Introduction

In the late sixteenth century the Scottish Latin poet and humanist George Buchanan donated several books from his own library to the library of the University of St Andrews where he had both studied and taught. These volumes are mainly Classical texts and often carry Buchanan's own annotations. In the early seventeenth century, Buchanan's pupil, King James VI and I, made substantial donations of further volumes. The University Library, then housed in what became known as the King James Library, was further augmented by a 1620 bequest of Classical texts from the libraries of Sir John Scot (1585-1670) and his friends. Books received at this time included volumes from Buchanan's former students and from several Scottish poets, among them William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) and Hercules Rollock (c.1546-1599).

Born in Killearn in 1506, Buchanan was schooled in Paris, took his BA degree in St Andrews in 1525 and became a teacher in France, and in Portugal where he was imprisoned and tried for heresy between 1550 and 1551. On his return to Scotland he was briefly tutor to Mary Queen of Scots and Principal of St Leonard's College, St Andrews. Following the murder of Darnley, and Mary's marriage to Bothwell, Buchanan attached himself to the party opposed to her, and later enjoyed a prominent role in public affairs. For several years he was tutor to the young King James VI and I. A supporter of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, he became Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1567, Director of Chancery in 1570 and Keeper of the Privy Seal till 1578. He died on 28 September 1582.

The St Andrews holdings of items by or relating to George Buchanan have developed over five centuries, and are among the finest in the world. This virtual exhibition shows only a few works, and often draws on the modern Buchanan Collection, established during the twentieth century. It is developed by the Library in conjunction with the exhibition George Buchanan: Political Thought and History in Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic World mounted from June - December 2006 by Professor Roger Mason and a team from the Department of Scottish History to mark the 500th centenary of George Buchanan’s birth. It offers a selection of the most notable items displayed. Click here to view the complete text of Professor Mason's exhibition.

Grammar Drama Paraphrases of the Psalms Buchanan in St Andrews De Iure Regni Apud Scotos De Maria Scotorum Regina Poemata Omnia Rerum Scoticarum Historia Acknowledgements

Grammar

George Buchanan’s first foray into print was his 1533 version of the Rudiments of Latin Grammar, originally written in English by the distinguished humanist Thomas Linacre (c1460-1524). Buchanan’s Latin translation, Rudimenta Grammatices, proved immensely successful, going through twenty-six (mainly French) editions between 1533 and 1559.

Introduction Drama Paraphrases of the Psalms Buchanan in St Andrews De Iure Regni Apud Scotos De Maria Scotorum Regina Poemata Omnia Rerum Scoticarum Historia Acknowledgements

Drama

By the 1540s, when he was teaching at Guyenne, Buchanan was following further in the footsteps of European humanists such as Erasmus (1466-1536) and Thomas Linacre by translating two of Euripides’ dramas into Latin. The first of these, Medea, was published in 1544 at the end of a volume of translations of Hecuba and Iphegenia.

By 1556, however, Buchanan’s reputation was such that his translation of Alcestis was issued by the same publisher as a single item in a handsomely printed edition.

Buchanan did not confine himself simply to translating Greek drama. He also composed original Latin plays on classical principles. The College de Guyenne was an important centre of humanist rhetorical studies and the production of classical drama was a standard part of its curriculum. The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), who described Buchanan as "the great Scottish poet," recalled in his Essays having performed in one of Buchanan’s tragedies when he was a young scholar. It is not clear which play he had in mind, but Buchanan wrote at least two tragedies based on biblical themes.

Baptistes, the most politically pointed of his plays, did not appear in print until 1577, but Jephthes, movingly dramatising the story of Jephtha and the sacrifice of his daughter Iphis, was published in 1554.

Introduction Grammar Paraphrases of the Psalms Buchanan in St Andrews De Iure Regni Apud Scotos De Maria Scotorum Regina Poemata Omnia Rerum Scoticarum Historia Acknowledgements

Paraphrases of the Psalms

The most memorable (if unpleasant) episode in Buchanan’s career occurred in 1549 when, having been invited by the Portuguese king to teach at a new humanist arts college at the University of Coimbra, he found himself charged with heresy and imprisoned by the Lisbon Inquisition. Like many humanists, Buchanan was a keen advocate of religious reform, and a strong thread of anti-clericalism runs throughout his poetry. At this stage in his career, however, while he had certainly flirted with Protestant ideas, he remained loyal to the Catholic Church. Having abjured his heretical opinions, and done penance by translating the Psalms of David into Latin verse, he was released by the Inquisition in 1552 and returned to France.

