ANDREW FORMAN

'Andrew Forman' (c. 1465 - 11 March 1521) was a Scottish ecclesiastic who became Archbishop of St Andrews.
He was educated at the University of St Andrews and entered the service of King James IV of Scotland about 1489. He soon earned the favour of this king, who treated him with great generosity and who on several occasions sent him on important embassies to the English, the French and the papal courts. In 1501 he became Bishop of Moray and in July 1513 Louis XII of France secured his appointment as Archbishop of Bourges, while pope Julius II promised to make him a cardinal. In 1514 during a long absence from his own land Forman was nominated by Pope Leo X to the vacant archbishopric of St Andrews and was made papal legate in Scotland, but it was some time before he secured possession of the see owing to the attempts of Henry VIII to subject Scotland to England and to the efforts of his rivals, Gavin Douglas, the poet, and John Hepburn, prior of St Andrews, and their supporters.
Eventually, however, he resigned some of his many benefices, the holding of which had made him unpopular, and through the good offices of the regent, John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany, obtained the coveted archbishopric and the primacy of Scotland. Afterwards he was one of the vice-regents of the kingdom. As archbishop he issued a series of constitutions which are printed in J. Robertsons ''Concilia Scotiae'' (i866). Mr Andrew Lang (History of Scotland, vol. L) describes Forman as the Wolsey of Scotland, and a fomenter of the war which ended at the Battle of Flodden Field.
Andrew Forman was probably born at Hutton near Berwick-on-Tweed. He admitted to two natural daughters: Beatrix who married Baron John Moncreiff, October 17 1501, and Jane who married Sir Alexander Oliphant of Kellie on February 22 1519. Andrew's father was Nicholas Forman and his mother was probably Jonet Blackadder (one author says his mother was a Fraser). Nicholas may have been the son of Adam Forman (scutifer to James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas) who was the third son of Thomas Forman, born abt 1385, who in turn may have descended from (Sir) John Forman, a cleric born abt 1358?. William Forman, Dean of Linlithgow in 1450, may have been another son of Thomas Forman. William, who died about 1467 while a chaplain at Corstorphine, probably had a son called William Forman, a known grandson of Thomas Forman.
Andrew had four brothers, Sir Adam, Thomas, Sir John and Robert, and a sister, Isobel.Isobel became the second wife of Patrick Home of Fastcastle in about 1492. Sir John and Robert Forman were both servants of James IV. Robert Forman may have had a natural son, John Forman, who was precentor of Glasgow cathedral in 1512 and was recommended as abbot of Kilwinning in 1513. John Forman was appointed Sergeant Porter to the King and was knighted on 8 August 1503. He married Helen Rutherford. He probably had a daughter, Janet, who married William Gourlay of Kincraig. John died in about 1516. Robert Forman was appointed Dean of Glasgow and prothonotary before dying on 29 November 1530. He had a son, Robert, who began by serving James V and was Lyon King of Arms from about 1555 to 1567 when Mary, Queen of Scots fled from Scotland (he had a son, John, who was Rothesay Herald and died in 1597). Another probable son, Adam Forman, began by serving James V. He married Elizabeth McCall about 1537. He was appointed prior Carthusian Monastery, Perth, until the monastery was destroyed during the reformation. He died in 1574.

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