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Patrick Abercromby ( 1656-c.1716), Scottish physician and antiquarian, was the third son of Alexander Abercromby of Fetterneir in Aberdeenshire, and brother of Francis Abercromby , who was created Lord Glasford by James Ii . He was born at Forfar in 1656 apparently of a Roman Catholic family.
Intending to become a doctor of medicine he entered the university of St Andrews, where he took his degree of M.D. in 1685, but apparently he spent most of his youthful years abroad. It has been stated that he attended the university of Paris, France. The Discourse of Wit ( 1685), sometimes assigned to him, belongs to Dr David Abercromby (q.v.).
On his return to Scotland, he is found practising as a physician in Edinburgh, where, besides his professional duties, he gave himself with characteristic zeal to the study of antiquities. He was appointed physician to James Ii. in 1685, but the revolution deprived him of the post. Living during the agitations for the union of England and ScotlandScotland or in Scottish Gaelic, Alba is a country and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four nations comprising the United Kingdom. Scotland occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. Scotland took part in a p, he took part in the war of pamphlets inaugurated and sustained by prominent men on both sides of the Border, and he crossed swords with no less redoubtable a foe than Daniel DefoeDaniel Defoe ( 1660 April 21, 1731) was an English writer and journalist, who first gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe''. Biography Born Daniel Foe the son of James Foe, a butcher in the Stoke Newington neighbourhood of London, England, he would la in his Advantages of the Act of Security compared with those of the intended Union ( Edinburgh, 1707Events March 26 Act of Union with Scotland becomes law, making the separate Kingdoms of England and Scotland into one country, the Kingdom of Great Britain. April 25 Allied army is defeated by borbonic army at Almansa ( Spain) in the War of the Spanish Su), and A Vindication of the Same against Mr De Foe (ibid.).
A minor literary work of Abercromby's was a translation of Jean de Beaugue's Histoire de la guerre d'Ecosse ( 1556Events January 16 Abdication of Emperor Charles V. His son, Philip II becomes King of Spain, while his brother Ferdinand becomes Holy Roman Emperor January 23 The deadliest earthquake in history kills 830,000 people in Shanxi Province, China. February Tru) which appeared in 1707. But the work with which his name is permanently associated is his Martial Atchievements of the Scots Nation, issued in two large folios, vol. i. 1711, vol. ii. 1716. In the title-page and preface to vol. i. he disclaims the ambition of being an historian, but in vol. ii., in title-page and preface alike, he is no longer a simple biographer, but an historian. Even though, read in the light of later researches, much of the first volume must necessarily be relegated to the region of the mythical, none the less was the historian a laborious and accomplished reader and investigator of all available authorities, as well manuscript as printed; while the roll of names of those who aided him includes every man of note in Scotland at the time, from Sir Thomas Craig and Sir George Mackenzie to Alexander Nisbet and Thomas Ruddiman.