in Stirling Castle. In March 1661 he was brought to trial, when he professed penitence, and threw himself upon the mercy of the court. He had powerful friends, and even Sharp used his influence on his behalf, so that he escaped with a sentence of confinement to Ormiston for a time. The king thought him more guilty than James Guthrie, and said that he would have spared Guthrie's life if he had known that Gillespie was to be treated so leniently. Lord Sinclair wished to have him appointed to Dysart, but Sharp said that one metropolitan was enough for Scotland, and that two for the province of Fife would be too many. He could obtain no further employment in the ministry, and died at Leith in February 1675. His superior abilities, fluent delivery, and popular manners made him at one time a man of great personal influence. He was, however, ambitious, domineering, and extravagant, so that it was said no bishop in Scotland had ever lived at so high a rate. He deserves to be considered a benefactor to the university of Glasgow, as he renewed and enlarged the buildings, and added to its permanent revenues, if he left it deeply in debt. His works were:
- 'Rulers' Sins the Cause of National Judgments,' a sermon, 1650.
- A posthumous work, 'The Ark of the Testament opened,' published in 1677, with a preface by Dr. John Owen, who highly commends it, and expresses his great esteem for the author, and his 'respect for his labours in the church of God.'
[Scott's Fasti, iv. 518; Baillie's Letters, vol. iii .; Records of the Kirk; Lamont and Nicoll's Diaries; Cook's Hist. of the Church of Scotland; Life of Archbishop Sharp; Beattie's Hist. of the Church of Scotland during the Commonwealth.]
GILLESPIE, Sir ROBERT ROLLO (1766–1814), major-general, of an old Scottish family which acquired property in Downshire early in the eighteenth century, was only child of Robert Gillespie of Comber, co. Down, where he was born on 21 Jan. 1766. The father was married thrice, twice without issue. Robert was child of the third marriage with a sister of James Bailie of Innisharrie, co. Down, member for Hillsborough in the Irish House of Commons.
Robert went to a private school at Kensington, known as Norland House, and afterwards to the Rev. Mr. Tookey of Exning, near Newmarket, to prepare for Cambridge. He strongly preferred a military career, and on 28 April 1783 was appointed to a cornetcy in the 3rd Irish horse, now the 6th dragoon guards (carabineers). Three years afterwards, on 24 Nov. 1786, he contracted a clandestine marriage in Dublin with Annabell, fourth daughter of Thomas Taylor of Taylors Grange, co. Dublin, whom he met at the deanery, Clogher, a few weeks before. Soon after Gillespie was second to an officer named Mackenzie, in a duel with a brother of Sir Jonah Barrington. It was proposed that the matter should end after two fruitless discharges, but a quarrel then arose between Barrington and Gillespie. Gillespie drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and challenged Barrington to fight across it. Shots were fired, and Barrington fell dead. Gillespie fled, and took refuge with some of his wife's relations. Afterwards he and his wife escaped to Scotland, whence he returned, and surrendered to take his trial. He was tried on a charge of wilful murder at Maryborough, Queen's County, at the summer assize of 1788, when, despite the adverse summing-up of Judge Bradstreet, the jury, which included several half-pay officers, brought in a verdict of ‘justifiable homicide,’ and Gillespie was discharged upon his own recognisances to come up and plead the king's pardon in the court of king's bench, Dublin, during the ensuing term. Gillespie refused the persuasions of friends to sell out and settle down on his estate, his father having died in 1791; he resolved to see active service, and accepted promotion in 1792 to a lieutenancy in the newly raised 20th Jamaica light dragoons. At Madeira, on the voyage out, the ship was driven out of the roads by a violent storm, and Gillespie and some others escaped to shore in an open boat across a mountainous sea. At Jamaica he had yellow fever, from which he recovered, and when the French planters in St. Domingo applied to Jamaica for aid, he offered his services as a volunteer, his regiment, in which he got his troop in January 1794, remaining in the colony. He was present at the capture of Tiburon in February 1794, and afterwards at Port-au-Prince, where he was fired at while swimming ashore with a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the town. He displayed much gallantry at the capture of Fort Bizotten, and received several wounds in the attack on Fort de l'Hôpital. After the fall of Port-au-Prince Gillespie took advantage of a temporary cessation of hostilities to return home. He rejoined his wife, and travelled about at home for a time. Appointed major of brigade to General Wilford he re-embarked for the West Indies in 1796. He became regimental major the same year. He accompanied General Wilford to St. Domingo, where he was appointed adjutant-general, and was much feared by the republicans. A gang of eight desperadoes broke into his quarters, murdered his slave-boy, and
