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The Fife Adventurer

Son of John Durie, and therefore a second cousin to Abbot George Durie and Bishop Andrew Durie, Robert had an interesting life.

Born probably in 1555, first or second son of John Durie, he studied at St Mary’s College, St Andrews. He accompanied his brother-in-law, James Melville to the Parliament at Linlithgow 1st December 1585, and also to Berwick in September 1586. He became assistant to the schoolmaster of Dunfermline, was admitted to the parish of Abercrombie [St Monans] in 1588, presented to the vicarage by James VI, and transferred on 1st February 1592 to the office of portership of the outer port of the Abbey of Dunfermline for life. This may well have been an honorific title, which he held alongside his pastoral duties in Anstruther.

But his most lasting contributions to history were twofold: first, when he accompanied the Association of Adventurers to the isle ofLewis in Oct. 1598 to further a scheme for colonising that island (more on this here); and second, when he instituted the Scots Kirk in Leyden (see below).

In May 1601 Robert was commissioned by the Assembly, along with Robert Pont, to visit Orkney and Shetland, of which he gave a report to the following General Assembly. On 2nd July 1605 he attended, as a member, the Assembly at Aberdeen after it had been forbidden by the King. For this he was charged before the Privy Council on 2nd August, and imprisoned with three others at Blackness. He and five others were tried at Linlithgow on 10th January 1606 for treasonably declining the jurisdiction of the Council and holding the Assembly as aforesaid, and on 23rd October he was found guilty and sentenced to banishment for life from the King’s dominions.

This led directly to the long-standing ecclesiastical influence of Scots on Holland. Robert embarked at Leith on 7th November 1606, landed at Bordeaux and proceeded to Holland. Leyden University was so popular with the Scots from 1575 onwards that in 1609 the State of Holland and the magistrates of Leyden endowed a Scots Kirk for the Scottish exiles there, with Robert Durie as its first minister. In the 18th Century 2000 British students studied medicine there under the celebrated Boerhaave. The rise of Edinburgh medical school led to the decay of Leyden and the church, which suffered accordingly, was suppressed in 1805.

Robert married Elizabeth Ramsay and they had seven children, including the famous John Durie, later minister of the English Merchants’ or Court Kirk at Rotterdam, well known for his endeavours to accomplish a union between the various Protestant sects of Europe.
 

Robert died in September 1616 in Leyden, survived by his wife and children

The Fife Adventurers
In October 1598 Robert Durie accompanied the Fife Adventurers to Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides. Click here for the full story, in a pop-up window.