Overview
George Buchanan
(1506—1582) poet, historian, and administrator
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(1506–82),
satirized the Franciscans and was imprisoned at St Andrews. Escaping, he went to the Continent, became a professor at Bordeaux, where he had Montaigne among his pupils, and in 1547 was invited to teach in the university of Coimbra, but was imprisoned by the Inquisition, 1549–51. He returned to Scotland and professed himself a Protestant. He became a bitter enemy of Mary Queen of Scots, in consequence of the murder of Darnley, and vouched that the Casket Letters were in her handwriting. He wrote his Detectio Maria Scotorum Regina in 1571. He was tutor to James VI and I during 1570–8. Chief among his many writings are his Latin poem Sphaera, an exposition of the Ptolemaic system as against that advocated by Copernicus, and his Latin Rerum Scoticarum Historia (1582).
Subjects: Literature
