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_The Judgment and Justice of God_
EXEMPLIFIED.
OR, A
BRIEF HISTORICAL HINT
OF THE
WICKED LIVES and MISERABLE DEATHS
of some of the most remarkable
Apostates and bloody Persecutors
in Scotland, from the Reformation
till after the Revolution;
COLLECTED FROM
Historical Records, Authenticated
Writings, and other well-vouched
Relations.
By JOHN HOWIE.
PSALM lv. 23. _But thou, O God, shalt bring them down to the pit of
destruction. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their
days._
PSALM vii. 12. _He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death,
he ordained his arrows against the persecutors._
2 THESS. i. 6.--_It is a righteous thing with God to recompense
tribulation to them that trouble you._
_---- Immemores Dei
Gentes mors inopina
Aeternis tenebris premit._
Psalm ix. 17.--BUCHAN.
GLASGOW:
Printed by JOHN BRYCE.
MDCCLXXXII.
Had I not confined myself at first to the limits of an Appendix to the
lives of our Scots worthies, I might have written a volume, containing
the same hints of the most notable Apostates, Blasphemers, and wicked
Persecutors, Jew and Christian, in all the different kingdoms and
countries wherein the true religion and knowledge of the true God hath
been professed, from the earliest ages to this present century; and
which may be yet attempted, if this meet with the approbation of the
Public, and a call and farther encouragement be given for that purpose.
THE INTRODUCTION.
I presume, that any person, who has diligently perused the history of
the lives of our noble Scots worthies, will by this time be able to form
some idea in their own minds of the religious, virtuous and faithful
lives, joyful and comfortable deaths of a certain number of Christ's
noble witnesses, confessors and martyrs, who through much tribulation
emerged forth of all their difficulties in much faith and patience, and
are now inheriting the promise in that land and celestial Jerusalem
above, _where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary be at
rest_.
It now follows of course, that I should present another scene unto the
reader's view, _viz._ a short index or memorial of the wicked, apostate,
perfidious and flagitious lives, and miserable and lamentable deaths of
some of the most particular persons that opposed and oppressed the
church of Christ, and mal-treated and persecuted them. But previous to
the opening of this tragical train of examples, (of the Lord's righteous
justice and judgment on his and his church's enemies) let the following
few particulars be observed. And,
_1st_, Let none think that this is a subject foreign or remote to either
scripture, apocrypha, or history. No; I might instance Cain, the
proto-persecutor and murderer; Pharaoh, who was drowned in the Red sea;
Corah and others, who were swallowed up quick and burnt before the Lord;
Saul, who finished his own regicide; wicked Joram, whose bowels fell
out; apostate Joash and Jehoiakim, who burnt the roll, came to
ignominious ends: Ahab and Zedekiah, false prophets, whom the king of
Babylon roasted in the fire; Haman, who was hanged: Antiochus Epiphanes,
who was eaten of vermin, and rotted while alive; Melenaus the apostate,
who was smothered to death in ashes; Herod, who killed the children of
Bethlehem, and had the same fate with Antiochus; Herod Antipas, who
killed John Baptist; Herodias and Salmon the dancer came to fearful
ends: Judas and Caiaphas became their own executioners; Pilate also
ended his own wretched life; Herod Agrippa was eaten up of worms: Nero
and all the succeeding emperors, authors of the ten persecutions; Philip
II. of Spain, Charles IX. Henry III. and IV. kings of France, Dukes of
Guise, Anjou, Austria, &c. the cardinals Wolsey and Pool, bloody Mary
of England, bishop Gardiner, with an immense number more both of this
and inferior ranks, too tedious here to mention, came all to deserved
wretched deaths suitable to such wicked and bloody lives.--Nay, God will
have such reverence paid to what bears the name of deity and religion,
that even amongst the very heathens, who had not the knowledge of the
true God, those who blasphemed or affronted the gods, robbed their
temples, or mal-treated and persecuted their priests, did not pass
without some public mark of divine displeasure, (of which I might give a
number of instances from history, were it needful). And should such as
are favoured with an objective revelation of the true God and way of
salvation in and by him, who destroy his heritage, persecute his people,
blaspheme his name, and make a mock of religion, go unpunished? Nor,
_2ndly_, Is the collecting or recording such exemplary instances without
precept or precedent? Moses, by the Lord's direction, commanded the
centers of those who were burnt up when offering strange fire to be made
broad plates for a covering to the altar, for a memorial to the children
of Israel.--And, passing other instances in scripture, historians and
martyrologers, we find the reformed church of the Netherlands at the
famous synod of Embden 1571, amongst other things, enacted and ordered
the Lord St. Atergonde to write the history of the persecution by the
Duke de Alva, with the visible judgments that befel the persecutors at
that time. The same thing was agitated and concluded upon by the united
societies in Scotland, both before and after the Revolution, which, had
their resolutions been accomplished, had either anticipated this
publication, or rendered it more complete than what it can otherwise be
expected.[266] Nor,
_3dly_, Can it be expected, that all our Scots apostates and persecutors
are here narrated. No; there have many of God's eminent saints and dear
children made their exit out of this world without any note or
observation: in like manner, every wicked and notorious offender has not
been made a Magor Missabib, a wonder unto themselves and others. We can
ascribe this to nothing but divine wisdom and sovereignty. But there
have been as many instances of both kinds as may serve for a monitor
both to saints and sinners, to encourage the one and deter the other,
and _that others may hear and fear_. Again, there have been several of
these wicked enemies of God even in our own land, whose deaths have been
as remarkable as those now related, which have either not been recorded,
or else the records have been lost, and cannot now, after such a long
time elapsed, be retrieved[267]. And
_4thly_, This may be observed, That, though numbers in this black
catalogue have nothing different as to the taking away of the life
temporal, such as by heading, hanging, &c., from what has befallen
God's dear children and martyrs,--yet it is the cause of their death,
their disposition and frame at that time, must only cast the scale of
balance. Jesus as man, and the obstinate malefactor on the cross, are an
illustrating proof of this: for, while the one goes off the stage
triumphing in the justice of their cause under the sensible
manifestations of God's gracious presence, crying out, Farewel, friends
and relations, holy scriptures, duties, sun, moon, stars,--all created
enjoyments:--Welcome, death, scaffold, gibbet for precious Christ;
welcome eternity, glory, angels, spirits of just men made perfect;
welcome, Jesus Christ, Spirit of all grace, God the judge of all, and
life for evermore:--The other (although I do not meddle with their
eternal state, as being no-ways my province or prerogative to determine
upon) at least those I have here condescended upon, died either in a
senseless, secure, supine stupidity, or else belching out the most
fearful oaths, and imprecations against themselves or others, or worse,
if worse may be, roaring out in despair in the most dreadful horror of
an awakened conscience under the sense of God's wrath and fiery
indignation ready to be poured forth upon them for their former wicked
lives; which must be one of the most exquisite torments in this life, as
expressed by the poet,
----_Siculi non invenere Tyranni
Tormentum majus._----
Nay, some have had very wicked lives or actions in life, and yet through
the Lord's goodness have obtained mercy at last, though none of this
stamp to my knowledge, as far as could be discerned, are brought into
this category[268]. And
_5thly_, Let none think that I have dragged any in here, because they
were king, queen, or bishop; no, there are others here; it was because
they were tyrants, apostates, perjured wretches, wicked persecutors and
bloody deceitful men: a Charles on the throne, a Lauderdale in the
state, a M'Kinzie at the bar, a Jefferies on the bench, a Dalziel in the
army, and a Judas Sharp in the church, amongst others inrolled in the
annals of time, (and we may fear in eternity too) are terrible monuments
of this.--It is true, all this black group attained not the same
altitude of wickedness; but they all acted from the same principle, and
bended toward the same point, and that was to propagate Satan's kingdom,
and persecute the saints of the Most High, as far as their power,
station and office would allow; (although some of them were more humane
than others) yet they must all be brought to the same standard, seeing
divine sovereignty has ordered it so.
_6thly_, It is here hoped, that none of the offspring of those will be
offended at what is related of their ancestors, unless they approve of
their deeds; seeing no man can help the evil qualities of his
forefathers. A good Jehoshaphat begat a wicked Jehoram and a wicked
Ahaz, and Amnon begat a good Josiah. And though the Lord has declared
that he will visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, yet
he has also said, The son shall not die for the iniquity of his father;
if he turn from it, he shall live.--It is granted, that virtuous and
religious lives are necessary to be set before us for our example, and
why should not the contrary vices be eschewed by viewing a portrait of
the reverse qualities? for he who has said that the memory of the just
shall be blessed, has also said, that the memory of the wicked shall
rot; that is, they shall either sink into oblivion, or else in consuming
away shall become nauseous unto posterity, as says the prophet, _Their
everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten_.
_Lastly_, For the matter and method of the following examples, though
there be severals of them touched at in the lives of the Scots worthies
as connected with the subject, yet I have brought them unto this
composition, that the reader may view them all at once; and for the
method I have arranged them in, each example is as near the order of
time when they died as could be guessed, and as concise as possible,
being restricted to such narrow limits. As for the authority of the
authors from whom they are collected, (except a few relations as well
vouched as at present could be obtained) they are much the same with
those of the lives of the worthies, historical faith being all that can
be claimed in human and imperfect composures.
And for a conclusion, let us see all scenes closing, let us, through the
foregoing mirror and following prospect, view the Lord's admirable
goodness to his own dear children even when walking through the furnace
of affliction, with his just and severe indignation and resentment even
in this life upon his and their enemies.--Let us behold the one wafted
over the dark river in the arms of a Redeemer (though sometimes on a
bloody bottom) unto the flowery banks of Emmanuel's land;--while the
other is with an awful gloom of horror hurled head-long into the pit of
destruction. Let us by faith apprehend those thousands of thousands at
Christ's right hand, singing, _Allelujah, true and righteous are his
judgments; he hath judged the great whore, and avenged the blood of his
servants_,--with a numberless throng on his left hand of these
miscreants sentenced unto that place of torment and woe, where they
shall have an eternity to bewail their infidelity, impiety, avarice,
ambition, cruelty, and stupidity in.--And, in fine, if the following
hints shall serve for no other purpose, they will stand for an
incontestable evidence of the very first principle of religion, that
there is a God to reward the righteous and punish the wicked:--_So that
men shall say, Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; verily there
is a God that judgeth in the earth._
_The Judgment and Justice of GOD Exemplified, &c._
JOHN CAMERON, sometime bishop of Glasgow was a most wicked wretch: he
not only committed many acts of avarice and cruelty upon the poor people
of his diocese, but also encouraged those in place and power to do the
like: So that he became the author of almost all the mischief in that
part of the country.--But in this he did not long escape the just
judgment of God; for in the night before (what they call) Christmas day,
1446, as he lay in his own house in Lockwood about seven miles from
Glasgow, he seemed to hear an audible voice summoning him to appear
before Christ's tribunal to give an account of his doings.--He got up
affrighted, and called for his servant to bring a light and sit by him;
he himself took a book and began to read; but the voice was heard a
second time louder, which struck all his servants with horror. His
servant being gone, the voice called a third time more terrible than
before; at which the bishop was heard give a groan, and so was found
dead in his bed with his tongue hanging out of his mouth; and so came to
an end deserving of such a life.--_Buchanan and Spotiswood's Histories_.
SIR GEORGE STEEL, a parasite and mighty flatterer of James V.; but one
of the greatest enemies to God and his people (that then began to
profess the true religion) that was in all the court, being such a
bigotted papist, that, one day in a large audience, he renounced his
portion of Christ's kingdom, if the prayer of the Virgin Mary did not
bring him hither.--But one day, while in presence of the king, he
dropped down dead from his horse and never spoke a word.--_Knox's
history_.
JAMES HAMILTON, a natural brother to the earl of Arran was by the popish
clergy's influence advanced in the reign of said James V. and was so
cruel and terrible against all such as were supposed to favour the
protestant religion, that even some of his own relations were brought
under his power--being by the intercession of these poplings by the king
made judge or lord justice for that purpose. But while he was employing
himself to crush the gospel in the very bud, his cousin James Hamilton
sheriff of Linlithgow, whom he had caused to be banished before on that
account, returned home and accused him of treason, and in spite of all
the popish clergy could do in his behalf, he was arraigned, condemned,
beheaded and quartered at Edinburgh, and his quarters placed upon the
public places of the city.--_Buchanan and Fulfilling of the Scriptures_.
THOMAS SCOT, a privy counsellor and justice clerk to the said James V.
was a notable enemy and persecutor of these professing the reformed
religion. But falling sick at Edinburgh, he fell into despair: he was
most vexed for what he had done against Christ's witnesses, and still
cried out, _Justo Dei judicio condemnatus sum_, I am condemned by God's
just judgment, and damned without remedy. And (if he be the same who is
called by some, Blair) when the monks began to comfort him, he charged
them to be gone with their factions and trumperies, saying, till now, I
never believed there was God or devil, heaven or hell. I acted only as a
politician to get preferment and money, and for that purpose I joined
the bishops side, and prevailed with the king to cast out their
adversaries. All your masses can do me no good: the devil has me already
in his gripes to carry me to hell and torment me eternally. In this
situation he died the same night, he appeared to the king when lying at
Linlithgow with a company of devils, and uttered these words to him, O
woe to the day that ever I knew thee or thy service; for the serving of
thee against God, against his servants and against justice, I am
adjudged to endless torment.--_Knox's history_, _Appendix to
Sp{illegible}'s relation_.
ALEX. CAMPBELL, a dominican friar, a man of wit and learning, who though
he agreed almost in every point with Patrick Hamilton, yet being more
desirous to save than hazard his life for the truth, was prevailed upon
by his friends not only to prefer a public accusation against the said
Patrick, but even when bound at the stake in the fire, over the belly of
the light of his own conscience, continually cried out, Convert,
heretic; call on our lady: say, _salve regina_, &c. to whom the martyr
said, depart from me, and trouble me not, thou messenger of Satan. But
while this friar still roared out these words with great vehemency, He
said again to him, "O thou vilest of men, thou art convinced that these
tenets which thou now condemnest, are certainly true, and didst confess
to me that they are so. I cite thee against a certain time before the
tribunal seat of Christ Jesus, &c." In a few days after, Campbel
turned quite mad, and died in Glasgow as one in despair.--_Buch. Knox's
hist. and others_.
