Burnet, GILBERT

Burnet, GILBERT, Bishop of Salisbury, was born at Edinburgh, 18th September 1643. At the age of ten he entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, and, four years later taking his M.A., applied himself to the study first of law and then of divinity, with such diligence and success that in 1661 he was admitted a probationer. In 1663 he visited Cambridge, Oxford, and London, where he met with many of the leading divines of England; and next year passing over into Holland, perfected his knowledge of Hebrew under a learned rabbi of Amsterdam. In 1665 he became minister of Salton, Haddingtonshire; in 1669 professor of Divinity in Glasgow University; but in 1674, having brought on himself the enmity of his old patron Lauderdale, he found it prudent to resign his chair, and settle in London, where he was made chaplain to the Rolls Chapel, and afterwards lecturer at St Clement's. In 1676 he published his Memoirs of two Dukes of Hamilton; in 1679-81 the first two volumes of his History of the Reformation, which procured him a vote of thanks from parliament; in 1680 Some Passages in the Life and Death of the Earl of Rochester; and in 1682 his Life of Sir Matthew Hale. The efforts which had previously been made were now repeated to induce him to break with the liberal and moderate party, and to attach himself to the king. He was offered the bishopric of Chichester, but refused it. In 1683 he attended the execution, and vindicated the memory, of his friend Lord William Russell. The king exhibited his unkingly spite by depriving Burnet of his lectureship; and on James's accession he went to the Continent, and travelled through France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany. In 1684 he was introduced to the Prince of Orange, with whom he became a great favourite, and by whom he was frequently consulted in reference to the great scheme for the deliverance of England. When William came over, Burnet accompanied him as royal chaplain, and in 1689 was appointed Bishop of Salisbury. He entered on the duties of his diocese with great ardour; but his first pastoral letter, in which he founded William's right to the throne on conquest, gave so much offence to both houses of parliament, that they ordered it to be burned by the common hangman. In 1698 he was appointed preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester; in 1699 he published his celebrated Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, which was condemned as heterodox by the Lower House of Convocation. In 1714 appeared the third volume of his History of the Reformation; and on 17th March 1715 he died at Clerkenwell of a pleuritic fever. He was thrice married; his first wife was remarkable for her beauty, the second for her fortune, and the third for her piety. Not until 1723-34 did Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Time make its appear- ance—a work that was sarcastically but foolishly abused by Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and other Tory writers of the day. A Whig and broad churchman, Burnet was a man of strict, almost puritanical virtue, of marvellous charity, geniality, and moderation. His style is often harsh, his judgment not always reliable, yet the honesty, earnestness, simplicity, and vigour of his writings, as well as their fullness of details, make his works very valuable to the student of history. Of his two histories good editions have been issued from the Clarendon Press.