The Lauro Mission to Scotland

Memorial  tomb of Cardinal Vincenzo Lauro  (1523-1592)

San Clemente, Rome

A physician and a diplomat of a noble family, Vincenzo Lauro (also "Laureo") was widely travelled and respected

He had served his apprenticeship with Cardinals Parisio, Gaddi, François de Tournon and Ippolito d' Este. 

Sant Pope Pius V appointed him  Bishop of Mondovì on January 30, 1566. 

The Pope sent him on a mission to Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland, August 29, 1566

He was accompanied by the Jesuit  Edmund Hay who had accompanied the earlier former mission by the Jesuit Father Goudanus

The object of the mission was to persuade the Queen to break with Murray, Lethington, and the other Protestant ministers, who had among other things been involved in  the murder of Rizzio 

Appendix III of John Hungerford Pollen SJ`s Papal Negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots  1561-1567 (November 1901) The Scottish History Society Volume XXXVII shows the correspondence between Father Edmund Hay and senior Jesuits such as Laynez, Polanco, and Borgia before the mission showing that they were keeping a very close eye on events in Scotland since the Goudanus mission. 

They seemed to have very good sources of information

The main "linkman" in Scotland was the Bishop of Dunblane William Chisholm II whom the Jesuits regarded as faithful and not treacherous

Lauro sent Hay with the Piedmontese envoy Du Croc to prepare the mission while he waited in Paris.

The letters disclose the terrible state of Scotland

His mission was wrecked by the murder of Darnley and the advancement of his murderers, Bothwell and others. 

Mary`s behavious after the death of Darnley and in particular the marriage with Bothwell brought about a rupture between Mary and the Vatican.

Lauro returned to his diocese from Paris

Lauro wrote to the Cardinal of Alessandria from Paris in March 1567:

"[l] By my letter of the 24th of January I informed your eminence of the baptism of the Prince of Scotland. By another of the 13th of February, I wrote to you of the evil understanding and distrust which there was between the queen and her husband. 

By others of the 22nd and 23rd of last month, and the 8th of the present, I informed you of all that could be known up to the present about the particulars of the king's death. 

Now by the last advices from Scotland we hear that, her Majesty desiring to make inquisition into the authors of that crime, the Earls of Murray and Bothwell have been discovered. Both are heretics and enemies of the dead king ; each lays the blame on the other, and they are already in arms with many followers. That unfortunate country is quite upset again, so that not even the queen's life is secure.  

Most people" impute the crime to the Earl of Murray, who being the queen's brother has always had the throne in view, although he is a bastard. He is persuaded by the contrary sect that it is his by right, especially as he maintains that his mother was secretly espoused by the king his father. 

[2] By reason of these tumults, therefore, and other conflicts, I was already resolved to take my leave of their Majesties here and of the Cardinal of Lorraine, and to go to my church without awaiting the arrival of Monsignor of Dunblane. But now after having received, bv the letter of your eminence of the 17th of last month, the order which you are pleased to give me in accordance with the mind of the Holy Father I will not even trouble to await Father Edmund.  

I think his Holiness was really inspired ; so well did he foresee that the Divine Justice has not yet put an end to the chastisement of that unfortunate nation. Yet I am not without hope that when things are more troubled and desperate, God will then deign to show the holy workings of His infinite mercy especially by means of his Holiness' pious prayers".

Lauro left for his diocese. His decision appears to have been wise

In June 1567, Father Edmund Hay wrote to him from Paris:

"Most Reverend Father in Christ and my right honourable lord,— 

Yesterday about nine o'clock, while I was with the ambassador of Scotland, he showed me letters from Monsignor Clerneau, directed to him from Edinburgh on the 14th of May. The gentleman commenced his letter with an excuse (in margin, he is a member of the Cardinal of Lorraine's court) for not having written since he started for Scotland, which was contrary to his promise.  

He maintained, however, that the fault of not having written more frequently was not his but the queen's, who, he said, has as yet neither listened to nor looked at anything that I brought her from you or from others.  

At present great preparations are being made for the coming marriage of her Majesty with the Earl of Bothwell, whom she created Duke of Orkney a few days ago. 

Such was the purport of his letter so far as I can remember, for it was very brief. After the signature, however, came the following postscript To divert you, and make atonement for my past failings, [let me add that] after I had completed my letter, we celebrated the marriage according to the heretical rite, that is after a sermon delivered by a minister who discharged the duty of celebrant in place of a priest. 

I was anxious to inform your reverend lordship of this event as soon as possible, and will send further news as soon as I receive any.   

In the assemblies, about which the Bishop of Dunblane spoke in the letter forwarded to you, two decrees* were made, as I hear, whereby both religions (God have mercy on us !) are approved, and the followers of both receive her Majesty's favour, and are promised her protection.  

When these proclamations reach us we will turn them into Latin as well as we can, and send them to your lordship. May God send us better and happier news, and grant us patience to bear this in the dispositions in which His servants should endure it.

