Robert Gillespie (preacher)
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Robert Gillespie was a 17th-century Presbyterian preacher. His father was George Gillespie the famous Westminster Divine. His mother was Margaret Murray, who had £1000 sterling voted by Parliament immediately after George's death, for the support of herself and family, but, owing to the distractions of the time, it was never paid.[1] Robert was baptised 15 May 1643.[1]
He was probably licensed by some of the "outed ministers," as a statement in the Records of the Privy Council speaks of him as "preaching upon a pretended unlawful licence." Delated for having officiated at public conventicles and prayed at private ones, he failed to appear and was denounced as a rebel. This was in 1672. Gillespie, notwithstanding, continued to preach until the beginning of 1673, when he was apprehended and imprisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh.[2]
It is recorded that "Robert Gillespie, an irregular preacher "at the horn", was taken after a conventicle at Falkland, and on 2nd April sent by the Privy Council to the Bass to be immured."[3][4] He was imprisoned on the Bass Rock between 2 April 1673 and 8 January 1674. He was the first person imprisoned there for Presbyterian principles.[5]
There he was kept in carcere durissimo — closely shut up and excluded from all intercourse with his for two months. Before the end of 1673 — through the rigour of his imprisonment and the dampness of his cell—his health broke down. Gillespie soon after laid a request for release before the Privy Council, which was granted, and he was liberated on 8 January 1674 to his mother's house.[citation needed]
