23 Facts About George Buchanan

George Buchanan was a Scottish historian and humanist scholar.

The importance of George Buchanan's writings is shown by the suppression of his work by James VI and the British legislature in the century following their publication.

George Buchanan's mother, Agnes Heriot, was of the family of the Heriots of Trabroun, East Lothian, of which George Buchanan Heriot, founder of Heriot's Hospital, was a member.

In 1522 his uncle died, and George Buchanan, who was at that time severely ill, was unable to stay in Paris and returned to Scotland.

George Buchanan had gone there mainly to attend the lectures of John Mair on logic; and when Mair moved to Paris, Buchanan followed him in 1526.

George Buchanan added to that prestige by creating new reforms in teaching Latin.

George Buchanan resigned his regentship in 1531, and in 1532 became tutor to Gilbert Kennedy, 3rd Earl of Cassilis, with whom he returned to Scotland early in 1537 having acquired a great reputation for learning.

At this period George Buchanan assumed the same attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church as Erasmus: he did not repudiate its doctrines, but considered himself free to criticise its practice.

Gouveia was then principal of the newly founded College of Guienne, and by his influence George Buchanan was appointed professor of Latin.

In 1547 George Buchanan joined the band of French and Portuguese humanists who had been invited by Gouveia to lecture in the Portuguese University of Coimbra.

George Buchanan defended himself, admitting that some of the charges were true.

George Buchanan then sailed for England, but soon made his way to Paris, where in 1553 he was appointed regent in the College of Boncourt.

George Buchanan remained in that post for two years, and then accepted the office of tutor to the son of the Marechal de Brissac.

George Buchanan was the last lay person to be elected Moderator until Alison Elliot in 2004, the first female Moderator.

George Buchanan sought to turn James into a God-fearing, Protestant king who accepted the limitations of monarchy, as outlined in his treatise De Jure Regni apud Scotos.

George Buchanan appears to have continued in this office for some years, at least until 1579.

George Buchanan's style is not rigidly modelled on that of any classical author, but has a freshness and elasticity of its own.

George Buchanan wrote Latin as if it were his mother tongue.

George Buchanan had a rich vein of poetical feeling, and much originality of thought.

George Buchanan's purpose was to "purge" the national history "of sum Inglis lyis and Scottis vanite".

George Buchanan said that it would "content few and displease many"; in fact, its matter gave so much offence that a proclamation was issued calling in all copies of it, as well as of the De Jure Regni, that they might be purged of the "offensive and extraordinary matters" which they contained.

George Buchanan holds his great and unique place in literature not so much for his own writings as for his strong and lasting influence on subsequent writers.

George Buchanan's influence was notable by 1726 when Andrew Millar, a prominent 18th-century bookseller, took over James McEuen's bookshop in London at the sign of 'Buchanan's Head, Temple Bar'.