March 15th, 1689
Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (1636 – May 8, 1691) was a Scottish lawyer, Lord Advocate, essayist and legal writer. He was nicknamed Bloody Mackenzie.
Mackenzie, who was born in Dundee, was the son of Sir Simon Mackenzie of Lochslin (died c. 1666) and Elizabeth Bruce, daughter of the Reverend Peter Bruce, minister of St Leonard’s, and Principal of St Leonard’s Hall in the University of St Andrews. He was a grandson of Kenneth, Lord Mackenzie of Kintail and a nephew of George Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Seaforth
Mackenzie was the founder of the Advocates Library in Edinburgh. His inaugural oration there is dated 15 March 1689, so just before his departure south; but the evidence is that the oration was written some years before, and the library itself was operational from the early 1680s.[25] The initiative followed Mackenzie’s appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, in 1682.
