GUTHRIE,
a surname derived from lands in Forfarshire, belonging to a family of
the name, the oldest in that county. The precise origin of the name is
not known. An absurd story is told of its having originated in a
fisherman proposing to “gut three” fishes for one of the early Scots
kings who had taken shelter, with two attendants, in his hut, and had
ordered two haddocks to be fried for them, as they were hungry, but
this is a mere fable. In 1299, after Sir William Wallace had resigned
the guardianship of Scotland and retired to France, the northern
barons sent Squire Guthrie to him to request his return. Embarking at
Aberbrothwick, he landed at Sluys, whence Wallace and his retinue were
conveyed back to Scotland, landing at Montrose. In 1348, Adam de
Guthrie with Walter de Maule were witnesses in a decreet of the
burgesses of Dundee. According to Crawford (Lives of Officers of
State,) the Guthries held the barony of Guthrie by charter from
David the Second. Master Alexander Guthrie of Guthrie is witness to a
charter granted by Alexander Seaton, lord of Gordon, to William, Lord
Keith, afterwards Earl Marischal, dated 1st August, 1442,
and he obtained the lands of Kincaldrum, in the barony of Lower Leslie
and Sheriffdom of Forfar, to himself and Marjory Guthrie his spouse,
by charter dated 10th April 1457, from George Lord Leslie
of Leven, the superior. He had three sons.
The eldest, Sir
David Guthrie of Guthrie, armour-bearer to King James the Third, and
sheriff of Forfar in 1457, was constituted lord-treasurer of Scotland
in 1461. In that office he continued till 1467, when he was appointed
comptroller of the exchequer. In 1468 he obtained a warrant under the
great seal, to build a castle at Guthrie, which is still the residence
of the family, the domain of Guthrie having been continued to the
present day in the same family unfettered by any deed of entail. The
following year he was nominated lord register of Scotland, and in 1472
he was one of the Scots commissioners, who met those of England, on 25th
April of that year, at Newcastle, and concluded a truce till the month
of July 1473. In the latter year he was appointed lord-chief-justice
of Scotland. He founded and endowed a collegiate church at Guthrie for
a provost and three prebends, (afterwards augmented to eight by his
son,) dedicated to the Virgin, which was confirmed by a bull from Pope
Sextus the fourth, dated at Rome, 14th June 1479.
His eldest
son, Sir Alexander Guthrie, with his eldest son, three sons-in-law,
David, William, and George Lyon, and a nephew, Sir Thomas Maule, fell
at Flodden in Sept. 1513. Sir Alexander’s second son, also names
Alexander, obtained from his father the lands of Kincaldrum and Lower,
and was the great-grandfather of David Guthrie, a subsequent inheritor
of the estate of Guthrie. George, the third son, received the lands of
Kincreich, as his portion. John, of Hilton, the youngest son, was
ancestor of John Guthrie, bishop of Moray, of whom afterwards. Sir
Alexander was succeeded by his grandson, Andrew Guthrie, who married a
daughter of Gardyne of Gardyne, and had a son, Alexander Guthrie of
Guthrie, one of the barons who subscribed the articles agreed upon in
the General Assembly on 25th July 1567, for the support of
the Reformed religion in Scotland. He was also one of those who, the
same year, signed the bond for upholding the authority of the young
king, James the Sixth. This laird of Guthrie was assassinated at his
house of Inverpeffer by his cousin, Patrick Gardyne of Gardyne, a feud
having arisen between them. His second son, William Guthrie of Gagie,
at the instigation of his mother, a daughter of Wood of Bonnytown, in
revenge for the murder of his father, slew the murderer and his
brother, as they were coming from Arbroath, for which slaughters he
obtained a remission under the great seal, 6th July 1618.
He was the father of Francis Guthrie, afterwards laird of Guthrie.
The eldest
son, Alexander Guthrie of Guthrie, was one of the twenty-five
gentlemen pensioners appointed by command “to attend the king’s
majesty at all times in his riding and passing to the fields.” His
eldest son, Alexander, having no issue male, was succeeded in the
estate by his brother, William Guthrie of Memys, on whose death, his
cousin, David Guthrie, above referred to, became laird of Guthrie.
