Early Life
Heriot was born in Gladsmuir, (East Lothian), on 4 June 1563, the eldest son of George Heriot and Elizabeth Balderstone, and one of ten children. His father was a well-established goldsmith from an old Haddingtonshire family, who served as a Member of the Parliament of Scotland.
On 14 January 1586 he was engaged to marry Christian Marjoribanks, the daughter of Simon Marjoribanks a burgess of the City of Edinburgh and a local merchant; the couple would have two sons, who died in their youth. To mark the marriage, and the end of his apprenticeship, Heriot was given 1500 merks by his father in order to establish his own business, which he did in a small "luckenbooth" near St. Giles' Cathedral, on the site of the entrance of the modern Signet Library.
He was elected a burgess of the City of Edinburgh in January 1588, at the age of twenty-four, and in May that year was admitted to membership of the Edinburgh Incorporation of Goldsmiths. By October 1593, he had been elected Deacon of Goldsmiths.
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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