SPOTTISWOOD, Jonx, Archbishop of St. Andrews, son of John Spottiswood,super intendent of Lothian, was horn in the year 1565. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, and on his father's death, succeeded him as parson of Calder. In 1601, he attended the duke of Lennox as chaplain, when that nobleman was sent as ambassador to France by king James VI. When James succeeded to the English crown, Spottis wood accompanied him on his journey to London, and, soon after that event on the death of archbishop James Beaton, was appointed to the see of Glasgow. He was chosen moderator of the general assembly of the Scottish church, which met at Glasgow in 1610, and completed the establishment of episcopal government, which James had labored so long to accomplish. In October of that year, lie was along with the bishops of Brechiu and Galloway, consecrated at London 'House by the bishop of London and other English prelates. In 1615, he took a leading part in the examination of John Ogilvie, a Jesuit priest, who was apprehended at Glasgow, and hanged for refusing to disown the temporal power of the pope. The share he took in this matter was most discreditable to the archbishop. In the course of the same year, he was translated to the see of St. Andrews. As primate of the Scottish church, Spottiswood had now the chief Management of ecclesiastical affairs, and great influence also in the civil government, and his rule was marked by uniform ability, and, with rare exceptions, by prudence and moderation. He presided at the assembly which met at Perth in 1618, and sanctioned the live points of ecclesiastical discipline known as the Perth articles. He was as much in favor with king Charles I. as lie had been with king James, and at the coronation of that sovereign at Holyrood in 1633, he placed the crown on his head and annointed him. In 1635, Spottiswood was made chancellor of Scotland, a dignity which no churchman had held since the Reformation; but in accepting an appointment so invidious to the nobles, he did not act with his usual discretion. lie reluctantly
entered into the king's unwise measures for the ,introduction of a liturgy into Scotland, and became one of the chief objects of popular dislike when the covenanters acquired the ascendency. Ile soon found it necessary for his safety to retire to England, and in the end of 1638, at the king's request., he resigned the chancellorship. He protested against the lawfulness of the general assembly which met at Glasgow in November of the same year, and was deposed and excommunicated by that body for alleged offenses, which, so far as his private character was concerned, were improbable in themselves, and supported by no evidence whatever. The archbishop did not long survive the overthrow of the pol:ty which it had been the work of his life to build up. -He died at London, Nov. 26, 1039, being then in the 74th year of his age. He had expressed a wish to be buried at Dairsie in Fife, where he had rebuilt the church after the English model, but this was found impracticable, and he was interred in Westminster Abbey. The writings of Spottiswood are his well known History/ of time Church of Scotland, first pub lished in 1655; a sermon preached at the meeting of the Perth assembly of 1618, which was published by bishop Lindsay in 1621 in his account of the proceedings of that assembly; and a Latin treatise, Refulatio Libelli de Regimine Ecclesue Scoticancs, written in answer to a tract of Calderwootrs, and published in 1620. The chief authorities for the biography of the archbishop are the life ascribed to bishop Duppa, prefixed to the folio editions of his History, and the life by bishop Russel, prefixed to the Spottiswood society edition of the same work.