of Herdmanston. It was not until 13 Sept. 1407 that the Earl of Orkney had a safe-conduct to go to Scotland on his affairs, with twelve attendants on horse and foot, on giving security ‘to re-enter his person within Durham Castle on Christmas next’ (Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, vol. iv. No. 702). On 4 Jan. 1407–8 he obtained a safe-conduct for his ship to trade with England (ib. No. 744); in 1409 he received payment for travelling to England on the affairs of the king of Scots (Exchequer Rolls, iv. 102); and in 1412 he had a safe-conduct to him and the Earl of Douglas, with fifty horsemen, to pass through England to France or Flanders (Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, vol. iv. No. 834). He is stated by Fordun to have died in 1420, one of the earliest recorded victims of influenza in Scotland, but he was dead in 1418, when a papal dispensation was granted to his widow, Egidia, granddaughter of Robert II, king of Scotland, for her marriage to Alexander Stewart, third son of the Duke of Albany. By her he had a son William, third earl of Orkney and first earl of Caithness [q. v.], and a daughter Beatrice, married to James, seventh earl of Douglas (Fordun, Chronicle).
[Authorities mentioned above; Hay's Sinclairs of Roslin.]
SINCLAIR, HENRY (1508–1565), bishop of Ross, and lord-president of the court of session, second son of Sir Oliver Sinclair of Roslin, and brother of Oliver Sinclair [q. v.], general at Solway Moss, and of John Sinclair (d. 1566) [q. v.], bishop of Brechin, was born in 1508. He studied at the university of St. Andrews, being incorporated in St. Leonard's College in 1521. Having gained the special favour of James V, he was admitted on 13 Nov. 1537 an ordinary lord of session. On 16 Dec. of the same year he obtained the rectory of Glasgow from Archbishop Dunbar; in 1541 he was named abbot or perpetual commendator of the abbey of Kilwinning; and in 1550 he exchanged this office with Gavin Hamilton for the deanery of Glasgow. In 1548 he was sent into Flanders to treat for a peace between Flanders and Scotland (Bishop Lesley, History of Scotland, in the Bannatyne Club, p. 233). On 11 Aug. 1550 he obtained a safe-conduct to go into France (Cal. State Papers, For. 1547–55, No. 228), and apparently did not return to Scotland until 1554. Immediately on his return he persuaded the bishop of Orkney, then president of the court of session, to make certain statutes for the abbreviation of the processes and the reform of other abuses (Lesley, History, p. 252). He was a commissioner for the treaty of Carlisle in 1556, and for that of Upsettlington in 1559. On 2 Dec. 1558 he succeeded the bishop of Orkney as lord president of the court of session, and on the death of Bishop David Panter [q. v.], in the same year, he obtained a gift of the temporalities of the see of Ross, being consecrated—after some delay in obtaining the papal sanction—in 1560. In 1561 he was chosen one of Queen Mary's privy council of twelve, the other eleven members being all laymen. The same year he and other bishops offered to give up a fourth of the rents of their benefices (Knox, Works, ii. 301; Reg. P. C. Scotl. i. 113). On 28 Dec. 1563 he was appointed one of a commission for the erection of jurisdiction in various parts of the country.
Apparently Sinclair possessed no special predilections for either the old or the new religion. He was content to retain the temporalities of his bishopric, and, as president of the court of session, he made it his duty to see that proper regard was paid to the laws in actual force, whether they favoured protestants or catholics. Thus, when the queen sought his advice in regard to the prosecution of several catholics who had observed the mass, he advised ‘that she must see her laws kept, or else she would get no obedience’ (Knox, ii. 379). On the other hand, when Knox in 1563 penned a letter to ‘the brethren in all quarters’ to assemble for the protection of certain persons who had made forcible entrance into the chapel of Holyrood during mass, Sinclair sent a copy of the letter to the queen at Stirling (ib. ii. 398). Knox, on this account, denounces him as ‘ane perfect hypocrite, and ane conjured enemy to Christ Jesus.’ Yet Knox himself admits that Sinclair voted for his absolution when brought before the council. ‘The bishop,’ he says, ‘answered cauldlie, “Your grace may consider that it is neither affection to the man [Knox], nor yet love to his profession, that moveth me to absolve him; but the simple truth, which plainly appears in his defence”’ (ib. p. 412). It is clear that Sinclair was capable of acting justly, if not generously, towards an avowed enemy.
On the appearance of Bishop Jewell's ‘Apologia’ in 1562, Randolph, the ambassador of Elizabeth in Scotland, sent a copy to the bishop of Ross, expressing at the same time his intention to send one to the bishop of St. Andrews, ‘not,’ he says, ‘to do them good, which I know is impossible, but to heap mischief upon their heads’ (Randolph to Cecil, 4 Feb. 1561–2, in Knox's Works, vi. 139; Cal. State Papers, For. 1561–2, No.
