Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Galloway, Patrick
GALLOWAY, PATRICK (1551?–1626?), Scottish divine, was born about 1551. In 1576 he was appointed minister of the parishes of Foulis Easter and Longforgan, Perthshire. On 14 Nov, 1580 he was called to the Middle Church at Perth, and admitted on 24 April 1581. In June 1582 James VI came to Perth with his favourite, Esme Stuart, first duke of Lennox. Lennox had possessed himself of the revenues of the see of Glasgow, having prevailed on Robert Montgomery, minister of Stirling, to become a 'tulchan bishop,' with a pension of eight hundred marks. Galloway preached about this transaction; the privy council sustained his right to do so; yet Lennox obtained an order forbidding Galloway to preach so long as the king stayed in Perth. He went to Kinnoul and preached there, and again preached before the king at Stirling, after the raid of Ruthven, on 22 Aug. 1582. He was suspected of being privy to the plot of this famous raid, which issued in the banishment of Lennox. The king's other favourite, James Stewart, earl of Arran, kept his eye on Galloway, and at length, in April 1584, got an order for his apprehension. He kept out of the way, hiding for some time in the neighbourhood of Dundee. Hearing that his house in Perth had been searched, he fled to England in May. Here he preached in London, and afterwards in Newcastle-on-Tyne. In November 1585 he was permitted to return to his charge in Perth. The general assembly appointed him in 1586 visitor for Perthshire, and in 1588 visitor for Dunkeld and Perth.
Galloway, though no courtier, was a moderate man in church matters, and on this account found favour with the king, who employed him in editing some religious writings from his royal pen, sent for him to Edinburgh in 1590, and made him on 18 March minister in the royal household. On 4 Aug. of the same year he was elected moderator of the general assembly. He openly rebuked the king on 3 Dec. 1592 for bringing in Arran to his counsels. He refused to subscribe the 'band,' or engagement, by which James sought on 20 Dec. 1596 to bind ministers not to preach against the royal authority, objecting that the existing pledges of loyalty were sufficient. After the Gowrie conspiracy in August 1600, he twice preached before the king, at the cross of Edinburgh on 11 Aug., and at Glasgow on 31 Aug. maintaining the reality of the danger which the king had escaped. Calderwood says that his first 'harangue' did not persuade many, partly because he was a flattering preacher and partly because he named 'Andro Aendersoune' as the armed man in the study and the king denied this. On 10 Nov. 1602 Galloway was again chosen moderator of the general assembly.
In January 1604 he was in attendance on James at Hampton Court, and acted as the medium of a communication from the Edinburgh presbytery to the king, in reference to the conference held in that month between the hierarchy and the representatives of the 'millenary' petitioners. Galloway was present during the actual conference. Of the preliminary proceedings on 12 Jan., when the king and privy council met the bishops and deans in private, he gives a hearsay account, which, brief as it is, throws more light on the attitude of the hierarchy than is shed by the official narrative of William Barlow (d. 1613) [q. v.] Galloway represents the bishops as arguing with great earnestness that to make any alterations in the prayer-book would be tantamount to admitting that popish recusants and deprived puritans had suffered for refusing submission to what 'now was confessed to be erroneous.' His statement of the 'great fervency' with which James urged instances of 'corruptions' in the Anglican church is confirmed by the remark, ascribed to Lancelot Andrewes [q. v.], that the king 'did wonderfully play the puritan for five hours,' though of this Barlow gives no hint.
Galloway was popular as a preacher, and his services were sought in 1606 as one of the ministers of St. Giles's, Edinburgh; first on 3 June by the town council, then on 12 Sept. by the sessions of the four congregations which met in different parts of the edifice. He was not, however, appointed till the end of June 1607. In 1610, and again in 1615 and 1619, he was a member of the high commission court. On 27 June 1617 he signed the protestation for the liberties of the kirk, directed against the legislative measures by which James sought to override the authority of the general assembly. The most obnoxious of these measures having been with drawn, Galloway withdrew his protest. He gave a warm support to the five articles of Perth in August 1618, and did his best to carry out at St. Giles's in 1620 the article which enjoined kneeling at the communion. Of his last years little is known, and the exact date of his death is uncertain. It occurred before 10 Feb. 1626, and probably in January of that year, though it has been placed as early as 1624. He is described as 'a man of manie pensions,' some of which came from the abbey revenues of Scone, Perthshire. He was twice married: first in May 1583 to Matillo Guthrie (d. 1592); secondly, to Mary, daughter of James Lawson, minister at Edinburgh. He left two sons and two daughters. His eldest son, Sir James Galloway of Carnbee, Fifeshire, was created Baron Dunkeld in 1645. His grandson, the third baron, was outlawed in 1689 after Killiecran-kie, and the title forfeited; he became a field officer in the French army, an example followed by his only son, with whom the line expired.
Galloway published:
- 'Catechisme,' London, 1588, 8vo (Watt).
- 'A Short Discourse of the … late attempts at his Majesty's person,' Edinburgh, 1600, 12mo.
Posthumous were:
- 'The Apology … when he fled to England' (1584);
- and 5, the substance of his two sermons before James in 1600; and
- his letter (10 Feb. 1604) to the Edinburgh presbytery, describing the Hampton Court conference; all first printed in Calderwood (1678).
For James VI he edited 'A Fruitefull Meditation,' &c. (on Rev. xx.), 1588, 4to, and 'A Meditation,' &c. (on 1 Chron. xv.), 1589, 4to.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scotic.; Neal's Hist. Puritans, 1822, ii. 10 sq.; Bannatyne Miscell. 1827, i. 139 sq.; Cardwell's Hist. of Conferences, 1841, p. 212 sq.; Calderwood's Hist. Kirk of Scotland, 1842-9, iv. 110, v. 118, 521, vi. 50, 77, 241, vii. 436, &c.; Grub's Eccl. Hist. of Scotland, 1861, ii. 226 sq.; Anderson's Scottish Nation, 1870, ii. 105.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.131
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 386 | ii | 28 | Galloway, Patrick: for 12 Jan. read 14 Jan. |