BOOK V.

JANUARY, A.D. 1665-1666.

Partial moderation of the King—Sir James Turner’s campaign through

Kirkcudbright and Galloway—Unpaid fines levied—Students’ oaths—All

meetings for religious purposes forbid—Quietude of the

country—Proclamation of the Council—Apologetical relation—Sir James

Turner’s third campaign extended to Nithsdale—Visits Mr Blackadder at

Troqueer—More troops raised—Rigorous acts more rigorously

enforced—Rising of the persecuted—They gather strength—Their

operations—Defeated at Pentland—Prelatic revenge—Testimony of the

sufferers—Torture introduced—Nielson of Corsack—Hugh

M’Kail—Executions in Edinburgh and the west country—William

Sutherland—Executions at Ayr.

Prelacy, now fenced round with all the forms of law, and supported by

all the civil and military authorities, wanted only the concurrence of

the people to have become the permanent, as it was the predominant,

religion of Scotland; and so fickle is the multitude—so little does real

principle take hold on the minds of the mob of mankind—that a little

moderation in the use of their power, by the prelates, seemed only

wanting to have induced the bulk of the congregations to return to their

parish churches, and to have sat down quietly under the ministrations of

the curates and the form of Episcopacy. A contemporary Presbyterian

writer says—“Truly, at this time the curates’ auditories were reasonably

throng: the body of the people, in most places of Scotland, waited upon

their preachings; and if they would have been content with what they

had, in the opinion of many, they might have stood longer than they did;

but their pride vowed they would be more glorious and better followed

than the Presbyterians, and because respect would not do it, force

should.”[45]

Footnote 45:

Kirkton, p. 221.

Much and justly as the king and courtiers have been blamed for the

perfidious manner in which Episcopacy was re-introduced into Scotland,

and for the establishment of despotism upon the ruins of a free

constitution, solemnly approved and sanctioned both by his present

majesty and his “martyred” father; yet in this year, at least at the

commencement, softened perhaps by the state of the nations, they showed

no disposition to proceed to extremities had they not been pushed on by

the prelates.

Charles, by his mean subservience to France, had plunged the country

into a ruinous war with Holland—an awful pestilence had almost desolated

the city of London—while an unusually severe winter had interrupted all

rural labour, till March threatened to add famine to the list of

plagues. These judgments, calculated to solemnize the mind, and give

weight to public instruction, were improved by the non-conforming

ministers to rouse the attention of their hearers to their own sins and

the sins of the people among whom they dwelt; and the general open

apostacy from God which had accompanied the general defection from the

national religion, was too palpable to avoid being noticed in the

catalogue of crimes that had drawn down divine vengeance. These national

visitations were, in some degree, subservient to the preservation of the

Presbyterian cause, by impressing the guilt of apostacy more deeply on

the minds of the serious, and even recalling the attention of the

careless, while the public calamities and disgrace occupied the

attention of the king and English government, and perhaps softening

their rancour for the time, rendered them less anxious about pursuing

their labours of religious persecution.

Although, however, government did not actively interfere to urge on the

prosecution of ministers or frequenters of conventicles, the curates and

their assistants, the troopers, continued their exertions; and Sir James

Turner opened another campaign in the south and west, scouring the

country and besieging the churches with a success and renown not

unworthy his former fame. But his commission this year was extended;

for, dreading the desperation to which the insulted peasantry might be

driven, orders were issued for disarming the south and west, under

pretence that the fanatics had an intention of joining the Dutch! As

these districts had been always the most zealous in the cause of the

covenants, so they were likewise the best supplied with arms,[46] and

were, in an especial manner, the objects of the prelates’ aversion and

dread. When they had got them deprived of arms, therefore, the next step

was to deprive them of leaders; and this was effected by an arbitrary

order from the Commissioner, to arrest the principal gentlemen in the

country who were known to be unfriendly to Episcopacy, and, without

accusation or trial, to confine them prisoners in the Castles of

Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton. Among the gentlemen thus summarily

proceeded with, were Major-General Robert Montgomerie, brother to the

Earl of Eglinton; Sir William Cunningham of Cunninghamhead; Sir George

Maxwell of Nether Pollock; Sir Hugh Campbell of Cesnock; Sir William

Muir of Rowallan; Major-General Holborne; Sir George Munro; Colonel

Robert Halket; Sir James Stuart, late provost of Edinburgh; Sir John

Chiesly of Carswell; and Dunlop of Dunlop, &c. Yet arbitrary though

these proceedings were, perhaps, upon the whole, they may be deemed

providential, as, had any insurrection taken place while their leaders

were at liberty and the people armed, the struggle might have been

protracted—much bloodshed ensued—and the final result been far less

propitious to the country and cause of religious liberty.

Footnote 46:

The Scottish peasantry had always been accustomed to keep arms, and

when summoned to serve in the militia, each provided his own; so that,

besides the indignity of being deprived of their weapons, the taking

them away without compensation was an act of robbery.

A proclamation for levying the fines imposed by Middleton was

immediately planned, with such modifications as evidently showed that

not any disloyalty in the parties, but their sincere, tried attachment

to the free constitution of their country in church and state, and their

conscientious adherence to the religion in which they had been educated,

were the delinquencies it was intended to punish. The term of payment

for the first half was enlarged to such as had not already paid it, till

the first of December; and the second moiety was to be remitted to all

who, upon paying the first, should take the oath of allegiance and

subscribe the declaration in the express words of the act of

parliament—conditions which no true Presbyterian could comply with, and

which therefore drew a distinctive line between those who disregarded,

and those who feared, an oath; exposing the latter to all the penalties

of the various enactments with the expenses of collecting them—a new and

no trifling addition to the principal, and which was also intrusted to

the military to exact.

Unnecessarily multiplying oaths is a deep species of criminality, of

which the rulers of lands called Christian take little account, although

nothing tends more to demoralize a people. The prelatic rulers of

Scotland seemed to delight in it, and this year introduced a most

pernicious practice, afterwards improved upon, of forcing students to

take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy before they could obtain an

university degree; and thus initiated them into the habit of taking

oaths, about the propriety of which some of the wisest and best men in

the land were divided, and concerning which they could not be supposed

to be very accurately informed.

Towards the end of this year, the privy council resumed its cruel

activity; and the primate being president, the High Commission was

allowed quietly to demit, while its spirit was effectually transfused

into the other. December 7th, an act was issued extending the severities

of all former acts against Presbyterian ministers, to those who had been

settled before 1649, who had relinquished their ministry or had been

deposed; and all heritors were forbid to give them any countenance in

their preaching or any part of their ministerial office. But, as the

general opinion of the more moderate among the politicians was, that the

change in the form of religion had been too sudden, that it ought to

have been more gradual, to meet the prejudices of the older ministers,

whose only crimes consisted in absenting themselves from the church

courts—this act was accompanied by another, establishing a new kind of

presbyteries, under the name of “meetings for exercise,” which was

intended to leave without excuse the adherents of the abrogated system,

as men who chose to differ from the present establishment from motives

of sedition, and who refusing the substance because it was enacted by

the king, would fight for a shadow from mere humour. This species of

mock-presbyteries was specially declared to emanate from the royal

supremacy, and was to consist of such of the curates as the bishops

should judge qualified, who were to convene for exercise and assist in

discipline as they should direct them; but the whole power of

ecclesiastical censure, except parochial rebukes, was reserved to the

bishop, who alone could suspend, deprive, or excommunicate. A kind of

caricature session was at the same time brought forward, which was

afterwards turned into an instrument of persecution—the established

ministers were empowered to make choice of proper persons to assist them

in the exercise of discipline, who, if they refused to obey his summons,

were to be reported to the bishop; and if they continued obstinate,

given up to the secular arm to be prosecuted as the heinousness of the

case might require.

The usual strain of the curates’ pulpit services consisted of a quarter

or half-hour’s harangue upon those moral duties their lives set at

defiance, or in abusing or distorting doctrines they did not understand.

Such of the people, therefore, as had the least relish for gospel truth,

and who preferred the faithful sermons and earnest manner of their late

pastors, to the insipid discourses listlessly read by the present

incumbents, continued to follow after the private meetings and public

ministrations of the former. The council, in consequence, determined

that all such seditious practices should be put down, and, in a virulent

proclamation of the same date, strictly charged and commanded all public

officers to disperse every meeting assembled under the pretence of the

exercise of religion, of whatever number they might consist, except such

as were allowed by authority, stigmatizing them as the ordinary

seminaries of separation and rendezvouses of rebellion, and subjecting

every person who should be present at or give the smallest countenance

to them, to the highest pains inflicted by law upon seditious persons.

