David, an industrious historian of the Church of Scotland, and a strenuous defender of its discipline, was born in 1575. He was educated at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of A.M. in 1593. About 1601 he became minister of Crailing near Jedburgh; and he speedily began to take a conspicuous part in the ecclesiastical proceedings of that period.

The king was extremely anxious to assimilate the Church of Scotland to the Church of England. Having succeeded in obtruding episcopacy, it was the next object of his solicitude to enlarge the authority and jurisdiction of the bishops. His schemes were however opposed by many of the clergy; nor was any one more resolute in his opposition than Calderwood.

In 1617 James paid a visit to Scotland. During the sitting of the parliament, which assembled on the 17th of June, the clergy held several meetings in the Little Church, one or more of the bishops being always present. The general conduct of the high Episcopalian functionaries was such as to fill many of the Presbyterian clergy with alarm; so that at last a considerable number of them having assembled in the music-school, they resolved upon drawing up a remonstrance to his Majesty. Two of the Edinburgh clergy, Hewat and Struthers, were appointed to prepare it; and when it was fully adjusted, Archibald Simson, minister of Dalketh, was directed to sign it as clerk of the meeting; but the names of all those who attended were subscribed in a separate paper, which was delivered to him as a voucher to be used according to circumstances. He presented a copy to the clerk register, who refused to read it in parliament; and having been summoned before the High Commission, he declined to produce the signatures, and was committed as a prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh. This paper he had entrusted to the master of the music-school, Patrick Henryson, who delivered it to Calderwood. The minister of Crailing was therefore cited to appear at St Andrews on the 8th of July, and there to exhibit the roll of names, and "to answer for his mutinous and seditious assistance to the said assembly." Hewat and Simson were summoned at the same time, and they all made their appearance; but their examination was deferred till the 12th, in order that it might take place in his Majesty's presence. James conducted himself in his usual manner; but the stern and undaunted Calderwood was not to be overawed by any earthly authority which he conceived to be unjustly exercised. The king having at length whispered in the primate's ear, "his Majesty," he stated, "saith that if ye will not be content to be suspended spiritually ye shall be suspended corporally." Undismayed by this declaration, he replied, "Sir, my bodie is in your Majesty's hands to do with it as it pleaseth your Majesty; but as long as my bodie is free, I will teach, notwithstanding of their sentence."

Hewat, adhering to the protestation, was deprived, and confined in the town of Dundee; but as he had obtained a grant of the temporalities of Crossragwell abbey he was not left without a provision. Simson, who had aggravated the original offence by writing a letter in which he disparaged the English bishops, likewise received sentence of deprivation, and was for several months detained in prison; but on making his submission he was at length reinstated. A similar sentence was pronounced on Calderwood, who was committed to prison at St Andrews, and was afterwards removed to Edinburgh. The privy-council, which long exercised an undefined and despotic jurisdiction, ordained him to be banished from the kingdom for refusing to acknowledge the sentence of the High Commission; and the whole proceedings in this case exhibit a curious example of the arbitrary and inquisitive administration of that period. On giving security to banish himself from the kingdom before the ensuing Michaelmas, and not to return without the royal license, he was released from prison. He accompanied Lord Cranstoun to Carlisle, where that nobleman presented to the king a petition in his favour; but it was followed by no beneficial result. The subsequent application of Lord Cranstoun to the privy-council, and to the bishops, was attended with no better success.

He continued for a considerable time to linger in his native country; and during this interval he began the publication of his anonymous works in support of the Presbyterian cause. In 1618 he printed a Latin tract on the polity of the Church of Scotland. The general assembly, which met at Perth on the 25th of August, gave a new impulse to his mind; and in 1619 he produced an English work, in which he undertook to demonstrate the nullity of the assembly itself, and the unlawfulness of its five articles, relating to kneeling at the communion, the observance of festivals, confirmation, private baptism, and private communion.

While Calderwood was still lurking in Scotland, an attempt was made to apprehend him at Edinburgh, in the house of James Cathkin, a bookseller; but the officers neither found him nor any copies of his obnoxious publication relative to the Perth Assembly. Calderwood was in the mean time concealed at Cranstoun, in a secret apartment allotted to him by Lady Cranstoun, who rendered him many services. He afterwards removed from one place to another, till the 27th of August 1619, when he embarked at Newhaven, and sailed for Holland. Where he chiefly resided in that country we are not informed; but Bishop Guthry states, that "in the time of his exile he had seen the wild follies of the English Brownists in Arnhem and Amsterdam." During his residence in Holland he published various works, and, among the rest, his *Altare Damascenum*. At one period his enemies supposed him to be dead; and he has recorded a very extraordinary attempt to impose upon the world a recantation fabricated in his name.

Calderwood appears to have returned to Scotland in 1624. He was still found to be the most redoubtable champion of presbytery; and after the abolition of episcopacy, he was appointed minister of Pencatland, in the county of Haddington. During the remainder of his life, he continued to take an active part in the affairs of the church; and as firmness may be nearly allied to obstinacy, he appears to have maintained his own opinions with habitual keenness. It was he that introduced the practice, which is now confirmed by long usage, of dissenting from the decision of the assembly, and requiring the protest to be entered in the record. In 1649, an act having been introduced respecting the election of ministers, he proposed that the right of electing should be vested in the presbytery, leaving to the people the power of declaring their dissent, upon reasons of which it should be competent for the presbytery to judge; but this suggestion was not adopted; and, according to Baillie's statement, "Calderwood entered a very sharp protestation against our act, which he required to be registered. This is the first protestation we heard of in our time; and had it come from any other it had not escaped censure."

He devoted many years to the preparation of a History of the Church of Scotland. In 1648 the general assembly urged him to complete the design, and voted him a yearly pension of eight hundred pounds. He left behind him an historical work of great extent, and of great value, not indeed as a masterly composition, but as a storehouse of authentic materials for history. An abridgment, which appears to have been prepared by himself, was published after his death. An excellent edition of this important work has been recently published by the Wodrow Society. The author's manuscript, which lately belonged to General Calderwood Durham, has been presented to the British Museum. A copy, transcribed under the inspection of Wodrow, is among the archives of the church; another belongs to the library of the university of Glasgow; and, as Dr M'Crie has stated, "in the Advocates' Library, besides a complete copy of that work, there is a folio volume of it, reaching to the end of the year 1572. It was written in 1634, and has a number of interlineations and marginal alterations, differing from the other copies, which, if not made by the author's own hand, were most probably done under his eye."

Calderwood died at Jedburgh on the 29th of October 1650, aged seventy-five. He appears to have been a man of unbending integrity, fearless in maintaining his opinions, and uniformly consistent in his professions; but as human virtues are never perfect, his decision of character had some tendency to deviate into that obstinacy of humour from which good men are not always exempted.

His works are numerous; and as they were almost all published without the author's name, it is not easy to form a complete and accurate catalogue. The place of printing is omitted in all the original editions, but several, if not most of them, appear to have been printed in Holland.