Subject to authority: Bishop Alexander Macdonell and his Scottish religious superiors, 1788–1804

This article is based on a comparison between Bishop Alexander Macdonell's autobiographical writing about his work as a Scottish priest and his involvement in the politics of the day, and information obtainable from the Blairs and Preshome Letters. Taken together, they show that his bold and enterprising approach achieved much for his fellow-Catholics but that his superiors, the bishops of the two Scottish vicariates, had good reason to fear that his individualist approach might actually undermine their own patient and cautious efforts to extract concessions for Catholics from the authorities. The developments described take place against the background of the Highland Clearances as well as the spread of French revolutionary ideas all over western Europe. Macdonell's views were to have considerable influence on British imperial policies in Canada and the United States.