Jesuit exegesis, jacobean theology, and the scottish church in the first two decades of the seventeenth century

This paper aims to sketch a little of the background history of the ideas behind the events that led to the martyrdom of John Ogilvie. In so doing, no pretense is made at reducing politics, religion, personal commitment and loyalty to one single ideological cause, nor, even worse, claim that ideologies drove people and events before them like skittles. The aim is more modest than that of tracing a series of causes and effects. If it fails to enmesh with the historical realities such as traced by eminent historians such as Durkan and Dilworth, ¹ nevertheless it might still help in the interpretation of these lives and events.