Calderwood, David

CALDERWOOD, DAVID: The historian of the Church of Scotland; b. probably at Dalkeith (7 m. s.e. of Edinburgh) 1575; d. at Jedburgh (40 m. s.e. of Edinburgh) Oct. 29, 1650. He studied at Edinburgh, and in 1604 was ordained minister of Crailing, near Jedburgh. He was a determined opponent of the scheme of King James to introduce prelacy into the Church of Scotland; in 1617 he 341presented a remonstrance to the king, and argued so boldly and successfully in support of his position that he was imprisoned and ultimately ordered to leave the country. He went to Holland (1619), where he lived in quiet and obscurity; at one time it was rumored that he was dead and a false Recantation Directed to Such in Scotland as Refuse Conformity to the Ordinances of the Church, was published and ascribed to him (London, 1622). After the death of James (1625) he returned to Scotland, but did not obtain a charge until 1640, when he was appointed minister at Pencaitland, East Lothian. Gradually he came again into prominence and, with David Dickson and Alexander Henderson, was employed in drawing up the "Directory for Public Worship." In 1648 the General Assembly voted him an annual pension of £800 Scots (£66 13s. 4d. sterling) to enable him to complete his great work, the history of the Kirk of Scotland. He died, however, leaving it still in manuscript, and in three forms; the first and longest is now partially preserved in the British Museum; the second, "a digest of the first," was published with a Life by Thomas Thomson by the Wodrow Society in eight volumes, Edinburgh, 1842–49; the third, another abridgment, was published in 1678 with the title The True History of the Church of Scotland from the Beginning of the Reformation unto the End of the Reign of King James VI. These histories have slight literary merit, but are invaluable as sources, their material having been collected with diligence and fidelity. The most notable of Calderwood's other publications was his Altar of Damascus, or the pattern of the English hierarchy and church obtruded upon the Church of Scotland (Leyden, 1621; Lat. transl., Altare Damascenum, with considerable additions, 1623; 2d ed., 1708), which became later the great storehouse of arguments in favor of Presbyterianism.

Bibliography: Besides the Life, by T. Thomson, prefixed to the Wodrow ed. of the History, and the Preface to vol. viii. of the same, by D. Laing, consult: G. Grub, Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, vols. ii., iii., Edinburgh, 1861; J. Walker, Theology and Theologians of Scotland, ib. 1872; DNB, viii. 244–246.