Book Description

Fletcher of Saltoun : Famous Scots Series Andrew Fletcher, eldest son of Sir Robert Fletcher of Saltoun, in the county of Haddington, and of Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry Bruce of Clackmannan, was born in the year 1653. He was educated either at home or in the parish school of Saltoun until 1665. On the thirteenth of January in that year his father died, having, on his deathbed, intrusted the charge of educating his son to Burnet, the future Bishop of Salisbury, who had just been presented to the living of Saltoun, of which Sir Robert was the patron. Burnet’s first published work was, A Discourse on the Memory of that rare and truly virtuous person, Sir Robert Fletcher of Saltoun, written by a gentleman of his acquaintance. This volume, which the author calls, ‘The rude essay of an unpolished hand,’ contains almost nothing about either Sir Robert or his son; and, in fact, Burnet does little more than use his patron as a peg on which to hang a string of platitudes. But from the moment Burnet became minister of Saltoun, Andrew Fletcher lived in an atmosphere of learning. There was a library belonging to the Church of Saltoun, founded by one of the parish ministers, and added to by Burnet and the Fletcher family; and among this collection of books we may fancy Burnet and his pupil spending many hours. There were two catalogues, one of them written by Sir Robert Fletcher; and in August 1666 we find the ‘Laird of Saltoun,’ then thirteen years of age, visiting the library, comparing the books with the catalogues, and gravely reporting to the Presbytery of Haddington that Burnet was taking proper care of the books. These books were chiefly theological, but among them were The Acts of the Second Parliament of King Charles, from which Burnet might teach the boy many useful lessons, and the ‘Book of the Martyrs, 3 vol. in folio, gifted by my Lady Saltoun.’ For the support of this library Burnet left a sum of money; and it is still known in the district as ‘Bishop Burnet’s Library.’ The books are preserved in a room in the manse of Saltoun under the charge of the parish minister, and prominent among them are a fine folio edition of Burnet’s own works, and a black-letter copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Of Fletcher’s earliest days little is recorded, except that he was, from infancy, of a fiery but generous nature. According to family tradition Burnet imbued his pupil ‘with erudition and the principles of free government’; and perhaps it is not mere fancy which leads us to picture the keen, eager, excitable boy reading the Book of Martyrs, and listening to Burnet, who describes his system of education in the account which he gives of the manner in which he taught the Duke of Gloucester in after years. ‘I took,’ he says, ‘to my own province, the reading and explaining the Scriptures to him, the instructing him in the Principles of Religion and the Rules of Virtue, and the giving him a view of History, Geography, Politics, and Government.’ History, politics, and the theory of government—these were, all through his life, Andrew Fletcher’s favourite studies; and we cannot doubt that Burnet not only drilled him thoroughly in Greek and Latin, as he certainly did, but also fostered that taste for letters from which not even the turmoil of politics could ever wean him. Fletcher also owed much to the influence of his mother; and to this he himself, in his later years, bore testimony. ‘One day,’ it is recorded in the private family history, ‘after Andrew Fletcher had entertained his company with a concert of music, and they were walking about in the hall at Saltoun, a gentleman fixed his eye on the picture of Katherine Bruce, where the elegant pencil of Sir Peter Lely had blended the softness and grace that form the pleasing ornaments of the sex. “That is my mother,” says Andrew; “and if there is anything in my education and acquirements during the early part of my life, I owe them entirely to that woman.”’