Adam Blackwood
| Adam Blackwood | |
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Adam Blackwood
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| Born | 1539 Dunfermline, Scotland |
| Died | 1613 Poitiers, France |
| Notable works | Apology for Kings |
Adam Blackwood (1539–1613) was a Scottish author and apologist for Mary, Queen of Scots.
He was born in Dunfermline, Scotland and died in Poitiers, France.
Adam was orphaned at a young age and his education was sponsored by his great uncle, Robert Reid, Bishop of Orkney. Blackwood went to the University of Paris and then on to Toulouse to study civil law, with the direct patronage of Mary, Queen of Scots then in the French Court. In 1567-8 he was a rector of the University of Paris. Blackwood became a practicing lawyer in the Parlement at Poitiers, an appointment in the gift of Mary, awarded in 1579 after the publication of his first polemic, the De Conjunctione Religionis et Imperii. According to his Histoire (1589), Blackwood visited Mary in England.
Blackwood's major work was a critique of George Buchanan's dialogue De Iure Regni apud Scotos, (1579), in which Buchanan had intended to justify to the forced abdication of Mary, Queen of Scots.
After following the study of mathematics, philosophy, and oriental languages, he passed two years at Toulouse, reading civil law. On his return to Paris he begun to employ himself in teaching philosophy. In 1574 he published at Paris a eulogistic memorial poem on Charles IX of France, entitled Caroli IX Pompa Funebris versiculis expressa per A. B. J.C (Juris Consultum), and in 1575, also at Paris, a work on the relation between religion and government, entitled De Vinculo ; seu Conjunctione Religionis et Imperii libri duo, quibus conjurationum traducuntur insidiæ nico religionis adumbratæ. A third book appeared in 1612. The work was dedicated to Queen Mary of Scotland, and, in keeping with his poem commemorating the author of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, was intended to demonstrate the necessity laid upon rulers to extirpate heresy as a phase of rebellion against a divinely constituted authority. The work was so highly esteemed by James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, that he recommended Queen Mary to bestow on him the office of counsellor or judge of the parliament of Poitiers, the province of Poitou having by letters patent from Henry III been assigned to her in payment of a dowry. Some misunderstanding regarding the nature of this office seems to have given rise to the statement of Mackenzie and others that Blackwood was professor of civil law at Poitiers.
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