Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/284

420 enacted that pearls should be worn only by ladies, who were permitted to hang a small collar of them about their necks. All furs and ermines, and excessive use of gold and silver lace, all banqueting and riotous feasting, with other abuses of a similar kind, were prohibited; and this prohibition, says the writer of the bishop's life, was so effectual, that no more complaints of the kind were heard of. The bishop, though remarkable for the great simplicity of his character, for his piety and well meaning, was yet a greater enemy to what he believed to be heresy, than to immorality. In 1422, John Resby, an Englishman, was apprehended by Lawrence Lindores, professor of common law in the newly erected university of St Andrews, who accused him in the ecclesiastical court of having denied the pope's vicarship, &c., &c. For this, Resby was condemned to be burnt alive, and suffered accordingly. In the year 1432, Paul Craw, a Bohemian, was also apprehended in the university of St Andrews, and accused before the bishops' court of following Wickliffe and Huss; of denying that the substance of bread and wine, in the sacrament, was changed by virtue of any words; of denying that confession should be made to priests; or that prayer should be offered up to saints. He likewise was condemned and burnt alive, at the instigation of the bishop. Notwithstanding this, Wardlaw was celebrated for his charity; and though he laboured to suppress the riotous living which had become so general in the kingdom, he was yet a man of boundless hospitality. It is recorded of him, that the stewards of his household, on one occasion, complained to him of the numbers that resorted to his table, to share in the good things which it afforded; and requested that, out of compassion for his servants, who were often quite worn out with their labours, he would furnish them with a list of his intended guests, that they might know how many they should have to serve. To this he readily assented, and sent for his secretary, to prepare the required document. The latter having arranged his writing materials, inquired who was to be put down. "Put down, first," replied the bishop, "Fife and Angus," (two large counties). This was enough: his servants, appalled by anticipations of a list which began so formidably, instantly relinquished their design of limiting the hospitality of their generous master. For the benefit of his diocese, the bishop built a bridge over the Eden, near its mouth. Dempster charges him with having written a book, "De Reformatione Cleri et Oratio pro Reformatione conviviorum et luxus;" but this seems to have been simply a speech which he delivered in parliament on the sumptuary laws, and which, by some miracle, similar to that so often employed by Livy, has found its way into the Scottish histories.

Wardlaw departed this life in his castle of St Andrews, on the 6th day of April, 1440, and was buried in the church of that city, with great pomp and splendour, having held his dignified situation for nearly forty years.

WATSON, (Dr), author of the History of the Reign of Philip II. of Spain, was born at St Andrews about the year 1730. He was the son of an apothecary of that city, who was also a brewer. He studied successively at the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, with a view to the ministry, availing himself of the leisure which a course of theology leaves to the student to cultivate English literature and rhetoric, upon which subjects he delivered a series of lectures in Edinburgh, to an audience comprising the principal literary and philosophical men of the day.

Soon after he bad been licensed to preach, a vacancy occurred in one of the churches of his native city, and for this he became a candidate, but was disappointed. About this time, however, Mr Rymer, the professor of logic in St Salvador's college, feeling the infirmities of old age advancing upon him, was inclined to enter into a negotiation for retiring, and, according to a