Walter Whitford

Walter Whitford ( – 1647) was a seventeenth-century Scottish minister, prelate and Royalist. After graduating from the University of Glasgow in 1604, he began a career in the Church of Scotland taking a variety of posts until being appointed Bishop of Brechin in 1635. As a bishop, Whitford was already mistrusted by hardline Presbyterians, and he made himself more unpopular by backing the attempt by the monarchy to impose Archbishop William Laud's prayer book on his congregation. After the abolition of episcopacy by the Church of Scotland in 1639, Whitford was deprived of his bishopric and fled to England. There he retained his sympathy for the monarchy, gaining a small position there before dying in 1647. Early life and career Born about 1581, he was the son of Adam Whitford of Milntown (later called Milton Lockhart) near Carluke, by his wife Mary, daughter of Sir James Somerville of Cambusnethan in Lanarkshire. The family of Whitford derives its name from the estate of Whitford in Renfrewshire on the river Cart. Adam Whitford was accused of being concerned in January 1575–6 in a conspiracy against the regent, James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton. Walter was educated at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1601, and afterwards acted as regent. On 10 May 1604 he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Paisley, and on 3 December 1608 he was presented by King James VI to the parish of Kilmarnock in Ayrshire. In 1610 he was translated to Moffat in Dumfriesshire, where he was admitted before 8 June. In 1613 he was nominated on the commission of the peace for Annandale, and was involved in several of the family feuds with which the county abounded.