Craig, THOMAS

Craig, THOMAS, writer on feudal law, was born in 1538, either at Craigfintray (Aberdeenshire) or in Edinburgh. From St Andrews he passed in 1555 to the university of Paris, and in 1563 was admitted an advocate at the Scottish bar, being next year appointed justice-depute of Scotland, and in 1573 sheriff-depute of Edinburgh. Whilst head of the criminal judicature, he did not neglect the muses; as was evidenced by an epithalamium on Queen Mary's marriage with Darnley and a poem on the birth of James VI. Besides several more Latin poems, and the masterly Jus Feudale (1603; 3d ed. 1732), by which he is chiefly remembered, he wrote three other Latin treatises—on James VI.'s right to succeed to the English throne, on the advisability of a union between the two kingdoms, and on the homage controversy between Scotland and England. He stood high in favour with James, who wanted to knight him in 1603, and, on his declining, dispensed with the ceremony, but gave him the title. He died 26th February 1608. See his Life by P. F. Tytler (1823).