Significant Scots - William Annand

ANNAND, WILLIAM, an episcopal divine of the reign of Charles II., was the son of William Annand, minister of Ayr, where he was born in 1633. His father, having read the service-book at Glasgow in 1637, was attacked by the women of that place on the streets, and with some difficulty escaped a tragical fate. He was obliged soon after to fly from Scotland, on account of his adherence to the royal cause. Young Annand became, in 1651, a student at University College, Oxford, and soon gave token of his being inspired with the same predilections of his father. Though placed under a Presbyterian tutor, he took every opportunity of hearing the episcopal divines, who preached clandestinely in and around Oxford. In 1656, being then bachelor of arts, he received holy orders from the hands of Dr Thomas Fulwar, bishop of Ardfort or Kerry in Ireland, and was appointed preacher at Weston on the Green, near Becister in Oxfordshire. In this situation, and another to which he was preferred in Bedfordshire, he distinguished himself by his preaching. Immediately after the Restoration, he published two treatises in favour of the episcopal style of worship, which seem to have procured him high patronage, as he was now appointed chaplain to the earl of Middleton, the king’s commissioner to the Scottish Estates. Returning to Scotland with this nobleman, he became minister successively of the Tolbooth and of the Tron Churches. As an episcopal clergyman, he must have no doubt been exceedingly unpopular in his own country; but there can be no doubt that both his ministrations and his writings were highly creditable to him, the latter displaying much learning. In 1676, the king appointed him to be dean of Edinburgh, and in 1685 he began to act as professor of divinity at St. Andrews. On the 30^th of June, 1685, he attended the Earl of Argyle, by order of the government, at his execution, and in his prayer on the scaffold, had the liberality to lament the fall of that nobleman "as one of the pillars of the church," an expression which is said to have given great offence to his superiors. After a life of piety and goodness, he died in 1689, lamenting with his latest breath, and with tears in his eyes, the overthrow of that church which he had exerted himself so much to defend and establish. He said, he never had thought to outlive the church of Scotland, but he hoped that others would live to see it restored.