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HENRYSON, EDWARD, LL.D.,
an eminent civilian and classical scholar, and a senator of the College
of Justice. The period of the birth of this eminent man is unknown, but
it must have taken place early in the sixteenth century. Previously to
the year 1551, we find him connecting himself, as most Scotsmen of
talent and education at that period did, with the learned men on the
continent, and distinguishing himself in his knowledge of civil law, a
science which, although it was the foundation of the greater part of the
municipal law of Scotland, he could have no ready means of acquiring in
his own country. This study he pursued at the university of Bruges,
under the tuition of Equinar Baro, an eminent civilian, with whom he
afterwards lived on terms of intimacy and strong attachment. It is
probable that he owed to this individual his introduction to a
munificent patron, who afterwards watched and assisted his progress in
the world. Ulric Fugger, lord of Kirchberg and Weissenhome, a Tyrolese
nobleman, who had previously distinguished himself as the patron of the
eminent Scottish civilian, Scrimger, extended an apparently ample
literary patronage to Henryson, admitting him to reside within his
castle, amidst an ample assortment of valuable books and manuscripts,
and bestowing on him a regular pension. Henryson afterwards dedicated
his works to his patron, and the circumstance that Baro inscribed some
of his commentaries on the Roman law to the same individual, prompts us
to think it probable that Henryson owed the notice of Fugger to the
recommendation of his kind preceptor. Dempster, who in his life of
Henryson, as usual, refers to authors who never mention his name, and
some of whom indeed wrote before he had acquired any celebrity,
maintains that he translated into Latin (probably about this period, and
while he resided in Fugger’s castle) the "Commentarium Stoicorum
Contrariorum" of Plutarch; and that he did so must be credited, as the
work is mentioned in Quesnel’s Bibliotheca Thuana; but the book appears
to have dropped out of the circle of literature, and it is not now to be
found in any public library we are aware of. In the year 1552, he
returned to Scotland, where he appears to have practised as an advocate.
The protection and hospitality he had formerly received from the
Tyrolese nobleman, was continued to him by Henry Sinclair, then dean of
Glasgow, afterwards bishop of Ross, and president of the Court of
Session;—thus situated, he is said to have translated the Encheiridion
of Epictetus, and the Commentaries of Arrian; but the fruit of his
labours was never published, and the manuscript is not known to be in
existence. Again Henryson returned to the continent, after having
remained in his native country for a short period, and the hospitable
mansion of Fugger was once more open for his reception. About this
period Baro, whom we have mentioned as Henryson’s instructor in law,
published a Tractatus on Jurisdiction, which met an attack from the
civilian Govea, which, according to the opinion expressed by Henryson,
as an opponent, did more honour to his talents than to his equanimity
and candour. Henryson defended his master, in a controversial pamphlet
of some length, entering with vehemence into the minute distinctions
which, at that period, distracted the intellects of the most eminent
jurisconsults. This work is dedicated to his patron Fugger. He was in
1554 chosen professor of the civil law at Bruges, a university in which
one who wrote a century later states him to have left behind him a
strong recollection of his talents and virtues. In 1555, he published
another work on civil law, entitled "Commentatio in Tit. X. Libri
Secundi Institutionum de Testamentis Ordinandis." It is a sort of
running commentary on the title of which it professes to treat; was
dedicated to Michael D’Hospital, chancellor of France, and had the good
fortune along with his previous Tractatus, to be engrossed in the great
Thesaurus Juris Civilis et Canonici of Gerard Meerman, an honour which
has attached itself to the works of few Scottish civilians. Henryson
appears, soon after the publication of the work, to have resigned his
professorship at Bruges, and to have returned to Scotland, where
lucrative prospects were opened to his ambition.
A very noble feature in
the history of the Scottish courts of law, is the attention with which
the legislature in early periods provided for the interests of the poor.
Soon after the erection of the College of Justice, an advocate was named
and paid, for conducting the cases of those whose pecuniary
circumstances did not permit them to conduct a law-suit; and Henryson
was in 1557 appointed to the situation of counsel for the poor, as to a
great public office, receiving as a salary £20 Scots, no very
considerable sum even at that period, but equal to one-half of the
salary allowed to the lord advocate. When the judicial privilege which
the Roman catholic clergy had gradually engrossed from the judicature of
the country, were considered no longer the indispensable duties and
privileges of churchmen, but more fit for the care of temporal judges,
Henryson was appointed in 1563 to the office of commissary, with a
salary of 300 merks. Secretary Maitland of Lethington having in January,
1566, been appointed an ordinary, in place of being an
extraordinary, lord of session, Henryson was appointed in his stead,
filling a situation seldom so well bestowed, and generally instead of
being filled by a profound legal scholar, reserved for such scions of
great families, as the government could not easily employ otherwise.
Henryson was nominated one of the commission appointed in May, 1566,
"for viseing correcting, and imprenting the Laws and Acts of
parliament." Of the rather carelessly arranged volume of the Acts of the
Scottish parliament, from 1424 to 1564, which the commission produced in
six months after its appointment, he was the ostensible editor, and
wrote the preface; and it was probably as holding such a situation, or
in reward for his services, that in June, 1566, he received an exclusive
privilege and license "to imprent or cause imprent and sell, the Lawis
and Actis of Parliament; that is to say, the bukes of Law callit Regiam
Majestatem, and the remanent auld Lawis and Actis of Parliament,
consequentlie maid be progress of time unto the dait of thir presentis,
viseit, sychtit, and correctit, be the lordis commissaris speciallie
deput to the said viseing, sychting, and correcting thairof, and that
for the space of ten yeires next to cum." [Reports from the Record
Commission, i. 257. Denmiln MS. – Haig and Brunton’s History of the
College of Justice, 133.] In November, 1567, he was removed
from the bench, or, in the words of a contemporary, taken "off sessions,
because he was one of the king’s council." This is the only intimation
we have of his having held such an office; and it is a rather singular
cause of removal, as the king’s advocate was then entitled to sit on the
bench, and was frequently chosen from among the lords of session.
Henryson was one of the procurators for the church in 1573. The period
of his death is not known, but he must have been alive in 1579, as lord
Forbes at that time petitioned parliament that he might be appointed one
of the commissioners for deciding the differences betwixt the Forbeses
and Gordons.
Henryson has received
high praise as a jurisconsult, by some of his brethren of the continent,
and Dempster considered him—"Solis Papinianis in juris cognitione
inferior." A monument was erected to his memory in the Grey Friars’
churchyard of Edinburgh, by his son Thomas Henryson, lord Chesters, who
is said by Dempster and others to have displayed many of the legal and
other qualifications of his father. |
