arts, which included Latin, logic, rhetoric, ethics, and physics. In 1555 he went to the university of Paris, then at the summit of its reputation, where he studied law—the canon under Peter Rebuffius and the civil under Francis Balduinus. Returning home in 1561 he completed his education under the advice of John Craig, afterwards the coadjutor of Knox, who had just come back from the court of Maximilian to Scotland, and been appointed minister of Holyrood. Having attained a proficiency in classical learning greater than was usual even in that age, Craig was admitted advocate in February 1563, and in the following year received the appointment of justice-depute, whose duty it was, as the representative of the justice-general, then an hereditary office in the family of Argyll, held by Archibald, fifth earl, to preside in the trial of criminal causes. In the exercise of this office Craig held the courts on 1 April 1566 in which Thomas Scott, sheriff-depute of Perth, and Henry Yaire, a priest, servant of Lord Ruthven, were condemned to death for a subordinate part in the murder of Rizzio and treasonable seizure of the queen's person, for which the principal actors were pardoned at the intercession of Darnley; and less than two years later (3 Jan. 1568) he presided over the trial of Stephen Dalgleish, Hay, and Powrie, who met the same fate for their share in the murder of Darnley. He was saved from the ignominy of presiding at the mock assize which acquitted Bothwell, by Argyll in person undertaking that duty. About this time Craig married Helen, younger daughter of Robert Heriot of Lumphoy or Lymphoy, an estate in the parish of Currie in Midlothian. His zeal for law and letters probably kept Craig, who continued through life a diligent student, free from the political intrigues of this corrupt age. On the birth of James VI he published his first work, the ‘Genethliacon,’ a copy of complimentary verses on that event. In 1573, when he was appointed sheriff-depute of Edinburgh, Craig appears to have resigned his office as criminal judge. Neither appointment was inconsistent with practice at the bar, of which Craig enjoyed a fair share. We find him acting as counsel for the king along with the king's advocate in 1592. Three years previously he was one of a committee appointed to regulate the curriculum of the high school of Edinburgh, whose labours resulted in a very learned report (MCCRIE, Life of Melville), and he also served in the assembly of 1589. A considerable portion of his time must have been devoted to preparations for his legal treatises of the ‘Jus Feudale,’ published in 1603; a ‘Treatise on the Right of James VI to the Succession to the English Crown,’ and a ‘Treatise on the Union,’ written between 1603 and 1605, and a tract, ‘De Hominio,’ in 1605. The only one of these published during his life was the ‘Jus Feudale,’ a very learned work, written with the avowed object of showing that the feudal law of Scotland and England had a common origin. It was republished by Mencken at Leipzig in 1716, and for the third time by James Baillie at Edinburgh in 1732, with a preface by Robert Burnet (afterwards Lord Crimond), a Scottish judge, and a brief life of Craig by James Baillie. No clearer statement of the feudal system in its legal relations exists, and it is still, although the law has been much altered, the standard authority in Scotland as to the original condition of its feudal land-law, probably as complete as that of any European country. The ‘Treatise on the Succession,’ like all Craig's works written in Latin, was published in an English translation after his death by James Gatherer in 1703. It was an answer to the jesuit Parsons, who, under the assumed name of Doleman, had written in 1594 ‘A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England,’ in which he supported the title of the infanta of Spain. This work was rigidly suppressed, and the possession of a copy declared high treason. The peaceful accession of James I was probably deemed by Craig to render the publication of his own work unnecessary. The ‘De Hominio,’ designed to prove that Scotland had never done homage to England, was also translated after his death by George Redpath and published by Thomas Rymer. The ‘Treatise on the Union’ is still in manuscript (Adv. Lib. A. 2, 12).
Besides his graver labours Craig found time for occasional efforts in Latin verse, and his poems, the ‘Paræneticon of James VI leaving Scotland,’ the ‘Propempticon to Prince Henry’ on the same occasion, and the ‘ΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΦΟΡΙΑ on the Coronation,’ originally printed in 1603 in Edinburgh, are included in the ‘Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum,’ Amsterdam, 1637. While elegant and spirited, the verses of Craig do not raise him to the first rank of the Latin poets of his time, which was very prolific in this now forgotten department of letters. His fame as an author rests on the ‘Jus Feudale.’ Few events of note have been recorded in the later part of Craig's life. He went with James VI to England in 1603, and was present at his coronation. He is said through modesty to have declined the honour of knighthood, but the king directed that he should receive the title without the usual ceremony. In 1604
