one James Porter, a devoted servant of their party, for clerk; named
a committee of their most forward men to go immediately to Lanerk, to
purge and plant as they found cause; sent two of their gentlemen, Sir
George Maxwell and Walkingshaw, with the help of their good friend
Bogs, and Commissary Lockhart. Mr Somerville, and Mr Jack, and, when
they prevailed not, two of their ministers, Mr William Somerville,
and Mr William Jack, went to the Governor of Glasgow, Col. Couper,
for a troop of horse to guard them at Lanerk and Douglas. Some of
them, to their power, fomented a very injurious scandal on Mr Robert
Hume, whom we had made minister at Crawfordjohn contrary to their
mind; their committee laboured to their power to try that their
own invention, but failed therein. There is an old man, Mr John
Veitch, minister of Roberton, they sent two or three ministers of
their number to hear him preach. On their report, they pronounced a
sentence of deposition on him as insufficient. But their chief work
was at Douglas. The noblemen, gentlemen, whole heritors, people, and
session, unanimously had called Mr Archibald Inglis, a very good
and able youth, to his father’s place. They stirred up some of the
elders, who subscribed a call to the young man, to desire his trials
might be before the united presbytery, and not before our part of
it, from which the remonstrants had separated. This motion they so
fomented, that these few elders, with a very few of the people, were
moved by them, contrary to all the congregation, to give a call to
a silly young man, a mere stranger, from Fife, one Mr Francis Kidd,
who had never been heard nor seen in the bounds. This man they bring
to the kirk on the Sunday. When the people refused to let him or
them enter, he preached on a brae side to some strangers and a few
of the people of Douglas, and even these run away from hearing of
him, except a very few of them. Sermon ended, they sent one to read
an edict at the church door, who refused to give a copy of what he
read. Without more ado, on Monday morning, they passed all his trials
in one hour, and came to the church of Douglas in the afternoon to
give him imposition of hands. The body of the people and heritors
hindered their coming into the church and churchyard; whereupon they
sent once and again for their English guard. By all their importunity
they could get none of the troop to countenance them, except twelve,
with the lieutenant. By the power of their sword, as was avowed on
all hands, on a brae side, without preaching, they admitted him
minister of Douglas: An abominable example, generally much abhorred,
which shews what we may expect from that party. Our Synod appointed
some to join with the true presbytery of Lanerk, which met the week
thereafter; tried, with all accuracy possible, what could be found
in the scandal of Mr Hume; found nothing but malice of some parties,
fomented by ministers; with the unanimous consent of the people of
Roberton, strengthened the minister, and appointed a helper to be
settled there in an orderly way; admitted to the church of Douglas Mr
Archibald Inglis, after all trials duly performed, with the blessings
and tears of the congregation. Possibly they will procure an order
from the English, that the stipend and church shall go to Mr Kidd and
his twelve or sixteen followers, and Mr Inglis shall be tolerated,
with much ado, to preach to the whole congregation, Marquis of
Douglas, Earl of Angus, whole heritors and people, in the fields, or
a barn, without a sixpence of stipend.
In this glass see our condition. It is so in sundry congregations
already, and like to be so in many more; not so much through the
violence of the English, as the unreasonable headiness of the
remonstrants, which for the time is remediless; and we, for fear
of worse from their very evil humour, give way to permit them to
plant divers churches as they like best. This formed schism is very
bitter to us, but remediless, except on intolerable conditions,
which no wise orthodox divine will advise us to accept: We must
embrace without contradiction, and let grow, the principles of the
remonstrants, which all Reformed divines, and all states in the
whole world abhor; we must permit a few heady men to waste our church
with our consent or connivance; we must let them frame our people to
the Sectarian model; a few more forward ones joined among themselves
by privy meetings to be the godly party, and the congregation, the
rest, to be the rascally malignant multitude: so that the body of
our people are to be cast out of all churches; and the few who are
countenanced, are fitted, as sundry of them already have done, to
embrace the errors of the time for their destruction. Against these
abominations we strive so much, and so wisely, as we can. Mr R.
