Patrick Primrose
{{Short description|Scottish priest}}
__NOTOC__
{{Infobox person
|name= Patrick Primrose
|birth_date= c. 1605
|death_date= 1671, Banff, Scotland
|nationality=Scottish
|title= Vicar General, royal chaplain
|occupation= Priest
|known_for= Martyrdom
}}
Patrick Primrose OP (c. 1605–1671) was a Scottish Dominican priest of the Roman Catholic Church, Scottish Vicar General, and royal chaplain to Queen Catherine of Braganza, who died in 1671 after being jailed for two months over winter for celebrating Mass.
Biography
Patrick Primrose graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1631. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates, that is, licensed to practice law, on 15 January 1635. He was ordained a priest of the Dominican Order. He was in Italy as early as 1649 and was named the Dominican's Vicar General for Scotland on 8 November 1651, the only person ever to hold that title.{{cite book |last1=Anstruther |first1=Godfrey |date=1958 |title=A Hundred Homeless Years: English Dominicans, 1558-1658 |pages=225–226 }} His appointment to that position required special dispensation because he had not been a Dominican for 12 years as required. He worked first in the Lothians and then in Banffshire.
After King Charles II was restored in 1660, Primrose was appointed a royal chaplain to his Catholic consort, Queen Catherine of Braganza, in the hope that this would allow him some freedom to exercise his Catholic ministry.
He was taken into custody at the Tolbooth of Banff and held for two months in the winter of 1670 for holding Mass.{{cite journal |last1=Kerr |first1=Fergus |date=2002 |title=Patrick Primrose: A Dominican in Seventeenth-Century Scotland. |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/43250196 |journal=New Blackfriars |volume=83 |issue=979 |pages=425–444 |doi=10.1111/j.1741-2005.2002.tb01827.x |jstor=43250196 |access-date=26 June 2021|url-access=subscription }} The Domestic Annals of Scotland describe how several months passed after his imprisonment before he was identified as a servant of the Queen.{{cite book |last1=Chambers |first1=Robert |date=1859 |title=Domestic Annals of Scotland: 1625-1688 |pages=335–336 }} Primrose was then released on condition that he exile himself.{{cite book |date=1910 |title=Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: 1669-1672 |pages=261 }} The authorities later allowed that he was prevented from leaving by ill health, likely caused by the conditions of his imprisonment. He was granted permission to remain in Scotland until 5 February 1671. The date of his death is unknown, being ambiguously referred to as "the late prisoner" when given the extended period to remain.
He is sometimes reported to have died in prison,{{cite journal |last1=Barrett |first1=Michael |date=1922 |title=Some Obscure Victims of the Scottish Reformation. |journal=The American Catholic Quarterly Review |volume=47 |pages=105 }} although the location of his death is at most uncertain.
He was buried in the grounds of the pre-Reformation church of St. Peter, Drumdelgie, at the River Deveron near Milton of Strathbogie (now Huntly) in the former parish of Botary. His monument there was ordered demolished by the authorities, citing the penal laws, on 4 March 1672.
The Dominicans of Edinburgh retain Primrose's chalice,{{cite web | url=https://scotland.op.org/about-us/history-dominicans-in-medieval-edinburgh/ | title = History of the Dominicans in Edinburgh | website = St. Albert's Catholic Chaplaincy, Edinburgh | access-date = 2 August 2021}} identified by an inscription on its base.
See also
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite book |last1=Mullett |first1=Michael |date=1998 |title=Catholics in Britain and Ireland, 1558–1829 |pages=105–106 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Forbes-Leith |first1= William |date=1901 |title=Memoirs of Scottish Catholics: During the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries, Vol. 2 |pages=395 }}
- {{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=Fiona |date=2006 |title=Missions to the Gaels: Reformation and Counter-reformation in Ulster and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland |pages=150, 238 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Anson |first1=Peter Frederick |date=1970 |title=Underground Catholicism in Scotland |pages=73 }}
External links
- [https://www.scalan.co.uk/blackfriars.htm Scalan Association Website, Patrick Primrose details.]
- [https://www.scalan.co.uk/scalannewsed015.htm Scalan Association Website, picture (d. 1833) and details of 13th C. St. Peter's Church, Patrick Primrose's burial place.]
- [https://canmore.org.uk/site/17322/drumdelgie-parish-church Canmore St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church OS Grid Reference information.]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Primrose, Patrick}}
Category:17th-century Scottish Roman Catholic priests
Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Category:Scottish Catholic martyrs