JAMES V. son to James IV. who began to reign 1514, notwithstanding a
quick genius and inclination at first to sobriety and justice, yet soon
became corrupted with licenciousness and avarice the bane of that age;
and, being wholly under the direction of the pope and his poplings in
Scotland he turned a most violent persecutor of the professors of the
true religion, (which then began to dawn) in so much that Patrick
Hamilton, of the royal stock, behoved to suffer the flames; many others
were oppressed and banished the nation as hereticks. Nay, such was his
furious zeal, that he was heard say, that none of that sort need expect
favour at his hand, were it his own sons if guilty: and it appears he
would have been as good as his word, (from a paper or list of their
names given in by the clergy found in his pocket at his death) had not
divine providence interposed: for being pushed on to an unjust war with
the English by the advice of Oliver Sinclair and others, his army was
shamefully defeated at Solway moss, where this Oliver his general fled
and was taken: upon which, James fell into a delirium, still crying out,
O fled Oliver: is Oliver taken? After visiting some of his mistresses,
he went to Falkland, (after he had had some frightful dreams at
Linlithgow) and hearing the queen was delivered of a daughter, he broke
forth unto this desperate expression, "The devil go with it, it came
with a woman, and will go with a woman, &c." But still his continued
cry was, Is Oliver taken, &c. till cardinal Beaton came, whose
intrigues with the queen were before known, and by whose direction it
was supposed the king received a dose, of which he soon expired in that
situation, 1542.--_Buch. Knox_, &c.
DAVID PANTHER, bishop of Galloway, was a violent enemy to the gospel.
For advancing the queen regent's interest he got an abbey in France. He
would by no means admit of a disputation with any of the reformed; but
recommended fire and sword for the only defence of the catholic
religion. "Our victory (said he) stands neither in God nor his word, but
in our own wills, otherwise we will no more be found the men we are
called, than the devil will be approved to be God, &c." Amongst other
extravagances, he became a notable Epicurean, eating and drinking
becoming the only pastime of his life, and in that excess, he at last
fell down and expired.--_Knox_, &c.
---- DURY, a fowl of the same nest, was, for his filthy course of life,
called Abbot Stottikin. But being a furious papist, he obtained the see
of Galloway, and became such a persecutor of the reformation, that he
roundly vowed, that, in despite of God, as long as they prelates lived,
that word called GOSPEL should never be preached in this realm. But his
boasting lasted not long; for being suddenly seized by death, the
articles of his belief or dying words were, "Decarte, you, ha, ha. The
four kings and all made, the devil go with: it is but a varlet from
France; we thought to have got a ruby, but we got nothing but a
cohoobie." And so this filthy enemy of God ended his life.--_Knox_, &c.
DAVID BEATON was made arch-bishop of St. Andrews, and by the pope,
cardinal of Scotland. But, being a man of a strange nature and cruel
disposition, he set himself to crush the professors of the reformed
religion with fire and faggot. Captain Bothwick was by his influence
accused, but fled to England: four men by his direction were burnt on
the Castle-hill of Edinburgh 1538; as were Russel and Kennedy the year
after. Thus he continued at this game, at the same time wallowing like a
hog in a stie in all manner of filthiness, till the year 1646, that he
got that man of God George Wishart brought to the flames.--While he was
at the stake before the cardinal's castle at St. Andrews, that the
cardinal might gratify his eyes with this desirable sight, the cushions
were laid for him and his company to lean upon, while looking forth at
the windows.--After the fire was kindled, the martyr said amongst other
things, "This fire torments my body, but no ways abates my spirit, but
he who now looks down so proudly from yonder lofty palace, (pointing to
the cardinal) and feeds his eyes with my torment, shall ere long be hung
out at that window as ignominiously, as he now there leans with pride."
Accordingly some gentlemen vowed to avenge Mr. Wishart's death. The
wicked monster getting previous notice, said, Tush, a fig for the fools,
a button for the bragging of heretics. Is the Lord governor mine?
witness his oldest son with me as a pledge. Have not I the queen at my
devotion? Is not France my friend? What danger should I fear?--But in a
few days, Norman Lesly, John Lesly, and the laird of Grange entered the
castle in the morning, just as one of his harlots Mrs Ogilvie was gone
out of bed from him. The noise soon alarmed the cardinal, who was but a
little before fallen asleep. He got up and hid a coffer of gold in a
corner. Afterward with some difficulty they got in. John Lesly drew his
sword, and in sober terms told him their errand, but could bring him to
no signs of repentance or preparation for death.--Whereupon they stabbed
him; upon which he cried out, I am a priest: fy, all is gone; and so he
expired. The provost and his friends came in a fray, and demanded what
was become of him, and would not depart; which made them hang his
carcase over the window, according to Mr Wishart's words; and then they
departed;--after which he lay a considerable time unburied[269].
A FRENCH OFFICER and gentleman volunteer in the queen regent's army,
whom she employed to cut off the professors of the reformed religion,
after several outrages by him committed in Fife upon them, entered into
a poor woman's house, with a small family of children at Whiteside, to
plunder it. She offered him such provision as she had; but this would
not satisfy him; for notwithstanding all her tears and intreaties, the
cruel wretch must have what little meal and beef she had to sustain her
and her young infants. She perceiving this, upon his stooping down into
a large barrel or pipe to take what was there, first turned up his
heels, and then with what help her family could afford, kept him in,
till amongst the meal he ended his wicked life.--_Knox._
MARY of Lorrain, sister to the duke of Guise, and second wife to James
V. after her husband's death, aspired to the regency; and being sprung
from a family who always had shewn themselves inveterate and implacable
enemies to the kingdom of Christ, she set herself with might and main,
to exterminate the gospel and its professors out of Scotland.--She told
them, in plain words, that, in despite of them and their ministers both,
they should be banished out of it, albeit they preached as true as ever
St. Paul did: and, for that purpose, procured to her faction in Scotland
some thousands of French soldiers, which obliged them to lift arms in
their own defence. One time, these cruel savages having obtained a small
advantage in a skirmish at Kinghorn, and committed many outrages of
plunder in Fife, she broke out into the following expression: "Where is
now John Knox's God? My God is stronger than his, even in Fife." At
another time when the reformed had pulled down some monuments of
idolatry at St. Johnston, this catholic heroine vowed, "She should
destroy both man, woman and child in it, and burn it with fire: and
that, if she had a fair pretext for the deed, she would not leave an
individual of the heretical tribe, either his fortune or life." Again
1560, when her Frenchmen had obtained another victory at Leith, and
having stripped the slain, and laid their bodies upon the walls before
the sun, at the beholding of which from the castle of Edinburgh, it is
said she leaped for joy and said, "Yonder is the fairest tapestry I ever
saw! I would the whole field were covered with the same stuff." But God
soon put a stop to this wicked contumely; for in a few days (some say
the same day) her belly and legs began to swell of that loathsome and
ugly disease whereof she died in the month of June following. Before her
death, she seemed to shew some remorse for her past conduct; but no
signs of true repentance, else she would not have received the Popish
sacrament of extreme unction. The papists having now lost their head,
and the church not suffering her to be buried with the superstitious
rites of popery, she was coffined, and kept four months, and then went
to France: and so she, who a little made the followers of Christ when
killed lie unburied, could not obtain a burial in the kingdom of
Scotland[270].
DAVID RIZIO or Riccio, born at Turin in Savoy, came over, and was
introduced unto queen Mary's musicians (being of that craft) and
complying with her humour in every thing, he was advanced to be one of
her secretaries. But being one of the pope's minions and a deadly enemy
to the cause of Christ in Scotland, he laid continual schemes to ruin
the noble reformers. He laid a plot to murder the good earl of Murray
with his own hand, but it miscarried. He had a principal hand in the
queen's match with Darnly; but soon became his rival, and the queen's
paramour. He exceeded the king in apparel and furniture, and intended to
have cut off the Scots nobility, and brought in a set of foreign
ministers. He counterfeited the king's seal, and nothing could be done
without him at court. He was apprized of his hazard, but nothing could
affright him. Whereupon the king, with James Douglas, Patrick Lindsay,
&c. knowing that he was gone in privily to the queen one night, (as
his custom was) came in upon them, while he was sitting by the queen at
supper. She sought to defend him by the interposition of her body; but
bringing him to an outer chamber, at first they intended to have hanged
him publicly, which would have been a most grateful spectacle to the
people; but being in haste, James Douglas gave him a stroke with his
dagger, which was by the company succeeded, to the number of fifty-three
strokes, and so he soon expired, March 9, 1566[271].
HENRY STUART, son to the earl of Lenox, returned to Scotland 1565, and
was married to the queen; and being a bigotted papist, the reforming
lords opposed his marriage, but were obliged to flee to England. While
matters went well betwixt him and the queen, he was wholly at her
devotion, and at her instigation, cast the Psalms of David into the
fire. But after Rizio's death, the earl of Bothwel becoming the queen's
beloved paramour, she fell in disgust with the king; and he being
misled up in popery, and seeing himself thus forsaken of the queen, and
despised by her faction of the nobility, wrote to the king of France,
that the country was all out of order, because the mass and popery were
not again fully erected in Scotland. But the queen, to be rid of him,
caused to be given him a dose of poison. But being in the prime of
youth, he surmounted the disorder. Being a man wholly given to sensual
pleasure, he was easily deceived: the queen decoyed him to Edinburgh,
where she and Bothwel laid a plan for his life wherein Bothwel was to be
the aggressor. In prosecution of which, he with some others entered the
king's lodging in the night, and while he was asleep strangled him and
one of his servants, and drew him out at a little gate they had made
through the wall of the city, and left his naked body lying, and so,
like another Johoiakim, who burnt the roll, was _cast without the gates
of Jerusalem_.
JOHN HAMILTON was, by his brother the regent, after the cardinal's death
made arch-bishop of St. Andrew's. He exactly trod in the footsteps of
his predecessors; and that not only in uncleanness, taking men's wives
from them for his concubines, (as the popish clergy must not be married)
but was also a violent oppressor and persecutor of Christ's gospel in
his mystical members. Adam Wallace and Walter Mill were by his direction
committed to the flames. Again, when Mr. Knox went with the lords to
preach at St. Andrew's, he raised 100 spear-men to oppose him. He had a
hand in most of the bloody projects, in the queen regent's management.
In her daughter Mary's reign, she followed the same course. He had a
hand in Henry Stuart's death, and was afterward one of the conspirators
of the the death of the good regent the earl of Murray; but the reformed
getting the ascendent, he was obliged to flee to the castle of
Dumbarton, and was there taken, when it was taken by the regent earl of
Marr, and for his former misdemeanours, was hanged up by the neck like a
dog at Stirling, about the year 1572.
WILLIAM MAITLAND, commonly called in history, young Lethington, though a
man of no small parts or erudition, yet became sadly corrupted by the
court. He was made secretary to queen Mary, and with her became a prime
agent against the reformation. He oftentimes disputed with Mr. Knox, and
at last gave in a charge of treason against him on account of religion.
And one time, he was so chagrined at the preachers of the gospel,
namely Mr. Craig, that he gave himself to the devil, if after that day
he should care what became of Christ's ministers, let them blow as hard
as they would. He had a prime hand in the queen's marriage with Darnly,
and against the lords who professed the reformed religion. After the
queen fled to England, he was the principal manager of all the popish
plots and tragical disasters that for some time happened in England and
Scotland. But the queen's affairs growing desperate, he fled to
Edinburgh castle, which was then held for the queen by the laird of
Grange. Mr. Knox sent a message to them of their danger, and what would
befal them. But Lethington made a mock of Mr. Knox and his advice; but
the castle being taken 1573, he was imprisoned in the steeple of Leith,
where six escaped further ignominy by public punishment. It was said he
poisoned himself, and lay so long unburied that the vermin upon his body
were creeping out at the doors of the house, in under the ground of the
steeple.--_Calderwood's history._
JAMES HEPBURN Earl of Bothwel was a wicked vicious man from his very
infancy. At first he inclined as seemed to the protestant side, but
becoming the queen's principal minion, he apostatized to popery, because
it was her religion. He vigorously opposed the work of reformation,
attempted to murder the good Earl of Murray, but was prevented. After
the slaughter of Rizio, he succeeded in his place, and became a partaker
of the king's bed. After which he murdered him, and married the queen
(although he had three wives living at that time). He designed to have
murdered James VI. then a child, but was prevented by the lords who rose
in defence of religion and their liberties. The queen was by them made
to abandon him, which made him flee to Shetland, where he became a
pirate: but being obliged to escape from thence to Denmark, where after
near ten years confinement, he became distracted and died mad.
JAMES DOUGLAS Earl of Morton was a man of no small natural endowments,
but a man of a covetous and lecherous disposition. While chancellor, he
got the Fulcan bishopricks erected[272], that the bishops might have
the title and honour; but the nobility got the profit or church
revenues. After he became regent, though things came to a more settled
state, yet for his own political ends, he oppressed the people, but
especially the clergy by promises to assign them stipends in parishes.
