James Skene of Rubislaw

James Skene of Rubislaw (1775–1864) was a Scottish lawyer and amateur artist, best known as a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

Life

The second son of George Skene (1736–1776) of Rubislaw, Aberdeen, and his wife Jane (Jean) Moir of Stoneywood, he was born at Rubislaw on 7 March 1775. In 1783 Jane, George Skene’s widow, moved to Edinburgh for the education of her seven children.

James Skene attended Edinburgh high school. An elder brother died in 1791, and James became heir of Rubislaw. At 21 he went to Germany as a student, and, returning to Edinburgh, was admitted to the Scottish bar as an advocate in 1797. His friendship with Sir Walter Scott was built on his knowledge of German literature. In 1797 Skene became cornet of the Edinburgh Light Horse, the regiment largely organised by Scott, who was himself its quartermaster, secretary, and paymaster.

In 1817 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, Thomas Charles Hope, and Sir David Brewster. From 1820 to 1834 he was the Curator of its library and museum. He was active in the Scottish Society of Antiquaries.

By 1820 he left his brother's house and obtained a house at 126 Princes Street facing Edinburgh Castle. By this stage he was also actively practising as an advocate. By 1830 he was living in a magnificent house at 46 Moray Place on the Moray Estate in west Edinburgh.

For the health of his family, Skene went to Greece in 1838, staying for several years near Athens, in a villa built to his own design. Returning in 1844, he lived first at Leamington Spa and then at Frewen Hall, Oxford, where he died on 27 November 1864.

Skene produced A Series of Sketches of the existing Localities alluded to in the Waverley Novels, etched from his own drawings (Edinburgh, 1829). He wrote for the Transactions of societies to which he belonged, and edited John Spalding's History of the Troubles in Scotland for the Bannatyne Club (1828). He wrote the article "Painting" in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia. Full-page illustrations in The Memorials of Skene of Skene are from his drawings. He is said to have left over 500 watercolour drawings of Greece.

He kept in close contact with Sir Walter Scott: the original introduction to Quentin Durward was inspired by Skene's knowledge of France, from a visit in 1822, and the Jewish theme in Ivanhoe was at least partly his suggestion. John Gibson Lockhart, in his biography of Scott, drew heavily on Skene's manuscripts.

In 1806 Skene married Jane Forbes (1787–1862), youngest child of Sir William Forbes, 6th Baronet of Pitsligo (her brother William, the seventh Baronet, married, in 1797, Sir Walter Scott's first love, Williamina Stuart). Jane Skene was praised by Scott, who wrote in hisJournal, i. 75, that she was "a most excellent person". The surviving family of the couple consisted of three sons and four daughters.

The first son George Skene (1807–1875) was an advocate and Glasgow University professor and the second son William Forbes Skene. His wife Rhalou was the sister of Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, the surname appearing in other forms such as Rhangabé.

The eldest daughter Eliza (1810–1886) married Charles de Heidenstam (:sv:Carl Peter von Heidenstam) at Athens in 1840; the second daughter Catherine (born 1815) married John Foster Grierson. Another daughter, Caroline, married Alexandros Rizos Rangavis. Felicia Mary Frances Skene, the religious writer, was the fourth daughter.