Buchanan was first described as “the prince of poets of our age” by his publishers, Henry and Robert Etienne (Latinised “Stephanus”), on the title-page of the first edition of his Psalm Paraphrases of 1556. Publishers’ blurb though it was, this was an accolade with which Buchanan’s contemporaries would certainly have concurred. Ironically, given the circumstances of their composition, the Paraphrases proved particularly popular in the Protestant countries of Northern Europe. By far the most popular of his works, versions of Buchanan’s Psalms were printed in a huge variety of editions in the late 16th and 17th centuries.

Jean Servin (c1530-1595) dedicated his musical settings of Buchanan's paraphrases to James VI, stating that he was inspired by the dignity and elegance of Buchanan’s text. The edition was issued in five part-books (Superius, Contratenor, Tenor, Bassus and Quinta Pars), but complete sets are now exceedingly rare. The University of St Andrews possesses the tenor part only. The number of voices ranges from four to eight, with some passages for three voices. Psalm XXVIII, shown here, is for eight voices, dividing each voice into first and second. The small figures of birds, goats etc. indicate the entries for the different voices.  The printer, Charles Pesnot, was a Protestant who escaped from Lyons to Geneva.  Although the title page gives Lyons (Lugduni) as the place of publication, this is therefore almost certainly an attempt to avoid the prohibition on Genevan books.

A selection of Buchanan's Psalm Paraphrases in the Servin settings was sung in St Andrews University Chapel in 2006 as part of the celebrations of Buchanan's quincentenary. This was the first performance of these works in modern times.

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Buchanan in St Andrews

In 1566, on the recommendation of the Earl of Moray (titular head of St Andrews Priory), Buchanan was appointed Principal of St Leonard’s College in St Andrews.  In taking up the post, Buchanan was renewing his acquaintance with his alma mater, where he had graduated in 1525 together with his brother Patrick. 

In 1563 he had been appointed to a parliamentary commission to draw up plans for the reform of the universities, and he subsequently drafted a blueprint for St Andrews that reflected his own humanist leanings.  Nothing came of this, however, and his time as Principal of St Leonard’s, disrupted by his involvement in political affairs and cut short by his appointment as James VI’s tutor in 1570, gave him little opportunity to shape the College’s future.

This page of the University Bursar’s Book from the Muniment Collection shows Buchanan acting as a member of a panel awarding bursaries in 1566-7.

Introduction Grammar Drama Paraphrases of the Psalms De Iure Regni Apud Scotos De Maria Scotorum Regina Poemata Omnia Rerum Scoticarum Historia Acknowledgements

De Iure Regni Apud Scotos

Buchanan was given little time to enjoy a life of academic retreat.  Following Mary’s abdication and imprisonment, he immediately set about drafting his famous justification of resistance to tyranny, De Iure Regni Apud Scotos Dialogus. De Iure barely mentions the Queen, but offers instead an elegant argument based on abstract principles of popular sovereignty and the contractual nature of monarchy. 

Written as a dialogue between Buchanan himself and Thomas Maitland (the younger brother of Mary’s secretary, Sir William Maitland of Lethington), it was initially drafted when Mary was still imprisoned in Scotland in late 1567.  Her subsequent escape changed the political and diplomatic scene and delayed its publication, but it is known to have circulated in manuscript before finally appearing in print in 1579 with a dedication to Buchanan’s royal pupil, James VI. 

One of the most radically populist tracts written in the sixteenth century, De Iure is also distinctive in its lack of reliance on scriptural authority.

Republished in several countries (including pre-revolutionary America), the De Iure proved lastingly influential.  Its publication in 1579 elicited an almost immediate response from the exiled Scots Catholic controversialist, Ninian Winzet (c1518-92), who had already crossed polemical swords with John Knox, and who published his Velitatio in Georgium Buchananum at Ingolstadt in 1582.

Subsequently, William Barclay (c1546-1608), the distinguished Scots civil lawyer who taught at Pont-a-Mousson in the Catholic Duchy of Lorraine, published his De Regno et Regali Potestate in Paris in 1600.  Much later, James Stewart of Goodtrees (1635-1713), one of the most stalwart defenders of the Covenants in the Restoration period, published his Ius Populi Vindicatum (1669) (shown here), a full-scale justification of resistance to tyranny, which drew obviously on Buchananite principles.

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De Maria Scotorum Regina

Following Mary Queen of Scots’ escape from prison in 1568 and her subsequent flight to England, the Regent Moray made full use of Buchanan’s literary talents in putting the case against his half-sister to Elizabeth and the English government.  Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s secretary, was a determined anti-Marian, but he was unable to persuade Elizabeth to act decisively against Mary.

Instead he orchestrated a smear campaign against the Scottish Queen, promoting the publication in London of an anonymous Latin tract, De Maria Scotorum Regina, written by Buchanan, allegedly proving Mary’s adultery with Bothwell and her complicity in the murder of Darnley.