He extorted from them the rights to the thirds of the benefice, and
oftimes caused one minister to serve four or five parishes, while
himself took all the stipends but one, (so that by the end of the
century some ministers had but 11 l. and some but the half and miserably
paid). He was the first that introduced prelacy into Scotland. Says a
historian, "He threatened some of the ministers, misliked general
assemblies, could not endure the free and open rebuke of sin in the
pulpit, maintained the bishops and pressed his own injunctions and
conformity with England; and had without question stayed the work of
God, had not God stirred up a faction of the nobility against him." For
first, the king took upon him the regency: then he was accused of the
late king's murder. He had amassed great sums of money together; but it
was partly embezzled by his friends, and partly conveyed away in barrels
and hid; So that when brought to Edinburgh, he had to borrow twenty
shillings for the poor. Thus having lost both his friends and his money,
which might have procured him friends, he was condemned and executed at
Edinburgh, June 2d, 1581. And so, for advancing the king's authority and
supremacy over the church and introducing bishops into it, he was by him
and them but poorly rewarded.--_Calderwood and Fulfilling of the
Scriptures._
JAMES STUART, son to the lord Ochiltree, was from a single centinel
advanced to a captain in king James's minority; but, becoming still
greater at court, he assumed unto himself the title of earl of Arran. He
became the king's only favourite, and was by him advanced unto the helm
of affairs; and then he set himself to ruin the church of God: for
first, he got the king's supremacy in all causes civil and
ecclesiastick, asserted by parliament; and then he got a set of wicked
and profane bishops, like himself, again reinstated in the church. In a
word, this ambitious, covetous, bloody, seditious Cataline, and scorner
of religion and enemy to the commonwealth was the author of all the
broils and disorders in church and state from 1680 to 1685; and would
have done more (being now made chancellor and captain of the castle of
Edinburgh) had not the Lord, by his own immediate hand of providence,
interposed in behalf of his church; for, first, being disgraced at
court, while on the pinnacle of dignity, he was tumbled down unto his
first original: then taking a tour through Kyle, came near Douglas, and
was at last set upon by James Douglas (afterward lord Fotherald) in the
valley of Catslaks, in revenge for his accusation of his friend the earl
of Morton, and thrown from his horse, and killed with a spear, and his
body left lying exposed to be devoured of dogs upon the king's high
way.--_Calderwood, Spotiswood, and Melvil's memoirs._
MARY STUART daughter to James V. first married the dauphin of France,
and after his death returned home, and took on her the regal government
of Scotland. Tho' some historians represent her for a woman of a quick
judgment and good natural abilities, yet it is evident she was of a
revengeful temper and lecherous disposition; and being misled up in
popery from her infancy, her opposition to the protestant reformed
religion seems all of a piece. It would fill a volume to recite the
wickedness, mischiefs and tragical disasters, that, through her
instigation, by her command or example, were committed during her reign.
For, not to mention her intrigues with Rizio and Chattelet the French
dancer, whom she caused at last to be hanged; the court rung with all
manner of wickedness, impiety and profanity. About 1566, she entered
into a league with Charles IX. of France to extirpate the reformed
religion. She and her favourites robbed the church of their patrimony to
maintain the luxury of the court: So that they could all have scarce
2000l. yearly. Nor upon all their petitions, though in a starving
condition, could they get any redress from her. She married Darnly, then
fell in adultery with Bothwel, then they concerted his murder: and after
she married the Regicide, lifted arms against the professors of the true
religion, by whom she was obliged to flee to England. In a word, every
dreary year of her unfortunate reign was blackened with some remarkable
disaster, and by such acts of impudence and injustice, as corrupt nature
and popish cruelty could suggest. After her elopement to England, the
popish faction, of which she was the head, kept the nations in continual
intestine broils, till a scheme was by them laid to marry the duke of
Norfolk a papist, get rid of her son James and Queen Elizabeth, and
grasp both kingdoms into the hands; but this proving abortive, she next
endeavoured to have herself declared Second in England, whereupon Queen
Elizabeth signed a warrant somewhat precipitantly for her execution; and
so she was beheaded in Fotheringay castle, Feb. 18. 1586, or according
to some 1587. She died with some fortitude, but would have nothing to do
with the protestant clergy at the place of execution, saying, she would
die in the catholick religion wherein she was bred and born, willing
only to have her confessor: at last she lifted the crucifix and kissed
it. And so she ended her days, as she lived, and with her ended
bare-faced popery for a time in Scotland.--_Knox_, _Melvil_,
_Spotiswood_, &c.
MR. PATRICK ADAMSON, first minister of Paisley, was a preacher of much
repute in the church; but ambition and private interest had more sway
with him than the interest of Christ. And having wrought himself into
the king's favour by undermining the government and discipline of the
church, he was declared bishop by Morton about 1578. But got the
bishoprick of St. Andrews 1584, after which he not only spoke and wrote
in favours of prelacy, but became a persecutor of his faithful brethren.
In the height of his grandeur, he used to boast that three things could
not fail him, his learning, the king's favour, and his riches: for the
first, in the just judgment of God, he could not speak a word of sense
before or after his meat. For the second, he lost the king's favour and
had his bishoprick taken from him, and was heard say, he was sure the
king cared more for his dogs than for him. And for his riches, he was so
reduced that he had to get charity from those ministers whom before he
harrassed. Before, for his pride, contumacy and other enormities he was
excommunicated by the church, but being now in extreme poverty and
sickness, he made a recantation and confession, supplicating the church
he might be absolved from the censure; which at last was by them
granted. Whether this repentance proceeded from constraint to get a
little outward sustenance, as was suspected, I cannot say; but in this
situation he died, in great want and extreme misery, about the year
1591--_Fulfilling of the Scriptures_, &c.
MR. JAMES NICHOLSON, a creature of the same make; one eminent for parts
and learning in these times, and at first a great opposer of prelacy.
But being still gaping for riches, honour and preferment, shifted from
one benefice to another, till he got the bishopric of Dunkeld: yea, so
forward was he to establish prelacy, that he behoved to be one of those
who assisted the king at Hampton court against eight of his brethren who
were more faithful than himself in 1606. But his honour continued not
long, for being stricken with sickness of body and seized with
melancholy of mind and horror of conscience, he could have no rest.
Physicians being brought, he told them his trouble was of another kind,
for which they could give him no cure; for, said he, "The digesting of a
bishoprick hath racked my conscience. I have against much light and over
the belly of it, opposed the truth and yielded up the liberties of
Christ to please an earthly king, &c." And so in great horror of
conscience he made his exit, August 1609.--_Calderwood_, &c.
GEORGE HUME, Earl of Dumbar, one of king James's creatures, and the only
instrument (I may say) used by him at that time to overturn the
Presbyterian form of church-government and discipline, and introduce
prelacy into Scotland: for which purpose he was by him sent as
commissioner to both the general assemblies 1608 and 1610. He brought
some English doctors to persuade, a strong guard to intimidate the
faithful, and money to bribe those of a contrary disposition; which he
distributed to these mercenary creatures for their votes. He so far
succeeded, as to get a new set of bishops erected, and then returned to
England, where, with the wages of iniquity, he built a sumptuous palace
at Berwick. When he intended to keep St. George's day, and solemnize his
daughter's marriage with Lord Walden, the Lord pulled him down from the
height of all his honours by a sudden and surprizing death. _That day
his thoughts perish_, and with the builder of Jericho, for all his
acquisitions in Scotland and England, in a short time there was not a
foot breadth of land left of it to his posterity.--_Calderwood_,
_Fulfilling of the Scriptures_, &c.
MR. GEORGE GLADSTONE, at first, was such a zealous Presbyterian, that he
vowed he should never be bishop of St. Andrews, because they were hated
and came all to untimely ends. But his motives not being good, he
returned from court 1605, with a presentation to the very same
bishoprick. Again, when called up to court next year, to assist the king
against the faithful Scottish ministers, he was adjured by his brethren
of the ministry in the presbytery of St. Andrews, that as he should be
answerable to God, he should do nothing to the prejudice of the church
of God; he took God to witness, it should be so. But they soon found the
contrary to their sad experience; for he not only became a cruel enemy
to his brethren who continued faithful, but also a lazy time-serving
hireling, oftimes loitering upon his bed in the very time of
sermon.--Instance, being one time on his bed in time of the afternoon
sermon, both he and the congregation were alarmed with the cry of
_Murder_, his sister's son in the house having killed his cook with a
dagger, as he was making ready his supper.--At this rate he continued
till 1615, that he was seized with a fearful and strange disease, (which
historians forbear to name) and what was worse, with obstinate and
senseless stupidity, approving of his former courses, and in that
situation he died, May 2, 1615.--_Calderwood and others._
MR. ALEX^R. FORBES, a bird of the same feather, was first made bishop of
Caithness, then of Aberdeen. He was not only an enemy to the faithful
servants of Christ, but even of such a poor, low disposition, and such a
table friend and flattering spunger, that he was nicknamed Collie;
because so impudent and shameless that he would follow the lords of
session, advocates, &c. when they went to dinner, and cringe about,
and sometimes follow them uncalled, and sit down in their houses at
table.--At last he was seized with sickness at Leith, and fell under
sore remorse of conscience for his past life: he sent for bishop
Spotiswood, and would gladly have communicated his mind to him; but it
seems he would not leave his playing at cards (albeit it was on the
Sabbath day), and so he in this condition died.--_Calderwood._
MR. ANDREW FORRESTER, sometime minister at Dunfermline, when sent to the
General Assembly 1610, was by his brethren adjured, that, as he should
answer to Jesus Christ, he should consent to no alteration in the
government of the church: yet, having received 50 merks from Dumbar, (a
small equivalent to the cause of Christ) he voted for prelacy. After
which, he was convicted of taking silver out of the poor's box with
false keys, and then fell into a fearful distemper, insomuch that, from
some words of the chancellor apprehending he should be hanged, he run
out of the pulpit one day when going to preach, in a fit of distraction,
confessing he had sold Christ at that assembly. He was also seized with
sickness. Mr. Row made him a visit, and found him in a lamentable
condition. He asked, if he was persuaded that God had called him to the
ministry. He answered, "Nay, I ever sought the world, and so is seen on
me." He next asked, what he got at the assembly for selling the
liberties of the church? He answered, 50 merks, at which his horror
recurred, apprehending that he was instantly to be executed. Mr. Row
desired him to pray; he said he could not. Mr. Row prayed, in time of
which the buttons burst off his breast, and the blood gushed terribly
both from mouth and nose. After prayer, he asked, if he was prepared for
death? He answered, no, woes me. Next day he made him another visit, and
found him senseless and stupid, and so left him. After which he died in
great infamy, poverty and misery. Nor was Mr. Paton, another of the same
stamp, much better.--This and more was declared anent them by Mr. Row
before the assembly at Glasgow, 1638.--_Stevenson_.
MR. WILLIAM COOPER, sometime minister at Perth, witnessed no small zeal
against prelacy, both doctrinally and from the press, and yet through
covetousness and court preferment, he was made bishop of Galloway: after
which none was more forward for the corruption of the times.--He left
his diocese, says the historian, and took up his residence in the
Cannongate of Edinburgh, and committed his ministerial affairs to
others, by whom was extorted the enormous sum of 100,000l. In his visits
once in two years he behaved most impiously, thrust in ignorant persons
to cures, and admitted his servant unto the ministry at his bed-side,
desired the presbytery of Kirkudbright to dispense with one who kept a
woman with him in fornication, and above all, was a fervent presser of
the king's injunctions for keeping Christmass, &c. and sent up his
advice 1619, for punishing those who did not comply. Some time before
his death, he took a hypochondriack distemper, apprehending his head was
all glass, which much affrighted him.--Some brought his former
discourses to him to reconcile, which disquieted him more. Being at his
pastime at Leith, he apprehended he saw armed men coming upon him; the
company shewing him the contrary, he fell a-trembling, went home and
took bed; and being in great anguish and trouble of spirit, he would
often point with his finger to the earth, and cry, "A fallen star, a
fallen star." And so he ended his life in great horror and anguish of
mind.[273] On his court-advancement Mr. Simson of Stirling made the
following line,
_Aureus, heu! fragilem confregit malleus urnam._
MR. PATRICK GALLOWAY was another of this fraternity; for when minister
of Perth, he was not only a strenuous opposer of prelacy in the church;
but also for his faithful and free rebukes to Arran and Lenox, who
carried on the court affairs then, he was persecuted and obliged to
abscond some time, about 1584. But afterwards being carried down with
the current of the times, he was transported to Edinburgh, where he
became a mighty stickler for prelacy, especially, the five articles of
Perth; insomuch that by the year 1620, he pressed kneeling at the
sacrament with much impudence and indecency; and though he would not
preach on Sabbath, yet he behoved to preach on Christmass.--At his
Christmass sacrament 1621, he commanded the communicants to kneel, and
he himself bowed with the one knee and sat with the other. Thus he
continued to the dotage of old age, and at last died upon the stool,
easing himself; and (as worthy Mr. Welch had before foretold) without
the least sense or signs of true repentance.
---- HAMILTON, Marquis of Hamilton, for his many good services to king
James against the Presbyterian interest, was by him appointed
commissioner to the parliament 1621, on design to have the five articles
of Perth (_viz._ 1. Kneeling at the communion; 2. Private communion; 3.
Private baptism; 4. Observation of holy days; 5. Confirmation of
children) ratified: all the faithful ministers being by him discharged,
the city and the parliament guarded, that no protestations might be got
offered. Through threats and flattery he got that dismal affair
effected; but not without a notable mark of divine displeasure: for, in
that moment he arose to touch the act with the sceptre, a terrible flash
of fire came in at the window, followed with three fearful claps of
thunder, upon which the heavens became dark, and hailstones and a
terrible tempest ensued; which astonished every beholder, and made the
day afterward be called the black Saturday; because it began in the
morning with fire from earth, and ended in the evening with fire from
heaven.--And on the Monday, when the act was read at the cross of
Edinburgh, the fire and thunder again recurred.--However, the Marquis
having got the king's design partly accomplished returned to court, and
not long after, for such services, it is said, he was poisoned by the
king's principal minion the Duke of Buckingham.--_Calderwood_, &c.
JAMES STUART, son to Mary Stuart queen of Scotland, was in his youth
educated by the famous Buchanan, and brought up in the true reformed
Protestant Presbyterian religion, then established in Scotland, which
was by him more than once ratified when he was in his swaddling cloaths,
as one well observes, Christ reigned in Scotland in his minority. The
church had its various turns according to the dispositions of the
regents, the king's favourite flatterers and court-parasites; but
whenever he began to think of obtaining the crown of England, he began
to introduce Episcopacy into the church of Scotland to gain the English
nation. And though he was a habitual gross swearer, and such a master of
dissimulation, that what he exalted at one time he set himself to
destroy at another, he carried still a face of religion in profession
while in Scotland. The church had many struggles, sometimes Israel, and
sometimes Amalek prevailed; but as soon as he ascended the throne of
England, he wholly assumed an arbitrary power and absolute supremacy
over the church, which before he had long grasped at. And though he had
sworn to maintain the Presbyterian form of church-government and
discipline, &c. his desire of unlimited authority made him now relish
Episcopacy to the highest degree: the bishops were his creatures. By
bribery, falsehood and persecution he introduced prelacy into Scotland,
created such bishops whom he knew would stick at nothing to serve his
purpose. Such as opposed his measures in both kingdoms, especially
Scotland, shared deep in his persecuting vengeance, some were
imprisoned, others deprived of their offices, while numbers fled to
foreign countries where they might serve God with a safe conscience.
