Winzet, NINIAN, was born at Renfrew in 1518. It is probable that he was educated at the university of Glasgow; and he was certainly ordained priest in 1540. About 1552 he was appointed master of the grammar-school at Linlithgow, where he also acted as a notary, and was eventually promoted to the provosty of the Collegiate Church of St Michael's. On the establishment of Protestantism in Scotland (1560) Winzet, who adhered to the old religion, was deprived of his various offices, and came to Edinburgh, where he received the countenance of Queen Mary. It was now that he wrote his pamphlets entitled Certane Tractatis for Reformation of Doctryne and Maneris, which have given him an honourable place among Scottish Catholics posterior to the Reformation. Forced to quit Scotland in 1563, he made his home in the university of Paris till 1571, when he was summoned to England to perform certain services to Mary who was now in captivity. Returning to Paris the same year, he became a teacher of some distinction in the university, holding thrice in succession the office of Procurator of the German Nation. In 1574 he removed to the English College of Douay, where he became licentiate in theology, and in 1577 his learning and various services to the church were rewarded by his appointment as Abbot of St James's, Ratisbon. In this office, which he discharged with characteristic energy and fidelity, he died in 1592.
See Irving, Lives of Scottish Writers, and Winzet's Works (1891), edited for the Scottish Text Society by the Rev. J. K. Hewison, who has brought together all that is known regarding Winzet and his writings.