of Buchananite ideas. His father, a highlander[2] and a younger son of an old family, owned the farm of Moss, in the parish of Killearn, Stirlingshire, but he died young, leaving his widow, five sons, and three daughters[3] in poverty. Georges mother, Agnes Heriot, was of the family of the Heriots of Trabroun, East Lothian, of which George Heriot, founder of Heriots Hospital, was also a member. Buchanan, a native speaker of Scottish Gaelic is said to have attended Killearn school, but not much is known of his early education. His brother, Patrick Buchanan was also a scholar.[4] In 1520 he was sent by his uncle, James Heriot, to the University of Paris, where he first came in contact with the two great influences of the age, the Renaissance and the Reformation. There, according to him, he devoted himself to the writing of verses partly by liking, partly by compulsion (that being then the one task prescribed to youth). In 1539 there was persecution in Scotland of the Lutherans, and Buchanan among others was arrested. Although the King had withheld his protection, he managed to escape and made his way to London, and then Paris. In Paris, however, he found himself in danger when his main enemy, Cardinal David Beaton, arrived there as ambassador, and on the invitation of André de Gouveia, he moved to Bordeaux. Gouveia was then principal of the newly founded College of Guienne there, and by his influence Buchanan was appointed professor of Latin. During his time there several of his major works, the translations of Medea and Alcestis, and the two dramas, Jephthes (sive Votum) and Baptistes (sive Calumnia), were completed. Michel de Montaigne was Buchanans pupil at Bordeaux[9] and acted in his tragedies. In the essay Of Presumption he classes Buchanan with Jean dAurat, Theodore Beza, Michel de lHôpital, Pierre de Montdoré and Adrianus Turnebus, as one of the foremost Latin poets of his time.[10] Here also Buchanan formed a lasting friendship with Julius Caesar Scaliger; in later life he won the admiration of Joseph Scaliger, who wrote an epigram on Buchanan which contains the couplet, famous in its day: Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia limes; Romani eloquii Scotia limes erit? In 1542 or 1543 he returned to Paris, and in 1544 was appointed regent in the Collège du cardinal Lemoine. Among his colleagues were Muretus and Turnebus. Although little is known about George during this time, we can gather that he probably once again fell ill according to an elegy[11] he wrote to his comrades Tastaeus and Tevius. A commission of inquiry was appointed in October 1549 and reported in June 1550. Buchanan and two Portuguese, Diogo de Teive and João da Costa (who had succeeded to the rectorship), were committed for trial. Teive and Costa were found guilty of various offences against public order, and the evidence shows that there was ample reason for a judicial inquiry. Buchanan was accused of Lutheran and Judaistic practices. He defended himself, admitting that some of the charges were true. About June 1551 he was sentenced to abjure his errors, and to be imprisoned in the monastery of São Bento in Lisbon. Here he listened to edifying discourses from the monks, whom he found not unkind but ignorant. In his leisure he began to translate the Psalms into Latin verse, completing the greater part of the work. After seven months Buchanan was released, on condition that he remained in Lisbon; and on 28 February 1552 this restriction was lifted. Buchanan then sailed for England, but soon made his way to Paris, where in 1553 he was appointed regent in the College of Boncourt. He remained in that post for two years, and then accepted the office of tutor to the son of the Maréchal de Brissac. It was almost certainly during this last stay in France, where Protestantism was being repressed by King Francis I, that Buchanan took the side of Calvinism. In 1560 or 1561 he returned to Scotland, and by April 1562 was installed as tutor to the young Mary, Queen of Scots, who read Livy with him daily. Hitherto, though a supporter of the new learning and a merciless exposer of the vices of the clergy, he had remained in the ancient faith, but he now openly joined the Protestant Reformed Church, and in 1566 was appointed principal of St Leonards College, St Andrews by the earl of Moray. Two years before he had received from the queen the gift of the revenues of Crossraguel Abbey. Though a layman, he was made Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1567. He had sat in the assemblies from 1563. He was the last lay person to be elected Moderator until Alison Elliot in 2004, the first female Moderator. Buchanan accompanied the Regent Moray to England, and his famous Detectio Mariæ Reginæ—a scathing exposure of the Queens relations to Darnley and the circumstances leading up to his death, published London: John Day, [1571]—was produced to the commissioners at Westminster. In 1570, after the assassination of Moray, he was appointed one of the preceptors of the young king, and it was through his strict tuition that James VI acquired his scholarship. While royal tutor he also held other offices: he was for a short time director of chancery, and then became Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland, a post which entitled him to a seat in the parliament. He appears to have continued in this office for some years, at least till 1579. His last years were occupied with completion and publication of two of his major works, De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579) and Rerum Scoticarum Historia (1582). He died in Edinburgh in 1582 and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 19:00:09 +0000
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