Toward the end of his reign he waxed still worse:--a high commission
court was by him erected 1610: a set of wicked profane bishops installed
about 1618, by the help of whom and other corrupt clergy, he got the
five articles of Perth agreed to by a patched assembly that year--in
1621. He got them ratified by act of parliament, and then they began to
be pressed with rigour. In England matters were but little better: a
declaration was emitted for using sports and gaming on the Lord's day
after sermon, which profanations continue there to this day. He had
before wrote against the pope, threatening a malediction upon any of his
posterity that should apostatize to popery; but now he hastened toward
Rome; for, upon the match of his son with France, he agreed to the
following articles, That all laws formerly made against popery should
not be executed: 2. That no new laws should be made against Roman
Catholics, but they should have a free toleration in England, Scotland
and Ireland.--At the same time, to the arch-bishop of Embrun he
acknowledged the pope's authority, and it is said, concluded on a
convocation for that purpose at Dover or Boloign, in order to effect a
more full toleration for papists. By his management in favours of
popery, his son-in-law the Protestant king of Bohemia lost a
kingdom.--In Scotland, several were incarcerate and fined for
non-conformity. He had commanded Christmass communion to be kept at
Edinburgh; but, by the Lord's immediate hand in the plague, he was in
that defeated. The next year being 1624, he resolved to have it kept
with great solemnity; but before that he was cut off on March 27, by
what they call a Quartan ague, in the 59 year of his age[274], but
(rather of poison as has been supposed) with such suspicious
circumstances, says a historian, as gave occasion of inquiry into the
manner of his death, in the first two parliaments of his son; all which
came to nothing by their sudden dissolution--_Welwood's memoirs_,
_Calderwood_, _Burnet_, _Bennet's memorial of Britain's deliverances_,
&c.
PATRICK SCOTT, a gentleman in Fife, being a violent enemy to the cause
of Christ and religion, after he had wasted his patrimony, had to take
himself to several wretched shifts at court; and amongst others set
forth a recantation under the name of Mr. David Calderwood then under
banishment; in which, it was thought, he was assisted by the king. But
this project failing, he set off for Holland in quest of Mr. David, with
a design, as appeared, to have dispatched him. But providentially he was
detained at Amsterdam till he heard that Mr. Calderwood was returned
home. This made him follow. After which he published a pamphlet full of
lies, intituled, Vox vera, but as true as Lucian's Historia. But after
all his unlawful ungodly shifts, he became so poor (and at last died so
miserable) that he had nothing to bury him: so that the bishop had to
contribute as much as got him laid below ground for the good service he
had done the king and bishops.--_Calderwood._
MR. WILLIAM FORBES (perhaps a son of the forementioned Forbes) was first
made doctor in Aberdeen 1621 and 1622. When the people of Edinburgh had
made choice of faithful Mr. Andrew Cant for their minister, the provost
sent and brought this Forbes, as one whom he and the episcopal faction
knew would please the king, and in this they succeeded to their desire;
for he was not only a violent presser of Perth articles, but he also
preached up Arminianism, and essayed to reconcile the papists and the
church of Scotland together anent justification. And when complained of
by some of the bailies and citizens of Edinburgh, all the redress they
got was to be brought before the council and by the king's order handled
severely by fining and banishment. When Charles I. came to Edinburgh
1633, he erected a new bishoprick there, to which he nominated this
Forbes for bishop as one staunch to his interest. No sooner got he this
power than he began to shew his teeth by pressing conformity both by
word and writing, and for that purpose sent instructions to all the
presbyteries within his jurisdiction. The people of Edinburgh were also
threatened by the bishop's thunder; for on the first communion finding
them not so obsequious as he would have had them, he threatened that, if
life was continued, he should either make the best of them communicate
kneeling or quit his gown; and who doubts of his intention to do as he
had promised? But he soon found he had reckoned without his host; for
before he could accomplish that, God was pleased to cut him off on the
12th of April following by a fearful vomiting of blood, after he had
enjoyed this new dignity about two months. Burnet says, he died
suspected of popery.--_Burnet's history, and Stevenson's history, vol.
1._
MR. JOHN SPOTISWOOD was first minister at Calder; but by his undermining
practice he got himself wrought into the bishoprick of Glasgow, and a
lord of the session, 1609. From thence he jumped into the
arch-bishoprick of St. Andrews 1615, and aspired still higher till he
was made chancellor of Scotland. He was a tool every way fit for the
court measures, as he could be either papist or prelate, provided he got
profit and preferment. When in France with the Duke of Lenox, he went to
mass, and in Scotland he had a principal hand in all the encroachments
upon the church and cause of Christ from 1596 to 1637. And for practice
a blacker character scarcely ever filled the ministerial office. An
adulterer, a simoniack, a drunkard tippling in taverns till midnight, a
profaner of the Lord's day by playing at cards and jaunting through the
country, a falsifier of the acts of assembly, a reproacher of the
national covenant;--for which crimes he was excommunicated by that
venerable assembly at Glasgow 1638; after which, having lost all his
places of profit and grandeur, he fled to England (the asylum then of
the scandalous Scots bishops) where he died about the year 1639, in
extreme poverty and misery; according to Mr. Welch's words, He should be
as a stone cast out of a sling by the hand of God, and a malediction
should be on all his posterity;--which all came to pass; his eldest son
a baron came to beg his bread; his second son, president of the session,
was executed in Montrose's affair; his daughter who married lord Roslin,
was soon rooted out of all estate and honours. _Their fruit shalt thou
destroy from earth, and their seed from amongst the children of
men_[275].--_Calderwood_, _Stevenson_, &c.
JOHN LOGIE student in the university of Aberdeen, was such a malignant
enemy to the work of reformation and the national covenant, that when
commissioners were sent from Edinburgh there in the year 1638, in order
to reconcile them to the covenant, while Mr. Henderson was preaching
in the earl Marshal's closs for that purpose, he threw clods at them
with great scorn and mockery. But in a few days, he killed one Nicol
Ferrie a boy, because the boy's father had beat him for stealing
his pease; and tho' he escaped justice for a time, yet he was again
apprehended and executed in the year 1644. Such was the consequence
of disturbing the worship of God and mocking the ambassadors of Jesus
Christ.--_Stevenson_, &c.
CHARLES I. succeeded his father James VI. and exactly trod in the same
steps, and with no better success. He grasped at the prerogative; and to
establish absolute power, prelacy, superstition and Arminianism seemed
his principal aim.--In England he infringed the liberties of parliament,
and by his marriage the nations became pestered with papists: in
Scotland he pressed Perth articles, the service book, and then, by
Laud's direction, the book of canons which he and the rest of the
bishops had compiled for them about 1637, contrary to his
coronation-oath taken at Edinburgh 1633. But in these he was repulsed by
the Scots covenanters 1639 and 1640.--Again, when he was confirming all
oaths, promises, subscriptions and laws for establishing the reformation
in the Scots parliament 1641, in the mean time, he was encouraging his
Irish cut-throats to murder betwixt two or three hundred thousand
innocent Protestants in Ireland, the letters that he had sent for that
purpose being produced afterward. After his return to England, matters
became still worse betwixt him and the English parliament; so that both
parties took the field, in which by his means a sea of innocent blood
was spilt, the Scots assisting the parliament as bound by the Solemn
League, that he might overturn the covenanted interest in that land.
Notwithstanding all his solemn engagements, oaths and confirmations of
acts of parliament, by his direction, Montrose was sent down from court
to raise an insurrection in the Highlands; by whom the bloody Irish were
invited over, whereby in a few years many thousands of the covenanters
his best subjects were killed.--But all his bloody schemes for
overturning that covenanted interest that he had so solemnly bound
himself to defend and maintain, proving abortive, he fell at last into
the hands of Cromwel and the Independent faction, who never surceased,
till they brought him to the block, Jan. 30. 1649. At his death,
notwithstanding his religious pretences, (being always a devotee of the
church of England) he was so far from repentance, that he seemed to
justify the most part of his former conduct[276]--_Civil wars of Gr.
Br._, _Bailie's let._, _Bennet, Welwood and Guthrie's memoirs_, &c.
JAMES, Duke of Hamilton, though none of the most violent prosecutors of
the malignant interest against the reformation, yet was always one who
conformed to his master Charles 1st's measures, and was by him sent down
commissioner to the assembly 1630, which he commanded to dissolve
(though they did not obey) and left it. He published the king's
declaration against the covenants and covenanters. And though none of
the most rigid, yet he may be justly accounted the head of the malignant
faction in Scotland, from 1638 to 1648, since he, contrary to the
solemn league and covenant, raised a large army in Scotland and went to
England in behalf of the king. But he was shamefully defeated by
Cromwel, and taken prisoner to London. After some time's confinement he
was executed.--_Bailie's Letters_, _Civil Wars_, &c.
JAMES GRAHAM, Earl, afterwards Marquis, of Montrose, in the year 1638,
took the covenanters side, was a prime presser of the covenants, was one
of the commissioners sent to Aberdeen 1638 for that purpose, and in
1639, was sent north to suppress the malignant faction of the Huntleys.
The same year he was ordered north again to quell Aboyn and the Gordons,
which he routed at the bridge of Dee. He commanded two regiments of the
covenanters under general Lesly for England 1640, and led the van of the
army for England. But shifting sides 1643, he offered to raise forces
for the king, came from court, and set up the king's standard at
Dumfries. From thence he went to the north and joined M'Donald with a
number of bloody Irishes, where they plundered and wasted the country of
Argyle, marched southward and gained six battles over the covenanters,
_viz._ at Trippermoor, Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Alfoord, Aldearn and
Kilsyth, where many, some say, thirty thousand of the Covenanters were
killed. But at last was defeated at Philiphaugh by Lesly 1645. For this
conduct he was excommunicated by the general assembly. He went abroad
and there remained till the year 1650, that when the treaty was on the
very anvil with Charles II. he received another commission from him to
raise a new insurrection in the north, but was defeated by colonels
Strahan, Ker, and Halkel, and afterwards taken in the laird of Ason's
ground, and brought to Endluish, where he was condemned to be hanged on
a gallows thirty feet high two hours, and then quartered, and his legs
and arms hung up in the public places of the kingdom, May 21st, 1650.
Mr. Blair and some other ministers were sent to him to use means to
persuade him to repentance for his former apostate and bloody life, but
by no means could they persuade this truculent tyrant and traitor to his
country to repent. He excused himself, and died under the censure of the
church, obstinate and utterly impenitent.--_Montrose, Guthrie, and
Blair._
WILLIAM MONRO, a kind of gentleman in the parish of Killern, was a hater
of God and every thing religious; for while Mr. Hog was minister there
sometime before the restoration, a gentleman in the parish having one of
his family dead, intended to bury in the church; but, this being
contrary to an act of the general assembly, Mr. Hog refused it. But
Monro, being a brisk hectoring fellow, promised to make their way good
in spite of all opposition. Accordingly, when they came to the church
door, Mr. Hog opposed them: whereupon Monro laid hands on him to pull
him from the door; but Mr. Hog, being able both of body and mind,
wrested the keys from the assailant, telling him, that if he was to
repel force by force, perhaps he would find himself no gainer: withal,
telling the people, that that man had grieved the Spirit of God, and
that they should either see his speedy repentance, or then a singular
judgment upon him. He went on in his wicked courses a few months, till
in one of his drunken revels, he attacked a mean man, and threw him in
the fire. The poor man in this extremity drew out the wretch's own
sword, and thrust it through his belly; on which his bowels came out,
and so he expired in a miserable condition.--_Memoirs of the life of Mr.
Hog._
JOHN, Earl of Middleton, at first lifted arms with the covenanters, and
had a share of the victory of the Gordons at the bridge of Dee. Yea, he
was so zealous in that profession, that one time having sworn the
covenants, he said to some gentlemen present, that it was the
pleasantest day he ever saw, and if he should ever do any thing against
that blessed day's work, he wished that arm (holding up his right arm)
might be his death. But finding presbyterian discipline too strict for a
wicked vitious life, he shifted sides and became major general to duke
Hamilton 1648, and came upon a handful of covenanters at a communion at
Machlin muir; and, contrary his promise, killed a number of them. He
became a great favourite of Charles II. and laid a scheme to take him
from the convention of estates to the north to free him of any further
covenant engagements, for which he was excommunicated by the church; and
though the sentence was taken off upon his feigned repentance, yet it
was never by him forgot, till he got the blood of the pronouncer, Mr.