Enormous as the oppression and injustice which desolated the south and

west of Scotland had been, the people had remained quiet. They had seen

their civil and religious liberties swept away, the ministers they loved

scattered, and hirelings they detested settled in their stead. They had

groaned beneath the yoke of tyrannous enactments, the insolence of

lordly prelacy, and the licentiousness of military exaction, and yet had

abstained from any acts of rebellion. But their patient endurance only

encouraged the perpetration of new mischief, and their unexampled

loyalty was abused as the occasion of fresh aggression. For,

notwithstanding all that has been said about the disloyalty, faction,

and refractory spirit of the Scottish covenanters, they were men of

thorough monarchical principles, and possessed a more than ordinary

reverence and attachment for their royal family, under circumstances

that would have justified resistance long before they had recourse to

the last remedy. Affairs, however, had now reached that crisis in which

their duty to their God and their duty to their king were placed in

opposition, and as Christians no choice was left. To have deserted the

assembling of themselves together for religious worship and edification,

because their rulers forbade it, would have been to acknowledge a regal

power over the conscience which neither Scripture nor nature allows; and

as yet no disturbances had occurred at any of those meetings, which were

peaceably conducted at a distance from places that could reasonably give

offence—in the open air, on hills, and in woods, and sometimes under the

covert of night, where the ordinances of the Lord were administered in

the way of his appointment, and the word of his gospel preached in

simplicity and truth. They therefore continued; and, in spite of the

tyrannical edicts of their rulers, like the Israelites of old, did not

only meet but multiply. John Welsh, minister of Irongray, from the first

betook himself to the fields, and, with his co-presbyter Mr Gabriel

Semple, laboured constantly within the bounds of his presbytery,

officiating alternately in Corsack-wood and the surrounding country,

frequently acting as decoys to their persecutors, one of them being

actively engaged in preaching, while the curates with their beagles were

in full scent after the other in an opposite direction. For upwards of a

year, Mr Welsh is asserted to have “preached at least once every week in

the parish of Irongray.” Afterwards he extended his labours to the

sheriffdom of Ayr; and on Galston moor and various other places, held

large conventicles, where he baptized many children. Gabriel Semple was

not less zealous. He held large “unlawful assemblages” at Achmannock,

Labrochhill, besides many others, not only in the sheriffdom of Ayr, but

in Nithsdale, and within the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Mr John

Blackadder ofttimes convened great numbers of the parish of Glencairn

and the neighbouring parishes, sometimes to the number of a thousand. Mr

Alexander Peden—who had been expelled from New Glenluce, and was

especially obnoxious for his exertions and popularity in the west—held

meetings under cloud of night and in the winter season; these being now

rendered imperative, as the increased diligence of the archbishop and

his military satellites forbade more open assemblages. Encouraged by

their example, many others ventured to the high places of the field; and

their united active endeavours promised to supply, in the districts of

Galloway, shire of Ayr, and stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in some degree,

the want of a regular Presbyterian ministry.

[Illustration:

_M^r. Welsh baptizing children anno 1665_

_Vide page 133_

Edin^r. Hugh Paton, Carver & Gilder to the Queen, 1842.

]

The council, now entirely under the direction of the primate, on the

25th of January 1666, promulgated another thundering proclamation, in

which, reiterating their falsehoods, and re-asserting “that

conventicles, and unwarrantable meetings, and conventions, under

pretence and colour of religion and exercise thereof, being the ordinary

seminaries of separation and rebellion, are altogether unlawful,” they

denounced the eminent servants of God mentioned before, who were said to

convene, armed with swords and pistols, and some of them to ride in

disguise up and down the country in gray clothes, together with Mr John

Crookshanks, who avowedly kept by him “that book called Buchanan De Jure

Regni, which he had translated out of Latin into English;” and John

Osburn in Keir, who acted as officer for giving notice to the people of

these unlawful meetings; and in regard they were latent and kept

themselves out of the way that they might not be apprehended, and had no

certain dwelling-place. They were charged at the market-crosses of

Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, and Edinburgh, and at the shore and pier of

Leith, “to compear personally before the council to answer to the

premises,” which was, in other words, to surrender themselves and be

silenced, or sent to join their brethren in exile.

A little before this the cause of the sufferers had been advocated in

“An Apologetical Relation of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithful

Ministers and Professors of the Church of Scotland, since August 1660,”

attributed to John Brown, late minister of Wamphrey, and one of the

banished—a performance written in a style of elegance superior to many

of the publications of that day, and with a force of argument that

defied reply, and which was peculiarly galling to the managers, as it

convicted them of the most flagrant apostacy. The facts were too recent

to admit of denial, while the cause which the persecuted suffered for

defending, continued the same, as when it had been pronounced by their

persecutors themselves the cause of their king, their country, and their

God! An exposure more complete was never perhaps exhibited to the world;

and the sting was the more tormenting, because it was true. The council

felt it, and answered it in a becoming manner by another proclamation,

in the beginning of February, ordering it to be burned by the hands of

the common hangman, “to vindicate,” as they said, “the honour of this

kingdom, and to witness and declare, that such principles and tenets as

are contained in the said pamphlet, are detested and abhorred by them.

With certification, that whosoever should retain any copies in their

possession, should be liable in the sum of two thousand pounds, Scots

money, to be exacted without any favour or defalcation; and whoever

should contribute to disperse it, were declared liable to the punishment

due the venders of seditious libels!” And still more strongly to mark

their sense of its merit, on the very day this proclamation was issued,

before the book had been declared seditious, or keeping it in possession

a crime, the venerable relict of James Guthrie and her daughter were

brought before the council, and because they refused to give any

information respecting the author, they were sentenced to banishment to

Zetland, and to be confined there during pleasure. But the sentence

which, it is likely, clerical vengeance had dictated, was, upon a

petition from the gentlewomen, referred to the Commissioner, and by him

remitted.

Winter gave some short respite to the Presbyterians, who as yet were

suffered, without much interruption, to attend their conventicles amid

the inclemencies of the weather; but, with the return of spring, Sir

James Turner was dispatched to commence his third campaign. Formerly,

Kirkcudbright and Galloway had been the principal seat of his

operations, now they stretched over Nithsdale; nor was his circuit more

extended than were his severities increased. The exactions in his former

expeditions had been chiefly confined to the common people, now they

were imposed upon the gentlemen of the country; and the curates,

attended by files of soldiers, fined at their discretion all whom they

considered inimical, and of such sums as they judged proper. The

landlord was compelled to pay if his wife, children, servants, or

tenantry, were not regular church-goers. The tenant was mulcted when his

landlord withdrew from public worship—if the curate’s services deserved

the name—nor did it avail him, although both himself and his family were

as punctual as the parson. The aged and the sick, the poor, the widow,

and the fatherless—all were compelled to liquidate the church-fines; and

even the beggar was forced to lay down his pittance to satisfy the

unhallowed demand. From mere wantonness, the ruffian soldiery would

eject from their dwellings the non-compliants—driving husband from wife,

and wife from husband—snatch the meat from their children to give it to

their dogs—then quarter in their houses till they had wasted their

substance, and finish by committing to the flames what they could not

otherwise destroy. Thus many respectable families, reduced to utter

indigence, were scattered over the country, not only robbed of their

property, but deprived of the means of procuring subsistence. Complaints

were useless or worse—they were either disregarded, or answered by

additional outrage.

The following instances will give some faint idea of the nature of these

visitations. John Nielson of Corsack was a proprietor to a considerable

extent in the parish of Partan in Galloway—a gentleman of undoubted

loyalty, whose only crime was non-conformity. When Sir James Turner came

into that county last year, he was instantly delated by the curate for

non-attendance—aggravated, however, by his having shown hospitality to

Mr Welsh—fined an hundred pounds Scots, and sent prisoner to

Kirkcudbright, besides having four, six, or ten troopers quartered on

him constantly, from the beginning of March to the end of May, to each

of whom he paid half-a-crown per day, in addition to their board and

what they might abuse. This year, for the same offence, he had six

soldiers quartered upon him from March to the middle of June, when he

was forced to leave his house and wander without any certain

dwelling-place, while the villanous banditti demolished his household

stuff, and rioted upon his provisions. When these were exhausted, they

turned his lady and children out of doors, and forced his tenants to

bring them sheep, lambs, oatmeal, and malt, till they also were nearly

ruined, and then they drove the whole of the black cattle upon the

estate to Glasgow and sold them!

Mr Blackadder being under hiding, the Bishop of Galloway ordered Turner

to apprehend him. His second son, then a boy of ten years old, has left

the following artless and affecting account of Sir James’ visit to the

manse:—

“About this time, winter 1666, Turner and his party of soldiers from

Galloway came to search for my father, who had gone to Edinburgh to seek

about where he might live in safety. These rascally ruffians besett our

house round about two o’clock in the morning, then gave the cry—‘Damned

Whigs open the door,’ upon which we all got up, young and old, excepting

my sister, with the nurse and the child at her breast. When they came

in, the fire was gone out: they roared out again, ‘Light a candle

immediately, and on with a fire quickly, or els we’l roast nurse, and

bairn, and all, in the fire, and mak a braw bleeze.’ When the candle was

lighted, they drew out their swords, and went to the stools, and chairs,

and clove them down to mak the fire withall; and they made me hold the

candle to them, trembling all along, and fearing every moment to be

thrown quick into the fire. Then they went to search the house for my

father, running their swords down through the beds and bedclothes; and

among the rest, they came where my sister was, then a child, and as yet

fast asleep, and with their swords, stabbed down through the bed where

she was lying, crying, ‘Come out rebell dogs.’ They made narrow search

for him in all corners of the house, ransacking presses, chests, and

flesh-stands. Then they went and threw down all his books from the press

upon the floor, and caused poor me hold the candle all this while, till

they had examined his books; and all they thought Whiggish, as they

termed it—and brave judges they were!—they put into a great horse-creel

and took away, among which were a number of written sermons and printed

pamphlets. Then they ordered one of their fellow-ruffians to climb up

into the hen-baulks where the cocks and hens were, and as they came to

one, threw about its neck, and then down on the floor we’t, and so on,

till they had destroyed them all. Then they went to the meat-ambry and

took out what was there; then to the meal and beef barrels, and left

little or nothing there. All this I was an eyewitness to, trembling and

shivering all the while, having nothing but my short shirt on me. So

soon as I was relieved of my office, I begins to think, if possible, of

my making my escape, rather than to be burned quick as I thought and

they threatened. I goes to the door, where there was a sentry on every

side standing with their swords drawn—for watches were set round to

prevent escape. I approached nearer and nearer by small degrees, making

as if I were playing myself. At last I gets out there, making still as

if I were playing, till I came to the gate of the house; then, with all

the little speed I had—looking behind me now and then to see if they

were pursuing after me—I run the length of half-a-mile in the dark

night, naked to the shirt. I got to a neighbouring toune, called the

Brigend of Monnihyvie, when, thinking to creep into some house to save

my life, I found all the doors shut and the people sleeping; upon which

I went to the cross of the toune, and got up to the uppermost step of

it, and there I sat me down and fell fast asleep till the morning.

Between five and six a door opens and an old woman comes out, and seeing

a white thing upon the cross comes near it; and when she found it was a

little boy, cries out, ‘Jesus save us, what art thou?’ ‘With that I

awaked and answered, I am Mr Blackadder’s son.’ ‘O, my puir bairn, what

brought thee here.’ I answeres, ‘there’s a hantle of fearful men wi’ red

coats has burnt all our house, my brother, and sister, and all the

family.’ ‘O, puir thing,’ says she, ‘come in and lye down in my warm

bed’—which I did, and it was the sweetest bed I ever met with.”