This was followed in 1571 by an English translation, Ane Detectioun of the Duings of Marie Quene of Scottes, which was in turn Scotticized and printed in 1572 by Robert Lekprevik at St Andrews.  Buchanan was not responsible for either the English or the Scots translations, but his authorship of the Latin original (shown here) is undoubted and, for Mary’s supporters, marked him out as a venal traitor peddling scurrilous lies on behalf of the Queen’s villainous half-brother, the Regent Moray.

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Poemata Omnia

Buchanan’s reputation as “a prince of poets” remained undimmed by his involvement in the controversies surrounding Mary Queen of Scots. Commentators as different as Queen Elizabeth, Dr Samuel Johnson and Hugh MacDiarmid have regarded him as a major poet. Following the initial publication of his Psalm Paraphrases in 1566, further editions were issued by Christopher Plantin’s Antwerp press in 1571 and 1582.

Thereafter editions continued to be published throughout the seventeenth century, particularly in those parts of Northern Europe where Protestantism had taken root.  Most notable is the long series of Herborn editions, initially sponsored by Nathan Chytraeus (1543-98), that included four-part musical settings of the Psalms by Statius Olthof (1555-1629), which proved particularly popular in Lutheran Germany.

Others of his long poems, such as the Franciscanus and the unfinished epic De Sphaera (shown here) also appeared in individual editions. 

In 1615, however, these works were incorporated into the first major collection of Buchanan’s poetry, gathered together by the Edinburgh printer Andrew Hart.  Though not the definitive “collected poetry,” Hart’s edition was the parent text of numerous Poemata Omnia published in Amsterdam and Leiden in the course of the seventeenth century. One of these is shown above.

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Rerum Scoticarum Historia

Buchanan found time in the last decade of his life to work on his Rerum Scoticarum Historia, a massive re-writing of Scottish history which set out to justify the deposition of Mary Queen of Scots with reference to an alleged tradition of elective, constitutional monarchy stretching back to the foundation of the Scottish kingdom in 330 BC.  Dedicated to James VI, and finally published in 1582, the year of its author’s death, the Historia was also intended to instil in the monarch an understanding of the limits of royal authority.

The Historia and the De Iure were often printed together and publishers competed to provide extras such as an improved text or augmented index. Buchanan drew heavily on Boece’s Scotorum Historia in constructing his own history, though he discarded many of his predecessor’s more incredible tales. At the same time, however, he emphasised the constitutional implications of the form of limited monarchy Boece had described in his account of early Scottish history. Boece’s work was first published in Paris in 1527, but Buchanan’s signed copy (shown right) was the second edition of 1574 with a continuation by Piedmontese humanist Giovanni Ferrerio.

Buchanan received welcome encouragement in writing his history from the brilliant academic turned ecclesiastical politician Andrew Melville, who shared his literary as well as his political interests, and who helped see the massive project through the press.  Melville contributed dedicatory verses to the first edition, but also heavily annotated his own copy of the work (shown left), giving a rare insight into how Buchanan’s version of the Scottish past was read by a radical Presbyterian divine. The first printed English translation of the full text of the Historia appeared in 1690 with a prefatory note “To the Reader,” extolling Buchanan’s virtues and the accuracy of his historical narrative. Mosman's 1700 edition with inserted map of Scotland is shown below.

Buchanan’s Historia continued to be published within Volume 5 of the famous series of map volumes produced by Johann Blaeu (c1599-1673).  Blaeu’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum or Atlas Novus (below right) contains a wealth of descriptive material, and he often falls back on the authority of George Buchanan.

Book 1 of the Historia offers a geographical description of Scotland, most of which is reprinted in the Atlas’s prefatory material, while Buchanan’s descriptions of the Hebridean islands and of Orkney and Shetland also accompany the individual maps of these areas. 

The Atlas contains not only the Historia, however, but also the complete text of the De Iure Regni, thus ensuring the further dissemination of Buchanan’s political views. It is perhaps fitting that Buchanan’s birthplace at Killearn - “G. Buchanani patria” – is specifically identified on Blaeu’s map of the Lennox region!

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Acknowledgements

The Department of Special Collections is grateful to the following for their contribution to the design and development of this virtual exhibition: Alice Crawford, Chris Gordon, Rachel Hart, Elizabeth Henderson, Roger Mason, Norman Reid, Steven Reid, Mary Woodcock-Kroble and Isla Woodman.

Introduction Grammar Drama Paraphrases of the Psalms Buchanan in St Andrews De Iure Regni Apud Scotos De Maria Scotorum Regina Poemata Omnia Rerum Scoticarum Historia