The purpose of this article on the parentage and identity of Blessed John Ogilvie, S.J., is two-fold: (i) To enquire if we are historically entitled to say any more than what Archbishop Spottiswoode wrote to King James VI immediately after his examination of the prisoner. The letter, dated from Glasgow, October 5th, 1614, begins: It has pleased God to cast in my hands a Jesuit that calls himself Ogilvy. In particular, it concerns the claim made originally by Father Forbes, S.J., in the second edition of his monograph, Jean Ogilvie, Ecossais, Jesuite, Paris, 1901, that his father was Sir Walter Ogilvie of Findlater, who later, from 1616, became Lord Deskford. For the most part this identification holds the field and is constantly repeated in popular writings about him. (ii) In the second place, this article is a plea that a scholarly edition of relevant documents be made accessible to all serious students, whether they have an interest in the heroic sanctity of Blessed John Ogilvie or not, because the trial has a serious historical interest to all students of the administration of justice in Scotland. Ogilvie's condemnation for what is described in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials as: Treason—Declining the King's authority—Alleging the supremacy of the Pope—Hearing and Saying Mass, &c. was pronounced by no High Court of Justiciary but by a commission specially given powers for this particular case by the personal act of the king and consisting of the provost and bailies of Glasgow. What is here said has nothing whatever to do with his process of canonisation, except in so far as it is important to be reasonably certain of the identity of any saint, and those who read the lives of the saints in the spirit of historical criticism like to see documents presented according to the meticulously accurate standards of the Jesuit Bollandists. This is very far from being true of most of what has been written on Blessed John Ogilvie and ought to be remedied forthwith if serious students are to take an interest in his cause.