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The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

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LIFE OF DR. SKENE.<br />

William Forbes Skene was born at Inverie, in Kincardineshire, in<br />

1809.<br />

His father was James Skene <strong>of</strong> Rubislaw, near Aberdeen, Scott's<br />

great friend, a lawyer and litterateur ; his mother was a daughter<br />

<strong>of</strong> Sir<br />

William Forbes <strong>of</strong> Pitsligo. Young Skene was reared among surround-<br />

ings that brought him into contact with the best literary men <strong>of</strong> that<br />

day in <strong>Scotland</strong>. He received his early education in Edinburgh High<br />

School, and even at that early age he devoted some attention to Gaelic,<br />

which was no doubt natural, as he was connected maternally with the<br />

Glengarry family. Besides, being somewhat delicate as a young lad, he<br />

was, on Scott's suggestion, sent to Laggan, in Badenoch, to board with<br />

the famous (iaelic scholar, Dr. Mackintosh Mackay. <strong>The</strong>se facts<br />

account for his devotion to Celtic history, and also, no doubt, as has<br />

been suggested, for his bias towards the families <strong>of</strong> Cluny and Glengarry<br />

as against Mackintosh and <strong>Clan</strong>ranald. In 1824 he went to Germany,<br />

where he sojourned for a year and a half, and where he acquired a taste<br />

for philology, which, however, never passed the amateur stage with him.<br />

<strong>The</strong>reafter he attended St. Andrew's University for a session, and for<br />

another Edinburgh University, and being destined for the legal pr<strong>of</strong>ession<br />

he served his legal apprenticeship with his relative, Sir William Jardine,<br />

and became W.S. in 1832. He held an appointment in the Court <strong>of</strong><br />

Session for many years, becoming latterly Depute-Clerk <strong>of</strong> Court. In<br />

the meantime he had become the head <strong>of</strong> a prominent legal hrm, a<br />

position which he held to his death. It is interesting to note that<br />

Robert Louis Stevenson spent some <strong>of</strong> his time trying to learn law in<br />

Dr. Skene's firm. In the later years <strong>of</strong> his life he devoted himself, in<br />

the comparative freedom which he attained from business cares and<br />

engagements, to putting his thoughts and researches in Scoto-Celtic<br />

history into shape, and "Celtic <strong>Scotland</strong>" appeared in 1876-1880 in<br />

three volumes— his magnum opus. He succeeded Burton in 1881 as<br />

Historiographer Royal for <strong>Scotland</strong>, and had been made LL.D. <strong>of</strong><br />

Edinburgh University and D.C.L, <strong>of</strong> Oxford in 1879. Dr. Skene took<br />

much interest in religious and philanthropic work, and produced in this

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