ing to Dundee, he was placed under the tuition of Friar Hewat of the Dominican monastery there, and he took orders as a priest. He was chaplain of St. Matthew's Chapel, Dundee, in 1532. Having the gift of poesy, he joined with his two brothers, James and Robert, in composing ballads directed against Romanism, and in 1538–9 he was accused of heresy. It is not known whether he stood his trial, but he was certainly convicted and his goods forfeited and given over to his youngest brother Henry, on payment of a small sum to the king's treasury. About 1540 Wedderburn made his way to the continent, and remained some time at Wittemberg, then the chief centre of the reformers. In 1542 he returned to Scotland, and, in conjunction with John Scott or Scot (fl. 1550) [q. v.], printer in Dundee, began publishing the ballads which he and his two brothers had composed against the Romish religion. That he had the largest share in writing these ballads seems probable from the fact that many of them are framed on German models with which he would be familiar. It was expected, after the death of James V, that the governor Arran would be favourable to the protestants, but this hope was not realised, and several acts of parliament were passed forbidding the publication of these ballads, which were known as ‘the Dundee Psalms.’ Wedderburn was in Dundee in the early part of 1546, but was forced to flee to England in that year to avoid prosecution, and he died there in exile in 1556.
Another brother, Robert Wedderburn (1510?–1557?), the third son of James Wedderburn and Janet Barry, was also born in Dundee about 1510. He entered St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, in 1526, graduated B.A. in 1529 and M.A. in 1530 with special honours. In 1528 the reversion of St. Katherine's Chapel, Dundee, was given to him, though he was then under age. He took orders as a priest, and ultimately succeeded his uncle, John Barry, as vicar of Dundee; but before he secured that benefice he fell under suspicion of heresy, and, like his brothers, was forced to take refuge on the continent. He went to Paris, probably in 1534 or 1536, and attended the university there, and it is said that he also spent some time at Wittemberg, where his brother John joined him, and where there were many Scottish protestant refugees. He remained abroad till 1546, when the death of Cardinal Beaton seemed to promise safety in Scotland for the protestants. It is difficult to discover when he became vicar of Dundee. A document in Dundee charter-room refers to him as holding that office in 1532, but John Barry was vicar after that date, and it is likely that Wedderburn did not come into the benefice till after 1546. He was certainly vicar in 1552, and he died between 1555 and 1560. By a deed recorded in the register of the great seal, 13 Jan. 1552–3, his two illegitimate sons, David and Robert, were legitimised. Their mother was Isobel Lovell, who married David Cant in 1560 and died shortly before 1587.
It is not possible to identify the different psalms and songs contributed by the three Wedderburns to the ‘Compendious Book.’ A thorough examination of that collection and an exhaustive account of it will be found in the edition issued by the Scottish Text Society, annotated, with introduction by emeritus professor A. F. Mitchell, D.D. In the same volume there is an account of the evidence which led Dr. David Laing and others to ascribe ‘Vedderburn's Complaynt of Scotland,’ published in 1548, to Robert Wedderburn.
[Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, 1513–46 and 1546–80; Calderwood's Hist. of the Kirk, Wodrow edit. i. 141–3; Millar's Roll of Eminent Burgesses of Dundee, p. 21; Maxwell's Old Dundee prior to the Reformation, p. 145; Dr. A. F. Mitchell's edition of A Compendious Book of Godly and Spiritual Songs (Scottish Text Soc.); The Wedderburn Book (privately printed 1898), pp. 14, 16, 22; Julian's Dict. of Hymnology; Millar's Compt Buik of David Wedderburn (Scot. Hist. Soc.); McCrie's Life of Knox, App. H; Lamb's Dundee, its Quaint and Historic Buildings.]
WEDDERBURN, JAMES (1585–1639), bishop of Dunblane, was the second son of John Wedderburn, mariner and shipowner, Dundee, and Margaret Lindsay. James Wedderburn (1495?–1553) [q. v.] was his great-grandfather. He was born at Dundee in 1585, and began his collegiate course at St. Andrews University, matriculating in 1604, graduating in 1608, and removing thence to one of the English universities. Wood states that Wedderburn studied at Oxford, but his name does not occur in the registers; and Heylyn, in his ‘Life of William Laud, Archbishop,’ gives Cambridge as the university. He was at one time tutor to the children of Isaac Casaubon, and among the Burney manuscripts in the British Museum there are several letters from him to Casaubon and to his son Meric, the latter having been Wedderburn's special pupil. Wedderburn took orders in the Anglican church, was minister at Harstone in 1615, and was closely associated with Laud in the preparation of the liturgy for the Scottish church. He was professor of divinity in
