Scotland's Story

A Short Catholic and Christian History of Scotland in 60 Characters

What follows below is a celebration, a celebration of the way in which Christianity, and in particular Catholic Christianity, has helped shape Scotland. It celebrates especially the men and women who did the shaping. From the earliest evidence of the Faith in south-western Scotland to the men and women who today live out their lives in the light of the Gospels, there have been countless individuals who have sought guidance from the Preacher from Galilee.

Often, Christianity has been a force for good, creating social cohesion and awakening a thirst for social justice. Churches stand at the cradle of Scotland’s education system, and were responsible for its schools and universities. For many centuries it was the Church that looked after the sick and the poor.

Whole towns owe their origins to Christianity, as they grew up around cathedrals like Glasgow, relics like Saint Andrews, or abbeys like Paisley. The language and symbols of Christianity have provided the iconic symbols for the country as a whole: its patron saint in Saint Andrew, the Apostle, the Saltire flag which depicts his cross, and the Stone of Destiny on which its monarchs were crowned. Indeed, one can argue that the Church contributed significantly to the unification of the various peoples that merged to create Scotland, as it united Scots, Picts, Britons, Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen into one cultural entity. Later still, during the Wars of Independence, the Scottish Church stood in the vanguard of resistance against the claims of the English crown.

It would be foolish to suggest that there has not been a darker side to all this. Religion, particularly when combined with politics, can be deadly. It proved to be so during the Covenanting Wars in particular, as various groups fought to impose their version of Protestantism on the country. But the Catholic Church, too, tried to ward off the coming Reformation with violence, and was, in turn, met with violence. Nor should the poor women and some men be forgotten who were burned or tortured because they were cast into the role of witches. Misguided tribalism continues to hover over some parts of the country, although contemporary sectarianism has very little to do with organised religion.

For all that it should acknowledge the mistakes of the past, Christianity can rightly be very proud of its achievements. Faith inspires artists, creates objects of beauty. Few can imagine a cityscape bereft of churches, and the country would be much poorer without its Christian sculpture, paintings and music. Churches of all denominations create strong communities and provide many essential services, frequently free of charge as part of the ethos of their Faith. The struggle for justice, the sense of egalitarianism and community, and the notion of liberty which all sit at the heart of Scottish sensibility would not exist without Christianity, either.

As the following shows, there is not a single field of human endeavour in which Christians, Catholic and other, have failed to make an important contribution. Hopefully it will serve as a reminder that Faith is an integral part of what makes Scotland Scotland.

Latinus and his four year old daughter, c. 450 A.D.
Latinus is the first Christian in Scotland to whom we can attach a name. He is commemorated on a stone which was later used as building material in the medieval cathedral in Whithorn. The inscription on the stone translates as

“We praise you, the Lord! Latinus, descendant of Barravados, aged 35, and his daughter, aged 4, made a sign here”.

We know nothing more about him, but can say with certainty that he formed part of the Latinised elite in a post-Roman kingdom on the Solway Firth. He was probably a Briton. Whether or not Barravados was also a Christian is unclear. However, the inclusion of the nameless daughter shows that Christian family life had begun in Scotland by c. 450 A.D., the time when the stone was carved.

Saint Ninian, fl. late fifth century
Ninian, although the first man to be called a saint in Scotland whose name has come down to us, is a problematic figure. There are no contemporary sources to attest to his life. However, there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to suggest that Ninian was, indeed, a holy man, living in a monastic foundation in Whithorn, somewhere towards the end of the fifth century. There he would have served the already existing Christian community, including, perhaps, Latinus. His links with Saint Martin of Tours and Rome show that even at this early date, Christians in Scotland were part of a wider res publica. Later, Ninian was to become one of Scotland’s national saints. His statue was found in all the major Scottish overseas trading posts, such as Bruges in Belgium, Bergen op Zoom in Holland and in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Like Saint Andrew and Saint Queen Margaret, Ninian stood for Scottishness and did so until 1560.

Saint Triduana, date unknown
Triduana is one of Scotland’s lesser-known saints, a woman whose life is possibly even more obscure than that of Saint Ninian. Yet she is important. She is the only saint buried in Scotland’s capital city, invoked in the past by Kings and Queens, and her holy well still partially stands at Restalrig. It is for her association with a completely legendary character, that of the Greek monk, Saint Regulus, that she is truly significant. Triduana, according to the legend, accompanied Regulus to Scotland when the Byzantine Emperor wished to move the bones of the Apostle Saint Andrew. The bones came to Fife, where they were enshrined at what is now Saint Andrews. There they were the centre of a major pilgrimage, which attracted people from far and wide. The legend ensured that the Saint Andrew’s cross came to be the symbol of Scotland, the Saltire its flag. Triduana, then, is the patron of the capital, and is closely associated with the patron of the country.

Saint Brendan the Voyager, 484-577
Saint Brendan was an Irishman, whose legendary fame spread across Europe during the Middle Ages. He was reputed to have voyaged in a currach, a boat made of leather and twigs, across the Atlantic. The possibility of this was proven by Tim Severn, who sailed a reconstructed currach to North America. However, much in the story is fabulous. Brendan’s presence on the west coast of Scotland is well attested. He had a retreat on the lonely Garvellach Islands, constructed in 543 A.D., where early so-called ‘Beehive Cells’ may, indeed, still be seen today. He was working in a country already converted to Christianity by this date.

Saint Columba of Iona, 521-597
Columba was another Irish-born saint who played a major role in the Christian history of Scotland. The son of a royal family, he moved to Iona in the Gaelic kingdom of Dalriada in the wake of a conflict, and became a major player in the political and religious world of his adopted homeland. A highlight was his consecration of King Aidan of Dalriada, the first time a monarch in the British Isles had received official Church blessing. Much has been made of the differences in practice between Iona and Rome, but these can easily be overstated. Indeed, Columba’s successor and biographer, Saint Adomnán, could happily praise his predecessor and argue for the introduction of the Roman calculation for the celebration of Easter. A poem in the Carmina Gadelica underlines this further. The line, “A day as I was going to Rome, I forgathered with Columba, Peter and Paul”, makes the point that Iona and Rome were part of one Church. Columba did not bring Christianity to Scotland, nor did he introduce monasticism. He was, however, central to the construction of a family of monasteries which stretched across Scotland and which became the cornerstone of Christian civilisation in the country.

Saint Kentigern or Mungo, d. 612
We can say very little with any certainty about the patron saint of Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow. His life story is a complex mixture of myths and legends, most of which are obvious inventions. The closest we get to him are saints’ lives from the twelfth century, which are anything but contemporary. What we can distil is that Kentigern came from a Britonic environment in south-western Scotland, and that he may have had links with Wales and north-western England. This is hardly surprising, as all of the Britain, from Cornwall to Dumbarton, was controlled by Welsh princes at this time. Also unsurprisingly, therefore, the appellation of Mungo comes from the Brythonic ‘Mungu’, dear or gentle friend. Paradoxically, the safest fact about Kentigern is the date of his death: the reliable Annals of Wales place this in 612. This also makes clear that the Saint spent his life working to strengthen the Faith of the Christian Britons.

