KEITH, ROBERT, commonly
called bishop Keith, an eminent scholar and antiquary, was born at Uras in
Kincardinshire, February 7, 1681. He was named Robert after the viscount of
Arbuthnot, who had been suckled by his mother. His father, Alexander Keith,
having died while he as only two years of age, the care of his education
devolved upon his mother, a most exemplary woman, who spared no pains and no
expense within the reach of a very limited income, to inculcate those
lessons of virtue and religion, and that knowledge of letters which
afterwards procured her son so much honourable distinction.
The bishop seems to have
entertained, during his whole life, a deep sense of the obligations under
which he lay to this amiable parent, and to have taken great pleasure in
expressing it. Though in but indifferent circumstances in the early period
of his life, he was yet closely related to one of the most ancient and noble
families in the kingdom, being lineally descended from Alexander the
youngest son of William, third earl Marischal.
When he had attained the age
of seven years, his mother removed with him to Aberdeen, where he obtained
the earlier part of his education. In 1703 he procured the situation of
tutor to the young lord Keith and his brother, and in this employment he
remained till 1710, when he was admitted to the order of deacons in
the Scottish episcopal church, by Haliburton, (titular) bishop of Aberdeen;
and in November following became domestic chaplain to Charles, earl of
Errol, and his mother, the countess. Two years after, he accompanied his
lordship to the baths of Aix-la-Chapelle, and had thus an opportunity of
visiting some of the most celebrated towns and cities of the continent.
Leaving the earl at Aix-la-Chapelle, he returned to England and landed at
Dover, where he was compelled to remain for several months, in
consequence of a severe illness, brought on by exposure during a
violent storm which he had encountered in crossing the channel. On
recovering sufficiently to enable him to undergo the fatigue
of travelling, he set out for Edinburgh, where he arrived in February, 1713.
He was shortly after this invited by a congregation of Scottish
episcopalians in that city, to become their minister, and was accordingly
raised to the priesthood by bishop Haliburton, on the 26th May, in the year
just named. His talents and learning had already attracted some notice, and
had procured for him a considerable degree of influence in the church to
which he belonged, and of which he was always a steady, zealous, but
rational supporter; for, although firmly attached to the faith in which he
was educated, he was yet extremely liberal and tolerant in his religious
sentiments. In June, 1727, he was raised to the episcopate, and was
consecrated in Edinburgh by bishops Miller, Rattray, and Gadderar. He was,
at the same time, intrusted with the superintendence of the district of
Caithness, Orkney and the Isles, and in 1733, was preferred to that of Fife.
For upwards of twenty years
after this period, bishop Keith continued to exercise his duties in
Edinburgh, filling a respectable, if not a dignified place in society, and
employing his leisure, it would appear, chiefly in the compilation of those
historical works which have transmitted his name to posterity. In a
manuscript memoir by Mr Murray of Broughton, secretary to prince Charles
Stuart—which the present writer has perused—it is clearly signified that,
previous to the insurrection of 1745, the bishop corresponded on subjects
relating to his depressed and suffering communion, with the court of the
Pretender, and that the latter personage, as the supposed head of a supposed
church, gave the congé d’ elire necessary for the election of
individuals to exercise the episcopal office.
The first historical work
published by the bishop, appeared in 1734, in a folio form, under the title
of a "History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland, from the
beginning of the Reformation in the reign of James V., to the retreat of
queen Mary into England." Though tinged here and there with high-church
prejudices, the original narrative is a useful, and, upon the whole, a
candid record of a very controverted part of our history; while the state
documents quoted in the body of the work and at its close, have proved of
incalculable service to every later writer upon the same subject. The list
of subscribers prefixed to this work is highly curious, as being an almost
complete muster-roll of the Jacobite nobility and gentry of the period:
among the rest is the famous Rob Roy. In 1755, the bishop published his
well-known "Catalogue of Scottish Bishops," which has also been a mine of
valuable knowledge to later writers. The latter years of this venerable
person appear to have been spent at a villa called Bonnyhaugh, on the banks
of the water of Leith, which belonged to himself. Here he died on the 20th
of January, 1757, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He was buried in the
Canongate church-yard, a few feet from the wall on the western side, where a
plain tomb-stone, inscribed simply with his name, has recently been erected.
Besides his eminent
qualifications as an historian and antiquary, the subject of this notice
possessed those of an acute and pains-taking genealogist, a study to which
he was probably directed by the high value which he always attached to the
dignity of his own descent, and which he was at much pains to establish. An
instance of his tenacity in this particular, and of his peculiar talent for
genealogical research, was exhibited in a dispute into which he entered with
Mr Keith of Ravelstone, on the subject of the comparative proximity of their
several families to the house of the earls Marischal.
On that occasion he printed a
"Vindication of Mr Robert Keith, and of his young grand-nephew Alexander
Keith, from the unfriendly representation of Mr Alexander Keith, jun. of
Ravelston." In this vindication he not only succeeded in establishing his
superior claims to the particular honour in dispute, but showed that he was
also related to the dukes of Douglas and Hamilton. His reason for being at
so much pains in vindicating the nobility of his descent, is thus spoken of
in the document above alluded to: "For although he him-himself, (he speaks
in the third person,) now in the close of the seventieth year of his age,
and having only one daughter, might be pretty indifferent about any thing of
this nature, yet he suspects his young grand-nephews, (for there are no less
than three of them, Alexander, Robert, and John,) when they came of age,
might reproach the memory of their uncle, and justly perhaps, for his not
endeavouring to set their birth at right against so flagrant an
attack, seeing the one was capable, and the others might not have the same
means of knowing, or the same abilities to perform it."
The good bishop seems to have
been no hoarder of money, for at his death he left only £450, while his
colleague and assistant, died worth £3000. |