The Colonsay Catechist - PART IV
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Every year the General Assembly and the Commission of the Church of Scotland would received a fresh crop of representations and petitions from Highland presbyteries, complaining about the atrocious conditions they laboured under, and drawing attention to
This piece is about how the Church of Scotland came to be given one thousand pounds sterling every year by the government to pay for preachers and catechists in the Gàidhealtachd. I’ve included some chunks of eighteenth-century prose to give a flavour of the times. In the next instalment I shall talk about the various problems which faced the committee which administered the grant – then at last I shall return to the Colonsay catechists!
THE FOUNDING OF THE ROYAL BOUNTY GRANT
Introduction:
We have seen the atrocious conditions under which many Church of Scotland ministers in the Gàidhealtachd laboured in the early eighteenth century. Every year the General Assembly or the Commission of the Church of Scotland would received a fresh crop of representations and petitions from Highland presbyteries, complaining about their sufferings, as well as drawing attention to what they saw as the dangerous growth in Roman Catholicism. Now, the Church certainly sympathized with its ministers’ problems, and persistently lobbied the government for help with pages of memorials. But it was not until 1723 that they began to take matters in hand with any degree of urgency. What caused this change in attitude appears to have been the discovery of the Atterbury plot the year before.
The Atterbury Plot and its aftermath:
In 1722 British politics was convulsed by the discovery of the jacobite Atterbury Plot, so-called because of the key rôle played in it by Francis Atterbury, the bishop of Rochester. King George I was to be murdered as he travelled from London to his native Hanover. At the same time, an invasion of Britain was to be launched, led by exiled Irish officers in the French service, either under the jacobite hero James Butler, duke of Ormonde, or else under the naturalized French general Arthur Dillon. Government ministers were to be arrested and held in the Tower, while the jacobites would seize the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange. However, with the help of the French government the plot was discovered and its progress monitored by Robert Walpole’s extensive spy network. Certain coded letters referred to a lame spotted dog called Harlequin. The dog really existed, was owned by Atterbury, and so the conspiracy was revealed.
Although only one person was executed after the plot was discovered – Atterbury himself spent the rest of his life in exile – it had clearly rattled the political establishment. Habeas Corpus was suspended. The Roman Catholics of England were made scapegoats, and a swingeing £10,000 fine was laid upon the entire English Catholic community. The discovery of the conspiracy affected North Britain as well.
The Commission of the Church of Scotland, made up of all ministers and ruling elders who were able to attend, met every quarter. If we want to understand how Church policy came to be formulated, we have to pore over its records as well as those of the annual General Assembly. At their November sitting the Commission composed an address to the king "upon occasion of the happie discovery of the Late wicked Conspiracy against His Royal Person and Family". Hardly coincidentally, the following day letters were composed to Roxburgh and the Lord Advocate, reminding them of the address of the previous General Assembly to the king and the memorials therewith concerning the growth of popery. Finally, a letter to the king himself was written, in which the Church rather sleekitly prided itself on not having any disaffected persons in its midst – unlike the suspect Church of England.
The General Assembly of 1723 and its plans:
The King’s address to the General Assembly of May 1723, delivered by his representative the Lord High Commissioner, was full of references to "the late horrid Conspiracy" against himself and the protestant religion. Only providence, it seemed, had saved the House of Hanover and the political establishment from disaster. The speeches by the moderator and the Commissioner himself were of the same tenor. That year – at the very same time as a parliamentary bill was being passed against Atterbury in London – the ministers and elders of the Church of Scotland passed a whole raft of anti-Catholic measures, and renewed the acts against popery passed by previous assemblies. A commission was to be appointed to work with the Lord Advocate and others in government to consider best how to prosecute priests and other "emissaries of Rome"; and measures were passed against illegal meeting houses and popish schools. There is no doubt, then, but that the discovery of the nefarious Atterbury Plot spurred the Church to take specific steps to combat Catholicism throughout Scotland, above all in the Gàidhealtachd.