With his son, Alexander, he disponed the estate to his brother,
Patrick Guthrie. The son of the latter, who succeeded in 1636,
disponed the lands to his kinsman, John Guthrie, bishop of Moray. This
prelate was first ordained minister of Perth. In 1619 he was one of
the clergy nominated on the high commission which was then renewed, to
force compliance with the five articles of Perth; and in the following
year he was translated to Edinburgh. In 1623 he was consecrated bishop
of Moray, in which see he continued till the abolition of Episcopacy
in Scotland by the Glasgow Assembly of 1638. By an act of the same
Assembly he was appointed to make his public repentance at Edinburgh
for having, in 1633, preached in a surplice before King Charles the
First, in the High church of that city, under pain of excommunication.
As he did not comply with the demand, the sentence was duly carried
into effect. He resided at Spynie castle (now in ruins), the palace of
the bishopric, till 1640, when he was forced to surrender it to
Colonel Monroe. Retiring to his own estate of Guthrie, he died there
before the Restoration. He had a daughter, Berthia, married, in 1647,
t Francis Guthrie of Gagie, who, in consequence, got the lands of
Guthrie, and in his line they have continued ever since. He was the
son of William Guthrie, 2d son of Alexander Guthrie of Guthrie, as
above mentioned. The 5th in direct descent from him, John
Guthrie of Guthrie, married July 22, 1798, Anne, daughter of William
Douglas of Brigton, and with 5 daughters had 2 sons, John and William,
both at one time officers in the army He died Nov. 12, 1845. His elder
son, John Guthrie of Guthrie, deputy lieutenant of Forfarshire, born
July 23, 1805, married, July 23, 1844, Harriet, daughter of Barnabas
Maude, Esq., and granddaughter of Joseph Maude, Esq., of Kendal (See
Maude of Kendal n Burke’s Commoners); issue, 1st.
Harriet Maude, born Oct. 18, 1850; 2d, Edith Douglas, born March 20,
1852; 3d, Mary Berthia, born Sept. 10., 1853; 4th, John
Douglas Maude, born March 5, 1856.
_____
The family
of Guthrie of Haukerton, in the same county, is a branch of the family
of Guthrie of Guthrie. Sir James Guthrie, baron of Haukerton, younger
brother of Sir David Guthrie, armour-bearer to king James III., held
the office of royal falconer in Angus, whence arose the name of the
barony. Harrye Guthrie, 9th baron of Haukerton, on the
abolition of the heritable jurisdictions in Scotland in 1747,
relinquished that title. His eldest daughter, Euphemia, marrying
Wright of Duddingston, was mother of Thomas Guthrie Wright of
Duddingston. His son, Matthew Guthrie, left two daughters, the elder
of whom, Anastasia-Jessye, married in 1807, Thomson Grahame Bonar,
Esq., of Camden, Kent, with issue.
_____
The family
of Guthrie of the Mount, Ayrshire, ended in an heiress, Christina,
only surviving child of Alexander Guthrie, Esq. She married Geoffrey,
2d Lord Oranmore and Browne, in the Irish peerage, Dec. 31, 1859, and
his lordship, in consequence, assumed the name and arms of Guthrie
only.
