Note 720 — PREFACE (continued 5)

Spotiswood says that Douglas was a Carmelite or White Friar.—(Hist. p. 94.) It is not improbable he may have been the same person whose name appears as a Determinant in St. Salvator's College in 1554. In that year another John Douglas had the same rank in St. Mary's College, where he became a Licentiate in 1555. It is, I think, quite certain that John Douglas, who was Chaplain to the Earl of Argyle in 1558, and who may have assumed the name of Grant to escape apprehension, should not be confounded with the Provost of St. Mary's College, as Keith and other writers have done. The latter was born about the year 1494, and was descended from the Douglasses of Pettendreich. He studied at St. Andrews at the same time with John Wynrame, and was a Determinant in St. Leonard's College in 1515, and a Licentiate in 1517. Whether he was the person who entered the Carmelite Order, may be left to conjecture; but on 1st October 1547, he was elected Provost of St. Mary's College. In 1551, "Magister Joannes Douglas Prepositus Novi Collegii Mariani," was elected Rector of the University; and being annually elected to this office for the unprecedented period of twenty-three successive years, (1572-3, being called "Vigesimus tertius Rectoratus Johannis Douglas,) and being a constant resident in St. Andrews, it is obvious he could not have been the obscure person who was protected by the Earl of Argyle.