|
Our thanks to Maurice Taylor
for giving us permission to post up his book for us all to read here.
Due to the large number of
footnotes we have decided to scan this into .pdf files as being the best
way to present the book.
In 1627, towards the end
of a long life of soldiering and political intrigue, Col. William Semple
of Lochwinnoch founded, in his own house in Madrid, the Colegio de
Escoceses. It was to be a seminary in which young Scotsmen would be
educated and trained before returning, as priests, to their native land.
Semple's, college has survived the vicissitudes of time and, although
transferred two hundred years agp to the city of Valladolid in Old
Castile, it continues to exist today.
The Scots College in Spain is an account, by the present rector, of the
story of the college—the administration of Hugh Semple, mathematician
and nephew of the founder; the difficulties of the Madrid period, during
which the college was entrusted to the Jesuits and barely survived their
internal quarrels and disagreements and their expulsion from Spain in
1767; the restoration of the college in 1771 and its re-foundation in
Valladolid by John Geddes, later bishop in Scotland; the contribution it
has made since then to the work of the Catholic Church in Scotland,
despite repeated threats of closure by anticlerical governments, in
Spain, by ecclesiastical superiors in Scotland, by invasions, wars and
destitution.
This book has been prepared in order to mark the bicentenary of the
re-establishment of the college in 1771 and the transfer to its present
home in Valladolid. It fills a gap in our knowledge of Scottish Catholic
history and will appeal, moreover, to all of those interested in the
story of the educational and cultural achievements of the Scot abroad.
A full register of rectors, priests and students of the college from
1627 until 1970 (with biographical data) is included, as well as English
translations of the Deed of Foundation and the college's Royal Charters.
The plan of Valladolid
reproduced on the jacket was drawn in 1738. No. 34 is the Jesuit College
of St. Ambrose (now the Scots College). No. 35 is the English College of
St. Alban.
APPENDICES
Click here for further information on the Royal Scots College in Salamanca
 |
