LINDESAY, ROBERT, of Pitscottie (c. 1530-c. 1590), Scottish historian, of the family of the Lindesays of the Byres, was born at Pitscottie, in the parish of Ceres, Fifeshire, which he held in lease at a later period. His Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, the only work by which he is remembered, is described as a continuation of that of Hector Boece, translated by John Bellenden. It covers the period from 1437 to 1565, and, though it sometimes degenerates into a mere chronicle of short entries, is not without passages of great picturesqueness. Sir Walter Scott made use of it in Marmion; and, in spite of its inaccuracy in details, it is useful for the social history of the period. Lindesay’s share in the Cronicles was generally supposed to end with 1565; but Dr Aeneas Mackay considers that the frank account of the events connected with Mary Stuart between 1565 and 1575 contained in one of the MSS. is by his hand and was only suppressed because it was too faithful in its record of contemporary affairs.
The Historie and Cronicles was first published in 1728. A complete edition of the text (2 vols.), based on the Laing MS. No. 218 in the university of Edinburgh, was published by the Scottish Text Society in 1899 under the editorship of Aeneas J. G. Mackay. The MS., formerly in the possession of John Scott of Halkshill, is fuller, and, though in a later hand, is, on the whole, a better representative of Lindesay’s text.
LINDET, JEAN BAPTISTE ROBERT (1749-1825), French revolutionist, was born at Bernay (Eure). Before the Revolution he was an avocat at Bernay. He acted as procureur-syndic of the district of Bernay during the session of the Constituent Assembly. Appointed deputy to the Legislative Assembly and subsequently to the Convention, he attained considerable prominence. He was very hostile to the king, furnished a Rapport sur les crimes imputés à Louis Capet (10th of December 1792), and voted for the death of Louis without appeal or respite. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal and contributed to the downfall of the Girondists. As member of the Committee of Public Safety, he devoted himself particularly to the question of food-supplies, and it was only by dint of dogged perseverance and great administrative talent that he was successful in coping with this difficult problem. He had meanwhile been sent to suppress revolts in the districts of Rhône, Eure, Calvados and Finistère, where he had been able to pursue a conciliatory policy. Without being formally opposed to Robespierre, he did not support him, and he was the only member of the Committee of Public Safety who did not sign the order for the execution of Danton and his party. In a like spirit of moderation he opposed the Thermidorian reaction, and defended Barère, Billaud-Varenne the Collot d’Herbois from the accusations launched against them on the 22nd of March 1795. Himself denounced on the 20th of May 1795, he was defended by his brother Thomas, but only escaped condemnation by the vote of amnesty of the 4th of Brumaire, year IV. (26th of October 1795). He was minister of finance from the 18th of June to the 9th of November 1799, but refused office under the Consulate and the Empire. In 1816 he was proscribed by the Restoration government as a regicide, and did not return to France until just before his death on the 17th of February 1825. His brother Thomas made some mark as a Constitutional bishop and member of the Convention.
See Amand Montier, Robert Lindet (Paris, 1899); H. Turpin, Thomas Lindet (Bernay, 1886); A. Montier, Correspondance de Thomas Lindet (Paris, 1899).
LINDLEY, JOHN (1799-1865), English botanist, was born on the 5th of February 1799 at Catton, near Norwich, where his father, George Lindley, author of A Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, owned a nursery garden. He was educated at Norwich grammar school. His first publication, in 1819, a translation of the Analyse du fruit of L. C. M. Richard, was followed in 1820 by an original Monographia Rosarum, with descriptions of new species, and drawings executed by himself, and in 1821 by Monographia Digitalium, and by “Observations on Pomaceae,” contributed to the Linnean Society. Shortly afterwards he went to London, where he was engaged by J. C. Loudon to write the descriptive portion of the Encyclopaedia of Plants. In his labours on this undertaking, which was completed in 1829, he became convinced of the superiority of the “natural” system of A. L. de Jussieu, as distinguished from the “artificial” system of Linnaeus followed in the Encyclopaedia; the conviction found expression in A Synopsis of British Flora, arranged according to the Natural Order (1829) and in An Introduction to the Natural System of Botany (1830). In 1829 Lindley, who since 1822 had been assistant secretary to the Horticultural Society, was appointed to the chair of botany in University College, London, which he retained till 1860; he lectured also on botany from 1831 at the Royal Institution, and from 1836 at the Botanic Gardens, Chelsea. During his professoriate he wrote many scientific and popular works, besides contributing largely to the Botanical Register, of which he was editor for many years, and to the Gardener’s Chronicle, in which he had charge of the horticultural department from 1841. He was a fellow of the Royal, Linnean and Geological Societies. He died at Turnham Green on the 1st of November 1865.
Besides those already mentioned, his works include An Outline of the First Principles of Horticulture (1832), An Outline of the Structure and Physiology of Plants (1832), A Natural System of Botany (1836), The Fossil Flora of Great Britain (with William Hutton, 1831-1837), Flora Medica (1838), Theory of Horticulture (1840), The Vegetable Kingdom (1846), Folia Orchidacea (1852), Descriptive Botany (1858).