After graduating from the University of Glasgow in 1604, he began a career in the Church of Scotland taking a variety of posts until being appointed Bishop of Brechin in 1635.
As a bishop, Whitford was already mistrusted by hardline Presbyterians, and he made himself more unpopular by backing the attempt by the monarchy to impose Archbishop William Laud's prayer book on his congregation.
After the abolition of episcopacy by the Church of Scotland in 1639, Whitford was deprived of his bishopric and fled to England.
Born about 1581, he was the son of Adam Whitford of Milntown (later called Milton Lockhart) near Carluke, by his wife Mary, daughter of Sir James Somerville of Cambusnethan in Lanarkshire.
Adam Whitford was accused of being concerned in January 1575–6 in a conspiracy against the regent, James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton.
On 10 May 1604 he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Paisley, and on 3 December 1608 he was presented by King James VI to the parish of Kilmarnock in Ayrshire.
On 30 August he was constituted minister of Failford in Ayrshire by James VI, in addition to his other charge.
In March 1620 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Glasgow University; and on 4 August 1621 he was confirmed in his ministry by act of parliament.
[5] On 9 December 1628 he was presented by Charles I to the sub-deanery of Glasgow, which after 1670 formed the parish of Old Monkland in Lanarkshire.
The new Scottish Prayer Book was very unpopular with the masses in Scotland, and in 1637, when Whitford announced his intention of reading it, he was threatened with violence.
Undeterred he ascended the pulpit, holding a brace of pistols, his family and servants attending him armed, and read the service with closed doors.
The minister of Brechin, Alexander Bisset, refused to obey Whitford's commands to follow his example.
This obstinacy roused intense feeling against him, and towards the close of the year, after his palace had been plundered, he was compelled to flee to England, where, with two other bishops, he violently opposed the Scottish treasurer, Sir John Stewart, 1st Earl of Traquair, whose moderation he disliked, drawing up a memorial against employing him as a commissioner to treat with the Scots.
[6] On 13 December 1638 he was deposed and excommunicated by the Glasgow assembly, whose authority, in common with the other bishops, he had refused to recognise.
In addition to the ecclesiastical offence of signing the declinature, he was accused of drunkenness and incontinence, and of "using of masse crucifixes in his chamber".
[8] On 28 December 1640 Whitford was living in London in great poverty,[9] but on 5 May 1642, as a recompense for his sufferings, Charles presented him to the rectory of Walgrave in Northamptonshire, where he was instituted.
In 1646 he was expelled by the parliamentary soldiery; he died the following year, and was buried on 16 June in the middle aisle of the chancel of St Margaret's, Westminster.
He married Anne, fourth daughter of Sir John Carmichael of that ilk, and niece of the regent Morton.
[11] In 1660 Whitford's widow petitioned for a yearly allowance out of the rents of the bishopric of Brechin in consideration of the sufferings of her family in the royal cause.
[12] His eldest son, John Whitford (died 1667), divine, was presented, at the instance of Laud, to the rectory of Ashton in Northamptonshire, and instituted in 1640.
The third son, Adam Whitford (1624–1647), soldier, born in 1624, was a king's scholar at Westminster School, and in 1641 was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, whence he matriculated on 10 December, graduating B.A.
1016; Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, 1824, p. 167; Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, 1620–33 pp.