Saint Cuthbert, c. 634 – 20 March 687
Cuthbert is one of the greatest of the saints of the British Isles, and one of the best attested. His life as abbot of Old Melrose, as hermit on the Farne islands, and as bishop of Lindisfarne is well documented and known. For many centuries, Cuthbert was the saint whose reputation straddled the border between Scotland and England. Indeed, that border came into existence only after his death, and Cuthbert may stand for the Anglo-Saxon element in the various peoples that would later combine to constitute the kingdom of Scotland. Either Cuthbert or one of his monks was responsible for the first church in Edinburgh. The monastery which he led at Old Melrose was a beacon of education in south-eastern Scotland, and produced many a saint. The humble Cuthbert is amongst he most attractive of these: prayerful, genuinely fond of nature, unwilling to take on positions of power, but humble enough to accept them when necessary.

Saint Adomnán of Iona, c. 624 – 704
Adomnán is one of the earliest significant literary figures working in Scotland and its earliest campaigner for peace. He was the abbot of Iona from 679, and in that position was the superior of a whole string of abbeys founded from Iona in both Scotland and Ireland. Described in one source as “tearful, penitent, fond of prayer, diligent and ascetic, and learned in the clear understanding of the Holy Scriptures of God”, he played a major diplomatic role. His friendships with the various monarchies that ruled the northern part of Britain and Ireland allowed him to smooth troubles, but also to carry the Gospel to the people. He wrote two important works, the Vita S. Columbae and De Locis Sanctis, on the pilgrimage places in the Holy Land, which was praised by that great scholar, Saint Bede. He also provided the Cain Adamnain, the Canons of Adomnán, also known as the Law of the Innocents. This sought to protect non-combatants from the violence of war.

The Age of the Vikings, eighth to the thirteenth centuries
Scotland was more intimately connected to the Vikings than almost any other country in Europe. This is unsurprising: Norway is only just across the North Sea and the Viking ships brought the country within easy reach. Vikings settled thickly across the Northern Isles, in Caithness and Sutherland, across the Hebrides and even in Galloway. They linked the Scottish northern and western seaboards into an extensive trade network, which stretched from Greenland to Constantinople and from Ireland to Kiev. They also brought martyrs. The monasteries of Iona, Applecross, Coldingham and many others were reduced to ashes, their incumbents slaughtered. Indeed, for some time it seemed as if Christian civilisation in Scotland would come to an end. The most famous martyrs include Saint Blaithmaic (d. c.823), who refused to reveal where the treasures and relics of Iona were hidden and who was hacked to pieces on the altar steps, and the Fife saints, Monan and Adrian of the Isle of May. Most famous of all, however, is the Abbess Saint Ebba (d. 870) and her company of nuns. They lived in the grand monastery of Coldingham on the Berwickshire coast, which had long been a centre for Christian life in the region. When Ebba heard of the arrival of the pagans, she mutilated her face to prevent any of them raping her. She urged her nuns to copy her example, which they did. The outraged Vikings set fire to the building, and all perished inside.

Macbeth, King of Scots, d. 15 August 1057
The name Macbeth is forever sullied by the Shakespeare play. Here is the monster king, with the equally monstrous wife, who consulted with witches and indulged in murder to get his way. The real Macbeth was a little more complex. He had been Mormaer or sub-king in Moray since 1034, apparently with some success, as we do not hear of any challenges to his rule. This meant he was the effective ruler of most of northern Scotland. The reign of his predecessor, Duncan, was running into trouble in 1039-40, with a Northumbrian invasion of south-western Scotland followed by a failed Scottish invasion of Northumbria. Later that year, Duncan attacked Moray and was killed. Why he chose to attack is unclear. Macbeth became the King of Alba, as Scotland was known, and his reign for the most appears to have been peaceful. According to the Irish chronicler, Marinus Scotus, Macbeth could even travel to Rome as a pilgrim in 1050, where he spent lavishly. There he met Pope Gregory VII. From 1052 Macbeth’s fortunes waned. He became entangled in a conflict with the powerful Earl of Orkney and with English rival factions. In 1054, the English removed him from the south of Scotland. Three years later, his replacement, Malcolm III, killed him in a battle in Moray.

Saint Queen Margaret of Scotland, c.1045 – 16 November 1093
Queen Margaret has long provided Scotland with an internationally recognised female figure. It was almost as if she was born for that particular role. Margaret was born into the Anglo-Saxon royal family of England, but in Hungary where she was raised. Later she travelled to England from where she fled to Scotland in 1066, where she married into the Gaelic Scottish royal family. Today, she is the only Scottish saint whose feast is on the General Calendar of the Catholic Church; she is, in other words, venerated all over the world. Judging from her biography, which was written by her contemporary, Bishop Turgot of Saint Andrews, she was an accomplished and remarkable woman, part saint, part politician. Margaret is mainly known for her efforts to introduce the Gregorian reform to Scotland. This has long been seen as a replacement of a ‘Celtic’ Church by a Roman one, but this fails to take into account that the Gregorian reform unified Church practice all over Europe, and not just in Europe. Margaret left Scotland a country more in tune with the rest of Europe, and her monarchy with a saint.

Saint Magnus of Orkney, c.1075 – 16 April 1115 or 1116
Magnus was the Earl of Orkney who shared the earldom with his cousin, Hakon. This was normal procedure, but always caused strife. The bloodshed that normally accompanied this was always to the detriment of Orkney society. For some years between 1104 and 1115, the two cousins managed to get along well. This may be due in part to the non-violent character of Magnus. When, in 1098, the Norwegian king and overlord of Orkney, Magnus Barelegs, raided the coast around the Irish Sea, Saint Magnus famously refused to take part in a battle on the island of Anglesey. The young man sat on the bow of his ship, reading the Psalter. Our source for the martyrdom, the great Orkneyjar Saga, is less than clear as to why Hakon determined to remove his cousin. It merely says that ‘evil men’ had whispered against Magnus. Whatever the reason, at Easter of either 1115, 1116 or possibly 1117, the two men met to negotiate on Egilsay. Magnus was ambushed by a party of Hakon’s men, and was killed. He accepted his death quietly, aware that it would avoid more bloodshed. In the words of the Orkney poet, George Mackay Brown, “Then in the light of the new day, 16 April 1117, there was a blinding flash of metal in the sun”. There followed some miracles at the tomb, but it was the self-sacrifice to keep the peace that sealed Magnus’s reputation as a saint.

Blessed Clement of Dunblane, O.P., ? – 1256/8
Clement of Dunblane was one of the first Scots to join the Dominican Order, which has given Scotland such a long and distinguished service since the thirteenth century. We do not know when Clement was born, and first hear of him as a Master of Oxford University. It may be that it was here that he joined the Dominican Order, who first came to England in 1221. However, there is a long-standing tradition that he received the black-and-white habit from non other than the founder of the Order, Saint Dominic de Guzman, who died in 1221. The Dominicans were a new phenomenon in the Church at the time: they were dedicated to preaching and working in the new universities, and dependent on alms. Another tradition holds that King Alexander II of Scotland had invited the Order to his country when he met Saint Dominic in Paris, but all that can be said with certainty is that the first house of the Order opened in Ayr in 1230, and received strong backing from the king. Seven more friaries were to follow, including in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The group of friars that began the house in Ayr was led by Clement. Three years later, he was appointed Bishop of Dunblane. This was a problematic diocese, which Clement soon placed on a secure footing. He fixed the see of the diocese at Dunblane where he began work on the cathedral. In 1249 he also became the administrator for the diocese of Argyll, which, again, he placed on a secure footing. Clement worked on a Papal commission examining the cause of Queen Margaret of Scotland’s canonisation, which followed in 1250. He also wrote sermons, some of which are extant, and three books, including a biography of Saint Dominic, a history of the Order in Scotland, and a book on pilgrimage places in the Holy Land. From 1249 he sat in the regency council for Alexander III, where he was a determined opponent of English influence.

