TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
This book is a collection of twenty separate ‘Chap-books’. Each Chap-book has its own page numbering from 1 to 24.
There is only one Footnote, which has been placed at the end of its Chap-book.
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Many minor changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]
John Cheap
The Chapman’s Library:
THE
SCOTTISH CHAP LITERATURE
OF LAST CENTURY CLASSIFIED
RELIGIOUS AND SCRIPTURAL.
GLASGOW:
ROBERT LINDSAY, QUEEN STREET.
1877.
CONTENTS.
[The Life of John Knox.]
[The Life of John Welch.]
[The Life and Prophecies of Alexander Peden.]
[The Life and Prophecies of Donald Cargill.]
[The Battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge.]
[The Laird of Lag’s Elegy.]
[A Wedding King for the Finger.]
[The Pilgrim’s Progress.]
[Watt’s Divine Songs.]
[The Plant of Renown.]
[Honey from the Rock of Christ.]
[Sins and Sorrows before God.]
[A Token for Mourners.]
[Prayers for Families and Private Persons.]
[The New Pictorial Bible.]
[Lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.]
[The History of Moses.]
[History of Joseph and his Brethren.]
[The Life and Death of Judas Iscariot.]
[The Wife of Beith. (Verse.)]
THE LIFE
AND
MERITORIOUS TRANSACTIONS,
OF
JOHN KNOX,
THE GREAT SCOTTISH
REFORMER.
GLASGOW:
PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
THE
LIFE OF
JOHN KNOX.
At the Reformation one half of the lands of Scotland were the property of the church. David I. had made over almost the whole of those belonging to the crown, and his example was imitated, not only by many of his successors, but by all orders of men, with whom the founding a monastery, or endowing a church, was thought to be a sufficient atonement for the breach of every command in the decalogue.
Besides the influence derived from the nature and extent of their property, generally let on lease, on easy terms, to the younger sons and dependants of great families, the weight the clergy had in Parliament was very considerable. The number of temporal barons being extremely limited, and the lesser barons and representatives of boroughs looking upon it as a hardship to attend, combined with the mode of choosing the Lords of the Articles. Its proceedings in a great measure were left under their direction and control.
The Lords of the Articles were a Committee whose business it was to prepare and digest all matters that were to be laid before Parliament. Every motion for a new law was made in this committee, and approved or rejected by the members of it; what they approved was formed into a bill, and presented to Parliament; what they rejected could not be introduced into the house. This committee owed the extraordinary powers vested in it to the military genius of the ancient nobles, and in this way not only directed all the proceedings of Parliament, but possessed a negative before debate. It consisted of eight temporal and eight spiritual lords, of eight representatives of boroughs, and of eight great officers of the crown, and when its composition is considered, it will easily be seen how much influence it would add to the already too great power of the clergy.
Their character also was held sacred; neither were they subject to the same laws, nor tried by the same judges as the laity, a remarkable instance of which occurred on the trial of the murderers of Cardinal Beaton, one of whom was a priest. He was claimed by a delegate from the clerical courts, and exempted from the judgement of Parliament on that account.
By their reputation for learning, they almost wholly engrossed the high offices of emolument and trust in the civil government; but even this was not for acting in their capacity of confessors, they made use of all these motives which operate so powerfully on the human mind, to promote the interest of the church, so that few were allowed to leave the world without bestowing on her some marks of their liberality, and where credulity failed to produce this effect, they called in the aid of law. (When a person died intestate, by the 22d Statute of William the Lion, the disposal of his effects was vested in the bishop of the diocese, after paying his funeral charges and debts, and distributing among his kindred the sums to which they were respectively entitled, it being presumed that no Christian could have chosen to leave the world without destining some of his substance to pious purposes.) Their courts had likewise the cognisance of all testamentary deeds and matrimonial contracts, and to these engines of power, and often in their hands of oppression, they super-added the sentence of excommunication, which besides depriving the unhappy victim on whom it fell of all Christian privileges, cut him off from every right as a man or citizen. To these, and other causes of a similar nature, may be ascribed the power of the Popish church; and to these, also, combined with the celibacy to which by the rule of their church they were restricted, may be attributed the dissolute and licentious lives of the clergy, which in the end destroyed that reputation for sanctity, the people had been accustomed to attach to their character.
According to the accounts of the reformers, confirmed by several popish writers, the manners of the Scottish clergy were indecent in the extreme. Cardinal Beaton celebrated the marriage of his eldest daughter with the son of the Earl of Crawford, with an almost regal magnificence, and maintained a criminal correspondence with her mother to the end of his days. The other prelates were not more exemplary than their primate, and the contrast between their lives, and those of the reformers, failed not to make a considerable impression on the minds of the people. Instead of disguising their vices the Popish clergy affected to despise censure; instead of endeavouring to colour over the absurdity of the established doctrines, or found them on Scripture, they left them to the authority of the church and decrees of the councils; the only apology they have ever been able, even to the present day, to offer for the monstrous absurdity of their system. The duty of preaching was left to the lowest and most illiterate of the monks.
The following anecdote will give a lively idea of their mode of preaching:—The prior of the Black Friars at Newcastle, in a sermon at St Andrews, asserted that the Paternoster should be said to God only, and not the saints. This doctrine not meeting the approbation of the learned of that city, they appointed a Gray Friar to refute it, who choose for his text, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which he illustrated in this manner. Seeing we say, good day, father, to any old man in the street, we may call a saint pater, who is older than any alive; and seeing they are in heaven, we may say to any of them, “Our father who art in heaven;” seeing they are holy, we may say, “hallowed be thy name;” and, since they are in the kingdom of heaven, may add, “thy kingdom come;” and as their will is God’s will, “thy will be done;” but when he come to “give us this day our daily bread;” he was much at a loss confessing it was not in the power of the saints to give us our daily bread; “yet they may pray to God for us,” he said, “that he may give us our daily bread.” The rest of his commentary being not more satisfactory, set his audience a laughing and the children on the streets calling after him, Friar Paternoster, he was so much ashamed that he left the city.
The only device by which they attempted to bring back the people to their allegiance was equally unfortunate and imprudent; they had recourse to false miracles, which the vigilance of the reformers detected and exposed to ridicule. The bare-faced impositions that were practised by the monks on the credulous, are almost inconceivable.—Among other customs of those times, it was common for them to travel to Rome and come home laden with relics, blessed by his holiness, dispensations for sin, by which they wheedled the credulous out of their money. One of these, on a holiday, endeavouring to vend his wares to the country people, among other things shewed them a bell with a rent in it, possessing the virtue of discovering the truth or fallacy of an oath; for, as he pretended, if any one swore truly, with his hand on the bell, he could easily remove it, without any change; but if the oath was false, his hand would stick to it, and the bell rent asunder. A farmer, rather more shrewd than the rest of his auditors, suspecting the truth of this assertion, asked liberty to take an oath in the presence of those assembled, about an affair which nearly concerned him. The monk could not refuse; and the farmer addressing the crowd, said, “Friends, before I swear, you see the rent, how large it is, and that I have nothing on my fingers to make them stick to the bell.” Then laying his hand on it, he took this oath.—“I swear, in the presence of the living God, and before these good people, that the pope of Rome is Antichrist, and that all the rabble of his clergy, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, monks, with all the rest of the crew, are locust, come from hell, to delude the people, and to withdraw them from God; moreover, I promise they will all return to hell;” and lifting his hand he added. “See, friends, I have lifted my hand freely from the bell, and the rent is no larger, this sheweth that I have sworn the truth.”
The cause of reformed religion, was powerfully supported by the ambition of the Queen-dowager. (Mary of Guise) After the death of James V. her husband, the Earl of Arran, was appointed Regent of the kingdom during the minority of her daughter; and from that situation she wished to exclude him, that she might enjoy the first honours of the state alone, and promote the designs of her brothers upon Scotland. For this purpose she applied to the favourers of the Reformation, as being the most numerous of the Regent’s enemies, and forming a respectable body in the state; and although her promises of protection were insincere, they, in a very considerable degree, abated the fury of persecution.
John Knox, who contributed so much, both by precept and example, to work out the Reformation from Popery; was the descendant of an ancient family, and born at Gifford, near Haddington, in 1505. On finishing his education at the grammar school, he was removed to St. Andrew’s, to complete his studies under the celebrated John Mair, by whose instructions he made such progress that he received orders before the time prescribed by the rules of the church. After this, he quitted scholastic learning, so much in reputation at that period, and applied himself with diligence to the reading of the fathers of the church, particularly St Angustine, from which, attending the preaching of one Thomas Enillam, a Black Friar, and the conversation of Mr George Wishart, a celebrated reformer, who came from England in 1545 with the commissioners sent by Henry VIII. to conclude a treaty with the Earl of Arran, after the death of James V. he attained a more than ordinary degree of scriptural knowledge, and entirely renounced the Roman Catholic religion.
On leaving St Andrew’s, Mr Knox acted as tutor to the sons of Douglas of Longniddry, and Cockburn of Ormiston, whom, besides the different branches of common education, he carefully instructed in the principles of the reformed religion, having composed a catechism for their use, besides reading lectures to them on various portions of the scriptures. In this practice he continued till Easter 1547, when werried out by the repeated persecutions of Cardinal Beaton, he left Longniddry for St. Andrew’s, resolved to visit Germany, the state of England proving unfavourable to his views. Against taking this step, however, he was persuaded by the gentlemen whose children he had the charge, to remain in St. Andrews, the castle of that place being in the hands of the reformers.
Here he continued to teach his pupils in the usual manner, but his lectures were now attended by a number of people belonging to the town, who earnestly intreated him to preach in public. This task he at first declined, but afterwards accepted a call from the pulpit, and in his very first sermon discovered such zeal, learning, and intrepidity, as evinced the prudence of their choice, and how eminently qualified he was for the discharge of those duties. This success caused such alarm among the Popish clergy, that a letter was sent to the sub-prior by the abbot of Paisley, natural brother of the Regent, who had been nominated to the archbishopric reproving him for his negligence, in allowing such doctrines to be taught without opposition. A meeting of the clergy was held in consequence, and every scheme they could devise put in practice to hurt Mr Knox’s usefulness; but, in a public disputation, he replied to all their arguments with so much acuteness as completely to silence them, and gained many proselytes, who made prefession of their faith by partaking of the communion openly, which he was the first to administer in the manner practised at present.
This success was not of long duration, for a body of French troops was sent to besiege the castle, and it was compelled to surrender on the 23d July, when he, along with the garrison, was sent prisoner to France, and confined in the gallies till the year 1549. On obtaining his liberty he retired to England, where he preached sometime at Berwick, afterwards at Newcastle and London, and was at last chosen one of the itinerants appointed by Edward VI. to preach the Protestant doctrine through England. Upon the death of that prince, on the 6th July, 1553, he went to Geneva, where he resided when he was chosen by the English church at Frankfort, on the 24th September, 1554, to be their pastor, a situation he accepted by the advice of the celebrated John Calvin, but which he did not long enjoy, for having opposed the introduction of the English liturgy, and refused to celebrate the communion according to the forms prescribed by it, he was deprived of his office; and, such was the malice of his enemies, that, taking advantage of a passage in his “Admonition to England,” wherein he compares the Emperor to Nero, and the Queen of England to Jezebel, they accused him to the magistrates of treason. These gentlemen perceiving the spirit by which his accusers were actuated, found means to apprise him of his danger; and on the 26th march, 1555, he left Frankfort for Geneva, from whence he proceeded to Dieppe, and shortly afterwards to Scotland, where he arrived in the month of August.
On his arrival he found the reformers much increased in number, and after assisting them to rectify some errors which had crept into their practice, accompanied John Erskine of Dun to his seat in the Mearns, where he continued a month, preaching to the principle people in that country. He afterwards resided at Calder-house, the residence of Sir James Sandilands, where he was attended by a number of personages of the first rank; and, among others, by the prior of St Andrew’s afterwards earl of Moray. During the winter he visited Edinburgh; preached in many places of Ayrshire; and in the beginning of 1556, at the request of the earl of Glencairn, administered the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to his lordship’s family, and a number of friends, at his seat of Finlayston.
In this way did Mr Knox continue preaching, sometimes in one place, and sometimes in another, when his success excited so much attention that the Popish clergy summoned him to appear before them, on the 15th of May, in the church of the Black Friars in Edinburgh. He did appear, but attended by such a number of followers that the clergy deemed it prudent to desist from their intended prosecution; and that same day he addressed a much greater audience than ever he had done on any prior occasion, and continued to do so for ten days.
The earl of Glencairn, one of his firmest friends, prevailed on the earl Marshal, and Mr Henry Drummond, to attend one of Mr Knox’s sermons, they were so highly gratified with it that they persuaded him to address a letter to the Queen, in the hope she also might be induced to hear the doctrine of the reformers. In this letter, contending for the truth of what he taught, he says, “Albeit, Madam, that the messengers of God are not sent this day with visible miracles, because they teach no other doctrine than that which is confirmed with miracles from the beginning of the world, yet will not he (who hath promised to take charge over his poor and little flock to the end) suffer the contempt of their ambassage to escape punishment and vengeance, for the truth itself hath said, ‘he that heareth you heareth one, and he that contemneth you contemneth one.’ I do not speak unto you, Madam, as Pasquillus doth to the Pope and his carnal cardinals, in the behalf of such as dare not utter their names, but I come in the name of Christ Jesus; affirming, that the religion ye maintain is damnable idolatry, which I offer myself to prove, by the most evident testimony of God’s Scriptures; and in this quarrel I present myself against all the Papists in the realm, desiring no other armour but God’s holy word, and the liberty of my tongue.” It was delivered to the Queen by the earl of Glencairn, and by her to the bishop of Glasgow, ( nephew of Cardinal Beaton) with this observation, “Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil,” which coming to the ears of Mr Knox, was the occasion of his making a number of additions when the letter was printed afterwards at Geneva.
At this time he received letters from the English church at Geneva, which had separated from the one at Frankfort, commanding him, “in God’s name, as he was their chosen pastor, to repair to them for their comfort.” Having preached in almost every congregation he had formerly visited, and sent his wife and mother-in-law before him to Dieppe, he sailed from Scotland in the month of July for Geneva. No sooner had he left the kingdom than the bishops summoned him to answer a charge of heresy; and, on his non-appearance, burnt him in effigy at the cross of Edinburgh. Against this sentence, in 1558, he published his “Appellation,” addressed to the “Nobility and Estates of Scotland.” In this composition, which has been much admired, after appealing “to a lawful and general council,” and requiring of them that defence which, as princes of the people, they were bound to give him, he adds, “these things I require of your honours to be granted unto me, viz. that the doctrine which our adversaries condemn for heresy may be tried by the plain and simple word of God; that the just defences be admitted to us that sustain the battle against this pestilent battle of Antichrist; and that they be removed from judgment in our cause, seeing that our accusation is not intended against any one particular person, but against that whole kingdom which we doubt not to prove to be a power usurped against God, against his commandments, and against the ordinance of Christ Jesus, established in his church by his chief apostles; yea, we doubt not to prove the kingdom of the Pope to be the kingdom and power of Antichrist, and therefore, my lords, I cannot cease, in the name of Christ Jesus, to require of you that the matter may come to examination, and that ye, the estates of the realm, by your authority, compel such as will be called bishops, not only to desist from their cruel murdering of such as do study to promote God’s glory, in detecting and disclosing the damnable impiety of that man of sin the Roman Antichrist; but, also, that ye compel them to answer to such crimes as shall be laid to their charge, for not righteously instructing the flock committed to their care.”
