Henry Scrimgeour

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Henry Scrimgeour or Scrymgeour (c. 1505 – 23 September 1572) was a diplomat and book collector.

Biography

He was born in Dundee, most likely in 1505, but possibly in 1508 or 1509, since Andrew Melville gives Scrimgeour's age at death as sixty-three.

Having first attended

Éguinaire Baron and François Douaren. While in Bourges, he formed an acquaintance with Jacques Amyot, professor of Greek, and succeeded him in becoming preceptor to the sons of Guillaume Bochetel, the secretary of state, probably for three or four years. In February 1547 he returned to Scotland for a short stay and Bochetel recommended him in a letter to Mary of Guise
.

Back in

Hebrew manuscripts of the Fugger collection were gathered by Scrimgeour, who frequently travelled between Augsburg and Italy. It is today the core of the Vatican Palatine collection. Scrimgeour also acted as agent in buying books for Otto-Heinrich
, the elector palatine.

Scrimgeour kept his benefices in Scotland all his life, but he also enjoyed an income in France-—there exists an authorization given to him in 1556 by King Henri II to hold and receive benefices in his country of adoption. He also engaged on a diplomatic career, travelling to Padua, Venice, Florence, Rome, Milan, Mantua, and Bologna, and also to Bourges, where he tried unsuccessfully to set up a printing press. Bernandin Bochetel, now abbot of St Laurent des Aubats, had several times invited him to Vienna, and he finally went there in November 1560. Bochetel may have wanted his diplomatic services at this time to help him in difficult negotiations with the German Lutheran princes, or with the colloquy of Poissy of 1561 between French reformers and Catholics, or with the Council of Trent, which after a ten-year interval had resumed its sessions in January 1562. However, Scrimgeour's stay in Vienna was brief, for by the end of 1561 he was in Geneva.

Ulrich Fugger, now a

Lutheran, had a plan for a public library in Geneva in order to secure his large and important collection of rare books, and Scrimgeour was associated with this project. At the same time, on 30 December, he was honoured by the magistrates of Geneva who received him as a burgess, three years after John Knox
, and thanks to Calvin he soon became involved in the city's public life.

On 18 April 1562, with Calvin's blessing, Scrimgeour married Françoise de Saussure. However, Françoise died, on 1 February 1568, aged twenty-five, leaving a three-year-old daughter, Marie. In 1563 the Genevan pastors appointed Scrimgeour reader in

James VI
, but he declined, arguing his age and the instability of Scotland. Henry Scrimgeour died in Geneva on 23 September 1572.

Sources
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