Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/336

 147), the result being that their authenticity was established. By the same general assembly he was also named one of a committee to construct such constitutions and laws as might prevent corruptions in the future like those which had troubled the kirk in the past (ib. ii. 127). He died on 26 June 1646, and was buried in the family burial-place at the east end of the church of Carnock, where there is a large monument to his memory. By his wife Grisel, daughter of David Ferguson [q. v.], minister of Dunfermline, whom he himself describes as ‘a very comely and beautiful young woman,’ he had, with three daughters, four sons: David, a minister in Ireland; John (1598?–1672?) [q. v.]; Robert, minister of Abercorn; and William, minister of Ceres.

In his later years Row was led to compile a memorial of ‘some things concerning the government of the Church since the Reformation.’ For the earlier years of his ‘Memorial’ he made use of the papers of his father-in-law, David Ferguson. The work found its way into circulation in manuscript, and many copies of it were made. In 1842 it was printed for the Wodrow Society, chiefly from a manuscript in the university of Edinburgh, under the title ‘Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, from the year 1558 to August 1637, by John Row, Minister of Carnock, with a Continuation to July 1639, by his son, John Row, Principal of King's College, Aberdeen.’ An edition was also printed in the same year by the Maitland Club.

[Preface and notes to Row's ‘History;’ Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland; Robert Baillie's Letters and Journals (Bannatyne Club); Gordon's Scots Affairs (Spalding Club); Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scoticanæ, ii. 578–9.] 

ROW, JOHN (1598?–1672?), principal of King's College in the university of Aberdeen, the second son of John Row (1568–1646) [q. v.], minister of Carnock, Fifeshire, by Grisel, daughter of David Ferguson [q. v.], minister of Dunfermline, was born about 1598. He was educated at St. Leonard's College in the university of St. Andrews, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1617. Subsequently he acted as tutor of George Hay (afterwards second Earl of Kinnoull); and on 2 Nov. 1619, at the instance of the kirk session, confirmed by the town council, he was appointed master of the grammar school of Kirkcaldy. In June 1632, on the recommendation of the lord chancellor, he was appointed rector of the grammar school of Perth, at that time probably the most important scholastic appointment in the country, with which he had also hereditary associations.

Like his father and grandfather, Row was an accomplished Hebrew scholar; and in 1634 he published a Hebrew grammar, appended to which were commendatory Latin verses by Andrew Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, and other eminent divines. A second edition, together with a vocabulary, appeared at Glasgow in 1644. He held the rectorship of Perth academy until 1641, when, at the instance of Andrew Cant [q. v.], one of the ministers of Aberdeen, he was on 16 Nov. elected minister of St. Nicholas Church in that city, his admission taking place on 14 Dec. On 23 Nov. 1642 he was also appointed by the magistrates of Aberdeen to give weekly lessons in Hebrew in Marischal College; and in 1643 he published a Hebrew lexicon, which he dedicated to the town council, receiving from them ‘for his services four hundred merks Scots money.’ Row proved to be a zealous co-operator with Cant in exercising a rigid ecclesiastical rule over the citizens (, Memorialls, passim); and showed special zeal in requiring subscription to the solemn league and covenant (ib. ii. 288–9). On the approach of Montrose to Aberdeen in the spring of 1646, both he and Cant fled south and took refuge in the castle of Dunottar (, Britanes Distemper, p. 112;, Memorialls, p. 459), but returning at the end of March, after Montrose's departure, they denounced him in their pulpits with unbridled vehemence (ib. p. 464). On the approach of Montrose in the beginning of May they again fled (ib. p. 469), but when Montrose had passed beyond Aberdeen they returned, and on the 10th warned the inhabitants to go to the support of General Baillie.

By the assembly of 1647 Row was appointed to revise a new metrical version of the Psalms, from the 90th to the 120th Psalm. In 1648 he was named one of a committee to revise the proceedings of the last commission of the assembly, and on 23 July 1649 one of a commission for visiting the university of Aberdeen. He was one of the six ministers appointed to assist the committee of despatches in drawing up instructions to the commissioners sent to London to protest against the hasty proceedings taken against the life of Charles I (, Annals, iii. 385). Shortly afterwards he separated from the kirk of Scotland, and became minister of an independent church in Edinburgh.

It was probably his independent principles that commended Row to the notice of Cromwell's parliament, by whom he was in 1652 appointed principal of King's College, Aberdeen. It was during his term of office that the college was rebuilt, and for this purpose