His attachment to the distinguished presbyterian, Andrew Melville, probably helped him to obtain the professorship of divinity at St. Andrews about 1593, when, according to the parish records, he was ‘maister of the new college.’ His career was throughout closely linked with Melville's. In 1598, when the general assembly of the church was sitting at Dundee, both were ordered from the town together, because of their opposition to church representation in parliament. In 1603 they conjointly appealed with success to Du Plessis against a perilous decision of the synod of Gap on a polemical question. Previous to this Johnston had been offered the position of second minister in Haddington, East Lothian, but he retained his university chair till his death in October 1611. He bequeathed to Andrew Melville ‘a gilt velvet cap, a gold coin, and one of his best books’ (M'Crie, Life of Melville, chap. x.) Johnston's wife, Catharine Melville, and two children predeceased him, and he enshrined their memories in epigrams (see his Consolatio Christiana).
In 1602 Johnston published at Amsterdam ‘Inscriptiones Historicæ Regum Scotorum, continuata annorum serie a Fergusio I. ad Jacobum VI.; præfixus est Gathelus, sive de gentis origine Fragmentum Andreæ Melvini; additæ sunt icones omnium regum nobilis Familiæ Stuartorum.’ The ‘Inscriptiones’ are a series of epigrammatic addresses to the Scottish kings from Fergus I to James VI; to the latter the work is dedicated. It was followed by a similar work, ‘Heroes ex omni Historia Scotica lectissimi,’ Leyden, 1603, 4to. Both series are included in Arthur Johnston's ‘Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum.’ The epigrams are neatly turned, but display little poetic quality. Johnston's other works are: 1. ‘Consolatio Christiana sub Cruce, et Iambi de Felicitate Hominis Deo reconciliati,’ Leyden, 1609. 2. ‘Iambi Sacri,’ Leyden, 1611. 3. ‘Tetrasticha et Lemmata Sacra, item Cantica Sacra, item Icones Regum Judæ et Israelis,’ Leyden, 1612. He also wrote, without publishing, a work on Scottish and English martyrs, and he contributed to Camden's ‘Britannia’ epigrams on Scottish towns. Letters of his occur in Camden's correspondence (Camdeni Epist. pp. 41, 75, 95, 123, 127), and in Wodrow's ‘Life of Robert Boyd,’ one of which shows that some of his writings were printed at Saumur. Andrew Melville mentions that Johnston ‘left some nots behind of our tyme,’ but these have not been traced.
[Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; M'Crie's Life of Andrew Melville; Irving's Scotish Poetry.]
JOHNSTON, Sir JOHN (d. 1690), criminal, was son of Sir George Johnston of Caskieben, a Nova Scotian baronet; his mother was a daughter of Sir William Leslie of Wardes. He early took service under William of Orange, and served, according to the partial but vague accounts of his life issued after his execution, with distinction in Flanders. He was asserted to have committed a rape in Holland, but he indignantly denied the charge on the scaffold. At the revolution he came to England, and was the victim of a false accusation of the same kind made by a woman at Chester. He passed into Ireland, served with William III's troops at the battle of the Boyne, and returned to England. On 10 Nov. 1690 he was privy to the abduction of Mary Wharton, an heiress, by Captain the Hon. James Campbell; Johnston's share in the outrage was small. But he was the only offender who was arrested, and as the girl's family was related to Lord Wharton, the friend of William III, Johnston was promptly tried and convicted at the Old Bailey. He was hanged at Tyburn on 23 Dec. 1690, a victim, according to some, to the prevailing anti-Scottish sentiment. He was unmarried, and the title reverted to his uncle, John Johnston of Newplace. A cut of Johnston was prefixed to the ‘Brief History’ of his life and death, published in 1690.
[A Brief History of the Memorable Passages and Transactions that have attended … the unfortunate Sir John Johnston, 1690; An Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and last Dying Speech of Sir John Johnston, 1690; Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Anderson's Scottish Nation; Noble's Granger, i. 221; Luttrell's Brief Hist. Relat. ii. 148.]
JOHNSTON, NATHANIEL, M.D. (1627–1705), physician, was eldest son of John Johnston (d. 1657), by Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Hobson of Usflete, Yorkshire. The father, a native of Scotland (cf. pedigree in Dugdale, Visit. of Yorkshire, 1665, Surtees Soc., p. 6), lived for some time at Reedness in Yorkshire, and, according to Hunter (Thoresby, Diary, i. 39 n.), afterwards became rector of Sutton-on-Derwent. Nathaniel was born in 1627, and had a brother, Henry [q. v.] (d. 1723), who is noticed separately. Nathaniel is probably the Nathaniel Johnston who was received into the third class in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, in 1647. He proceeded M.D. from King's College, Cambridge, in 1656; was created a fellow of the College of Physicians by the charter of James II, and was admitted on 12 April 1687. He practised at Pontefract, but paid more attention to the antiquities and natural history