After this the whole family was dispersed. “We all behoved,” continues

the narrator, “to scatter; one neighbour laird in the parish taking one

child, and another. I was sent to a place about a mile off, called the

Peel-toune, who afterwards, likewise, were quite ruined and all taken

from them—the poor mither begging but one lamb for meat to the bairns,

but could not get it. The meat they were not able to eat they destroyed,

threw down the butter-kirns, and hashed down the cheese with their

swords among the horses’ feet.”

Besides all other exactions, the parliamentary fines which had hung so

long suspended over the heads of the gentry, were ordered to be levied

with the utmost rigour from all who would not take the oath of supremacy

and subscribe the declaration; but to those who would, the one-half was

remitted, as had been proposed the preceding year. This fine, like the

rest, was collected by troopers, whose charges, like those of modern

lawyers, were always as much and frequently more than the original debt.

The only consolation the sufferers had, was, that their plunder did not

go to enrich those who were the authors of the robbery. Neither

Middleton’s party, who imposed, nor Lauderdale’s, who uplifted, the

mulct, were allowed to pocket a farthing of the proceeds, which were

ultimately applied to support that worst and most dangerous instrument

of tyranny—a standing body of household troops.

Sharpe, who assuredly was the cause of much of his country’s calamity,

and who was often execrated as almost the origin of the whole, has

usually got the credit of this arrangement. It is well known that,

although an imperious, he was by no means a fearless, character, and it

is therefore not unlikely he may have been the author of these

precautionary measures which the country viewed with so much

detestation. At any rate, about the time that he was in London, the

affair was matured, and two regiments of foot and six troops of horse

were ordered to be raised, of which Thomas Dalziel of Binns—a rude

soldier who had once owned the covenant, and afterwards improved his

manners in the Russian service—was appointed Lieutenant-General, with

William Drummond, Lord Madderty’s brother, who had gone through the same

course of education as Major-General. The troops of horse were disposed

of among the nobility. This army was to be maintained from the fines, of

whose application the General was to give an account; but from the

manner in which they were collected, and the character of the gatherers,

the public was little benefited by this revenue, and the maintenance of

the troops fell eventually upon the common exchequer.

Reinforced by these mercenaries, the council more strictly enjoined, by

a fresh proclamation, (October 11,) submission to the acts of parliament

against separation and resistance to ecclesiastical authority, requiring

masters to oblige their servants, landlords their tenants, and

magistrates the inhabitants of the several burghs, to attend diligently

at the parish churches and partake regularly of the ordinances; and no

one was to be retained as a servant, kept as a tenant, or suffered to

dwell as a citizen, after the parish priest intimated his disobedience.

Mandates so wantonly oppressive, which, without any rational object,

were calculated to create crime by leading either to a violation of the

consciences of the lieges or the laws of the land, seem to carry on

their face an incitement to insurrection; and when the manner in which

they were put in execution, among a sturdy peasantry, is remembered, it

is truly astonishing that they did not excite a spirit of

insubordination, general and deadly, and in truth produce those very

outrages of which the calumniated Presbyterians were falsely accused.

Many were driven from their homes and utterly ruined, who, merely from

political motives, or from a desire to see something like decency in

their clergymen, or from an aversion to have ministers forced upon them

whom they did not like, had opposed the curates and subjected themselves

to the fines; others, men of respectable rank in life who themselves had

conformed, saw their estates ruined and their families dispersed,

because some one, over whom they could have no possible control, would

not attend the wretched sermonizing of a worthless parson, or take the

sacrament from his polluted hands; besides those who, from a love to the

truth and a sincere reverence for their tenets, deemed it a point of

duty to withdraw from the ministration of men who neither understood nor

preached the first principles of the gospel. Yet, notwithstanding all

these terrible encroachments upon their liberty and property,

notwithstanding these authorized violations of all that was dear or

sacred to them as men or as Christians, they had suffered, they had

complained, but they had not rebelled, when an incidental circumstance

led to an insurrection, in perfect conformity with the spirit, and even

authorized by the letter, of the ancient Scottish constitution before it

was destroyed at the Restoration, which hardly deserves the name of

rebellion.

Mr Allan of Barscob, and three other of these unfortunate fugitives who

had been forced by want from their places of retreat among the mountains

or mosses of Galloway, had ventured, November 13th, to the Clachan of

Dalry to procure some provisions. Upon the high road, a little from that

place, they accidentally met some soldiers driving a few neighbours

before them, to compel them to thresh out a poor man’s corn for the

payment of his church fines. They naturally sympathized with the

sufferers, but passed on. While seated, however, at breakfast in the

village, they were informed that the soldiers had seized the old man in

his house—stripped him naked—and were threatening to place him on a

redhot gridiron because he could not produce the money. Leaving their

meal unfinished, immediately they repaired to the spot; and finding the

poor man bound, desired the soldiers to let him alone. The soldiers in

return demanded how they dared to challenge them, and drew their swords.

A scuffle ensued, in which one of the others discharged a pistol and

wounded a corporal with some pieces of a tobacco pipe—the only ball they

had among them when the military surrendered themselves prisoners, and

the man was liberated.[47]

Footnote 47:

Sir James Turner says, that the corporal affirmed he was shot,

“because he refus’d to sign the covenant.” The corporal himself, in a

petition to the privy council, says, “ten pieces of tobacco pipes

were, by the surgeon’s care, taken out of his bodie.” _Turner’s

Memoirs_, p. 148. _Kirkton’s Hist._ note, p. 230.—Sir James in his

account of the transactions which took place after his seizure, and

till the battle of Pentland Hills, is frequently inaccurate, as might

be expected, both from his situation, which prevented distinct

information except about what he saw, and his prejudices and interest

which led him to pervert even that. Some instances will be given

afterwards in which he is palpably, if not designedly, at fault.

Thus fairly engaged, to retreat was as dangerous as to proceed. They

knew they would be denounced as rebels and subjected to dreadful

reprisals. A party of their friends at Balmaclellan, when they heard of

the affair, knowing they too would be involved, seized and disarmed

sixteen soldiers who were quartered there, one, who made resistance,

being killed; and the whole country taking the alarm, their numbers soon

swelled to about fifty horse tolerably mounted, and, perhaps, double

that number of foot, miserably armed with pitchforks, scythes, cudgels,

and a few pikes, and swords. Turner’s forces were scattered over the

country, they therefore, without allowing them time to collect, marched

direct to Dumfries, where, on the morning of the 15th, they surprised

him, who having only heard some indistinct account of the scuffle, was

preparing to go and chastise the culprits. The horse went straight up to

head-quarters—the foot remaining without the town; and when Sir James

appeared at the window, Nielson of Corsack told him, if he would quietly

surrender he should receive no harm, with which he complied; and that

gentleman preserved him from personal injury, which some of the party

seemed anxious to inflict.[48]

Footnote 48:

“While they were speaking, the Commander comes up, and seizing Turner

presented a pistol or carabine to have shot him, but Corsack

interfered, saying,” “you shall as soon kill me for I have given him

quarters.” _Crichton’s Life of Blackadder_, p. 139.

The person who assumed the command was one Andrew Gray, said to be an

Edinburgh merchant whom no body knew, but whose authority all obeyed

without inquiry, so totally were they unprepared for any regular rising,

and as little was he qualified for the situation into which he had

thrust himself. They seized the General’s papers and trunks, but found

little money; himself they brought away in his night-gown and slippers,

and placing him upon a little pony carried him to the cross, where, with

much formality, they drank the king’s health to evince their loyalty—a

ceremony which some of their friends thought they might as well have

omitted, and for which they received neither credit nor thanks. They

then carried him back to his lodgings, and ordered him to make ready and

go with them. That night they rested at Glencairn. Here they were

alarmed by a report of the approach of the Earl of Annandale and Lord

Drumlanrig, and set off hurriedly, carrying their prisoner with them

under a strong guard. Next night they reached Carsphairn where they

remained; and here their redoubtable Captain Gray left them, not without

violent suspicions of having carried a considerable sum of money along

with him: yet more probably he retired from fear or a sense of his own

utter incapacity,[49] but the numbers increased, and a kind of committee

consisting of Maclellan of Barscob, Nielson of Corsack, and Mr Alexander

Robertson, a preacher, succeeded to the command.

Footnote 49:

This was on the Friday. On the Monday following he was found by

Colonel Wallace near Machline in a situation very unlike that of a

person possessed of much money. “About that house I saw two men, one

whereof I perceived was Andrew Gray. He was in so uncouth a posture,

with such a beggar-like habit, and looking with such an abashed

countenance, I was astonished and could not speak for a long time.

Always he forbids me to be afraid. He tells me the Lord had favoured

them with good success in that attempt upon Dumfries; and that,

howbeit, after the business was done, many came and owned it that

never appeared before, when it was but to be hazarded upon: yet all or

most of these gentlemen and countrymen had left it and gone to their

houses, as if there had been no more ado: whereupon he had left them

to look to his own safety, being in a very insecure condition then,

having been the chief actor in the business.” _Wallace’s Narrative of

the Rising at Pentland_, p. 391.