Douglas, Mr Dickson, and others, have yet got Edinburgh right. The
faction which Mr Robert Traill and Mr John Stirling have there is
inconsiderable. Mr R. Blair and Mr J. Wood keep St Andrew’s and Fife
pretty right. Mr Rutherford, to the uttermost of his power, advances
the other party. Mr John Robertson and Mr William Rate get Angus
and Dundee right: but the naturally heady men of Aberdeen are come
to the full design too soon; yet the body of the people and country
are right. In this Mr J. Guthrie in Stirling comes but small speed:
albeit his confident, Sir William Bruce of Stenhouse, be made the
English sheriff in Linlithgowshire, they have used great violence,
imprisoned their chief opposite Mr John Waugh, forced a silly man
into the ministry of Linlithgow, and another on Bathgate, contrary
to all the synod of Lothian could do; yet the body of the people
there is flat against them. Their greatest prevalency is with us
in Glasgow, which comes much more by Mr James Durham’s professed
neutrality, but real joining with most of the other’s designs, and Mr
John Carstair’s zeal, than any thing that Mr Patrick Gillespie had
done, or could do, by himself. This is the pitiful condition of our
church, which is but going on from evil to worse till the Lord remeid
it.
As for our state, this is its case. Our nobility are well near all
wrecked. Dukes Hamilton, the one executed, the other slain; their
estate forfeited; one part of it gifted to English soldiers; the
rest will not pay the debt; little left to the heretrix; almost the
whole name undone with debt. Huntly executed; his sons all dead but
the youngest; there is more debt on the House than the land can pay.
Lennox is living as a man buried in his house of Cobham. Douglas and
his son Angus are quiet men, of no respect. Argyle, almost drowned
in debt, in friendship with the English, but in hatred with the
country. He courts the remonstrants, who were and are averse from
him. Chancellor Loudon lives like an outlaw about Athol; his lands
comprised for debt, under a general very great disgrace. Marischal,
Rothes, Eglinton and his three sons, Crawford, Lauderdale, and
others, prisoners in England; and their lands all either sequestrated
or forefaulted, and gifted to English soldiers. Balmerino suddenly
dead, and his son, for publick debt, comprisings, and captions, keeps
not the causey. Wariston, having refunded much of what he got for
places, lives privily in a hard enough condition, much hated by the
most, and neglected by all, except the remonstrants, to whom he is
guide. Our criminal judicatories are all in the hands of the English;
our civil courts also; only some of the remonstrants are adjoined
with them. In the session are Craighall, and his brother Hopeton, Mr
A. Pearson, Southall, Col. Lockhart, and Swinton. The only clerks to
the session are Mr John Spreul and William Downie. The commissariot
and sheriff courts are all in the hands of English soldiers, with the
adjunction in some places of some few remonstrants. Strong garrisons
in Leith, Edinburgh town and castle, Glasgow, Air, and Dumbarton,
Stirling, Linlithgow, Perth, Dundee, Burntisland, Dunnotter,
Aberdeen, Inverness, Inverary, Dunstaffnage, &c.
Of a long time no man in the whole isle did mute. All were lulled
up in a lethargic fear and despair; only the other year, Glencairn
and Balcarras, understanding of an order to apprehend them as
corresponding with the King, retired to the hills of Athol. Kenmure
having escaped from England, when his house was burnt and his rents
seized upon, got to the Lennox with a few horse. Lorn being but
coarsely used by his father, joined with Kenmure. To these sundry did
associate, Glengary, Athol, Seaforth, not so much to do any thing
against the English, as to make some noise of a party, to encourage
the King’s friends abroad to send him supplies of men, arms, and
money. At once a great animosity did rise in every shire of the land.
Very many young gentlemen made bold with all the serviceable horses
they could find about them, and notwithstanding of all the diligence
the English could use to prevent, great numbers came safe to the
hills. The war with Holland, and rumour of great help from over seas,
did increase daily both the number and courage of this party.