GUTHRIE, HENRY,
author of ‘Memoirs of Scottish Affairs, Civil and Ecclesiastical,’ was
born in the beginning of the 17th century, at Coupar-Angus,
of which parish his father, Mr. John Guthrie, a cadet of the ancient
family of that name, was minister. After taking his degrees in arts at
the university of St. Andrews, he became a student of divinity in the
New college there. Afterwards appointed chaplain in the family of the
earl of Mar, through the earl’s recommendation, he obtained a
presentation to the church of Stirling, to which he was episcopally
ordained. He was well affected to the government, but disapproved of
the measures adopted by the king in 1637, for introducing the liturgy
into Scotland. In 1638, after the abolition of Episcopacy, Mr. Guthrie
subscribed the Covenant. Though he has received from his biographers
great credit for the moderation of his views, his conduct was so far
from being conciliatory, that he was looked upon with some suspicion
by the more zealous of his brethren. He rendered himself conspicuous
by his opposition to some of their favourite measures, by his harsh
proceedings against the Brownists, or Congregationalists, and also by
getting an act passed, in the Assembly of 1641, against private
meetings for religious exercise. On Sunday, October 3, 1641, he had
the honour of preaching before the king in the Abbey church of
Holyrood. In the Assembly of 1643, when a letter was presented from
the English divines at Westminster, with the declaration of the
English parliament. Proposing to extirpate Episcopacy “root and
branch,” he made a speech, which is given in his Memoirs, urging that
“this church, which holdeth presbyterian government to be juris
divini,” could not entertain the proposal, and recommending the
Assembly “to deal with the English commissioners present, to desire
the parliament and divines assembled at Westminster to explain
themselves, and be as express concerning that which they resolved to
introduce as they had been in that which was to be removed.” His
proposition, however, did not even meet with a seconder.
In 1648,
when the Scots parliament declared for the engagement, and ordered a
levy of 30,000 foot and 6,000 horse, to obtain the liberation of the
king from his imprisonment in the Isle of Wight, Mr. Guthrie and some
others preached in favour of the design, though it had been condemned
by the General Assembly, as it contained no provision for the
maintenance of the national religion. No notice of their conduct was
taken at the time, but after the defeat of the Scots army under the
duke of Hamilton, the Assembly proceeded to depose those of the clergy
who had been guilty of “malignancy,” that is, of adherence to the
royal cause; and among the rest Mr. Guthrie and his colleague, Mr.
John Allan, were, on November 14, 1648, dismissed from their charges.
He lived in retirement at Kilspindie in Perthshire, till after the
Restoration; and when Episcopacy was revived by act of parliament, in
1661, he was restored by law to his former charge at Stirling, which,
indeed, had become vacant by the martyrdom of Mr. James Guthrie for
his zealous attachment to the cause of the Covenant. The Rev. Mr.
M’Gregor Stirling, in his edition of Nimmo’s History of Stirlingshire,
says that he was invited by the magistrates to resume his pastoral
functions at Stirling, but declined on account of bad health. Although
he had formerly signed the Covenant, Mr. Guthrie, it appears, like
some others of the temporizing clergymen of those days, did not
hesitate to take the oath of supremacy, whereby the Covenant, both
national, as explained by the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, and the league
with England, in 1643, was declared of no obligation, force, or effect
for the future.
Being well
known to the earl of Lauderdale, who had then the sole management of
affairs in Scotland, and who, like himself, had once been a
Covenanter, his lordship recommended him, in 1664, for the bishopric
of Dunkeld, then void by the death of Bishop Halliburton, who had only
held the see for two years. He was soon after consecrated with the
usual ceremonies, and his appointment was ratified by letters patent
under the great seal, January 31, 1665. He held the see till his
death, which took place in 1676. His only work is:
Memoirs of
Scottish Affairs, Civil and Ecclesiastical, from the year 1637 to the
Death of King Charles I. London, 1702, 8vo. 2d edition, Glasgow, 1747,
12mo. Though professing to be an impartial relation, it is not always
entitled to that character.
GUTHRIE, JAMES,
a faithful and zealous minister of the Church of Scotland, and one of
the first who fell a sacrifice for religion after the Restoration, the
son of the laird of Guthrie, was born previous to 1617. He was
educated at St. Andrews, and having gone through the regular course of
classical learning, he commenced teaching philosophy in that
university, and was highly respected both for his calmness of temper
and able scholarship. He had been brought up an Episcopalian, and in
his early youth held highly prelatical views, but after he went to St.