Some days before the scuffle at Dalry, Rothes had taken his departure

for London, and the chief cares of the government devolved upon the

primate, as president of the council—thus called upon to discharge an

important political duty at a very delicate conjuncture. One of the

bailies of Dumfries who had witnessed the seizure of Turner, immediately

proceeded to Edinburgh with information of the rising; and the members

of council, who never calculated upon resistance, were surprised and

alarmed beyond measure. Next day, they sent off an express to the king

with the unpleasant intelligence, who, passing the Commissioner upon the

road, furnished his majesty with very unexpected news to salute him with

on his arrival. They ordered General Dalziel to march on the following

day with as many men as he could muster to the west country, to

establish his head-quarters at Glasgow, and thence to proceed to

wherever his presence might be most urgently required—the various

noblemen of those most interested in these districts, were, at the same

time, required to use their every exertion to preserve the peace, and to

receive and assist his majesty’s forces—the guards of the town of

Edinburgh were doubled, and the names of all strangers ordered to be

registered. These measures, the most obvious and requisite, met of

course the king’s approval, but a proposal to enforce the subscription

of the declaration respecting the covenant upon the heritors of the

southern and western shires, was postponed by his desire as

unnecessarily exasperating an evil of which they did not yet know the

extent. More effectually to protect the capital, the companies of the

train-bands were ordered to be filled up by citizens who would willingly

take the oath of allegiance, and further promise to maintain his

majesty’s authority with their lives and fortunes; such as would not, to

be disarmed and their persons secured.

The noblemen of Fife, with their followers, were summoned, and an act of

council was passed to put the country in a posture of defence, and all

the lieges were ordered to assist the General with all their power. The

ferries across the Forth were at the same time stopped, and even those

who passed at Stirling Bridge were to be subjected to a rigid

examination. A proclamation also was issued commanding the rebels to lay

down their arms, but it was remarked that it contained no offer of

pardon; and to desire them to surrender without security, was something

like an invitation to confess and be hanged. Some of the nobility felt

the degradation of being under an ecclesiastic, and murmured—“Have we

none at such a juncture to give orders but a priest?” But they were too

wofully spiritless than do more, and they only clanked, sulkily, the

fetters themselves had forged.

Intelligence also had been sent by the insurgents to Edinburgh with

equal expedition, and a few who were well-wishers to the cause met to

consider what was their duty in the present juncture, when, at an

adjourned meeting held in Mr Alexander Robertson, a preacher’s

lodgings,[50] they resolved after deliberation and prayer, that it was

their duty to assist their poor brethren so cruelly oppressed. One only

dissented, Mr Ferguson of Kaitloch, who was not convinced of the

propriety of rising at that time. The rest were eager to engage

immediately, and as soon as the meeting broke up, Colonel Wallace and Mr

Robertson set out for the west to see what could be effected there. Mr

Welsh went direct to the countrymen whom he found at Dalmellington;

thence he proceeded to gather his friends in the south, while they,

buoyed up with the expectation of being quickly and numerously joined,

marched forward to Ayrshire, and on the 21st had their general

rendezvous at the Bridge of Doon. Wallace’s first disappointment was at

Libberton, where, instead of forty stout horsemen, he only met eight;

and on his journey by Linton, Dunsire, Mauchline, and Evondale, he found

the country, in general, had been taken so completely unawares, that he

arrived at the main body with a very slender accession of strength—the

ministers remaining quietly in their houses, while the leading Whig

gentlemen went to wait upon the General. He had by the way received

notice from Cunninghame, that a reinforcement from thence might be

procured if they had only a party to encourage and protect them till

they got formed; and Captain John Arnott, accordingly, had been sent

with forty horse to bring them up, and directed to join next day at

Ochiltree.

Footnote 50:

_Kirkton_, p. 234. This was a different person from the Alexander

Robertson formerly mentioned, though they have been sometimes

confounded, owing to the sirnames being spelled indifferently Robison

or Robertson, both their first names being Alexander, and both being

preachers.

Having received information of General Dalziel’s arrival at Glasgow,

they hastened to Ochiltree, where all their parties were ordered to

meet, and where Mr Semple preached while they were collecting.[51]

Afterwards they marshalled their army, named their officers,[52] and

placed their guards. Sir John Cochrane was with Dalziel, and his lady

received the leaders who were quartered at the mansion-house very

coolly, although she expressed herself not unfriendly to the cause. Here

they were joined by Mr John Guthrie, minister of Tarbolton, with some of

his parishioners, and Robert Chalmers, a brother of the Laird of

Gadgirth’s, who brought a report that the Duke of Hamilton was

approaching with his troops, and that they had dispatched John Ross with

a small party to ascertain the fact. A council of war was then called,

at which it was resolved that they should march eastward, as it was

impossible to stay where they were, and there was no probability of

farther help from the south or south-west districts, and Captain Arnott

would bring with him whoever were well-inclined in Cunninghame and

Renfrew. Besides, they had an earnest invitation from Blackwood to come

to Clydesdale, where he promised to meet them with one hundred men.

Footnote 51:

_Wallace’s Narrative_, p. 395. “Sir James Turner has a merrie fact,

which he says occurred here. I was lodged that night at the principall

alehouse of the toune, where I was indifferentlie well used, and

visited by some of their officers and ministers. Most of their foot

were lodged about the church and churchyard, and order given to ring

bells next morning for a sermon to be preached by Mr Welsh. Maxwell of

Monreth and Major Mackulloch invited me to heare that phanatic sermon,

for soe they merrilie call’d it. They said that preaching might prove

ane effectuall meane to turn me, which they heartilie wished. I

answered them that I was under guards, and that if they intended to

heare that sermon, it was probable I might heare it likewise; for it

was not like my guards would goe to church and leave me alone at my

lodgings. Bot to what they spoke of my conversion, I said it wold be

hard to turne a Turner. Bot because I found them in a merry humour, I

said if I did not come to heare Mr Welsh preach, then they might fine

me in fourtie shillings Scots, which was duoble the soume of what I

had exacted from the phanatickes. Bot there was no sermon that day,

which, undoubtedly, I would have heard, if there had been anie.” Pp.

163-4. Afterwards, he has this passage—“This I shall say they were not

to learn to plunder, and that I have not seene lesse of divine worship

any where, than I saw in that armie of theirs; for thogh at their

rendezvouses and halts they had opportunitie enough everie day for it,

yet did I never heare any of ther ministers (and as themselves told me

there was not so few as two-and-threttie of them, whereof onlie five

or sixe convers’d with me) either pray, preach, or sing psalms;

neither could I learn that it was ever practised publicklie, except

once by Mr Robbison at Corsfairne, ane other time by Mr Welsh at

Damellington, and now the third time by Mr Semple at Lanrick, where

the lawful pastor was forced to resigne his pulpit to him.” P. 169.

Footnote 52:

The officers whose names have been preserved, were—Colonel Wallace,

who left a written narrative of the rising at Pentland, and of whom

some farther notice will be given; Major Joseph Learmont; Captains

Andrew Arnott, John Paton, John Maclellan of Barscob, John Maxwell,

younger of Monreith, and Robert Maclellan of Balmagachan; Cornet of

Horse, Robert Gordon of Knockbreck; uncertain, Major John M’Culloch of

Barholme; Mr George Crookshanks had a command.

Next day they broke up for Cumnock, but were met on the road with the

disagreeable intelligence that Ross and his party had been taken

prisoners by the Duke, and that the enemy’s whole force was at

Kilmarnock; in consequence, they continued their route during a violent

storm of rain and wind to Muirkirk. The night fell dark, and the road

was detestable; yet the men marched forward with spirit, and even their

enemy, Sir James Turner, gave them this credit—“I doe confesse, I never

saw lustier fellows than these foot were, or better marchers; for though

I was appointed to stay in the rear, and notwithstanding these

inconveniences, I saw few or none of them straggle.” When they arrived

late at their quarters, wet as if they had been drenched in water, the

poor foot were forced to lie all night in the cold church, without

victuals and with but little fire. Here Mr Andrew M’Cormack, a pious

Irish minister, known by the name of the “Good-man,” came to the Colonel

and informed him it was the opinion of Mr Robertson and Mr

Lockhart—that, as there was no appearance of any help either from

Clydesdale or any other quarter, the business should be followed no

farther, but the people dismissed as quietly as possible to their homes,

to shift each for himself the best way he could, until the Lord gave

some better opportunity. With this advice, which was not at all to the

Colonel’s liking, he could not of himself comply, but proposed to

consult the other leaders who might join before or when they reached

Douglas. Thither they arrived on Saturday night, November 24, without

any of their expected reinforcements, excepting forty recruits brought

by Captain Arnott.

Having quartered the troops, and, on account of an alarm, doubled their

guards, a council of war was held, when, after earnest prayer to God,

the question was proposed, whether they should disperse or continue in

arms? On the one side was stated the strength of the enemy and the small

number of their company, the total want of spirit discovered by the

country and the tempestuous season of the year, which rendered it unfit

for action. On the other, it was replied—that the coming forth to own

the people of Galloway was clearly of the Lord, and in that they had

done nothing but followed his call—that numbers had not only urged them,

but had solemnly promised also to come forth, and if these should now

desert the cause, between them and their master let it be. As for

themselves, they believed the Lord could work by few or by many. If he

designed the present appearance should prosper, he would send men if

necessary; or who could tell but he might honour them to accomplish his

end? At all events, the cause they were assured was his; nor would they

forsake it, but follow on whatever might be the consequence. Death was

all they could endure; and, though they were only to bear their

testimony to the truth, that was well worth dying for. It was next

proposed, whether they should renew the covenants? On this there was no

dispute. They regretted they could not go about that work with the

deliberate preparation they deemed necessary for entering into such

solemn engagements; but, as the urgency of the case admitted of no

delay, and they all understood the nature of the transaction, they

determined to prepare for the worst by again dedicating themselves to

the Lord in the national bonds, whose obligation they believed to be

perpetual, and the renunciation of which they considered as one of the

deepest sins of the land. The disposal of their prisoner, as they had no

safe place in which to confine him, was then considered. About this they

were not so unanimous. Some were for putting him to death as a notorious

murderer and bitter instrument of persecution, but others urged that he

was a soldier of fortune, acting under a commission, also that he had

been promised protection by one of themselves; and it appearing from his

papers, though his conduct had been severe, yet that he had not even

acted up to his instructions, it was carried to spare him.[53]

Footnote 53:

“My guards, whereof David Scott, a weaver, was captain, carried me to

Bathket, and took up for my quarters the best alehouse.” _Turner’s

Mem._

Hearing that Dalziel was at Strathaven, they decamped early next

morning—Sabbath—and marched by Lesmahago to Lanark, where they arrived

in the evening, having been joined by Robert and John Gordon, the sons

of Alexander Gordon of Knockbreck, with a few others from Galloway. Mr

Robertson refused to accompany them farther. On their march, they

completed the arranging of their troops, but found themselves wretchedly

deficient in officers, there not being above four or five who had ever

been in an army before, neither were they fully supplied with ammunition

or arms; at Lanark, they caused a general search, but the country had

been too well scoured before, and they found few or none. Notice,

however, was given that the covenants would be renewed on the morrow.

