George Hay was keen to have a post as a surgeon on a naval ship, but becoming a Catholic barred him from that, but he secured an...

When the Jacobite Army retreated, George Hay parted company with it at Edinburgh before the march north which ended at Culloden. He was...

In the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, most of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws were repealed, except the ones related to the Royal...

In addition to the help given to Aquhorties mentioned in the last post, the government also gave pensions to French bishops and priests...

The English Establishment was seriously unsettled by the Gordon Riots of 1780 and suspected that the French could have been behind them...

A Happy Saint Andrew's Day to all our readers! Saint Andrew, Apostle of the Lord, brother of Saint Peter and Patron of Scotland, was put...

Bishop Hay returned to Edinburgh in early 1779 from a round of negotiations in London to find himself standing on the edge of a crowd...

There were various crosscurrents in this period, a time of change. At the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, some French Colonies were...

Attitudes were beginning to change on both sides about the time of the disastrous 1745 Jacobite Uprising. It set back the cause of...

Catholics were presumed to be Jacobites. As Bishop John Geddes wrote: “The Scottish Catholics were generally desirous of the restoration...