Blessed John Duns Scotus, O.F.M., c. 1265 – 8 November 1308
John Scotus was, without doubt, the most famous Scot of his time. He was born in Duns in Berwickshire and entered the Franciscan order in England. There, he studied at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, from where he went to Paris. From 1304 he lectured at the university before moving to the Franciscan house in Cologne in Germany where he died. His tomb has the inspiring epitaph “Scotland brought me forth. England sustained me. France taught me. Cologne holds me”, a summing-up of the international world which was medieval Christianity. Scotus was known as the Doctor Subtilis, for the intricate way in which he argued for the existence of God. He also defended the notion of the Immaculate Conception, more than six centuries before this became the officially accepted dogma of the Catholic Church. Most attractive in his theology is the centrality of Christ and of Christ’s redeeming offer and love. Through this, the individual has access to the Divine, can meet God. It is a theology that appeals greatly to Pope Benedict XVI.

Sir William Wallace, c. 1272-1305
For a man as well-known as Wallace, we know very little about his background. It is clear that he came from within the political circle of the Stewarts of Scotland, the family that would later inherit the Scottish crown. His landholdings were in the west of Scotland, where the Stewarts were the dominant force. He was, therefore, not the commoner of popular myth. Why he began the uprising against Edward I’s army of occupation is unclear; what is certain is that he began his part of a wider Scottish uprising in Lanark. At the same time, Andrew Moray and the Douglas family also began to expel the English, in what appears to have been a co-ordinated attack. In 1297, Wallace played a pivotal role in the Battle of Stirling Bridge, defeating a superior English army. For one year, he was the most important military man in the kingdom, until crushed at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298. He undertook a diplomatic mission to France, and possibly to the Papacy, and was finally captured in 1305, after which he died a traitor’s death in London. We know little of Wallace’s religious convictions, which were possibly typical of his day. Blind Harry, who wrote the most famous of the biographical works on Wallace, mentions that his hero escaped the English in Dundee with his mother, both dressed as pilgrims to the tomb of Saint Queen Margaret of Scotland. True or not, this underlines the conventional Christianity of William Wallace.

The Declaration of Arbroath, 6 April 1320
The Declaration of Arbroath is, undoubtedly, the most famous document in Scottish history. This was not always the case, but there has been a steady increase in interest in the document since the nineteenth century. It was not a declaration at all, but a letter to the Pope, aiming to lift the excommunication of the man elected King of Scots, Robert the Bruce, and trying to gain Papal support for the Scottish renunciation of English claims of over-lordship. Bruce had been excommunicated for murdering his rival for the crown, John Comyn, in the church of the Franciscans in Dumfries. The letter was drafted by the royal chancellor, Abbot Bernard of Arbroath, and by the Bishop of Saint Andrews, Lamberton. This underlines the fact that the Church had been in the vanguard in the battle to preserve Scottish independence, an independence from England which mirrored that of the Scottish Church. That the appeal was to the Papacy is not surprising: the Pope was seen as the ultimate moral arbiter in politics. The statements contained within the letter have rightly become famous, and include the declaration that the kingship in Scotland could be given to any man the community saw fit to govern. It goes on to proclaim that “It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself”, and that as long as one hundred survive, they would not submit to England. Few documents are as revealing about the centrality of the Faith in Scotland’s history.

King Robert I ‘the Bruce’, 11 July 1275 – 7 June 1329
If Wallace is the hero of the Scottish Wars of Independence in myth and popular imagination, Robert the Bruce was the man who led the country back to independence in reality. It is often difficult to determine whether he was driven by ambition or by idealism. Originally, the Bruce family sided with Edward I of England; their large English estates certainly influenced their stance. However, gradually Bruce moved to oppose the English crown, coming out into open revolt and supporting the Scots at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. After the defeat at Falkirk in 1298, he became joint guardian with John Comyn, an arrangement that stranded on their clashing ambitions. After sitting on the fence for some years, Bruce and Bishop Lamberton of Saint Andrews undertook to resist English claims once more. This culminated in the murder of his rival, John Comyn, in the church of the Franciscans in Dumfries in 1306, after which there was no going back for Bruce. He immediately found support from the Bishop of Glasgow and other clergy, who still opposed English claims. After some initial setbacks, and the execution of three of his brothers, Bruce gradually managed to remove the English from Scotland. This culminated at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Bruce’s deep piety played a significant role, for he had relics of Saint Columba and of Saint Fillan of Glendochart – to whom he was deeply devoted – carried onto the field of battle to bless the Scottish army. There can be little doubt that his Faith sustained him in the long years of strife, and in his final years as monarch, when he was afflicted by leprosy. His willpower and the support of the Church did much to retain Scotland’s independence. In a final testimony to his personal piety, he required that his heart was taken on the Crusade, which was only partially fulfilled.

Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini, Pope Pius II, 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464
Pius II was one of the Popes of the Renaissance. A scholar of repute he was born in Siena into a noble family, and studied in the great Italian universities before accepting jobs as secretary for several leading church men. On their behalf he also undertook several diplomatic journeys. In the late 1430s, he joined the court of the Emperor in Vienna, where he became poet laureate. There, he had a conversion experience, and the rather loose-living poet became a priest. In 1458, he was elected Pope, with the College of Cardinals recognising his great intellectual abilities. His links with Scotland came through his role as diplomat, and he visited the country before he was even ordained. He came to Scotland in 1435, and landed at Dunbar after a storm-tossed journey across the North Sea. Piccolomini promised Our Lady that he would visit one of her shrines if he survived the journey and honoured his promise. He walked barefoot from Dunbar to the pilgrimage church at Whitekirk in East Lothian. The ten cold miles left him with rheumatism for the rest of his life. Until John Paul II, he was the only Pope ever to have set foot in Scotland.

King James IV of Scotland, 17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513
James IV was the outstanding monarch of Medieval Scotland in all fields except one: warfare. The latter fact was to cost him his life at the Battle of Flodden against England. With him died the hopes of a country. He had come to power in a struggle with his father, James III, who, in 1488, was killed in the process. The deeply pious James IV was to regret this all his life, and for penance wore a hair shirt all his days. The court was a beacon of civilisation in northern Europe. Indeed, it can be argued that the Renaissance arrived in Scotland before it ever reached England, which at the time was racked by civil wars. The palace of Falkland and the castles of Stirling and Edinburgh bare ample testimony to this, despite the ravages of time. James was a great patron of musicians, and his court abounded with minstrels. Both literature and poetry was encouraged, too, and one may assume that painters found a welcome, although little has survived. James was interested in pilgrimage, and travelled widely throughout his kingdom in the quest for the holy: Saint Ninian at Whithorn, Saint Duthac in Tain, Saint Adrian on the Isle of May, Saint Triduana in Edinburgh and Saint Mirin in Paisley were amongst the saints whose intercession James sought. His marriage to Henry VIII’s sister, Margaret, eventually led to the Union of Crowns, itself the precursor to the Union of Parliaments of 1707. Few men have had such influence on the course of Scotland’s history. When he perished on the field at Flodden, none other than Erasmus showered praise on him: “He had wonderful powers of mind, an astonishing knowledge of everything, an unconquerable magnanimity and the most abundant generosity.” Pope Alexander VI presented James with the sceptre, and Pope Julius II gave the Sword of State, both now part of the Scottish Crown Jewels kept in Edinburgh Castle.

