Ven. John Ogilvie

Eldest son of Walter Ogilvie, of Drum, near Keith, Scotland, b. 1580; d. 10 March, 1615. Educated as a Calvinist, he was received into the Church at Louvain by Father Cornelius a Lapide. Becoming a Jesuit at the age of seventeen he was ordained priest in 1613, and at his own request was sent on the perilous Scottish mission. He landed in Scotland in November, 1613, and during nine months reconciled many with the Church in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He was betrayed in the latter city, but, during a long imprisonment, no tortures could force him to name any Catholics. Though his legs were cruelly crushed, and he was kept awake for nine nights by being continually pricked by needles, scarcely a sigh escaped him. Under searching examinations, his patience, courage, and gaiety won the admiration of his very judges — especially of the Protestant Archbishop Spottiswood — but he was condemned as a traitor and hanged at Glasgow. The customary beheading and quartering were omitted owing to undisguised popular sympathy, and his body was hurriedly buried in the churchyard of Glasgow cathedral. He was declared venerable in the seventeenth century.

Authentic account of Imprisonment and Martyrdom of Fr. John Ogilvie, S.J., translated from a Latin pamphlet (Douai, 1615; London, 1877); Forbed-Leith, Narratives of Scottish Catholics (Edinburgh, 1885); a Lapide, Comment. in Isaiam, c. 1, v. 7.

Michael Barrett