stipends of certain ministers within his diocese, and with allowing himself to be put to the horn for not settling the claims of his creditors. It was further alleged that he had failed to supply two gallons of wine for the celebration of communion. At the time when these charges were occupying the assembly's attention, the poet Du Bartas was in Scotland; and the king, for the amusement and edification of his distinguished guest, determined that a disputation should take place between the rival champions, Andrew Melville and Adamson. Word was sent to Melville that the king and Du Bartas would attend his lecture in the class-room. Melville replied that the lecture had been just delivered; but this excuse would not serve, and within an hour's space he had to lecture again. Adamson listened to the address, which dealt with the recent legislation against the kirk, and the next morning delivered a discourse in defence of the episcopal system. Melville followed with a second address, in which he directed his argument not against Adamson, but against certain popish writers, whose opinions on church-government bore a marked resemblance to the views propounded by the archbishop. At the close of the lecture Adamson was too dismayed to make any reply, but the king came to his aid with a rambling pedantic dissertation. It should be added that this curious narrative rests solely on the authority of Adamson's opponent, James Melville.
In August 1588 Adamson was once more assailed by the assembly, the charges being that he had solemnised the marriage of the Earl of Huntley with the daughter of the Duke of Lennox, and that he had abstracted some entries and mutilated others in the assembly's registers. As he did not appear in person to answer these charges, the matter was referred to the presbytery at Edinburgh, who excommunicated him—a sentence which was confirmed by the general assembly. His situation was now one of some difficulty. The king, whose help had been so useful in the past, now deserted him, and granted the revenue of the see to the Duke of Lennox. It was in vain that Adamson tried to gain favour by dedicating to James Latin translations of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the Book of Revelation, both published in 1590. Weighed down by sickness and poverty, he appealed in his distress to his old opponent, Andrew Melville, who, moved by pity, induced the presbytery of St. Andrews to remit the sentence of excommunication on condition that Adamson should make a free confession of his errors. On 8 April the archbishop's signature was obtained for the Recantation, and on 12 May for an Answer to and Refutation of the book falsely called the ‘King's Declaration;’ a ratification of both being exacted from him on 10 June. The episcopal writers affirm that the Recantation and Answer are purely fictitious, and that the archbishop was induced to sign documents of which the contents were misrepresented. The earliest printed edition of the papers is dated 1598. They were afterwards turned into Latin, and printed at the end of Melvin's ‘Poemata,’ 1620. If, as is probably the case, the Recantation is spurious, Adamson was merely served as he had served his opponent Lawson, who, dying in the full conviction of the truth of presbyterian principles, was represented by the archbishop—who actually forged a testament to that effect—to have abjured presbyterianism and to have exhorted his brethren on his deathbed to embrace the episcopal system (Calderwood). Adamson died on 19 Feb. 1592, a few months before the passing of the ‘Ratification of the Liberty of the True Kirk,’ a measure which secured the triumph of his adversaries.
His character has been variously estimated. ‘A man he was of great learning,’ says Spottiswood (vi. 385), ‘and a most persuasive preacher, but an ill administrator of the church patrimony.’ Wilson, his son-in-law, styles him ‘divinus theologus, linguæ sacræ sui temporis coryphæus, politioris omnis disciplinæ et scientiæ thesaurus,’ and so on. His ability was allowed even by his enemies. James Melville's words are: ‘This man had many great gifts, but especially excelled in the tongue and pen; and yet for abusing of the same against Christ, all use of both the one and the other was taken from him, when he was in greatest misery and had most need of them.’
By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Arthur, of Kernis, he had two sons, James and Patrick, and a daughter, who became the wife of Thomas Wilson, advocate. In 1619 his collected works were published by his son-in-law, under the title of ‘Reverendissimi in Christo Patris Patricii Adamsoni, Sancti-Andreæ in Scotia Archiepiscopi dignissimi ac doctissimi, Poemata Sacra, cum aliis opusculis; studio ac industria Tho. Voluseni, J. C., expolita et recognita,’ Londini, 4to. With the exception of ‘Jobus,’ a Latin version of the Book of Job, most of the pieces in this collection had been printed during the author's lifetime. ‘Jobus,’ with the Latin versions of the Decalogue (from book ii. of the Catechism) and the Lamentations of