On the 20 May 1723 the General Assembly considered a new proposal: the creation of a new Synod of Glenelg which would take up much of the north-west seaboard, the northern Hebrides and Lochaber. The reasons given for doing so were as follows: "the Greatness of Ministerial Charges in diverse places, the Want of Schools, the long Vacancy of some Churches, And the vast distance that Ministers have to travel to Synods and Presbyteries, whereby when they do attend the same, they are much diverted from their parochial Work and from watching over their flocks, and guarding their people against the poisonous influence of Popish Emissaries and other persons disaffected to Our happie Establishment". The neighbouring presbyteries and synods were asked to send in their own ideas, and the Commission was asked to prepare a report for the next year’s assembly. Now, it’s very interesting that this plan appears to have been drawn up on the hoof, as it were, during the General Assembly itself: it was not tabled by either the Commission or the presbyteries, though we might imagine that the energetic ministers of the Presbytery of Skye might well have had a hand in it.
But the General Assembly was considering other ambitious schemes as well. The committee appointed to consider the growth of popery were particularly referred "to pitch upon fit persons to travel as Preachers and Catechists in the Bounds of the Presbytery of Strathbogie, Abernethie and Lorn And to address the Government for a suitable Fund yearly during His Majestie’s pleasure for maintaining Preachers and Catechists in Countreys where Popery abounds". In addition, they were to try to raise money for defraying the cost of creating new parishes. Bursaries were finally fixed for Gaelic-speaking students, although there were soon problems with the students who applied: the synod of James Anderson schoolmaster in Hawick preferred to keep him in his present employment, as he had "such an Aversion to, and unfitness for performing in publick, as seem’d to them to be very inherent in his temper and constitution"; on the other hand, the bursary of Aeneas Sage from Easter Ross was promptly stopped after it was discovered that he did "head a furious Jacobite Mob in the College of Aberdeen" during the 1715 rising.
The General Assembly of 1724 – old plans realized and new plans in view:
In March 1724 the large committee appointed the previous year to consider ways of stopping the growth of popery had compiled their report. They had one major recommendation: that a suitable annual fund should be supplied "for maintaining Preachers and Catechists in Countreys where Popery abounds and defraying the Charges of Processes that may be needful for suppressing Popery and preventing the Growth thereof". An address to the king was prepared, and it was requested that His Majesty might condescend to grant such a fund from out of the Royal Bounty (the Civil List) "Toward the Assissting the Ministers of this Church in instructing the People in the Knowledge of the Protestant Religion, Preventing the Growth of Popery and Recovering such as have been misled by Popish Emissaries and for maintaining more Preachers and Catechists to travel Through the foresaid Countreys where Popery so much prevails, And for defraying the expences of Processes that may be needful toward the Suppressing of Popery and preventing the further Growth thereof." In other words, the monies would be used first of all to pay the salaries of preachers and catechists to help the hard-pressed ministers of the Gàidhealtachd, and secondly to pay for whatever legal costs might be involved in adopting a new hard line against the Catholic clergy.
The General Assembly of May 1724 put into operation the far-reaching changes to the framework of church government which had been suggested the year before: as had been planned, three new presbyteries were created, and a new Synod of Glenelg erected to oversee the entire north-west coast and northern Hebrides. It is clear from the letters written by the earl of Findlater, the King’s Commissioner (and thus the representative of the government) that year, to his masters in London that the Church were already lobbying for the new fund even before the General Assembly had begun. On 7 May, Findlater tells Walpole in his rather crabbed handwriting how:
the Moderator and several Ministers of the Commission of the Last Assembly did this day deliver me a copie of the adress the Commissioners presented to the King by the D. of Roxbrugh by which they desir His Majesty may alou a soum of money yearly out of the fonds of the Civil List here for providing Ministers they think it necessary to be sent to assist in the Large parishes in the Highlands and Islands Where there are great numbers of papists and Popish priests if I could obtain a favourable ansuer it woud pleas them very much they say the Kings Advocat hes spoak of this to Mr Walpole and that He finds him inclined to favour them in it I promised to apply to Your Lo and Mr Walpole and I have also writt a short Letter to him they will belive me negligent if neither Your Lop or he accknoledge that I have made this application and it woud give me interest with them if they succeed the soum they propose is five hundred pound Yearly I beg pardon for this trouble…
The commissioners had realized that new synods and presbyteries on their own would not be sufficient. The problem lay at parish level. The parishes were too vast and scattered, and their ministers would require assistant preachers to share the workload.
