MACKENZIE, SIR George, Scottish law yer: b. Dundee, 1636; d. Westminster, 8 May 1691. He was a grandson of Kenneth, 1st Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, and a nephew of the 1st and 2d Earls of Seaforth. He was educated at the universities of Saint Andrew's and Aber deen and later studied civil law at the Univer sity of Bourges, France. He was called to the bar in Scotland in 1659 and speedily rose to distinction. In 1661 he conducted the defense for the Marquis of Argyll in his trial for high treason, and soon afterward was appointed a justice-depute, orjudge of the Criminal Court. In 1669 he sat for Ross-shire and rendered him self conspicuous by his opposition to Lauderdale and by his support of popular measures. He was knighted in 1674 and in 1677 succeeded Sir John Nisbet as King's Advocate. From this time Mackenzie's principles seemed wholly sub verted, and in his endeavor to force submission to the king he earned for himself the appella tions "'Bloody Mackenzie" and "the blood thirsty advocate.° He opposed the abrogation
of the penal laws against Catholics in 1686 and was removed from office until 1688, when for a year he was again King's Advocate, relin quishing the office at the outbreak of the Revo lution. He founded the Advocate's Library at Edinburgh in 1689, and in 1690 he retired to Oxford where he was admitted as a student and spent the remainder of his life engaged in liter ary pursuits. Author of 'A Vindication of the Government of Charles II' (1691) ; 'The Moral History of Frugality' (1691) ; 'Methods of Proceeding against Criminals and Fanatical Covenanters' (1691) ; 'Vindication of the Pres byterians of Scotland from the Malicious Aspersions Cast upon Them' (1692), and many other works of earlier date. His collected works were published (2 vols., Edinburgh 1716 22).