Spottiswoode Society > History of the affairs of the Church and State of Scotland from the beginning of the reformation to the year 1568 > Volume 1

liv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE
your Excellency has honoured him with, and for that re-
markable care you are pleased to take of him. I hope you
shall have much satisfaction in him, and that he will answer
all your expectations. In a late trial 1 before our Court of
1 " The case of Mr Hugh Macdonald, brother to the Laird of Morrar,
of the Clanranald family, his being banished forth out of Scotland for being
a Popish Bishop." Scots Magazine for 1756, p. 100. The extraordinary
prosecution of this gentleman by the Presbyterian authorities, to which
Bishop Keith alludes — the last, apparently in Scotland, for " being held
and repute to be a Popish Bishop" — is narrated in the Scots Magazine.
Bishop Macdonald was apprehended at Edinburgh on the 19th of July on
a warrant signed by Charles Erskine of Tinwald, Lord Justice-Clerk, and
committed to the Old Tolbooth, which stood hi the Lawnmarket ; but he
was admitted to bail on the 1st of August, on finding security for the sum
of L.300 sterling, that he should repair to the town of Dunse near the Eng-
lish Border, and oblige himself not to go four miles beyond it, till the 15th
of November, when he was to appear before the High Court of Justiciary.
Bishop Macdonald was tried before that Court on the 5th of January
1756. " The indictment," it is stated in the Scots Magazine, " bears,
That the pannel was held and repute to be a Jesuit, priest, or trafficking
Papist, or had changed his name and surname ; and that these, or part of
them, together with his refusing to purge himself of Popery, by taking the
formula prescribed by and annexed to the Act, 3 Sess. 8. and 9. Pari. 1,
King William [III.], when it should be tendered to him by any of the
Lords of Justiciary, being found proven by the verdict of an assize, he
ought to be banished forth of this realm, with certification that if ever he
return thereto, being still a Papist, he shall be punished with the pain of
death. The pannel, being asked whether he was willing to take the
formula, declared he was not at freedom in conscience to do it. The
Court found the libel relevant to infer the pains of law. It was with
difficulty the witnesses could be made to appear, and some of them were
fined for non-appearance, which protracted the trial. The proof was taken
February 2, and the same day the jury returned the following verdict —
' All with one voice find it proven, that the pannel is held and repute to
be a Popish Bishop, and refused to take the formula annexed to and pre-
scribed by the Act of Parliament libelled on, when tendered to him.' Coun-
sel were heard on the import of this verdict. It was, we are told, pleaded
for the pannel that no mention is made of Bishops in the Act, and that
penal statutes ought to be strictly interpreted. It was answered, That as
Bishops could create priests, they must be understood to be comprehended
in the Act. Sentence was passed against the pannel, March 1, precisely
in terms of the conclusion of the libel, by which he is ordered to depart
out of Scotland, betwixt and the 1st of May next, and he was dismissed
from the bar, in order to his so departing the kingdom never to return."
Thus was this right reverend gentleman, of au ancient Highland family,
expatriated from his native country by one of those odious and intolerable