The ministers were playing it safe. They had already presented their petition to the duke of Roxburgh, the "Scottish" Secretary of State, leader of the Squadrone, and the most powerful magnate in Scotland at the time. Since last year’s General Assembly, however, Roxburgh had fallen from grace. They therefore presented the petition once again, this time to the earl of Findlater for him to forward to the men who now controlled the administration of the country, namely Townshend and Walpole. In it they stressed the continuing growth of Roman Catholicism in certain districts of the Gàidhealtachd, where "in some Parishes, for every Protestant Teacher there are six Popish Traffickers practizing incessantly amongst them". This growing evil, the ministers wrote, represented a danger to "our Holy Religion, and the Protestant Succession in Your Royal Family, upon which, under God, the Security of our Religion, and of all our other valuable Interests does depend". The efforts of the Church and the SSPCK (the charity-school organization), though heartfelt, were all in vain: "all these helps come far short of what is necessary for preserving and recovering that People from the Contagion of Popery and Jacobitism with which they are infected." As we have seen, the ministers were asking for money:
A suitable Fund yearly During Your Majestie’s pleasure Toward the Assisting the Ministers of this Church in instructing the People in the Knowlege of the Protestant Religion, preventing the Growth of Popery and recovering such as have been misled by Popish Emissaries, And for maintaining more Preachers and Catechists to travel through the foresaid Countries where Popery so much prevails, And for defraying the Expences of Processes that may be needful toward the Suppressing of Popery and preventing the further Growth thereof.
As well as stressing the political dangers of the situation, the proposal had at the same time to appear reasonable and practical. An official report on the Gàidhealtachd had been compiled in the aftermath of the 1715 rising, which stated "that were the Inhabitants of those Countries, who are now dangerous and hurtful to the Nation, taught the Principles of Religion and Virtue, they would become useful and profitable Members of the Commonwealth." The report went on to recommend that "a great many Schools will be necessary to be established": 151, to be exact. With each schoolteacher paid a salary of £20, the entire scheme would cost the gigantic sum of £3020 sterling. Given the great cost of the project, then, and the fact that London politicians in 1716 would rather punish the Gaels than give them vast amounts of money, it is hardly surprising that the report was never seriously considered, if it was even read at all, and quietly shelved. Eight years later, five hundred pounds per annum was the sum the moderator and the ministers privately requested: a much more reasonable amount to ask for, surely. Rather astonishingly, given the eternal parsimoniousness of all governments, they would in fact be awarded twice that sum.
The earl of Findlater had a difficult General Assembly in May 1724. His political enemy Roxburgh refused point-blank to correspond with him, and, as the earl rather peevishly noted to Townshend, he was given no help whatsoever by the duke’s Squadrone allies in Edinburgh. He therefore had to act on his own, helping to ensure the election of the Argathelian candidate William Wishart, principal of the University of Edinburgh, as moderator, against his rival William Hamilton the Professor of Divinity there.
On 18 May 1724 the Presbytery of Skye presented a fresh petition to the General Assembly, informing them that the new parishes were going well, and requesting the continued help of the Church against their enemies. The presbytery also informed the assembly of a number of "diverse very hopeful Youths amongst them past their Course at College who incline to follow the Study of Divinity, besides tuo entering upon trials". The Assembly not only promised further encouragement and assistance, but recommended that financial support be given to Gaelic-speaking students "And that Enquiry be made for some who have attended the Profession of Divinity a competent time in order to be entered on trials, that when licensed they may be sent to the foresaid Countries to preach." A committee was to be set up to give further consideration to matters raised by the presbytery, among whose members were the arch-Argathelians Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglass, Alexander Campbell the advocate, and George Drummond. On the same day it was stated that the neighbouring presbyteries approved of the scheme for the new Synod of Glenelg. Its progress would be closely monitored by the neighbouring church courts. On 19 May the new synod and the new presbyteries within it were formally constituted.
