John Adamson (1576–1651?)

John Adamson (1576–1651?) was Principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1623 until 1651.

Early Career

Adamson was the son of James Adamson, provost of Perth. He studied at Edinburgh University under Charles Ferme, graduating MA on 30 July 1597. Following the resignation of George Robertson in January 1598, he won a public disputation to be appointed Regent of Philosophy. As a regent, Adamson took two classes through to graduation in 1600 and 1604.

He resigned in 1604 to become Minister of Haddington, moving in 1609 to the Presbytery of Liberton near Edinburgh. By 1616 he was a member of the Aberdeen Assembly, where he, with two others, was tasked to develop a form of liturgy and a catechism for the Church. In 1617 he was leader of the College Regents that disputed before King James VI and I at Stirling Castle. Henry Charteris, then Principal of the University, was of too retiring a disposition to preside over the disputation himself, and asked Adamson to stand in for him. In thanking the speakers, the King made a number of puns based on their names. Of Adamson, he said: 'Adam was father of all; and very fitly Adamson had the first part of this act'. A year later, Adamson collected all the Latin and Greek greetings to the King on his arrival in Scotland, and published them as The Muses Welcome to the High and Mighty Prince James (1618).

Principal of Edinburgh University

John Adamson was appointed as Principal of Edinburgh University on 21 November 1623, following the enforced resignation of Robert Boyd. Boyd's appointment in 1622 had proved unacceptable to James VI and I. He had angered the King refusing to subscribe to the Five Articles of Perth, through which the King sought to impose an Episcopalian model on the Scottish Kirk. The King twice wrote to the Town Council demanding Boyd's dismissal, and Boyd had accordingly stepped down. There seemed little chance of incurring royal displeasure by appointing Adamson in his place. Adamson was a consummate courtier and

With the expulsion of Robert Boyd, he was assumed Principal of the University of Edinburgh in 1623.

In selecting John Adamson to fill up the vacancy caused by Boyd's expulsion the Town Council might feel sure that they would not again be offending the King, for Adamson was a courtier as well as a scholar.

Adamson was an ‘elegant scholar’ and produced many works. He wrote the Latin catalogue for the books bequeathed to the University library by William Drummond of Hawthornden in 1627, and also produced a Latin Catechism for students in that same year. Famously, he bequeathed George Buchanan’s skull to the University.

He was ordered by the Scottish privy council to examine several Latin grammars in the early 1630s, and in June 1633 was instrumental in preparing the pageant and speeches which celebrated Charles I's entry into Edinburgh. In 1637 he published Dioptra gloriae divinae and a Latin catechism for students, Eloquiorum Dei, sive methodus religionis Christianae catechetica. He preached in February the following year in favour of ‘the renewing of the old covenant’ (Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie, 1.52), and called it ‘papal, antichristian, tyrannical to any bishops to do anything in God's matters without consent of the whole church’ (Johnston, 306). In the 1640s Adamson regularly represented Edinburgh University at general assemblies of the kirk, at meetings of the commissions appointed by general assemblies, and at meetings of the commissioners from the universities. He may have been sympathetic to the engagement in 1648. His date of death is unknown; he was alive in May 1651, but probably died later in the year. However, his successor as principal was not chosen until January 1653.

Relationships

Son of James Adamson (d. 1617), provost of Perth, grandson of Dr. Patrick Adamson, Archbishop of St. Andrew's; his younger brother, Henry Adamson, was a poet and historian.

Publications

• The Muses Welcome to the High and Mighty Prince James (1618)
• Traveller's Joy, to which is added The Ark (1623)
• Auctarium Bibliothecï Edinburgenï, sive Catalogus Librorum quos Gulielmus Drummond ab Hawthornden, Bibliothecï (1627)
• Eisodia musarum Edinensium in Caroli Regis, Musarum Tutani, ingressu in Scotiamï (1633)
• Dioptra Gloriï Divinï(1637)
• Methodus Religionis Christianï Catecheticaï(1637)

It is believed that he collected the Latin poems of Andrew Melville, issued as Viri clarissimi A. Melvini Mvsï(1620)

Sources

• Sir Alexander Grant, The Story of the University of Edinburgh during its First Three Hundred Years, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1884)
• Stuart Handley, 'Adamson, John (1576-1651?)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)[[1], accessed 16 July 2010]