We pray Him long to preserve your lordship to us and to His Church. 

Farewell, most reverend father and most honourable lord. 

Paris, the Nones of June. 

Your lordship's servant in the Lord,  

Edmund Hay".

*The two decrees mentioned were  the Act of Parliament of 19 April 1567, and the proclamation of 23 May 1567. By the first all the remaining disabilities of Protestants were removed. By the second all royal licences 'permittand sum personis to use the forme of thair religioun,' i.e. Catholicism, were revoked, lest they should seem to throw suspicion on the former Act.

The correspondence is also in the British History Vatican series

Lauro was a friend of Ignatius Loyola, Camillo De Lellis and Filippo Neri, and Cardinal Federico Borromeo. 

Gregory XIII made him a cardinal and his titular church was San Clemente where he was buried

He was made Protector of Scotland before the Holy See in the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V. 

He maintained his good relations with the Society of Jesus. On his death he left his library to the Collegio Romano of the Society of Jesus.

The First Jesuit Mission to Scotland

Jan Jiří Heinsch (1647 – September 9, 1712)

Engraving by Wolfang Philipp Killian 1654-1732

Father Nicholas Goudanus (c.1517–1565) Jesuit and Papal Legate to Mary Queen of Scots

From Mathias Tanner, Societas Jesu Apostolorum imitatrix, sive gesta praeclara et virtutes eorum: qui e societate Jesu in procuranda salute animarum, per Apostolicas missiones, Conciones, Sacramentorum Ministeria, Evangelij inter Fideles & Infideles propagationem, ceteráque munia Apostolica, per totum orbem terrarum speciali zelo desudarunt / 1: Societatis Jesu Europaeae

1694

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Regensberg

Nicholas Goudanus  (c.1517–1565) was a Dutch Jesuit and papal diplomat and one of the early members of the Jesuit Order. He was a contemporary of St Ignatius Loyola

Born in Gouda in Holland, his surname was originally Floris (Florisz). He worked with St  Peter Canisius on the mission to reclaim German Protestants to Catholicism. In 1557 they had been together at the Colloquy of Worms.

Tanner`s Societas Jesu Apostolorum imitatrix celebrates his most important mission which unfortunately met with failure

It was a secret and daring mission on behalf of the Pope to meet with Mary Queen of Scots and the Scots Catholics  after the 1560 religious revolution which overthrew Catholicism in Scotland and established Calvinism as the religious establishment in Scotland

The events of 1560 meant that Mary ruled but did not govern. All communications with Rome were torn assunder

Pius IV needed to send an envoy to see what was happening in Scotland

The Pope issued instructions for the mission in  December 1561

It was a Jesuit mission and the first to Scotland under the new dispensation

Accordingly it is of major historical importance to the Catholic Church in Scotland

In June 1562 Gouda set off  by sea with two companions - one a Scots noble who was to enter the order, Edmund Hay

The mission is described in John Hungerford Pollen SJ`s Papal Negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots  1561-1567 (November 1901) The Scottish History Society Volume XXXVII

"Father de Gouda landed at Leith, June 18, 1562, and his adventures soon began.  

The fourth General Assembly of the Reformed Church was just gathering, and as Mary and her courtiers made no great secret of the envoy's arrival, there was soon so serious an outcry, that Edmund Hay thought it wise to make the papal envoy withdraw to the family house at Megginch in Perthshire, near Errol, where his father was ' Baillie '  

After waiting there about six weeks Mary sent him word that she would give him audience, and the Hays provided him with a mounted escort, which conducted him safely into Edinburgh, Avhere the queen's almoner admitted him, though unwillingly, into his house.  

Next day, which Father de Gouda remembered as the vigil of St. James (July 24), was a Friday, and in those early days of Calvinistic fervour, there was a custom, observed by the Protestant courtiers, of attending sermons on Wednesday and Friday as well as on Sunday. This was the moment Mary chose for the interview. [The sermon was by John Knox] 

De Gouda was secretly introduced, made the queen a little speech, and read her the Pope's letter. Mary said that, though she could follow Latin, she could not easily converse in that language, so Edmund Hay, and Father Rivat, de Gouda's French companion, who were waiting outside, were called in, and Hay became the interpreter, Mary talking to him in Scottish  

There were three main topics of conversation : the answer to be made to the Pope's brief , the delivery of the other briefs to the bishops , and the means for preserving Catholicism in Scotland .  

Mary's answer to the brief turned chiefly on her helplessness, which the Pope had not fully appreciated. As to the delivery of the briefs, it would certainly be impossible for de Gouda to do so in person. Mary even refused to give him a safe-conduct, assuring him that his only security lay in keeping quiet within doors. Any official letter in his favour would bring him into danger of a violent death, which she would neither be able to avert or to avenge.  