Guthrie. After the restoration, he was advanced to great honour, and
sent down commissioner to the parliament 1661, where he got the
covenanted work of reformation wholly overturned by the infamous act
rescissory,--oath of allegiance,--act establishing episcopacy and
bishops in Scotland,--the act against the covenants, &c. But this would
not do; he must have a glut of the blood of Argyle and Mr. Guthrie: and
more, he behoved to come west, and grace that drunken meeting at Glasgow
by whom several hundred of the faithful ministers were thrust out. From
thence he arrived at Air, where he and some more drunken prelates drank
the devil's health at the Cross in the middle of the night. It were
endless almost to sum up the cruelties by his orders exercised upon
those who would not conform to prelacy for the space of two years; in so
much that he imposed no less than the enormous sum of one million
seventeen thousand and three hundred and fifty pounds in the parliament
1662 of fines. So that in the south and western parts of Scotland, men
either lost their consciences or their substance. But being complained
of at court, that he had amerced large sums into his own hands, he
hastened up, but was but coldly received by the king, (who had now got
his turn done by him) Lauderdale being now his rival: He lost his office
and honour, and lived sober enough, till as an honourable kind of
banishment, he was sent off as governor to Tanguirs on the coasts of
Africa; but he lived but a short and contemptuous life there, till the
justice and judgment of God overtook him; for, falling down a stair, he
broke the bone of his right arm; at the next tumble the broken splinter
pierced his side; after which he soon became stupid, and died in great
torment. This was the end of one of those who had brought the church of
Scotland on her knees by prelacy.--_Wodrow._
ROBERT MILNE, bailie (or according to some provost) sometime of
Linlithgow, swore the covenants with uplifted hands; but soon after the
restoration, to shew his loyalty, did in a most contemptuous manner burn
the said covenants, the causes of wrath, lex rex, western remonstrance,
with several other acts of church and state at the Cross, and to grace
the solemnity, French and Spanish wine was distributed most liberally,
wherein the King's and Queen's healths were drunken. But this vile
Pageantry, similar to Balthazzers quaffing in the holy vessels, did not
pass long without a note of observation, for though Milne had scraped
together much riches, yet, in a short time, he became an insolvent
bankrupt, and was forced to flee to the Abbey; after which he became
distracted, and died in great misery at Holyrood-house.--_Wodrow._
---- MAXWELL of Blackston rose with Caldwall, Kersland and some others
of the Renfrew gentlemen, who intended to join Col. Wallace, and that
handful who rose 1666; but being by Dalziel prevented from joining them,
was obliged to disperse; and, though Blackston was a _socius criminis_,
(had it been a crime,) yet to save his estate and neck, he went first to
the arch-bishop, then to the council, and accused and informed against
the rest: and, though he thus purchased his liberty, he had nothing
afterwards to boast of; for these gentlemen mostly got honourably off
the stage; whereas after that he never had a day to do well, (as himself
was obliged to confess) every thing in providence went cross to him,
till reduced, and then he took a resolution to go to Carolina: but in
this he was disappointed also; for he died at sea in no comfortable
manner; and was turned into the fluid ocean as a victim for fishes to
feed upon.--_Wodrow._
DAVID M'BRYAR, an heritor in Irongray parish, was chosen a commissioner
of the burgh for Middleton's parliament, in which he intended to have
charged his minister Mr. Welch with treason. After which he became a
cruel persecutor; nor was he less remarkable in that country for a
wicked and villainous practice, than for his furious rage against the
godly; but in a short time he became insolvent, and for fear of caption
was obliged to skulk privately among his tenants. In the mean time, one
Gordon, a north country man of the same stamp, coming forth to agent a
curate's cause in that country, and travelling through Irongray parish
found Mr. M'Bryar, in the fields very dejected and melancholy like, and
concluding him to be one of the sufferers, commanded him to go with him
to Dumfries. But M'Bryar, fearing nothing but his debt, refused:
whereupon Gordon drew his sword, and told him he must go. He still
refused, till in the struggle Gordon run him through the body, and so he
expired. Gordon made it no secret, that he had killed a whig (as he
called him) but when they saw the body, they soon knew who it was, and
immediately Gordon was taken to Dumfries himself, and hanged for killing
one as honest as himself. Here remark a notable judgment of God: M'Bryar
was killed under the notion of one of those he persecuted, and then one
persecutor was the instrument to cut off another.--_Wodrow_, _Fulfilling
of the Scriptures_.
SIR WM. BANNANTINE, another of this wicked persecuting gang, having got
a party under command, took up garrison in the castle or house of
Earlston after Pentland, where he committed such cruelties upon the poor
people in these bounds who would not comply with prelacy as are shocking
to nature to relate: In the parishes of Dalry, Carsphern and Balmagie,
he fined and plundered numbers. He tortured a poor woman, because he
alledged, she was accessory to her husband's escape, with fire matches
betwixt her fingers, till she almost went distracted and shortly after
died. He also tortured James Mitchel of Sandywell the same way, though
nothing but 16 years of age, because he would not tell things he knew
nothing of. Sometimes he would cause make great fires, and lay down men
to roast before them, if they would not or could not give him money, or
information concerning those who were at Pentland. But his cruel reign
was not long-lived; for the managers not being come to that altitude of
cruelty as afterward, an enquiry was made into his conduct, and he laid
under two hundred pounds of fine; and, because Lauderdale would not
remit this, it is said, he attempted to assassinate him. However, he was
obliged to leave the king's dominions, and go over to the wars in the
low countries, where, at the siege of Graves, as he was walking somewhat
carelesly, being advised to take care of himself, he said, canons kill
none but fey folk. At that very nick of time, a canon ball came, and
severed his heart from his body to a considerable distance according to
a wicked imprecation often used by him in his ordinary discourse, that
if such a thing were not so, he wished his heart might be driven out of
his body.--_Wodrow._
MR. JAMES HAMILTON, brother to lord Belhaven, but of the clerical order.
Before the 1638 assembly, he had received episcopal ordination; but upon
the turn of affairs then, he became a zealous covenanter; and being
settled minister at Cambusnethen, such was his zeal, that he not only
bound his people to these covenants, but excommunicated all from the
tables, who were not true to them, using Nehemiah's form, shaking the
lap of his gown, saying, _So let God shake out every man_, &c. But how
he himself kept them, the sequel will declare. For his cunning, time
serving temper made him too volatile for a presbyterian; for no sooner
did prelacy again get the ascendant after the restoration, then he got
himself into the leet of bishops, and must needs up to London to be
consecrated. The bishoprick of Galloway came to his share; and then he
began to shew his teeth against the covenanters, and procured letters
from the council against several of the field preachers: and having got
Sir Thomas Turner south for that purpose, he oftimes hunted him out
beyond his intention unto many outrageous oppressions, though Turner was
one like himself every way qualified for such exercises. Thus he
continued for about 12 years, till at last he was called before the
supreme tribunal to answer for his perfidy, apostacy, treachery and
cruelty by a death suitable and similar unto such a life. The
circumstances of which for want of certain information I am not able to
relate at present[277].
MR. ANDREW HONYMAN, son to a baker who dedicated more than one cake to
the muses; for all his four sons were scholars. Mr. Andrew, the eldest,
was first minister at Ferry-parton, then transported to St. Andrew's,
and being zealously affected to presbyterian church-government, and one
of good parts, he was employed by the presbytery to draw up a testimony
for the same about 1661. Nay, such was his zeal, that he said, if ever
he spoke or acted otherwise, he was content to be reckoned a man of a
prostitute conscience; and that, if he accepted a bishoprick, he wished
he might worry on it. But on an interview with Sharp at Balmany Whins,
he first got the arch-deanry of St. Andrew's, and then the bishoprick of
Orkney; and having alway run greedily after the error of Balaam, from a
zealous covenanter he became a fiery bigot for prelacy, and was the
first after the restoration that wrote in defence of that constitution
(against Naphtali) for that, that hand upon the wrist received the
pistol shot intended for Sharp 1668. But this did not deter him from his
former wicked practices, till about the year 1677, he met with harsher
treatment (says the historian) from a more dreadful quarter, when he
died at his house in Orkney.--_Sharp's life, Wodw._
MR. THOMAS BELL, born in Westruther in Berwickshire, was, by Mr. John
Vetch's generosity, put to school, and being minister there, he procured
also a bursary for him; but after his laureation, falling into
drunkenness, he went over to the English side, where shifting sides, he
obtained a parsonage and became curate of Longhorsly; and was a violent
persecutor of the presbyterians, especially these who had fled from
Scotland, and particularly Mr. William Vetch (brother to his former
benefactor) then at Stanton-hall; and being one time drinking with some
papists who were stimulating him one against Mr. Vetch and his meeting,
he vowed he should either ruin him or he him: in which he was as good as
his word; for having brought him to many hardships he at last got him
apprehended and sent off to Edinburgh, 1679. He did not long continue
this trade; for, meeting with a gentleman, he boasted, that this night
Mr. Vetch would be at Edinburgh, and to-morrow hanged. But in three days
he himself, being abroad and drinking at a certain place till ten
o'clock at night, must needs set home. The curate of the place urged him
to stay the night being stormy and the water big, but he would not: so
setting off and losing his way, and coming to the river Pont, where, as
was supposed, he alighted to find the way by reason of the snow; and
stepping over the brink of the river to the arm-pit, where the old ice
bare him up, and the new ice by reason of some days thaw, froze him in;
so that, after two days, he was found standing in this posture with the
upper part of his body dry. Some went to help him out, but few could be
got to give his corpse a convoy: So that they were obliged to lay him
across a horse's back with a rope about his neck and through below the
beasts belly fastened to his heels; and so he was carried off by a death
suitable enough to such a wicked malevolent life.--_Vetch's life at
large_.
MR. JAMES SHARP was son to William Sharp and grand son to the piper of
---- so much famed for his skill in playing a spring called Coffee.
However, the wind of the bag procured James a handsome education, after
which he obtained a regent's post in the university of St. Andrew's. To
relate every thing in the black and dismal story of his life would fill
a volume. I shall only point at the principal lineaments thereof. While
regent, he furiously beat one of his colleagues honest Mr. Sinclair on
the Lord's day at the college table. He took up his lodging in a public
inn, and there got the hostler one Isabel Lindsay with child. When she
came to be delivered, he prevailed with her, upon promise of marriage,
to consent to murder the infant, which he himself effected with his
handkerchief, and then buried it below the hearth stone. When the woman,
after he was bishop, stood up once and again before the people, and
confronted him with this, he ordered her tongue to be pulled out with
pincers, and when not obeyed, caused her to be put in the branks and
afterwards banished with her husband over the water. For this and the
striking of Mr. Sinclair he pretended a great deal of repentance and
exercise of conscience, and being one eloquent of tongue, he soon
deceived the ministry, and was by them advanced to be minister at Crail
and then to make sure, he took the covenants a second time. In Cromwel's
time, he took the tender, and became a thorough paced Cromwelian. When
the time of his advancement approached at the restoration, being one of
a zealous profession, his brethren sent him (as one whom they could
confide in) over to Charles II. at Breda, that they might have the
Presbyterian form of church-government continued. In the mean time, he
in their name supplicated him to have episcopacy restored, because he
saw it would please the malignant faction. After the king's arrival, he
was again employed in the same errand, and, while at London undermining
that noble constitution, he made his brethren believe all the while by
letters, how much he had done for their cause, till he got it wholly
overturned; and then, like another Judas, he returned, and for his
reward obtained the arch bishoprick of St. Andrew's, and according to
some 50,000 merks a year, and counsellor and primate of Scotland. No
sooner was the wicked Haman advanced, than he began to persecute and
harrass all who would not comply with his measures. He perjured himself
in Mr Mitchel's case, had an active hand in all the bloodshed on
scaffolds and fields from 1660 till his death, and kept up the king's
orders of indemnity till the last ten of the Pentland men were executed.
Nor was he any better in his domestick character, for sometimes he
would, when at table, whisper in his wife's ears, the devil take her,
when things were not ordered to his contentment. In a word, the
ambition of Diotrephes, the covetousness of Demas, the treachery of
Judas, the apostacy of Julian, and the cruelty of Nero, did all
concenter in him. But to come to his death, having hunted out one
Carmichael to harrass the shire of Fife, a few Fife gentlemen went out
in quest of the said Carmichael, upon the 3d of May 1679--But missing
him, they providentially met the bishop his master, which they took as a
kind of providential call to dispatch him there. And having stopt his
coach, commanded him to come out and prepare for death. But this he
refused. This made them pour in a number of shot upon him, after which,
being about to depart, one behind heard his daughter who was in coach,
say, There is life yet. This made them all return. The commander (Burly)
finding him yet safe, and understanding shooting was not to do his turn,
commanded him to come out, and told him the reason of their conduct,
namely, his opposition to the kingdom of Christ, murdering of his
people, particularly Mr. James Mitchel, and James Learmond. The bishop
still lingered, and cried for mercy, and offered them money. He said,
_Thy money perish with thee_. He again commanded him to come out and
prepare for death and eternity. At last he came out; but by no means
could they prevail with him to pray. Upon which they all drew their
swords, and then his courage failed him. The commander struck him, which
was redoubled by the rest, until he was killed. And so he received the
just demerit of his sorceries, villanies, murders, perfidy, perjury and
apostacy. _Then Phinehas rose and executed justice_.--_Vid. his life,
Wodrow_.
JOHN, Earl (afterwards Duke) of Rothes, was son to that famous reformer
the Earl of Rothes. He at first set out that way. But, after the
Restoration, being one of a profane wicked life, he exactly answered the
taste of king and court. So he was made president of the council, and on
Middleton's fall, commissioner, with many other places of power and
trust heaped upon him, all which titles, &c. died with him. After
Pentland, with others, he made a tour through the west, and caused
twelve more of the Pentland men to be executed at Irvine and Air.--He
perjured himself in Mr. Mitchel's case, and was the contriver of that
barbarous unheard-of cruelty exercised on worthy Hackston of Rathillet.
Nay, such was his zeal in serving his master Charles (or rather
Diabolus) that he professed his willingness to set up popery in Scotland
at the king's command, for which, with his other flagitious wickedness,
such as uncleanness, adulteries, ordinary cursing, swearing,
drunkenness, &c. he was one of those excommunicated by Mr. Cargil at
Torwood, Sep. 1680. Thus he continued to wallow in all manner of
filthiness, till July next year, that death did arrest him, Mr. Cargil
being then in custody, he threatened him with a violent death; to whom
Mr. Cargil answered, that die what death he would, he should not see it:
which came to pass; for that morning (Mr. Cargil was to be executed in
the afternoon) Rothes was seized with sickness and a dreadful horror of
conscience; some of his wife's ministers were sent for, who dealt
somewhat freely with him: to whom he said, "We all thought little of
that man's sentence, (meaning Mr. Cargil) but I find that sentence
binding on me now, and will bind me to eternity." And so roaring
out, till he made the bed shake under him, he died in that
condition,--_Wodrow, Walker's life of Mr. Cargil_, &c.
HUGH PINANEVE, factor to the lady Loudon while the earl was a refugee in
Holland, was a most wicked wretch both in principle and practice, and an
inveterate enemy to the sufferers, in so much, that being at a market at
Mauchlin some time after Mr. Cameron's death, when drinking in a room
with one Robert Brown, before they took horse, he brake out in railery
against Mr. Cameron and the sufferers: Mr. Peden, overhearing him in the
next room, came to the chamber door and said, Sir, hold your peace, ere
twelve o'clock, you shall know what for a man Mr. Cameron was: God shall
punish that blasphemous mouth and tongue of yours in a most remarkable
manner for a warning to all such railing Rabshakehs. Brown, knowing Mr.
