Series 1 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (Second volume)

318
BURNET-LEIGHTON PAPERS
at least in some measure with the fervour of his new con¬
nections, and the fact that he was entrusted with the
education of his young brother-in-law, Ai’chibald, renders this
the more certain. Nor is it difficult to realise the probable
point of contact. Robert Burnet, we learn, was ‘ in high
esteem for the exemplary strictness of his life ’;1 and would
be thus naturally attracted by the rigour and earnestness of
Puritan morality.
Nor were other motives wanting. His stay in France must
have brought him into contact with Huguenot puritanism.
Moreover, though favourable to a moderate episcopacy, Mr.
Burnet strongly dissented from the ecclesiastical policy of
the Laudian movement, which began soon after his marriage;
and despite his personal friendship for Sydserfe, Bishop of
Galloway,2 his dissatisfaction with the prevailing methods
avowedly hindered him from pursuing his favourite project
of abandoning the practice of the law for holy orders.
Indeed his sentiments on this head were so openly expressed,
that at the breaking out of the troubles in 1637 he was
considered one of the malcontent party.3
But the motives which may be regarded as urging Robert
Burnet in the strictly Puritan direction were held in check
by influences no less cogent, and opposite in their tendency.
If, as we may presume, his vacations were spent at Crimond,
such sojourns must have brought him into renewed contact
with a religious society differing greatly from the Puritanism
of his Edinburgh connections. Aberdeen was, we might
almost say, the centre of moderate Episcopalianism; and
we know from Gilbert Burnet that his father had a high
admiration for the ‘Apostolic’ Patrick Forbes, Bishop of
Aberdeen from 1617 to 1634, and for William Forbes,
the famous preacher, the advocate of a compromise between
1 Supplement to Burnet's History, p. 453. 2 Infra, p. 322.
8 Supplement to Burnet, p. 453; Lives of the Hamiltons, ed. 1852, p. ix.