Alexander Young was a 17th century Scottish

Kingdom of Scotland

The Kingdom of Scotland was a Sovereign state in North-West Europe that existed from 843 until 1707. It occupied the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shared a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England...

 prelate

Prelate

A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means "carry before", "be set above or over" or "prefer"; hence, a prelate is one set over others.-Related...

. Young was born in Aberdeen of the Altbar family. In the winter of 1671, he became Bishop of Edinburgh

Bishop of Edinburgh

The Bishop of Edinburgh is the Ordinary of the Scottish Episcopal Diocese of Edinburgh.The see was founded in 1633 by King Charles I. William Forbes was consecrated in St. Giles' Cathedral as its first bishop on 23 January 1634 though he died later that year...

, a position he held until his translation to be Bishop of Ross

Bishop of Ross

The Bishop of Ross was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Ross, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. The first recorded bishop appears in the late 7th century as a witness to Adomnán of Iona's Cáin Adomnáin. The bishopric was based at the settlement of Rosemarkie until the mid-13th...

 in 1679. This had been arranged by the Duchess of Lauderdale in order to allow John Paterson

John Paterson (archbishop)

John Paterson , the last archbishop of Glasgow, was the youngest son of John Paterson, bishop of Ross. John, after some preliminary studies at Marischal College, University of Aberdeen, was admitted as a student of theology at the University of St Andrews on 13 March 1655, and he is entered as...

, Bishop of Galloway

Bishop of Galloway

The Bishop of Galloway, also called the Bishop of Whithorn, was the eccesiastical head of the Diocese of Galloway, said to have been founded by Saint Ninian in the mid-5th century. The subsequent Anglo-Saxon bishopric was founded in the late 7th century or early 8th century, and the first known...

 (not John Paterson

John Paterson (bishop)

John Paterson was the Bishop of Ross in Scotland.Paterson graduated from King's College, Aberdeen in 1624, and was appointed to the church of Foveran, Aberdeenshire, in 1632. He refused to sign the National Covenant of 1639, and fled to England to the king...

, Young's predecessor at Ross) to hold the diocese of Edinburgh

Diocese of Edinburgh

The Diocese of Edinburgh is one of the seven dioceses of the Scottish Episcopal Church. It covers the City of Edinburgh, the Lothians, the Borders and Falkirk. The diocesan centre is St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh...

. Bishop Young suffered from an ailment, and in 1684 travelled to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

to have an operation. He failed to survive this operation, and died several weeks afterwards.