FORBES, WILLIAM: Bishop of Edinburgh; b. at Aberdeen 1585; d. there Apr. 12, 1634. He studied at Marischal College (M.A., 1601), where he held the chair of logic for several years. He traveled on the Continent 1606-11, visiting several Dutch and German universities and making the acquaintance of Scaliger, Grotius, and Vossius. Soon after his return to Britain he entered the ministry, having declined a professorship in Hebrew at Oxford. In 1616 he was appointed one of the ministers of Aberdeen, and at the assembly at Perth in 1618 he was chosen to defend the article enjoining kneeling at the communion. In 1621 he was chosen one of the ministers of Edinburgh, but, owing to the unwelcome reception which his Romanism encountered here, he was glad to return to his former charge at Aberdeen in 1626. In 1633 he preached at Holyrood before Charles I., who was so delighted with the sermon that he made the preacher bishop of Edinburgh. Forbes was consecrated in Feb., 1634. His only published work is the posthumous Considerations modestœ et pacificœ controversiarum de justificatione, purgatorio, invocatione sanctorum Christo mediatore et eucharistia (London, 1658; Helmstädt, 1704; Frankfort, 1707; new ed., with Eng. transl., 2 vols., Oxford, 1850-56, forming part of the Anglo-Catholic Library).