people. He was much trusted by his political friends, but he always asserted a certain independence in his action. During the American civil war he stood almost alone among Scottish journalists in advocating the cause of the north. In the famous controversy of Kingsley v. Newman he wrote with much force in support of the former, and received from him a special letter of thanks. In church questions his articles were held in high repute, and Bishop Wordsworth of St. Andrews and Alexander Ewing [q. v.], bishop of Argyle, corresponded with him privately. Forsyth also wrote two pamphlets on Scottish church questions, entitled ‘A Letter on Lay Patronage in the Church of Scotland’ (1867) and ‘The Day of Open Questions’ (1868). In the first of these he indicated the lines on which a true reform of the church might be carried out, and may be said to have paved the way for the legislation which followed soon after in the Act for the Abolition of Church Patronage (1874).
Forsyth rendered valuable services to Aberdeen. The establishment of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor was mainly due to him, and he not only laboured hard as an active member of the managing committee, but for six years gratuitously discharged the duties of secretary. Much of the results of his observation and experience may be found in a paper read by him to the Social Science Congress in 1877, on ‘The Province and Work of Voluntary Charitable Agencies in the Management of the Poor.’ Forsyth was elected a member of the first Aberdeen school board, and did much good work of a general kind, besides serving as convener of a committee that had to deal with certain delicate and difficult questions affecting the grammar school and town council. From the first Forsyth took a warm interest in the volunteer movement, and was chosen captain of the citizens' battery. This appointment he held for eighteen years, retiring with the rank of major. Some of his martial songs obtained a wide popularity. He also took much interest in everything connected with the service, and made some valuable suggestions to the war office as to practical gunnery and the use of armed railway carriages in warfare, a device which was turned to good account in the operations in Egypt. Forsyth's principal literary works were ‘The Martyrdom of Kelavane’ (1861) and ‘Idylls and Lyrics’ (1872). The latter volume contains a thoughtful poem entitled ‘The Old Kirk Bell,’ and several other pieces published for the first time, but it is mainly made up of reprints from magazines. The most finished of these is ‘The River,’ which came out in the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ in Thackeray's time. The most moving is that entitled ‘The Piobrach o' Kinreen,’ the old piper's lament for the clearance of Glentannar, which first appeared in ‘Punch.’ During the last ten years of his life Forsyth suffered from an affection of the tongue, which ultimately took the form of malignant cancer. After a long illness, he died on 21 June 1879. Forsyth married in 1854 Miss Eliza Fyfe, who survived him. Since his death ‘Selections’ from his unpublished writings, with a ‘Memoir,’ have been edited by his friend Mr. Alexander Walker, Aberdeen. This volume is chiefly remarkable as reproducing ‘The Midnicht Meetin',’ a vigorous satire on the promoters of the union of the Aberdeen and Marischal colleges, originally printed for private circulation. The book shows Forsyth's love of animals and his attachment to Aberdeen, where, at Bonnymuir, Maryville, Friendville, Gordondale, and Richmondhill, his successive homes, he spent more than thirty years. He was buried in the cemetery of Allenvale on the Dee.
[Memoir by Alex. Walker, 1882.]
FORTESCUE, Sir ADRIAN (1476?–1539), knight of St. John, was the second son of Sir John Fortescue of Punsborne, Hertfordshire, and grandson of Sir Richard, younger brother of Sir John, the famous chief justice [q. v.] His mother was the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, and was great-aunt to Queen Anne Boleyn. Sir Adrian served in 1513 in the campaign against the French which ended in the battle of the Spurs. He attended on Queen Catherine at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 (Rymer, Fœdera, xiii. 712), served in the short and uneventful French war of 1522, and was knighted in February 1528 (Metcalfe, Book of Knights, p. 40). His connection with Anne Boleyn probably brought him for a time into considerable favour at the court of Henry VIII. His name appears in the list of those who received grants of lands from Wolsey's possessions after the cardinal's fall in July 1530. He was present at all the festivities which took place on the king's second marriage, and received the exceptional honour of being informed by a special messenger of the birth of the Princess Elizabeth.
In 1532, two years before the dissolution of the order, he was admitted as a knight of St. John, though, as he was a married man, he could only have held the more or less honorary rank of a ‘knight of devotion’ (Mr.
