Burnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury, born at Edinburgh, of an old Aberdeen family; professor of Divinity in Glasgow; afterwards preacher at the Rolls Chapel, London; took an active part in supporting the claims of the Prince of Orange to the English throne; was rewarded with a bishopric, that of Salisbury; wrote the “History of the Reformation,” an “Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” the “History of His Own Times”; he was a Whig in politics, a broad Churchman in creed, and a man of strict moral principle as well as Christian charity; the most famous of his works is his “History of His Own Times,” a work which Pope, Swift, and others made the butt of their satire (1643‒1715).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Burnes, Sir Alexander * Burnet, John