Robert Gillespie

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. Robert was baptised 15 May 1643. Early ministry 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. 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." 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. 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.