The General Assembly of 1724 discussed a number of other measures relating to the Gàidhealtachd. On the final day of the assembly, on the 27 May, the Church took the step of recommending that preachers and catechists be recruited and sent to the presbyteries of Strathbogie, Abernethy and Lorn, all areas where Roman Catholicism was strong. They were to be paid salaries of 400 merks a year out of the Church’s money. The Church evidently considered to be a matter of the greatest importance: these salaries were to be the very first drawn out of all ecclesiastical accounts, apart from the annual charges of the Church itself. What is happening here, then, is that the Church is saying in code to the government: "We’re willing to shoulder our share of the burden: we expect you to do the same". In his closing speech, the moderator made the pointed recommendation to the Lord High Commissioner, the earl of Findlater, "That effectual methods, which His Majesty in His Great Wisdom will find out, may be taken for suppressing the Great and Lamentable Growth of Popery". In his reply, the earl promised to take the Church’s recommendations into account.
The government listens:
By the end of the Assembly the poor earl of Findlater was exhausted. Using an amanuensis, he wrote to Townshend: "I hope you’ll pardon me for not useing my own hand because my eyes can scarcely support me in doeing of it after the fatigue I have" His work was not over, however. At the beginning of June he again received a deputation of ministers. Once more the request for funding was made:
What they chiefly desire is ane additional fond for sending assistance to thos pariochins [i.e. parishes] in the North and Hylands Wher poperie abounds and prevails and they are content that What His Majestie gives may be appropriat in the strictest maner for that use...
The earl of Findlater sent the request to secretary of state Charles Townshend. Townshend was obviously interested in the matter, and asked the lawyer Lord Grange – later to win infamy by having his wife kidnapped and despatched to St Kilda – to compile a report on the situation in the Highlands. However, for the rest of the year Grange was too caught up with legal business to comply. But it was not long before another somewhat sinister figure had already presented his own report on the Gàidhealtachd.
Simon Fraser Lord Lovat had a rather rackety career, ending with his execution on Tower Hill for supporting Prince Charlie and the jacobites in the Forty-Five. In the 1720s, however, he had weaseled his way into government favour, and to the chiefdom of his own clan, as a result of his strong stand for the government during the 1715 rising. Given what we know of Lovat, it is likely that he compiled his own report fairly speedily, whether because of what he had heard about the General Assembly’s plans, or of rumours that the government in London were becoming increasingly interested in what was going on in the north of Scotland. His report, recommending various legal and military schemes, was fairly brief and to the point – by Lovat’s standards at least. It evidently attracted government attention. At any rate, on 3 July 1724 the government despatched Major-General George Wade to Scotland, supposedly to inspect the military state of the Gàidhealtachd. In actual fact Wade was on a secret mission to see how far Lovat’s report tallied with reality.
General Wade’s mission:
Wade spent the rest of 1724 travelling around the region, and compiling his own report on what he observed. It was ready on 10 December. In it the general, back in London, discussed clanship, the methods and various causes of cattle-thieving, and the need for the government to extend the system of state justice into the Highlands. The Independent Companies – the local police (and spy) forces – should be reestablished; the people of the Highlands should be disarmed; the series of barracks through the Great Glen, at Inverness, Killiehuimen (Fort Augustus) and Fort William, should be strengthened; and a system of roads and bridges should be constructed to allow regular troops easier access into the heart of the Gàidhealtachd. The government evidently approved of Wade’s ideas, and a fortnight later he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army in Scotland. He continued to refine his plans, and eventually left London for Scotland in June 1725.