Robert Carver, c. 1485 – c. 1570
Carver was an Augustinian monk at the Abbey of Scone, the place where Scotland’s monarchs were traditionally crowned. He was long an unfamiliar name to most, and probably still is to many. Robert Carver, however, is the finest composer in Scotland’s past. He wrote in a European tradition and, at times, excelled his examples. Contained in what was known as the Scone Antiphonary, but is now called the Carver Choirbook in his honour, are two motets and five masses. These provide a glimpse of the wealth of music that existed in Renaissance Scotland. The motet O Bone Jesu is for nineteen voices, and has inspired modern composers. His Mass L’Homme Armé echoes the fine composers of the Low Countries and Italy.

Bishop Gavin Douglas of Dunkeld, c. 1474 – September 1522
Gavin Douglas was a true Renaissance man: scholar, poet, cleric and politician. His importance as a politician ensured that no other poet writing in English before him, with the exception of Chaucer, is better documented. He had studied at the University of Saint Andrews and wrote his literary works whilst living in Edinburgh as Provost of St. Giles’s, then a cultural centre in the capital. His Palice of Honour from 1501, written in Scots, is his best known work. He also translated Virgil’s Aeneid from the Latin, the first ever translation of a Classical work into a Germanic language. After the death of James IV at Flodden, Gavin Douglas was appointed to the bishopric of Dunkeld, although not without serious opposition. He supported Mary Tudor, James IV’s widow, and was pro-English, which ended with his exile to London, where he died of the plague.

Bishop William Elphinstone of Aberdeen, 1431 – 25 October 1514
Like Gavin Douglas, Elphinstone was educated in Scotland, at Glasgow University. All Scottish universities were Church foundations, and they initiated the long tradition of education in the country, which was continued after the Reformation. Elphinstone also participated in another long-standing educational trait of the Scots, in that he spent some time in a foreign university, too, in his case in Paris. In 1481 he became Bishop of Ross and in 1483 he moved to the see of Aberdeen. He worked as a diplomat for both James III and James IV. He was one of the few Catholic clergymen who truly worried about the state of the Church, and was closely linked to some of the early Continental Catholic reformers. He wrote the Elphinstone Breviary, the most exhaustive compilation of Scottish saints’ lives, which was one of the earliest books to be printed in the country.

Mary, Queen of Scots, 8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587
The tragic figure of the Catholic Queen in a Protestant country is too well-known to require exhaustive repetition here. Clearly deeply influenced by her French mother, Mary de Guise, Mary held fast to her Faith when it would have been more prudent to foreswear it. Her political acumen was, to put it mildly, less than well developed, and she had a habit of trusting the wrong people. Mary inspired hate and fear as easily as she did love and devotion. John Knox, the leader of the Scottish Protestants, hated her, probably more because she was a woman than because she remained a Catholic. Mary’s execution by the reluctant Elizabeth of England caused great scandal at the time, and polarised the various denominations. To many Catholic Scots, Mary became a martyr, although she was never canonised as such.

John Knox, c. 1510 – 24 November 1572
The bearded figure of the father of the Scottish Reformation is, like that of Mary, Queen of Scots, so familiar as not to require much introduction. Here again is a clergyman educated in Scotland, at Saint Andrews University. Knox became a priest, but was influenced by English and Continental Protestant thinkers. Involved in the murder of Cardinal Beaton, Knox was imprisoned and then exiled to England. There he served the English King, Edward VI, as royal chaplain. He then moved to Geneva, where he was heavily influenced by Calvin, and became a Presbyterian. Once he returned to Scotland in 1559, his fiery sermons ignited the Reformation. In Scotland, unlike in England, there was widespread support for this. Burghs such as Perth rapidly moved towards Presbyterianism. In other places things were more complicated. In Edinburgh, for example, many were less than happy with the new regime, although outright opposition was limited. Interestingly, when Knox died, his passing was barely noticed. His ideas rather than his person were what mattered. This was to change subsequently, and Knox has become the symbol for the Reformation in Scotland and all that this entailed. From a Catholic perspective, Knox is an ambiguous figure. His personal sobriety and commitment stand in strong contrast to the venality of many of the Catholic clergy of the period, and his emphasis on individual responsibility is something few would argue with. Yet his denial of the Mass, his brutality towards Queen Mary, and his rigid discipline are less than attractive. Knox will always remain a somewhat controversial figure.

King James VI-I, 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625
The wily James VI of Scotland was one of the great political survivors. A man with a well-developed skill in waiting when required and acting when needed, he managed, in 1603, to gain the crown of neighbouring England through the claim of his Tudor great-grandmother, Margaret, the wife of James IV. He became king when only a baby, used by the Protestant pro-English party to oust his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Religiously, he is most interesting, as his person reflects the changes of the period, but also the fluidity of the denominational boundaries. For some, like Knox or Mary, Queen of Scots, there could be no question of changing denomination. For many, and James is included here, it was no problem. He was baptised a Catholic, but Knox preached at his coronation, a mere thirteen months later. From 1583, he began to rule Scotland in person, forcing aristocracy and church to bow to his will. A child of his time, he firmly believed in witches, writing the Daemonologie, a tract against the practice of witchcraft. Persecution of the unfortunate women accused of the black art began in earnest during his rule. His high estimate of the Divine right of kings to govern caused him to write on the subject, and led him to impose his will on the Highlands and the Church of Scotland. Once he became King of England, James did his utmost to unite both crowns and parliaments of England and Scotland, with little success. However, his Protestant succession created an identity for the future United Kingdom, founded on a common Protestant bond. But it was a narrow, royalist definition of Protestantism. Non-conformity in England was being persecuted, and the Church of Scotland brought into line with Anglicanism, its Presbyterian character diminished. Strangely, Catholics were often tolerated. His greatest religious legacy is the English-language Bible that bears his name, a work of literary genius.

Saint John Ogilvie, S.J., 1597 – 10 March 1615
With Saint John Ogilvie, we have reached Scotland’s only martyr from the reformation period. Although life for those who clung to Catholicism in Scotland after 1560 was frequently less than comfortable, it is, nevertheless, true that they suffered far less than was the case in England and Wales. John Ogilvie was born into a Protestant family, and converted to Catholicism at the Scots College in Douai, in France. This was one of several overseas seminaries that the Catholic Church had erected as educating priests had been outlawed by the Scottish Parliament. Ogilvie joined the Jesuits, or the Society of Jesus, at that time the most vigorous of the Catholic religious orders. It was committed to the mission, both in Protestant Europe and the wider world. He entered the noviciate in the Czech town of Brno, and later taught in Vienna and France. In 1613, Fr. Claudio Aquaviva, the Jesuit General, gave permission for the future Saint to go on the Scottish mission. He was sent to “ut dedocerem haeresim”, to ‘unteach’ heresy. Strangely, most of his mission would be spent amongst those already of the Catholic Faith. In Scotland, he ministered to tiny groups of those who had remained Catholic. For some time he managed to evade the authorities, but on Tuesday, 14 October 1614, as he was walking in the High Street in Glasgow, he was arrested for being a Catholic priest. He had been betrayed by Adam Boyd, who had pretended that he had converted to Catholicism. Incarceration followed, and torture, but Ogilvie stood firm. Very unusually, he was condemned to death and was hanged in Glasgow. He is the only Catholic known to have been killed for professing his Faith in post-Reformation Scotland.