When they assembled at the rendezvous for this purpose, they were told

the enemy was within two miles, and it was proposed to delay; but as the

public avowal of their cause and principles, besides being a solemn

religious act of imperative obligation, was the best and only testimony

they could exhibit in their circumstances, they determined that nothing

but absolute necessity should prevent it. They therefore sent forward an

advance of twelve horse, placed guards at the ford, and then

deliberately went about the work of the day. The horse were drawn up at

the head of the town, where Mr Gabriel Semple and Mr John Crookshanks

presided. The foot were ranged in the street, near the tolbooth stairs,

upon which Mr John Guthrie stood and preached. Very few except the

insurgents attended, so great was the universal terror and depression of

the times; but the whole proceedings are said to have been deeply

impressive, particularly the address of Mr Semple, from Prov. xxiv. 11,

12. “If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and

those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it

not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that

keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? and shall not he render unto

every man according to his works?” After sermon, the covenants were

read, article by article, and the hearers, with uplifted hands, and

apparently with much serious emotion, engaged and vowed to perform. Now

in a situation of such peril, and pledged to their country and to their

God, could they be other than deeply affected? It was no common ground

these witnesses occupied.

About the same time, they emitted the following hurried but well-framed

“declaration of those in arms for the covenant 1666,” the effect of

which was wonderfully, though sadly, impressed upon the religious part

of the community, by the remembrance that these men had been allowed to

stand alone, and to fall together in the righteous cause; and by the

evils which overtook the adherents to the covenants and afflicted the

nation for twenty-two succeeding years of persecution.

“The nature of religion doth sufficiently teach, and all men almost

acknowledge, the lawfulness of sinless self-defence; yet we thought it

duty at this time to give an account unto the world of the occasion and

design of our being together in arms, since the rise and scope of

actions, if faulty, may render a thing right upon the matter, sinful. It

is known to all that the king’s majesty, at his coronation, did engage

to rule the nation according to the revealed word of God in Scripture—to

prosecute the ends of the National and Solemn League and Covenants, and

fully to establish Presbyterian government, with the Directory for

Worship—and to approve all acts of parliament establishing the same; and

thereupon the nobility and others of his subjects did swear allegiance:

and so religion was committed unto him as a matter of trust, secured by

most solemn indenture betwixt him and his people.

“Notwithstanding all this, it is soon ordered that the covenant be

burned—the tie of it is declared void and null, and men forced to

subscribe a declaration contrary to it—Episcopal government, in its

height of tyranny, is established—and men obliged by law not to plead,

witness, or petition against these things. Grievous fines, sudden

imprisonments, vast quarterings of soldiers, and a cruel inquisition by

the High Commission Court, were the reward of all such who could not

comply with the government by lordly hierarchy, and abjure the

covenants, and prove more monstrous to the wasting their conscience,

than nature would have suffered heathens to be. These things, in part,

have been all Scotland over, but chiefly in the poor country of Galloway

at this day; and had not God prevented, it should have, in the same

measures, undoubtedly befallen the rest of the nation ere long. The just

sense whereof made us choose rather to betake ourselves to the fields

for self-defence than to stay at home burdened daily with the calamities

of others, and tortured with the fears of our own approaching misery.

And considering our engagement to assist and defend all those who

entered into this league and covenant with us; and to the end we may be

more vigorous in the prosecution of this matter, and all men may know

the true state of our cause, we have entered into the Solemn League and

Covenant; and though it be hardly thought of, renewed the same, to the

end we may be free of the apostacy of the times, and saved from the

cruel usages persons resolved to adhere to this have met with. Hoping

that this will wipe off the reproach that is upon our nation, because of

the avowed perjury it lies under. And being fully persuaded that this

league, however misrepresented, contains nothing in it sinful before

God, derogatory to the king’s just authority, the privileges of the

parliament, or the liberty of the people; but, on the contrary, is the

surest bond whereby all these are secured, since a threefold cord is not

easily broken, as we shall make appear in our next and larger

declaration, which shall contain more fully the proofs of the lawfulness

of entering into covenant, and necessity of our taking arms at this time

for the defence of it, with a full and true account of our grief and

sorrow for our swerving from it, and suffering ourselves to be divided

to the reproach of our common cause, and saddening the hearts of the

godly—a thing we sorrowfully remember and firmly resolve against in all

time coming.”

At this period the number of the insurgents had reached its maximum—more

having joined on that day than for three before—supposed to amount to

nearly three thousand; and the opinion of many among them was, if they

did intend to fight, it would be better to do it in that quarter, where,

if defeated, they were among friends, and could more easily find the

means of escape, than in the east, where every thing would be against

them; but their want of discipline, and want of arms, did not warrant a

trial of strength with the king’s forces, who were equal if not superior

in numbers and in a complete state of equipment. They were likewise the

more encouraged to try the Lothians, as, at this critical moment, they

received from Edinburgh pressing letters of invitation to come thither.

They chose what eventually proved the most unfortunate for themselves,

and that same evening took the road for Bathgate. Before they left

Lanark, Lawrie of Blackwood paid them a visit. He said he had come by

desire of the Duke of Hamilton to learn what were their intentions and

to endeavour to prevail upon them to lay down their arms and save the

effusion of blood; but he produced no written commission, and only spoke

in general terms to some of the ministers, which induced in the mind of

the Colonel a suspicion that he came merely to spy out their nakedness;

and he afterwards blamed his own simplicity in allowing a person of such

dubious character to pass between them and the enemy without restraint.

Hardly were they in motion when Dalziel made his appearance; but he

contented himself with sending a body of horse after them, who, when

they found the countrymen prepared for an assault, returned to the

General, with whom they remained for the night in the quarters the

others had left. The night was deplorable; it rained incessantly and

blew a hurricane, and the road across the moors was deep, “plashy,” and

broken. When they arrived at their destination, two hours after

night-fall, they could get no accommodation, not even a covert from the

tempest; and their leaders retired to a wretched hovel to consult about

their further operations. After prayer, they discussed the subject. To

return was now impracticable, for the enemy was at their heels; but they

still expected some assistance from Edinburgh, and thitherwards they

resolved to continue their route, convinced that they would at least

hear from their friends before they were entirely within the jaws of

Leviathan.

But never were poor men more completely deceived, disappointed, and

entangled. On every side was danger. The whole spasmodic energy of

government had been forced into action by the fearful throes of the

primate; almost all Scotland south of the Tay, had been set in motion,

while the capital was fortified more in proportion to his ecclesiastical

terrors than to the band that was approaching. Sir Andrew Ramsay, the

provost, had barricaded the gates and planted them with cannon—Lord

Kingston was stationed on Burntsfield Links with an advanced guard of

horse and foot—the advocates were accoutred and the citizens in arms—and

all the array of the Lothians, Merse, and Teviotdale, were ordered to

hold themselves in readiness. Yet such was their want of intelligence,

that the covenanters, upon an alarm being given, broke up about twelve

o’clock in this dark and foul night—“One of the darkest,” says Wallace

in his Narrative, “I am persuaded that ever any in that company saw.

Except we had been tied together, it was impossible to keep together;

and every little burn was a river.” During this disastrous march, which

many were unable to accomplish—as “they stuck in the clay and fainted by

the road”—the army diminished wofully; and the remainder who arrived in

the morning at the New Bridge, within eight miles of Edinburgh, “looked

rather like dying men than fighting soldiers—weary, worn out,

half-drowned, half-starved creatures.” Yet, beyond expectation, in an

hour or two, they mustered nearly a thousand men, only officers were

sorely lacking; and now when the enemy was within five miles in their

rear, they first learned that all Edinburgh and Leith were in arms

against them.

Dreadfully perplexed—without directors, without intelligence, without

food—they knew not what to do, but they resolved to march to Colinton.

On their way thither, Blackwood again came to them with a verbal

requisition from the Duke for them to lay down their arms, and he would

endeavour to procure an indemnity; but desperate as their situation was,

had they had no other aim than their own personal safety, they could not

have listened to so vague an arrangement with such men as they had to

deal with; and when Blackwood urged their compliance, they dismissed him

with a caution to beware how he behaved himself, and see well that he

walked straightly and uprightly between the parties. Having had so

little rest, and scarcely tasted any thing since they left Lanark, a few

horsemen were sent out to try and procure some provisions and forage in

the neighbouring farms, as they intended, if possible, to take some

repose and refreshment in their quarters that night, which, continuing

tempestuous, seemed to promise them, for some hours at least, security

from any hostile incursion. Accordingly, having provided in the best

manner they could for the foot in the village, and sent the horse to the

neighbouring farms, they set their guards, and the officers were

retiring to rest, when Blackwood came to them again, accompanied by

Richards, the laird of Barskimming, and repeated the proposal he had

formerly made; telling them at the same time, he had the General’s

parole for a cessation of arms till to-morrow morning, having given in

return the same for them. Wallace, who was little pleased with the

officious presumption of “the tutor,” told him, “he did not understand

this paroling of his, but he believed neither would break the truce in

such a night.” Upon this they parted, and Barskimming, without taking

leave, set off early next morning, but Blackwood waited till daybreak,

and requested to know what answer was to be returned. The leaders upon

calmly considering their situation—their men now hardly nine hundred,

the greater part without arms—their spirits broken by the apparent want

of heart in the country—their bodies worn out by fatigue, hunger, want

of sleep, and exposure to the weather—the utter hopelessness of any

reinforcements—and their great inferiority in numbers to Dalziel’s

troops—were strongly induced to attempt coming to some terms not

incompatible with the object for which they had ventured to the field,

they therefore proposed sending one of their number along with Blackwood

to represent to the General their grievances, and the grounds of their

appearance in arms; but the only person they had to whom they could

intrust such a message being objected to as an outlaw, Wallace sent a

letter by Blackwood to Dalziel, stating—“That, on account of the

intolerable insolences of the prelates and their insupportable

oppressions, and being deprived of every usual method of remonstrating

or petitioning, they were necessitated to assemble together, in order

that, jointly, they might the more securely petition his majesty and

council for redress, they therefore requested of his excellency a pass

for a person whom they might send with their petition, and begged an

answer might be returned by Blackwood who had promised to fetch it.”