But behold inward division doth hazard all at the very beginning. The
irreconcileable discord betwixt Argyle and Hamilton had undone the
isle, and almost both the families. Glencairn, Hamilton’s cousin,
did much mistrust and slight Lorn. Ralston, and the remonstrant
gentlemen of Kintyre, seemed ready to arm for the English, against
the King’s party. Lorn and Kenmure, with the men they had raised,
went to Kintyre to suppress these. They, on hope of the English
assistance from Ayr, fortified the castle of Lochead. But when
neither Argyle nor the English appear in their defence, they render
the house to Lorn’s discretion. Kenmure thinking the besieged better
used by Lorn than they deserved, fell in a miscontent, and went from
Lorn to Glencairn with many complaints. Balcarras also unwilling
to have Glencairn above him, and conceiving it was best for the
advancing of the King’s affairs, that till the King himself, or one
of the authority from him, should come, the party should be ruled
by a committee without any supreme officer, and that all admitted
to councils and command in the army should declare for the Solemn
League and Covenant. For these ends he dealt with Lorn, Seaforth,
and Athol, till Glencairn produced a commission under the King’s
hand to be general, till himself or some from him should come to
take the command. This unexpected commission put all to a submissive
silence, but increased heartburnings. Lorn professing all firmness to
the King and cause, was not willing to take orders from Glencairn,
till he knew more particularly the King’s pleasure. For this end,
he Balcarras, and others, wrote to the King their discontent with
Glencairn’s command. These letters were intercepted, and brought to
Glencairn; whereupon he gave order to Glengary to apprehend Lorn
to answer for his sedition. Lorn hardly enough escaped Glengary’s
pursuit. Balcarras retired; and, a little after, with his lady, went
disguised through England to the King. Notwithstanding of all these
pitiful and shameful debates, Glencairn’s party still increased, and
his conduct became considerable. The whole highlands, isles, and much
of the north, and numbers from the lowlands, were come unto him; so
it was thought, at Middleton’s coming, he had here and there 8000
or 9000 foot, and 2000 or 3000 horse, of very stout and resolute
men as ever we had on the fields, the most of them old soldiers. But
at Middleton’s coming, when neither the King, nor his brother, nor
any foreign forces did appear, the hearts of many began to doubt;
and when, after his coming, some months, notwithstanding of all the
reiterated promises, no foreign assistance at all did come; but on
the contrary, the Holland peace was proclaimed; the treaty of the
Protector with Sweden went on; the French ambassador at London was
solemnly received, as the Spanish and Portugal had been; all human
hope began much to fail, especially after Monk’s coming down as
general, the proclamation of the Protector, the act of union, and the
ordinance of grace, which forfeited and deeply fined so many, and
subjected the whole privileges of the nation to the Protector and his
council’s pleasure, with the abolition of royalty, the whole branches
of the family-royal, and all Scots parliaments and conventions of
estates; the taking of Kinnoul, Lieutenant-Colonels Heriot, Wishart,
Forsyth, and sundry more of our Scotsmen, unhappily: all these were
so hard presages, that the most gave all the King’s affairs for gone,
and many thought that the King, whether through their weakness, or
the treachery of the few counsellors about him, or the cross aspect
of all Europe towards him, had so far disappointed the expectation of
his friends, that while he lived he was not like to get such a party
for his service in Scotland.
So for the time the case of our land is most sad. Monk, by sea and
land, is to beset Glencairn and his party, and with much severity
to crush them, and for their sakes to lie more heavily on the whole
subjected country, beginning with the best of the ministers; who,
after mutual advice, find themselves in conscience necessitated to
keep the King still in their publick prayers. They have been very
careful to give the English no other offence at all; for in all this
northland rising, to my best knowledge, there is no minister in
Scotland who has had the least hand or any meddling. However, for
this our great treason of naming the King in our publick prayers,
(as we conceive our duty, covenant, and directory of worship do
require, as you will see in the papers herewith sent you), we are
like to suffer heavy things. For all this our eyes are towards the
Lord. We expect protection from him; and if so he think meet, we are
willing to seal our testimony, in faith and humble modesty, with all
the sufferings which the injustice of men may be permitted of our
heavenly Father to impose upon us.
Being called the other week to confer with the brethren of Edinburgh,
I was comforted to find all that met, fully in my sense about prayer
for the King, and affairs of our divided synod, divided presbytery,
troubled college, and all else we spoke of. But it was a sad sight
to see the general affliction at the proclamation of the Protector,
of the act of union, the act of forfaultry and deep sinning of so
many, the preparations of Monk by sea and land presently to swallow
up the northern party, destitute of all hope of the oft-promised
foreign supplies, as common fame surmised. As our miseries, (without
a kingdom wholly, without any judicatories to count of of our own,
without a church well near), are great; so we expect they shall
increase, and the next heavy dint shall fall on the chief of the
ministry. At once it will not be safe to have any audible complaints
of these things either to God or man.
_Postscript, July 20, 1654._
While I waited long for a bearer, I add further, our triumviri,
Mess. Livingston, Gillespie, and Menzies, staid long at London
without much access to the Protector. He thought it good to write
for Mess. Douglas, Blair, and Guthrie. Mr Blair excused his health.
Mr Guthrie, by a fair letter, declared his peremptoriness not to go.
Mr Douglas, by Monk’s friendly letter, got himself also excused. On
their not coming, Mr Livingston got leave to return, and is at home.
