James Grant (Scottish bishop)
Pontifical Scots College |
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James Grant (July 1706 – 3 December 1778) was a
Lowland District
.
Life
Born in
priest in Rome
on 4 April 1733.
During the
Jacobite Uprising of 1745, Grant was operating as the underground missionary priest of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides
.
According to Bishop
Mingarry Castle on the Western coast (i.e. Ardnamurchan) where he was detained for some weeks. He was then conveyed to Inverness, and thrown into the common prison, where there were about forty prisoners in the same room with him. Here he was for several weeks chained by the leg to Mr. MacMahon, an Irish officer in the service of Spain, who had come over to be of use to the Prince. In this situation they could not in the night time turn from one side to the other without the one passing the other. The people of the town, out of humanity, furnished them with some little conveniences, and among other things gave to each a bottle, which they hung out of the window in the morning and got filled with water. But one morning the sentinels accused the prisoners to the visiting officer of having entered into a conspiracy to knock them on the head with bottles, which they had procured for that purpose. Father Grant and the others pleaded the improbability of this ridiculous accusation, but they were not heard, and the bottles were taken away."[1]
Accord to Father Charles MacDonald, "Five other priests were shut up in the same prison at about the same time. Three of them belonged to the West coast, viz., Father
£1,000 that they would never return. As this was an absurd proposal, these poor priests having neither friends nor money, the Duke compromised the matter by asking them to go bail for each other. They got over to Holland, but most of them came back again."[2]
On 21 February 1755, Grant was appointed by the
Hugh MacDonald. On the death of Bishop Smith on 21 August 1767, Grant automatically succeeded him as the vicar apostolic of the Lowland District. He died in office on 3 December 1778, aged 72.[3][4] He is buried with Bishop John Geddes in the ruins of the Snow Kirk in Old Aberdeen.[5]
References
- ^ Charles MacDonald (2011), Moidart: Among the Clanranalds, Birlinn Press. p. 176.
- ^ Charles MacDonald (2011), Moidart: Among the Clanranalds, Birlinn Press. Pages 176-177.
- ^ Brady, W. Maziere (1876). The Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland and Ireland, A.D. 1400 to 1875. Vol. 3. Rome: Tipografia Della Pace. p. 460.
- ^ "Bishop James Grant". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney. Retrieved 30 September 2010.
- ^ Scottish Notes and Queries April 1906
External links
- Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1890). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 22. London: Smith, Elder & Co.