BARCLAY, Robert of Ury, 'The Apologist', Quaker ^{2 3}

  General Notes:

"Robert himself, although greatly mortified by the exercise, felt compelled to walk through Aberdeen once, dressed in sackcloth with ashes on his head. He explained in a published letter how he had felt constrained by God, as a prophet of old, to do this. It was the only time he acted in such a manner.

Born...December 23, 1648, Robert received four years of training in Paris where a wealthy uncle offered to make him his heir if only he would join the Roman Church. Meanwhile, Robert's father, David Barclay, had become a Quaker. His dying wife made him promise to bring Robert home, which David did, personally fetching him from France. The boy was soon won to his father's convictions. Scholarly from his youth up, he became the theologian of the Quaker viewpoint. His was not merely a bookish faith however; he went to prison several times because he was a Quaker....His Apology for the True Christian Divinity has undergirded Quaker thinking ever since it was penned. One Scotsman declared that Barclay was the only great original theologian that Scotland ever produced. However, his influence was not through his theology alone. In his own age, he was active in national affairs and negotiated in behalf of King James II. When he died at the young age of 42, he had fathered nine children. His offspring were ardent Quakers, and their descendants were prominent among the famous Quaker families of subsequent centuries: the Barclays, Gurneys and Frys."

from Robert Barclay Champion of Quaker Ideal by Dan Graves in Church History Timeline

Robert married Christian MOLYSON, daughter of Gilbert MOLYSON Bailie of Aberdeen and Unknown, on 1 February 1670.¹ (Christian MOLYSON was born about 1647.)