ROBERTSON, WILLIAM. — Historian, born at Borthwick (Midlothian) in Scotland on 19 September 1721, died at Grange House (Edinburgh) on 11 June 1793.
A Presbyterian minister, he received wide recognition for his History of Scotland, which earned him the position of principal of the University of Edinburgh (1768).
In each of his works there is a continual effort at understanding, often considerable insight, and always dignity of style and thoroughness of preparation. His cultural formation was undoubtedly shaped by the most widespread currents of the Enlightenment (his debt to Voltaire and Montesquieu, in certain approaches to problems and interpretive criteria, is evident), but his religious faith, his political position, and above all the milieu of the Select Society (which included, among others, A. Smith and D. Hume) played a far more important role. His works are: The history of Scotland during the reigns of queen Mary and of king James VI until his accession to the Crown of England (2 vols., London 1759),
which established his reputation as a historian and was much debated, since it was considered too lenient by some and too harsh by others in its treatment of Mary Stuart; The history of the reign of the emperor Charles V (3 vols., ibid. 1769, placed on the Index on 31 January 1777 because of its Protestant view of Catholicism and the Roman Pontificate), whose introduction (View of the progress of society in Europe from the subversion of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the sixteenth century) is the first vigorous attempt at an organic view of the Middle Ages, regarded, however, essentially as the slow and obscure preparation of modern Europe; The history of America (2 vols., London 1777), limited to Spanish and Portuguese expansion, expanded to include the history of the first English colonies in the posthumous edition of 1796; An historical disquisition concerning the knowledge which the ancients had of India (ibid. 1791). Complete edition of the works edited by D. Stewart, 12 vols. (ibid. 1817).