Trusting, however, very little to this negotiation, they commenced a

retreat, and turning the west end of the Pentland Hills, took the Biggar

road. As their men were straggling, they drew up near the House of Muir,

on a spot now well known—Rullion Green. The ground rises from the south

towards the north, where the Hill terminates abruptly. Here the poor

fatigued remnant were posted in three bodies. Upon the south, a small

body of horse, under Barscob and the Galloway gentlemen—in the centre,

the foot commanded by Wallace himself—and upon the north, the greater

part of the horse along with Major Learmont. Hardly had this small

company got arranged, when an alarm was given that the enemy was

approaching; and upon moving towards the ridge of the hill, they

observed their horse under Major-General Drummond upon an opposite hill,

within a quarter of a mile—for their foot had not arrived. The little

band of covenanters being so posted that the enemy could not attack them

from the north, about fifty picked troopers marched along the ridge to

the westward, evidently with a design to approach from that quarter.

Observing this, a party of about the same strength, under Captain

Arnott, was dispatched by Wallace to meet them, which they did in the

glen, at no great distance. Having fired their pistols, they instantly

closed, and a sharp contest ensued in sight of both armies, which lasted

for a considerable time, when the troopers gave way and fled in

confusion to their own body. In this rencounter, Mr John Crookshanks and

Andrew M’Cormack fell;[54] and several were killed and wounded on both

sides.

Footnote 54:

“Two main instruments of the attempt, two Ireland ministers.”

_Wallace’s Narrative_, p. 416. It appears doubtful if ministers in any

case may lawfully take arms—Peter was reproved for drawing his sword

in defence of his master. Matt. xxvi. 52.

The nature of the ground preventing pursuit by cavalry, a party of the

covenanters’ foot was ordered to support their horse, but the enemy

moved to another and safer eminence farther to the east, where they

waited till their own foot came forward; and then descending from the

hill, drew up upon Rullion Green in front of their opponents, in order

to provoke them to leave their ground and engage. But seeing that they

were not inclined to leave their vantage ground, they pushed forward a

squadron of their horse, flanked by foot, upon the south, which the

others observing, consulted whether they should give them a second

meeting, when considering that, although they might be able to defer an

engagement for that night, they must inevitably be forced to fight on

the morrow, and under much greater disadvantage—as the enemy would be

certainly increased in numbers—they, after prayer, resolved that they

would not decline the combat—“they would quit themselves of their duty

though it should serve for no more than to give a testimony by leaving

their corpses on the field.” A party of Learmont’s horse, also supported

by foot, was then sent forth, whose onset the regulars were unable to

sustain, and staggered and fled. Each now endeavoured to support their

own men by successive detachments.

While the combatants were at all equal, the covenanters successfully

maintained the honour of the day, till Dalziel, about night-fall,

brought up the whole of his force, and, with one simultaneous and

vigorous charge, broke their array. Overwhelmed by numbers, they found

it impossible to rally, and every one shifted for himself as he best

could. The slaughter was not great, for the countrymen made to the

hills, and their flight was covered by the darkness; nor were the

horsemen very eager in the pursuit, for, being chiefly gentlemen, they

sympathized in the sufferings, and many approved of the cause of the

vanquished. About a hundred were killed and taken prisoners at the time,

and about fifty were brought in afterwards. Of Dalziel’s troops, the

casualties never appear to have been fairly reported. They acknowledged

some half-dozen, but the allowed valour of the covenanters, and the

obstinacy and nature of the skirmishing, forbid our accepting this as

any thing like an accurate return. Some of the neighbouring rustics,

more cruel even than the military, probably expecting money, are said to

have murdered several of the fugitives, but the crime was held in

deserved execration; and the popular tradition, that these “accursed

spots” were the scenes of foul nocturnal visions, sufficiently mark the

general opinion of the country. Sir James Turner, who had accompanied

the insurgents in all their movements, when the battle was about to

commence, bargained with his guards that, if they would save his life

from the vengeance of their friends, if defeated, he would secure their

safety from the conquerors, which was agreed to, and was one of the few

agreements which appears to have been faithfully kept. Those who were

slain on the field were stripped where they fell, and lay naked and

unburied till next day, when some godly women from Edinburgh brought

winding-sheets and interred them; but such is the brutality of avarice,

that the bodies were afterwards taken out of their graves by some

miscreants for the sake of the linen!

The victors entered the capital shouting with their prisoners.[55] “A

sight,” says a contemporary, “the saddest that ever Edinburgh had seen,

which drew tears in abundance from the eyes of all that feared God,

considering what vast difference there was between the persons and the

cause on the one side and the other: and surely a most astonishing

dispensation it was to see a company of holy men—for such were the

greatest part, yea, but few otherwise—and that in a good cause, given up

into the hands of a most desperate crew of scoffing, profane atheists.

But God had called them together, it seems, to have a testimony at their

hands, and that he missed not, for he helped them to glorify him in

their sufferings, which made their cause more lovely throughout all

parts of the land, even in the eyes of enemies, than victory would have

done!” They were imprisoned, the common men in the kirk, called

Haddo’s-Hole[56]—those of superior rank were sent to the common jail. In

the height of their exultation, the privy council sent off their

dispatches announcing the victory, and breathing a spirit of the most

implacable hatred against the Presbyterians. “Although,” said they,

“this rabble be totally dissipated for the time, yet we conceive

ourselves obliged, in the discharge of our duty, to represent unto your

majesty that those principles which are pretended as the ground of this

rebellion, are so rooted in many several places through the kingdom, and

there be such just ground of apprehension of dangers from persons

disaffected to your majesty’s government, as it is now established by

law, as will require more vigorous application for such an extirpation

of it, as may secure the peace of the kingdom and due obedience to the

laws.” Orders were immediately given by the council to sequestrate the

property of all who had been at Pentland, and to apprehend all who were

suspected of having been with them, or of having aided or abetted them

before or since.

Footnote 55:

“Mr Arthur Murray, an honest “outted” minister (from Orkney,) dwelling

in a suburb of Edinburgh, by which Dalziel’s men entered the city

after the victory. He, hearing they were passing by, opened his window

to view them, where he saw them display their banners tainted in the

blood of these innocent people, and heard them shout victory, upon

which he took his bed and died within a few days.” _Kirkton_, p. 247.

Footnote 56:

It received this name from Gordon of Haddo having been confined there

previous to his execution in the civil war in the reign of Charles I.

Burnet tells us that Wiseheart, Bishop of Edinburgh, and indeed the

whole town, were so liberal to the prisoners, that they were in danger

from repletion. Wallace, with an appearance of more accuracy, says,

“the charity of the godly people of the town appeared in furnishing

them with all necessaries, both for maintenance and the healing of

their wounds.” P. 428.

Priestly resentment is proverbially implacable; but if those priests

happen to be infidels, or apostates, such as the generality of the

Episcopalian-restoration-church of Scotland were, their revenge assumes

a degree of rancour bordering on the diabolical, of which the

punishments that followed the suppression of this feeble and

ill-supported insurrection, afford afflicting examples. There cannot be

a stronger proof that the rising was unpremeditated and accidental, than

that, notwithstanding the enormous oppression the country had endured,

and the universal discontent both in the south and west, so few

attempted to join the insurgents. In Renfrew, only one small company

assembled; but before they were ready, Dalziel had interposed between

them and the covenanters, and they retired without doing more than

showing goodwill and incurring punishment. William Muir of Caldwell was

their leader; and among them were, Ker of Kersland, Caldwell of

Caldwell, Cunningham of Bedland, Porterfield of Quarrelton, with Mr

Gabriel Maxwell, minister of Dundonald, George Ramsay, minister of

Kilmaurs—and John Carstairs, minister of Glasgow, unwillingly forced out

by the entreaties of his friends, with several others, who all

afterwards suffered confiscation, fining, or banishment. What was,

perhaps, not the least galling part of the trial, they were denounced by

John Maxwell of Blackston, one of themselves, who either through

treachery or terror was induced to become an informer and witness

against them.

It was natural, and followed as a matter of course, that, of men taken

with arms in their hands, some examples should be made by the government

against whom they were alleged to have rebelled. But what gave to the

executions in this case their peculiar features of atrocity, was, their

victims had surrendered upon a promise of quarter, and the more

appalling fact of a letter from the king to the council, forbidding any

more to be put to death, having been kept up by one or both of the

archbishops,[57] till they were satiated with the blood of some

obnoxious victims. When the question, whether the prisoners should be

sent to trial, was first agitated at the privy council-board, Sharpe

violently urged the prosecution. Sir John Gilmour, esteemed one of the

best lawyers of his day, pusillanimously shrunk from giving any decided

opinion, and the rest seemed inclined to be silent, when, unhappily,

Lord Lee started the vile jesuitical distinction, not, however,

unmatched in later times, that men may be granted quarter on the field

as soldiers, yet only be spared to die on a scaffold as citizens—a

distinction which General Dalziel, notwithstanding his little respect

for the lives of covenanters, could not by any means be brought to

comprehend.

Footnote 57:

Kirkton asserts it of Sharpe, p. 255. Burnet says that his namesake,

Burnet of Glasgow, kept up the letter, pretending that there was no

council-day between and the day of execution, vol. i. p. 348.

