Robert Baillie 1602-1662

Robert BAILLIE 1602-1662

Biographical Note

Baillie was born in Glasgow in April 1602, the eldest son of James Baillie, merchant burgess of the city and Helen Gibson. After attending Glasgow High School, he entered Glasgow University in 1617, subsequently gaining his M.A. in 1620. He became a regent in philosophy there in 1625, while also studying for the ministry and acting as tutor to the Earl of Eglinton. He became minister of Kilwinning in Ayrshire in 1631, and married Lilias Fleming the next year. His antipathy to Charles I’s church policy in Scotland grew, and he was a member of the momentous General Assembly of the Church which met at Glasgow in 1638. Thereafter he became associated with the Covenanters, although on the moderate wing, attending to the spiritual needs of their armies. He became a Professor of Divinity at Glasgow in 1642, coupled with being minister of the Tron Church in Glasgow, and was involved in London in the Westminster Assembly, 1643-1647. His wife died in 1653, and he married Helen Strang three years later. Finally, he became Principal of Glasgow University in January 1661 but died in August 1662, unhappy at how Charles II’s church policy in Scotland was developing. Over his life Baillie published a substantial number of theological works pertinent to his particular view of church polity and to his views on contemporary church/state relations in Britain.

Books

Baillie’s library was valued at £2000 Scots at his death, which suggests that he owned well over a thousand items. Unfortunately, detailed information on what he collected is not extant. He bequeathed a Hebrew dictionary and the works of Lucian and Aristotle to the College at Glasgow, and to his wife some Scottish theological material and ‘als many of his awin English bookis as schoe deyris’, but otherwise knowledge of the content of his collection can only be gleaned from mention of titles and authors given in his voluminous published journals and correspondence. Here, controversial Protestant theology and other religious material and ecclesiastical history are preeminent, often acquired from London and the Low Countries; but current newsletters are also mentioned, as well as purchasing works by Descartes (whom he regarded as ‘a very ignorant atheist’).

Sources

• The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie … 1637-1662, edited by David Laing, 3 vols (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842).
• Stevenson, David ‘Robert Baillie (1602-1662), Church of Scotland minister and author’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Scott, Hew Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: the Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, new ed., 7 vols (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1915-1928), II, 116-117, 474; VII, 395-396, 399.