For inveighing against the court Durie and Walter Balcanquhal were imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh until they produced in writing the passage objected to.
He educated at Ayr Through the influence of his cousin George Durie, Abbot of Dunfermline, became a conventual brother in that abbey, but falling under suspicion of heresy, was condemned to be shut up until he died.
He became conspicuous in the conflicts between the King and the Church, and for inveighing against the court on a Fast Day, on 23 May 1582, he was called before the Privy Council and ordered to quit Edinburgh and desist from preaching.
"At the Nether Bow they took up the 124th Psalm, 'Now Israel may say, and that truly,' and sang it in such a pleasant tune, in all the four parts, these being well known to the people, who came up the street bareheaded and singing, till they entered the kirk.
When they entered the kirk Mr Lawson made a short exhortation in the reader's place to thankfulness, and after the singing of a psalm the people departed with great joy" (Calderwood's History, iii.).
Preaching and athletics went together, for ‘the gown was no sooner off and the Bible out of hand in the kirk, when on went the corselet and up fangit [snatched up] was the hagbut, and to the fields.’ But he speaks of him as a man of singular devoutness, who prayed and communed with God in so remarkable a manner that he counted it one of the privileges of his life that he had come in contact with him.
Andrew Melville composed no fewer than eight Latin epitaphs in his honour, chiefly celebrating the courage with which he resisted the court.
[5] Durie married Marion, daughter of Sir John Majoribanks, provost of Edinburgh, and had her husband's pension continued to her by act of parliament 11 July 1606.