Patrick Fraser TytlerFRSEFSA (Scot) (30 August 1791 – 24 December 1849) was a Scottish advocate and historian. He was described as the "Episcopalian historian of a Presbyterian country".[1]
Life
The Fraser Tytler family vault, Greyfriars Kirkyard
He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh in 1813; in 1816 he became King's counsel in the Exchequer, and practised as an advocate until 1832.[3] At this time he was living at 36 Melville Street, a large terraced townhouse in Edinburgh's west end.[4]
He then moved to London, and it was largely owing to his efforts that a scheme for publishing state papers was carried out. Tytler was one of the founders of the Bannatyne Club and of the English Historical Society.[3]
He died at Great Malvern on 24 December 1849.[5][6] His body was returned to Edinburgh for burial in the family vault, which lies within the sealed south-west section of Greyfriars Kirkyard known as the Covenanter's Prison.[5]
Tytler first married Rachel Elisabeth Hog (sister of James Maitland HogFRSE) on 30 March 1826 at Newliston and together they had 3 children, including Mary Stewart Fraser Tytler (1827–1887) who is buried in Grange Cemetery rather than in the family vault. Rachel died on 15 April 1835.
He then married on either 12 or 22 August 1845, in Richmond, his cousin, Anastasia Bonar, daughter of Thomson Bonar (1780–1828) of Campden, Kent, by his spouse Anastasia Jessie Gascoigne, widow of Charles Gascoigne, daughter of Matthew Guthrie of Halkerton.[7]
Works
Tytler is most noted for his literary output. He contributed to Archibald Alison's Travels in France (1815); his first independent essays were papers in Blackwood's Magazine. His major work, the History of Scotland (1828–1843), covered the period between 1249 and 1603.[3] A second edition was published in 1841–1843.[8] The seventh volume deals with the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots after her marriage with Darnley.[9]
The Royal Families of England, Scotland, and Wales, with their Descendants, etc., by Messrs, John and John Bernard Burke, London, volume 1 (1848) pedigree CLXXIX.
The contents of the missing Volume V above, from the 3rd Edition, are contained in a later edition, immediately following (which itself is from an incomplete edition of Tytler's History).
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