Catholic colleges in exile have increasingly attracted scholarly attention both from the perspective of the struggle for survival of British Catholics and as key for understanding their identity. The identity of the colleges themselves was largely shaped by their ties to their own homeland and local church traditions—whether English, Scottish or Irish—and also by the necessary adaptation to the norms and practices of the specific location where they settled. This volume, compiled by Fr. Michael Briody, offers a unique insight into the latter, by presenting the writing of John Geddes (1735–1799), who made the translation of the college possible. Geddes was the first secular rector of the Scots College after 1767, when the Jesuits, who until then had been running the colleges in Spain, were banished by royal decree. The Spanish government, aware of the special circumstances of the English, Scottish and Irish seminaries, instead of closing them down, allowed for a change of governance and implemented various measures intended to streamline these institutions, some of which, by this time, had but few students and staff remaining. The three English colleges (Valladolid, Seville and Madrid) were merged into one, and the Scots College in Madrid was joined to the Irish College in Alcalá de Henares. Geddes’ Memoirs describes the process by which the Scots College was detached from the Irish and moved to Valladolid.

However, Geddes, who writes in the third person throughout, does more than merely recount the ‘translation’ of the College, as the title of his manuscript states. In fact, his Memoirs narrate the circumstances leading to it, along with the early years of the reestablishment of the Scots College in Valladolid until the end of his term as rector in 1780. His narrative provides plentiful detail of the dreadfully slow Spanish bureaucracy he had to deal with. We also learn of the support and guidance received from the rector of the English College in Valladolid, Philip Perry, and of confrontations with the Irish, who are depicted as untrustworthy and greedy for the Scots’ rents. Thus, Geddes’ Memoirs read as a much richer text than a purely narrative account of the college’s restitution and reestablishment. They are a guide on both the correct drafting of official petitions to the Council of Castile, and on the equally important means of influencing off-the-record decisions. They offer a useful inventory of political, religious, and social influencers in late-eighteenth-century Madrid, together with their international connections, sometimes even verging on gossip. Readers will also learn about the rector’s petty ‘spying’ strategies through his barber—not coincidentally the barber of the Vice-rector of the Irish College as well (p. 41). Geddes appears as a pragmatic person, frequently referring to practical aspects such as day-to-day communications, and revealing his linguistic skill: Latin, Italian, French and, eventually Spanish, were used in addition to English in his conversations with the Spanish and foreign authorities. Undoubtedly, it was this pragmatic purpose that guided him when writing these Memoirs. In his own words, his ‘Design was to show more clearly the manner in which things are wont to fall out, and how Affairs ought and how they ought not to be carried on’ (p. 159).

Given the array of historical detail in Geddes’ text, Briody has fittingly furnished it with additional material intended to contextualize and illuminate a variety of aspects. This ranges from a brief presentation of the reasons for the existence of the Scots College in Madrid to biographical notes, including Geddes’ own life, and brief profiles of his friends and supporters, and the first students in Valladolid, to explanatory footnotes and a summary of the contents by Rt. Rev. M. Taylor. The index of persons mentioned in the Memoirs is a highly useful tool to explore a complicated landscape peopled by auditors, administrators, ‘intendants’, ambassadors, bishops, and noblemen, to mention a few. Still, such a uniquely informative text for the history of the Scots College in Spain might have benefitted had Briody edited Geddes’ manuscript, rather than merely transcribing it, albeit meticulously. A formal edition could have addressed features typical of eighteenth-century manuscripts, like repetitions or lacunae, and peculiarities of the original punctuation, by which the compiler of the book admits to being defeated. Further reference to existing studies on the situation of the colleges, the banishment of the Jesuits, and the Spanish political circumstances would also have enhanced its scholarly value.

None of this detracts from the legitimate value of this volume, however. Father Briody has made available a significant source for the history of colleges in exile, as seen through the eyes of the very agent of the reestablishment of the Scots College in Spain. That first-hand vantage presents us with a unique wealth of detail about the process and the characters involved, and also with the difficulties they faced by being foreign citizens, though brothers in faith. Geddes’ Memoirs add a useful and important chapter to what we know about British Catholics in Spain at a crucial moment in their history.