Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/176

McKie as Moray had been (Hudson to Elizabeth, 30 Jan. 1669-70, quoted in History of Scotland, ed. 1864, iii. 324). He also proposed that she should agree to the selection of the Earl of Lennox as regent (ib.)

In 1570 Mackgill accompanied Morton on a special mission to England, in regard to the custody of Queen Mary. He continued one of the most steadfast of her opponents, and was supposed to have been chiefly instrumental in preventing an agreement between Morton and Sir William Kirkcaldy [q. v.] of Grange in 1671 (Drury to Cecil, 25 Jan. 1570-1, in Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569-1571, entry 1614). On 28 April his house in Edinburgh was entered by a force from the castle under Captain Melville, and some of his servants carried away captive (, Memorials, p. 113;, iii. 70, who erroneously states that Mackgill's wife, instead of the wife of a neighbour, was slain). Shortly afterwards Mackgill resolved to remove his plate and other valuables to Pinkie, but in the transit they were in May 1571 captured by a party from the castle (, p. 119; Drury to the privy council, 13 May, in Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569-71, entry 1698). In 1572 his house was destroyed by the garrison to procure firewood (, p. 234).

Mackgill was, along with George Buchanan, chosen an extraordinary member of the new council, elected on 24 March 1577-8, after the fall of Morton, to manage affairs till the meeting of parliament. In April he was selected to answer the reasoning of David Lindsay [q. v.], bishop of Ross, in reference to 'the liberty of the kirk,' the result being, according to Calderwood, that 'good men began to look for little good of this new council' (History, iii. 401). He was also one of the new council chosen after the ratification by parliament of the king's acceptance of the government. He died before 15 Aug. 1579. By his wife Janet Adamson he had two sons: James Mackgill of Nether Rankeillour, from whom descended the Mackgills, viscounts of Oxfurd; and David Mackgill of Nisbet, who Was king's advocate and a lord of session.

 McKIE, JAMES (1816–1891), Burns collector, born at Kilmarnock on 7 Oct. 1816, was apprenticed to Hugh Crawford, publisher, the successor of John Wilson, who printed the first edition of Burns's poems. After a short engagement in Elgin he settled in Saltcoats as a bookseller, and published the 'Ayrshire Wreath' and the 'Ayrshire Inspirer,' annuals of good literary pretensions. On the retirement of Crawford in 1844 he bought his business at Kilmarnock, started the 'Kilmarnock Journal,' and subsequently the 'Kilmarnock Weekly Post,' and issued several books, chiefly of local interest. It was as a publisher and collector of books connected with Burns that he attained distinction. The growing value of the early editions of Burns suggested the idea of facsimiles, and these he issued in 1867 and 1869. He published also the Kilmarnock 'popular' edition of Burns (2 vols. 1871) and the Kilmarnock 'centenary' edition (2 vols. 1886).

He also issued 'Bibliotheca Burnsiana' (1866), the 'Burns Calendar' (1874), 'A Manual of Religious Belief,' composed by William Burness, the poet's father, published for the first time (1876), and 'The Bibliography of Robert Burns,' an elaborate list of all the editions of Burns and contributions to Burns' literature known to exist, and of the locale of Burns' MSS. and other relics (1881). McKie died at Kilmarnock 26 Sept. 1891. His own library of books concerning Burns, of nearly eight hundred volumes, was the most complete brought together. It was purchased by subscription for 350l., and is now in the museum of the Burns Monument at Kilmarnock, which was erected largely owing to McKie's exertions.

 MACKIE, JOHN (1748–1831), physician, the eldest of a family of fifteen children, was born in 1748 at Dunfermline Abbey in Fifeshire. In 1763 he commenced his medical studies at Edinburgh, and on leaving the university he settled at Huntingdon. About 1792 he removed to Southampton, and there practised with great success till 1814, when he left for a ten years' tour on the continent, where he only practised his profession occasionally, but numbered among his patients the queen of Spain, the ex-king of Holland, and other persons of rank. In 1819 he printed anonymously at Vevay for private distribution a 'Sketch of a New Theory of Man,' which was translated into French, and reprinted in English at Bath, 1822. On his return to England, after passing several winters at Bath, he removed to Chichester, where he died 29 Jan. 1831 at the age of eighty-three. He married in 1784 the daughter of a French clergyman, 