Eleven of the prisoners were accordingly picked out for trial, and, on

the 4th of December, Captain Andrew Arnott; Major John M’Culloch; John

Gordon of Knockbreck, and his brother Robert; Gavin Hamilton, Mauldslie,

Carluke; Christ. Strang; John Parker, Kilbride; John Ross, Mauchline;

James Hamilton, Killiemuir; and John Shiels, Titwood, appeared before

the Court of Justiciary. Thomas Patterson, merchant in Glasgow, died in

prison of his wounds. The objections to the relevancy of the indictment

were argued with great ability, and, in particular, that one arising

from the quarter granted by the General, which, if we may judge from the

pleadings, he appears to have himself considered a point of honour. It

was alleged, that being in the form of an army, and as such assaulted by

his majesty’s forces, and as such having accepted quarter, and in

consequence delivered up their arms, and that that quarter being

_publica fides_, and offered and granted, should be inviolably observed.

To this it was answered, that their presumption in appearing in arms

against their sovereign lord was an aggravation of their rebellion; that

unless his majesty had given a special commission for the purpose, the

General had no right to grant a pardon to rebels, whatever he might have

done in fair and honourable war. In return, it was replied, that without

debating the justness of the war, the pannels being then in arms, might

have defended their own lives and reached the lives of the greatest that

opposed them. In laying aside these arms, they in effect ransomed their

lives; and soldiers who may defend their own lives, are not obliged, nor

is it in use, nor would the urgency of the case permit it to them, to

seek the granter’s commission, common soldiers being accustomed to grant

quarter, which their superiors never annulled; and this had been the

practice, not only between the contending parties in France, but

likewise practised by his majesty’s own forces in the hills, and with

the rebellious English, which, unless it were adhered to, a method of

martial massacre would be introduced, and rebels of necessity would

become desperate and indomitable traitors. The court repelled the

objections; and as none of the pannels denied the facts of which they

were accused, they were unanimously found guilty, and sentenced to

suffer the doom of traitors on the 7th of December.

Previous to their execution, they drew up a united testimony, which

stands upon record an evidence of the purity of their motives and the

justice of their cause—a cause which, however defamed by the advocates

of passive obedience, or oppugned by more modern objections, was in

their hands the sacred cause of civil and religious liberty, only these

patriots were driven by enormous oppression prematurely to assert it.

“We are condemned,” say they, “by men, and esteemed as rebels against

the king, whose authority we acknowledge; but this is the testimony of

our conscience, that we suffer not as evil-doers, but for righteousness,

for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ—particularly for

renewing the covenant,[58] and, in conformity with its obligations, for

defending ourselves by arms against the usurpation and insupportable

tyranny of the prelates, and against the most unchristian and inhuman

oppression and persecution that ever was enjoined and practised by

rulers upon free, innocent, and peaceable subjects! The laws

establishing prelacy, and the acts, orders, and proclamations made for

compliance therewith, being executed against us by military force and

violence—and we with others, for our simple forbearance, being fined,

confined, imprisoned, exiled, scourged, stigmatized, beaten, bound as

beasts, and driven unto the mountains for our lives, and thereby

hundreds of families being beggared, several parishes, and some whole

country sides, exceedingly impoverished; and all this either

arbitrarily, and without any law or respect had to guilt or innocency,

or unjustly contrary to all conscience, justice, and reason, though

under the pretence of iniquitous law, and without any regard to the

penalty specified in the law; while all remonstrating against

grievances, were they ever so just and many, and petitions for redress

being restrained by laws—there was no other remedy left us but that last

of necessary, self-preservation and defence. And this being one of the

greatest principles of nature, warranted by the law of God, scriptural

instances, and the consent and practice of all reformed churches and

Christian states abroad, and of our own famous predecessors at home—it

cannot, in reason or justice, be reputed a crime, or condemned as

rebellion, by any human authority.” Then, after lamenting the perjury,

backsliding, and breach of covenant throughout the land, the overturning

of the work of reformation, the obtrusion of mercenary hirelings into

the ministry, the universal flood of profanity and apostacy from

participating in the guilt of which they ardently prayed to be cleansed,

they exhort their countrymen and fellow-christians to remember the

example of their noble and renowned ancestors, and warn them not to be

offended with the cross of Christ on account of their sufferings, and

conclude in a strain of exhilarating, animated, and believing

anticipation, almost prophetical—“Though this be the day of Jacob’s

trouble, yet are we assured that when the Lord hath accomplished the

trial of his own, and filled up the cup of his adversaries, He will

awake for judgment, plead his own cause, avenge the quarrel of his

covenant, make inquiry for blood, vindicate his people, break the arm of

the wicked, and establish the just, for to him belongeth judgment and

vengeance; and though our eyes shall not see it, yet we believe that the

Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing under his wings—that he

will revive his work, repair his breaches, build the old wastes, and

raise up the desolations.”

Footnote 58:

_On the binding obligation of the Covenants._—How far the vows of a

parent are obligatory on a child, is a question both delicate and

difficult to determine. That, in certain circumstances, they are

imperative, is perfectly clear; and national compacts, vows, or

covenants—by whatever name they may be called—entered into by the

heads of the people, are, in Scripture, considered as binding upon the

succeeding generations, even when the parties have rashly entered into

them, under circumstances of ignorance, delusion, or deceit, provided

they contain nothing in opposition to the moral law of God, which is

unchangeable in its enactments, though they should contravene

extraordinary enunciations of the divine will, as in the case of the

covenant between Joshua and the Gibeonites.

Ten were executed together; and, on the scaffold, their dying speeches,

containing similar sentiments, were delivered with a high and elevated

courage, that excited no common emotion among the spectators, while

their kindlier feelings were melted into tenderness when the two

brothers—the Gordons—were thrown off locked in each other’s arms, and

whose last agonies were expressed by the convulsive clasp of a fraternal

embrace. The heads of the sufferers were sent to various parts of the

country, but the right hands which they had uplifted at the oath of the

covenant, were sent in derision to be affixed to the top of Lanark jail.

Enraged to find that no appearance of any premeditated scheme of

rebellion could be traced in the confessions of the late sufferers, who

all agreed in assigning as the cause of the rising, the intolerable

oppression they endured in soul, body, and estate, they determined to

elicit by torture, if possible, some plausible confession that might

afford a colouring of justification for the cruelties they were

perpetrating and determined to perpetrate. Accordingly, Nielson of

Corsack, whose enormous oppression we have already seen, and Hugh

M’Kail, a preacher, were brought before the council on the 4th of

December; and the boots, an instrument which had not been used in

Scotland for a century, was again put in requisition. This “infernal

machine” was a kind of box, strongly hooped with iron, into which the

leg of the prisoner was put, where it was compressed by wedges, driven

frequently till the bone was crushed, and even the marrow sometimes

extruded. Nielson was fearfully tormented; but his cries, which were

most piercing, had no effect upon Rothes, before whom he was examined,

who frequently called for “the other touch.” Hugh M’Kail, whose fate

produced a stronger and more indelible impression than any that occurred

during this period, was a young man of great promise. He had been tutor

in the family of Sir James Stewart of Coltness some time before the

Restoration, when Sir James was provost of Edinburgh. He was licensed to

preach at the early age of twenty-one, and soon became so deservedly

popular, that he eminently attracted the hatred of the prelates,

particularly Sharpe, and was forced to keep under hiding. During this

time, he went to Holland, and for four years attended one of the Dutch

Universities, then distinguished for theological literature. In 1664—5,

he returned secretly to his father’s house, where he remained, till,

hearing of the appearance made by the people of God for the cause of the

covenants, he joined them in the west; but his tender constitution was

unable to bear the fatigue of their severe toil and privations, and he

was, finally, obliged to leave them near Cramond Water. On his return

home to Libberton, he was seized at Braid’s Hills and brought to

Edinburgh. His limb, also, was shattered by repeated strokes of the

mallet; but from neither of the two could torture extort any other fact

than their confessions contained.

Nielson, notwithstanding the treatment he had undergone, was indicted to

stand trial on the 10th of December. When he was placed at the bar along

with other four—Mr Alexander Robertson, preacher, who had been basely

betrayed by the Laird of Morton, his friend, to whose protection he had

committed himself; George Crawford, in Cumnock; John Gordon, Irongray;

and John Lindsay, Edinburgh—they were found guilty upon their own

confessions, and were executed on the 14th, except Lindsay, who was

pardoned. They all left testimonies in similar terms to those who went

before, lamenting the defection of the times, but rejoicing in the hope

that God would return and bless his church and people. They all

pointedly refused the appellation of rebels, avouched their loyalty to

the king and the constitution of their country before it was illegally

overturned, and warned their friends not to be discouraged because the

few who had taken their lives in their hands had fallen before their

adversaries, but to abound more in holiness, prayer, and steadfastness,

nothing doubting, but that the Lord would arise in due time and plead

the cause which is his own.

M’Kail having fevered from the torture, had not been tried along with

Nielson, and it was thought his youth and the torments he had already

endured would have been deemed sufficient punishment; but they knew

little the mortal strife of ecclesiastics, when power is the object, who

thus calculated, although the highest interest was made for him. He had

insinuated a likeness between the primate and Judas—a crime never to be

forgiven, for it was true; and being recovered so far as to allow his

being moved, he was carried to court, December the 18th, and, together

with seven others, indicted for rebellion, found guilty, and condemned.

When allowed to answer for himself, he pled the obligations that were

laid upon the land, and the oath of God under which they were bound. The

last words of the National Covenant, he said, had always had great

weight on his spirit; upon which the Lord Advocate interrupted him, and

desired him to answer to his own particular charge. His answer was,

“that he acted under a solemn impression of the saying of our Lord

Jesus—‘Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man

also confess before the angels of God.’” When the sentence was

pronounced, he cheerfully said, with meek resignation—“The Lord giveth,

and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

His prison hours were enviable, not composed merely, but full of joy.

