Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/133

 can, and bring him in as fairly as ye will, we see him well enough, we see the horns of his mitre.’

The contest with the king was carried on on various subsequent occasions, Davidson making himself obnoxious to James by his firm protests against the royal measures. At one time royal commissioners appeared before the presbytery of Haddington requiring them to prosecute him for his misdemeanors and offences. The presbytery, after consideration and inquiry, let the matter drop. Unable to attend the general assembly at Burntisland in 1601, he wrote a letter warning his brethren against the devices of Delilah. For this he was summoned before the king at Holyrood, and committed to Edinburgh Castle. Released next day, he was allowed to return to his parish, but interdicted from going beyond it. Various attempts were made to get this interdict removed, especially when the king, after succeeding to the English throne, was passing through Prestonpans on his way to England on 5 April 1603. A deputation met him there, and entreated his clemency for the minister, who had long been sick. ‘I may be gracious,’ said the king, ‘but I will be also righteous, and until he confesses his fault he may lie and rot there.’ Davidson died soon after, about the end of August 1603. With all his boldness of spirit and license of speech, Davidson was an accomplished scholar, and a very fervent and powerful preacher. He had formed the plan of a history of Scottish martyrology, but did not complete it. He wrote ‘Memorials of his Time,’ a Diary of which Calderwood made use in his history. Other treatises likewise are referred to by Calderwood. His most useful prose work was a catechism with the title ‘Some Helps for Young Scholars in Christianity,’ 1602. His poems were collected in 1829, and printed in a small volume. They are reprinted in Rogers's ‘Three Scottish Reformers.’

[Calderwood, Row, and Cunningham's Histories; Melville's Autobiography; Miscellany Wodrow Society, vol. i.; M'Crie's Life of Knox; Scott's Fasti; Rogers's Three Scottish Reformers.] 

DAVIDSON, JOHN (d. 1797), Scottish antiquary, was the son of James Davidson of Haltree (or Halltree), an Edinburgh bookseller, by Elizabeth, sister of William Brown, minister, of Edinburgh. He was educated for the law and became writer to the signet. He was for many years crown agent, and was also agent for many Scotch noblemen and landed proprietors. Davidson lived in Edinburgh, and among his associates were Lord Hailes, William Tytler, George Paton, Plummer of Middlestead, David Herd, and Callander of Craigforth. He had some correspondence with Bishop Percy, who describes him as ‘a man of learning and a very excellent critic’ (. Lit. Illust. viii. 125; cf. p. 288). He had a special knowledge of Scottish history and antiquities, and printed for private circulation the following: 1. ‘Accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland, 1329, 1330, and 1331,’ Edinburgh, 1771. 2. ‘Charta Willelmi Regis Scotorum Canonicis de Jedburgh concessa,’ &c., engraved by A. Bell, 1771. 3. ‘Observations on the Regiam Majestatem’ [1792], 8vo. 4. ‘Remarks on some of the Editions of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland,’ 1792, 8vo. 5. ‘Copies of various Papers, &c., relating to the Peerages of Brandon and Dover,’ 4to. He was understood to have superintended the edition of Lord Hailes's ‘Annals of Scotland,’ issued in 1797. Davidson died at Edinburgh on 29 Dec. 1797. He was married, but had no children. He left his estate of Haltree to a younger son of Sir William Miller, bart. (cf. Notes and Queries, i. (4th ser.) 115), and his farm Cairntows, near Edinburgh, to Henry Dundas, lord Melville.

[Notes and Queries, iv. 2nd ser. 328, i. 4th ser. 47, 115; Nichols's Lit. Illust. viii. 125, 288; Scots Magazine, lix. (1797) 931.] 

DAVIDSON, JOHN (1797–1836), African traveller, son of an opulent tailor and army clothier in Cork Street, London, originally from Kelso, Roxburghshire, was born on 23 Dec. 1797. He went to school at a private academy near London, and when sixteen years old at his own request was apprenticed to Savory &c. Moore, the chemists and druggists, a firm in which he ultimately purchased a partnership. Later on he became a pupil at St. George's Hospital, and afterwards entered the university of Edinburgh with the intention of becoming a doctor. His health failing, however, he sought a milder climate in Naples in the autumn of 1827, and gave up all idea of practising medicine. From Naples he went through Styria and Carniola to Vienna, made a long excursion through Poland and Russia, and returned home by way of Hamburg. He went to Egypt at the end of 1829, visited the Pyramids, and passed overland to Cosseir, where he embarked for India on his way to China and Persia. An attack of cholera, however, drove him back to Cosseir. He made an excursion through Arabia, and visited Palestine, Syria, the Greek Isles, Athens, and Constantinople, collecting much useful geographical information, which he afterwards communicated to the public in