De Gouda, omitting the little exhortation on perseverance which he had prepared to address to her, had just begun to open the question of the means to be taken for the preservation of the faith, and to urge the foundation of some Catholic college, when the time for the sermon to end approached, and Mary, saying that the moment might hereafter come for the proposed measure, though it was not practicable just then, had to dismiss them hurriedly  

Father de Gouda was very favourably impressed with this interview. Mary's goodness and defencelessness struck him deeply, and not without reason. That he does not exaggerate in what he says on this point is evident from Randolph's letters. Mary renewed before de Gouda her oft repeated resolution, rather to die than forsake her faith, and when he left, he was full of admiration, almost of enthusiasm. 

The second command laid upon him was to visit the Catholic bishops and invite them to the Council of Trent, and this part of his task he found more difficult and less satisfactory than the former. Although he reports that they were ' for the greater part Catholics and men of good intentions,' yet he was disappointed with their lack of enterprise. 

Henry Sinclair, Bishop of Ross, for instance, lived in Edinburgh and was president of the Court of Session, a post of dignity, the holder of which might have been expected to give a papal nuncio some support. Yet Sinclair refused to see him even when Mary invited him to do so. He did not conceal his vexation at de Gouda being so rash as to send him a letter, and refused to acknowledge its receipt except by verbal excuses.  

The only bishop with whom he secured an interview was the Bishop of Dunkeld, and he succeeded in doing this only by disguising himself as a banker's clerk, and visiting the prelate in his retirement on an island in a lake, and talking at dinner about nothing but money matters 

De Gouda was so impressed by these precautions, that he says nothing of a short and touching opening of hearts that took place when the servants had retired.  

William Crichton on the other hand, who was a relative of the bishop and afterwards a Jesuit of some eminence, and then acting as de Gouda's guide, was so impressed by its warmth that he says but little of the disguises by which security for the interview was obtained 

When we consider that results such as these were the best that de Gouda could expect to accomplish, we can understandthat there was nothing left for him but to return home as well as he could.  

On the 3rd of September he succeeded, not without difficulty, in escaping from Scotland [disguised as a sailor] and in reaching Antwerp on the 18th. Edmund Hay crossed over soon after, bringing with him a band of young Catholics, Tyrie, Abercromby, Murdoch, and others, some of whom, after passing through the long Jesuit training, were eventually to return and labour in Scotland  

But that was not to be for another score of years, and meanwhile, Rene Benoist, Mary's chaplain, had left her in August, and Ninian Winzet, the last controversialist of the old school, came over with de Gouda's party.  

Thus for the time the prospects of the unguarded flock of Scottish Catholics and of their defenceless queen looked dark indeed. 

But de Gouda does not maintain that Mary's defencelessness was her greatest danger, nor do the documents of this volume prove that it was so. 

We learn that in the beginning of her reign she had with difficulty saved her bishops from prison for saying Mass at Easter-time . In the last two years of her reign nine thousand and twelve thousand persons respectively received Easter communion in her chapel without exciting notable comment. The change was due partly to her strength in defeating the Anglo- Protestant party in the field. But she would never have gained this victory, nor have been able to make use of it, but for the loyalty of her people. 

Though they had revolted against her in her absence, she had won their confidence by trusting herself to the guidance of her ministers. It may be true, as Bishop Leslie says, that she gave herself too completely to hunting, dancing, and other amusements. The fault, however, was upon the right side. It tended to reassure her subjects, to show that she had no ulterior intentions against their religion, it left time for the old order of things to reassert its hold upon their affections. 

The ' imminent peril ' to which the papal envoy does draw attention is the character of the ministers who kept her in leading strings. Some of these men were doubtless honest, except where their bigotry was so strong as to impede the right use of reason. 

As they would have murdered de Gouda, so they thought it right to banish from Mary's side every counsellor, who did not hold their particular religious tenets. But there were others about her who, though they were not bigots, cannot be considered honest men.  

Among the courtiers of this class the first place was given by papal diplomatists (as by many modern historians) to the laird of Lethington. 

De Gouda's paragraph of warnings should be read together with Mary's words, 'Whatever difficulty there is about religion, they conform in other things to that which I desire. Above all my brother the prior and Lethington show themselves well affected . . . [Lethington] serves me right well ' 

It is clear then that ' the most crafty of men,' as Laureo called him, had already won her confidence."

The mission had only lasted three months.

In his report to Pius IV, Goudanus was pessimistic. He wrote off the Bishops. The only hope he could see would be for Mary to marry a strong ruler, a Catholic prince

Francois Clouet (1511 - 1572)

Portrait of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots

c. 1560-61

Oil on panel

30.3 x 23.2 cm

The Royal Collection, Windsor

© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015

This is Clouet`s celebrated portrait of Mary in white mourning. To mourn  three members of her immediate family in France within a period of eighteen months. 

Mary returned from France to her native Scotland in August 1561 and it is probable that this painting was painted some time between July 1559 and that date.

Attributed to George Jamesone (c.1588–1644)

William Maitland of Lethington

Oil on canvas

73.4 x 57.5 cm

Thirlestane Castle Trust