In March, 1557, sensible of his importance, a letter, subscribed Glencairn, Erskine, Lorn, and James Stuart, was transmitted to Mr Knox at Geneva, entreating him to return home. Having communicated its contents to his congregation, for which he provided another minister, and taking the advice of John Calvin, and other ministers, he set out for Scotland.
Addressing himself to the lords who had invited his return, Mr Knox expostulates with them on their rash conduct, as having a tendency to cause both them and him to be evil spoken of.—“For either,” said he, “it shall appear that I was marvellous vain, being so solicited, where no necessity required, or else that such as were my movers thereto lacked the ripeness of judgment in their first vocation.” Along with this letter he sent one to the whole nobility, and others to particular gentlemen, advising them in what manner they ought to proceed. On their receipt a new consultation was held, and a bond subscribed at Edinburgh on the 13th December, 1557, whereby they agreed to “forsake and renounce the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abominations and idolatry thereof.” From this period those subscribing, and their adherents, were known by the title of the Congregation. Previous to this agreement, however, a number of letters were sent off to Mr Knox, and to John Calvin, that he might use his influence in persuading him to return.
This year (1558,) the Queen Regent, through the concurrence of the Protestant party in Parliament, obtained an act to be passed, conferring the matrimonial crown on the Dauphin, the husband of her daughter, the unfortunate Mary. They had been induced to forward her views in this favourite scheme, that they might obtain from her an exemption from that tyranny with which the ancient laws armed the ecclesiastics against them, and enjoy the free exercise of their religion. No sooner, however, had she obtained the gratification of her wishes, than the accomplishment of a new scheme, the placing her daughter on the throne of England, and to which she had been prompted by the ambition of her brothers, the princes of the house of Lorraine, at that time in the plenitude of their power at the Court of France, rendered an union with the Catholics necessary. It was vain to expect the assistance of the Scots Protestants to dethrone Elizabeth, whom all Europe considered as the most powerful defender of the Reformed faith. She therefore began to treat them with coldness and contempt, and not only approved the decrees of a convocation of the Popish clergy, in which the principles of the Reformation were condemned, but at the same time issued a proclamation enjoining the observance of Easter according to the ritual of the Romish church.
Alarmed at these proceedings, and still more at an order summoning all the Reformed clergy in the kingdom, to attend a court of justice at Stirling, on the 10th May, 1559, the earl of Glencairn, and Hugh Campbell of Louden, were deputed to wait on her and intercede in their behalf. On urging their peaceable demeanour, and the purity of their doctrine, she said, “In despite of you, and your ministers both, they shall be banished out of Scotland, albeit they preached as true as ever did St. Paul.” And on pleading her former promises of protection, she replied, “The promises of princes ought not to be too carefully remembered, nor the performance of them exacted unless it suits their convenience.”
Perth, in the meantime, having embraced the Reformed religion, added to the rage which agitated the Queen against the Protestants, and she commanded the provost (Patrick Ruthven,) to suppress all their assemblies. The answer of this gentleman deserves to be recorded for its manly freedom. “I have power over their bodies and estates,” said he, “and these I will take care shall do no hurt; but have no dominion over their consciences.” The day of trial now approached, and the town of Dundee, and the gentlemen of Angus and Mearns, in comformity of an old custom which prevailed in Scotland, resolved to accompany their pastors to the place of trial. Intimidated by their numbers, though unarmed, she prevailed on John Erskine of Dun, a person of great influence among them, to stop them from advancing nearer to Stirling, while she, on her part, promised to take no further steps towards the intended trial. This proposition was listened to with pleasure, the preachers and some of the leaders remained at Perth, and the multitude quietly dispersed to their respective homes.
Notwithstanding this promise, on the 10th May, the queen proceeded to the trial of the persons summoned; and, on their failing to appear, sentence of outlawry was pronounced upon them. This open and avowed breach of faith added greatly to the public irritation, and the Protestants boldly prepared for their defence. Mr Erskine having joined his associates at Perth, his representation of the Queen’s irreconcilable hatred so inflamed the people, that scarcely the authority of the magistrates, or the exhortations of their preachers, could prevent them from proceeding to acts of violence.
At this juncture, Mr Knox landed in Scotland from France, and, after residing two days in Edinburgh, joined his brethren in Perth, that he might aid them in their cause, and give his confession along with theirs. On the 11th, the day after the sentence of outlawry was pronounced, he made a vehement discourse against idolatry, and while the minds of the people were yet in a state of agitation, from the impression made upon them by his sermon, a priest prepared to celebrate mass, which made a youth observe, “This is intolerable, that when God in his word hath plainly condemned idolatry we shall stand and see it used in despite.” The irritated priest struck him a blow on the ear, and the youth in revenge threw a stone at him, which broke an image of one of the saints. This was the signal of tumult, and ere two days had elapsed, all the churches and convents about Perth were destroyed. Such was the anger of the Queen on receiving this intelligence, that she avowed to reduce Perth to ashes, and ordered M. D’Ossal, the commander of a corps of French auxiliaries, at that time in the service of Scotland, instantly to march, and carry her threats into execution. Both parties, however, were desirous of accommodation, and a treaty was concluded, in which it was stipulated that the two armies should be disbanded, the gates of Perth set open to the queen, but that none of her French soldiers should approach within three miles of that city, and that a Parliament should be immediately held to settle the remaining differences.
No sooner were the Protestant forces disbanded, than the Queen violated every article of the treaty. In consequence of which the earl of Argyle, and the prior of St Andrew’s, who had been her commissioners for settling the peace, with some other gentlemen, openly left her. Having warned the confederates of her intention to destroy St Andrew’s and Cupar, a considerable army was soon assembled, which assaulted Crail, broke down the altars and images, and proceeded thence to St Andrew’s, where they levelled the Franciscan and Dominican monasteries to the ground. The Queen immediately gave orders to occupy Cupar, with the intention of attacking them at St Andrew’s, but in this she was anticipated, an army equal to her own having occupied the place two days before. Finding herself too weak to encounter them in the field, she had again recourse to negotiation; but mindful of her former duplicity, the Protestants would only agree to a truce for eight days, by which the Duke of Chatelherault and D’Ossal became bound to transport all the French soldiers to the other side of the Frith, and send commissioners to St Andrew’s with full powers to conclude a formal treaty of peace.
Several days elapsed without any person appearing on the part of the queen, and suspecting some new plan to entrap them, the Protestants, after concerting measures to expel the French garrison from Perth, wrote to her Majesty, complaining that the terms of the first treaty were still unfulfilled, and begging her to withdraw her troops from that city in conformity with its stipulations. Their letters remaining unnoticed, they laid siege to Perth, which surrendered, after a feeble resistance, on the 26th June, 1559.
Being informed that the Queen resolved to seize Stirling, and cut off the communication between the reformers on the opposite sides of the Frith, by a rapid march they frustrated her plans, and in three days, after they had made themselves masters of Perth, the victorious reformers entered Edinburgh. The Queen on their approach retired to Dunbar,—where she amused them with hopes of an accommodation, in the expectation of being joined with reinforcements from France. Intelligence, in the meantime, was received of the death of the French king, which, while it was favourable to the cause of the reformers, rendered their leaders more negligent and secure. Numbers of them left the city on their private affairs, their followers were obliged to disperse for want of money, and those who did remain were without discipline or restraint. The Queen receiving advice of this, by means of her spies, marched with all the forces she could muster directly to Edinburgh, and possessed herself, on the 25th of July, of Leith. She consented, however, to a truce, to continue till the 5th January, 1560, by which liberty of conscience was secured; Popery was not to be established again where it had been suppressed, the reformers were not to be hindered from preaching wherever they might happen to be, and no garrison was to be stationed within the city. These terms were preserved till she received the expected reinforcements, when she fortified Leith, from which all the efforts of the reformers were unable to dislodge her troops. A mutiny also breaking out among their soldiers for want of pay, and having been defeated in two skirmishes with the French troops, it was resolved, by a majority of the lords of the congregation, to retire to Stirling. This rash step was productive of great terror and confusion, and contrary to the advice of Knox; who, notwithstanding, followed the fortunes of his friends, animating and reviving them by his discourses, and exhorting them to constancy in the good cause.
At a meeting held shortly after their arrival at Stirling, it was resolved, to despatch William Maitland, who had lately deserted the Queen’s party to England, to implore the assistance of Queen Elizabeth, and a treaty was at last concluded, by which a body of troops was sent to their assistance. These being joined by most of the Scottish nobility, a peace was established on the 8th July, 1560, by which the reformed religion was fully established in Scotland.
On the abolition of Popery, the form of church goverment establishment in Scotland was, upon the model of the church at Geneva, warmly recommended to his countrymen by Knox, as being farthest removed from all similarity to the Romish church; and at his suggestion, likewise, the country was divided into twelve districts, for the more effectually propagating the doctrines of the Reformation, of which Edinburgh was assigned to his care. Knox, assisted by his brethren afterwards composed a confession of Faith, and compiled the first books of discipline for the government of the church. These were ratified by a convention of Estates, held in the beginning of the following year (1571), and an act passed prohibiting mass and abolishing the authority of the Pope.
On the return of Mary, daughter of Mary of Guise, from France, and so well known afterwards throughout all Europe for her beauty, her accomplishments, and her misfortunes, after the death of her husband Francis II. the celebration of mass in the chapel royal excited a great tumult, many crying out, “The idolatrous papist shall die the death, according to God’s law;” and John Knox, in a sermon preached the Sunday following after showing the judgments inflicted on nations for idolatry, added, “one mass is more fearful to me than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm, of purpose to suppress the whole religion.” In consequence of this language he was sent for by the queen, who accused him of endeavouring to excite her subjects to rebellion, of having written against her lawful authority, and of being the cause of great sedition. To this he answered, among other things, “that if to teach the word of God in sincerity, if to rebute idolatry, and to will a people to worship God according to his word, be to raise subjects against their princes, then cannot I be excused; for it hath pleased God in his mercy to make me one amongst many to disclose unto this realm the vanity of the papistical religion.—And touching that book, that seemeth so highly to offend your majesty, it is most certain that if I wrote it I am content that all the learned of the land should judge of it. My hope is, that, so long as ye defile not your hands with the blood of the saints of God, that neither I nor that book shall either hurt you or your authority; for, in very deed, Madam, that book was written most especially against that wicked Mary of England.” To a question by the Queen, if subjects, having power, may resist their princes? He boldly answered they might, “if princes do exceed their bounds.” The following part of the dialogue will give a good idea of the character of Knox, and the freedom of his speech: Speaking of the church, the Queen observed, “but ye are not the church of Rome, for I think it is the true church of God.” “Your will, Madam,” said he, “is no reason; neither doth your thought make that Roman harlot to be the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ. And wonder not, Madam, that I call Rome an harlot, for that church is altogether polluted with all kinds of spiritual fornication, as well in doctrine as in matters.” He had afterwards two other conferences with the queen, at the last of which she burst into tears, crying out, “Never prince was used as I am.”
Knox’s situation became very critical in April, 1571, when Kircaldy received the Hamiltons, with their forces, into the castle. Their inveteracy against him was so great, that his friends were obliged to watch his house during the night. They proposed forming a guard for the protection of his person when he went abroad; but the governor of the castle forbade this, as implying a suspicion of him, and offered to send Melvil, one of his officers, to conduct him to and from church. “He wold gif the woulf the wedder to keip,” says Bannatyne. Induced by the importunity of the citizens, Kircaldy applied to the Duke and his party for a special protection to Knox; but they refused to pledge their word for his safety, because “there were many rascals and others among them who loved him not, that might do him harm without their knowledge.” Intimations were often given him of threatenings against his life; and one evening, a musket ball was fired in at his window, and lodged in the roof of the apartment in which he was sitting. It happened that he sat at the time in a different part of the room from that in which he had been accustomed to take his seat, otherwise the ball, from its direction, must have struck him. Alarmed by these circumstances, a deputation of the citizens, accompanied by his colleague, waited upon him, and renewed a request which they had formerly made, that he would remove from Edinburgh, to a place where his life would be in greater safety, until the Queen’s party should evacuate the town. But he refused to yield to them, apprehending that his enemies wished to intimidate him into flight, that they might carry on their designs more quietly, and then accuse him of cowardice. Being unable to persuade him by any other means, they at last had recourse to an argument which prevailed. Upon this he consented, “sore against his will,” to remove from the city.
In May, 1571, at the desire of his friends, and for greater security, he left that city for St Andrew’s, where he remained until the August following. The cause that forced him to change his residence having ceased to operate, at the express desire of his congregation he again returned, but could not long continue to preside over it, on account of the exhausted state of his health; and on the 9th November, abmitted Mr James Lawson, formerly professor of philosophy at Aberdeen, to be his successor.
From this time till the 24th of the same month, when he expired, about eleven o’clock at night, in the 67th year of his age; his principal employment was reading the Scriptures and conversing with his friends; and over his remains, which were accompanied to the churchyard by the Earl of Morton, the Regent, and a number of other noblemen, and people of all ranks, his lordship pronounced the following eulogium: “Here lies a man, who in his life never feared the face of man; who hath been often threatened with dag and dagger, but yet hath ended his days in peace and honour.”
FINIS.
HISTORY
OF THE LIFE & SUFFERINGS
OF THE
REV. JOHN WELCH,
SOMETIME MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL AT AYR.
GLASGOW:
PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
THE
LIFE OF JOHN WELCH.
Mr. John Welch was born a gentleman, his father being laird of Colieston, (an estate rather competent, than large, in the shire of Nithsdale) about the year 1570, the dawning of our reformation being then but dark. He was a rich example of grace and mercy, but the night went before the day, being a most hopeless extravagant boy: it was not enough to him, frequently when he was a young stripling to run away from the school and play the truant; but after he had passed his grammar, and was come to be a youth, he left the school, and his father’s house, and went and joined himself to the thieves on the English border, who lived by robbing the two nations, and amongst them he stayed till he spent a suit of clothes. Then he was clothed only with rags, the prodigal’s misery brought him to the prodigal’s resolution, so he resolved to return to his father’s house, but durst not adventure, till he should interpose a reconciler. So in his return homeward, he took Dumfries in his way where he had an aunt, one Agnes Forsyth, and with her he diverted some days, earnestly entreating her to reconcile him to his father. While he lurked in her house, his father came providentially to the house to salute his cousin, Mrs. Forsyth; and after they had talked a while, she asked him, whether he had ever heard any news of his son John; to her he replied with great grief, O cruel woman, how can you name his name to me? The first news I expect to hear of him, is, that he is hanged for a thief. She answered, many a profligate boy had become a virtuous man, and comforted him. He insisted upon his sad complaint, but asked whether she knew his lost son was yet alive. She answered, Yes, he was, and she hoped he should prove a better man than he was a boy, and with that she called upon him to come to his father. He came weeping and kneeled, beseeching his father, for Christ’s sake, to pardon his misbehaviour, and deeply engaged to be a new man. His father reproached him and threatened him. Yet, at length, by the boy’s tears, and Mrs. Forsyth’s importunities, he was persuaded to a reconciliation. The boy entreated his father to send him to the college, and there to try his behaviour, and if ever thereafter he should break, he said he should be content his father should disclaim him for ever: so his father carried him home, and put him to the college, and there he became a diligent student, of great expectation, and shewed himself a sincere convert, and so he proceeded to the ministry.