Rev. John Blackadder, December 1615 – 1685
Blackadder came from a comfortable background, and was educated at Glasgow University. There he became a committed Presbyterian, and soon he was travelling across Scotland as an itinerant preacher. In 1652 he was appointed minister to the parish of Troqueer in Kirkcudbrightshire. This was in the centre of Scottish Covenanting, the movement that placed Church and Faith above political allegiance. However, it was also one of very many parishes where the memory of the practices of Catholicism lingered, something Blackadder did his best to eradicate. In 1662, together with many fellow Presbyterian ministers, he was removed from his parish as Episcopacy was re-introduced. Blackadder was a moderate: he may not have liked Episcopalian or Catholic practices, but would never take up the sword against them. He now became a field preacher, wanted by the state. In 1681, he was arrested, and placed on the Bass Rock, off the coast of North Berwick. There he died four years later. To many he was a saint, the only Protestant Scot ever to be termed such by the Church of Scotland. He stands as a witness to persecution, but also to tolerance, non-violent resistance and persuasion rather than coercion.

King James VII-II, 14 October 1633 – 16 September 1701
James VII was the last Catholic monarch of Scotland. Like his grandfather, James VI, he ardently believed in the Divine right of kings, but he lacked his political touch. As a young man, he had managed to escape from a Parliamentary prison, and had fought in the French and Spanish armies. There he became attracted to Catholicism, but his conversion occurred only after the Restoration, in 1669. This brought him into conflict with the English parliament. As his brother, Charles II, looked unable to produce an heir, many sought to exclude James from the succession, but failed. He succeeded in 1685 in both England and Scotland. In Scotland, he severely persecuted dissident Presbyterians, but advocated religious freedom for Catholics. Several compromises were suggested by the Scottish Parliament, which, if accepted by James, would have made Scotland one of the first European countries with total freedom of religion. Unfortunately, he refused. By 1688, he had sufficiently alienated the English Parliament for them to call upon his brother-in-law, William III of Orange, to ‘restore’ Protestantism. In Scotland Parliament waited until April of 1689 until they, too, declared the king deposed. He left for France, and returned to Ireland with French support, only to be defeated and ended his life in exile on the Continent. Interestingly, the Pope openly supported the Protestant William III of Orange, being fearful of an over-powerful France.

James Drummond, K.T., 4th Earl of Perth, 1648 – 11 May 1716
James Drummond was the head of an important aristocratic family that had been at the centre of Scottish life since the late Middle Ages. He had made a solid political career during the Restoration years, when he had been part of a small group of aristocrats governing Scotland. He had been instrumental in the persecution of the Covenanters in Scotland’s south-west. Drummond also stood at the centre of some of the earliest colonial activity in Scotland. In 1681, in partnership with William Penn, the eponymous founder of Pennsylvania, he began the settlement of New Jersey. A statue of the Earl still stands in the city of Perth Amboy, facing Staten Island. He was close to the Duke of York, and converted to Catholicism, possibly out of political convenience: when York became King James VII-II, the new Catholic monarch made Perth his chancellor. He tried to have the Scottish Parliament introduce freedom of religion, but failed. In Edinburgh, he opened the Chapel Royal in Holyrood Palace to Catholic worship. All this collapsed when, in 1689, the Scots decided to follow the English and replace James VII with William of Orange. Perth was imprisoned, but later released. He died in exile at the Jacobite court in France. Perth stood at the end of one period, and at the start of another. With his removal ended the struggle for the soul of Scotland’s Reformation. Presbyterianism was to be the religion of state; Episcopalians began their long period or repression. With him, the Jacobite movement began, which was to be carried by Episcopalians and Catholics for the next half century.

Silèas MacDonald of Keppoch or Silèas Nighean Mhic Raghnaill, c. 1660 – c. 1729
Silèas MacDonald was the finest Gaelic poet of her time. She was born in the Catholic Braes of Lochaber into the chiefly family of MacDonald of Keppoch. Her marriage to Alexander Gordon of Camdell took her to equally Catholic Banffshire, and so her experiences were Scottish, Highland and Lowland, and Catholic. She was a great supporter of the Stuart cause and wrote poetry on the ’15. She was one of the finest exponents of Gaelic lament poetry, and also wrote an important body of Catholic religious verse, a rare example of such literature in Scotland between the Reformation and the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1829. 

‘Rob Roy’ Macgregor, 1671 – 21 December 1734
There can be few more romantic figures in Scottish history than Rob Roy. Countless legends, songs and films have made him into a cult figure, a Scottish Robin Hood. The real man is difficult to discern, but no less interesting. He was a representative of a class of people that dominated the Highlands for many centuries. He was not a landed gentleman, but a small-scale farmer with traditional authority, who had initiated the cash economy by engaging in cattle trade with England. His armed ‘protection’ of the Highland fringe farmers is legendary and coined the term ‘blackmail’, but there was more to Rob Roy. He stood as a guardian over a people that had no power at all, and whose way of life was already coming under pressure. The Jacobite movement had made their lives even more difficult, with increasing government pressure on the Highlanders, who were feared for their Jacobite sympathies. Too young to engage in the fighting of 1689, Rob was involved in the rising of 1715, although it is unclear on exactly what side. His later years seem to have marked a conversion of morals, for he converted to Catholicism in the mission outside Crieff, on the lands of the Catholic Earls of Perth.

Prince Charles Edward Stuart ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, 31 December 1720 – 31 January 1788
The figure of the handsome young prince who almost defied the odds and came to within a whisker of capturing London from the Hanoverian regime is the most romantic and controversial in Scottish history. For many years, he was taken at face-value, and was a hero, a fact greatly enhanced by his almost miraculous escape from the Hanoverian troops after the Battle of Culloden. Research has since pointed at the character flaws of the prince, his drunkenness and headstrong defiance of more experienced military men. It has also highlighted the fact that the prince’s chances of success were less than negligible. To many Scots, he has become the man who came to fight Scotland’s cause, but this ignores the fact that many more Scots supported the House of Hanover, and more Scots fought in Hanoverian ranks than in Jacobite service. The prince was a Catholic by birth and received much support from the Catholic Church. Indeed, when he raised his father’s standard at Glenfinnan he wore the uniform of the Scots Catholic seminary in Paris. Catholic clans did rally to his support, but the majority of the army were Episcopalians, who had suffered much more at the hands of the regime installed after the revolution of 1688-9. In later years, the prince would even, temporarily, renounce his Catholicism. For all that, the romantic figure of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ has refused to fade away.

Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York, 11 March 1725 – 13 July 1807
Prince Charles’s younger brother is less well known in Scotland. His role during the ’45 was effectively one of an onlooker, and his subsequent involvement with Scottish politics limited. His true vocation lay elsewhere. Subsequent to the failure of the ’45, he turned to the Church and rose through the ranks to become a Cardinal. In as far as this culturally Italian man can be termed a Scot, he is one of only two Scots to be made a Cardinal between the Reformation in 1560 and the restoration of the Scottish Catholic hierarchy in 1878. The other was Charles Erskine, a protégée of the Duke of York, who would do so much to improve relations between Britain and the Catholic Church in the dangerous years of the French Revolution. The Duke of York became the titular King Henry IX upon his brother’s death in 1788, but never pressed his claim. Instead, he became a powerful player in the Papal Curia, present at a number of conclaves. He was also an avid collector of books and renowned for his learning. His final years were marked by the devastation of the Church by the French Revolution. He had to flee from Rome and lost all his income. Generously, King George III of Britain provided him with a pension. In return, Henry named the Hanoverian his successor. The Jacobite rebellions, which had begun by the ejection of a Catholic king in 1688-9, were thus ended by this Catholic Cardinal.

Flora Macdonald, 1722 – 4 March 1790
From a period of high romanticism, almost no one can match Flora Macdonald as the ultimate romantic heroine. Flora’s real life is much more interesting than her romantic image, however. She was descended from the two great West-Highland families of MacDonald and Campbell. Her father was a tacksman or tenant-in-chief of MacDonald of Clanranald on the overwhelmingly Catholic island of South Uist. He had died young, and Flora was brought up on Skye with the MacDonald’s of Sleat. Her maternal grandfather, Angus MacDonald, had been a Presbyterian minister on South Uist. Her mother and father, then, uniquely in the Catholic environment of the southern Hebrides, were Protestants, and Flora would remain a member of the Kirk for all of her life. This, and her connection with the pro-Hanoverian House of Sleat, made her an unlikely Jacobite. Indeed, the chief of Clanranald, from whose family Flora’s father had held his lands, also refused to support Prince Charles when he landed in 1745, although his son came out to join the Jacobite cause with 800 men. Whereas some Presbyterian churchmen actually hunted for the prince after Culloden, Flora took a different path, if reluctantly. At the urging of Clanranald, she took the prince, disguised as a female servant, in a small boat to Skye. That one act of 27 June 1746 ensured her place in the history books, but it should be recalled as an act of humanity from someone politically inclined to oppose the Stuart cause. She spent a year in prison for her effort, five months of which on a prison ship. Released she married and held a tack, until, compelled by economic hardship, she left for North Carolina in 1774. Soon, she found herself in the middle of the American War of Independence, and opted to support the British crown, under whose hands she had suffered twelve months’ imprisonment. She was not alone: most Scots fought for the crown. At the end of the war, she returned to Skye, where she lived out her life, a staunch Presbyterian to the last.

Dom Andrew Gordon, O.S.B., 15 June 1712 – 22 August 1751
Whilst Scotland was convulsed by successive waves of Jacobite uprisings, a quiet monastery saw one of the great inventions of the early industrial revolution. Andrew Gordon was born into one of the few Catholic families in Angus and went to the Continent to become a Benedictine monk. He joined the abbey in Erfurt, which had been in Scottish hands since the end of the Middle Ages, and which had continued to form part of the Scottish Catholic community after the Reformation. In the city of Erfurt Dom Gordon soon developed a reputation as a scientist, and, in 1737, was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the university. There he developed what would later become known as electric convection, the principle that powers many of today’s heating and cooking systems.

Abbé Paul McPherson, 4 March 1756 – 24 November 1846
Paul McPherson was born in Glenlivet and was, by common consent, one of the most remarkable priests ever to serve the Scottish Church. He was educated at the hidden seminary at Scalan, but finished his studies at the Scots College in Rome, and in the Scots College in Valladolid, Spain. He came back to Scotland to serve as a missionary. His real vocation commenced only when he was asked to return to Rome in 1793. There, he quickly took over the running of the Scots College. As the French Revolution was forging a close alliance between the British state and the Papacy, McPherson could foster closer ties with the representatives of the British crown in Rome. In 1798, Rome fell to the French, the Pope became a prisoner, and the Scots College was occupied. McPherson took it upon himself to evacuate not only the Scottish students, but also those from the English and Irish colleges, leading twenty-four seminarians back to safety in Britain. His trek through Revolutionary France made him a short-lived celebrity. His public reception by the Prince of Wales did much to improve the image of Catholicism in Britain. He returned to Rome in 1800, and became the first rector of the college from the Scottish secular clergy. He remained in Rome during the conflict between Pope Pius VII and Napoleon, risking his life, but quietly studying the past of the Scots College and writing its history. When Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815, McPherson convinced the Scottish bishops that the Scots College was still needed. Today it is the main Scottish seminary.

Robert Burns, 25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796 and Bishop John Geddes, 1735 – 1799
Robert Burns requires no introduction at all. His place in the pantheon of Scots greats is absolutely assured. The poet’s independence of mind and love of life was such that he has become the national bard, which is quite an accolade in a country where poets have played such a prominent role in public life. It was his song A Man’s A Man for ‘A That, that provided the most iconic moment in the opening of the new Scottish Parliament. Burns was born into a Presbyterian family, but wore his Faith lightly; his criticisms of the ministers of his day are part of his legend. He did, however, have a high regard for some churchmen, even if they may seem unlikely candidates for his approval. One of them was the Catholic Vicar Apostolic or Bishop of Lowland Scotland, John Geddes. Geddes came from the Enzie, that part of north-eastern Scotland where Catholicism had clung on, and from where so many post-Reformation priests came. With Burns, he knew about the farming life, but unlike Burns his vocation lay in the celibate life. In the winter of 1786-7, the two men met, at Lord Monboddo’s house in Edinburgh. That a Catholic bishop could frequent polite society says much about the relative tolerance that existed in Scotland at this level. Only seven years earlier, in 1779, a mob had burned down the Catholic chapel in Blackfriars Street and had attacked Catholics attending Mass; tolerance meant different things at different levels of society. But Burns did not share the anti-Catholicism of many Scots and happily commented on Bishop Geddes that he was “the foremost cleric I ever saw”. Geddes returned the compliment and bought the 1787 edition of Burns’s work. He also induced five of the Continental Scottish seminaries to follow suit. Geddes himself also contributed a modest volume to Scottish literature: a life of Saint Queen Margaret of Scotland. Geddes was a great pastoral priest, who walked all over Scotland, including to Orkney, to visit the dispersed Catholic flock. This learned man was as much a part of Scotland’s Age of Enlightenment as was Robert Burns, his friend.

Sir Walter Scott, 15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832
Nobody has had such an influence on how Scotland perceives itself and how it is perceived abroad. His vision of a rural land populated by rugged individuals has endured in spite of the occasional dip in his popularity. From the perspective of the Christian story of Scotland, Scott is highly significant. He began life as a Presbyterian but became an Episcopalian later in life. In this he reflects the trend amongst upper-class Scots, who increasingly identified with the Protestantism of their English partners in the Union. Towards the very end of his life, Scott displayed some deep Catholic traits and recited the Stabat Mater on his deathbed. This was undoubtedly the result of his long-standing romantic interest in the Middle Ages and of the influence of his French wife. However, for the most popular and influential author of the age to include essential Catholic elements in his works was to have profound consequences. Few Scots would have heard or read the words of the Hail Mary before they encountered them in Scott’s Lady of the Lake, whilst novels such as The Monastery and The Abbot portrayed the Church in a more positive light than had been the case for many centuries. It is to be doubted that Scott saw Catholicism as something totally desirable: indeed, he is on record as saying it was not. However, he intensely disliked the disjunction with the past that the Reformation had occasioned. John Henry Cardinal Newman, who was friendly with Scott’s descendents, once wrote that Scott was: “an instrument in the hands of Providence for the revival of Catholicity”. More importantly, he was the instrument that returned the Catholic past into the awareness of the present, without neglecting the important other developments within Christian Scotland.

