David Abercromby was a 17th-century Scottish physician and writer, thought to have died in 1702. [1] Brought up at Douai as a Roman Catholic by Jesuit priests, he was converted to Protestantism in 1682 and came to abjure popery, and published Protestancy proved Safer than Popery (1686).
His medical reputation was based on his Tuta ac efficax luis venereae saepe absque mercurio ac semper absque salivatione mercuriali curando methodus (1684) which was translated into French, Dutch and German. Two other works by him were De Pulsus Variatione (1685), and Ars explorandi medicas facultates plantarum ex solo sapore (1688); his Opuscula were collected in 1687. These professional writings gave him a place and memorial in Albrecht von Haller, Bibliotheca Medicinae Practicae (1779). According to Haller he was alive early in the 18th century. [2]
He also wrote some books in theology and philosophy, controversial in their time but little remembered today. But the most noticeable of his productions is A Discourse of Wit (1685), which contains some of the most characteristic metaphysical opinions of the Scottish philosophy of common sense. It was followed by Academia Scientiarum (1687), and by A Moral Discourse of the Power of Interest (1690), dedicated to Robert Boyle, [2] Abercromby's patron in the 1680s. He later wrote Reasons Why A Protestant Should not Turn Papist (1687), which has often wrongly been attributed to Boyle. A Short Account of Scots Divines, by him, was printed at Edinburgh in 1833, edited by James Maidment. [2]
Patrick Abercromby was a Scottish physician and antiquarian, noted for being physician to King James VII and his fervent opposition to the Act of Union between Scotland and England.
Robert Boyle was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of modern chemistry, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. He is best known for Boyle's law, which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system. Among his works, The Sceptical Chymist is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry. He was a devout and pious Anglican and is noted for his writings in theology.
John Tillotson was the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury from 1691 to 1694.
The Vicar of Bray is a satirical description of an individual fundamentally changing his principles to remain in ecclesiastical office as external requirements change around him. The religious upheavals in England from 1533 to 1559 made it impossible for any devout clergyman to comply with all the successive requirements of the established church. The original figure was the vicar Simon Aleyn, although clerics who faced vicissitudes resulted in revised versions of the story.
John Toland was an Irish rationalist philosopher and freethinker, and occasional satirist, who wrote numerous books and pamphlets on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, which are early expressions of the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment. Born in Ireland, he was educated at the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leiden and Oxford and was influenced by the philosophy of John Locke.
The words Popery and Papism are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians to label their Roman Catholic opponents, who differed from them in accepting the authority of the Pope over the Christian Church. The words were popularised during the English Reformation (1532–1559), when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and divisions emerged between those who rejected Papal authority and those who continued to follow Rome. The words are recognised as pejorative; they have been in widespread use in Protestant writings until the mid-nineteenth century, including use in some laws that remain in force in the United Kingdom.
Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in Great Britain, involving bonfires and fireworks displays. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605 O.S., when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. The Catholic plotters had intended to assassinate Protestant king James I and his parliament. Celebrating that the king had survived, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure.
The Cambridge Platonists were an influential group of Platonist philosophers and Christian theologians at the University of Cambridge that existed during the 17th century. The leading figures were Ralph Cudworth and Henry More.
Thomas Barlow was an English academic and clergyman, who became Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, and Bishop of Lincoln. He was seen in his own time and by Edmund Venables in the Dictionary of National Biography to have been a trimmer, and have a reputation mixed with his academic and other writings on casuistry. His views were Calvinist and strongly anti-Catholic – he was among the last English bishops to dub the Pope Antichrist. He worked in the 1660s for "comprehension" of nonconformists, but supported a crackdown in the mid-1680s and declared loyalty to James II of England on his accession, though he had supported the Exclusion Bill, which would have denied it to him.
Samuel Chandler was a British Nonconformist minister and polemicist pamphleteer. He has been called the 'uncrowned patriarch of Dissent' in the latter part of George II's reign.
Edward Stillingfleet was a British Christian theologian and scholar. Considered an outstanding preacher as well as a strong polemical writer defending Anglicanism, Stillingfleet was known as "the beauty of holiness" for his good looks in the pulpit, and was called by John Hough "the ablest man of his time".
Whiggism is a political philosophy that grew out of the Parliamentarian faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651). The Whigs' key policy positions were the supremacy of Parliament, tolerance of Protestant dissenters and opposition to a "Papist" on the throne, especially James II or one of his descendants.
Sir Roger L'Estrange was an English pamphleteer, author, courtier, and press censor. Throughout his life L'Estrange was frequently mired in controversy and acted as a staunch ideological defender of King Charles II's regime during the Restoration era. His works played a key role in the emergence of a distinct 'Tory' bloc during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81. Perhaps his best known polemical pamphlet was An Account of the Growth of Knavery, which ruthlessly attacked the parliamentary opposition to Charles II and his successor James, Duke of York, placing them as fanatics who misused contemporary popular anti-Catholic sentiment to attack the Restoration court and the existing social order in order to pursue their own political ends. Following the Exclusion Crisis and the failure of the nascent Whig faction to disinherit James, Duke of York in favour of Charles II's illegitimate son James, 1st Duke of Monmouth L'Estrange used his newspaper The Observator to harangue his opponents and act as a voice for a popular provincial Toryism during the 'Tory Reaction' of 1681-85. Despite serving as an MP from 1685-89 his stock fell under James II's reign as his staunch hostility to religious nonconformism conflicted with James' goals of religious tolerance for both Catholics and Nonconformists. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the collapse of the Restoration political order heralded the end of L'Estrange's career in public life, although his greatest translation work, that of Aesop's Fables, saw publication in 1692.
Robert Lundy was a Scottish army officer best known for serving as Governor of Londonderry during the early stages of the Siege of Derry.
Thomas Comber (1645–1699) was an English churchman, Dean of Durham from 1689.
Henry Care (1646–1688) was an English political writer and journalist, or "Whig propagandist", whose speciality was anti-Catholicism.
John Scott (1639–1695) was an English clergyman, known as a devotional writer, and a defender of Anglican orthodoxy in his preaching.
William Clagett (1646–1688) was an English clergyman, known as a controversialist.
John Barnard was a supporter of James II of England.
Clan Abercromby is a Lowland Scottish clan. The clan does not currently have a chief, it is considered an armigerous clan.
