ROSIER, JAMES (1575–1635), one of the early English voyagers to America, born in 1575, sailed with Bartholomew Gosnold [q. v.] on his voyage to New England in March–July 1602, and with George Weymouth [q. v.] on his voyage in March–July 1605. Of the last voyage he published in 1605 ‘A True Relation of Captain George Waymouth his Voyage made this present Year, 1605, in the Discovery of the North Part of Virginia.’ This voyage was really made to the coast of Maine. Rosier's account has been three times reprinted in America—by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1843, by George Prince, Maine, in 1860, and by Henry Burrage for the Gorges Society in 1887 (the completest edition). Though writing accurately and carefully, Rosier speaks some what obscurely of the localities visited by Weymouth, in order that foreign navigators might not profit too much by his narration.
Rosier is said by Purchas (iv. pp. 1646–1653) to have also written an account of Gosnold's voyage and presented it to Walter Raleigh, but this is a mistake, as the treatise in question was by John Brereton (Burrage, p. 37). He died in 1635.
[Rosier's True Relation, 1605, as cited, republished in Purchas IV; cf. Burrage's edition of 1887; Brown's Genesis of U.S.A. pp. 26–7, 35, 829, 988, 1009.]
ROSS, Duke of. [See Stewart, James, 1476–1504, archbishop of St. Andrews.]
ROSS, Earls of. [See Macdonald, Donald, ninth earl, d. 1420?; Macdonald, Alexander, tenth earl, d. 1449; Macdonald, John, eleventh earl, d. 1498?]
ROSS, Mother (1667–1739), female soldier. [See Davies, Christian.]
ROSS, ALEXANDER (1590–1654), miscellaneous writer, was born at Aberdeen in 1590, and seems to have entered King's College, Aberdeen, in 1604 (Fasti Aberdonenses, Spalding Club, 1854, p. 450). In 1641 he said he had studied divinity thirty-six years. About 1616 he succeeded Thomas Parker in the mastership of the free school at Southampton (Wood, Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 241), an appointment which he owed to Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford. By 1622 he had been appointed, through Laud's influence, one of Charles I's chaplains, and in that year appeared 'The First and Second Book of Questions and Answers upon the Book of Genesis, by Alexander Ross of Aberdeen, preacher at St. Mary's, near Southampton, and one of his Majesty's Chaplains.' In the dedication of 'Mel Heliconium' (1642) to William, marquis of Hertford, Ross spoke of that nobleman's grandfather as 'the true Maecenas of my young Muse whilst he lived.' In the same year, in the preface to a sermon, 'God's House made a den of thieves,' preached at Southampton, he said he had spent almost twenty-six years there, diligently and inoffensively, and was now about to depart from them. He was made vicar of Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, by Charles I, being the last vicar presented before the patronage passed to Queen's College, Oxford (Woodward, History of Hampshire, ii. 360). In 'Pansebeia, or a View of all Religions in the World … together with a discovery of all known Heresies ' (7 June 1653), Ross gave a list of his books, past and to come. He died in 1654 at Bramshill, where he was living with Sir Andrew Henley, and in the neighbouring Eversley church there are two tablets to his memory, one on the chancel wall, and one on the floor over the grave, with a punning inscription by himself, for which he left directions in his will (P. C. C., 93 Alchin), made on 21 Feb. 1653-4. Ross left to the town of Southampton o2L, the interest to go to the schoolmaster. The interest of 50l. was to go to the poor householders of All Saints' parish, Southampton, and 25/. was left to the parish of Carisbrooke for the poor. The senate of Aberdeen University received 200l. for the maintenance of two poor scholars, and 50l. for two poor men in the hospital. Besides small legacies, 100l. was left to each of his brother George's four daughters, and 700l. to his nephew, William Ross, to be laid out on Suffield Farm. The university libraries at Oxford and Cambridge received legacies, and Ross's books were left to his friend Henley, who was an executor and guardian to the nephew, William Ross. Ross wished his sermons and manuscripts to be printed. Echard says he died very rich. In the library at Bramshill the executor is said to have found, mostly between the pages of the books, 1,000l. in gold (Wood, Athenae Oxon. ii. 241).
Among Ross's friends and patrons were Lord Rockingham, the Earl of Thanet, the Earl of Arundel and Surrey, and John Evelyn, who twice mentions the old 'historian and poet ' (Diary, 11 July 1649, 1 Feb. 1652-3). Two of his letters are in Evelyn's ' Correspondence ' (iii. 56-7); and his correspondence with Henry Oxenden [q. v.], in English and Latin, is in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 28001, 28003, 28009). Portraits of Ross are prefixed to several of his books. One by P. Lombart, taken at the age of sixty-three, is in 'Pansebeia, or a View of all Religions,' 1653; another, a whole