Bishop Alexander MacDonell, 16 July 1762 – 14 January 1840 and
Bishop Angus MacEchern, 8 February 1759 – 22 April 1835.  
Bishop Richard Gilmour, 28 September 1824 – 13 April 1891 and
Bl. Mary MacKillop, 15 January 1852 – 8 August 1909.
Scots Catholics in the Diaspora
All the above mentioned people were Scots or had Scots parents, and made a very significant contribution to the Catholic Church in North America and Australia. They were part of the great exodus from the Highlands, sometimes referred to as the Clearances. Many, however, left voluntarily, and for a number of Catholics the chance to live their Faith without being harassed was certainly a great attraction. MacDonell was born in Catholic Glengarry, and became a priest having studied in Spain. He was the first officially recognised Catholic chaplain in the British army, part of the Glengarry Fencibles, raised amongst the glen’s predominantly Catholic population in the war with Revolutionary France. He later accompanied his people to Ontario, where they settled in Glengarry County. In 1819, he became Bishop of Upper-Canada. In the same year another Scot, Angus MacEchern, became the Vicar General for the Canadian Maritimes, being based on Prince Edward Island. He had been born in Kinlochmoidart and was also educated in Spain. His family was amongst the early migrants, arriving in Canada in 1790. In 1829, P.E.I. and New Brunswick were made a bishopric separate from French-speaking Québec, and MacEchern became its first bishop.

Richard Gilmour’s career was in the United States. Unlike MacDonell and MacEchern, he came from Covenanting stock, and his journey to the New World had begun in Canada, but ended in Pennsylvania. He converted in 1844, and after a long career in parishes and teaching at seminary, was appointed the second bishop of Cleveland in 1872. Interestingly, Gilmour was very aware of the new-found power of the printing press, and, in 1874, founded the Catholic Universe newspaper.

Blessed Mary MacKillop, soon to be canonised, is Australia’s first saint. Her parents came from Roy Bridge in Lochaber, and had settled in the colony. Mary was a most remarkable woman, whose zeal for Catholic education and the poor led her into conflict with many in the Australian hierarchy. She travelled to the Vatican for support, which she received. During the same trip, she also came to Scotland, where she received a warm welcome. Interestingly, her fund-raising for her congregation received overwhelming support from Presbyterians.

All four stand as icons for the enormous contribution Scots have made to their new homes. It is fitting that the small Catholic community that had clung on after the Reformation had such a disproportionate impact relative to their numbers.

Thomas Chalmers, 17 March 1780 – 31 May 1847
Chalmers was the ideal man for Enlightenment Scotland: a dedicated mathematician who was also a highly principled Christian. He studied at Saint Andrews University and became a minister, whose theology was widely respected. His Christianity was marked by a deep-rooted morality, the fulfilment of which became his life’s goal. He was a noted preacher, who caught the attention not only in Scotland, but also in England, where he gained the admiration of the anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce. Chalmers realised that his church was faced with problems that would soon become familiar to Catholics as well: the old parochial structure was no longer suitable in a country that was undergoing rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. This had led to widespread apathy towards the Kirk, a problem Chalmers set out to remedy. His Presbyterian convictions brought him to the forefront of the Disruption, the schism in the established church which occurred when many ministers protested against the appointment of clergymen against the will of the congregation. When the schism occurred in 1843, it was the most significant ecclesiastical development since the restoration of Presbyterianism in 1689. Chalmers became a famous person, although he is now largely forgotten by a wider public.

Archbishop Charles Petre Eyre, 7 November 1817 – 27 March 1902
Charles Eyre was the first Archbishop of the re-founded see of Glasgow at the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in 1878. He was, at first sight, a strange choice. Charles Petre Eyre was a member of a famous English Recusant family. His Catholicism was, therefore, from an unbroken line, uninterrupted by the Reformation. For this, the Eyre family had suffered, for persecution of Catholics in England had been a much more serious affair than in Scotland. He had served as a priest in the north of England, but came to Scotland in 1869 to become the Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, the precursor to the archdiocese of Glasgow. There was a very good reason for introducing an Englishman into what had grown to become the largest Catholic community in Scotland. Most of the priests serving that community were Scots, predominantly from the north-east, which had long provided the clergy for the Scottish Church. Most of the parishioners were Irish, and the two simply did not get on. Anti-Irish sentiment, frequently translated into anti-Catholic sentiment by the wider population, also existed amongst Scottish Catholic clergymen. Eyre soon put his diocese in order. He reconstructed parishes to meet population changes in moves that echo Thomas Chalmers, and, like his Presbyterian counterparts, was deeply concerned with schooling. Both the Glasgow teacher-training college and the local seminary were founded by him. Less well known is Eyre’s concern for the plight of the Jews in Russia, and in 1892 he was fêted by Glasgow’s Jews for his assistance to their cause. Eyre, the quintessential English gentleman-Catholic from a Recusant family, ensured that the overwhelmingly working-class, Irish-immigrant Catholic Church in Glasgow found the internal peace to grow and flourish. He also ensured that they were aware of the Catholic past of their adoptive homeland by writing a life of Saint Cuthbert.

Brother Walfrid 18 May 1840 – 17 April 1915 and Father Edward Joseph Hannan, 21 June 1836 – 24 June 1891
There are two major football clubs in Scotland which are rooted in an Irish immigrant environment and which grew out of the Catholic Church. In Glasgow, that club is Celtic, in Edinburgh, Hibernian. Hibernian is the older of the two and was begun in 1875 by the Irish-born priest in charge of St. Patrick’s church in the Cowgate, now the shrine to the Venerable Margaret Sinclair. Fr. Hannan was concerned about the levels of poverty amongst his extensive flock, who lived in slum conditions in what was known as Little Ireland. With Michael Whelahan, a parishioner and fellow activist in the Catholic Young Men’s Society, he determined to found a football club around which the parishioners could unite. In the early years, the Catholic and Irish element of the club were more to the foreground than they are today. In Glasgow, Celtic was founded by the Irish-born Marist brother, Walfrid, who as a teacher was well aware of the desperate poverty of many of the city’s Catholics. Celtic was founded in 1888 as a charity with the aim of raising funds for the poor. The charitable element of the club, as well as its Irish and Catholic roots, is still evident today.

 Venerable Margaret Sinclair, 29 March 1900 – 24 November 1925
Margaret Sinclair is a truly attractive character: humble and happy, someone who lightens other people’s loads, and brings a smile to their faces. She was born in Edinburgh’s Little Ireland, in the parish of St. Patrick in the Cowgate. Her life was not a very glamorous one: born into a relatively poor family, she worked in several simple jobs, including in the McVitie’s biscuit factory. However, her work was marked by her deep love for others, and by constancy of her Faith. The pull of the religious life was strong, and in 1923 she entered the convent of the contemplative Poor Clares in London’s Notting Hill. Within two months, she was diagnosed as suffering from the disease that was the scourge of the era: tuberculosis. Margaret bore her painful illness with joy and determination, feeling that her suffering brought her closer to Jesus. She died, aged only 25. Such was her reputation for holiness, however, that her cause for canonisation was introduced as early as 1942. Her remains were re-interred in St. Patrick’s church in the Cowgate, and Margaret is now the centre of a popular devotion. She is widely expected to be Scotland’s next saint.

