RAMSAY, James Bishop of Dunblane then Bishop of Ross, Right Reverend Mr ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7}

   Another name for James was RAMSEY, James.²

  General Notes:

"Born in Irvine, North Ayrshire, in 1624, James was entered at Glasgow University on 31 March 1645, and was laureated in 1647. He was ordained to the ministry of Kirkintilloch on 19 February 1653... In 1655 he was transferred to Linlithgow. There he met with further obstruction, but the synod declared him to be lawfully called and admitted. He joined the party of the resolutioners, and on 29 May 1661 celebrated the restoration of Charles II by publicly burning the Solemn League and Covenant and the acts of parliament passed during the civil wars...In 1664 he was appointed parson of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, to which office was annexed the deanery of Glasgow, and from 1665 to 1667 was rector of Glasgow University.[3] On 6 January 1666, in that capacity, he headed the list of subscribers to the oath of allegiance to episcopacy...When Leighton was transferred in 1673 to the archiepiscopal see of Glasgow, Ramsay succeeded him as bishop of Dunblane. He held his first synod there on 30 September the same year.[6] In the second year of his episcopacy he came into conflict with James Sharp, archbishop of St Andrews...In May 1684 he was transferred to the see of Ross.[10] In 1686 he preached in the High Church, Edinburgh, before the members of parliament a sermon against the act for the toleration of Roman catholicism....On the abolition of episcopacy Ramsay was expelled from office, and died at Edinburgh, in great poverty, on 22 October 1696. He was interred in the Canongate churchyard. He married Mary Gartstair, and had eight sons and three daughters. His eldest son, Robert, was minister of Prestonpans."

from Wikipedia

"1653. James Ramsay, A.M., son of Principal R. of the Univ. of Glasgow, "a very able and sufficient youth as we have of his age" attained his degree at the Univ. of Glasgow in 1647, and was ord. and adm. (by the Presb. with a Committee from the Gen. Assembly) 19th Feb. 1653. He was charged by the English "not to preach in that church, and the people not to hear him under high paynes," and by Judge Moysley "discharged to preach in the neighbour churches," yet the parishioners adhered to him with very few exceptions: he was trans. to Linlithgow in 1655."

from Electric Scotland : Kirkintilloch Town and Parish

"The condition of Culross is reported to the presbytery, and then to the synod and bishop. The Bishop of Dunblane, to whose superintendence Culross belonged, was now James Bamsay, who had succeeded Leighton in that office a few years before. He had originally been minister of Kirkintilloch, and had been translated from thence to Linlithgow, of which he was minister when the notorious ceremony was performed of burning the Solemn League and Covenant— an act in which Linlithgow stood alone among Scottish burghs. From Linlithgow, Ramsay passed in 1670 to be parson of Hamilton and Dean of Glasgow, and in 1673 he was made Bishop of Dunblane. He is said to have advocated both political and ecclesiastical reform, and was the friend both of Burnet and Leighton, the latter of whom he aided strenuously in a vain endeavour to effect a union between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. By the active part which he took in drawing up the Glasgow remonstrance against the Act of Supremacy, and by advocating the calling of a national synod, he incurred the displeasure of the Court party....a Royal letter was procured through the influence of Sharp, ordering the translation of the Bishop of Dunblane to the see of the Isles. Ramsay proceeded to London to obtain a reversal of this sentence; and Sharp having also repaired thither, a fierce altercation ensued between the two dignitaries. Ramsay's representations seem, however, so far to have prevailed, that in 1676 he was reponed in his bishopric of Dunblane.....
The next entry is a peculiar one, and records the appointment of James Ramsay, Bishop of Dunblane, to the incumbency of Culross— a living within his own diocese."

from Electric Scotland : Culross and Tulliallan

(At Linlithgow in 1655)
"JAMES RAMSAY, M.A.; of the Resolutionist or Moderate Presb.; trans. from Kirkintilloch; adm. (on a call by the Presb. with a Committee of Synod) 14th Sept. 1655. On a petition of the parishioners to the Synod, 8th Nov. 1656, bearing that he is 'ane able, pious, and peaceable man and doth meet with many obstructions in the exercise of his minis try, to the prejudice of the Lord's work and his discouragement, and desiring he may be encouraged in his calling'; the Moderator, in their name, found and declared him to be lawfully called and
admitted, 'being farther confirmed in their judgment of his abilities, by his sermon preached this day before them'; Coll. 1662 ; trans, to Hamilton 1664; Bishop of Dunblane 1673; Bishop of Ross 23rd May 1684 (q.v.).[Reg. Collat.; Kirkton's and Wodrow's Hists., i.; Baillie's Lett., iii.; Chambers's Ann., ii.; Acts Parl., vii.; Keith's Catalogue.]"

from Fasti Ecclesiae ^{8 9 10}

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Appointed: Minister, 19 February 1653, Kirkintilloch parish, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. ⁸

2. Appointed: Minister, 1655, Linlithgow parish, West Lothian, Scotland. ⁸

3. Appointed: Parson, 1664, Hamilton parish, Lanarkshire, Scotland. ⁸

4. Appointed: Bishop, 1673, Dunblane, Stirlingshire, Scotland. ⁸

5. Appointed: Bishop, 1684, Ross, Scotland. ⁸

James married Mary GARTSHORE, daughter of John GARTSHORE of that Ilk and Jean MUIRHEAD. (Mary GARTSHORE was born about 1637.)