Mr G. and Mr M. are expected. The business of the plot gave not
the Protector much leisure for auditing of them. Only we fear that
our church shall be cast under such a committee as now guides all
ecclesiastical affairs in England, absolutely as the Protector thinks
fit, the most whereof are Anabaptists, Independents, and gentlemen
of no ecclesiastical relation. We thank God that persecution on the
ministry is not yet begun, except what the remonstrants draw from
the English on some few. Mr John Waugh and Mr Robert Knox were long
prisoners for naming the King in their prayers; yet now they are at
their liberty, and at their charges, to our great joy.
As to our anti-synod, after the pranks in Lanerk they met synodically
very frequent at Glasgow, fell on a committee for purging all the
presbyteries. I alone went up to them, intreated them with many fair
words to delay any such work, and for that end gave them in a large
paper, which a very gracious and wise brother, somewhat a mid-man
betwixt us, had drawn for that end, which I send to you, that from
it you may more fully learn our present temper. All this labour
procured little; for notwithstanding they proceeded in their work,
and appointed their purging and planting committees; but with this
proviso, that they should have, at their next meeting, a conference
with any I pleased of my mind before they proceeded. Against their
day I had our part of the synod met, and full information of the
brethren of Edinburgh and others for our proceeding. We presently
set up a purging and planting committee as well as they, and of
these we appointed a number to confer with them. With much ado we
got them to stay till the first of August, upon a new conference:
against that day Mr James Ferguson drew up a paper of his overtures
for our reunion, and I drew up another. You have both here. What the
issue shall be you may hear afterward; only these things lie heavier
on my heart than any man’s else I know, for usually at the times of
these comfortless janglings, I am sick and distempered with grief and
discontent, though every one of them gives me more respect than to
any other; yet for the remediless breach I am heavily oft troubled in
my own mind, which I use to pour out before God, and get them courage
and strength to go on, and bear the burden.
General Monk went to the fields in the beginning of June, thinking
and professing that the discussing of the northern Tories would cost
him but a few weeks labour; and we indeed expected no other; for the
English in men, horse, money, and all things they could desire, had
the clear advantage: yet we cannot hear of any great progress he has
made. So soon as Glencairn had rendered his commission to Middleton;
on a jar between Monro and Glengary, Glencairn speaking for Glengary,
got a challenge from Monro; which he answered, and beat Monro, to his
great commendation. This affront, not so much resented by Middleton
as need had been, together with the King’s too much neglect, as some
say, in his late commissions, of Glencairn’s very great services,
upon the information, as it is thought, of Lorn and Balcarras, he
left Middleton, and came with a small party to the Lennox. The noise
of this malecontentment exceedingly discouraged many; but at once
Glencairn carried it so, that all this discouragement was quickly
changed; for with the small party he had, he defended the pass of
Aberfoyle so well against Monk’s frequent assaults, and sent out,
for good purpose, so many small parties to Clydesdale, Renfrew,
Cunningham, Kyle, Carrick, and Galloway, as retarded a while Monk’s
march to the north; and when he went north, notwithstanding of
all the garrisons, and beside them one full regiment of foot and
another of horse, left at Glasgow and Kilsyth, the party sent out
from Glencairn, ran up and down the whole country, and did what
they liked, without great impediment. Monk found his march to the
north very troublesome. The people carried all out of his way;
stragglers were snapped up; the hills made sundry both horse and
men sicken and die. It was oft printed, that Morgan had Middleton
so enclosed in Sutherland, that he could not escape to the south;
yet when Middleton thought it time, he divided his men in parties,
and passed by, with ease, both Morgan and Monk, coming to Perthshire
and Argyle, notwithstanding all they could do to impede him. Colonel
Brian’s regiment from Ireland, landing in Lochaber, was lighted on
by the country-people, and near 100 of them slain: for this Monk did
cause burn all the lands of Lochaber, Glengary, and Seaforth, as he
came through. Glenorchy had been too great an intelligencer to the
English, and sided with Argyle against Lorn his son: so Middleton
caused burn much of his land. This burning, now begun on both hands,
may ruin the whole country. It is thought the English have their full
of the highland hunting, and that the flux is fallen among them,
which make them speak already of quartering. It seems Middleton minds
no fighting in any body, but shifts till he see what time may bring
forth. The country every where suffers much; yet is patient, for they
see no remedy; also the victual all this year, is at 4 lb. the boll,
a greater appearance of the continuance of this greater plenty, than
has been seen in our days....
That you may know the way of planting our churches, have this late
practice. Mr John Galbraith of Bothkennar was deposed for tippling
and other faults, some three or four years ago. When Mr James Guthrie
continued to preach in Stirling, after his deposition by the general
assembly, Mr Galbraith followed his example, and returned to his
pulpit. His people loved him better than Stirling did the other.
