Series 2 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society

INTRODUCTION
James Atkine,1 to whom the following letters were
written, was Bishop of Galloway from 6th February 1680
to the date of his death. He died in Edinburgh at the
age of seventy-four on the 15th November 1687.
It is not proposed to give here an exhaustive account
of the Bishop’s life, but it may be useful to record that he
was born about the year 1613, and was the son of the
Commissary and Sheriff-Clerk of Orkney. He graduated
Master of Arts at Edinburgh in 1636, and studied div¬
inity at Oxford from 1637 to 1638. He held the living
of Birsay and Harray in Orkney from 1641 to 1649. He
married Alison Rutherford of Hunthill, Jedburgh, in 1648,
and had three daughters :—
Lillias, who married Patrick Smyth, advocate; Marion,
who married William Smith, minister of Moneydie;
Alison, who married Duncan Robertson, Sheriff-Clerk of
Argyll.
After being in Holland for three years, he resided in
Edinburgh from 1653 to 1660. He was minister of
Winfrith, Dorsetshire, from 1661 to 1676, the Bishop of
Moray from 1676 to 1679, and he became Bishop of
Galloway on 6th February 1680, which office he held till
the date of his death, 1687.
While Bishop of Galloway he was given a special dis¬
pensation to reside in Edinburgh, it being thought ‘ un-
1 This name has been written in various ways. Anthony a Wood has it
Etkins or Atkins, Dr. Thomas Murray as Aiken or Aitken, John A. Inglis as
Atkine or Atkins, and the endorsement of one of the present documents is
Aitkin.
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