Burnet 392 Burnet which was in covenant Brit. Cat. v. 410 ; Echard's steeped [Bale's Script. 41, p. particularly i. 594 a; Coxe's This is illustrated the ScriptoresOrdinisPrsedicatorum, principles. fully by and Halls of with Sheldon referred to. At Catalogue of MSS. in the Colleges correspondence and a Oxford, under Merton College, No. ci. ccxvi.] the same time Gilbert Burnet calls him man R. L. P. of blameless private life, and even Wodrow admits that he ' was certainly one of the best He it BURNET, ALEXANDER (1614-1684), morals among the present clergy.' was, John honest and con- Scotch archbishop, was the son of Mr. should be added, absolutely minister his mother was even to the loss of his Burnet, a Scotch ; sistent, archbishopric. ordina- his first diocesan he several of the Traquair family. After his At meeting put and turned out tion he first acted as chaplain to the Earl of of his clergy in English orders, took the covenant or some of the terian whom Fairfoul Traquair. Whether he presby clergy known he fled had to remain. He to have not is not certainly ; probably permitted appears to do his the to England to escape being compelled strained power by encroaching upon of the Bur- so, for he was in that country very shortly functions Glasgow magistrates. describes him as a after the beginning of the war with Charles. net the historian further ' inclined He received holy orders in the English church, soft and good-natured man, to peace- in communion with which he lived through- able and moderate counsels,' which, if it be a out, and held a rectory in Kent, from which, true description, only shows how completely of the in 1650, he was ejected for loyalty (KEITH, his belief in the advantages Anglican Scottish Bishops) . He then went beyond sea, system overcame his own nature. On 29 April and served Charles II by intelligence from 1664 he was made a privy councillor (STE- and elsewhere. It is how- the Church England curious, | PHEN, History of of Scotland}. that find an A. Burnett mentioned The with which he treated the cove- ever, we j severity as minister of Tenham in Kent on 22 Jan. nanters, against whom, in opposition to Lau- j 1657 (CaL State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1657, derdale and his friends, he continually urged p. 247). Upon the Restoration we find him strong measures, was doubtless a leading j chaplain to his father's first cousin, Lord , cause of the Pentland revolt in 1666, and he afterwards Earl who was was for the horrors of its Rutherford, Teviot, , largely responsible in command at Dunkirk, and to the English repression by Dalyell, Drummond, Hamilton, there Lauderdale garrison (' Papers,' Camden , Rothes, and others, with whom he was at that His Dr. time in cordial We hear of him Miscellany, 1883). brother, Burnet, j friendship. r ' w as physician at the same place. A ma- as being deadly sick' on 6 Nov. 1666; but a in nuscript the Advocates' Library, Edin- fortnight later, 22 Nov., it is recorded that ' 1 burgh, states that he was dean of the city the breaking out of the rebels has cured him,' ' ' of Dunkirk.' His first letter to Sheldon while he is mentioned as being very active in the Sheldon MSS. is written from that during the rebellion (Col. State Papers, Dom. town, and expresses his anxiety to erect a 1666-7, pp. 244, 280, 336). Keith asserts that church there suitable to the dignity of the Burnet wrote to Arlington and to Charles to English communion. Upon the restoration recommend lenity, and he himself declares to of ' episcopacy in Scotland he did not at once Sheldon that he never opposed the granting of receive preferment; but in 1663, on the remissions to any person that acknowledged death of Bishop Mitchell, he was placed in their fault, but on the contrary laboured what the see of Aberdeen, being consecrated at St. he could to make them capable of pardons.' Andrews assisted by Sharp, by others of The passages, however, in which he counsels the on 18 18 bishops, Sept. On June in that severity are far more frequent, and it is per- he the sermon to year preached the parlia- fectly certain that he constituted the chief ment from 2 Chron. xix. 6 (LAMONT, Diary, obstacle to the policy of conciliation which 204 Hist. Church pp. 200, ; GRTJBB, of Scot- Lauderdale, in order to frustrate the schemes 212 CaL State land, p. ; Papers, Dom. 1663, of the party opposed to him among the Scotch 18 In on June). January 1664, the death nobility, began to initiate in 1667. The ne- of he became of Fairfoul, archbishop Glasgow, cessity of getting rid of Burnet Longifacies installed on 11 i being April 1664. A more or Long Nez, as he is called from some facial unfortunate appointment, the is no of him ex- considering