Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Row, John (1569-1646)
ROW, JOHN (1569–1646), historian of the kirk of Scotland, third surviving son of John Row (1525?–1580) [q. v.], Scottish reformer, and Margaret Beaton of Balfour, was born at Perth about the end of December 1568, and baptised on 6 Jan. 1568–9. He received his early instruction from his father, and such was his precocity that at the age of seven he had mastered Hebrew, and was accustomed to read daily at dinner or supper a chapter of the Old Testament in the original. On being sent to the grammar school of Perth, he instructed the master in Hebrew, who on this account was accustomed to call him Magister John Row. On the death of his father in 1580, Row, then about twelve years of age, received, as did his brother William [q. v.], a friar's pension from the King's hospital at Perth. Subsequently he obtained an appointment as schoolmaster at Kennoway, and tutor to his nephews, the sons of Beaton of Balfour, whom he accompanied in 1586 to Edinburgh, enrolling himself as student in the lately founded university. After taking his M.A. degree in August 1590, he became schoolmaster of Aberdour in Fife, and, having continued his studies in divinity, he was towards the close of December 1592 ordained minister of Carnock, in the presbytery of Dunfermline.
Row signed on 1 July 1606 the protest of parliament against the introduction of episcopacy; and he was also one of those who, the same year met at Linlithgow with the ministers who were to be tried for holding an assembly at Aberdeen contrary to the royal command. In 1619, and again in 1622, he was summoned before the court of high commission for nonconformity to the articles of Perth, and required to confine himself within the bounds of his parish (Calderwood, History, vii. 519, 543). He was a member of the general assembly of 1638, when he was named one of a committee of certain ministers ‘come to years’ to inquire—from personal knowledge of the handwriting of the clerks and their own memory of events—into the authenticity of certain registers of the general assembly which had been for some time missing (Robert Baillie, Letters and Journals, i. 129; Gordon, Scots Affairs, i. 147), the result being that their authenticity was established. By the same general assembly he was also named one of a committee to construct such constitutions and laws as might prevent corruptions in the future like those which had troubled the kirk in the past (ib. ii. 127). He died on 26 June 1646, and was buried in the family burial-place at the east end of the church of Carnock, where there is a large monument to his memory. By his wife Grisel, daughter of David Ferguson [q. v.], minister of Dunfermline, whom he himself describes as ‘a very comely and beautiful young woman,’ he had, with three daughters, four sons: David, a minister in Ireland; John (1598?–1672?) [q. v.]; Robert, minister of Abercorn; and William, minister of Ceres.
In his later years Row was led to compile a memorial of ‘some things concerning the government of the Church since the Reformation.’ For the earlier years of his ‘Memorial’ he made use of the papers of his father-in-law, David Ferguson. The work found its way into circulation in manuscript, and many copies of it were made. In 1842 it was printed for the Wodrow Society, chiefly from a manuscript in the university of Edinburgh, under the title ‘Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, from the year 1558 to August 1637, by John Row, Minister of Carnock, with a Continuation to July 1639, by his son, John Row, Principal of King's College, Aberdeen.’ An edition was also printed in the same year by the Maitland Club.
[Preface and notes to Row's ‘History;’ Calderwood's History of the Kirk of Scotland; Robert Baillie's Letters and Journals (Bannatyne Club); Gordon's Scots Affairs (Spalding Club); Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scoticanæ, ii. 578–9.]Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.240
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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