Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clogie, Alexander
CLOGIE or CLOGY, ALEXANDER (1614–1698), biographer, born in Scotland in 1614, probably graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, during the provostship of William Bedell [q. v.], whose chaplain, on his appointment in 1629 to the bishoprics of Kilmore and Ardagh, he became. In 1637 he married Lea Maw, daughter of a recorder of Bury St. Edmunds, and stepdaughter to Bishop Bedell. On 12 Nov. 1637 he became vicar of Dyne, continuing, however, to reside in the episcopal palace at Kilmore. In May 1640 he became vicar of Cavan, resigning Dyne. In December 1641 he, together with the bishop and several others, was seized by the rebels at Kilmore, and conveyed to the ruinous castle of Cloughboughter, where they were retained for three weeks, during which they suffered extremely from the vigorous winter, when they were exchanged for two rebels. During this time the bishop and Clogie constantly preached to and assisted the other prisoners. He remained with Bishop Bedell till his death (7 Feb. 1642), when, after officiating at his funeral, Clogie sought a temporary refuge in Dublin. At the end of 1643 he came to England as 'chaplain with the horse.' In 1646 he seems to have been residing in London, and in 1647 he was presented to the rectory of Wigmore in Herefordshire, which he held to the time of his death in 1698. On 11 Dec. 1655 he married his second wife, Susanna Nelme, by whom he had six children. Mrs. Clogie died in 1711. Burnet, whose 'Life of Bishop Bedell' was avowedly compiled from materials supplied by Clogie, says he was a venerable and learned divine. He assisted Bedell in comparing King's 'Translation of the Old Testament' into Irish with the original. His manuscript 'Life of Bedell,' written about 1675, was first published in 1862 under the title of 'Memoirs of the Life and Episcopate of W. Bedell' [see Bedell, William]. He also wrote 'Vox Corvi, or the Voice of a Raven that thrice spoke three words distinctly,' 1694, in the preface to which work he states that he was over eighty years old. The raven perched on a church-steeple on 3 Feb. 1691, and told a child who belonged to a quarrelsome family to look at Colossians, iii. 15. There are two editions of the book; each has a woodcut representing Clogie, the boy, the raven, and the quarrelsome family.
[Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ix. 327, 411; Clogie's Memoir of W. Bedell; Burnet's Life of William Bedell; Life of Bedell, edited for the Camden Society in 1872 by T. Wharton Jones, pp. 211-20.]