j peculiarity (there time portrait and place, could not have been made, is in the letters that j tant) prominent passed His views of church government were of between Lauderdale and Robert and | Moray, the most advanced Laudian he hated his other in type ; agents Scotland (Lauderdale Pa- dissent of all kinds and his want vols. i. and vehemently, pers, ii., Camden Society). An of common sense was seen in the attempts he additional cause of Lauderdale's enmity was, made to out his carry high Anglican views to perhaps, the fact that Burnet had sent'infor- the fullest extent in that of part Scotland mation on the proceedings of the council to Burnet 393 Burnet Arlington and Charles without consulting Obiit Aug. 22, 1684, hora matutina. Multis ille bonis him. In the intrigues which followed, Burnet, ftebilis occidit: Nulli flebilior in contrast to James Sharp, who had been for quam tibi, Scotia. the time won over by Lauderdale, and was Burnet married Elizabeth Fleming of Litt- used now to counteract his colleague, pur- rie in Fife, and left two daughters, who mar- sued a honest course in thoroughly opposition ried respectively the son of Lord Elphin- to conciliation, under the encouragement of stone and Lord Elliebank (MS. Advocates' i ' ' ' Sheldon. Honest and stout are epithets Library). often used of him. In 1669 Lauderdale came Scottish Burnet's [Keith's Bishops ; Own Time ; to Scotland as commissioner. The Act high Sheldon MSS. Bodleian Library; the greater of Supremacy was immediately passed, by number of the letters from Burnet to Sheldon which the absolute control of all persons and will be found in the Appendix to vol. ii. of the matters in the church was put in the king's Lauderdale Papers (Camden Society), a selec- tion from the Lauderdale MSS. British Museum hands. Burnet had shortly before held a ; Wodrow's Hist. Church of Scotland Fountain- synod at Glasgow, in which he put forth a ; hall's Chronicles Grubb's Hist. Church of vehement remonstrance against Lauderdale's ; Scotland Hist. of ; Stephen's Church Scotland ; policy. The new act was at once, and in the Gordon's Scotichronicon ; Law's Memorials ; first place, used to insist upon his resignation, Mackenzie's Memoirs ; Collection of Letters to a of which, dated 24 Dec. 1669, is copy among Sancroft, edited from the in the Bod- the Sheldon MSS. For the events which led originals leian by Dr. Nelson Clarke; Abstract of the to his and of the resignation, which foregoing Writs of the of St. City Andrews, 1767 ; Lyon's sentences are a see l Lauderdale summary, Hist, of St. Andrews.] 0. A. Papers,' referred to above. He was succeeded by Leighton, a devoted favourer of concilia- BURNET, ELIZABETH (1661-1709), tion, and for four years lived in retirement. religious writer, third wife of Bishop Burnet, In his letter to Sheldon at the time of his was born at Earontoun, near Southampton, resignation he begs that some private corner on 8 Nov. 1661. Her father was Sir Richard be found for him in where he Blake her mother was a may England, ; Elizabeth, daughter may die, as he has lived, in fellowship with of Dr. Bathurst, a London physician, and that church. On Leighton's retirement in she was their eldest daughter (Some Account 1674, Lauderdale's policy having changed, of her Life, p. v). Fell, bishop of Oxford, Burnet was, on 29 Sept., restored to his arch- was known to her and her family, and he bishopric, probably in deference to the opinion being a guardian of Robert Berkeley of of the English bishops. He was restored to Spetchley, Worcestershire (grandson of Sir the privy council on 3 Dec. of the same year. Robert Berkeley [q. v.]), brought about an Elizabeth Wodrow (ii. 144) mentions an additional acquaintance between and his reason for this restoration, which in itself is ward, which ended in their marriage in 1678 most probable, having regard to the corrup- (ib. v), Elizabeth being then seventeen years tion of the administration, but for which old. Mrs. Berkeley had no skill in the he does not himself vouch, and which is not learned languages, but she was an incessant supported by Gilbert Burnet or by any other reader of the scriptures and of commentators i ' authority. Burnet, according to this ques- (see her List of Books recommended, ib. tionable to his arch- said he ' not a more anecdote, was regain 391) ; Stillingfleet knew bishopric in return for sacrificing the claims considerable woman in England than she' of his daughter, the widow of the late heir (ib. ix). About 1684, Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley to the Elphinstone property, to her jointure, left England for Holland ($.viii), and settled in favour of Lauderdale's niece, who was to at the Hague.