The Spanish character long ago carrying priest’s ordinal? (8)
I believe the answer is:
eleventh
'ordinal?' is the definition.
(ordinal form of eleven)
'the spanish character long ago carrying priest's' is the wordplay.
'the spanish' becomes 'el' ('the' in Spanish).
'character long ago' becomes 'eth' (eth was a letter in Old English).
'carrying' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'priest' becomes 'ven' (abbreviation for The Venerable).
'eth' enclosing 'ven' is 'eventh'.
'el'+'eventh'='ELEVENTH'
(Other definitions for eleventh that I've seen before include "Between tenth and twelfth" , "coming in last" , "at such a late hour?" , "At this hour, it's the last possible moment" , "Heel vent (anag)" .)