Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/386

 duated M.A. in 1804. He sat in parliament for the burgh of Helston in 1805–6, and for Cashel in 1806–7. On the death of his father, 25 Jan. 1814, he succeeded to the earldom, and for several parliaments he was chosen a representative peer, until 1828, when on 17 Jan. he was created a peer of the United Kingdom by the title Baron Rosebery of Rosebery, Midlothian. He took an active interest as a liberal in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. In 1831 he was sworn a member of the privy council, and in 1840 was made a knight of the order of the Thistle. From 1843 to 1863 he was lord lieutenant of Linlithgowshire. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of other learned institutions. In 1819 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the university of Cambridge. He died in Piccadilly on 4 March 1868. By his first wife, Harriet, second daughter of the Hon. Bartholomew Bouverie (afterwards Earl of Radnor), he had two sons and a daughter. The marriage was dissolved in 1815, and he married as second wife Anne Margaret Anson, eldest daughter of Thomas, first viscount Anson (afterwards Earl of Lichfield), by whom he had two sons. His eldest son by the first marriage, Archibald, lord Dalmeny, born in 1809, represented the Stirling burghs in parliament from 1833 to 1847, and from April 1835 to August 1841 was a lord of the admiralty. He was the author of ‘An Address to the Middle Classes on the Subject of Gymnastic Exercises,’ London, 1848. He died on 23 Jan. 1851, leaving by his wife, Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina (only daughter of Philip Henry, fourth earl Stanhope, and subsequently wife of Harry George, fourth Duke of Cleveland), two sons and two daughters, of whom the eldest son, Archibald Philip, lord Dalmeny, born on 7 May 1847, succeeded on the death of his grandfather to the peerage as fifth earl, and, after a distinguished career as a statesman, was prime minister from March 1894 until June 1895.

[Gent. Mag. 1868, i. 436; Burke's Peerage.] 

PRIMROSE, GILBERT, D.D. (1580?–1641), divine, born about 1580, was son of Gilbert Primrose, principal surgeon to James VI, and Alison Graham, his wife. The family belonged to Culross, Perthshire, and his father was elder brother of Archibald Primrose, from whom the earls of Rosebery descend. Gilbert was educated at St. Andrews University, where he took the degree of M.A. He then went to France, and was received as a minister of the reformed church there. His first charge was at Mirambeau, Charente-Inférieure, from which he was transferred in 1603 to the church of Bordeaux.

Primrose was not unmindful of the country from which he came, and it was mainly through his influence that John Cameron (1579?–1625) [q. v.], the great theologian, was made regent in the new college of Bergerac. The national synod of the reformed church, which met at Rochelle in March 1607, and of which Primrose was a member, appointed him to wait upon John Welsh [q. v.] and other Scots ministers who had been banished, and to inquire into their circumstances, with the view of rendering them such pecuniary help as might be necessary. At this synod Primrose presented letters from King James and from the magistrates and ministers of Edinburgh, recalling him home to serve the church in that city. The synod entreated him to consider the interests of his present charge, ‘which, by his most fruitful preaching and exemplary godly conversation, had been exceedingly edified;’ and he was induced to remain at Bordeaux. In the latter part of the same year he visited Britain, when he was commissioned by the reformed congregation at Rochelle to ask King James to set at liberty Andrew Melville [q. v.], who was then a prisoner in the Tower of London, and to allow him to accept a professorship in their college. The request was refused, and the application gave offence to the French court. On his return Primrose was called before the king of France, and the people of Rochelle were reprimanded for communicating with a foreign sovereign without the knowledge or consent of their own.

In 1608 John Cameron became Primrose's colleague at Bordeaux, and they ‘lived on the most cordial terms and governed the church with the greatest concord for ten years,’ when Cameron left for a professorship at Saumur. In the end of 1615 and beginning of 1616 the church at Bordeaux was closed on account of the action of the government towards the reformed congregation, and the ministers were sent away to insure their safety; but they were recalled and resumed their duties when matters became more settled.

In 1623 an act was passed forbidding ministers of other nations to officiate in France, and at the national synod which met at Charenton in September of that year the royal commissioner presented letters from the French king intimating that Primrose and Cameron were no longer to be employed, ‘not so much because of their birth as foreigners as for reasons of state.’ Deputies were sent to the king to intercede on their behalf, but he would only consent to