Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Charteris, Henry (1565-1628)
CHARTERIS, HENRY, the younger (1565–1628), minister and principal of the university of Edinburgh, eldest son of Henry Charteris, Scottish printer [q. v.], was educated at the university and graduated as M.A. in 1587, having been a student of the first class taught by Rollock, which numbered four future professors, two of whom, Charteris and Patrick Sands, became principals. Ten years after, on the death of Rollock, Charteris was appointed principal, having been recommended to the office by Rollock on his deathbed. To the principalship was then attached the professorship of divinity, and the salary, which had been four hundred, was increased in 1601 to six hundred marks. In 1617, when James I visited Scotland, a disputation was held before him at Stirling Castle by the professors of the university, but the modesty of Charteris led him to decline to take part in it. Among the royal puns on this occasion upon the names of the professors that on Charteris is said to have been, 'His name agreeth very well unto nature, for charters contain much matter yet say nothing, but put great purposes in men's mouths.' On 20 March 1620 Charteris resigned his office, having been called to be minister of North Leith. On 19 April 1627 he was recalled to fill the chair of professor of divinity, with a salary of a thousand merks and a house. He died in July 1628. He is described as a man of much learning, but the same modesty which prevented him from disputing before the king led him to write nothing except a revision of the Latin life by Robertson, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, his master and friend, Principal Rollock, published by the Wodrow Society in 1826.
[Dalzell's and Grant's Histories of the University of Edinburgh; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. i. 93; Wodrow edition of Rollock's Works.]