ELPH1NSTONE, WILLIAM, founder of King's College, Aberdeen, was born at Glasgow in 1437. His father, whose name he bore, entered into holy orders on the death of his wife, and was first rector of Kirkmichael, and at length archdeacon of Teviotdale, in which station he died in 1486, being then also, as it seems, provost of the collegiate church of St. Mary's, Glasgow.
At. the head of those who in congregations confirmed the statutes of the faculty of arta in Glasgow college, on the erection of that seminary in 1451, stands the name of William Elphinstone, Dean of Faculty. This was, no doubt, the archdeacon of Teviotdale. Among those incorporated iu the university the same year appears also the name " Elphinatoun," in all probability the youthful atone, who, it is admitted on all hands, was educated at the University of Glasgow. Here he passed A.M. probably in the twentieth year of his age. (Keith's ' Bishops,' p. 116.) Afterwards, applying himself to theology, he was made priest of St. or Kirkmichael, in which place he served four years, and then proceeded to France, where, after three years study of the laws, he was appointed professor of law, first at Paris and then at Orleans. He continued abroad till 1471, when he returned home at the earnest request of his friends, particularly Bishop Muirhead, who thereupon made him parson of Glasgow and official of the diocese.
On Muirhead'e decease, in the end of 1473, the archbishop of St. Andrews made him of Lothian, which he continued to be till the year 1478. In the spring of that year we find John Otterburn in the office; yet in June following Mr. Elphinatone is marked in the parliament rolls as official of Lothian, and In that capacity elected ad causal. He was also made a privy councillor. About the same time he was joined in an embassy to France with the Earl of Buchan and the Bishop of Dunblane, to compose some differences which had arisen between the two crowns ; and on his return, in 1479, be was made Archdeacon of Argyle, and then Bishop of Ross, whence, in 1484, he was translated to the diocese of Aberdeen.
The same year, as Bishop of Aberdeen, he was one of the com missioners from Scotland to treat of a truce and matrimonial alliance with England, whither he was again despatched as an ambassador on the accession of King Henry VII. When affairs at home came to be
troubled between the king and his nobles, he took the part of the former; and when the Earl of Argyll was sent on an embassy into England, he was, ou the 21st of February 1488, constituted lord chancellor of the kingdom, in which place however he continued only till the king's demise in June following. In October of the same year ho was in tho parliament then held at Edinburgh, where we also find him assisting at the coronation of the new king. He was afterwards sent on an embassy to Germany ; and on his return thence was appointed to the office of lord privy seal, where he seems to have remained till his death, which happened at Edinburgh on the 25th of October 1514, while negotiations were pending with the court of Rome for his elevation to the primacy of St. Andrews.
Besides a book of canons, extracted out of the ancient canons, Elphinstone wrote a history of Scotland, chiefly out of Fordun. He wrote also some lives of Scotch saints; and in the college of Aberdeen are preserved several large folio volumes of his compilations on the canon law. The civil and canon laws indeed were his favourite studies, and to their establishment as the laws of Scotland he long and steadily directed his attention. It is to him we may in all probability ascribe the crafty acts 1487, c. 105, seq. to recover the former large jurisdiction of the chancellor and court of aesaion, as well as the act 1494, c. 54, the object of which appears to have been to enforce in the courts the study of the Roman laws; and we shall not perhaps greatly err in conceiving his zeal to have been employed in the erection of the Court of Daily Council in 1503. It was more over at his solicitation that the convent of Grey Friars at Stirling and the Chapel Royal were founded in 1491, the same year in which he also obtained a papal bull for the erection of a university at Aber deen, in place of the narrow seminary previously existing there. To Bishop Elphinstone Aberdeen also owes another great work, namely the bride across the ricer Dee : to the completion of his plans the prelate left 10,000/, Scots iu money lying in his coffers at his death.