Biography

The son of Sir John Erskine, Laird

Laird

A Laird is a member of the gentry and is a heritable title in Scotland. In the non-peerage table of precedence, a Laird ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire.-Etymology:...

 of Dun

House of Dun

House of Dun, together with the adjacent Montrose Basin nature reserve, is a National Trust for Scotland property in Angus, Scotland.The Dun Estate was home to the Erskine family from 1375 until 1980. John Erskine of Dun was a key figure in the Scottish Reformation. The current house was designed...

, he was educated at King's College

King's College, Aberdeen

King's College in Old Aberdeen, Scotland is a formerly independent university founded in 1495 and an integral part of the University of Aberdeen...

, University of Aberdeen

University of Aberdeen

The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...

. At the age of twenty-one Erskine was the cause — probably by accident — of a priest's death, and was forced to go abroad, where he came under the influence of the new learning

New Learning

In the history of ideas the New Learning in Europe is a term for Renaissance humanism, developed in the later fifteenth century. Newly retrieved classical texts sparked philological study of a refined and classical Latin style in prose and poetry....

. It was through him that Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 was first taught in Scotland by Pierre de Marsilliers, whom he brought to live at Montrose. This was a factor in the progress of the Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

. Erskine was also drawn towards the new faith, being a close friend of George Wishart

George Wishart

George Wishart was a Scottish religious reformer and Protestant martyr.He belonged to a younger branch of the Wisharts of Pitarrow near Montrose. He may have graduated M.A., probably at King's College, Aberdeen, and was certainly a student at the University of Leuven, from which he graduated in 1531...

, the reformer, from whose fate he was saved by his wealth and influence, and of John Knox

John Knox

John Knox was a Scottish clergyman and a leader of the Protestant Reformation who brought reformation to the church in Scotland. He was educated at the University of St Andrews or possibly the University of Glasgow and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1536...

, who advised him to discountenance the mass

The Mass

"The Mass" is the first single off the album Wow... The Story from Jamaican dancehall artist Baby Cham. It reached top thirty on the Australian charts....

 openly.

In the stormy controversies of the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son, James VI, Erskine was a conspicuous figure and a moderating influence. He was able to soothe the queen when her feelings had been outraged by Knox's denunciations — being a man "most gentill of nature" — and frequently acted as mediator both between the Roman Catholic and reforming parties, and among the reformers themselves. In 1560 he was appointed — though a layman — superintendent of the reformed church of Scotland for Angus and Mearns, and in 1572 he gave his assent to the modified episcopacy proposed by James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton

James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton

James Douglas, jure uxoris 4th Earl of Morton was the last of the four regents of Scotland during the minority of King James VI. He was in some ways the most successful of the four, since he did manage to win the civil war which had been dragging on with the supporters of the exiled Mary, Queen of...

 at the Leith convention.

Though never himself ordained, he was held in such high esteem by the leaders of the church that he was elected moderator of the general assembly

Moderator of the General Assembly

The Moderator of the General Assembly is the chairperson of a General Assembly, the highest court of a presbyterian or reformed church. Kirk Sessions and Presbyteries may also style the chairperson as moderator....

 several times (first in 1564), and he was amongst those who in 1588 drew up the Second Book of Discipline. From 1579 he was a member of the king's council. Erskine owed his peculiar influence among the Scottish reformers to his personality; Queen Mary described him as "a mild and sweet-natured man, with true honesty and uprightness".