His first post in the ministry was at Selkirk, while he was yet very young, and the country rude; while he was there, his ministry was rather admired by some, than received by many; for he was always attended by the prophet’s shadow, the hatred of the wicked; yea, even the ministers of the country, were more ready to pick a quarrel with his person, than to follow his doctrine, as may appear to this day in their synodical records, where we find he had many to censure him, and only some to defend him; yet it was thought his ministry in that place was not without fruit, though he stayed but a short time there. Being a young man unmarried, he lodged himself in the house of one Mitchelhill, and took a young boy of his to be his bed-fellow, who to his dying day retained both a respect to Mr. Welch and his ministry, from the impressions Mr. Welch’s behaviour made upon his mind though but a child.
The special cause of his leaving Selkirk, was a profane gentleman in the country (one Scot of Headschaw, whose family is now extinct) but because Mr. Welch had either reproved him, or merely from hatred, Mr. Welch was most unworthily abused by the unhappy man, amongst the rest of the injuries he did him, this was one, Mr. Welch kept always two good horses for his use, and the wicked gentleman when he could do no more, either with his own hand, or his servants, cut off the rumps of the two innocent beasts, upon which followed such effusion of blood, that they both died, which Mr. Welch did much resent, and such base usage as this persuaded him to listen to a call to the ministry at Kirkcudbright, which was his next post.
But when he was about to leave Selkirk, he could not find a man in all the town to transport his furniture, except one Ewart, who was at that time a poor young man, but master of two horses, with which he transported Mr. Welch’s goods, and so left him, but as he took his leave, Mr. Welch gave him his blessing, and a piece of gold for a token, exhorting him to fear God, and promised he should never want, which promise, providence made good through the whole course of his life, as was observed by all his neighbours.
At Kirkcudbright he stayed not long; but there he reaped a harvest of converts, which subsisted long after his departure, and were a part of Mr. Samuel Rutherfoord’s flock, though not his parish, while he was minister at Anwith: yet when his call to Ayr came to him, the people of the parish of Kirkcudbright never offered to detain him, so his transportation to Ayr was the more easy.
Mr. Welch was transported to Ayr in the year 1590, and there he continued till he was banished, there he had a very hard beginning, but a good ending; for when he came first to the town, the country was so wicked, and the hatred of godliness so great, that there could not be found one in all the town, that would let him a house to dwell in, so he was constrained to accommodate himself in the best he might, in a part of a gentleman’s house for a time, the gentleman’s name was John Stewart, he was an eminent Christian, and a great assistant of Mr. Welch.
And when he had first taken up his residence in that town, the place was so divided into factions, and filled with bloody conflicts, a man could hardly walk the streets with safety; wherefore Mr. Welch made it his first undertaking to remove the bloody quarrelings, but he found it a very difficult work; yet such was his earnestness to pursue his design, that many times he would rush betwixt two parties of men fighting, even in the midst of blood and wounds.
His manner was, after he had ended a skirmish amongst his neighbours, and reconciled these bitter enemies, to cause them to cover a table upon the street, and there brought the enemies together, and begining with prayer he persuaded them to protest themselves friends, and then to eat and drink together, then last of all, he ended the work with singing a psalm: after the rude people began to observe his example, and listen to his heavenly doctrine, he came quickly to that respect amongst them that he became not only a necessary counsellor, without whose counsel they would do nothing, but an example to imitate, and so he buried the bloody quarrels.
He gave himself wholly to ministerial exercises, he preached once every day, he prayed the third part of his time, was unwearied in his studies, and for a proof of this, it was found among his papers, that he had abridged Suarez’s metaphysics, when they came first to his hand, even when he was well stricken in years. By all which, it appears, that he has not only been a man of great diligence but also of a strong and robust natural constitution, otherwise he had never endured the fatigue.
But if his diligence was great, so it is doubted whether his sowing in painfulness, or his harvest in his success was greatest; for if either his spiritual experiences in seeking the Lord, or his fruitfulness in converting souls be considered, they will be found unparalleled in Scotland: and many years after Mr. Welch’s death, Mr. David Dickson, at that time a flourishing minister at Irvine, was frequently heard to say, when people talked to him of the success of his ministry, that the grape gleanings in Ayr, in Mr. Welch’s time, were far above the vintage of Irvine, in his own. Mr. Welch, in his preaching, was spiritual and searching, his utterance tender and moving; he did not much insist upon scholastic purposes, he made no shew of his learning. I once heard one of his hearers say, That no man could hear him and forbear weeping, his conveyance was so affecting. There is a large volume of his sermons, now in Scotland, wherein he makes it appear, his learning was not behind his other virtues: this also appears in another piece, called Dr. Welch’s Armagaddon, printed, I suppose, in France, wherein he gives his meditation upon the enemies of the church, and their destruction; but the piece itself is rarely to be found.
Sometimes before he went to sermon, he would send for his elders, and tell them, he was afraid to go to pulpit because he found himself sore deserted; and thereafter desire one or more to pray, and then he would venture to pulpit. But, it was observed, this humbling exercise used ordinarily to be followed, with a flame of extraordinary assistance: so near neighbours are many times contrary dispositions and frames. He would many times retire to the church of Ayr, which was at some distance from the town, and there spend the whole night in prayer: for he used to allow his affections full expression, and prayed not only with audible, but sometimes, loud voice, nor did he irk, in that solitude, all the night over, which hath, it may be, occasioned the contemptible slander of some malicious enemies, who were so bold as to call him no less than a witch.
There was in Ayr, before he came to it, an aged man a minister of the town, called Porterfield, the man was judged no bad man, for his personal inclinations, but so easy a disposition, that he used many times to go too great a length with his neighbours in many dangerous practices; and amongst the rest, he used to go to the bow-butts and archery, on Sabbath afternoon, to Mr. Welch’s great dissatisfaction. But the way he used to reclaim him, was not bitter severity, but this gentle policy; Mr. Welch together with John Stewart, and Hugh Kennedy, his two intimate friends, used to spend the Sabbath afternoon in religious conference and prayer, and to this exercise they invited Mr. Porterfield, which he could not refuse, by which means he was not only diverted from his former sinful practice, but likewise brought to a more watchful, and edifying behaviour in his course of life.
He married Elizabeth Knox, daughter to the famous Mr. John Knox, minister at Edinburgh, the apostle of Scotland, and she lived with him from his youth till his death. By her I have heard he had three sons: the first was called Dr. Welch, a doctor of medicine, who was killed in the low countries, and of him I never heard more. Another son he had most lamentably lost at sea, for when the ship in which he was embarked was sunk, he swam to a rock in the sea, but starved there for want of necessary food and refreshment, and when sometime afterward his body was found upon the rock, they found him dead in a praying posture upon his bended knees, with his hands stretched out, and this was all the satisfaction his friends and the world had upon his lamentable death, so bitter to his friends. Another he had who was heir to his father’s grace and blessings, and this was Mr. Josias Welch, minister at Temple-Patrick in the north of Ireland, commonly called the Cock of the Conscience by the people of that country, because of his extraordinary wakening and rousing gift: he was one of that blest society of ministers, which wrought that unparalleled work in the north of Ireland, about the year 1636, but was himself a man most sadly exercised with doubts about his own salvation all his time, and would ordinarily say, That ministers was much to be pitied, who was called to comfort weak saints and had no comfort himself. He died in his youth, and left for his successor, Mr. John Welch minister at Iron-Gray in Galloway, the place of his grandfather’s nativity. What business this made in Scotland, in the time of the late Episcopal persecution, for the space of twenty years, is known to all Scotland. He maintained his dangerous post of preaching the gospel upon the mountains of Scotland, notwithstanding of the threatnings of the state, the hatred of the bishops, the price set upon his head, and all the fierce industry of his cruel enemies. It is well known that bloody Claverhouse upon secret information from his spies, that Mr. John Welch was to be found at some lurking place at forty miles distance, would make all that long journey in one winter’s night, that he might catch him, but when he came he always missed his prey. I never heard of a man that endured more toil, adventured upon more hazards, escaped so much hazard, not in the world. He used to tell his friends who counselled him to be more cautious, and not to hazard himself so much, That he firmly believed dangerous undertakings would be his security, and when ever he should give over that course and retire himself, his ministry should come to an end; which accordingly came to pass, for when after Bothwell bridge, he retired to London, the Lord called him by death, and there he was honourably buried, not far from the king’s palace.
But to return to our old Mr. Welch; as the duty wherein he abounded and excelled most was prayer, so his greatest attainments fell that way. He used to say, He wondered how a Christian could lie in bed all night, and not rise to pray, and many times he watched. One night he rose from his wife, and went into the next room, where he stayed so long at secret prayer, that his wife fearing he might catch cold, was constrained to rise and follow him, and as she hearkened, she heard him speak as by interrupted sentences, Lord wilt thou not grant me Scotland, and after a pause, Enough, Lord, enough, and so she returned to her bed, and he following her, not knowing she had heard him, but when he was by her, she asked him what he meant by saying, Enough, Lord, enough. He shewed himself dissatisfied with her curiosity, but told her, he had been wrestling with the Lord for Scotland, and found there was a sad time at hand, but that the Lord would be gracious to a remnant. This was about the time when bishops first overspread the land, and corrupted the church. This was more wonderful I am to relate, I heard once an honest minister, who was a parishioner of Mr. Welch many a day, say, ‘That one night as he watched in his garden very late, and some friends waiting upon him in his house and wearying because of his long stay, one of them chanced to open a window toward the place where he walked, and saw clearly a strange light surrounding him, and heard him speak strange words about his spiritual joy,’ I do neither add nor alter, I am the more induced to believe this that I have heard from as good a hand as any in Scotland, that a very godly man, though not a minister, after he had spent a whole night in a country house, in the muir, declared confidently, he saw such an extraordinary light as this himself, which was to him both matter of wonder and astonishment. But though Mr. Welch had upon the account of his holiness, abilities, and success, acquired among his subdued people, a very great respect, yet was he never in such admiration, as after the great plague which raged in Scotland in his time.
And one cause was this: The magistrates of Ayr, forasmuch as this town alone was free, and the country about infected, thought fit to guard the ports with sentinels, and watchmen; and one day two travelling merchants, each with a pack of cloth upon a horse, came to the town desiring entrance that they might sell their goods producing a pass from the magistrates of the town whence they came which was at that time sound and free; yet not withstanding all this the sentinels stopt them till the magistrates were called; and when they came, they would do nothing without their minister’s advice: so Mr. Welch was called, and his opinion asked; he demurred, and putting off his hat with his eyes toward heaven for a pretty space, though he uttered no audible words, yet continued in a praying gesture: and after a little space told the magistrates they would do well to discharge these travellers their town, affirming with great asseveration, the plague was in their packs, so the magistrates commanded them to be gone, and they went to Cumnock, a town some twenty miles distant, and there sold their goods, which kindled such an infection in that place, that the living were hardly able to bury their dead. This made the people begin to think Mr. Welch as an oracle. Yet as he walked with God, and kept close with him, so he forgot not man, for he used frequently to dine abroad with such of his friends, as he thought were persons with whom he might maintain the communion of the saints; and once in the year he used always to invite all his familiars in the town to a treat in his house, where there was a banquet of holiness and sobriety.
And now the scene of his life begins for to alter; but before his blessed sufferings, he had this strange warning.
One night he rose from his wife, and went into garden, as his custom was, but stayed longer than ordinary, which troubled his wife, who, when he returned, expostulated with him very hard, for his staying so long to wrong his health; he bid her be quiet, for it should be well with them. But he knew well, he should never preach more at Ayr; and accordingly before the next Sabbath, he was carried prisoner to Blackness castle. After that, he, with many others were brought before the council of Scotland, at Edinburgh, to answer for their rebellion and contempt, in holding a general assembly, not authorised by the king. And because they declined the secret council, as judges competent in causes purely spiritual, such as the nature and constitution of a general assembly is, they were first remitted to the prison at Blackness, and other places. And thereafter, six of the most considerable of them, were brought under night from Blackness to Linlithgow before the criminal judges, to answer an accusation of high treason, at the instance of Sir Thomas Hamilton, king’s advocate, for declining, as he alledged, the king’s lawful authority, in refusing to admit the council judges competent in the cause of the nature of church judicatories; and after their accusation, and answer was read, by the verdict of a jury of very considerable gentlemen, condemned as guilty of high treason, the punishment continued till the king’s pleasure should be known, and thereafter their punishment was made banishment, that the cruel sentence might someway seem to soften their severe punishment as the king had contrived it.
But before he left Scotland, some remarkable passages in his behaviour are to be remembered. And first when the dispute about church-government began to warm; as he was walking upon the street of Edinburgh, betwixt two honest citizens, he told them, they had in their town two great ministers, who were no great friends to Christ’s cause, presently in controversy, but it should be seen, the world should never hear of their repentance. The two men were Mr. Patrick Galloway, and Mr. John Hall; and accordingly it came to pass, for Mr. Patrick Galloway died easing himself upon his stool; and Mr. John Hall, being at that time in Leith, and his servant woman having left him alone in his house while she went to the market, he was found dead all alone at her return.
He was sometime prisoner in Edinburgh castle before he went into exile, where one night sitting at supper with the lord Ochiltry, who was an uncle to Mr. Welch’s wife, as his manner was, he entertained the company with godly and edifying discourse, which was well received by all the company save only one debauched popish young gentleman, who sometimes laughed, and sometimes mocked and made faces; whereupon Mr. Welch brake out into a sad abrupt charge upon all the company to be silent, and observe the work of the Lord upon that prophane mocker, which they should presently behold; upon which immediately the prophane wretch sunk down and died beneath the table, but never returned to life again, to the great astonishment of all the company.
Another wonderful story they tell of him at the same time; the lord Ochiltry the captain, being both sons to the good lord Ochiltry, and Mr. Welch’s uncle in law, was indeed very civil to Mr. Welch, but being for a long time, through the multitude of affairs, kept from visiting Mr. Welch in his chamber, as he was one day walking in the court, and espying Mr. Welch at his chamber window asked him kindly how he did, and if in any thing he could serve him. Mr. Welch answered him, He would earnestly entreat his lordship, being at that time to go to court, to petition king James in his name, that he might have liberty to preach the gospel; which my lord promised to do. Mr. Welch answered, my lord, both because you are my kinsman, and other reasons, I would earnestly entreat, and obtest you not to promise except you faithfully perform. My lord answered, He would faithfully perform his promise; and so went for London. But though at his first arrival he was really purposed to present the petition to the king, but when he found the king in such a rage against the godly ministers, that he durst not at that time present it, so he thought fit to delay it, and thereafter fully forgot it.
