He was born at Seton, Angus, Scotland, He was a son of Peter Young, tutor to James alongside George Buchanan, and Elizabeth Gibb.
[1] He was then librarian successively to Prince Henry, James I, and Charles I; at the same time he undertook diplomatic correspondence.
In July 1605 King James sent his unpublished manuscript Historie of the Churche to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury.
James apologised that the language of this copy had been corrupted first by the version of Scots used by Geddie, and then by Patrick Young's attempts to convert the text into English spelling.
[1][6] He was responsible for the editio princeps of Clement of Rome's two “Epistles to the Corinthians” (1633 and 1637)[7][8] In 1637 he published a catena of the Greek Fathers on the Book of Job, attributed to Nicetas,[9] and in 1639 a commentary on Canticles, based on that of Gilbert Foliot[10] His book collection passed to Thomas Gale.