John Geddes

John Geddes (9 September 1735 – 11 February 1799) was a Scottish Catholic prelate who served as coadjutor Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland District from 1779 to 1797. He was also rector of the Royal Scots College, Valladolid, from 1771 to 1780. In addition to his published writings about the history of the Catholic Church in Scotland and efforts to achieve Catholic Emancipation, Geddes is particularly important for his partially extant diary of Edinburgh intellectual life during the Scottish Enlightenment and for his friendship with Scottish national poet Robert Burns, from whom he received the now priceless volume known as The Geddes Burns.

Early life Born at Mains of Corridoun, Enzie, Banffshire on 9 September 1735, He received the tonsure on 27 March 1754 and the four minor orders from Cardinal Giuseppe Spinelli on 31 March 1754.

Following the 1769 Suppression of the Jesuits, which was motivated by both Caesaropapism and certain other anti-religious currents behind the Bourbon Reforms and the Enlightenment in Spain, Geddes engaged in secret and delicate negotiations at the Spanish court with Don Pedro Rodriguez de Campomanes. Geddes sought permission for the reopening and revival of the former Royal Scots College at Madrid, which had been confiscated from the Society of Jesus and closed down since 1734, as a major seminary for training Scottish secular clergy.

In 1771, Geddes and fifteen seminarians, including seven native speakers of the Scottish Gaelic language from Lochaber and South Uist, revived the college on the outskirts of Valladolid, in Northern Spain. The future bishop later became the college's first post-1734 rector and has since been credited with being solely responsible for the Royal Scots College's continued survival.

In response to the rioting and arson that filled many Scottish cities as an outraged response to the relaxation of the laws criminalising Catholicism by the Catholic Relief Act 1778, Geddes in 1781 wrote from Valladolid, saying that the violence had made Scotland appear, "the most barbarous country in Europe". Geddes also forwarded to Scotland a letter from Campomanes, praising George Hay, the Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland District, for his humane actions, even during the arson that burned down his chapel and residence in Edinburgh.

Following his consecration, Geddes returned to Scotland, where he assisted Hay. Although they had been friends at the Scots College in Rome, Hay and Geddes had very different personalities and their opinions on certain matters were sometimes at variance. Hay viewed the Highland Clearances as a positive development as they moved the Gaelic-speaking laity to the Scottish Lowlands, a position with which Geddes strongly disagreed. The poet even gave the bishop the personalized first edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect now known as The Geddes Burns. In a subtle allusion to his poems Holy Willie's Prayer, Address to the Devil, and other similar ones, Burns wrote to another correspondent, "I have outraged that gloomy, fiery Presbyterianism enough already, though I don't spit in her lugubrious face by telling her that the first [that is, finest] cleric character I ever saw was a Roman Catholick - a Popish bishop, Geddes."

John Geddes’ original volume, now known as The Geddes Burns, complete with a letter in the poets own hand and other handwritten work of Robert Burns, now resides at the Henry E. Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Reflections on Duelling, and on the Most Effectual Means of Preventing It, (published by William Creech, 1790) An Account of the Province of Biscay in Spain, (written c. 1781, published by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1792) The Life of Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland with Some Account of Her Husband, Malcom III surnamed Kean More, and of Their Children (1794) Some Account of the Catholic Religion in Scotland during the Years 1745-1747, with continuation until 1793 by John Thompson and Abbé Macpherson, (posthumously published based on the original manuscript in the Archbishop's House, Edinburgh, 1909)