King James VI & I by Daniel Mytens (National Portrait Gallery, London).
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The Perth Assembly was one of the most controversial books of this first quarter of the seventeenth century. It was a response to the Five Articles of Perth which King James VI & I imposed on the Kirk in an attempt to integrate its practices with those of the Church of England. The move was unpopular with those who supported Presbyterian governance. In the autumn of 1618, in response to the Assembly in August 1618, David Calderwood produced his volume as ‘proofe of the Nullities thereof’. Calderwood's tract was smuggled to Leiden in the winter of 1618-19 and was printed there under the auspices of William Brewster and the Pilgrim Press with, perhaps, one Johannes Sol being the printer. It was printed without author’s name and place of printing. The printed volumes were smuggled back to Burntisland in wine barrels in April 1619.
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The publication of The Perth Assembly infuriated King James VI & I and set in train a series of events in both Scotland and in Holland which had profound consequences, not least the closing of the Pilgrim Press.
See the whole Perth Assembly on archive.org
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James Cathkin, an associate of Andro Hart, was summoned to London from Edinburgh in June 1619 for interrogation about the book by King James and by the Bishop of St Andrews. Cathkin’s account was published in the Bannatyne Miscellany (Vol 1, 1827, pp.197-216) the preamble to which notes:
Cathkin in this relation (which is preserved in a MS volume in the possession of Robert Graham, Esq., Advocate) has given a most curious account of his examination by King James and the Privy Council of England, for a supposed concern in the publication of anonymous tract, in 1619, entitled “Perth Assemblie &c” without the name of printer or place, which was written by David Calderwood the historian, and in which the Nullity of the Assembly was argued in no very gentle terms”. |
Click above to read on archive.org |
Cathkin’s account of his interrogation by the Bishop of St Andrews, notes:
Does this reference to Hart having an Englishman relate to Edward Raban?
Hes he ane Engliſhman to his mann? And know ye quher he is?” |
Some unanswered questions.....
- Is Hart’s ‘Englishman’ Edward Raban?
- Does Cathkin’s reply ‘I think he is about the citie bot I know not quher’ mean that the Englishman is, in fact, in Leiden?
- Did Raban play a part, on behalf of Hart, getting the Calderwood manuscript to Leiden?
- What happened to the Cathkin MS owned in 1827 by ‘Robert Graham, Esq. Advocate’?
