Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/348

 James Melville (when Melville proposed that Skene should accompany him to Denmark to conclude a treaty for the king's marriage with the Princess Anne) that there ‘were many better lawyers.’ But when Sir James replied that Skene ‘was best acquainted with the conditions of the Germans, and could make them long harangues in Latin, and was a good true stout man like a Dutchman,’ the king agreed that he should go (, Memoirs, p. 366). On account of various delays Melville deemed it best that he himself should resign the appointment of ambassador, but Skene accompanied the new ambassador, the Earl Marischal (, Memoirs, p. 78). He was also chosen to accompany King James when he himself set sail for Denmark on 22 Oct. (, v. 67). The same year he was named joint king's advocate with David Macgill, and in this office specially commended himself to the king by his zeal in witch prosecution; the horror of his proceedings is perhaps unsurpassed in the annals of superstition. Not long afterwards he received the honour of knighthood, and in 1591 was appointed ambassador to the States-General. In 1592 he was named one of a commission to examine the laws and acts of parliament, and to consider which of them should be printed, and he was finally entrusted with the preparation of the work. It was published by Robert Waldegrave on 15 May 1597, under the title ‘The Lawes and Actes of Parliament maid be King James the First and his successors kings of Scotland, visied, coffected, and extracted forth of the Register,’ and on 3 June the privy council remitted to the lords of session to enforce the purchase of it by all subjects of sufficient ‘substance and habilitie’ (Reg. P. C. Scotl. v. 463).

In September 1594 Skene was appointed clerk-register, and on 30 Oct. he was admitted an ordinary lord of session with the title Lord Curriehill. On 9 Jan. 1595–6 he was named one of the eight commissioners of the exchequer known as the Octavians (ib. p. 245), who demitted their offices on 7 Jan. of the following year. He subsequently served on various important commissions, including that for the union of Scotland with England in 1604. On 26 July of this year he is mentioned as having resigned his office of clerk-register in favour of his son James (Reg. P. C. Scotl. vii. 6); but the resignation, for whatever reason, did not then take effect. In 1607 he completed his work on the laws of Scotland previous to James I, and on 23 Feb. 1608 an act was passed for printing it at the public expense (Acta Parl. Scotl. iv. 378). It appeared in 1609 under the title ‘Regiam Majestatem. Scotiæ Veteres Leges et Constitutiones, ex Archivis Publicis, et antiquis Libris manuscriptis collectæ, recognitæ, et notis Juris Civilis, Canonici, Normannici auctoritate confirmatis, illustratæ.’ It includes, besides the ‘Regiam Majestatem,’ the so-called laws of Malcolm II, the ‘Quoniam Attachiamenta,’ or baron laws, and the statutes of some early kings. The ‘Regiam Majestatem’ is now regarded as not properly belonging to Scotland at all, but based on the legal system of England. In 1597 was also published ‘De Verborum Significatione—the Exposition of the Termes and Difficill Words conteined in the four Buiks of Regiam Majestatem and uthers, in the Acts of Parliament, Infeftments, and used in practicque in this Realme … collected and exponed by Master John Skene’ (Edinburgh, by Robert Waldegrave; new edit. London, 1641, 4to).

In 1611 Skene again executed a resignation of his office of clerk-register in favour of his eldest son, Sir James Skene, and sent him to court with a charge not to use it unless he found the king willing to grant him the office; but the son nevertheless agreed to make the resignation on receiving an ordinary judgeship, and the office was bestowed on Sir Thomas Hamilton [see ]. According to Spotiswood, so deeply did Sir John Skene take the disappointment to heart that, although the king did his best to satisfy him, and succeeded in reconciling him and his son, ‘so exceeding was the old man's discontent, as within a few days he deceased’ (History in the Spottiswood Society, iii. 215). The latter statement is, however, quite incorrect, for Skene survived the disappointment for several years. He did not retire from the privy council until 18 June 1616, when his son was admitted in his room (Reg. P. C. Scotl. x. 540). He died in 1617. By his wife, Helen Somerville, he had four sons and four daughters: Sir James (see below); John, ancestor of the Skenes of Halyards; Alexander; William; Jane, married to Sir William Scot of Ardross; Margaret, to Robert Learmonth; Catherine, to Sir Alexander Hay, lord Foresterseat; and Euphemia, to Sir Robert Richardson of Pencaitland.

(d. 1633), the eldest son, was admitted advocate on 6 July 1603, and on 12 June 1612 became a lord of session. On 12 June 1619 he was summoned before the privy council for endeavouring, at Easter, to evade one of the five articles of Perth, requiring that the communion should be taken