Elizabeth Johnston (bef. 1640 – betw. 1704 & 1716) was a Scottish Quaker missionary and wife of Rev. George Keith, an early leader in the Scottish Quaker movement. Elizabeth and her mother, Barbara Forbes, became very involved in the nascent Quaker movement in Aberdeen as early as 1663[i]. Elizabeth was a personal friend of William Penn’s[ii], and accompanied Penn, George Fox, Robert Barclay and Rev. Keith on a storied missionary trip to Holland in 1677. She was tasked with delivering a letter from the group to Princess Elizabeth of Holland, an early supporter of Quakerism who maintained regular correspondence with the movement’s leaders[iii]. Elizabeth had some entrée with the Dutch Princess because she was a distant relative: she was a direct descendant of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland, as was the Princess, as the granddaughter of King James IV of Scotland.
Elizabeth married first Alexander Whyte[iv], a regent of Marischal College[v], in 1658. The couple had one child, Margaret, born in 1662[vi]. After Alexander’s death in the late 1660s, Elizabeth was pursued by Rev. George Keith for some time, finally marrying him in 1672 in a Quaker ceremony[vii]. Rev. Keith moved on to the lands that she had inherited from her father as detailed below. The couple had 3 children: Elizabeth and Anne who survived to adulthood, and Helen, who died young[viii].
During the 1660s and 1670s, Rev. Keith suffered several imprisonments in the Aberdeen Tollhouse (jail) for his Quaker beliefs. The couple decided to leave Scotland for the American colonies in 1685, where Rev. Keith was appointed Surveyor General for New Jersey by the governor Robert Barclay, fellow Quaker and good friend of Rev. Keith’s[ix]. The couple’s 2 surviving children accompanied them to the colonies, where Anne would remain permanently, marrying George Walker I. Elizabeth’s daughter by her first marriage, Margaret, then 23 years old, remained in Aberdeen.
George and Elizabeth stayed in the Colonies for 11 years. They gradually developed doctrinal disagreements with the Quakers, and decided to rejoin the Anglican church[x]. They returned to England in 1696, where Rev. Keith was ordained an Anglican priest. Back in the Colonies, their daughter Anne Keith Walker also left Quakerism for the Anglican church, leading to conflict with her husband, George Walker I, who remained Quaker. We suspect that Rev. Keith’s views may have been swayed by the women in his life, certainly his wife and two daughters, perhaps also by his step-daughter Margaret, who may have eschewed Quakerism all along.
Elizabeth Johnston is our gateway ancestor to the Royal Lines of Scotland and France. The biographies of Rev. George Keith, Anne Keith, and George Walker I provide proof of lineage of the Mullins family to Rev. Keith and Elizabeth Johnston. The following details the proof of lineage of Elizabeth Johnston to King Robert the Bruce of Scotland. This lineage connects to a host of European royalty.
Proof of Lineage – Elizabeth Johnston was the daughter of William Johnston and Barbara Forbes
Elizabeth’s parents were Dr. William Johnston, physician and Professor of Mathematics at Marischal College, and Barbara Forbes. Two documents prove her parentage:
- The first document is the Retour of 10 Sep 1658[xi]. A retour is the written decision of a process by which a Scot’s claim to land was affirmed by a jury of local land owners. Elizabeth’s parents had 3 children: Thomas, who died in 1636, Anna, and Elizabeth. By Scottish law, because Elizabeth’s father died in June 1640 with no male heir, his property was divided between his daughters as heir proportioners. Elizabeth’s retour establishes four facts:
- Thomas Johnston, son of Doctor William Johnston, was Elizabeth’s brother germane,
- Elizabeth’s father was a doctor,
- Doctor William Johnston died in Jun 1640,
- Doctor Johnston’s spouse was Barbara Forbes
- The second document is a record of Barbara Forbes’s donation of Dr. William Johnston’s mathematics library and instruments to Marischal College on 17 Feb 1641[xii]. This record establishes the following facts:
- Barbara Forbes was the spouse (widow) of Dr. William Johnston, physician and Professor of Mathematics at Marischal College, Aberdeen.
- William Johnston, professor of mathematics, was also a physician,
- Professor William Johnston had died by 17 Feb 1641, consistent with his stated date of death in Elizabeth’s Retour.
Taken together, these 2 documents provide strong evidence that Elizabeth Johnston was the daughter of William Johnston, physician and Professor of Mathematics at Marischal College, and his wife Barbara Forbes.
