Defending the True Faith: Kirk, State, and Catholic Missioners In Scotland, 1653-1755

DEFENDING THE TRUE FAITH: KIRK, STATE1AND CATHOLIC MISSIONERS IN SCOTLAND, 1653-1755 BY Daniel Szechi* In March, 1708, the Scottish Privy Council was meeting daily in emergency session in a frantic attempt to put the kingdom in a defensible state before the Franco-Jacobite invasion poised to strike from Dunkirk could arrive in Scotland. While examining reports from officers and magistrates from all over the country, their deliberations suddenly focused on the threat of a Roman Catholic uprising in support ofJames Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, and as Lord Grange reported in a letter to his brother the Earl of Mar, This occasioned severalls of the Council to complain that notwithstanding the many complaints there has been made of the encrease of Popery and the swarming of priests openly and avowedly in many places of the north and Galloway and Nithsdale, that yet nothing was effectually done to restrain them.' Strangely, the government does not seem to have heeded such complaints even in the aftermath of the abortive invasion of 1708, for six years later the author of an anonymous, but strikingly similarly worded, "condescendance," written in response to the General Assembly of the Kirk's representations to the government regarding "the encreasce of poperie," was warning Scotland's rulers that the Kirk was in danger of being overwhelmed by the Catholic tide. In the Highlands in 1714, the author lamented: In the paroch ofLochaber the priests swarm like locusts,running from house to house, gaining multitudes to their anti-Christian idolatry, baptizeing and marrying. In the presbytery ofAbernethie the priests keep publick meetings, visite,preach, declare people marryed and say Mass without fear ofthe laws.2 *Mr. Szechi is a professor ofhistory inAuburn University. He wishes to express his gratitude to the scholars who read early drafts of this article and gave him sage advice and help, in particular Dr. Donna Bohanan, Dr. Christine Johnson, the Reverend Brian Halloran , and Dr. Mark Dilworth. 'Historical Manuscripts Commission,Mar and Kellie MSS, p. 430. 2Noel MacdonaldWilby, 'The Encreasce of Popery' in the Highlands 1714-1747,"/«nes 397 398 DEFENDING THE TRUE FAITH Nor was the writer a voice in the wilderness. A special committee of the commission of the General Assembly begged for immediate action by the Court of Police in 1718, arguing that it was "evident from the last accounts that the disease grows and will encresce if some stop be not put to the progress of it."3 In 1720 another memorial writer declared that, "such a height have the papists and Jacobites now arrived at in [the] Duke [of] Gordon's countries, that Protestant friends to the government are in hazard of their lives," and he cited the cases of two converts to the Kirk who were assaulted by mobs of "papists" and in one case at least forced to flee the area.4 Even in the aftermath of the suppression of the '45, another memorialist felt moved to complain to the Duke of Newcastle that in consequence of the efforts of Catholic priests throughout Scotland, "popery is prevailing dayly."5 The nighannual petition of the General Assembly of the Kirk after 1688, that a diligent search be made for popish priests, eloquently attests that the memorialists' concern was generally shared by ministers throughout Scotland.6 Moreover, underpinning the professed anxiety of ministers and elders about the apparent success of the missionary efforts of the Catholic Church, there was apparently solid cause for concern. Since the 1650's the Congregation de Propaganda Fide in Rome had been funding a sustained effort to re-establish a permanent Catholic presence in Scotland. The Scots Colleges in Paris and Rome annually turned out dedicated young Scotsmen devoted to this missionary effort. Between 1653 and 1753 their efforts produced an eightfold increase in the number of secular priests operating in Scotland. The Jesuits, Dominicans , Benedictines, Franciscans, and even Cistercians briskly seconded their efforts by sending over substantial numbers of additional mission priests. The number of professed Catholics nearly tripled between the l690's and the 1750s. Primafacie, it would appear that the Kirk was on the defensive and the "encreasce of popery" was a reality. And yet, with perfect hindsight, we...