author
Robert Forbes
1708–1775
A Scottish bishop and historian whose patient collecting preserved some of the most vivid memories of the 1745 Jacobite rising. His great manuscript work, The Lyon in Mourning, became an important source for later generations trying to understand that turbulent moment in British history.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Aberdeenshire in 1708, he studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, taking his M.A. in 1726. He entered the Scottish Episcopal Church, was ordained in Edinburgh in 1735, and spent much of his working life in Leith.
He is best remembered as both a churchman and a careful recorder of Jacobite memory. Forbes later became bishop of Ross and Caithness in 1762, and he devoted years to gathering stories, letters, songs, and eyewitness accounts connected with the rising of 1745 and its aftermath.
That lifelong effort produced The Lyon in Mourning, a remarkable compilation that preserved voices and details that might otherwise have disappeared. Even when brief biographical records focus on his role as bishop, Forbes stands out just as much for the historical record he saved.