The first time that Mr. Welch saw his face after his return from court, he asked him what he had done with his petition. My lord answered he, had presented it to the king, but that the king was in so great a rage against the ministers at that time, he believed it had been forgotten, for he had gotten no answer. Nay said Mr. Welch to him, My lord you should not lye to God, and to me, for I know you never delivered it, though I warned you to take heed not to undertake it, except you would perform it; but because you have dealt so unfaithfully, remember God shall take from you both estate and honours, and give them to your neighbour in your own time: which accordingly came to pass, both his estate and honours were in his own time transmitted to James Stewart son to captain James, who was indeed a cadet, but not the lineal heir of the family.
While he was detained prisoner in Edinburgh castle, his wife used for the most part to stay in his company, but upon a time fell into a longing to see her family in Ayr, to which with some difficulty he yielded; but when she was to take her journey, he strictly charged her not to take the ordinary way to her own house, when she came to Ayr, nor to pass by the bridge through the town, but to pass the river above the bridge, and so get the way to her own house, and not to come into the town, for, said he, before you come thither, you shall find the plague broken out in Ayr, which accordingly came to pass.
The plague was at that time very terrible, and he being necessarily separate from his people, it was to him the more grievous; but when the people of Ayr came to him to bemoan themselves, his answer was, that Hugh Kennedy, a godly gentleman in their town, should pray for them, and God should hear him. This counsel they accepted, and the gentleman convening a number of the honest citizens, prayed fervently for the town, as he was a mighty wrestler with God, and accordingly after that the plague decreased.
Now the time is come he must leave Scotland, and never to see it again, so upon the seventh of November 1606 in the morning, he with his neighbours took ship at Leith, and though it was but two o’clock in the morning, many were waiting on with their afflicted families, to bid them farewell. After prayer, they sung the xxiii psalm, and so set sail for the south of France, and landed in the river of Bourdeaux. Within fourteen weeks after his arrival, such was the Lord’s blessing upon his diligence, he was able to preach in French, and accordingly was speedily called to the ministry, first in one village, then in another; one of them was Nerac, and thereafter settled in Saint Jean d’ Angely, a considerable walled town, and there he continued the rest of the time he sojourned in France, which was about sixteen years. When he began to preach, it was observed by some of his hearers, that while he continued in the doctrinal part of his sermon, he spoke very correct French, but when he came to his application and when his affections kindled, his fervour made him sometimes neglect the accuracy of the French construction: but there were godly young men who admonished him of this, which he took in very good part, so for preventing mistakes of that kind, he desired the young gentlemen, when they perceived him beginning to decline, to give him a sign, and the sign was, that they were both to stand up upon their feet, and thereafter he was more exact in his expression through his whole sermon; so desirous was he, not only to deliver good matter, but to recommend it in the neat expression.
There were many times persons of great quality in his auditory, before whom he was just as bold as ever he had been in a Scots village; which moved Mr. Boyd of Trochrig once to ask him, (after he had preached before the university of Samure with such boldness and authority, as if he had been before the meanest congregation) how he could be so confident among strangers, and persons of such quality! to which he answered, That he was so filled with the dread of God, he had no apprehension from man at all; and this answer, said Mr. Boyd, did not remove my admiration, but rather increased it.
There was in his house amongst many others, who tabled with him for good education, a young gentleman of great quality, and suitable expectations, and this was the heir of the lord Ochiltry, who was captain of the castle of Edinburgh. This young nobleman, after he had gained very much upon Mr. Welch’s affections, fell sick of a grievous sickness, and after he had been long wasted with it, closed his eyes, and expired as dying men used to do, so to the apprehension and sense of all spectators, he was no more but a carcase, and was therefore taken out of his bed, and laid upon a pallat on the floor, that his body might be the more conveniently dressed, as dead bodies used to be. This was to Mr. Welch a very great grief, and therefore he stayed with the young man’s dead body full three hours, lamenting over him with great tenderness. After twelve hours, the friends brought in a coffin, whereunto they desired the corps to be put, as the custom is: but Mr. Welch desired, that for the satisfaction of his affections, they would forbear the youth for a time, which they granted, and returned not till twenty four hours, after his death, were expired; then they returned, with great importunity the corps might be coffined, that it might be speedily buried, the weather being extremely hot; yet he persisted in his request, earnestly begging them to excuse him for once more; so they left the youth upon his pallat for full thirty six hours: but even after all that, though he was urged, not only with great earnestness, but displeasure, they were constrained to forbear for twelve hours yet more; and after forty eight hours were past, Mr. Welch was still where he was, and then his friends perceived that he believed the young man was not really dead, but under some apoplectic fit, and therefore proponed to him for his satisfaction, that trial should be made upon his body by doctors and chirurgeons, if possibly any spark of life might be found in him, and with this he was content: so the physicians are set on work, who pinched him with pincers in the fleshy parts of his body, and twisted a bow string about his head with great force, but no sign of life appearing in him, so the physicians pronounced him stark dead, and then there was no more delay to be desired; yet Mr. Welch begged of them once more, that they would but step into the next room for an hour or two, and leave him with the dead youth, and this they granted: Then Mr. Welch fell down before the pallat, and cried to the Lord with all his might, for the last time and sometimes looked upon the dead body, continuing in wrestling with the Lord till at length the dead youth opened his eyes, and cried out to Mr. Welch whom he distinctly knew, O Sir, I am all whole, but my head and legs: and these were the places they had sore hurt, with their pinching.
When Mr. Welch perceived this, he called upon his friends, and shewed them the dead young man restored to life again, to their great astonishment. And this young nobleman, though he lost the estate of Ochiltry, lived to acquire a great estate in Ireland, and was lord Castlestewart, and a man of such excellent parts, that he was courted by the earl of Stafford to be a counsellor in Ireland, which he refused to be, and then he engaged, and continued for all his life, not only in honour and power, but in the profession and practice of godliness, to the great comfort of the country where he lived. This story the nobleman communicated to his friends in Ireland, and from them I had it.
While Mr. Welch was minister in one of these French villages, upon an evening a certain popish friar travelling through the country, because he could not find lodging in the whole village, addressed himself to Mr. Welch’s house for one night. The servants acquainted their master and he was content to receive this guest. The family had supped before he came, and so the servants convoyed the friar to his chamber, and after they had made his supper, they left him to his rest. There was but a timber partition betwixt him and Mr. Welch, and after the friar had slept his first sleep, he was surprized with the hearing of a silent, but constant whispering noise, at which he wondered very much, and was not a little troubled with it.
The next morning he walked in the fields, where he chanced to meet with a country man, who saluting him because of his habit, asked him where he lodged that night? The friar answered he had lodged with the hugenot minister. Then the country man asked him what entertainment he had? The friar answered, Very bad; for, said he, I always held there were devils haunting these ministers houses, and I am persuaded there was one with me this night, for I heard a continual whisper all the night over, which I believe was no other thing, than the minister and the devil conversing together. The country man told him, he was much mistaken, and that it was nothing else, but the minister at his night prayer. O, said the friar, does the minister pray any? Yes, more than any man in France, answered the country man, and if you please to stay another night with him you may be satisfied. The friar got home to Mr. Welch’s house, and pretending indisposition, entreated another night’s lodging, which was granted him.
Before dinner, Mr. Welch come from his chamber, and made his family exercise, according to his custom. And first he sung a psalm, then read a portion of scripture, and discoursed upon it, thereafter he prayed with great fervour, as his custom was, to all which the friar was an astonished witness. After the exercise they went to dinner, where the friar was very civilly entertained, Mr. Welch, forbearing all questions and dispute with him for the time; when the evening came, Mr. Welch made his exercise as he had done in the morning, which occasioned yet more wondering in the friar, and after supper to bed they all went; but the friar longed much to know what the night whisper was, and in that he was soon satisfied, for after Mr. Welch’s first sleep, the noise began, and then the friar resolved to be sure what it was, so he crept silently to Mr. Welch’s chamber-door, and there he heard not only the sound, but the words distinctly, and communications betwixt man and God, and such as he knew not had been in the world. Upon the next morning, as soon as Mr. Welch was ready, the friar went to him, and told him, that he had been bred in ignorance, and lived in darkness all his time, but now he was resolved to adventure his soul with Mr. Welch, and thereupon declared himself Protestant: Mr. Welch welcomed him and encouraged him, and he continued a constant protestant to his dying day. This story I had from a godly minister, who was bred in Mr. Welch’s house, when in France.
When Lewis XIII. king of France, made war upon the Protestants there, because of their religion, the city of St. Jean d’ Angely, was by him and his royal army besieged, and brought into extreme danger, Mr. Welch was minister in the town, and mightily encouraged the citizens to hold out, assuring them, God should deliver them. In the time of the siege a cannon ball pierced the bed where he was lying, upon which he got up, but would not leave the room, till he had by solemn prayer acknowledged his deliverance. During the siege, the townsmen made stout defence, until one of the king’s gunners planted a great gun so conveniently upon a rising ground, that therewith he could command the whole wall, upon which the townsmen made their greatest defence. Upon this they were constrained to forsake the whole wall in great terror, and though they had several guns planted upon the wall, no man durst undertake to manage them. This being told Mr. Welch with great affrightment, he notwithstanding encouraged them still to hold out, and running to the wall himself, found the cannonier, who was a Burgundian, near the wall, him he entreated to mount the wall, promising to assist him in person, so to the wall they got. The cannonier told Mr. Welch, that either they behoved to dismount the gun upon the rising ground, or else they were surely lost; Mr. Welch desired him to aim well, and he should serve him, and God would help him; so the gunner falls a scouring his piece, and Mr. Welch runs to the powder to fetch him a charge; but as soon as he was returning, the king’s gunner fired his piece, which carried both the powder and ladle out of Mr. Welch’s hands, which yet did not discourage him, for having left the ladle, he filled his hat with powder, wherewith the gunner loaded his piece, and dismounted the king’s gun at the first shot, so the citizens returned to their post of defence.
This discouraged the king so, that he sent to the citizens to offer them fair conditions, which were, That they should enjoy the liberty of their religion, their civil privileges, and their walls should not be demolished: only the king desired for his honours that he might enter the city with his servants in a friendly manner. This the city thought fit to grant, and the king with a few more entered the city for a short time.
But within a short time thereafter the war was renewed, and then Mr. Welch told the inhabitants of the city, that now their cup was full, and they should no more escape; which accordingly came to pass, for the king took the town, and as soon as ever it fell into his hand, he commanded Vitry, the captain of his guard, to enter the town, and preserve his minister from all danger; and then were horses and waggons provided for Mr. Welch, to remove him and his family for Rochel, where he remained till he obtained liberty to come to England, and his friends made hard suit, that he might be permitted to return to Scotland; because the physicians declared there was no other way to preserve his life, but by the freedom he might have in his native air. But to this king James would never yield, protesting he should never be able to establish his beloved bishops in Scotland, if Mr. Welch were permitted to return thither; so he languished at London a considerable time, his disease was judged by some to have a tendency to a sort of leprosy; physicians say he had been poisoned; a langour he had, together with a great weakness in his knees, caused by his continual kneeling at prayer: by which it came to pass, that though he was able to move his knees, and to walk, yet he was wholly insensible in them, and the flesh became hard like a sort of horn. But when in the time of his weakness, he was desired to remit somewhat of his excessive painfulness, his answer was, He had his life of God, and therefore it should be spent for him.
His friends importuned king James very much, that if he might not return to Scotland, at least he might have liberty to preach at London, which king James would never grant, till he heard all hopes of life were past, and then he allowed him liberty to preach, not fearing his activity.
Then as soon as ever he heard he might preach, he greedily embraced this liberty, and having access to a lecturer’s pulpit, he went and preached both long and fervently: which was the last performance of his life; for after he had ended his sermon, he returned to his chamber, and within two hours quietly and without pain, he resigned his spirit into his Maker’s hands, and was buried near Mr. Deering, the famous English divine, after he had lived little more than fifty-two years.
FINIS
THE
LIFE
AND
PROPHECIES,
OF
ALEXANDER PEDEN
GLASGOW;
PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
THE
LIFE AND PROPHECIES
OF
ALEXANDER PEDEN.
That most excellent minister of the gospel, and faithful defender of the Presbyterian Religion, Mr. Alexander Peden, was born in the parish of Sorn, near Ayr. After his course at the College, he was sometime school-master, precentor, and session-clerk to Mr. John Guthrie, minister of the gospel at Tarbolton. When he was about to enter on the ministry, a young woman fell with child, in adultery, to a servant in the house where she stayed; when she found herself to be so, she told the father thereof, who said, I’ll run for it, and go to Ireland, father it upon Mr. Peden, he has more to help you to bring it up (he having a small heritage) than I have. The same day that he was to get his licence, she came in before the Presbytery and said, I hear you are to licence Mr. Peden, to be a minister; but do it not, for I am with child to him. He being without at the time, was called in by the moderator; and being questioned about it, he said, I am utterly surprised, I cannot speak; but let none entertain an ill thought of me, for I am utterly free of it, and God will vindicate me in his own time and way. He went home, and walked at a water-side upwards of 24 hours, and would neither eat nor drink, but said, I have got what I was seeking, and I will be vindicated, and that poor unhappy lass will pay dear for it in her life, and will make a dismal end; and for this surfeit of grief that she hath given me, there shall never one of her sex come into my bosom; and, accordingly he never married. There are various reports of the way that he was vindicated; some say, the time she was in child-birth, Mr. Guthrie charged her to give account who was the father of that child, and discharged the women to be helpful to her, until she did it: some say, that she confessed: others, that she remained obstinate. Some of the people when I made enquiry about it in that country-side, affirmed, that the Presbytery had been at all pains about it, and could get no satisfaction, they appointed Mr. Guthrie to give a full relation of the whole before the congregation, which he did; and the same day the father of the child being present, when he heard Mr. Guthrie begin to speak, he stood up, and desired him to halt, and said, I am the father of that child, and I desired her to father it on Mr. Peden, which has been a great trouble of conscience to me; and I could not get rest till I came home to declare it. However it is certain, that after she was married, every thing went cross to them; and they went from place to place, and were reduced to great poverty. At last she came to that same spot of ground where he stayed upwards of 24 hours, and made away with herself!
2. After this he was three years settled minister at New Glenluce in Galloway; and when he was obliged, by the violence and tyranny of that time, to leave that parish, he lectured upon Acts xx. 17. to the end, and preached upon the 31st. verse in the forenoon, ‘Therefore watch, and remember that for the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one, night and day, with tears:’ Asserting that he had declared the whole counsel of God, and had kept nothing back and protested that he was free of the blood of all souls. And, in the afternoon he preached on the 32d verse, ‘And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified.’ Which was a weeping day in that kirk; the greatest part could not contain themselves. He many times requested them to be silent; but they sorrowed most of all when he told them that they should never see his face in that pulpit again. He continued until night; and when he closed the pulpit-door he knocked hard upon it three times with his Bible, saying three times over, I arrest in my Master’s name, that never one enter there, but such as come in by the door, as I did. Accordingly, neither curate nor indulged minister ever entered that pulpit, until after the revolution, that a Presbyterian minister opened it.
3. After this he joined with that honest and zealous handful in the year 1666, that was broken at Pentland-hills, and came the length of Clyde with them, where he had a melancholy view of their end, and parted with them there. James Cubison, of Paluchbeaties, my informer, to whom he told this, he said to him, ‘Sir, you did well that parted with them, seeing you was persuaded they would fall and flee before the enemy.—Glory glory to God, that he sent me not to hell immediately! for I should have stayed with them though I should have been cut all in pieces.’
