Sep.
1631.
The persecution of the Catholics had, in 1629, reached a pitch of keenness which it was not possible to maintain. The king occasionally ventured to interfere with special letters in favour of certain Romanists of rank, his personal friends, allowing them to stay in the country on hope of conversion, or else permitting them a temporary return from exile to see after their private affairs. The Privy Council itself could not always keep up the proper degree of severity. Being partly a lay-body, it would now and then take a mild view of a case, though in a hesitating manner.
Sir John Ogilvy of Craig, after enduring imprisonment for a time in Edinburgh Castle, was allowed to live in Edinburgh and in St Andrews under a modified restraint. Finally, he was permitted to go home to his dwelling-house of Craig, ‘upon promise of ane sober and modest behaviour without scandal or offence to the kirk.’ ‘Nevertheless,’ as the Council proceeds to remark, ‘Sir John, since his going home, has behaved himself very scandalously, daily conversing with excommunicat persons, privately resetting seminary and mass priests, and restraining his bairns and servants from coming to the kirk, to the heigh offence of God and disgrace of his majesty’s government.’ For this reason, he was ordered (September 22) to go into ward in St Andrews, ‘until he be freed and relaxed by the Lords.’
1631.
A supplication presented by Sir John, some weeks later, to the Council, complained of his having been condemned without a hearing, and while he was ‘innocent of these imputations.’ He went on to say that he had nevertheless done his best to yield obedience to their order. He ‘took journey from his awn house [in Forfarshire] toward St Andrews, being heavily diseased by reason of a dizziness in his head, so that he was not able to travel on horseback for fear of falling from his horse, and therefore was compelled, although with great pain and travel, to make journey upon his foot, being led all the way with two men. At last he atteined with great trouble to the town of Dundee,’ where, however, sickness stopped him. He petitioned, for the sake of his health, to be allowed to return to Craig, ‘where, if he die, he may have the presence and comfort of his wife and children.’ The Lords yielded to this supplication, on condition of his giving a bond that ‘he sall cause his eldest son and the remanent of his children and domestics, resort to the kirk every Sabbath when possibly they may; that he sall not travel on the Sabbath from his own house, or profane the same by any slanderous behaviour in his own person, nor in any that is in his power; that he sall remain in his awn house and twa mile about the same; and that he sall not reset priests, nor be found reasoning against the religion presently professed.’
On the 17th of November 1631, the Privy Council, considering that the Earl of Nithsdale is ‘vehemently suspected in his religion, and that the remaining of Lord Maxwell, his son, in his company, may prove very dangerous to the youth, and now in his tender years infect and poison him with opinions wherefra it will be difficult thereafter to reclaim him,’ ordered his lordship to ‘exhibit’ his son, that ‘direction may be given for his breeding and education in the true religion.’—P. C. R. When we remember that the Earl of Nithsdale was the most powerful man in the southern part of the kingdom, and had so lately as 1625 acted as the royal commissioner to parliament, and since conducted a large auxiliary force for the service of the king’s brother-in-law in Germany, the character of this interference with his domestic arrangements becomes the more noticeable.
Patrick Con of Achry, having early yielded to the orders of Council, and retired from the country, was nevertheless excommunicated by the presbytery of Aberdeen; in consequence of which, those left in charge of his estate appropriated it and threw him into destitution. He presented a petition to the king for permission to return for a time, and to have the benefit of a temporary relaxation of the pains of excommunication, in order that he might recover his property; and this permission, extending to a twelvemonth, was granted, on condition ‘that, during the said space, he give no scandal or just offence to the kirk nor government.’ We shall presently see something more of Patrick.
In February 1632, Gordon of Craig petitioned the king for what the Council had some time before refused; and his majesty, ‘conceiving his demand to be very reasonable, and (in respect of his age and infirmity of body) to require our princely commiseration,’ enjoined the Council either to allow him to join his son abroad or live in such part of Scotland as he himself chose. The Lords found it ‘no ways fitting’ that Gordon should be allowed to leave the country, but gave him a licence to take his choice of a place of residence within the country.