Andrews, by conversing with Mr. Samuel Rutherford and others, and
especially by his joining the weekly meetings for prayer and
conference, he was led to adopt Presbyterian principles, to which he
ever after faithfully adhered, and sealed his attachment to them with
his blood. Having passed his trials, he was, in 1638, ordained
minister of Lauder, where he remained for several years. In 1646 he
was one of the ministers selected by the committee of Estates to
attend the king at Newcastle. In 1649 Mr. Guthrie was translated to
Stirling, where he continued till unjustly put to death by a
profligate and tyrannical government. Throughout his ministerial
career he displayed great zeal and boldness in defence of the
Covenant.
In 1650, in
consequence of the hostility which the earl of Middleton had always
shown to the Covenant, and his connection with an unsuccessful attempt
made in that year to disturb the peace of the kingdom by an intended
rising in the north in favour of the king. Mr. Guthrie proposed to the
commission of the General Assembly that that nobleman should be
excommunicated. This being agreed to, Mr. Guthrie himself was
appointed to pronounce the sentence of excommunication, at Stirling,
on the ensuing Sabbath; which he did accordingly, taking no notice of
a letter he received on the morning of that day to delay the sentence.
Although the commission of the Assembly, at their next meeting on
January 1, 1651, released Middleton from the censure of the church, he
continued ever after to entertain a rooted enmity to Mr. Guthrie, and
was the principal cause of his being subsequently condemned to death.
He openly
preached against the resolutions in favour of Charles the Second,
concluded on by the more moderate clergy at Perth, December 14, 1650,
and became the leader of the opposing party called Protesters. For
their conduct in this respect, he and his colleague, Mr. Bennet, were,
by a letter from the chancellor, cited to appear before the king and
the committee of Estates at Perth n the subsequent February, and on
the 22d of that month they came before the Estates, and delivered in a
protestation to the effect, that while they freely acknowledged his
majesty’s jurisdiction in all civil matters, they declined his
authority in questions purely ecclesiastical; and on the 28th
they presented another protestation, much the same as the former,
though expressed in stronger terms. Both these documents will be found
in Wodrow’s Church History. After this the king and committee thought
proper to dismiss them, restricting them in the meantime to Perth and
Dundee, and the prosecution was allowed to drop; but Mr. Guthrie’s
declining the king’s authority in matters spiritual at this time was
made the principal article in his indictment a few years thereafter.
An intimation had been given that all who were not satisfied with the
resolutions should be cited to the General Assembly, as liable to
censure, and at the Assembly which met at Dundee in the subsequent
July, the protesters appeared and protested against this course of
procedure, denying the freedom and lawfulness of the Assembly itself.
For this, James Guthrie, Patrick Gillespie, and James Simpson were
deposed; but, protesting against the sentence, they continued to
preach as usual.
Soon after
the Restoration, Mr. Guthrie and some of his brethren who had
assembled at Edinburgh, with the object of drawing up a supplication
to his majesty, were apprehended and imprisoned in the castle. From
thence he was removed to Dundee, where he remained till before his
trial, which took place at Edinburgh, February 20, 1661, when he was
arraigned for writing a paper called the Western Remonstrance, a
pamphlet, styled ‘The Causes of the Lord’s Wrath,’ and the Humble
Petition, dated August 23, 1660; also for disowning the king’s
authority in ecclesiastical matters, and for some treasonable
expressions he was alleged to have uttered in 1650 or 1651. When
brought to trial on April 11, he defended himself with such eloquence,
knowledge of law, and strength of argument, as utterly amazed his
friends and confounded his enemies. He was, however, found guilty of
high treason, and condemned to death; his head to be fixed on the
Netherbow, his estate to be confiscated, and his arms torn. On
receiving sentence he thus addressed the judge: “My lord, my
conscience I cannot submit, but this old crazy body and mortal flesh I
do submit, to do with it whatsoever you will, whether by death, or
banishment, or imprisonment, or any thing else, only I beseech you to
ponder well what profit there is in my blood. It is not the
extinguishing me or many others that will extinguish the Covenant and
work of reformation since the year 1638. My blood, bondage, or
banishment will contribute more for the propagation of those things
than my life or liberty could do, though I should live many years.”
