| He graduated at St. Andrews 1559, was appointed one of the regents of St. Mary's College 1569, and in 1574 was an elder of the kirk-session of the parish of St. Andrews. He was still there in 1575, but the following year he is found in France acting as tutor to Cardinal de Bourbon; it was probably at this period that he entered the Roman Church, of which he shortly became a zealous partisan. In 1584 he was chosen rector of the University of Paris, and in the following year was presented to the cure of the parishes of St. Cosmus and St. Damian. Owing to his violent opposition to Henry of Navarre he was compelled to leave France. He then settled in Brussels, but in 1600 came to Scotland along with the Jesuit father Edmund Hay on a mission from the Pope in support of the Catholic succession. Interdicted by the Privy Council, he was 'resetted' by friends in various parts of Scotland for some years and escaped apprehension, notwithstanding the fact that the price of £1000 Scots was set on his head. In 1609, however, he was seized, conveyed to London, and imprisoned in the Tower, where he died in 1610 - 'a little man, red faced, and above fifty years of age.'4 |