3
Preface If “a life told is a life remembered” it is in this dignified spirit that this account of St John Ogilvie is written. Four hundred years have passed since St John’s untimely death and martyrdom at Glasgow Cross on 10th March 1615. He died to defend the right of religious liberty during the highly charged period of the Scottish Reformation. At the tender age of thirteen, John Ogilvie was sent by his family from the shores of Leith to receive a thorough education in mainland Europe. He was a Scot of noble birth, born in 1579 into a highly respected Calvinist family; on his capture in Glasgow he informed his captors that his father was “Walter Ogilvie of Drum”. His family background has therefore been associated with the wealthy laird, Sir Walter Ogilvie of Drum-na-Keith, in Strathisla, Banffshire. When John Ogilvie returned to his Scottish homeland after an absence of twenty-two years, he was an ordained priest of the Society of Jesus (SJ - the Jesuits). Governed by faith and conscience he returned to Scotland to preach at a time of great religious upheaval, in a reformed Protestant Scotland. During this period, life for many Scots was overshadowed by intense suspicion and conflict. As a measure of safety and in order to preach the prohibited Mass in secret, Fr Ogilvie adopted the disguise of a horse dealer. But, sadly, the course of his Scottish ministry lasted
b. John Ogilvie 3
12/12/2014 16:55
