Dean Hannay – The Reformation

DEAN JAMES HANNAY ca 1595- June 1661.

Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, H Scott (1915), vol 1, p 24 and 56

JAMES HANNAY, son of John H., bailie and burgess in the Canongate (of the family of Hannay of Sorbie, Wigtownshire); M.A. (Edinburgh, 22nd July 1615); min. of Kilmaurs in 1620; trans, to Canongate in 1624; pres. to the Deanery by Charles I. 13th May and 20th Oct. 1634; pres. By the Council 30th March1635, and adm. soon after. On 23rd July 1637 he proceeded to read “Lauds Liturgy”  in St Giles. The result was a brawl, when the famous

Jenny Geddes flung her stool at the Dean’s head.

The service was interrupted; Bishop and Dean were pelted by the mob, and protests against the English Prayer Book were bitter and universa!. Seldom has there been a popular tumult leading to greater results. ” It not only suppressed  the English Liturgy almost unti! the nineteenth century, but it gave an impulse to the Civil War of England, which ended in the overthrow of church and monarchy” (Dean Stanley’s Lectures on the Church of Scotland). Hannay was dep. Ist Jan. 1639, for declining the General Assembly, and reading and defending  the Service Book. He died before 21st June 1661, when his children had £100 allowed by Parliament, out of vacant stipends, on account of their father’s sufferings. He marr. Isobel Brown, who was buried in the Kirk of Holyrood House, July 1674 (Canongate Reg.), and had issue—Magdalen; John; Martha; William; James; George; Marion (marr.

George Smelholm, servitor to the Earl of Tweeddale:

Sources:P. C. B., Third Series, i.,517); Isobel [Reg. Sec. Sig., Edin.
Counc. and Canongate Reg. {Bapt.); Baillie’s Lett., i. ;
Stevenson’s Hist., Peterkin’s Rec, Wodrow’s MSS.;
Acts Par!., v., vii. ; Maitland Miscell., ii.; Charters
of St Giles, Lees’ St Giles.]

Comment: It makes an interesting comparison that the children were given £100 sterling ( £1200 Scots) in compensation for an affront to their fathers `dignity` , while persons attending a conventicle or caught reading their Bible were routinely fined truly huge sums ( tens of thousands of Scots pounds) for which they had no hope whatsoever of ever paying. At the height of the `Killing Time` death on the spot was the method of choice for enforcing the King`s will.  Who then were truly

wronged ?