Eric Liddell, 16 January 1902 – 21 February 1945
Liddell is the outstanding example of a Scottish Christian sportsman. He was born in China to Scottish missionary parents, who imbued him with a strong sense of Faith. At his boarding school in Eltham in England, Liddell became known for his running ability, earning him his sobriquet of ‘Flying Scotsman’. He studied pure science at Edinburgh University, where he earned himself a place in the Scotland national rugby team. He went with the Great Britain team to the 1924 Paris Olympics. However, his Christian principles did not allow him to run on Sundays, causing him to miss out on the 100 metres, considered to be his strongest event. However, he broke the world record on the 400 metres, an event immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire. He returned to China to work in the mission, and was imprisoned by the Japanese in 1943. He became the leader of the camp, but developed a brain tumour from which he died, a month before the Allied liberation of the camp.

Sir Alexander Fleming, 6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955
Fleming was born into a Catholic farming family in Ayrshire, and was educated at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London. He proved to be an excellent researcher, and during work with typhoid inoculations of service personnel in the First World War discovered that traditional antiseptics often exacerbated the wounded soldiers. In 1928, he made his break-through discovery of the bacteria-destroying property of the mould, Penicillium notatum, what would become known as penicillin. During the Second World War, his discovery was produced on a commercial scale to deal with the many wounded soldiers, and his discovery has gone on to save many million of lives. Fleming is one of a large number of Scottish medical scientists who have made a significant contribution to the well-being of humanity.  

Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, 17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972; Dame Muriel Spark, 1 February 1918 – 13 April 2006;
George Mackay Brown, 17 October 1921 – 13 April 1996
Amongst those Catholics who have contributed significantly to modern Scotland, three writers stand out as having been especially important. Compton Mackenzie was born in England, and would later adopt the Mackenzie name. He was not born a Catholic: he converted in 1914. His contributions to Scottish and Catholic life, both identities of choice for Compton Mackenzie, were second to none. He re-imagined the Highlands, and particularly the Hebrides, to such an extent that for most his fictional landscapes are truer than reality itself. Whisky Galore – set on a Catholic island – and Monarch of the Glen have both been turned into radio, film and T.V. series, and have stamped themselves indelibly on the popular imagination. Artistically he was part of the Scottish Literary Renaissance group and this also made him politically active. Indeed, he is one of the co-founders of the SNP. His Catholicism was best displayed in his novel, The Altar Steps.

Muriel Spark was another writer who converted to Catholicism. Her father was Jewish, her mother an English Anglican. Her early and formative experiences were in Edinburgh where she was born: the schools she attended would later provide the inspiration for her most famous book, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Spark always maintained that her conversion had been the main inspiration for her writing: Catholicism allowed her to “see human existence as a whole”. Although born in Scotland and shaped by the country, she lived most of her life elsewhere, in Africa, the United States, and, since the 1970s, in Italy. She has been named as one of the most significant novelists since the Second World War.

One of the most important poets in that period is, without doubt, George Mackay Brown. He, too, was a convert, who became a Catholic in 1961. All his works, and he wrote novels, short stories, children’s stories and even a libretto for an opera, as well as poetry, are seen through a number of prisms. Mackay Brown was the poet of the ordinary and his subjects are fishermen and farmers, together with the blacksmith and a few other artisans. Mixed with these are the tinkers and peddlers, and, by way of contrast, some gentry and local notables. His Faith provides the structure to his observations, a Faith permeated with a sense of wonder at the cyclical movement of the calendar, and informed by a great love for Orkney’s patron saint, Saint Magnus. Mackay Brown believed he could imagine away the fault line of the Reformation by re-awakening a sense of awe and by evoking the past: in his work he has succeeded.

Sir Archibald David Stirling of Keir, 15 November 1915 – 4 November 1990
Archibald Stirling was born on his ancestral estate outside Dunblane, into a long-standing Catholic family. The Stirlings of Keir were amongst the few landed families – along with the Frasers of Lovat, the Maxwells and the Stuarts of Traquair – who had remained Catholic when most others had given up on the Faith. During service in North Africa, he managed to persuade his commanding officer of the usefulness of mobile covert units operating behind enemy lines, and in 1941 The Special Air Service Brigade was born. Under Stirling’s uniquely daring command, the unit soon proved its value, but he was captured in 1943 and spent the rest of the war in Italian and German prisons. The SAS can be seen as a typical expression of Scotland’s military tradition, adapted to the needs of modern warfare.

Sir Robert Lorimer, 1864 – 1924, and Hew Lorimer, 1907 - 1993
The Lorimers have made significant contributions to Scotland’s physical environment. Sir Robert was an architect, who was much influenced by William Morris’s Arts and Crafts Movement. Amongst his notable designs are Ardkinglas House at the head of Loch Fyne and the Colinton Cottages in Edinburgh. His knowledge of the crafts needed in building made him a sought-after restorer, and he worked on such grand houses as Dunrobin and Lennoxlove. Yet his two most important contributions to the build fabric of the country stand in Edinburgh. He added the Thistle Chapel to St. Giles’s, which introduces an opulent, almost Anglican feel of neo-Gothic splendour to the ancient structure. Most significant of all is his large National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle. Again there is the neo-Gothic design, but this time serving to mourn the many thousands of Scots who were killed in the First World War.

Robert’s son, Hew, was Scotland’s finest sculptor of the twentieth century. He was also deeply indebted to the Arts and Crafts Movement, and shared their belief in the intrinsic value of mastering the skills of his trade. Hew converted to Catholicism and this shaped his work to some extent. His largest and most famous work is the Madonna of the Isles, a gigantic granite statue on South Uist. Yet he also made non-religious sculpture, noticeably the statues that adorn the National Library in Edinburgh, and worked for other Christian churches. The Madonna in the Episcopalian church in Saint Andrews he claimed to have been his best work.      

Rev. George MacLeod, 17 June 1895 – 27 June 1991
George MacLeod was born into Presbyterian aristocracy: his grandfather had been Queen Victoria’s chaplain in Scotland. George served in the First World War, and, as for so many others, the experience irrevocably altered his world view. He studied for the ministry and opted to serve some of Scotland’s poorer Protestant communities, in Glasgow and in Edinburgh’s Canongate. He suffered a breakdown and went to the Holy Land. There, in 1933, he attended an Easter Liturgy in the Orthodox Church, an event that proved seminal. He became aware of the corporate nature of the Church and would dedicate his life to the ecumenical movement. In 1938, he founded the ecumenical Iona Community, which set out to campaign on peace and justice issues and to bridge the gap between the various Christian denominations. Ministers, the unemployed, students and many others came together to rebuild the ruined abbey, in a symbolic gesture of solidarity, renewal and re-discovery of the roots of the Faith in Scotland. In 1957, MacLeod served as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. His radical Christianity led him to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and, long before it became fashionable, to environmental campaigns. His openness towards the Catholic and Orthodox Churches was not always understood at the time, but it was sincere, and it is a road now much more frequently travelled. The Iona Community has gone from strength to strength and includes members from almost all of Scotland’s Christian communities.

Dr. Harry Schnitker
Director of Ecclesiastical History
Maryvale Institute
Birmingham

 

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