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- John Row (1568 – 26 June 1646) was a Scottish ecclesiastical historian and one of the Scottish Reformers. As minister of Carnock in Fife, he was a leading opponent of Episcopacy. Row's (1558–1637), left by him in manuscript, is an original authority for the period. An account of his life is attached to the work. John Row was born Perth; his baptism is recorded as having taken place 6 January 1568–9. He was the third son of John Row, the Reformer, minister of Perth. John was educated by his father; he was so precocious that he knew Hebrew at the age of seven, and read daily after dinner or supper portions of the Old Testament in the original. On the death of his father in 1580, his brother William and he received friar's pensions from the King's Hospital at Perth. At fifteen he became schoolmaster of Kennoway and tutor to his cousins, sons of Beaton of Balfour, whom he accompanied to Edinburgh University in 1586. He graduated with an M.A. 1 August 1590. Shortly afterwards he was elected schoolmaster of Aberdour, and was tutor to William, Earl of Morton. He continued his studies in divinity, and towards the end of 1592 he was ordained to this Carnock. He was one of the forty-five ministers who signed a Protest to Parliament, 1 July 1606, against Episcopacy, and in the same year, at Linlithgow, he met with the ministers who were to be put on their trial for holding the Assembly at Aberdeen in disobedience to the King's command. In 1616 he declined a presentation to Aberdour, and later, a call to Culross. In 1619, and again on 29 December 1621, he was summoned before the Court of High Commission for non-conformity and opposition to Prelacy. He was prevented by illness from obeying the former summons, but was represented by a son and a nephew. Sir George Bruce of Carnock also intervened on his behalf and sent a letter by one of his servants, Richard Christie, to the Archbishop. The Archbishop deposed two ministers but dealt more leniently with Row, who was simply "confined to his own congregation." Richard Christie claimed as much credit for the light sentence as Row's other friends: "After sundry arguments, Christie came on with one weightie argument," saying, "thir coals in your mines are very evil, and my master (Bruce) hath very many good coals: send up a vessel every year to Culross, and I shall see her laden with good coals." After Row had been restricted to his small parish he organised the Communion services which gave Carnock a celebrity among the parishes of Scotland. This it retained for upwards of two hundred years. At a Communion in 1635 it is said there were no fewer than seventeen tables. Row was a member of the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, when he was appointed one of a committee of ministers "come to years" to enquire— from personal knowledge of the handwriting of clerks and their own recollection of events — into the authenticity of certain Assembly Records which had been missing for some time, the result being that their genuineness was established. By the same Assembly he was named one of a committee for considering such constitutions and laws "as might prevent corruptions in the future, like those which had troubled the Kirk in the past." He died on 26 June 1646. (en)
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