10th March 1615

Scotland’s only post-Reformation saint is martyred

John Ogilvie was born in Banffshire in 1579 and educated in Germany where he converted to Catholicism. In 1610, he was ordained a Catholic priest and thereafter worked in Rouen, despite requesting that he be sent back to his native Scotland to minister there. Eventually, he got his wish, and in November 1613 he was dispatched to his homeland, where he was forced to say mass in secret, as Catholicism had by then been outlawed.

However, just 11 months later he was arrested and, when he refused to pledge his allegiance to King James VI of Scotland and I of England in preference to the Pope, he was sentenced to death. He was hanged and drawn in Glasgow on 10 March 1615 and, on 17 October 1976, he was canonised, becoming a saint of the Roman Catholic church.