Excerpt from George Buchanan In The Lisbon Inquisition: The Records Of His Trial, With A Translation Thereof Into English, Fac-Similes Of Some Of The Papers And An IntroductionThe biography of the principal figure in the documents contained in this book, being so well known to all lovers of Scotland, its literature and its history, very little would require to be said to introduce them to the majority of my readers beyond a simple enumeration of dates, to serve as a reminder, but for others less well informed a brief account of the circumstances which preceded the period to which those documents refer will be useful.The most authentic source of information as to Buchanan's biography, and the only one which existed for more than a century, is a short sketch, in Latin, which, with every probability, is supposed to have been written by him shortly before his decease. Based upon this sketch two commentaries were published, one from the pen of Sir Robert Sibbald, which appeared in 1707, and the other by Ruddiman, published in 1715, neither of which added greatly to the original. Later on, a biography was written by Dr David Irving, the second and last edition of which was published in 1817. But the most complete study of his life and works is due to Prof. P. Hume Brown, and was issued in Edinburgh, in 1890, under the title of George Buchanan, a Biography. The same learned Professor of Ancient (Scottish) History in the Edinburgh University has since published a smaller work, in a popular form, entitled George Buchanan and his times, Edinburgh and London, 1906. From those books the following notice is principally derived.George Buchanan was born in the beginning of February, 1506 or 1507 - for he himself appears to have been uncertain as to the year. In August, 1550, he stated upon oath that he was about forty five years of age. His father owned a small property called The Moss, near to the village of Killearn, in Stirlingshire, and on that property Buchanan was born.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.