and close contact with Scott. The original introduction to ‘Quentin Durward’ was inspired by Skene's intimate knowledge of France, gained on a visit in 1822, and the Jewish element in ‘Ivanhoe’ was at least partly due to his suggestion (Life of Scott, iv. 323; cf. ib. vii. 325).
Owing to indifferent health of some members of his family, Skene went to Greece in 1838, staying for several years near Athens, in a villa built to his own design. Here, as at home, he busied himself with art, and he is said to have left over five hundred water-colour drawings of Grecian scenery and antiquities. Returning in 1844, he settled first at Leamington and then at Frewen Hall, Oxford, where he enjoyed the best literary society. He died there on 27 Nov. 1864.
In 1806 Skene married Jane Forbes (1787–1862), youngest child of Sir William Forbes [q. v.], sixth baronet of Pitsligo. Her brother, Sir William, seventh baronet, married, in 1797, Scott's first love, Williamina Stuart. Mrs. Skene, like her husband, was highly respected by Scott, who writes of her (Journal, i. 75) that she was ‘a most excellent person, tenderly fond of Sophia.’ ‘They bring,’ he adds, ‘so much old-fashioned kindness and good humour with them that they must be always welcome guests.’ The surviving family consisted of three sons and four daughters, the second son, William Forbes Skene [q. v.], becoming a noted antiquary and historian. Lockhart, in the ‘Life of Scott,’ drew largely on Skene's manuscript memoranda, which display observation, feeling, discernment, and graceful expression. Skene was an accomplished linguist, speaking fluently French, German, and Italian. He produced, by way of illustrations of Scott, ‘A Series of Sketches of the existing Localities alluded to in the Waverley Novels,’ etched from his own drawings (Edinb. 1829, 8vo). Besides contributing to the ‘Transactions’ of the societies to which he belonged, and editing Spalding's ‘History of the Troubles in Scotland’ for the Bannatyne Club (1828), he wrote the able article ‘Painting’ in the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopædia.’ The elegant full-page illustrations in ‘The Memorials of Skene of Skene’ are from his drawings.
[Memorials of Skene of Skene, p. 139; Lockhart's Life of Scott, passim, but specially ii. 61–70, v. 253, vi. 184, 199, and passages noted in text; Scott's Journal and Familiar Letters; Burke's Peerage and Baronetage; Scott's First Love (brochure).]
SKENE, Sir JOHN (1543?–1617), of Curriehill, clerk-register and lord of session, under the title of Lord Curriehill, was the sixth son of James Skene of Watercorse and Rainnie, Aberdeenshire, by his wife Janet Lumsden, daughter of Lumsden of Cushnie. According to tradition, the progenitor of the Skenes was a younger son of Robertson of Struan, who for saving the life of Malcolm I when attacked by a wolf received from him the lands of Skene, Aberdeenshire. The oldest of the family of whom there is documentary evidence was John de Skene, who was an arbitrator of the treaty of Berwick in 1290, and in 1296 swore fealty to Edward I. His son Robert de Skene was a supporter of Robert the Bruce, and in 1318 received from him a charter of the lands of Skene erected into a free barony. Adam de Skene, grandson of Robert, fell at Harlaw in 1411, and representatives of the main line also fell at Flodden in 1513 and at Pinkie in 1547. The Skenes of Watercorse were descended from James, second son of Alexander, ninth of Skene (1485–1507).
Sir John Skene is sometimes stated to have been born in 1549, but he was incorporated in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, as early as 1556; and he was probably therefore born in 1543 or 1544. In 1564–5 he acted as regent in St. Mary's College. He then spent several years in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and, after prosecuting the study of law in Paris, he returned to Scotland and passed advocate 19 March 1575. His rapid rise at the bar is attested by the frequent occurrence of his name in connection with cases before the privy council, and his legal attainments are evidenced by his selection, along with Sir James Balfour, by the regent Morton to prepare a digest of the laws. Morton did not live to see the task completed, but before his retirement from the regency he, in June 1577, granted to Skene for his services an annual pension of ten chalders of meal out of the revenues of the abbey of Arbroath (Acta Parl. Scot. iii. 89).
Skene, unlike many other Scottish statesmen of his time, enjoyed the confidence of the kirk, and in 1581 the general assembly suggested to the king that he should be appointed procurator for certain ministers who had received injuries in the execution of their offices, and for the trial of whose case a special judge was appointed (Calderwood, History, iii. 522). In 1589 also, when the kirk was in great dread of the schemes of the ‘jesuits, seminary priests, and other seducers of the people,’ he was appointed one of ten commissioners who were to meet weekly to consult as to measures for ‘the weal of the kirk in so dangerous a time’ (ib. v. 4). His friendship with the kirk may account for the remark of the king to Sir
