The Earl of Perth's Chapel of 1688 at Drummond Castle and the Roman Catholic Architecture of James VII

Abstract

It is a good question: why, in supposedly dour seventeenth-century Presbyterian Scotland, did a lord chancellor have a private Catholic chapel, and how did he get the co u n try 's top architect to design his altar? Surely, dour-m ongers all, if w e are to believe the rhetoric?The answer derives from the very specific circum stances of the reign of James V II/II, who was king from i 6 8 j until he was forfeited in 1689. So w hat w ere these circumstances?The C o n tex t: R eform ation, C o u n t e r -R eformation and the Political Scene In 1 y6o the Scottish Parliam ent rejected the authority of the church o f Rom e, abolished Catholicism and crim inalised the Mass. Q ueen M ary attem pted to have Catholicism and Protestantism coexist, b u t lost h er argum ent and, in 15-67, h er crow n. H er son James VI Architectural Heritage XXV (2014): 107-13 1 advocated Episcopacy, increasingly so after 1603 w hen the m onarchy em igrated to England on his inheriting the crowns of England and Ireland from Q ueen Elizabeth; and after him , the tw o kings Charles I and Charles II pushed Episcopacy to the point of civil disobedience and war, fanning rather than quelling the flames o f radical Presbyterianism and giving rise to the Covenanter m ovem ent -those adhering to th eir in terp retatio n of G o d 's Covenant -a wing of w hich becam e m ilitarised in opposition to the crow n. It was therefore unequivocally against the flow w hen in 1683 a new king was m ade who was a C atholic.2 This was James VII (II of England and Ireland), b ro th er and successor to Charles II w ho had died early that year. This article highlights and explores a context for one illustration of this royal-led attem pt at religious toleration o r reo rientation -a contract of 1688 concerning a Catholic chapel for Jam es's Scottish chancellor, James D rum m ond, 4l1' Earl o f Perth. James, w hen D uke of Albany and York, was exiled to mainland Europe w ith his b ro th er King Charles II during the 1640s to 1640s p eriod of civil w ars and w ars of the three kingdoms. Ele served in Louis XIV's w ars, becom ing thereafter dom iciled in England following the R estoration of royal authority in 1660. Secretly, he converted to Catholicism, b u t as his having done so becam e m ore generally know n the Exclusion Crisis eru p ted -a move to exclude James as heir to the throne of England. A decision was taken to despatch him to Scotland, w here he arrived in 1679. From then until 1682 he held an in term itten t 'satellite' royal co u rt at newly rebuilt Elolyroodhouse, and b oth he and his young Duchess, M ary of M odena, w ere very well received, making friends th e re .5 His presence, energetic enthusiasm -evident fondness for Scotland -and encouragem ent of im provem ent led to an extraordinary degree of advance and progress.4 O n the other hand, Jam es's very presence in Scotland stoked strong religious disapproval from an opposition already frustrated by w hat it regarded as three generations of inflexible and misguided royal religious policies o r repress...

The seventeenth-century English and Scottish reception of Francis de Sales’An Introduction to a Devout Life

“…80 Perth and his brother, the Earl of Melfort, close friends of the king, had converted to Catholicism upon James' accession to the throne and were 'effectively in charge of governance within Scotland.' 81 Perth was actively involved with the Holyrood press; he was entrusted with £100 to 'be disposed of by him towards the payment of the pryces and defraying the other charges in the dispersion of the books.' 82 It is unclear who chose the selection of books to be published by the Holyrood press, but judging from the timing of Perth's conversion, it seems reasonable that he might have been influenced by James' devotional tastes.…”