Peden, hastened the factor home and went to his own house, and Hugh to
the earl's house. But when casting off his boots, he was suddenly seized
with great pains through his whole body. Brown, using to let blood, was
immediately sent for.--But when he came, he found him lying, and his
mouth gaping wide, and his tongue hanging out: he let a little blood,
but to no effect; he died before midnight in this fearful
condition.--_Peden's life_, &c.
JOHN NISBET, factor to the arch-bishop of Glasgow, was a drunkard, a
hater of all religion and piety, and such a professed malignant wretch,
that when Mr. Cargil was brought in prisoner to Glasgow, July 1681,
looking over a stair to him in way of ridicule, cried three times over,
Will you give us one word more, (alluding to a word Mr. Cargil
sometimes used in his pathetic way of preaching). To whom Mr. Cargil
with much regret and concern, said,--"Mock not, lest your bands be made
strong. Poor man, the day is coming ere you die, that you shall desire
to have one word and shall not have it." Shortly, he was suddenly struck
by God, and his tongue three days successively swelled in his mouth, so
that he could not speak one word. Two Glasgow men made him a visit, and
desired him to commit to writing the reason of this, and if he desired
to speak; to whom he wrote, "That it was the just judgment of God, and
the saying of the minister verified on him for his mocking of him; and
if he had the whole world, he would give it for the use of his tongue
again." But that he never got, but died in great torment and seeming
horror.--_Wodrow, Walker_, &c.
J---- ELLIES, was one employed by the bloody managers about Bothwel
affair, and being a lawyer, he behoved to shew his parts in pleading
against the servants of Jesus Christ, namely, in the trial of Messrs.
Kid and King: and though he got their lives pleaded away, and his
conscience kept quiet for a little, yet shortly death did arrest him;
and then his conscience awakened; and under the horror of that, he died
in a very pitiful and shocking manner.--_History of the sufferings_, &c.
JOHN, Earl (afterwards Duke) of Lauderdale, at first set up for a prime
covenanter, and swore them more than once; and, if I mistake not, was
the same called lord Maitland ruling elder from Scotland to the
Westminster assembly, and had a principal hand in the whole management
during the second reformation period; but, falling in with Charles II.
he soon debauched him. After the restoration, he became a furious
malignant, and being one whose nature and qualifications did exactly
correspond with the king's, he complied in every thing that pleased him,
for which he heaped upon him titles, places of power, profit and
preferment, all which died with himself. He was made secretary of state,
president of the council, and commissioner to the parliament 1669, where
he got that hell-hatched act of supremacy passed, which has plagued this
church and nation ever since; at the instigation of Dr. Burnet, he set
the indulgence on foot 1670; got the act against conventicles made,
which occasioned so many hardships and bloodsheds in this land; nay,
such was his fury, that when they would not comply, he uncovered his arm
to the elbow in council, and swore by Jehovah he would make the best of
them submit. In a word, he was the prime instrument of all the cruelties
exercised for a number of years, while he obtained the king's ear. Nor
was this all; for he became notorious for a wicked profligate life and
conversation; a thing common with apostates:--a Sabbath-breaker, gaming
on the Lord's day, a profane swearer and blasphemer, a jester on
scripture and things religious, one time saying to prelate Sharp, _Sit
thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool_. He
perjured himself in Mr. Mitchel's case, promising in council he should
be indemnified to life and limb, and then swearing before the judiciary,
that there was no such promise or act made. For these, with his other
sins of adultery, counselling the king, and assisting him in all his
tyrannies in overturning the work of reformation, and murdering those
who adhered to these covenants that he himself had engaged in, he was
also one of those excommunicated at Torwood, 1680. Towards the end of
his life, he became such a remarkable Epicurean, that it is incredible
the flesh, or juice of flesh, it is said, he devoured in one day, eating
and drinking being now his only exercise and delight. His scheme of
management had rendered him odious to the English patriots. Now his
effeminate life made him unfit for business: so, about 1681, he was
obliged to resign his offices; after which, by old age and vast bulk of
body, his spirits became quite sunk, till his heart was not the bigness
of a walnut: and so at last upon the chamber box, (like another Arius)
he evacuated soul, vital life, and excrements all at once; and so went
to his own place.--_Burnet and Wodrow's histories, and Walker's
remarks_.
J---- WYLIE, though of no great note, yet for a wicked life and practice
was a tool fit enough for the dreary drudgery of persecution: in which
he got a party of soldiers to assist him as often as he would. In this
devilish employment, amongst other instances, he got a party of
Blackaras' troop, 1683, and came upon John Archer, while his children
were sick, and himself ill of the gravel; yet he must needs have the
mother of the children too, though she could not leave them in that
condition. While he insisted, one of the dragoons said, The devil ding
your back in twa: have ye a coach and six for her and the children?
Wylie, with cursing, answered, She shall go, if she should be trailed in
a sledge; which was his common bye-word when hauling poor people to
prison. However, he got Archer and five small children to Kirkaldy
tolbooth. But what then? In a little after, having taken a gentleman
prisoner, he went with him to a public house near Clunie in the parish
of Kinglassie to see some public matters accommodated; but not agreeing,
Wylie made a great splutter, and amongst other imprecations said, The
devil take me, if I carry him not to Couper tolbooth this night. The
gentleman's man, a young hardy fellow, told him roundly, his master
should not go there. Upon which, Wylie gave him a blow: the fellow ran
to a smith's shop, and getting a goad of iron, made at Wylie. A scuffle
ensued, in which he broke Wylie's back in two; which obliged them to get
two sledges and tie him across on them, and so carry him home; and in a
short time he died in great agony. _The Lord shall break the arm of the
wicked_--_Wodrow_.
MR. FRANCIS GORDON, a volunteer in the Earl of Airly's troop, but
chiefly so from a principle of wickedness. He had committed several
outrages upon the suffering people of God, and intended more (as
appeared from several of their names in his pocket to be taken at his
death) had not God cut his days short; for he and another wicked
companion left their troop at Lanerk, and came with two servants and
four horses to Kilkcagow, searching for sufferers. Gordon rambling
through the town, offering to abuse some women, at night coming to
East-seat, Gordon's comrade went to bed, but he would sleep none,
roaring all night for women. In the morning, he left the rest, and with
his sword in his hand came to Moss-plate. Some men who had been in the
fields all night, fled; upon which he pursued. In the mean time, seeing
three men, who had been at a meeting in the night, flee, he pursued and
overtook them: one of them asked, why he pursued them? He said, to send
them to hell. Another said, That shall not be; we will defend ourselves.
Gordon said, Either you or I shall go to it just now: and so, with great
fury, run his sword at one of them, which missed his body, but went
through his coat. The said person fired at him, but missed him;
whereupon he roared out, God damn his soul; another fired a pocket
pistol, which took his head; and so he fell down dead. Thus his
assiduity brought him to his end, near four miles from the troop, and
one from his companion.--_Walker_.
THOMAS KENNOWAY, an officer of the guards and another booted apostle for
the propagation of Episcopacy, was with Dalziel at Pentland and at the
apprehending of Mr. M'Kail at Braid's craigs, and the apprehending of
Mr. King after Bothwel. He attacked a meeting at Bathgate, shot one
dead, and took fourteen prisoners, who were afterwards banished 1681. He
came with a party to Livingston parish, where he rifled houses, broke
open chests, abused women with child, took an old man and his son, and
offered to hang them on the two ends of a tow. He spent the Lord's day
in drinking, saying, he would make the prisoners pay it. He was a
profane adulterer, a drinker, a fearful blasphemer, curser and swearer.
He would sometimes say, Hell would be a good winter but a bad
summer-quarters. One asked him, if he was never afraid of hell? He swore
he was never afraid of that, but he was sometimes afraid the rebels (so
he called the sufferers) should shoot him dead at a dykeside. In the
midst of this career, he comes out of Edinburgh, Nov. 1683, with a roll
of 150 persons, probably of his own up-giving to be apprehended. He
alights at Livingston, where he meets one Stuart. When drinking, he
shewed him his commission, and told him, he hoped in a few days to be as
good a laird as many in that country: but regretted he was now so old,
and would not get it long enjoyed. They came to Swine's-abbey, where
they continued some days drinking, laying their projects. But on the
20th of November being somewhat alarmed, they run to the door of the
house, thinking none would be so bold as attack them, but were instantly
both shot dead on the spot.[278] And thus their wicked lives were ended,
and their malevolent designs left unaccomplished.--_Wodrow_.
JAMES IRVIN of Bonshaw, at first a trader in Irish horses, then a
high-way man, but one who loved the wages of unrighteousness:--for
having got notice of Mr. Cargil, Mr. Smith, &c. he went to the
council, and got a commission and a party, and surprized them at
Coventorn mill. This made him cry out, "O blessed Bonshaw! and blessed
day that ever I was born! that has found such a prize!" meaning the 5000
merks set on Mr. Cargil's head. At Lanerk, when tying Mr. Cargil's feet
hard below the horse's belly, Mr. Cargil said, "Why do you tie me so
hard? Your wickedness is great: you will not long escape the just
judgment of God; and if I be not mistaken, it will seize you near this
place." Nor was this all; having apprehended George Jackson 1683, in the
Lord's night, he offered to set him on a horse's bare back, and tie his
head and feet together, and offered him the king's health, which he
refused. On the morrow, when setting him on the horse, he caused hold a
trumpet to his ear and bade sound him to hell: at which the martyr
smiled. In the same year having apprehended twelve prisoners, he carried
them to Hamilton, then to Lanerk, where they were augmented to thirty.
They were cast at night into a dungeon without fire or candle: next
morning, he tied them two by two on a horse's bare back, and their legs
twisted below the horses bellies to the effusion of their blood, and so
drove them to Edinburgh at the gallop, not suffering so much as one of
the poor prisoners to alight to ease nature. But being now arrived at
the very summit of his wicked cruelty, he returned to Lanerk, and at the
very place where he had bound Mr. Cargil, one of his drunken companions
and he falling at odds, while he was easing himself on a dunghill, his
comrade coming out with a sword, ran him through the body till the blood
and dirt, with Eglon's, came out. His last words were, "God damn my soul
eternally, for I am gone." _Mischief shall hunt the violent man, till he
be ruined._--_Wodrow, Walker's remarks_.
CHARLES II. succeeded his father Charles I. He was from his infancy such
a dissembler, that he could metamorphose himself unto any profession
that was most for his carnal ends and political interest. In his exile,
he confined himself to popery. When he came to treat with the Scots for
a crown, he became a Protestant and a Presbyterian too. So that he took
the covenants twice in one year at Spey and Scoon, and emitted a
declaration at Dunfermline of his own sins and his father's wickedness.
Upon his being again expelled these dominions, he turned papist again,
and came under obligations to promote that interest, if ever he should
be restored again. No sooner was he restored, than he restored
episcopacy in England, and by the help of a set of poor time-serving
wretches got the work of reformation overturned in Scotland, and then
episcopacy, prelacy, and arbitrary power began to shake its bloody dart.
The persecuting work began; Presbyterian ministers were driven from
their charges, and killed or banished. He got himself advanced head of
the church, and then commanded these covenants he had more than once
sworn, to be burnt by the hand of the hangman, and then the laws against
covenanters were written in blood and executed by dragoons. It were
almost endless to relate all the cruelties exercised upon the poor
wanderers during his reign, before, at, and after Pentland, by the
Highland host.--At and after Bothwel, boots, thumbkins and cutting off
of ears came in fashion. Some put to death on scaffolds; some in the
fields, and some made a sacrifice to the manes of Sharp; some drowned on
ship-board, some women hanged and drowned in the sea mark, some kept
waking for nine nights together; some had their breasts ript up, and
their hearts plucked out, and cast into the fire, others not suffered to
speak to the people in their own vindication for the beating of drums,
&c. Nor were things in England much better: two thousand ministers
were thrust out by the Bartholomew act, and laid under a train of cruel
hardships, even such as were a shame to any Protestant nation. Many of
the English patriots were murdered; Essex, Russel and Sidney came to the
razor and the block. And for his practice, he was now drunken in all
manner of uncleanness and filthiness. For all the numbers of strumpets
and harlots he had, his own sister the duchess of Orleans could not be
exempted. But drawing near his end, the popish faction of York his
brother grew stronger, on suspicion that he intended to curb them. To
cut the matter short, he was seized with an apoplectic fit, or rather
had got a dose of poison: he formerly professed to caress the church of
England, now in views of death father Huddleston was brought to
administer the popish sacraments of the host and extreme unction,
absolution and the eucharist. The host sticking in his throat, water was
brought instead of wine to wash it down. Afterward bishop Ken came and
pronounced another absolution upon him; and here observe, that he who
was justly excommunicated by a lawful minister of the church of Scotland
for his gross perjury, contempt of God and religion, lechery, treachery,
covenant breaking, bloodshed, &c. was now absolved, first by a popish
priest, and then a prelate of the church of England, and all without any
the least signs of repentance, else he would never in his last words
have recommended the care of two of his harlots (one of whom being in
bed beyond him, his queen being elsewhere) to the care of his brother.
And so, having drunk his death in a popish potion, he died unlamented.
For his character, in all respects in nature, feature and manners, he
resembled the tyrant Tiberius; and for all the numerous brood of
bastards begot on other men's wives, he died a childless poltroon,
having no legitimate heir to succeed him of his own body, according to
the divine malediction, _Write this man childless: for no man of his
seed shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling any more
in Judah._
THOMAS DALZIEL of Binns, a man natively fierce and rude, but more so
from his being brought up in the Muscovy service, where he had seen
little else than tyranny and slavery: Nay, it is said, that he had there
so learned the arts of divilish sophistry, that he sometimes beguiled
the devil, or rather his master suffered himself to be outwitted by
him[279]. However he behoved to return and have a share of the
persecuting work; and after murdering a number of the Lord's witnesses
at Pentland, he came west to Kilmarnock, where he committed many unheard
of cruelties; instance, his putting a woman in the thieves hole there,
in the Dean amongst toads and other venomous creatures, where her
shrieks were heard at a distance, but none durst help her, and all
because a man pursued ran through her house: and also his shooting one
Findlay at a post without the least crime or shadow of law; with the
many cruelties exercised upon the country after Bothwel; for these and
his uncleanness and contempt of marriage from his youth, drunkenness,
atheistical and irreligious conversation, he was another of these
excommunicated at Torwood. After which he waited sometime on the council
at Edinburgh to assist them in the persecuting work there, till the year
1685, that one William Hannah was brought before the council, and, when
pleading, he was too old to banish, Dalziel told him roughly, he was not
too old to hang: he would hang well enough. This was among the last of
his public maneuvres: For that same day August 22d, when at his beloved
exercise, drinking wine, while the cup was at his head, he fell down
(being in perfect health) and expired.--_Wodrow, Hind let loose,
Naphtali_, &c.