4. That night the Lord’s people fell, and fled before the enemy at Pentland-hills, he was in a friend’s house in Carrick, sixty miles from Edinburgh; his landlord seeing him mightily troubled enquired how it was with him; he said, ‘To-morrow I will speak with you,’ and desired some candle. That night he went to bed. The next morning calling early to his landlord, said, ‘I have sad news to tell you, our friends that were together in arms, appearing for Christ’s interest, are now broken, killed, taken, and fled every man.’—the truth of which was fully verified in about 48 hours thereafter.
5. After this, in June 1673, he was taken by Major Cockburn, in the house of Hugh Ferguson, of Knockdow, in Carrick, who constrained him to tarry all night. Mr. Peden told him that it would be a dear night to them both. Accordingly they were both carried prisoners to Edinburgh, Hugh Ferguson was fined in a thousand merks, for resetting, harbouring, and conversing with him. The Council ordered fifty pounds sterling to be paid to the Major out of the fines, and ordained him to divide twenty-five pounds sterling among the party that apprehended him. Some time after examination he was sent prisoner to the Bass, where, and at Edinburgh, he remained until December, 1668, that he was banished.
6. While prisoner in the Bass, one Sabbath-morning being about the public worship of God, a young lass, about 13 or 14 years of age, came to the chamber-door mocking with loud laughter: He said, ‘Poor thing, thou mocks and laughs at the worship of God, but ere long God shall write such a sudden, surprising judgment on thee, that shall stay thy laughing, and thou shalt not escape it.’ Very shortly after, she was walking upon the rock, and there came a blast of wind and sweeped her into the sea, where she perished. While prisoner there, one day walking upon the rock, some soldiers passing by him, one of them said, Devil take him. He said, ‘Fy, fy, poor man, thou knowest not what thou art saying; but thou wilt repent that.’—At which word the soldier stood astonished, and went to the guard distracted, crying aloud for Mr. Peden, saying, the devil would immediately take him away. He came to him again, and found him in his right mind under deep convictions of great guilt. The guard being to change, they desired him to go to his arms; he refused, and said, he would lift no arms against Jesus Christ his cause, and persecute his people, he had done that too long. The governor threatened him with death, to-morrow about ten of the clock; he confidently said, three times, though he should tear all his body in pieces, he should never lift arms that way. About three days after, the governor put him out of the garrison, setting him ashore. He having a wife and children, took a house in East Lothian, where he became a singular Christian. Mr. Peden told these astonishing passages to the foresaid John Cubison and others, who informed me.
7. When brought from the Bass to Edinburgh and sentence of banishment passed upon him, in Dec. 1678. and sixty more fellow-prisoners, for the same cause, to go to America, never to be seen in Scotland again, under the pain of death; after this sentence was past, he several times said, that the ship was not yet built that should take him and these prisoners to Virginia; or any other of the English plantations in America.—One James Kay, a solid and grave Christian, being one of them, who lives in or about the Water of Leith, told me, that Mr. Peden said to him, ‘James, when your wife comes in, let me see her;’ which he did.—After some discourse, he called for a drink, and when he sought a blessing, he said. ‘Good Lord, let not James Kay’s wife miss her husband, till thou return him to her in peace and safety; which we are sure will be sooner than either he or she is looking for.’ Accordingly, the same day-month that he parted with her at Leith, he came home to her at the Water of Leith.
8. When they were on shipboard at the Water of Leith, there was a report that the enemies were to send down thumbkins to keep them from rebelling; at the report of this, they were discouraged: Mr. Peden came above the deck and said, ‘Why are ye discouraged? You need not fear, there will neither thumbkins nor bootkins come here: lift up your hearts and heads, for the day of your redemption draweth near; if we were once at London, we will be set at liberty.’—And when sailing on the voyage, praying publicly, he said, ‘Lord, such is the enemies hatred at thee and malice at us for thy sake, that they will not let us stay in thy land of Scotland, to serve thee, though some of us have nothing but the canopy of thy heavens above us, and the earth to tread upon; but, Lord, we bless thy name, that will cut short our voyage, and frustrate thy enemies of their wicked design, that they will not get us where they intend; and some of us shall go richer home than we came from home.’ James Pride, who lived in Fife, an honest man, being one of them, he said many times, he could assert the truth of this, for he came safely home; and beside other things, he bought two cows: and before that, he never had one. I had these accounts both from the foresaid James Kay and Robert Punton, a known public man, worthy of all credit, who was also under the same sentence, and lived in the parish of Dalmeny, near Queensferry.
9. When they arrived at London, the skipper who received them at Leith, was to carry them no further. The skipper who was to receive them there, and carry them to Virginia, came to see them, they being represented to him as thieves, robbers, and evil-doers; but when he found they were all grave Christian men, banished for Presbyterian principles, he said he would sail the sea with none such. In this confusion: that the one skipper would not receive them, and the other would keep them no longer, being expensive to maintain them they were all set at liberty. Some reported that both skippers got compliments from friends at London; however, it is certain they were all set free without any imposition of bonds or oaths; and friends at London, and on their way homewards, through England shewed much kindness unto them.
10. That dismal day, June 22d. 1679, at Bothwel-bridge, that the Lord’s people fell, and fled before the enemy, he was forty miles distant, near the border, and kept himself retired until the middle of the day, that some friends said to him, ‘Sir, the people are waiting for sermon.’ He said, ‘Let the people go to their prayers; for me, I neither can nor will preach any this day; for our friends are fallen, and fled before the enemy at Hamilton; and they are hanging and hashing them down, and their blood is running like water!’
11. After this, he was preaching in Galloway: in the forenoon he prayed earnestly for the prisoners taken at and about Bothwel; but in the afternoon, when he began to pray for them, he halted and said, ‘Our friends at Edinburgh, the prisoners, have done something to save their lives that shall not do with them, for the sea-billows shall be many of their winding-sheets; and the few of them that escape, shall not be useful to God in their generation.’ Which was sadly verified thereafter. That which the greatest part of these prisoners did, was the taking of that bond, commonly called the Black Bond, after Bothwel, wherein they acknowledged their appearance in arms, for the defence of the gospel and their own lives, to be rebellion; and engaged themselves never to make any more opposition: upon the doing of which, these perfidious enemies promised them life and liberty. This with the cursed and subtile arguments and advices of ministers, who went into the New Yard, where they were prisoners, particularly Mr. Hugh Kennedy, Mr. William Crighton, Mr. Edward Jamieson, and Mr. George Johnston; these took their turn in the yard where the prisoners were, together with a letter that was sent from that Erastian meeting of ministers, met at Edinburgh in August 1679, for the acceptance of a third indulgence, with a cautionary bond. Notwithstanding of the enemies’ promise, and the unhappy advice of ministers not indulged, after they were ensnared in this foul compliance, they banished 255, whereof 205 perished in the Orkney-sea. This foul step, as some of them told, both in their life, and when dying, lay heavy upon them all their days; and that these unhappy arguments and advices of ministers, prevailed more with them than the enemies’ promise of life and liberty. In August 1679, fifteen of the Bothwel-prisoners got indictments of death. Mr. Edward Jamieson, a worthy Presbyterian minister, as Mr. Woodrow calls him, was sent from that Erastian meeting of ministers into the Tolbooth to these fifteen, who urged the lawfulness of taken the bond to save their lives; and the refusal of it would be a reflection to religion, and the cause they had appeared for, and a throwing away their lives, for which their friends would not be able to vindicate them. He prevailed with thirteen of them, which soured in the stomachs of some of those thirteen, and lay heavy upon them both in their life and death. The prisoners taken at and about the time of Bothwel, were reckoned about fifteen hundred. The faithful Mr. John Blackader did write to these prisoners, dissuading them from that foul compliance; and some worthy persons of these prisoners, whom he wrote to, said to me with tears, that they slighted his advice, and swallowed the unhappy advices of these ministers who were making peace with the enemies of God, and followed their foul steps, for which they would go mourning to their graves. I heard the same Mr. Blackader preach his last public sermon before falling into the enemies’ hands in the night-time in the fields, in the parish of Livingstone, upon the side of the Muir, at New-house, on the 23d. of March, after Bothwel, where he lectured upon Micah iv. from the 9th. verse, where he asserted, That the nearer the delivery, our pains and showers would come thicker and sorer upon us; and that we had been long in the fields, but ere we were delivered, we would go down to Babylon; that either Popery would overspread this land, or be at the breaking in upon us like on inundation of water. And preached upon that text, ‘Let no man be moved with these afflictions, for ye yourselves know, that ye are appointed thereunto.’ Where he insisted on what moving and shaking dispensations the Lord had exercised his people with in former ages, especially that man of God, that went to Jeroboam at Bethel, and delivered his commission faithfully, and yet was turned out of the way by an old lying prophet; how moving and stumbling the manner of his death was to all Israel! And earnestly requested us to take good heed to what ministers we heard, and what advice we followed. When he prayed, he blessed the Lord that he was free of both band and rope: and that he was as clearly willing to hold up the public blest standard of the gospel as ever: And said, The Lord rebuke, give repentance and forgiveness to these ministers that persuaded these prisoners to take that bond. For their perishing by sea was more moving and shocking to him, than if some thousands of them had been slain in the field. He was thereafter taken, the 6th. of April, by Major Johnston, in Edinburgh, and detained prisoner in the Bass, where he died. As the interest of Christ lay near his heart through his life, amongst his last words he said, The Lord will defend his own cause.
17. Shortly after that sad strode at Bothwel, he went to Ireland, but did not stay long at that time. In his travels through Galloway, he came to a house, and looking in the goodman’s face, he said, ‘They call you an honest man, but if you be so, you look not like it, you will not long keep that name, but will discover yourself to be what you are.’ And shortly after, he was made to flee for sheep-stealing. In that short time he was in Ireland, the Governor required of all Presbyterian ministers that were in Ireland, that they should give it under their hand, that they had no accession to the late rebellion at Bothwel-bridge, in Scotland, and that they did not approve of it; which the most part did; and sent Mr. Thomas Gowans, a Scotsman, and one Mr. Paton, from the north of Ireland to Dublin, to present it to the Lord Lieutenant: the which when Mr. Peden heard, he said, Mr. Gowans and his brother Mr. Paton are sent and gone the devil’s errand but God will arrest them by the gate. And accordingly, Mr. Gowans, by the way, was struck with a sore sickness, and Mr. Paton fell from his horse, and broke or crushed his leg; and both of them were detained beyond expectation. I had this account from some worthy Christians when I was in Ireland.
18. In the year 1682. he married John Brown in Kyle, at his own house in Priesthall, that singular Christian, upon Marion Weir. After marriage; he said to the bride, Marion, you have got a good man to be your husband, but you will not enjoy him long: prize his company, and keep linen by you for his winding-sheet, for you will need it when you are not looking for it, and it will be a bloody one. This came sadly to pass in the beginning of May, 1685, as afterwards shall appear.
19. After this, in the year 1682, he went to Ireland again, and came to the house of William Steel, in Glenwharry, in the county of Antrim; he enquired at Mrs. Steel if she wanted a servant for threshing victual? She said they did, and enquired what his wages were a-day, or a-week. He said, the common rate was a common rule; to which she assented.—At night he was put to bed, in the barn, with the servant-lad; and that night he spent in prayer and groaning, up and down the barn. On the morrow he threshed victual with the lad, and the next night he spent the same way. The second day, in the morning, the lad said to his mistress, this man sleeps none, but groans and prays all night; I get no sleep for him: he threshes very well, and is not sparing of himself, tho’ I think he has not been used with it, for he can do nothing to the botteling and ordering of the barn; and when I put the barn in order, he goes to such a place, and there he prays for the afflicted Church of Scotland, and names so many in the furnace.—He wrought the second day, and his mistress watched and overheard him praying, as the lad had said.—At night she desired her husband to enquire if he was a minister, which he did, and desired him to be free with him, and he should not only be no enemy to him, but a friend. Mr. Peden said, he was not ashamed of his office; and gave an account of his circumstances. He was no more set to work, nor to lie with the lad; and he staid a considerable time in that place, and was a blessed instrument in the conversion of some, and civilizing of others, though that place was noted for a wild rude people, and the fruit of his labour appears unto this day. There was a servant-lass in that house, that he could not look upon but with frowns: and sometimes, when at family-worship, he said, pointing to her with a frowning countenance. You come from the barn and from the byre reeking in your lusts, and sits down among us; we do not want you, nor none such. At last he said to William Steel and his wife, Put that unhappy lass from your house, for she will be a stain to your family, for she is with child, and will murder it, and will be punished for the same. Which accordingly came to pass, and she was burnt at Carrickfergus, which is the punishment of murderers of children there. I had this account from John Muirhead, who staid much in that house, and other Christian people, when in Ireland.