The year 1724, then, sees the beginnings of an active and interventionist government policy towards the Gàidhealtachd. Now, one way of understanding this new course of action is by looking at the contemporary political background. As we have seen, during this period Walpole and Townshend were in the process of taking over the administration of Scotland. In doing so, however, they relied upon the support of the Argathelian block of Scottish politicians – those led by the duke of Argyll and his brother the earl of Ilay. The English politicians were certainly adopting an active policy towards the Gàidhealtachd, a policy which would certainly please the many Argathelians who had Highlands estates and interests.
However, we also have to consider the international situation. In early 1725, Britain was in the midst of a war scare. Her erstwhile ally France had fallen out with Spain; on 29 April a treaty was signed at Vienna between Spain and the Hapsburgs. A new jacobite invasion was being mooted; if it were to take place, inevitably it would sail to the Scottish Highlands. The various schemes for the Gàidhealtachd planned by General Wade and others during 1724 and 1725 were not just to win over Scottish politicians; they were designed to impose military and legal authority on a region which was once more threatened – for the third time in a decade – with foreign invasion. We can see from Wade’s report, from the stress he laid upon the construction of roads and bridges, that the authorities were not just considering short-term measures to keep the region peaceful. They had a longer-term goal in mind as well: the pacification of the Gaels, and the incorporation of the Gàidhealtachd into the British state. However, such reform as they envisaged was not to be accomplished through military and legal measures alone. The process would have an ideological side to it as well, through which the authorities could reach out to hearts and minds. By careful and persistent lobbying, the Church of Scotland persuaded the government that it could play a crucial rôle.
The General Assembly of 1725 – the granting of the Royal Bounty:
In March 1725 the Commission of the Church received a letter from Principal Wishart, then in London, "Shewing that the Earl of Findlater and he had been using their endeavours for procuring an Allowance from the Government for maintainance of Ministers, Preachers and Catechists, to be employ’d in parishes in the Highlands and Islands where Popery does most prevail; And that he is hopeful the same may be obtain’d, And that some account thereof may be laid before the next Assembly". This is indeed what happened.
The King’s Commissioner at the 1725 General Assembly was another prominent Argathelian, the earl of Loudon. His opening speech on 6 May contained as its centrepiece a major policy initiative which had been officially approved on the 26 April. I shall quote the relevant passage in full:
There having been Representations made to His Majesty by former Assemblies and their Commissions, Setting forth, That Popery and Ignorance do increase & prevail in the Highlands and Islands, And that One of the principal Causes thereof, is, The large extent of the parishes in those parts, Whereby the Ministers of those parishes find themselves unable to visite their Parishioners in their several bounds as they ought, and give them such Instruction as is necessary to enlighten them, and Arm them against the Practices of many Popish Priests that resort thither, in order to pervert and seduce them from the Profession and Principles of the Reform’d Religion, And that the Most probable means to prevent those Practices, would be to give some proper encouragment to Itinerant Preachers and Catechists to go in to these Parts, and be assisting to the Ministers established there. His Majesty has impowered me to inform you, That he is firmly resolved to promote and encourage as much as in him lyes, so good & pious a design, And is therefore to order the Sum of One thousand Pounds yearly to be appointed during His Royal pleasure and apply’d solely for the Provision and Entertainment of such Itinerant Ministers & Catechists as shall be employ’d in those Parts for the purposes abovementioned, And that it is His Royal Will & Pleasure That the said Sum of One thousand Pounds be distributed and apply’d by this and Succeeding Assemblies or such persons as they shall authorize & Appoint for the end aforesaid, And that a due State of the Distribution be annually laid before the Lord High Treasurer Or the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury for the time being, That His Majesty may give such further directions as he shall think most proper for the ends abovementioned. The Steps His Majesty is taking for the Peace and Tranquillity of the Highlands will facilitate your doing of your Duty in this important matter, And give you an opportunity by the ways of Example, Persuasion, and Conviction to put some stop to the spreading Ignorance and Profanness on the One hand, and the trafficking of Popish Priests and Emissaries on the other, in the Highlands and Islands. I know you will receive this great and fresh Mark of His Majestie’s favour with all imaginable Gratitude, And that you will take particular care of the Application of His Majestie’s Royal Bounty to the pious ends for which it is design’d.