GEORGE CHARTERS, sometime a kind of factor to the duke of Queensberry,
in imitation of his master was such an assiduous persecutor, "That he
could boast that he had made 26 journeys in a year in pursuit of the
whigs." And, if the same with Bailiff Charters who was on the scaffold
with John Nisbet of Hardhill, and though the martyr spoke most meekly
there, yet this Charters was rude to him. But that night he had a child
overlaid in the bed, and in two days fell into great horror of
conscience, crying out, Oh, for the life of John Nisbet. His friends
thought to have kept it secret, and diverted him; but he became worse
and worse, still crying out, Oh, for the life of John Nisbet, until he
fell into a most terrible distraction. So that he sat night and day
wringing about his nose and roaring ever, John Nisbet, to the terror of
all around him[280].--_Appendix to the Cloud of Witnesses, and Lady
Earlstoun's Letter from Blackness in manuscript_.
MR. ---- EVANS, a man of no great note, but abundantly qualified to make
merchandize of the people of God; for being master or commander of a
ship wherein 190 of Christ's prisoners were put to be banished 1685, to
the West-Indies, during their voyage of three months space, he made them
endure the most excruciating hardships. They were crammed in so close
night and day, that they could have no air, and so tormented with hunger
and thirst, that they were obliged to drink their own urine: Whereby 32
of them died. After their arrival in Jamaica, they were imprisoned and
sold for slaves. But Evans fell sick, and his body rotted away
piece-meal while alive, so that none could come near him for stink. This
wrought horror of conscience in him; whereupon he called for some of the
prisoners, and begged forgiveness, and desired them to pray for him,
which they did; so he died. Howard's case who got the price was still
less hopeful; for he fell down betwixt two ships, and perished in the
Thames. Nor were the ship's crew who assisted them much better; for 40
of them took a pestilent fever, and turned mad and leapt over board and
perished.--_Wodrow_.
SIR ROBERT LAURIE of Maxwelton, was another enemy to the poor people of
God. When Cornet Baillie had met with W. Smith in Glencairn parish,
1684, his Father being one of Sir Robert's tenants, went to beg favour
for his son. But Sir Robert presently sentenced him to present death.
Bailie refused to execute it, because illegal. But the cruel monster
threatened him to do it without delay; and being shot, Maxwelton refused
him burial in the church-yard: The same day being the day of his
daughter's marriage, his steward declared, that a cup of wine that day
being put into his master's hand, turned into congealed blood. However,
in a short time, he fell from his horse, and was killed dead--_Wodrow_,
_Appendix to the Cloud_, &c.
---- WHITEFORD, son to Whiteford, pretended bishop of Brichen, (who was
excommunicated by the Assembly 1638) went first to England; thence to
Holland, where he killed Dorislaus, and being turned papist, to be out
of Cromwel's reach, he went over to the duke of Savoy's service, and was
there when the terrible massacre was committed upon the poor Vandois
(probably about 1655) where he committed many barbarous murders upon
them with his own hands. He returned home, and it appears, he was made a
captain of the guard, and had a share in the persecuting work. However,
he had a small pension given him for such service. But he sickened
before York's parliament sat down, 1686, and being haunted with an
intolerable horror of conscience of the execrable murders he had
committed, called for some ministers, and told them his abhorrence of
popery: "For (said he) I went to priests of all sorts; they all
justified me in what I had done, and gave me absolution. But now I am
persuaded by an awakened conscience." And so he died as one in despair,
roaring out against that bloody religion that had undone him.--_Burnet's
history_, &c.
PHILIP STANDFIELD, son to Sir James Standfield of New-milns, was a
mocker of God and all things religious. While student at the university
of St. Andrew's, he came to a meeting where Mr. John Welch was preaching
in Kinkell Closs: in the time of the sermon, out of malice and mockery,
he cast somewhat that hit the minister, who stopped and said, He knew
not who it was, that had put that public affront upon a servant of
Christ; but be who it would, he was persuaded that there would be more
present at the death of him who did it, than were hearing him that day;
and the multitude was not small. However, this profligate went home and
continued his wicked courses, till the year 1688, that he murdered his
own father; for which he was taken to Edinburgh, and executed. In time
of his imprisonment, he told some, he was confident that God was now
about to accomplish what he had been before by his servant forewarned
of.--_Wodrow_.
JOHN ALLISON, sometime chamberlain to the duke of Queensberry, to please
his master, became a most violent persecutor of God's people. It were
needless to condescend upon particular instances: the way and manner of
his death plainly shews what his conduct had been, and from what
principle he had acted: for being seized with a terrible distemper
wherein he had the foretaste of hell both in body and soul; in body he
was so inflamed, that it is said, he was put in a large pipe of water,
and the water to shift successively as it warmed. But the horrors of his
awakened conscience they could by no means cool, but still he cried out
in despair, that he had damned his soul for the duke his master, till he
died.--_M. S. and Appendix to the Cloud_, &c.
GEORGE LORD JEFFERIES, an Englishman, was born in Wales about 1648. He
first studied the law, then he became serjeant of the city of London; he
next stepped to the recordership of the city; from thence he became
chief justice of the city of Chester; and in 1683, was made lord chief
justice of the king's bench. In this, as in all his other offices, he
behaved most indecently; for besides his being scandalously vitious, he
was almost every day drunk, besides a drunkenness of fury in his temper
by which he brought the lord Russel, and the famous Alg. Sidney unto
their ends. He also handled Mr. Baxter and others severely. But the most
tragical story of his life fell out 1685. After Monmouth was defeated
and himself and many of his little army taken, Jefferies was sent by his
master king James to the West as ordinary executioner to try the
prisoners; and here his behaviour was beyond any thing ever heard of, I
believe, in a Christian nation. He was perpetually after drink or in
rage, liker a fury than a judge: where no proof could be had, he
commanded the pannels to plead guilty, if they desired mercy; and then,
if they confest any thing, they were immediately hung up. In a few towns
in the west of England, he pronounced sentence of death on some 500 or
600 persons, 292 of them received this sentence in an hours space; and
of these 600 250 were executed; others had the benefit of his avarice;
for pardons were by him sold from 10 pound to 14000 guineas. He
sentenced the lady Lesly for harbouring a stranger one night. Miss Gaunt
was burnt. A poor man was hanged for selling three-pence worth of hay
to Monmouth's horse. Some were hanged at the stanchions of windows,
others had their bowels burnt and their bodies boiled in pitch, and hung
round the town. Bloody Kirk put in for part of the honour. At Taunton he
hanged nine without suffering them to take leave of their wives and
children. At some places they cast off so many with a health to the
King, and a number more with a health to the Queen, drinking it at every
turn, and perceiving the shaking of their legs in the agonies of death,
they said, they were dancing, and called for music, and to every one
cast over a spring was played on pipes, hautboys, drums and trumpets,
with a huzza and a glass of wine. Jefferies sentenced one Tutchin for
changing his name to seven years imprisonment, and whipping through all
the market towns in the shire, which was once a fortnight during that
time; which made Mr. Tutchin petition the king for death. Many other
cruelties were then committed, but the foregoing swatch may suffice.
Jefferies returned to London, where his master James, for his good
services, made him lord chancellor. Being now above the reach or envy of
the people, he set himself to assist his master in bringing in popery;
but their mad hasty zeal spoiled the project, and so his master having
to flee his dominions, Jefferies, disguised in a seaman's dress in a
collier, essayed to escape after and in imitation of his master, but was
taken and severely drubbed by the populace, and then brought to the lord
mayor. Jefferies to be freed of the people, desired to be sent to the
Tower; because they were waiting with clubs upon him. The mayor seeing
this, and the chancellor in such a gloomy appearance, was so struck that
he fell into fits and soon died. Jefferies, being sent to the Tower,
continued with few either to pity or supply him. At last a barrel of
oysters being sent him, he thanked God he had yet some friends left: but
when tumbled out with or without oysters, a strong cord halter fell out,
which made him change countenance on the prospect of his future distiny.
A distemper with the gravel seized him, contracted through his former
intemperate wicked bloody life, and the horrors of an awakened
conscience; and at last, whether nature wrought out itself, or, if he
himself helped the fatal stroke, (as is most likely) is uncertain;
1689.--_Vide his life, and the Western Martyrology or Bloody Assizes_,
&c.
JOHN GRAHAM of Claverhouse in Angus, a branch of the house of Montrose,
another champion for the prince of the kingdom of darkness. To improve
the cruelty of his nature, he was sometime in the French service. He
returned to Scotland 1677. The vivacity of his genius soon recommended
him to Charles and James, who bestowed upon him the command of a troop
of horse: and then he began the spoiling and killing the people of God;
wherein he was alway successful, except at Drumclog. One of his exploits
was at Bewly-bog, where the writer of his memoirs says, he killed 75 and
took many prisoners. After Bothwel, had Monmouth granted it, he would
have killed the prisoners, burnt Glasgow, Hamilton and Strathaven, and
plundered the western shires. To enumerate all the cruelties, bloodshed
and oppression committed by him, while he ranged up and down the country
for ten years space, were a talk here too tedious: in which time it is
said, he killed near 100 persons in cold blood. In Galloway, he and his
party ravished a woman before her husband's eyes, took a young boy, tied
his two thumbs with a cord, and hung him to the balk or roof of the
house. Another they took and twisted a small cord about his head with
their pistols to the scull. In 1682, he pursued and shot one W. Graham
when escaping from his mother's house. In 1683, he shot four men on the
water of Dee, and carried two to Dumfries, and hanged them there. In
1685, he caused shoot one in Carrick, and in the same year most cruelly
shot John Brown at his own door in Moor-kirk, and a little after shot A.
Hyslop in Annandale. These and such services procured him a higher title
of honour: he was created Viscount Dundee, and made privy counsellor. In
York's reign, his conduct was much of a piece, running up and down the
country, making people swear they would never lift arms against king
James. He was alway staunch to popery, and when the convention met at
Edinburgh, he went off with some horse to the north, and raised the
clanships for James's interest; where he shifted from place to place
till June 13, 1689, that he came to a pitched engagement with Gen.
Mackay on the braes of Gillicrankie on the water of Trumble. The battle
was very bloody, and by Mackey's third fire Claverhouse fell, of whom
historians give little account; but it has been said for certain, that
his own waiting man taking a resolution to rid this world of this
truculent bloody monster; and knowing he had proof of lead[281], shot
him with a silver button he had before taken off his own coat for that
purpose. However he fell, and with him popery and king James's interest
in Scotland. _Behold thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a
bloody man_--_Claverhouse's memoirs_, _History of the Sufferers_,
_Defoe's memoirs_, &c.
ALEX. GORDON of Kilstuers in Galloway set out amongst the suffering
remnant, joined the united societies who followed faithful Mr. Renwick,
and was for some time most zealous for that cause; for which he was
apprehended, but rescued at Enterkine-path, August 1684, when going to
Edinburgh; at which some of the sufferers were not a little (if not too
much) elated. But never being right principled, as Mr. Peden perceived,
when he refused to sail the sea with him from Ireland before this. He
first fell in with Langlands and Barclay in favour of Argyle's attempt,
1685, and from that time he became a most violent traducer and
reproacher of Mr. Renwick and the faithful party both by tongue and pen
to render them odious: then he fell into a kind of profligate life, (as
Mr. Renwick often said, that these who fell from strictness in principle
would not long retain strictness of practice) at last being at
Edinburgh, he got drunk, and then must needs fight, as is usual with
such miscreants; and, having in the squabble lost much blood, his head
became light, so that when going up stairs, he lost his feet and falling
down brained himself, and so expired.--_Faithful Contendings_, _Walkers
Remarks_.
SIR GEORGE M'KENZIE of Rosehaugh, was another notorious apostate; for
after he had made no small profession of presbyterian principles and
holiness of life, he after the restoration, not only apostatized from
that profession, but fell into a most wicked and flagitious life and
conversation; which were qualifications good enough then to gain him the
post of an advocate. Sometime after Pentland, he pleaded the sufferers
part; but afterwards shifted sides (being advanced to be king's
advocate) and pleaded most strenuously against them, and even with such
a degree of fury that neither prelate nor bloody manager could ever
charge him with the least thing that looked like moderation. It were
needless to relate what hand he had in the bloody work at that time,
seeing he pleaded away almost the lives of all that were executed from
1677 to 1688. Nay, such was his rage at the cause of Christ and his
people, that before they escaped his hands, he would charge them with
what in his conscience he knew was false: and, if they would not answer
questions to his mind, he would threaten to pull out their tongues with
pincers. At the same time pleaded that murderers, sorcerers, &c. might
go free. In one of his distracted fits, he took the Bible in his hand
and wickedly said, it would never be well with the land till that book
was destroyed. These and the like procured him a place in that black
list excommunicated at Torwood. After the persecuting work was over, he
went up to London, where he died with all the passages of his body
running blood (like Charles IX. of France author of the Paris massacre.)
Physicians being brought could give no natural cause for it, but that it
was the hand of God on him for the blood he had shed in his own
land.--_Vid._ _West's memoirs, and History of the sufferings of the
church of Scotland_.
