William Forbes (bishop of Edinburgh)

William Forbes (1585–1634) was a Scottish churchman, the first Bishop of Edinburgh.

He was the son of Thomas Forbes, a burgess of Aberdeen, descended from the Corsindac branch of that house, by his wife, Janet, the sister of the botanist James Cargill. Born at Aberdeen in 1585, he was educated at the Marischal College, graduating A.M. in 1601. Very soon after he held the chair of logic in the same college, but resigned it in 1606 to pursue his studies on the continent. He travelled through Poland, Germany, and Holland, studying at several universities, and meeting Scaliger, Grotius, and Vossius. Returning after five years to Britain, he visited Oxford, where he was invited to become professor of Hebrew, but he pleaded ill-health.

Ordained, probably by Bishop Peter Blackburn of Aberdeen, he became minister successively of two rural Aberdeenshire parishes, Alford and Monymusk; in November 1616 (pursuant to a nomination of the general assembly) he was appointed one of the ministers of Aberdeen; and at the Perth assembly in 1618 was selected to defend the lawfulness of the article there proposed for kneeling at the holy communion. In the same year, in a formal dispute between him and Aidie, then principal of Marischal College, he maintained the lawfulness of prayers for the dead. Such doctrines would not have been tolerated elsewhere in Scotland, but in Aberdeen they were received with favour, and on Aidie's enforced resignation in 1620 the town council of the city, who were patrons of Marischal College, made him the principal, specifying that he should continue his preaching.

In the end of 1621 he was chosen one of the ministers of Edinburgh. His zeal for the observance of the Perth articles was distasteful to many, and when he taught that the doctrines of the Catholics and the Reformed could in many points be easily reconciled, there was disorder. Five of the ringleaders were dealt with by the privy council; but Forbes felt that his ministry at Edinburgh was a failure, and more trouble arising from his preaching in support of the superiority of bishops over presbyters, he returned to Aberdeen, where in 1626 he resumed his former post.

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