“Oh, how good news!” said he to a friend, “to be within four days’

journey of enjoying the sight of Jesus Christ.” When some women were

weeping over him—“Mourn not for me,” was his cheering exhortation;

“though but young, and cut down in the budding of my hopes and labour of

the ministry, yet my death may do more good than many years sermons

might have done.” On the last night of his life, after having supped

with his father, some friends, and his fellow-prisoners, he burst forth

in a strain of animated queries; among others, “How they who were

hastening to heaven should conceive of the glories of the place, seeing

it was written, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered

into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that

love him?’ It is termed a glorious city and a bride; but, oh, how

insufficient, how vastly disproportionate, must all similitudes be!

therefore the Scripture furnishes yet a more excellent way, by

conceiving of the love of Christ to us; that love which passeth

knowledge, the highest and sweetest motive of praise—‘Unto him that

loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us

kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory, and

dominion, for ever and ever, amen!’—by holding forth the love of the

saints to Christ, and teaching us to love him in sincerity. This, this,

forms the very joy and exultation of heaven!—‘Worthy is the Lamb that

was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and

honour, and glory, and blessing!’ Nothing less than the soul breathing

love to Jesus can rightly apprehend the joys of heaven.” Then, after a

while, he added, “Oh! but notions of knowledge, without love, are of

small worth, evanishing into nothing and very dangerous.”

His great delight was in the Bible. Having read the 16th Psalm before

going to bed, he observed, “If there were any thing in the world sadly

and unwillingly to be left, it were the reading of the Scriptures—‘I

said, I shall not see the Lord in the land of the living;’ but this

needs not make us sad, for wherever we go, the Lamb is the book of

Scripture and the light of that city, and there is life, even the river

of the water of life, and living springs to delight its inhabitants.” He

laid him down in peace, and slept sweetly from ten o’clock till five

next morning. When he arose, he called his companion, John Wodrow, in a

tone of pleasantry—“Up John, you are too long in bed—you and I look not

like men going to be hanged this day, seeing we lie so long.” Some time

after, he made a striking and peculiarly happy allusion to his own

situation, and that of his fellow-sufferers—“Earthly kings’ thrones have

advocates against poor rebels; thy throne, O God, hath Jesus an advocate

for us.” He early requested his father to take leave, lest their parting

afterwards might discompose him, and to retire and pray earnestly that

the Lord might be with him to strengthen him, that he might endure to

the end. On the scaffold, a heavenly serenity beamed in his countenance.

He ascended the ladder with alacrity, saying, “Every step of this ladder

is a degree, nearer heaven.” Then looking down to his friends, he said,

“Ye need neither be ashamed nor lament for me in this condition, for I

can say, in the words of Christ, I go to your Father and my Father, to

your God and my God.” Just before he was turned off, he burst out into

this rapturous exclamation—“This is my comfort, that my soul is to come

to Christ’s hand, and he will present it blameless and faultless to the

Father, and then shall I be ever with the Lord! And now I leave off to

speak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God which

shall never be broken off. Farewell, father and mother, friends and

relatives—farewell, the world and all delights—farewell, sun, moon, and

stars. Welcome—welcome, God and Father—welcome, sweet Jesus Christ, the

mediator of the new covenant—welcome, blessed Spirit of grace and God of

all consolation—welcome, glory—welcome, eternal life—welcome, death!”

Then, after praying a little within himself, he said aloud, “O Lord into

thy hands I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed my soul, Lord God

of truth!” And thus leaving time, was joyfully launched into the

boundless ocean of eternity.

The crowd of spectators was immense; and “when he died,” Kirkton tells

us, “there was such a lamentation as was never known in Scotland before,

not one dry cheek upon all the street, or in all the numberless windows

in the mercate place. He was a proper youth, learned, travelled, and

extraordinarily pious. He fasted every week one day, and signified,

frequently, his apprehension of such a death as he died; and heavy were

the groans of the spectators when he spoke his joys in death. Then all

cursed the bishops who used to curse; then all prayed who used to pray,

entreating God to judge righteous judgment. Never was there such a

mournful day seen in Edinburgh—never such a mournful season seen in

Scotland, in any man’s memory.”

The others were equally supported in the last trying hour, and

cheerfully laid down their lives for a cause which they believed to be

the cause of God and of their country, and which they never doubted

would ultimately and gloriously triumph. Their names were, John Wodrow,

a merchant in Glasgow—Ralph Shields, a merchant in Ayr, but an

Englishman by birth—a Humphry Colquhoun, of whom Kirkton testifies,

“that he spoke not like ane ordinary citizen, but, like an heavenly

minister relating his comfortable Christian experiences, called for his

Bible, and laid it on his wounded arm, and read John iii. 8., and spoke

upon it most sweetly to the admiration of all”—John Wilson, of the

parish of Kilmaurs, in Ayrshire—and Mungo Kaipo, from Evandale. Three of

little note, and who agreed to some partial compliances, were pardoned.

While these bloody transactions were going forward in the capital, a

commission was issued for the Earls of Linlithgow and Winton, Lord

Montgomerie, and Mungo Murray, to hold a Justiciary Court in Glasgow,

and Sir William Purves, solicitor-general, dispatched to prosecute. Four

of the covenanters were accordingly brought before them, Monday,

December 17th, all men in humble life—Robert Buntine, in Fenwick; John

Hart, in Glassford; Robert Scott, in Dalserf; and Matthew Paton, in

Newmills—found guilty that same day, and ordered to be hanged on

Wednesday. They went to the gibbet with the same Christian fortitude,

and evinced, by their deportment, that the same peace of God which had

comforted the martyrs in the capital, dwelt also in them. But the

impression which the dying declarations of the martyrs had made,

especially of those last murdered in Edinburgh, forbade that they should

be allowed the privilege of addressing the spectators in a quarter where

their solemn testimonies might have deeper effect; and when the

sufferers attempted to address the crowd, the drums were ordered to beat

and drown their voices—a detestable practice, which proclaimed their

dread of the truth they were vainly attempting to stifle. Rothes himself

took a tour to the south-west, accompanied by the Earl of Kellie,

Lieutenant General Drummond, Charles Maitland of Hatton, and James

Crichton, brother to the Earl of Dumfries, as a Justiciary commission.

At Ayr, twelve were tried and ordered for execution; eight in that town,

two at Irvine, and two at Dumfries. When those at Ayr were to be

executed, the executioner fleeing, and none being willing to perform the

hated office, in this dilemma, the Provost had recourse to the shocking

expedient of offering any of the prisoners pardon, upon condition of his

hanging the rest of his brethren; and one Anderson was found, who

purchased a few days’ miserable existence at this expense; yet even he

had to be filled half drunk with brandy to enable him to perform the

dreadful ceremony, while the sufferers, more to be envied than him,

courageously met that death which he basely inflicted.

The conduct of William Sutherland, the executioner of Irvine, stands out

in fine contrast with that of Anderson. This man, who had been born of

poor parents in the wildest part of the Highlands, had been seized with

an uncommon desire to learn the English language, which, with much

difficulty, he acquired so well, as to be able to read the Scriptures in

that tongue. He had acted as common hangman in the town of Irvine for

some time; when, having been converted to God through the reading of the

Bible, and the instructions of the persecuted, he scrupled about

executing any person whom he was not convinced deserved to die. When the

Ayr hangman fled, he was sent for, but would not move till carried by

force to that town, and peremptorily refused to execute the prisoners,

because he had heard they were godly men, who had been oppressed by the

bishops; upon which he was committed to prison, and flattered, and

threatened—first promised money, then told he would be hanged himself,

if he persisted; yet nothing could either terrify or induce him to

comply. When they called for the boots, “You may bring the spurs too,”

said William, “ye shall not prevail.” The provost offered him fifty

dollars, and told him he might go to the Highlands and live. “Aye, but

where can I flee from my conscience?” was the pointed query of the

honest mountaineer. He was then placed in the stocks, and four

musketeers stood ready with lighted matches, but the dauntless man bared

his bosom, and told them he was willing to die; and they, finding him

immoveable, dismissed him.[59] Anderson was also obliged to execute

those condemned to be hung at Irvine. Universally detested, he left the

country soon after and settled in Ireland, near Dublin, where his

cottage was burned, and he perished in the flames. The others were,

pursuant to their sentence, hung at Dumfries, whither the Commissioner

went to endeavour to trace the conspiracy; but no other discovery was

made than that the rising had been accidental, and that oppression had

been the cause. Upwards of thirty-four had now been put to death by the

hands of the executioner; yet these executions did more harm to the

cause of prelacy than almost any other circumstance could have done, for

the universal detestation of the people was heightened in proportion to

the fortitude and composure of the sufferers, whose dying testimonies

possessed a power and energy beyond that of a thousand sermons.

Footnote 59:

Some curious interviews took place with Sutherland and one White, a

curate, of which he afterwards published an account. The following is

a specimen:—“Then came one Mr White, a curate, to persuade me, who

said to me, ‘What are you doing? Do you not know that these men are

guilty of the sin of rebellion, and rebellion in Scripture is as the

sin of witchcraft?’ ‘I answered, I know the Scripture, it is in 1 Sam.

xv. 28. That was Saul’s rebellion against the immediate revealed will

of God, in sparing Agog and the best of the flocks; and that it was

like that rebellion spoken of in the Israelites, when they rebelled

and refused to go to the land of Canaan, according to God’s command,

but would have chosen a captain and gone back again to Egypt. He then

instanced Shemei, who cursed David and flang earth and stones at him;

yet David forgave him, and much more should the king forgive the

Galaway men who respect and pray for him, and would not let a hair of

his head fall to the ground if he were among them.’ ‘But,’ says Mr

White, ‘David was a prophet and a merciful man!’ ‘Ho!’ says I, ‘ye

will not take a good man for your example, but an ill man; what

divinity is that?’ At which, the soldiers laughing, he said in his

anger, the devil was in me, and that I had to do with a familiar

spirit. I said, than he was an unnatural devil, for he was not like

the rest of the devils who desire the destruction of many, that he may

get many souls, but the spirit that is in me, will not suffer me to

take good men’s lives; so at that time Mr White went away as ashamed.”

_Life and Declaration of William Sutherland_, pp. 4, 5. Wodrow says of

this declaration, I am well assured it is genuine, and formed by

himself, vol. i. p. 260.

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