Aberdeen's 'Toun College': Marischal College, 1593–1623

Abstract

Aberdeen's 'Toun College':Marischal College, 1593–1623 Steven John Reid, Doctoral Student Introduction While debate has arisen in the past two decades regarding the foundation of Edinburgh University, by contrast the foundation and early development of Marischal College, Aberdeen, has received little attention. This is particularly surprising when one considers it is perhaps the closest Scottish parallel to the Edinburgh foundation. Founded in April 1593 by George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal in the burgh of New Aberdeen 'to do the utmost good to the Church, the Country and the Commonwealth',1 like Edinburgh Marischal was a new type of institution that had more in common with the Protestant 'arts colleges' springing up across the continent than with the papally sanctioned Scottish universities of St Andrews, Glasgow and King's College in Old Aberdeen.2 James Kirk is the most recent in a long line of historians to argue that the impetus for founding 'ane college of theologe' in Edinburgh in 1579 was carried forward by the radical presbyterian James Lawson, which led to the eventual opening on 14 October 1583 of a liberal arts college in the burgh, as part of an educational reform programme devised and rolled out across the Scottish universities by the divine and educational reformer, Andrew Melville.3 However, in a self-professedly revisionist article Michael Lynch has argued that the college settlement was far more protracted and contingent on burgh politics than the simple insertion of a one-size [End Page 173] fits all 'Melvillian' programme would allow.4 Lawson was, after all, considerably out of favour in the city when Alexander Clark, provost of the town between 1579 and 1584, oversaw the creation of a legislative and financial framework for the college between November 1581 and April 1582. Moreover, it was a newly elected moderate town council that completed the process of erection in October 1583 after a break of eighteen months, during which time a radical administration supported by the Ruthven regime and local presbyterian ministers had attempted to hijack the plans for the college. This same moderate council sent baillies to vet the curriculum of the college and ensure that no overly radical teaching would take place, and with complete silence on the part of both the General Assembly and presbyterian commentators like James Melville the new 'Toun College' opened. The whole episode is succinctly summed up by Lynch in the words: 'Reform of the universities did not escape the overriding fact of burgh life in sixteenth-century Scotland – the power of localism.'5 This article seeks to ascertain the role of the 'power of localism' in the foundation and early development of Marischal College, and in particular the contributions of the Earl Marischal and the burgh and burgesses of New Aberdeen. It will suggest that although there were a number of motives and influences providing the impetus for the college, including those personally attributable to the Earl Marischal, the town council and the burgesses of New Aberdeen played perhaps the most significant role in bringing the college to fruition in its first three decades. In this sense, Marischal should perhaps be seen along with Edinburgh as a different kind of Scottish higher educational institution, distinct from the traditional Scottish universities, and likewise best described as a 'toun college'. The initial foundation and early years, 1593–1610 G. D. Henderson's The Founding of Marischal College, Aberdeen is the only book that has attempted to deal in detail with the Earl Marischal's motives for establishing this institute of higher education, less than three miles from the foundation in Old Aberdeen.6 Henderson saw the influence of European humanism, couched in reforming and Calvinist [End Page 174] terms, as the prime influence on the earl. Marischal had studied in France and Geneva under Beza between 1571 and 1580, and the curriculum he was exposed to had rejected the teaching of Aristotle from Latin texts and through scholastic commentators. Aristotle and other Greek authors were instead studied in their original language, as were the texts of the Old and New Testaments. Added to this programme was an expanded array of humanist subjects including history, geography and astronomy.7 Six years prior to...