During the interval between his sentence and execution, he is
described as having enjoyed perfect composure and serenity of mind. On
the last night that remained to him in this world he had some friends
to supper, when he called for some cheese, which he had not used for
several years, having been forbidden it by his physicians on account
of the gravel, to which he was subject; and jocularly said he was now
beyond the hazard of that complaint. On the scaffold he conducted
himself with the utmost fortitude and magnanimity, and addressed the
people, assembled on the occasion, for a full hour, “with the
composedness,” says Bishop Burnet, “of a man delivering a sermon,
rather than his last words. He justified al he had done, and exhorted
all people to adhere to the Covenant, which he magnified highly;”
declaring that he would not exchange that scaffold for the palace or
mitre of the greatest prelate in Britain. He gave a copy of his last
speech and testimony to a friend to be delivered to his son, then a
child, when he came of age. Just before he was turned over, he lifted
the napkin off his face, and cried, “The Covenants, the Covenants,
shall yet be Scotland’s reviving.” His execution took place on June 1,
1661; and his head remained fixed on the Netherbow Port till 1688,
when Mr. Alexander Hamilton, then a student of divinity at the
university of Edinburgh, at the hazard of his life, took it down and
buried it, after it had stood a public spectacle for twenty-seven
years. Mr. Hamilton was afterwards minister of Stirling for twelve
years. Besides the papers already mentioned, for which he suffered,
Mr. Guthrie wrote several others, particularly one against Oliver
Cromwell, in consequence of which he was subjected to some hardships
during the protectorate. In 1660 he published ‘Some Considerations
concerning the Dangers which threaten Religion and the Work of
Reformation in Scotland;’ which was reprinted in 1738, with his last
Sermon preached at Stirling. A Treatise on Ruling Elders and Deacons,
written about the time he entered upon the ministry, is prefixed to
one of the editions of his cousin, Mr. William Guthrie’s ‘Christian’s
Great Interest.’
GUTHRIE, WILLIAM,
a distinguished divine, and author of the standard treatise entitled
‘The Christian’s Great Interest,’ was born at Pitforthy, Forfarshire,
in 1620. His father, a cadet of the ancient family of Guthrie, was
proprietor of the lands of Pitforthy, and his mother was a daughter of
the house of Easter-Ogle. He was the eldest of eight children. His
brother Robert was licensed for the ministry, but died early.
Alexander, another of his brothers, became minister of Strickathrow,
in the presbytery of Brechin, about 1645, and died in 1661. John, his
youngest brother, obtained the parish of Tarbolton, in Ayrshire, from
which he was ejected at the Restoration, and died in 1669.
William, the
subject of the present notice, distinguished himself at school by his
rapid acquirement of the Latin and Greek languages. He studied at the
university of St. Andrews, under the guardianship and direction of his
cousin, the celebrated James Guthrie, then professor of philosophy in
the New college there, and one of the earliest victims of the
persecuting and tyrannical government of Charles the Second. Having
taken the degree of M.A., he applied himself to the study of theology,
under the famous Samuel Rutherford, at that period professor of
divinity at St. Andrews. In order more effectually to dedicate himself
to the service of God in preaching the gospel, he made over his estate
of Pitforthy to one of his brothers, and was licensed by the
presbytery of St. Andrews in August 1642, being at that time in the
22d year of his age. He was soon after appointed tutor to Lord
Mauchline, eldest son of the earl of Loudon, then chancellor of
Scotland. About a year after he had entered this nobleman’s family, he
happened to preach in the parish church of Galston, on a preparation
day previous to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, when some
inhabitants of the recently erected parish of Fenwick, then without a
pastor, chanced to be present, and they were so much pleased with his
sermon that they recommended him warmly to their neighbours as one
well qualified to be their minister. Though opposed in their choice by
Lord Boyd, the patron of the parish, they were supported by the
heritors; and a call having been moderated to him, he was ordained by
the presbytery to the pastoral charge of Fenwick on November 7, 1644.