20. After this, he longed to be out of Ireland, through the fearful apprehensions of that dismal day of rebellion in Ireland, that came upon it four years thereafter, and that he might take part with the sufferers in Scotland. He came near the coast one morning: John Muirhead came to him; lying within a hedge: he said, Have you any news, John? John said, There is great fear of the Irish rising. He said, no, no, John, the time of their arising is not yet; but they will rise, and dreadful will it be at last. He was long detained waiting for a bark, not daring to go to public parts, but to some remote creek of the sea. Alexander Gordon of Kinstuir, in Galloway, had agreed with one, but Mr. Peden would not sail the sea with him, having some foresight of what he did prove afterwards.—In the beginning of August before this, Kinstuir was relieved at Enterken-path, going from Dumfries to Edinburgh prisoner; when the news of it came to Ireland, our Scots sufferers, their acquaintance, were glad of the news, especially that Kinstuir had escaped. Mr. Peden said, What means all this Kinstuiring?—There is some of them relieved there, that one of them is worth many of him; for ye will be ashamed of him ere all be done. Being in this strait, he said to Robert Wark, an old worthy Christian, worthy of credit, Robert, go and take such a man with you and the first Bark ye can find, compel them, for they will be like the dogs in Egypt, not one of them will move their tongue against you. Accordingly Robert and his comrade found it so and brought her to that secret place where he was. When Robert and his comrade came and told him, he was glad and very kind and free; but he seemed under a cloud at that time. He said lads, I have lost my prospect wherewith I was wont to look over to the bloody land, and tell you and others what enemies and friends were doing; the devil and I puddles and rides time-about upon one another: but if I were uppermost again, I shall ride hard, and spurgaw well. I have been praying for a swift passage over to the sinful land, come of us what will: and now Alexander Gordon is away with my prayer-wind; but it were good for the remnant in Scotland he never saw it; for as the Lord lives, he shall wound that interest ere he go off the stage.—This sadly came to pass in his life, and was a reproach to it at his death. A little before they came off, he baptised a child to John Maxwell, a Glasgow man, who was fled ever from the persecution: in his discourse before baptism, he burst out into a rapture, foretelling that black day that was to come upon Ireland, and sad days to Scotland, and after all there was to come good days. Mrs. Maxwell, or Mary Elphingston, the mother of the child, yet alive in Glasgow, told me this, That in the time he was asserting these things, she was thinking and wondering what ground of assurance he had for them, when he cried aloud shaking his hand at her, woman, thou art thinking and wondering within thyself, whether I be speaking these things out of the visions of my own head, or if I be taught by the Spirit of God; I tell thee, woman, thou shalt live and see that I am not mistaken. She told me, that she was very lately delivered, and out of her great desire to have her child baptised before he came off, that she took travail too soon; and being weak, and so surprised with his telling her the thoughts of her heart, that she was in danger of falling off the chair. At this exercise also he told them, that he could not win off till he got this done, and this was all the drink-money, he had left in Ireland, and to the family (pointing to the landlord) for all the kindness he had met with from them. After baptism they got breakfast; there was plenty of bread upon the table, seeking a blessing, he put his hand beneath the bread, and holding it up with much affection and tears, said, “Lord there is a well covered table, and plenty of bread: but what comes of the poor young, kindly, honest hearted lad Renwick, that shames us all, in starving and holding up his fainting mother’s head, when of all the children she has brought forth, there is none will avowedly take her by the hand: and the poor, cold, hungry lads on the hills? For honour of thine own cause, let them not starve: thou caused a ravenous bird, greedy of flesh itself, to feed Elijah: and thou fed thy people in the wilderness with angel’s food: and blessed a few loaves and small fishes, and made them sufficient for many; and had experience of want, weariness cold and hunger, and enemies daily hunting for thy life, while in the world; look to them, and provide for them.” The Waiters being advertised of the bark being in that place, they and other people came upon them, which obliged them that were to come off, to secure the Waiters and people altogether, for fear of the garrison of Carrickfergus apprehending them, being near to it, which obliged them to come off immediately, twenty-six of our Scots sufferers came aboard, he stood upon the deck and prayed, there being not the least wind, where he made a rehearsal of times and places, when and where the Lord had heard and answered them in the days of their distress and how they were in a great strait.—Waving his hand to the west, from whence he desired the wind, he said, ‘Lord give a loof-full of wind: fill the sails Lord and give us a fresh gale, and let us have a swift passage over to the bloody land, come of us what will.’—John Muirhead, Robert Wark, and others who were present, told me, that when he began to pray, the sails were all hanging straight down, but ere he ended, they were all like blown bladders. They put out the Waiters and other people and got a very swift and safe passage.—The twenty-six Scots sufferers that were with him, having provided themselves with arms, and being designed to return to Scotland, there being then such a noise of killing; and the report was no greater than the deed, it being then in the heat of killing time, in the end of Febuary 1685. when at exercise in the bark, he said, ‘Lord thou knowest these lads are hot spirited, lay an arrest upon them, that they may not appear; their time is not yet; though Monmouth and Argyle be coming, they will work no deliverance.’ At that time there was no report of their coming, for they came not for ten weeks thereafter.—In the morning after they landed, he lectured before they parted, sitting upon a brae-side, where he had fearful threatenings against Scotland saying, the time was coming that they might travel many miles in Galloway and Nithsdale, Ayr and Clydesdale, and not see a reeking house, nor hear a cock crow.
28. When the day of his death drew near, and not being able to travel, he came to his brother’s house, in the parish of Sorn, where he was born. He caused dig a cave with a saughen bush covering the mouth of it, near to his brother’s house and the enemies came and searched the house narrowly many times. In the time that he was in this cave, he said to some friends, 1. That God shall make Scotland a desolation. 2. There shall be a remnant in the land, whom God should spare and hide. 3. They should lie in holes and caves of the earth, and be supplied with meat and drink: And when they come out of their holes, they shall not have freedom to walk, for stumbling on the dead corpses. 4. A stone cut of a mountain, should come down, and God shall be avenged on the great ones of the earth, and the inhabitants of the land, for their wickedness, and then the church should come forth with a bonny bairn-time of young ones at her back. He wished that the Lord’s people might lie hid in their caves, as if they were not in the world, for nothing would do it, until God appeared with his judgments, and they that wan through the bitter and sharp, short storm, by the sword of the Frenches, and a set of unhappy men, taking part with them, then there would be a spring-tide day of the plenty, purity and power of the gospel: Giving them that for a sign, If he were but once buried, they might be in doubts; but if he were oftener buried than once, they might be persuaded that all he had said would come to pass: And earnestly desired them to take his corpse out to Airdsmoss, and bury them beside Richy (meaning Mr. Cameron) that he might get rest in his grave, for he had gotten little through his life; but he said he knew they would not do it.
29. Within forty-eight hours he died, January 28th. 1686, being past sixty years; and was buried in the Laird of Afflect’s Isle. The enemies got notice of his death and burial, and sent a troop of dragoons, and lifted his corpse and carried him to Cumnock-gallows foot, and buried him there (after being forty days in the grave) beside others. His friends thereafter laid a grave-stone above him, with this inscription:
HERE LIES
Mr. ALEXANDER PEDEN,
A Faithful Minister of the Gospel,
at Glenluce,
Who departed this life January 28, 1686,
And was raised after six weeks
Out of his Grave,
And buried here out of contempt.
FINIS.
THE LIFE
AND
WONDERFUL PROPHECIES
OF
DONALD CARGILL.
Who was Executed at the Cross
of Edinburgh, on the 26th July, 1680.
For his adherence to the Covenant,
and Work of
REFORMATION
GLASGOW:
PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
THE
LIFE OF
MR DONALD CARGILL.
Mr Cargill seems to have been born some time about the year 1610. He was eldest son of a most respected family in the parish of Rattray. After he had been some time in the schools of Aberdeen, he went to St Andrew’s, where having perfected his course of philosophy, his father pressed upon him much to study divinity, in order for the ministry; but he thought the work was too great for his weak shoulders, and requested to command him to any other employment he pleased. But his father still continuing to urge him, he resolved to set apart a day of private fasting, to seek the Lord’s mind therein. And after much wrestling with the Lord by prayer, the third chapter of Ezekiel, and chiefly these words in the first verse, “Son of man, eat this roll and go speak unto the house of Israel”, made a strong impression on his mind, so that he durst no longer refuse his father’s desire, but dedicated himself wholly unto that office.
After this, he got a call to the Barony Church of Glasgow, It was so ordered by Divine providence, that the very first text the presbytery ordered him to preach upon, was these words in the third of Ezekiel, already mentioned, by which he was more confirmed, that he had God’s call to this parish. This parish had been long vacant, by reason that two ministers of the Resolution party, viz. Messrs Young and Blair, and still opposed the settlement of such godly men as had been called by the people. But in reference to Mr Cargill’s call, they were in God’s providence, much bound up from their wonted opposition. Here Mr Cargill, perceiving the lightness and unconcerned behaviour of the people under the word, was much discouraged thereat, so that he resolved to return home, and not accept the call, which, when he was urged by some godly ministers not to do, and his reason asked, he answered they are a rebellious people. The ministers solicited him to stay, but in vain. But when the horse was drawn, and he just going to begin his journey, being in the house of Mr Durham, when he had saluted several of his Christian friends that came to see him take horse, as he was taking farewell of a certain godly woman, she said to him, “Sir, you have promised to preach on Thursday, and have you appointed a meal for poor starving people, and will you go away and not give it? If you do, the curse of God will go with you.” This so moved him, that he durst not go away as he intended; but sitting down, desired her and others to pray for him. So he remained and was settled in that parish, where he continued to exercise his ministry with great success, to the unspeakable satisfaction both of his own parish, and all the godly that heard and knew him, until that, by the unhappy Restoration of Charles II. Prelacy was again restored.
Upon the 26th of May following, the day consecrated in commemoration of the said Restoration, he had occasion to preach in his own church, it being his ordinary week-day’s preaching, when he saw an unusual throng of people come to hear him, thinking he had preached in compliance with that solemnity. Upon entering the pulpit, he said, ‘We are not come here to keep this day upon the account for which others keep it. We thought once to have blessed the day, wherein the King came home again, but now we think we shall have reason to curse it; and if any of you come here in order to the solemnizing of this day, we desire you to remove.’ And enlarging upon these words in the 9th of Hosea, Rejoice not, O Israel, &c. he said, ‘This is the first step of our going a-whoring from God; and whoever of the Lord’s people this day are rejoicing, their joy will be like the crackling of thorns under a pot, it will soon be turned to mourning; he (meaning the king) will be the wofullest sight ever the poor church of Scotland saw; wo, wo, wo unto him, his name shall stink while the world stands for treachery, tyranny, and lechery.’
This did exceedingly enrage the malignant party against him, so that being hotly pursued, he was obliged to abscond, remaining sometimes in private houses, and sometimes lying all night without, among broom near the city, yet never omitting any proper occasion of private preaching, catechising, and visiting of families, and other ministerial duties, but at length, when the churches were all vacated of Presbyterians by an act of Council, 1662, Middleton sent a band of soldiers to apprehend him, who, coming to the church, found him not, he having providentially just stepped out of the one door a minute before they came in at the other; whereupon they took the keys of the church door with them, and departed.—In the mean while the Council passed an act of confinement banishing him to the north side of the Tay, under penalty of being imprisoned, and prosecuted as a seditious person.—But this sentence he no ways regarded.
During this time, partly by grief for the ruin of God’s work in the land, and partly by the toils and inconveniences of his labours and accommodation, his voice became so broken, that he could not be heard by many together, which was a sore exercise to him, and discouragement to preach in the fields; but one day Mr Blackatter coming to preach near Glasgow, he essayed to preach with him, and standing on a chair, as his custom was, he lectured on Is. xliv. 3. “I will pour water on him that is thirsty, &c.” The people were much discouraged, knowing his voice to be sore broken, lest they should not have heard by reason of the great confluence. But it pleased the Lord to loose his tongue, and to restore his voice to such a distinct clearness, that none could easily exceed him; and not only his voice, but his spirit was so enlarged, and such a door of utterance given him, that Mr Blackatter, succeeding him, said to the people, ‘Ye that have such preaching, have no need to invite strangers to preach to you; make good use of your mercy.’ After this he continued to preach without the city, a great multitude attending and profiting by his ministry, being wonderfully preserved in the midst of dangers, the enemy several times sending out to watch him, and catch something from his mouth whereof they might accuse him, &c.
In October 1665, they made a public search for him in the city. But he, being informed, took horse, and rode out of town, and at a narrow pass of the way, he met a good number of musqueteers. As he passed them, turning to another way on the right-hand, one of them asked him, Sir, what o’clock is it? he answered, It is six. Another of them knowing his voice, said, There is the man we are seeking.—Upon hearing this, he put spurs to his horse, and so escaped.
For about three years he usually resided in the house of one Margaret Craig, a very godly woman, where he lectured morning and evening to such as came to hear him. And tho’ they searched strictly for him here, yet providence so ordered it, that he was either casually or purposely absent, for the Lord was often so gracious to him, that he left him not without some notice of approaching hazard. Thus, one Sabbath, as he was going to Woodside to preach, as he was about to mount his horse, having one foot in the stirrup, he turned about to his man, and said, I must not go yonder to-day.—And in a little a party of the enemy came there in quest of him; but missing the mark they aimed at, they fell upon the people, by apprehending and imprisoning several of them.
Another of his remarkable escapes was at a march made for him in the city, where they came to his chamber, and found him not, being providentially in another house, that night.—But what is most remarkable, being one day preaching privately in the house of one Mr Callander, they came and beset the house; the people put him and another into a window, closing the window up with books. The search was so strict, that they searched the very ceiling of the house, until one of them fell through the lower loft.—Had they removed but one of the books, they would certainly have found him. But the Lord so ordered that they did it not; for as one of the soldiers was about to take up one of them, the maid cried to the commander, that he was going to take her master’s books, and he was ordered to let them be. Thus narrowly he escaped this danger.
Thus he continued until the 23d of November 1667, that the Council, upon information of a breach of his confinement, cited him to appear before them on the 11th of January thereafter. But when he was apprehended, and compeared before the Council and strictly examined, wherein he was most singularly strengthened to bear faithful testimony to his Master’s honour, and his persecuted cause and truths; yet by the interposition of some persons of quality, his own friends, and his wife’s relations, he was dismissed, and presently returned to Glasgow, and there performed all the ministerial duties.
Some time before Bothwell, notwithstanding all the searches that were made for him by the enemy, which were both strict and frequent, he preached publicly for eighteen Sabbath-days to multitudes, consisting of several thousands, within a little more than a quarter of a mile of the city of Glasgow; yea, so near it, that the psalms, when singing, were heard through several parts, of it; and yet all this time uninterrupted.
At Bothwell, being taken by the enemy, and struck down to the ground with a sword, seeing nothing but present death for him having received several dangerous wounds in the head, one of the soldiers asked his name; he told him it was Donald Cargill; another asked him, if he was a minister? He answered, he was; whereupon they let him go. When his wounds were examined, he feared to ask if they were mortal, desiring, in admission to God, to live, judging that the Lord had yet further work for him to accomplish.
Some time after the battle at Bothwell, he was pursued from his own chamber out of town, and forced to go through several thorn hedges. But he was no sooner out, than he saw a troop of dragoons just opposite to him; back he could not go, soldiers being posted every where to catch him; upon which he went forward, near by the troop, who looked to him, and he to them, until he got past. But coming to the place of the water at which he intended to go over, he saw another troop standing on the other side, who called to him but he made them no answer. And going about a mile up the water, he escaped, and preached at Langside next Sabbath, without interruption. At another time, being in a house beset with soldiers, he went through the midst of them, they thinking it was the goodman of the house and escaped.
After Bothwell, he fell into a deep exercise anent his call to the ministry; but, by the grace and goodness of God, he soon emerged out of that, and also got much light anent the duty of the day, being a faithful contender against the enemy’s usurped power, and against the sinful compliance of ministers, in accepting the indulgence, with indemnities, oaths, bonds, and all other corruptions.
There was a certain woman in Rutherglen, about two miles from Glasgow, who, by the instigation of some, both ministers and professors, was persuaded to advice her husband to go but once to hear the curate, to prevent the family being reduced; which she prevailed with him to do. But going the next day after to milk her cows, two or three of them dropt down dead at her feet, and Satan, as she conceived, appeared unto her; which cast her under sad and sore exercises and desertion; so that she was brought to question her interest in Christ, and all that had formerly passed betwixt God and her soul, and was often tempted to destroy herself, and sundry times attempted it: Being before known to be an eminent Christian, she was visited by many Christians; but without success: still crying out she was undone; she had denied Christ, and he had denied her. After continuing a long time in this exercise, she cried for Mr Cargill, who came to her, but found her distemper so strong, that for several visits he was obliged to leave her as he found her to his no small grief. However, after setting some days apart on her behalf, he at last came again to her; but finding her no better, still rejecting all comfort, still crying out, that she had no interest in the mercy of God, or merits of Christ, but had sinned the unpardonable sin; he, looking in her face for a considerable time, took out his Bible, and naming her, said, “I have this day a commission from my Lord and Master, to renew the marriage contract betwixt you and him; and if ye will not consent, I am to require your subscription on this Bible, that you are willing to quit all right, interest in, or pretence unto him:” and then he offered her pen and ink for that purpose. She was silent for some time; but at last cried out, “O! salvation is come unto this house. I take him; I take him on his own terms, as he is offered unto me by his faithful ambassador.” From that time her bands were loosed.
