Fig. 1580.—Ormiston Church. South Side.
appears in his published works. Alexander Cockburn was a pupil of John Knox, and in 1547 sought refuge in the Castle of St. Andrews. On the dexter base of the brass are engraved the Cockburn arms, and on the sinister base the arms of Sandilands, for the mother of a Cockburn, who was of the family of Sandilands of Calder. These arms are quartered with the arms of Douglas, and show the ancient relationship between that family and the Sandilands.[249]
The barony of Ormiston was the property of the Cockburns from the middle of the fourteenth century, when they acquired it by marriage.
The monument was no doubt erected not long after the death of the person commemorated, or towards the end of the sixteenth century. It corresponds in style with that of the Regent Murray, in St. Giles’ Cathedral,
Fig. 1581.—Ormiston Church. Monument to Alexander Cockburn.
Edinburgh[250] (1570), the inscription on which was also composed by George Buchanan. That at Ormiston is as follows:—
Omnia quæ longa indulget mortalibus ætas
Haec tibi Alexander prima juventa dedit
Cum genere et forma generoso sanguine digna
Ingenium velox, ingenuumque animum
Excolint virtus animum ingeniumque Camenae
Successu studio consilioque pari
His ducibus primum Peragrata Britannia deinde
Gallia ad armiferos qua patet Helvetios
Doctus ibi linguas quas Roma Sionet Athenae
Quas cum Germano Gallia docta sonat
Te licet in prima rapuerunt fata juventa
Nonimmaturo funera raptus obis
Omnibus officiis vitae qui functus obivit
Non fas nunc vitae est de brevitate queri
Hic conditur Mr. Alexander Cokburn
primogenitua Joannis domini Ormiston
et Alisonae Sandilands ex preclara
familia Calder, qui natus 13 Januarii 1535
post insignem linguarum professionem
Obiit anno ætatis suae 28 Calen. Septe.[251]