He speedily acquired great popularity as a preacher, and persons from
various places at a distance were in the habit of coming almost
regularly to hear him, so that he soon had a crowded congregation. As
Fenwick had formed part of the extensive and overgrown parish of
Kilmarnock, most of his parishioners had hitherto been destitute of
the common means of moral and religious instruction, and in
consequence were sunk into a state of extreme ignorance and neglect of
the ordinances of the gospel. But in the course of a few years his
labours wrought a remarkable improvement in their character and
condition. He did not limit his ministerial duties to the pulpit, but
made it a practice regularly to visit his people in their houses. He
rendered even his amusements and recreations subservient to the great
object he had in view. As his health required much rural exercise, he
was greatly attached to fishing and fowling, and in his dress as a
sportsman he had often more influence in persuading the persons whom
he met in the fields, or at the river’s side, to attend church, and
embrace a religious life, than he would have had in his proper
character as a minister. While angling for trout he did not forget his
duty as a “fisher of men.” It is related of him, that in his sporting
habiliments he once called upon a person whom he was anxious should
perform family worship, but who declined it on the ground that he
could not pray. On which Mr. Guthrie prayed himself to the family’s
great surprise. On going away he engaged them to come to the church
next Sabbath, when, to their consternation, they discovered that it
was the minister himself who had been their visitor. There was another
person in his parish who had a custom of going a fowling on the
Sabbath day, and neglecting the church. On Mr. Guthrie asking him what
he could make by that day’s exercise, he replied that he could make
half-a-crown. Mr. Guthrie told him that if he would go to church on
Sabbath he would give him as much; and by that means got his promise.
After sermon, Mr. Guthrie said to him, that if he would come back next
Sabbath day he would give him the same, which he did; from that time
he became a regular attendant at the church, and was afterwards a
member of his session.
In August
1645, Mr. Guthrie married Agnes, daughter of David Campbell, Esq. of
Skeldon, in Ayrshire, a remote branch of the Loudon family. Shortly
after he was chosen by the General Assembly to attend the army as
chaplain. On the defeat of the Scottish army at Dunbar he retired with
the troops to Stirling, from thence he went to Edinburgh, and soon
after returned to his parish. In consequence of his great talents and
success in preaching he received calls from Linlithgow, Stirling,
Glasgow, and Edinburgh; but he preferred his country charge to them
all. When the church unfortunately divided into the two parties of
Resolutioners and Protesters, Mr. Guthrie joined the latter; and in
the Synod held at Glasgow in April 1661, when the days of persecution
had begun, he presented the draught of an address to the parliament,
for the better securing the privileges of the church, and the purity
of religion in Scotland. The Synod approved of it, but the divisions
among the clergy, and the great distractions of the times, caused it
to be abandoned.
Before the
Restoration Mr. Guthrie had had an opportunity of doing a kind service
to the earl of Glencairn, when that nobleman was in prison on account
of his attachment to the royal cause, which his lordship had not
forgotten, and by his god offices Mr. Guthrie escaped much of the
evils that now overtook many of his brethren. But the time at length
came when, like other faithful Presbyterian ministers, he was to be
driven from his charge by the orders of Dr. Alexander Burnet,
archbishop of Glasgow, one of the most intolerant and haughty of the
Episcopalian clergy of that age. Lord Glencairn in vain attempted to
intercede with that proud prelate in behalf of Mr. Guthrie; to his
request that the latter should, for the present, be overlooked, he
peremptorily and disdainfully answered, “It cannot be; he is a
ringleader and a keeper up of schism in my diocese.” A commission was
immediately made out for Mr. Guthrie’s suspension; and the archbishop
had to bribe one of his curates with the paltry sum of five pounds to
put it in execution. The Wednesday before its enforcement was observed
by his parishioners as a day of humiliation and prayer. He met his
people for the last time on the morning of the Sabbath following,
being the day fixed upon by Archbishop Burnet for the execution of his
suspension, and after addressing his congregation with more than his
usual earnestness and fervour, he took farewell of them amid the tears
and blessings of all present. He dismissed the congregation by nine
‘clock, says his biographer, “and nothing now remained but to wait the
arrival of the curate. The people had quietly dispersed, and the
stillness of the hallowed day prevailed around the manse and church.