One time Mr Cargill, Mr Walter Smith, and some other Christian friends, being met in a friend’s house in Edinburgh, one of the company told him of the general bonding of the Western gentlemen for suppressing field meetings, and putting all out of their grounds who frequented them. After sitting silent for some time, he answered, with several heavy sighs and groans, “The enemy have been long filling up the cup; and ministers and professors must have time to fill up their’s also; and it shall not be full till enemies and they be clasped in one another’s arms; and then, as the Lord lives, he will bring the wheel of his wrath and justice over them altogether.”
Some time after the beginning of the year 1680, he retired toward the Frith of Forth, where he continued until that scuffle at Queensferry, where worthy Haugh-head was killed, and he sorely wounded. But escaping, a certain woman found him in a private place, to the south of the town, and tying up his wounds with her head-cloths, conducted him to the house of one Robert Runtens, in Carlowrie, where a surgeon dressed his wounds and Mrs Puntens gave him some warm milk, and he lay in their barn all night. From thence he went to the south, and next Sabbath preached at Cairnhill, somewhere adjacent to Loudon, in his blood and wounds; for no danger could stop him from going about doing good. His text was in Heb. xi. 32. And what shall I more say, for time would fail me to tell of Gideon, &c. At night, some persons said to him, We think, Sir, preaching and praying go best with you when your danger and distress are greatest. He said, it had been so, and he hoped it would be so, the more that enemies and others did thurst at him that he might fall, the more sensibly the Lord had helped him; and then (as it had been to himself) he repeated these words, The Lord is my strength and song, and has become my salvation, in the 118th Psalm, which was the psalm he sung upon the scaffold.
After this, he and Mr Richard Cameron met and preached together in Dermeid-muir, and other places, until that Mr Cameron was slain at Airs-moss, and then he went north, where, in the month of September following, he had a most numerous meeting at the Torwood, near Stirling, where he pronounced the sentence of excommunication, against some of the most violent persecutors of that day, as formally as the present state of things could then permit. Some time before this, it is said, he was very remote, and spoke very little in company; only to some he said, he had atout to give with the trumpet that the Lord had put in his hand, that would sound in the ears of many in Britain, and other places in Europe also. It is said, that no body knew what he was to do that morning, except Mr Walter Smith, to whom he imparted the thoughts of his heart. When he began, some friends feared he would be shot. His landlord, in whose house he had been that night, cast his coat and ran for it. In the forenoon, he lectured on Ezek. xxi. 25. &c. and preached on 1 Cor. v. 13. and then discoursed some time on the nature of excommunication, and then proceeded to the sentence: after which, in the afternoon, he preached from Lam. iii. 31, 32. For the Lord will not cast off for ever.
The next Lord’s day, he preached at Fallowhill, in the parish of Livingstone. In the preface, he said, “I know I am and will be condemned by many, for excommunicating those wicked men, but condemn me who will, I know I am approven of by God, and am persuaded, that what I have done on earth, is ratified in heaven; for, if ever I knew the mind of God, and was clear in my call to any piece of my generation-work, it was that. And I shall give you two signs, that ye may know I am in no delusion; (1.) If some of these men do not find that sentence binding upon them, ere they go off the stage, and be obliged to confess it, &c. (2.) If these men die the ordinary death of men, then God hath not spoken by me.”
About the 22d of October following, a long and severe proclamation was issued out against him and his followers, wherein a reward of 5000 merks was offered for apprehending him, &c.—Next month, Governor Middleton, having been frustrated in his design upon Mr Cargill at Queensferry, laid another plot for him, by consulting one James Henderson in Ferry, who, by forging and signing letters, in the name of Bailie Adam in Culross, and some other serious Christians in Fife, for Mr Cargill to come over, and preach to them at the hill of Beith. Accordingly, Henderson went to Edinburgh with the letters, and, after a most diligent search, found him in the West Bow. Mr Cargill being willing to answer the call, Henderson proposed to go before, and have a boat, ready at the Ferry when they came; and that he might know them, he desired to see Mr Cargill’s cloth, Mr Skeen and Mr Boig being in the same room. In the mean time, he had Middleton’s soldiers lying at the Mutton-hole, about three miles from Edinburgh. Mr Skeen, Archibald Stuart, Mrs Muir, and Marion Hervey, took the way before, on foot: Mr Cargill and Mr Boig being to follow on horseback. Whenever they came to the place, the soldiers spied them; but Mrs Muir escaped and went and stopped Mr Cargill and Mr Boig, who fled back to Edinburgh.
After this remarkable escape, Mr Cargill, seeing nothing but the violent flames of treachery and tyranny against him, above all others, retired for about three months to England, where the Lord blessed his labours to the conviction and edification of many. In the time of his absence that delusion of the Gibbites arose, from one John Gib sailor In Borrow-stounness, who, with other three men, and twenty six women, vented and maintained the most strange delusions. Some time after, Mr Cargill returned from England, and was at no small pains to reclaim them, but with little success. After his last conference with them, at Darngavel, in Cambusnethen parish, he came next Sabbath, and preached at the Underbank wood, below Lanark, and from thence to Loudon-hill, where he preached upon a fast day, being the 5th of May. Here he intended only to have preached once, and to have baptized some children. His text was, ‘No man that hath followed me in the regeneration, &c.’ When sermon was over, and the children baptized, more children came up; whereupon friends pressed him to preach in the afternoon; which he did, from these words, ‘Weep not for me,’ &c. In the mean while the enemy at Glasgow getting notice of this meeting, seized all the horses in and about the town, that they could come by, and mounted in quest of him; yea, such was their haste and fury, that one of the soldiers, who happened to be behind the rest, riding furiously down the street called the Stockwell, at mid-day, rode over a child, and killed her on the spot. Just as Mr Cargill was praying at the close, a lad alarmed them of the enemy’s approach. They having no sentinels that day which was not their ordinary, were surprised, so that some of them who had been at Pentland, Bothwell, Airs-moss, and other dangers, were never so seized with fear, some of the women, throwing their children from them. In this confusion Mr Cargill was running straight on the enemy; but Gavin Wotherspoon and others haled him to the moss, unto which the people fled. The dragoons fired hard upon them, but there were none either killed or taken that day.
About this time, some spoke to Mr Cargill of his preaching and praying short. They said, “O Sir, it is long betwixt meals, and we are in a starving condition; all is good, sweet, and wholesome, that you deliver, but why do you so straiten us?” He said, “Ever since I bowed a knee in good earnest to pray, I never durst preach, and pray with my gift; and when my heart is not affected, and comes not up with my mouth, I always think it time to quit it. What comes not from the heart, I have little hope it will go to the hearts of others:” Then he repeated these words in the 51st psalm, “Then will I teach transgressors thy way, &c.”
From Loudon hill he took a tour through Ayrshire to Carrick and Galloway, preaching, baptizing, and marrying some people; but staid not long until he returned to Clydesdale. He designed, after his return, to have preached one day at Tinto-hill, but the Lady of St John’s Kirk gave it out to be at Home Common. He being in the house of John Liddel, near Tinto, went out to spend the Sabbath morning by himself; and seeing the people all passing by, he inquired the reason; which being told, he rose and followed them five miles. The morning being warm, (about the 1st of June,) and the heights steep, he was very much fatigued before he got to the place, where a man gave him a drink of water out of his bonnet, and another between sermons; this being the best entertainment he got that day, for he had tasted nothing in the morning. Here he lectured on the 6th of Isaiah, and preached on these words, “Be not high minded, but fear, &c.” From thence he went to Fyfe, and baptised many children, and preached one day at Daven common, and then returned to the Benry-bridge in Cambusnethan, where he received a call from the hands of two men, to come back to Galloway, but got it not answered.
Mr Cargill in that short time, had run very fast towards his end, which now hastens apace. Having left the Benry-bridge, he preached one day at Auchingilloch, and then came to preach his last sermon on Dunsyre common, between Clydesdale and Lothian, upon the text Is. xxvi. 20. “Come my people and enter into your chambers, &c.”
Some time that night, through the persuasion of Mr Smith and Mr Boig, he went with the Lady of St. John’s Kirk, as far as Covington mill, to the house of one Andrew Fisher. In the mean time, James Irvine of Bonshaw, having got a general commission, marched with a party of dragoons from Kilbride, and next morning, by sun-rising, came to St John’s Kirk, and having searched it, he searched also the house of one Thomson, and then came to Covington-mill, and there apprehended him, Mr Smith, and Mr Boig. Bonshaw, when he found them, cried out, O blessed Bonshaw! and blessed day that ever I was born! that has found such a prize! a prize of 5000 merks for apprehending him this morning! They marched hard to Lanark and put them in jail, until they got some refreshment and then brought them out in haste, got horses and set the prisoners on their bare backs. Bonshaw tied Mr Cargill’s feet below the horse’s belly, with his own hand, very hard; at which this man looked down to him, and said, “Why do you tie me so hard, your wickedness is great. You will not long escape the just judgement of God; and, if I be not mistaken it will seize you in this very place.” Which accordingly next year came to pass: for having got this price of blood, one of his comrades, in a rage ran him through with a sword at Lanark: and his last words were, “G—d d——n my soul eternally, for I am gone.” Mischief shall hunt the violent man.
They came to Glasgow in haste, fearing a rescue of the prisoners: and while waiting at the tolbooth, till the magistrates came to receive them, one John Nisbet, the Archbishop’s factor, said to Mr Cargill in ridicule, three times over, Will you give us one word more? (alluding to an expression he used sometimes when preaching); to whom Mr Cargill said with regret, “Mock not, lest your lands be made strong. The day is coming, when you shall not have one word to say though you would.” This also came quickly to pass; for, not many days after, he fell suddenly ill, and for three days his tongue swelled, and though he was most earnest to speak, yet he could not command one word, and died in great torment, and seeming terror.
From Glasgow they were taken to Edinburgh, and, July 15th, were brought before the Council. Chancellor Rothes (being one of those whom he excommunicated at Torwood) raged against him, threatening him with torture and a violent death. To whom he said, “My Lord Rothes, forbear to threaten me, for die what death I will, your eyes shall not see it.”—Which accordingly came to pass; for he died the morning of that day, in the afternoon of which Mr Cargill was executed.
When before the Council, he was asked, if he acknowledged the King’s authority, &c. he answered as the magistrate’s authority is now established by act of parliament, and explanatory act, that he denied the same. Being also examined anent the excommunication at Torwood, he declined to answer, as being an ecclesiastical matter, and they a civil judicatory. He owned the lawfulness of defensive arms, in cases of necessity, and denied that those that rose at Bothwell, &c. were rebels: and being interrogated anent the Sanquhar declaration, he declined to give his judgment until he had more time to consider the contents thereof. He further declared, he could not give his sense of the killing of the Bishop; but that the scriptures say, upon the Lord’s giving a call to a private man to kill, he might do it lawfully; and gave the instances of Jael and Phinehas. These were the most material points on which he was examined.
While he was in prison, a gentlewoman who came to visit him, told him, weeping, “That these Heaven daring enemies were contriving a most violent death for him; some, a barrel with pikes to roll him in; others an iron-chair, red-hot, to roll him in,” &c. But he said, “Let you nor none of the Lord’s people be troubled for these things, for all that they will get liberty to do to me, will be to knit me up, cut me down, and chop off my old head, and then fare them well; they have done with me, and with them for ever.”
He was again before the Council on the 19th, but refusing to answer their questions, except anent the excommunication. There was some motion made to spare him, as he was an old man, and send him prisoner to the Bass during life; which motion being put to a vote, was, by the casting vote of the Earl of Rothes, rejected; who doomed him to the gallows, there to die like a traitor.
Upon the 26th he was brought before the justiciary, and indicted in common form. His confession being produced in evidence against him, he was brought in guilty of high treason, and condemned, with the rest, to be hanged at the cross of Edinburgh, and his head placed on the Nether Bow. When they came to these words in his indictment, viz. having cast off all fear of God, &c. he caused the clerk to stop, and, pointing to the Advocate, Sir George M’Kenzie, said, “The man that hath caused that paper to be drawn up hath done it contrary to the light of his own conscience, for he knoweth that I have been a fearer of God from mine infancy; but that man, I say, who took the Holy Bible in his hand, and said, It would never be well with the land, until that book was destroyed, &c. I say, he is the man that hath cast off all fear of God.” The Advocate stormed at this, but could not deny the truth thereof.
When they got their sentence announced by sound of trumpet he said, “That is a weary sound, but the sound of the last trumpet will be a joyful sound to me, and all that will be found having on Christ’s righteousness.”
Being come to the scaffold, he stood with his back to the ladder, and desired the attention of the numerous spectators; and after singing from the 16th verse of the 118th psalm, he began to speak to three sorts of people; but being interrupted by the drum, he said, with a smiling countenance, “Ye see we have no liberty to speak what we would, but God knoweth our hearts.” As he proceeded, he was again interrupted. Then, after a little pause or silence, he began to exhort the people; and to show his own comfort in laying down his life, in the assurance of a blessed eternity, expressing himself in these words: “Now, I am as sure of my interest in Christ, and peace with God, as all within this Bible and the Spirit of God can make me; and I am fully persuaded, that this is the very way for which I suffer, and that he will return gloriously to Scotland; but it will be terrifying to many; therefore, I entreat you, be not discouraged at the way of Christ and the cause for which I am to lay down my life, and step into eternity, where my soul shall be as full of him as it can desire to be; and now this is the sweetest and most glorious day that ever mine eyes did see. Enemies are now enraged against the way and people of God, but ere long they shall be enraged one against another, to their own confusion.” Here the drums did beat a third time. Then setting his foot on the ladder, he said, “The Lord knows I go on this ladder with less fear, and perturbation of mind, than ever I entered the pulpit to preach.”—When up, he sat down, and said, “Now I am near the getting of the crown, which shall be sure, for which I bless the Lord, and desire all of you to bless him, that he hath brought me here, and made me triumph over devils, men, and sin. They shall wound me no more. I forgive all men the wrongs they have done me; and I pray the sufferers may be kept from sin, and helped to know their duty.” Then having prayed a little within himself, he lifted up the napkin, and said, “Farewell all relations and friends in Christ; farewell acquaintances and earthly enjoyments; farewell reading and preaching, praying and believing, wanderings, reproach, and sufferings. Welcome Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; into thy hands I commit my spirit.” Then he prayed a little, and the executioner turned him over as he was praying; and so he finished his course, and the ministry that he had received of the Lord.
Take his character from Sir Robert Hamilton of Preston, who was his contemporary. He was affectionate, affable, and tender-hearted, to all such as he thought had any thing of the image of God in them; sober and temperate in his diet, saying commonly, It was well won that was won off the flesh; generous, liberal and most charitable to the poor; a great hater of covetousness; a frequent visitor of the sick; much alone, loving to be retired; but when about his Master’s public work, laying hold of every opportunity to edify; in conversation, still dropping what might minister grace to the hearers: his countenance was edifying to beholders; often sighing with deep groans: preaching in season, and out of season, upon all hazards; ever the same in judgment and practice. From his youth, he was much given to the duty of secret prayer, for whole nights together; wherein it was observed, that, both in secret and in families, he always sat straight upon his knees, with his hands lifted up; and in this posture (as some took notice) he died with the rope about his neck.
