Miller, A. T.

James Sharp was born at Banff Castle on 4 May 1613. It was the intention that the young Sharp should enter the Church and so he was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated with the degree of MA in 1637. He may have been expelled however in 1638, during continued study, for refusing to adhere to the Covenant, and he went briefly to Oxford. In 1643 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at St. Andrews University, and in 1649 became the Minister of nearby Crail in Fife. In 1650 he was elected as a Minister in Edinburgh but a dispute arose about that within the presbytery there and in any case the invasion of Scotland by Cromwell prevented his acceptance. By this time the Kirk (Church) in Scotland had become divided into the 'resolutioners' wing and the 'protesters' wing, and Sharp adhered to the former. The more liberal resolutioners supported the proposal or resolution that those who repented their non-adherence to the Covenant should be allowed to defend the country against Cromwell. Indeed, Sharp became the leader of the 'resolutioners' and he was seized by Cromwellian forces at Alyth in Perthshire in 1651 and taken to the Tower of London. By 1652 he had returned to Scotland. When Charles II was restored to the throne, Sharp was rewarded with the Archbishopric of St. Andrews and set about the toppling of Presbyterianism in the country rather than attempting to unite Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Regarded as a zealot who had once been a prominent leader of the Kirk, Sharp was shot at by James Mitchell in the High Street of Edinburgh in July 1668. Ten years or so later, in 1679, the year after Mitchell had been captured and executed for the assassination attempt, a band of Fife Covenanters ambushed Sharp near St. Andrews and murdered him.

From the guide to the Collection of Correspondence relating to James Sharp (1613-1679), Archbishop of St. Andrews, 1653-1946, (Edinburgh University Library)