The same Elizabeth Johnston
There are several lines of evidence that Elizabeth Johnston, wife of Rev. George Keith and mother of Anne Keith Walker, was the same Elizabeth Johnston, daughter of Dr. William Johnston and Barbara Forbes
1. The children of Elizabeth Johnston
Elizabeth had 4 children: Margaret, born in 1662, by her first husband; and 3 daughters by Rev. George Keith: Anne, Elizabeth, and Helen (who died young). When Rev. Keith returned to London in 1704, after his 2 year Anglican mission trip to the Colonies, he assumed the position of rector of Edburton, Sussex until his death in 1716. During these 12 years, he lived with his 2 daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, and both are mentioned in his will, written in 1710[xiii]. This Margaret was likely his step-daughter, Elizabeth’s daughter by her first marriage. It is possible that this Margaret was later child of Elizabeth’s. However there is no record of a later child in Scottish records. Elizabeth was at least 45 years old when the couple first moved to the American colonies in 1785, making the birth of a daughter in the colonies unlikely, though not impossible.
2. Diary of Alexander Jaffray
Alexander Jaffray was a prominent Aberdonian, Quaker and politician. He represented Aberdeen in Parliament from 1644-1650, and served twice as Provost (Mayor) of Aberdeen[xiv]. In his diary and memoirs, he identifies the Quaker Elizabeth Johnston as the daughter of Barbara Forbes, widow of Dr. William Johnston[xv].
3. Elizabeth’s land Retour
When Rev. Keith and Elizabeth married, Rev. Keith moved on to Elizabeth’s land[xvi]. This fact is consistent with the fact that Elizabeth inherited a substantial tract of land as one of two heir proportioners of her father’s estate.
4. Other historical sources
Several historical sources, including Keith’s biographer Evelyn Kirby[xvii], state that Rev. George Keith was the second husband of Elizabeth Johnston, after Alexander Whyte. In 1878, another historian, the Rev. John Davidson, wrote acerbically in his history of “Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch”[xviii]:
“Among those seduced into Quakerism at that time were the widow of Dr. William Johnston, the Professor of Mathematics, and his daughter Elizabeth, whose second husband, Mr. George Keith, a native of the town of Aberdeen, was a ringleader in the new sect, and a personal friend of the celebrated Quaker, William Penn. Keith, like Andrew Cant and others, who for a time sympathised with the prevailing separative sentiment, became afterwards strongly opposed to it. He was in his later years a clergyman in the Church of England.”
Proof of lineage – William Johnston and Barbara Forbes to William 7th Lord Forbes
William Johnston is listed in Burke’s Peerage[xix] as a son of “George Johnston of Caskieben; m Christian, dau of 7th Lord Forbes” with the following information:
“3a. William [Johnston]: MD, Prof Mathematics Marischal Coll and U of Aberdeen 1626-1640”
This listing in Burke’s aligns with the facts about Elizabeth’s father gleaned from her Retour and from the Marischal College records, providing strong evidence that Elizabeth Johnston was the daughter of Dr. William Johnston, son of George Johnston of Caskieben and his wife Christian Forbes, daughter of William 7th Lord Forbes. Thus this lineage is established to William 7th Lord Forbes.
William Johnston’s wife, Barbara Forbes, was his maternal cousin. Barbara Forbes’s father was Abraham Forbes[xx,xxi,xxii], brother of Christian Forbes and son of William 7th Lord Forbes, thus establishing a second line from Elizabeth Johnston to William 7th Lord Forbes.
Proof of Lineage – William 7th Lord Forbes to King Robert the Bruce of Scotland
The lineage from William 7th Lord Forbes to King Robert the Bruce of Scotland is well documented[xxiii, xxiv]:
William, 7th Lord Forbes (m. Elizabeth, dau. and coheir of Sir William Keith of Innerugie), son of:
John, 6th Lord Forbes d. 1547 (m. Christian, dau. of Sir John Lundin), son of:
William, 3rd Lord Forbes (m. Christian, dau. of Alexander, 1st Earl of Huntely), son of:
James, 2nd Lord Forbes d. abt 1460 (m. Lady Egidia Keith, dau. of William, 1st Earl of Marischal), son of:
Lady Elizabeth Douglas, dau. of the Earl of Angus (m. Alexander, 1st Lord Forbes), daughter of:
The Princess Mary, 2nd dau. of Robert III (m. George Douglas, Earl of Angus), daughter of:
Robert III, King of Scotland (m. Annabella, dau. of Sir John Drummond), son of:
Robert II, King of Scotland (m. Elizabeth, dau. of Sir Adam Mure), son of:
The Princess Margery, dau. of Robert Bruce (m. Walter, Lord High Steward of Scotland), daughter of:
Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland (m. Isabella, dau. of Donald, Earl of Marr.)
© 2023 W. Mullins