The representatives of the Church were indeed grateful for their new grant. Here is part of the Moderator’s reply to the Commissioner:
May it please Your Grace. The mournful Ignorance and Profaneness, and the Growth of Popery, especially in the remoter parts of this Land, the Church of Scotland hath long complain’d of, with deep regrete; and her Assemblies and Commissions have thought themselves obliged to lay several Representations thereof before His Majesty; And His great Goodness in bestowing so liberal A fund, as what Your Grace hath Just now mentioned, for the encouragment of Ministers, Preachers, and Catechists to instruct the people in these Parts, And to prevent their being seduced and ruin’d by trafficking Priests and Popish Emissaries gives us a surprizing Joy, beyond what we can express. And such a liberal and well contrived Charity to Souls, We are persuaded, will be graciously and bountifully rewarded by the God of Heaven, upon His Majesty and His Royal Offspring, will make a Glorious and Shining Part of His Majestie’s Illustrious character while he lives, and will be remembered to the Honour of his Memory in after-ages. And we hope, His Royal Bounty shall be managed by this and subsequent General Assemblies in such a manner as to make it answer as far as possible, His Majestie’s excellent and Christian design.
It is clear that the Church authorities thought long and hard about the grant; two days later, in his reply to the king’s letter, the Moderator chose to stress the political benefits which were like to flow from His Majesty’s gift:
it does afford us the greatest pleasure and encouragment to consider, that by the Blessing of God on our endeavours, the same methods that contribute to remove the Ignorance and Superstition of the rude Inhabitants of those remote places, and to defeat the Attempts of Popish Emissaries, must necessarly tend to impress them with Sentiments of Loyalty towards Your Majesty, to promote the Interest of your happy Government and Royal Family, and dispose them to give a due & cheerful Obedience to Your Majesty, and the Just Laws, to which all your Subjects ought to conform themselves.
On the 12 May there was read another petition from the Presbytery of Skye, a progress report on the same theme as the previous year: although the new system of organization was going well, the ministers were of course at loggerheads with their Catholic rivals. It was suggested that General Wade might wish to give them some military protection while they went about their business in Catholic areas. Nevertheless, the ministers had been putting up a fight:
Yea the Priests have had the Boldness to send Challenges to Protestant Ministers to dispute with them, And a Reverend Brother in their bounds had a long and publick debate with one of them lately, And the said Debate was written, And it is thought well worth Printing. And if done, would be very useful in their Country, many of the people desiring it, And it were a Pity that the said Reverend Brother were not enabled to print the same.
The presbytery further requested that the Church allow that preachers and catechists be appointed to travel to the Catholic islands in the Hebrides, and that they be given an allowance to enable them to do so – in the same way as similar help had been given to the Presbyteries of Strathbogie, Abernethy and Lorn the previous year. This time, however, the General Assembly had a fresh card up their sleeves. The Presbytery of Skye’s request was forwarded to a new committee, that for the Management of His Majesty’s Royal Bounty:
And appoints them to take in the same at their first diet, And to do what they Judge proper for the encouragment of the Synod of Glenelg, and Presbyteries and Brethren in the bounds thereof, and for suppressing Popery, And impowers the said Committee to grant an Allowance to Ministers, Preachers and Catechists to travel in the foresaid bounds.
On the same day another petition was read from the ministers of the Outer Hebrides, the new Presbytery of Long Island. The ministers were suffering: "the Health of Ministers is frequently impair’d ... Our number being small and all sickly because of their extraordinary toil and fatigue within our oun bounds". They thus requested travel expenses to pay for them to travel to Edinburgh. This too was referred to the new Royal Bounty Committee: the General Assembly finally, then, had somewhere to send troublesome Highland petitions. It is to this Committee, and how it wrestled with the problems of administering the annual grant of one thousand pounds, that I shall turn to for the next instalment.