Of the presbytery of Stirling, Mr James Simpson, of Airth, likewise
deposed and Mr Jo. Hogg, of Larber, adhered to Mr Guthrie, and these
three made one presbytery. Mr R. Wright and other two or three
adhering to the assembly, made themselves another presbytery. Mr
George Bennet and other two were neutrals, and abstained from both.
Mr Guthrie began a process of excommunication against Mr Galbraith;
but he boasted so fast to excommunicate Mr James if he proceeded
against him, that this was left off. Mr James professes to have no
meddling with the English at all, and to be much averse from all
compliance with them, yea to mislike Mr P. Gillespie’s way; yet Sir
William Bruce of Stonehouse, his special and intimate friend to this
day, has taken the sheriffship of Stirling from the English, and
continues ruling elder in Mr James’s presbytery. By his means an
order is procured from the English, that Mr John Galbraith shall give
over preaching. This he is forced to obey. The whole parish gives
an unanimous call to Mr William Galbraith, a good young man; but an
order comes from the English to hinder his plantation; and the whole
parish’s supplication oft presented to the English, could not get it
helped; for the judges are fully for the remonstrants, though General
Monk seems to dislike them. Thereafter one Mr John Blair, never heard
nor seen by the parish, is named by Mr Guthrie’s presbytery to be
minister of that kirk; for that people having adhered to a deposed
minister must be counted malignant, and so lose their right to call,
and the right of calling must fall in the hands of the presbytery; so
an order is procured by the presbytery’s ruling elder, Sir William
Bruce, from the English, to admit that Blair. Mr Ja. Guthrie causes
convene a great number of this faction from divers parishes about,
and gets Mr Robert Traill from Edinburgh, and Mr John Carstairs from
Glasgow, and others to spend a day in preaching and prayer at his
admission. The whole people of the parish meet, and keep the other
out of the kirk; the tumult begins; dry strokes are distributed; some
fell upon the sheriff’s neck. The gentlemen-parishioners, so soon as
the sheriff produced his English orders for the admission, ceded; but
the people continued all day casting stones and crying: yet they went
on with their work, and thrust in the man. For all this, Mr Guthrie
has no dealing with the English, and does no wrong. Our oppression is
great and crying.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 1597.
[2] Dec. 19, 1597.—1606, c. 2. 1612, c. 1.
[3] “History of his Own Times,” p. 11 of imperial edition, 1837.
[4] Acts, 1637.
[5] Acts, 1633, c. 3.
[6] 1634.
[7] November 1635.
[8] Burnet, pp. 11-14. Burnet’s account of these several proceedings,
confirmed as it is by authentic records, seems entitled to the fullest
credit; for it is taken from documents in his hands, which enabled
him to give a genuine and unvarnished statement of the most minute
particulars.
[9] See Neale’s “History of the Puritans,” a work of great research and
value.
[10] Clarendon, Baillie, Spottiswood, Burnet, Row, Guthrie, Calderwood,
Kirkton, Melville; and, more recently, Hume, Laing, Cook, M‘Crie,
Aiton, &c.
[11] First Book of Discipline, c. iv. § 14; c.v. § 5.
[12] 1616.
[13] Hist. of Ch. of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 360.
[14] Balfour’s Annals, vol. ii., p. 226, _et sequen_.
[15] Baillie, vol. i., p. 15.
[16] Burnet’s Mem. 33; Baillie, i. 30-4; Hardwick’s State Papers, ii.
101.
[17] 3d Dec. 1557. 31st May 1559. 27th April 1560. _Vide_ Knox.
[18] See Booke of the Universall Kirke, annis 1580-1590.
[19] Hist. of Ch. of Scot., vol. ii., p. 415.
[20] Both Mr Laing and Dr Cook say it was the 1st of March, (on the
authority, perhaps, of Guthrie and Stevenson,) but Rothes’ Relation,
and the minutes of the subsequent Assembly, shew that it was in
February. It is much to be regretted that Burnet, Baillie, and other
chroniclers, and even later historians, are not sufficiently attentive
to dates; and this carelessness in chronology often occasions great
perplexity, and leads to much confusion of events in their narratives.
[21] Vide these in Notes upon the Assembly 1638.
[22] 1606, 1608, 1610, 1616, 1617, 1618.
[23] The King’s Commission and Letter, here inserted, are not in the
print of Acts which is followed in this edition, but are copied from
the “Large Declaration” by the King, p. 234, _et sequen._—A.P.
[24] Censura propositionum quarundam ex Hibernia per sacram Facultatem
Theologiæ Parisiensis facta.