Brodie was born on 6 September 1785 in East Lothian, where his father was a farmer on a large scale, and a contributor to the improvement of Scottish husbandry.
[1] He was an ardent whig, and his political creed partly inspired the one work by which he is known, his History of the British Empire.
[1] Brodie's major work was History of the British Empire from the accession of Charles the First to the Restoration, with an introduction tracing the progress of society and of the Constitution from the feudal times to the opening of the history, and including a particular examination of Mr. Hume's statements relative to the character of the English government.
The 'statements' which Brodie undertook to refute were chiefly those in which David Hume found precedents for the claims of the Stuarts in the action of the Tudor sovereigns.
Brodie's history was by far the most elaborate assault on the Stuarts and their apologists, especially Hume and Clarendon, and the most thoroughgoing vindication of the puritans, that had then appeared.
Guizot has expressed his surprise that so passionate a partisan should have written with so little animation (Preface to the Histoire de la Revolution d'Angleterre, 4th ed.