Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bellenden, Adam
BELLENDEN, ADAM (d. 1639?),bishop of Dunblane and Aberdeen, was second son of Sir John Bellenden [q. v.] of Auchinoul, lord justice clerk, and brother of Sir Lewis Bellenden [q. v.], also lord justice clerk. He studied at the university of Edinburgh, took the degree of M.A. there on 1 Aug. 1590, and continued in residence for some time after. He was on ‘the Exercise;’ obtained a ‘testimonial’ on 12 June 1593, was ordained 19 July following; was a member of the general assembly of the kirk of Scotland in 1602, and was one of the brethren ‘who met at Linlithgow 10 Jan. 1606 in conference with the imprisoned members previous to their trial for declining the authority of the sovereign in causes spiritual.’ At a later convention in the same place on the following 10 Dec. he proposed a protestation that it should not be held as a general assembly. In 1608 he was minister of the parish of Falkirk (Stirlingshire). He attended the convention at Falkland in 1609, and was ‘suspended’ 16 Nov. 1614. He was released; the sentence was taken off 18 Jan. 1614–15, and on 22 Feb. he was enjoined ‘to wait more diligently on his flock in preparing them for the communion.’ He ‘demitted’ his parish of Falkirk and his status as a clergyman of the presbyterian church of Scotland in July 1616. He was thereupon appointed to the bishopric of Dunblane (1616), although he had hitherto been violently opposed to episcopacy, and was one of the forty-two presbyterian ministers who signed a protest to parliament against its introduction (1 July 1606). He was consequently censured for accepting this preferment. In 1621 he still appears as bishop of Dunblane. He was succeeded there by Wedderburn in 1636, having been in 1635 translated to the bishopric of Aberdeen. In 1638 he was, in common with all the Scottish bishops, deprived of his see on the abolition of episcopacy in Scotland by the Glasgow assembly. He is believed to have retreated to England, and to have died there in 1638–9.
[Scott's Fasti, i. 186, 353; Keith's Catalogue (1824), 132; Douglas's Peerage, ii.; Melvill's Autob.; Presby. Stirling and Synod Reg.; Boke of the Kirke; Row, Calderwood's Hist. i.; Forbes's Records; Select Biogr. (Wodrow Society), i.; Edin. Grad.; Sir Alexander Grant's Story of first 300 years of Edinburgh University, 1884; researches at Falkirk.]