The bell sounded not as usual to disturb the placidity of the scene.
At length the trample of horses was heard, soldiers appeared with
their helmets gleaming in the distance, and at the head of the party
was seen a rider in black, as the messenger of final separation
between this great and good man and his mourning parishioners. They
soon alighted and entered the manse, where they found Mr. Guthrie
ready to receive them. The curate presented his commission from the
archbishop of Glasgow, and he went through the ceremony of preaching
the church vacant, and discharging Mr. Guthrie from the exercise of
his ministry there, without any molestation, and to no other
congregation than the party of soldiers who had accompanied him.” This
took place July 24, 1664, and Mr. Guthrie remained for some time in
the parish, but never preached. On the death of his brother, to whom
he had, on entering the ministry, assigned his estate, he returned to
Pitforthy, his paternal home, in the autumn of 1665. His health,
however, had been latterly declining, and he was now seized with a
severe attack of the gravel, which had afflicted him for years,
accompanied by gout and ulcer in the kidneys. After suffering the
severest pain, in the midst of which he comforted those around him
with the expressions of love, gratitude, and resignation to the will
of God, which continually fell from his lips, he died in the house of
his brother-in-law, the Rev. Lewis Skinner of Brechin, October 10,
1665, in the 45th year of his age. His valuable and
excellent work, ‘The Christian’s Great Interest,’ would, perhaps,
never have seen the light but for the circumstance that a volume,
containing imperfect notes of a series of sermons preached by him from
the 55th chapter of Isaiah, had been printed
surreptitiously at Aberdeen, with a most ostentatious title-page. He,
therefore, deemed it only an act of justice to the public and himself
to publish a correct and genuine edition of these sermons, which he
did under the above title. It soon became a great favourite both at
home and abroad, and was translated in the Dutch, German, and French,
and even into some of the Eastern languages. In the Memoir of his life
in the ‘Scots Worthies,’ it is mentioned that there were also some
discourses of Mr. Guthrie’s in manuscript, of which seventeen were
transcribed by John Howie, and published in 1779. The most of Mr.
Guthrie’s papers were, in 1682, carried off from his widow by a party
of soldiers who entered her house by violence, and took her son-in-law
prisoner, when they fell into the hands of the bishops. In 1680 a work
was published purporting to be “the heads of some Sermons preached at
Fenwick in Aug. 1662, by Mr. William Guthrie,” which being wholly
unauthorized by his representatives, was disclaimed by his widow in a
public advertisement, a copy of which is preserved among Wodrow’s
Collections, in the Advocates’ Library. To the Memoir of Mr. Guthrie,
prefixed to his ‘Christian’s Great Interest,’ we have been mainly
indebted for the materials of this notice. His life has also been
written by the Rev. William Muir, the editor of ‘The History of the
House of Rowallan.’ Mr. Guthrie had six children, of whom only two
daughters survived him. One was married to Mr. Miller of Glenlee, in
Ayrshire; and the other, in December 1681, to the Rev. Patrick Warner,
whose daughter Margaret became the wife of Mr. Robert Wodrow, minister
of Eastwood, near Glasgow, the indefatigable author of the ‘History
and Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.’
GUTHRIE, WILLIAM,
an industrious historical and miscellaneous writer and compiler, the
son of an Episcopal minister, and a cadet of the ancient family of
Halkerton in Forfarshire, was born at Brechin, according to one
account, in 1701, or, to another, in 1708. He was educated at King’s
college, Old Aberdeen, where he took his degrees, and afterwards
followed for some time the profession of a schoolmaster. He is said to
have been induced to remove to London, owing to a disappointment in
love, or, as some accounts state, in consequence of his Jacobite
principles preventing him holding any office under the then
government. He arrived in the metropolis some time before 1730, and,
commencing author by profession, he seems at first to have found
employment from Cave the printer; for among his earliest occupations
was the compilation of the parliamentary debates for the Gentleman’s
Magazine, previous to Dr. Johnson’s connection with that periodical.
