Jesuit Leanings

George Strachan had gained one benefit from his visit to Scotland: he had earned the gratitude and sympathies of the Scottish Jesuits. In their eyes he had suffered for his faith while acting to fulfil the commission given to him by Aquaviva. In their letters both Stinson and Abercrombie made special appeals to the general that Strachan ‘was deserving of appointment to a distinguished position when he returned to Rome’. Their intention in doing so was to help him gain a reward for his efforts on behalf of the Society, and provide compensation for the sacrifices he had made for his faith. They had come to think of him as one of them and Strachan had led them to believe that he intended joining their Society. Abercrombie said as much in his letter, adding that Strachan would be returning to Rome shortly and would give the general a full report on affairs in Scotland in person.

He showed his complete faith in him by entrusting him with another matter. As part of their mission the Jesuits actively recruited students in Scotland to study as seminarians in the Catholic colleges abroad. Normally it was a missionary who escorted these young men to a Jesuit-run college on the Continent. Abercrombie asked Strachan to perform this task, which demonstrates the degree to which he viewed George as part of their Society. By 1602, in addition to Braunsberg, there were two colleges which were exclusively for Scots: one at Douai in the Spanish Netherlands and the Pontifical Scots College in Rome (McInally 2012b: 6–61). The following year a further college was opened in Paris that, due to the Jesuits’ expulsion from the city in the previous decade, was run by secular priests (Chapter 1).

At the time of Strachan's visit to Scotland, twelve-year-old Patrick Seton, son of the Laird of Parbroath in Fife, and nephew of Lord Seton, James VI's late chancellor, was waiting to be taken abroad to study. His widowed mother had asked Abercrombie for his help in this. Patrick was the sixth of her nine sons. Her five eldest had reached manhood and were no longer Lady Seton's responsibility but the younger ones required a higher education which she could not afford. Her wish was that Patrick should travel to a Catholic college on the Continent as his uncle had done in the 1570s.