Anderson, Patrick

ANDERSON, PATRICK. - Scottish Jesuit, b. at Elgin or at Moray in 1575, d. in London on 24 Sept. 1624. Having entered the Order in Rome in 1597, after attending the University of Edinburgh, he urgently asked to return to his homeland for the relief of persecuted Catholics. Indeed he left for London in 1609 and passed into Scotland, where his activity was distinguished by fearless zeal and abundant fruits, despite his being obliged to resort to disguises and countless cunning tricks to escape the Protestant bloodhounds, who regarded him as a papist and therefore a traitor to the State. In 1615 he was elected first rector of the Scottish college, founded in Rome by Clement VIII in 1600 and entrusted to the Jesuits in 1615. But he soon returned to Scotland for his dangerous ministries, until, betrayed by a false Catholic, he was seized and imprisoned. During the two years of imprisonment he had many religious discussions with the Protestant ministers, which he later published under the title: The ground of the Catholike and Roman Religion in the Word of God... (1623). Condemned to death, he escaped it through the intervention of the French ambassador, who wanted him as his chaplain.

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