SIR JAMES JOHNSTON of Westerraw (alias Westerhall) another of the same
kidney was an egregious apostate. He was such a zealous professor, that
when the test was first framed, he could boast that he was an actual
covenanter, and so scorned it. But, on the first trial, he not only took
it, but furiously pressed it on others; and, having gathered the parish
for that purpose, 1683, he in one of his rages said, "The devil damn his
soul; but before to-morrow's night they should all be damned by taking
it as well as he." And for persecuting work, he exacted 11,000l. in
Galloway by oppression, digged a man's body out of the grave, plundered
the poor widow woman's house where he died, because he was one of the
sufferers, and caused Claverhouse, somewhat contrary to his mind to
shoot An. Hyslop because taken on his ground. He lived till or after the
revolution, that he died in great torture of body and grievous torment
and horror of conscience, insomuch that his cries were heard at a great
distance from the house, as a warning to all apostates.--_Wodrow,
Appendix to the Cloud_ &c.
SIR JOHN WHITEFORD of Milton (Carluke parish) was a wicked man, and such
a persecutor, that he was said with his servants to have murdered
severals when flying from Pentland, and had a principal hand in
informing against Gavin Hamilton in Mauldslie, who was taken and
executed with others at Edinburgh Dec. 7, 1666, and was one of the test
circuits 1683. This and other pieces of the like employment made James
Nicol a martyr say, That the world would see that house a desolation,
and nettles growing in its closs:--which came to pass soon after the
Revolution, when he became insolvent, his estate sequestrated, and
orders obtained to apprehend him: which at last was effected although he
defended himself some time with stones from the battlement. The lands
changed many masters, and for some years lay desolate; and it has been
observed, that till of late, no man dwelt in it above the space of seven
years.--_M. S._
---- DOUGLAS, laird of Stenhouse, was another of this fraternity. He
assisted Maxwelton at the murder of William Smith in Hill; and, though
but a man of mean estate, for this and his excessive harrassing,
spoiling and fining the people of God, and because a professed papist,
he was advanced to the honour of being sometime secretary to king James
VII. (whether it was he that was advanced to be earl Milford, I know
not) but his wicked honours were short lived; his name soon became
extinct, having neither root nor branch, male nor female, for a
remembrance left of him. _Their fruit shalt thou destroy from earth, and
their seed from among the children of men_.
WILLIAM, Duke of Queensbury, was a prime instrument in managing the
persecuting work in that period: he once said, they should not have time
to prepare for heaven, hell was too good a place for them to dwell in.
He was, while an earl, for his zeal in suppressing the rebels (as they
called them) made a chancellor and treasurer in 1679.--Afterwards made a
Duke and appointed commissioner by James VII. to the parliament 1685,
where he got an act made for taking the test,--act of regularity,--act
for taking the allegiance,--and that heaven-daring act declaring it
treason to take the covenants,--with a great number banished during the
parliament. Such was his vigilance by his factors and emissaries, that
saints blood like water was shed; and his own tenants were cruelly
spoiled and harrassed; and though he fell somewhat out of king James's
favour in the last years of his reign, yet he still retained his
persecuting spirit, even after the Revolution; for he opposed Mr.
Vetch's settlement at Peebles, and for seven sessions pleaded it both
before the lords and the church, till he {illegible} removed, 1694--But
all this did not pass without a note of observation of divine vengeance
even in this life; for, taking a fearful disease, it is said, that, like
another Herod, the vermin issued in such abundance from his body, that
two women were constantly employed in sweeping them into the fire. Thus
he continued, till the fleshy parts of his substance were dissolved, and
then he expired.[282]--_M. S. History of the sufferings_, &c.
JOHN MAXWEL of Milton, (commonly called Milton Maxwel) another of the
persecuting tribe, caused apprehend George M'Cartny, and was president
of the Assize who condemned those ten of the Pentland sufferers that
suffered at Ayr and Irvine 1666; after which he harrassed the poor
persecuted people in Galloway, particularly on the water of Orr. After
Neilson of Corsack's execution, he came with a party upon his house and
riffled it; carrying away every thing portable, he destroyed the rest,
and turned out the whole family with the nurse and sucking child to the
open fields (lady Corsack being then at Edinburgh). But, with all this
ill gotten gain, then and afterwards he was but ill served; for, after
the Revolution, he was reduced to seek his betters, and amongst other
places came to the house of Corsack, and cringed for an alms from the
same lady Corsack before her window, which she generously gave him; but
at the same time reminded him of his former wicked life, particularly,
his persecuting the people of God. He went off, but with small
amendment; and some time after ended his wretched life.--_Samson's
riddle, A--d--k--n_, &c.
---- NISBET, (commonly called lieutenant Nisbet) a man of no high
extraction, but born of creditable parents in the parish of Loudon;
being inlisted a soldier, obtained for his good services in the
persecuting work some time after Bothwel, a lieutenant's post, which he
managed with such fury against the poor persecuted wanderers for the
cause of Christ, as made him break over all limits or bonds of religion,
reason or natural affection or relation; so that he apprehended James
Nisbet, a cousin-german of his own, while attending a friend's burial
who was executed at Glasgow; where the said James was also executed; and
while ranging up and down the country like a merciless tyger, he
apprehended another of his cousins, John Nisbet of Hardhill, and with
him George Woodburn, John Fergushill and Peter Gemmel (in the parish of
Fenwick); which three last he took out, and immediately without sentence
shot dead; and then carried Hardhill, after he had given him seven
wounds, to Edinburgh, where he was executed. He also apprehended
severals in the said parish that were banished; and upon their return at
the Revolution, he was amongst the first they saw at Irvine after they
landed. At first they were minded to have justice executed upon him; but
on a second thought referred him to the righteous judgment of God. After
the Revolution, he soon came to beg his bread (as old soldiers oftimes
do) and it was said, that coming to a certain poor woman's house in the
east country, he got quarters, and for a bed she made him (what we call)
a shake-down before a mow of peats (being all her small convenience
could afford). On which he lay down, she going out on some necessary
errand; a little after, when she returned, she found the wall of peats
fallen upon him, which had smothered him to death; a very mean end for
such a courageous soldier.--_Wodrow_, &c.
JAMES GIBSON, (called sometime bailie Gibson of Glasgow) brother to the
merchant, but one qualified to barter the bodies of Christ's suffering
members. He got the command of his brother's ship with those sufferers
that were banished to Carolina in the year 1684. The inhumanity he
exercised upon them in their voyage is incredible: they were thrust
below hatches, and a mutchkin of water allowed them in 24 hours: so that
some of them died of thirst, although they had 14 hogsheads to cast out
on their arrival.--These who were sick, were miserably treated; and two
endeavouring to escape, were by him beat 8 times a-day, and condemned
to perpetual slavery. Nor could they have liberty to serve God; when
they began to worship, they were threatened by him in an awful manner.
After their arrival, they were by him sold for slaves, and for the most
part died in that country. He returned to spend their price till 1699,
that he again set out captain of the Rising Sun, with that little fleet
for the settlement at Darien.--But being one of the most wicked wretches
that then lived, and some of the rest nothing better, the judgment of
God pursuing him and them, they fell from one mishap into another, until
put off by the Spaniards from thence, they went to Jamaica; from thence
every one made the best of their way to their own country. Captain
Gibson set off from Blue-fields July 21, 1700: but before he made
Florida their masts were off by the boards, which made them with much
difficulty come up to Carolina, and making Charleston bar, the very
place where he landed Christ's prisoners, just as one of the ministers
were gone out, and some more with him, a hurricane came down Sept. 3.
and staved the ship all in pieces, where Gibson and 112 persons every
soul perished in the surges of the rolling ocean. _The Lord is known by
the judgments which he executeth_.--_Wodrow, History of Darien_, &c.
JAMES, Duke of York, a professed papist and another excommunicated
tyrant, used no small cruelties while in Scotland 1679, 1681 and 1684;
but after his ascension to the crown 1685, he threw off the mask, and
set himself might and main to advance popery, and exterminate the
protestant in-religion in these nations, and for that purpose set all
his engines at work to repeal the penal statutes against papists; but
that not speeding to his wish, he had recourse to his dispensing power
and to an almost boundless toleration; of which all had the benefit,
except the poor suffering remnant in Scotland who were still harrassed,
spoiled, hunted like partridges on the mountains and shot in the field.
Nay, such was his rage, that he said it would never be well, till all
the west of Scotland and south of Forth were made a hunting field; and
to recite the cruelties by his orders exercised in the west of England
by shooting, heading, hanging, and banishing ever seas those concerned
in Monmouth's affair, beggars all description. However matters go on; he
sends Castlemain to the pope; the pope's nuntio arrives in England; the
king declares himself a member of the royal society of jesuits,
imprisons the seven bishops in the tower, and threatens to convert
England to popery or die a martyr.--But the prince of Orange arriving
in England and his army forsaking him, he sets off in a yacht for
France, but is taken for a popish priest by some fishermen and brought
back. His affairs becoming desperate, he sets off again for France; from
thence, with 1800 French, he landed next year in Ireland being joined by
the bloody Irish papists. He, like his predecessors, had no small art in
dissimulation. Now he told them in plain terms, he would trust or give
commissions to no protestants; they stank in his nostrils; he had too
long caressed the damned church of England; but he would now do his
business without them. Accordingly a popish parliament was called,
wherein 3000 protestants were forfeited, and to be hanged and quartered
when taken, whereof many were plundered and killed, his cut-throats
boasting they would starve the one half and hang the other. In short,
they expected nothing but another general massacre. But being defeated
on the banks of the Boyn by king William, July 1, 1691. he set off to
France never to return. Here he continued till 1700, or by some 1701,
that he took a strange disease, which they were pleased to call a
lethargy, wherein he became quite stupid and senseless, and so died at
St. Germains in that situation, after he had lived ten years a fugitive
exile. _He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in
the wilderness_, &c.--_History of popery under James_, _Martyrs in
flames_, &c.
SIR ARCHIBALD KENNEDY of Colzen, another violent persecutor in Carrick
and parts adjacent; for having got the command of a troop of militia, he
ranged the country in quest of the sufferers, (a very puny employment
for a gentleman) and amongst other cruelties killed one Wm. M'Kirgue at
Blairquachen mill 1685, and the same year surprized a meeting for prayer
near Kirkmichael, and shot Gilbert M'Adam for essaying to escape. And,
though he got over the persecuting work, he obtained no reformation of a
cruel and wicked life for some time after the Revolution.--The
remarkable occurrence at his burial is sufficient to indicate in what
circumstance he died; for, if we shall credit one present, as soon as
the gentlemen lifted his corpse, a terrible tempest of thunder arose, to
the terror of all present: when going to the church-yard it ceased a
little; but when near the place of interment it recurred in such a
fearful manner, that the flashes of fire seemed to run along the coffin,
which affrighted them all: nay, from the lightness of the bier, it is
said, that some were apt to conclude the body was thereby consumed, or
else taken away by the devil from among their hands, before they gained
the place of interment. A note of God's fiery indignation on such a
fiery persecutor. _Upon the wicked he shall rain fire and brimstone, and
an horrible tempest._--_Crookshanks, A--d R--n_.
DUNCAN GRANT, a cripple with a tree leg who vaunted of his wickedness,
was another of this hellish crew, (for so I may by this time call them).
His leg did not hinder him from running, or rather riding up and down
the country oppressing and killing God's people. In Clydesdale he
uplifted 1500l. of fines. And being one of lord Airly's petty officers,
he got a commission 1683, to hold courts in East Kilbride parish, upon
which he quartered his party and harrassed them in a cruel manner. He
spoiled the house and goods of John Wilson in High-Flet, to the value of
673l. seizing crops and land and all: and, though he got the gift of
some land there, he did not long possess it; for, after the Revolution,
he was reduced to extreme poverty, and went through the country now
begging, (instead of robbing) until the day of his death, which was a
very terrible one, if we may believe what I have often heard related by
several judicious old men of good credit and reputation. He at last came
to a kind of gentleman's house in the east country for quarters. The
gentleman, coming to the hall, and seeing him in a dejected melancholy
situation, asked the reason. At last, Grant told him, That, by a former
paction, the devil was to have, him soul and body that night. Whether
the gentleman believed the reality of this or rather took him to be
crazed, I cannot say: but it was said, he gave him such advices as
occurred to him, to break off his sins by repentance, and implore God's
mercy, who was able to pardon and prevent his ruin, &c.--What answers
he gave we know not; but he went to bed in the gentleman's barn. It
appears, he asked no company, else they were not convinced fully in the
matter. However, he was not like to open the door next morning, which
made them at last break it open; where they found his body dissected on
the floor, and his skin and quarters in such a position, as I shall
forbear to mention, lest they should shock the humane reader's
mind.--_History of the sufferings_ &c. _A--d R--n_.
ALEXANDER HUME, commonly called sheriff Hume, probably because employed
by the sheriff or sheriffs depute in Renfrew, as a kind of inferior
officer, and of that kind to persecute, pursue and oppress the
sufferers, in which he proved a most industrious labourer, wherein he
would run upon the least notice of any field preaching, and harrass
people, particularly, in the parish of Eglesham, where he mostly
resided: for instance, hearing that Mr. Cameron was preaching at a place
in that parish called Mungie hill, he and one R--t D--p, another of
these vassals, set off, and, while in the tent, they laid hold on it to
pull it down, because he was on Eglinton's ground. Mr. Cameron told
them, he was upon the ground of the great God of heaven, unto whom the
earth and its fulness did belong, and charged them in his Master's name
to forbear; and so they were detained by the people till all was over.
Sometimes he, with the foresaid D--p, would go to the outed people's
houses, and offer to throw them down or inform against them, whereby he
got sums of money or other considerations. But all this, besides a large
patrimony by his parents of some thousands of pounds, did not serve him
long; for he came to beggary, wherein he was so mean as to go to some of
these men's houses he had before offered or laid hands on to cast down,
some of whom served him liberally. We ought not to be rash in drawing
conclusions on the occurrences of divine providence; but people could
not help observing that, having a little pretty girl, who was one
moon-shine night playing with the children in the village and a mad dog
came and passed through them all, and bit her; whereof she grew mad, and
it is said was to bleed to death, whereby his name and offspring of a
numerous family of 17 or 18 children became extinct. At last she died in
misery and was buried. Upon his grave the school-boys cast their ashes,
(the school being then in the church) till it became a kind of dunghill,
and so remains to this day. This needed be no observation, were it not
that such a nauseous and infamous monument is suitable enough unto such
nauseous service and an infamous life.--_A--d R--n_.