George Buchanan Biography

Dromo's Den

BUCHANAN, George (1506-82) A Scottish historian and poet, noted as tutor of James VI. He was born of poor parents in Killearn, Stirling, February, 1506. He was sent to the University of Paris by his uncle, who died two years afterward, leaving Buchanan without the means of prosecuting his studies. He returned home and, at the expense of his health, fought against the English, being present at the siege of Werk, October, 1523. He entered St. Andrews University as a pauper student in 1524 in the following year taking his degree of B.A. In 1526 he went to Paris, was admitted B.A. at the Scots College on Oct. 10, 1527, and attained his M.A. degree in March, 1528. He subsequently obtained a professorship in the College of St. Barbe, but returned to Scotland about 1536. During his residence on the Continent Buchanan adopted the Reformed faith. A satire entitled Somnium, arraigning the Franciscans, aroused their indignation, and he resolved upon seeking safety in his old college in Paris, when King James V took him under his protection and entrusted him with the education of one of his illegitimate sons. At the request of the King Buchanan wrote another satire against the monks, entitled Franciscanus (1564) , increasing their natural resentment and bringing upon himself the powerful displeasure of Cardinal Beaton, who had him arrested and imprisoned for his diatribe. Though the publication of the satire was due to James, he did not protect the poet, who escaped to Paris. After spending some years in Bordeaux and Paris in tuition, he accompanied the learned Portuguese Govea to the University of Coimbra, in Portugal. After the death of Govea Buchanan was arrested as a heretic and was for some time detained in a monastery, where he began his splendid Latin metrical version of the Psalms. Restored to liberty in 1551, he went to England, but soon afterward again sought Paris. About 1561 he returned to Scotland and made confession of Protestantism. His reputation as a scholar gained him a good reception at the court of Mary, whose classical tutor he became. But his religious and political principles attached him to the party of the Regent Moray, by whose influence he was appointed principal of St. Leonard's College, in St. Andrews University, in 1566, the complimentary inscription on the register reading "Hujus sæculi poetarum-facile princeps." In the following year he was chosen moderator of the General Assembly-a rare honor for a layman. Siding as he did with the Reform party, [see Reformation] Buchanan arrayed himself against Mary, and he accompanied Moray to England, to give evidence before the commissioners appointed by Elizabeth to inquire into her guilt. His Detectio Mariæ Reginæ, which was possibly laid before these functionaries, was industriously circulated by the English court. It, however, contains gross exaggerations which have been condemned by partisan as well as non-partisan historians. In 1570 Buchanan was appointed tutor to James VI (afterward James I) , who owed to him the erudition of which in later life he was so pedantically vain. No considerations of the future position of his pupil were allowed to interfere with Buchanan's treatment of him, which was strict, if not even stern. In dedicating his De Iure Regni apud Scotos to the young monarch in 1579, he warned him against favorites with remarkable freedom, and his dictum that "Kings existed by the will of the people" was of special import in the succeeding century. In 1570 Buchanan was appointed Director of Chancery and Keeper of the Privy Seal. He resigned office in 1578 and devoted the rest of his life to the composition of his History of Scotland (published in 1582). He died 30 days after its publication, on Sept. 28, 1582, and received public burial in Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh. As a scholar, Buchanan was unrivaled in his age, and he wrote Latin poetry "with the purity and elegance of an ancient Roman."

He was alike humorous sarcastic, and profound. His History, written in Latin, is remarkable for the richness, force, and perspicuity of its style, though its narration of contemporary events shows partiality. Two years after the author's death, it, as well as De Iure Regni, etc., was condemned by the Scottish Parliament, and every person possessed of the copies was ordered to surrender them within 40 days, in order that they might be purged of "the offensive and extraordinary matters" they contained. The latter work was again condemned in 1664, and in 1683 was burned by the loyalist scholars of Oxford. Two collected editions of Buchanan's works have been published-one by Ruddiman (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1715) and another by Burmann ( 2 vols., Leyden, 1725). Translations that have appeared do little justice to the original. Consult Dr. Irving, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of George Buchanan (2d ed., Edinburgh, 1817), and P. Hume Brown, George Buchanan (London. 1890).

The New International Encyclopaedia Vol IV. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 83-84.