treatise entitled ‘Ad expediendos Processvs in Jvdiciis ecclesiasticis Appendix Parallelorum Juris Diuini Humanique,’ Leyden, 4to, dedicated to David Black and Robert Wall, ministers at St. Andrews, in which he distinguished between forms used in civil courts and those which ought to be used in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In May he dedicated to John Kennedy, fifth earl of Cassillis [q. v.], a third treatise, published at Middelburg, entitled ‘Ars domandarvm Pertvrbationvm ex solo Dei verbo quasi transcripti constrvcta.’ Though these works were published in the Netherlands, the dedication to Cassillis is dated from St. Andrews. Welwood probably remained in Scotland while printing his books on the continent to avoid the notice of the privy council.
His views concerning ecclesiastical prerogatives, however, were too pronounced to escape notice, and in 1597 he was removed from his professorship by the royal visitors on the allegation that ‘he had transgressed the foundation in sundry points.’ The visitors then proceeded to declare ‘that the profession of the laws is no ways necessary at this time in this university,’ and suppressed the class altogether. In 1600 the king, out of his ‘frie favour and clemency, decerned Mr. Wm. Walwood to be repossessed in the lawyer's plece and professioun in the auld college of Sanctandrous, upon his giving sufficient bond and security for his dutiful behaviour.’ Welwood did not, however, receive restitution at that date, and it is doubtful whether he was ever replaced.
About the beginning of 1613 Welwood was in London, whence he wrote to Andrew Melville, then at Sedan, informing him of the death of Prince Henry. In that year he published a second manual of maritime law, entitled ‘An Abridgement of all Sea-Lawes’ (London, 4to), in which he compared the traditional codes of Oléron and Wisby with the principles of the Roman civil code. The work was dedicated to James I. Another edition appeared in 1636 (London, 8vo), and it was reprinted in 1686, without the author's name, in an edition of the ‘Consuetudo vel Mercatoria Lex’ of Gerard de Malynes. In January 1615–16 he republished a Latin version in quarto of the part relating to the question of maritime supremacy under the title ‘De Dominio Maris Juribusque ad Dominium præcipue spectantibus Assertio brevis et methodica,’ in which he upheld the English pretensions to supremacy in the narrow seas. Another edition was published at The Hague in 1653, and drew from Dirk Graswinkel, a native of Holland, the reply ‘Maris liberi Vindiciæ adversus G. Welwodum Britannici maritimi Dominii Assertorem,’ The Hague, 1653, 4to. Welwood's latest extant work appeared in 1622. It was entitled ‘Dubiorum quæ tam in foro poli quam in foro fori occurrere [sic] solent, breuis expeditio,’ London, 8vo.
[Welwood's Works; McCrie's Life of Andrew Melville, 1856; Diary of James Melvill (Wodrow Soc.), pp. 272–5; Dickson and Edmund's Annals of Scottish Printing, 1890.]
WEMYSS, DAVID, third Earl of Wemyss (1678–1720), baptised on 29 April 1678, was the son of Sir James Wemyss of Caskieberry, who was created a life peer as Lord Burntisland, and died in 1685 [see under Wemyss, James, (1610?–1667)]. His mother was Margaret, countess of Wemyss (1659–1705), only surviving daughter of David Wemyss, second earl of Wemyss (see below). The family was in possession of the lands of Wemyss, Fifeshire, originally part of the estate of Macduff, in the twelfth century. In 1290 Sir Michael de Wemyss was included in the embassy to bring Margaret, the Maid of Norway, to Scotland; and among other notable members of the family were Sir David, who signed the letter to the pope in 1320 asserting the independence of Scotland; Sir John, who assisted in repulsing an attempt of the English to land in Fife in 1547, and in 1568 joined the association in support of Queen Mary after her escape from Lochleven; and Sir John, created a baronet of Nova Scotia, with the grant of New Wemyss in that province, 29 May 1625, created Lord Wemyss of Elcho 1 April 1628, and Earl of Wemyss, Lord Elcho and Methil 25 June 1633, and appointed in 1641 high commissioner to the general assembly which met at Edinburgh on 23 July; he died on 22 Nov. 1649. His only son, the grandfather of the third earl,
David Wemyss, second Earl (1610–1679), while Lord Elcho, commanded a regiment of Fifeshire infantry in the Scots campaign of August 1640; in 1644 at the head of about six thousand men he was routed by Montrose at Tippermuir (1 Sept.), and in August next year he was on the covenanting committee who made the blunder of giving battle to Montrose at Kilsyth, and his detachment was one of the first to take flight (Gardiner, Civil War, ii. 297). He died at Wemyss Castle in July 1679, leaving issue one daughter, the third earl's mother. He did much to develop the mineral resources of the Wemyss estates, and built the harbour of Methil, which for a long period was one of the best on the Fife coast.
The third Earl of Wemyss, in succession