Guthrie’s name seems to have become very popular with the booksellers,
for it is prefixed to a great variety of works; in the writing of most
of which he appears to have had little or no part. In the list of
works to which his name is attached is included, ‘A New System of
Modern Geography, or a Geographical, Historical, and Commercial
Grammar.’ this well-known work, however, by which his name is now
chiefly preserved, was not written by Guthrie, but is believed to have
been compiled by a bookseller in the Strand of the name of Knox. The
astronomical information contained in it was supplied by James
Gregory.
Mr. Guthrie
was the author of a great many political papers and pamphlets, which
came out anonymously. In 1745-46 he received a pension of £200 a-year
from the Pelham ministry, for defending the measures of Government
with his pen; and, in 1762, he renewed the offer of his services to
the Bute administration. He was also placed in the commission of the
peace for Middlesex, although it is said he never acted as a
magistrate. In compiling the ‘English Peerage’ he was assisted by Mr.
Ralph Bigland, and each article was submitted to the revision of the
representative of the noble family treated of, yet, notwithstanding
all their care, the work is full of errors. Boswell informs us that
Dr. Johnson considered Guthrie of importance enough to wish that his
life had been written. He also mentions that Guthrie himself told him
that he was the author of a beautiful little poem, ‘The Eagle and
Robin Redbreast,’ printed in the collection of poems called the
‘Union,’ where, however, it is said to have been written by Archibald
Scott, before 1600. Guthrie died March 9, 1770, and was interred in
Marylebone churchyard, where a monument, with a suitable inscription,
was erected by his brother to his memory.
The works
which bear his name are:
A General
History of England, from the Invasion of the Romans under Julius
Caesar to the Revolution in 1688; including the Histories of the
Neighbouring People and States, so far as they are connected with that
of England. London, 1744-51, 3 vols. Fol.
Morals of
Cicero. Translated into English. London, 1744, 8vo.
The Friends;
a Sentimental History. 1754, 2 vols. 12mo.
Cicero’s
three Dialogues upon the Character and Qualifications of an Orator;
with Notes, historical and explanatory. Lond. 1755, 8vo.
Orations of
Marcus Tullius Cicero. Translated into English; with Notes, historical
and critical, and arguments to each. Lond. 1754, 3 vols, 8vo.
Marcus
Tullius Cicero his Offices, or his Treatise concerning the Moral
Duties of Mankind; his Cato Major, concerning the means of making old
age happy; his Laelius, concerning friendship, his Moral Paradoxes;
the Vision of Scipio, concerning a future state; his Letters,
concerning the duties of a Magistrate, With Notes, historical and
explanatory. Translated into English. Lond. 1755, 8vo.
Marcus
Fabius Quintillianus his Institutes of Eloquence; or, The Art of
Speaking in Public, in every character and capacity. Translated into
English, after the best Latin editions. With notes, critical and
explanatory. London, 1756, 2 vols. 8vo.
A Complete
History of the English Peerage; from the best authorities. Illustrated
with elegant copperplates of the Arms of the Nobility, blazoned in the
Herald’s Office, by the proper Officers; copperplates of the Premiers
in their Parliamentary Robes; and at the conclusion of the history of
each Family, vignettes and other ornaments proper for the subject.
Lond. 1763, 4to.
A General
History of the World, from the Creation to the present time; including
all the Empires, Kingdoms, and States, their Revolutions, Forms of
Government, Laws, Religions, Customs and Manners, the Progress of
Learning, Arts, Sciences, Commerce, and Trade. Together with their
chronology, Antiquities, Public Buildings, and Curiosities of Nature
and Art. Lond. 1764-67, 12 vols, 8vo.
A New System
of Modern Geography. London, 1770, 8vo. Various editions by different
compilers.
A General
History of Scotland, from the earliest accounts to the present time
(1746). This work was published in numbers, and completed, Lond. 1767,
10 vols. 8vo.
Chronological Table. Lond. 1774, 8vo.
Cicero’s
Epistles to Atticus; with Notes, historical, explanatory, and
critical. 3 vols. 8vo.
