Dominicans in the British Isles cannot boast of a long list of Reformation martyrs. Cromwell and his henchmen were largely quite successful at planting the right people in the right place to ensure acquiescence, and restricted the activities of what we would today call fundraising to such an extent that, when our houses began to be closed, leaving the religious life was actually a much more stable and viable option than struggling on until the bitter end.
There were some exceptions. The Prior of Newcastle preached against the Supremacy and the King’s new marriage, and fled to the still-safe haven of Edinburgh. The Reformation came later in Scotland, but with the Order of Preachers playing an even more chequered part. In 1539, five men were burned for heresy in Edinburgh, among them two Dominicans. John Knox was converted to Protestantism by Thomas Guilliame, a former Dominican, and inducted as a minister and preacher by another ex-Dominican, John Rough.
It seems that for most of the Dominicans in Scotland, the Reformation came as something of a surprise. There had been occasional attacks on Dominican priories, but these were in part a protest against the friars and landlords, rather than necessarily having a religious character. The writing was not on the wall as it had been for the friars in England. Still, by 1560, the Scottish province fell into ruin and while some friars fled abroad, many conformed. But from the rubble of our provinces a spirit of quiet yet ardent fidelity emerged.
In the long period of our exile on the continent, reduced to just a few men, particular individuals stand out as great heroes. Cardinal Howard is one, whom we credit with refounding our province after its desolation. In Scotland, one such friar is Fr Patrick Primrose.
Primrose came from Edinburgh, and a fairly remarkable family which counted among its members the royal surgeon, the chief tax collector, the most important civil servant in Scotland, and the wife of the royal banker. His family were not Calvinists, but they weren’t recusants either. Primrose may well have left Edinburgh because of the increasingly radical and nationalist Protestantism which opposed the crown and episcopacy.
Whatever the motive for his leaving, by 29 December 1649, Patrick was a Dominican, a priest, and a member of the Irish province. He had left Bologna and was to be assigned to the house of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Rome. On 20 September 1650, Propaganda Fide approved his request for assignment to the missions in Britain, and on 8 November 1651, the Master of the Order appointed him Vicar General of the Scottish Province – the only person ever to take on that role.
Earlier that year, he had been in Paris, recruiting Scots for the order with very little success. One of the only recruits he managed to get ended up assigned to the English province’s house at Bornem in Flanders. The favour was repaid, though, when Howard, who was principal chaplain to Queen Catherine of Braganza, pushed for Primrose to join her household, giving him some freedom in his ministry in Scotland.
It certainly helped when, in the winter of 1670-71, Primrose was arrested for celebrating Mass. On discovering his royal connection, he was released, but died shortly after, his health having collapsed during his confinement. He was buried in the churchyard of the pre-Reformation St Peter’s Church, just outside Huntly, on the River Deveron. In March the following year, the authorities ruled that the monument should be taken down to prevent local devotion.
On the way back from a retreat at the Benedictine monastery at Pluscarden, I made a small pilgrimage of fraternal piety. I drove to the small field just outside Huntly where the ruins of St Peter’s Church just about still stand. Somewhere there rest the mortal remains of this faithful priest. The heroism of the martyrs is a beautiful thing, but no less beautiful is the quiet yet ardent fidelity of the confessors.
They did not necessarily rebuild anything. They may even have been terrible administrators, yet still it is because of them that our mission continues. Society today seems to demand that we are always intent on founding something new, achieving one goal after another. It perhaps blinds us to the beauty of that quiet yet ardent fidelity which is at the heart of our faith, and certainly essential for any religious order.
I spent a good while looking out across that field in Huntly, thinking of Patrick Primrose and praying for his soul. He was an exile from his own country, and never saw in his life the return of a stable mission of friars to Scotland. Yet in all of this he fought on. These men are like the Biblical Patriarchs: like Moses, Primrose never saw the promised land of a stable mission in Scotland.
In the face of opposition, like Abraham, he hoped against hope. It’s because of this fidelity that I was able to stand at the altar of a Dominican chapel and use Fr Patrick’s own chalice to celebrate Holy Mass.
Our province may not have martyrs, but it certainly has its heroes.
Fr Albert Robertson OP is an Assistant Chaplain at Fisher House, the Catholic Chaplaincy to the University of Cambridge
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