Robert Blair

Emigrants memorial, Larne commemorating the first ship to leave Larne for America in 1717. The Eagle Wing left Groomsport in 1636 and was over halfway there when they turned back. (The Mayflower sailed in 1620).

Robert Blair (1593 – 27 August 1666) was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who became a Westminster Divine and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1646. A supporter of the Scottish Reformation, he refused to follow the episcopal church, and preached as a Covenanter.

Life

Early life He was a native of Irvine, Ayrshire. His father was a merchant-adventurer, John Blair of Windyedge. this was seen as a presbyterian work, rather than episcopalian, and he was suspended from his post in 1631. He was deposed in 1632 for nonconformity. This was due to another disagreement with his Bishop regarding Episcopalian hierarchy.

In the Second Bishops' War of 1640, Blair accompanied the Scottish army on its march into England. He assisted in the negotiations for the treaty of peace presented by Charles I on 8 November 1641. After the Irish Rebellion of 1641 he once more went to Ireland with several other clergymen of the Scottish kirk, the Irish general assembly (presbyterian) having petitioned for supplies for their vacant charges. He afterwards returned to St. Andrews.

In 1645 he attended the lord president Robert Spottiswoode and others to the scaffold. In the same year, he was one of the Scottish ministers who went to Newcastle to speak very plainly to the king. In 1646 he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (3 June). Later, on the death of Alexander Henderson, he was appointed chaplain-in-ordinary to the king, supported by the revenues of the Chapel Royal. The Commission of the General Assembly, in 1648, named him one of those for 'endeavouring to get Cromwell to establish a uniformity of religion in England.'

At the division of the church, in 1650, into Resolutioners and Protesters, he leaned to the former, but lamented the strife. Summoned with others to London in 1654, that 'a method might be devised for settling affairs of the church', he pleaded ill-health and declined to go. In the same year he was appointed by the council of England 'one of those for the admission to the ministry in Perth, Fife, and Angus.'

Later life

At the Restoration, he came under the notice of Archbishop James Sharp, had to resign his charge in September 1661, and was banned from being within 20 miles of St Andrews. He was confined to certain places, first of all to Musselburgh, afterwards to Kirkcaldy (where he remained three and a half years), and finally to Meikle Couston near Aberdour. As a Covenanter he preached outdoors.

He died at Aberdour on 27 August 1666, and was buried in the parish churchyard, his stone being on the south side of the ruined church.

Family Blair was married twice;

(1) on 16 July 1626, Beatrix (died July 1632, aged 27), daughter of Robert Hamilton, merchant, burgess of Edinburgh. They had three children - James, one of the ministers of Dysart; Robert; and Jean, who married William Row, minister of Ceres.

(2) Katherine, daughter of Hugh Montgomerie of Braidstane, Viscount Airds. They had nine children - William; David, minister of Old Kirk Parish, Edinburgh (father of Robert Blair, minister of Athelstane-ford, poet and author of The Grave); Samuel; John, writer; Archibald; Alexander; Andrew; Montgomery; Hugh, merchant, (grandfather of Dr. Hugh Blair); and Catherine (married George Campbell, minister of Old Kirk, Edinburgh, and Professor of Divinity).

Works Autobiography was published by the Wodrow Society (1848); fragments were published in 1754. Preface to Durham's Treatise on Scandal. Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, (ready but not published) Answer to Bishop Hall's Remonstrance, ready for the Press, but these were never published.