St Duthus Memorial Church

Castle Brae

Tain

Ross & Cromarty

NGR - NH 780822

The panelled memorial is located within St Duthis Memorial Church, below a gable window. The memorial measures sixteen feet by seven feet six inches. The memorial also commemorates Patrick Hamilton, Aboot of Fearn, regarded as the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation.

Rev Thomas Hog of Kiltearn

Thomas Hog was born in Tain in 1628, 'of honest parents, native Highlanders, somewhat above the vulgar rank'. He became minister of Kiltearn. Rev Thomas Hog was outed as a minister in 1661. He moved to near Auldearn, where he is known to have held conventicles, for which he was imprisoned in Forres Tolbooth for a time. He was caught again, imprisoned in Edinburgh Tolbooth and then sent to the prison on the Bass Rock for a time, where he was held in the worst dungeon, on the advice of Archbishop Sharp. He was banished to Kintyre, re-arrested, and then banished out of Scotland, settling for a time in London then Holland. He was influential in persuading William III to abolish episcopacy in 1689. At the Glorious Revolution, he was able to return to minister at Kiltearn. He died on 4 January 1692 and was buried at Kiltearn, where an inscription reads 'This stone shall bear witness against the parishioners of Kiltearn if they bring an ungodly minister in here.’ At his own request, he was buried under the threshhold of the church.