Besides his last speech and testimony, and several other religious letters, with the lecture, sermon, and sentence of excommunication at Torwood, which, are all published, there are also several other sermons, and notes of sermons, interspersed among some peoples hands, in print and manuscript, some of which have been published. Yet if we may believe Walker, in his remarkable passages, &c. who heard severals of them preached, they are nothing to what they were when delivered; and however pathetical, yet doubtless far inferior to what they would have been, had they been corrected and published by the worthy author himself.
AN ACROSTIC ON HIS NAME.
Most sweet and savoury is thy fame,
And more renowned is thy name,
Surely than any can record,
Thou highly favoured of the Lord.
Exalted thou on earth didst live;
Rich grace to thee the Lord did give.
During the time thou dwelt below,
On in a course to heaven didst go.
Not casten down with doubts and fears,
Assur’d of heaven near thirty years.
Labour thou didst in Christ’s vineyard;
Diligent wast, no time thou spar’d.
Christ’s standard thou didst bear alone,
After others from it were gone.
Right zeal for truth was found in thee,
Great sinners censurd’st faithfully.
In holding truth didst constant prove,
Laidst down thy life out of true love.
June 21, 1741. W. W.
FINIS.
NARRATIVE
OF THE BATTLES
OF
DRUMCLOG,
AND
BOTHWELL BRIDGE.
GLASGOW:
PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS.
THE
BATTLE OF DRUMCLOG.
The following Account of the Battles of Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge, is taken from an American Newspaper, entitled the ‘National Gazette.’ It is written by the Laird of Torfoot, an officer in the Presbyterian army, whose estate is at this day in the possession of his lineal descendants of the fifth generation.
“It was a fair Sabbath morning, 1st June 1679, that an assembly of the Covenanters sat down on the heathy mountains of Drumclog. We had assembled not to fight, but to worship the God of our fathers. We were far from the tumult of cities.—The long dark heath waved around us; and we disturbed no living creatures, saving the pees-weep and the heather-cock. As usual, we had come armed. It was for self-defence. For desperate and ferocious bands made bloody raids through the country, and, pretending to put down treason, they waged war against religion and morals. They spread ruin and havoc over the face of bleeding Scotland.
The venerable Douglas had commenced the solemnities of the day. He was expatiating on the execrable evils of tyranny. Our souls were on fire at the rememberance of our country’s sufferings and the wrongs of the church. In this moment of intense feeling, our watchman posted on the neighbouring heights fired his carabine and ran towards the congregation. He announced the approach of the enemy. We raised our eyes to the minister. “I have done,” said Douglas with his usual firmness—“You have got the theory,—now for the practice; you know your duty; self-defence is always lawful. But the enemy approaches.” He raised his eyes to heaven and uttered a prayer—brief and emphatic—like the prayer of Richard Cameron, “Lord, spare the green, and take the ripe.”
The officers collected their men, and placed themselves each at the head of those of his own district. Sir Robert Hamilton placed the foot in the centre, in three ranks. A company of horse, well armed and mounted, was placed on the left; and a small squadron also on the left. These were drawn back, and they occupied the more solid ground; as well with a view to have a more solid footing, as to arrest any flanking party that might take them on the wings. A deep morass lay between us and the ground of the enemy. Our aged men, our females and children retired; but they retired slowly. They had the hearts and the courage of the female and children in those days of intense religious feeling and of suffering. They manefested more concern for the fate of relatives, for the fate of the church than for their own personal safety. As Claverhouse descended the opposite mountain, they retired to the rising ground in the rear of our host. The aged men walked with their bonnets in hand. Their long grey hairs waving to the breeze. They sang a cheering psalm. The music was that of the well-known tune of “The Martyrs;” and the sentiment breathed defiance.—The music floated down on the wind,—our men gave them three cheers as they fell into their ranks. Never did I witness such animation in the looks of men. For me, my spouse and my little children were in the rear. My native plains, and the hills of my father, far below, in the dale of Aven, were in full view from the heights which we occupied. My country seemed to raise her voice—the bleeding church seemed to wail aloud. ‘And these,’ I said, as, Clavers and his troops winded slowly down the dark mountain’s side, ‘these are the unworthy slaves, and bloody executioners, by which the tyrant completes our miseries.’
Hamilton here displayed the hero. His portly figure was seen hastening from rank to rank. He inspired courage into our raw and undisciplined troops. The brave Hackstone, and Hall of Haughhead, stood at the head of the foot, and re-echoed the sentiments of their Chief. Burley and Cleland had inflamed the minds of the horsemen on the left to a noble enthusiasm. My small troop on the right needed no exhortation; we were a band of brothers, resolved to conquer or fall.
The trumpet of Clavers sounded a loud note of defiance—the kettle drum mixed its tumultuous roll—they halted—they made a long pause. We could see an officer with four file, conducting 15 persons from the ranks, to a knoll on their left. I could perceive one in black: it was my friend King, the Chaplain at Lord Cardross, who had been taken by Clavers at Hamilton. ‘Let them be shot through the head,’ said Clavers, in his usual dry way, ‘if they should offer to run away.’ We could see him view our position with great care. His officers came around him. We soon learned that he wished to treat with us. He never betrayed symptoms of mercy or of justice, nor offered terms of reconciliation, unless when he dreaded that he had met his match; and, even then, it was only a manœuvre to gain time or to deceive. His flag approached the edge of the bog. Sir Robert held a flag sacred; had it been borne by Clavers himself he had honoured it. He demanded the purpose for which he came. ‘I come,’ said he, ‘in the name of his sacred Majesty, and of Colonel Graham, to offer you a pardon, on condition that you lay down your arms, and deliver up your ringleaders.’—‘Tell your officer,’ said Sir Robert, ‘that we are fully aware of the deception he practices. He is not clothed with any powers to treat, nor was he sent out to treat with us, and attempt reconciliation. The Government against whom we have risen, refuses to redress our grievances, or to restore to us our liberties. Had the tyrant wished to render us justice, he had not sent by the hand of such a ferocious assassin as Claverhouse. Let him, however, show his powers, and we refuse not to treat; and we shall lay down our arms to treat, provided that he also lay down his. Thou hast my answer.’—‘It is a perfectly hopeless case,’ said Burley, while he called after the flag-bearer.—‘Let me add one word by your leave, General. Get thee up to that bloody dragoon, Clavers, and tell him, that we will spare his life, and the lives of his troops, on condition that he, your Clavers, lay down his arms, and the arms of these troops. We will do more, as we have no prisoners on these wild mountains, we will even let him go on his parole, on condition that he swear never to lift arms against the religion and the liberties of his country.’ A loud burst of applause re-echoed from the ranks; and after a long pause in deep silence, the army sung the following verses of a psalm:—
‘The arrows of the bow he brake:
The shield, the sword, the war.
More glorious thou than hills of prey,
More excellent art far.
Those that were stout of heart are spoil’d,
They sleep their sleep outright;
And none of these their hands did find,
That were the men of might.’
When the report was made to Claverhouse, he gave word with a savage ferocity, ‘Their blood be on their own heads. Be—no quarter—the word this day.’ His fierce dragoons raised a yell, and ‘No quarter’ re-echoed from rank to rank, while they galloped down the mountain side. It is stated, that Burleigh was heard to say, ‘Then be it so, even let there be ‘no quarter’—at least in my wing of the host. So God send me a meeting,’ cried he aloud, ‘with that chief under the white plume.—My country would bless my memory, could my sword give his villainous carcase to the crows.’
Our raw troops beheld with firmness the approach of the foemen; and at the moment when the enemy halted to fire, the whole of our foot dropped on the heath. Not a man was seen down when the order was given to rise, and return the fire. The first flank fired, then kneeling down while the second fired. They made each bullet tell. As often as the lazy rolling smoke was carried over the enemy’s head, a shower of bullets fell on his ranks. Many a gallant man tumbled on the heath. The fire was incessant. It resembled one blazing sheet of flame, for several minutes, along the line of the Covenanters. Clavers attempted to cross the morass, and break our centre. ‘Spearmen! to the front,’—I could hear the deep-toned voice of Hamilton say, ‘Kneel, and place your spears to receive the enemy’s cavalry; and you, my gallant fellows fire—God and our country is our word.’—Our officers flew from rank to rank. Not a peasant gave way that day. As the smoke rolled off, we could see Clavers urging on his men with the violence of despair. His troops fell in heaps around him, and still the gaps were filled up. A galled trooper would occasionally flinch; but ere he could turn or flee, the sword of Clavers was waving over his head. I could see him in his fury, strike both man and horse. In the fearful carnage he himself sometimes reeled. He would stop short in the midst of a movement, then contradict his own orders, and strike the man, because he could not comprehend his meaning.
He ordered the flanking parties to take us on our right and left. “In the name of God,” cried he, “cross the bog, and charge them on the flanks till we get over the morass. If this fail we are lost.”
It now fell to my lot to come into action.—Hitherto we had fired only some distant shot. A gallant officer led his band down to the borders of the swamp, in search of a proper place to cross. We threw ourselves before him, a severe firing commenced. My gallant men fired with great steadiness. We could see many tumbling from their saddles. Not content with repelling the foemen, we found an opportunity to cross, and attack sword in hand. The Captain, whose name I afterwards ascertained to be Arrol, threw himself into my path. In the first shock, I discharged my pistols. His sudden start in the saddle, told me that one of them had taken effect. With one of the tremendous oaths of Charles II. he closed with me. He fired his steel pistol. I was in front of him;—my sword glanced on the weapon, and gave a direction to the bullet, which saved my life. By this time my men had driven the enemy before them, and had left the ground clear for the single combat. As he made a lounge at my breast, I turned his sword aside, by one of those sweeping blows, which are rather the dictate of a kind of instinct of self-defence, than a movement of art.—As our strokes redoubled, my antagonist’s dark features put on a look of deep and settled ferocity. No man who has not encountered the steel of his enemy, in the field of battle, can conceive the looks and the manner of the warrior, in the moments of his intense feelings. May I never witness them again! We fought in silence. My stroke fell on his left shoulder; it cut the belt of his carabine, which fell to the ground. His blow cut me to the rib, glanced along the bone, and rid me also of the weight of my carabine. He had now advanced too near me to be struck with the sword. I grasped him by the collar. I pushed him backwards; and, with an entangled blow of my Ferrara, I struck him across his throat. It cut only the strap of his head-piece, and it fell off. With a sudden spring, he seized me by the sword belt. Our horses reared, and we both came to the ground. We rolled on the heath in deadly conflict. It was in this situation of matters, that my brave fellows had returned from the rout of the flanking party, to look after their commander. One of them was actually rushing on my antagonist, when I called on him to retire. We started to our feet. Each grasped his sword. We closed in conflict again. After parrying strokes of mine enemy, which indicated a hellish ferocity, I told him, my object was to take him prisoner; that sooner than kill him, I should order my men to seize him. “Sooner let my soul be brandered on my ribs in hell,” said he, “than be captured by a Whigmore. ‘No quarter’ is the word of my Colonel, and my word. Have at the Whig—I dare the whole of you to the combat.”—“Leave the mad man to me—leave the field instantly,” said I to my party, whom I could hardly restrain. My sword fell on his left shoulder.—His sword dropped from his hand.—I lowered my sword, and offered him his life. ‘No quarter,’ said he, with a shriek of despair. He snatched his sword, which I held in my hand, and made a lounge at my breast. I parried his blows till he was nearly exhausted; but, gathering up his huge limbs, he put forth all his energy in a thrust at my heart.—My Andro Ferrara received it, so as to weaken its deadly force; but it made a deep cut. Though I was faint with loss of blood, I left him no time for another blow. My sword glanced on his shoulder, cut through his buff coat, and skin, and flesh; swept through his jaw, and laid open his throat from ear to ear. The fire of his ferocious eye was quenched in a moment. He reeled, and falling with a terrible clash, he poured out his soul with a torrent of blood on the heath. I sunk down, insensible for a moment. My faithful men, who never lost sight of me, raised me up. In the fierce combat, the soldier suffers most from thirst. I stooped down to fill my helmet with the water which oozed through the morass. It was deeply tinged with human blood, which flowed in the conflict above me. I started back with horror; and Gawn Witherspoon bringing up my steed, we set forward in the tumult of the battle.
All this while, the storm of war had raged on our left. Cleland and the fierce Burley had charged the strong company sent to flank them. These officers permitted me to cross the swamp, then, charged them with a terrible shout. ‘No quarter,’ cried the dragoons.
‘Be no quarter to you, then, ye murderous loons,’ cried Burley; and at one blow he cut their leader through the steel cap, and scattered his brains on his followers. His every blow overthrew a foeman. Their whole forces were now brought up, and they drove the dragoons of Clavers into the swamp. They rolled over each other. All stuck fast. The Covenanters dismounted, and fought on foot. They left not one man to bear the tidings to their Colonel.
The firing of the platoons had long ago ceased, and the dreadful work of death was carried on by the sword. At this moment, a trumpet was heard in the rear of our army. There was an awful pause, all looked up. It was only the gallant Captain Nesbit, and his guide, Woodburn of Mains; he had no reinforcements for us, but himself was a host. With a loud huzza, and flourish of his sword, he placed himself by the side of Burley, and cried, ‘jump the ditch, and charge the enemy.’ He and Burley struggled through the marsh. The men followed as they could. They formed and marched on the enemy’s right flank.
At this instant, Hamilton and Hackstone brought forward the whole line of infantry in front. ‘God and our Country’ re-echoed from all the ranks—‘No quarters’ said the fierce squadrons of Clavers.—Here commenced a bloody scene.
I seized the opportunity this moment offered to me of making a movement to the left of the enemy to save my friend King and the other prisoners.—We came in time to save them. Our sword speedily severed the ropes which tyranny had bound on the arms of the men. The weapons of the fallen foe supplied what was lacking of arms; and with great vigour we moved forward to charge the enemy on the left flank. Claverhouse formed a hollow square—himself in the centre; his men fought gallantly; they did all that soldiers could do in their situation. Wherever a gap was made, Clavers thrust the men forward, and speedily filled it up. Three times he rolled headlong on the heath as he hastened from rank to rank, and as often he remounted. My little band thinned his ranks. He paid us a visit. Here I distinctly saw the features and shape of this far-famed man. He was small of stature, and not well formed. His arms were long in proportion to his legs; he had a complexion unusually dark; his features were not lighted up with sprightliness, as some fabulously reported; they seemed gloomy as hell: his cheeks were lank and deeply furrowed; his eye-brows were drawn down and gathered into a kind of knot at their junctions, and thrown up at their extremeties; they had, in short, the strong expression given by our painters to those on the face of Judas Iscariot, his eyes were hollow, they had not the lustre of genius nor the fire of vivacity; they were lighted up by that dark fire of wrath which is kindled and fanned by an internal anxiety, and conciousness of criminal deeds; his irregular and large teeth were presented through a smile, which was very unnatural on his set of features; his mouth seemed to be unusually large from the extremeties being drawn backward and downward—as if in the intense application to something cruel and disgusting; in short, his upper teeth projected over his under lip, and on the whole, presented to my view the mouth on the image of the Emperor Julian the Apostate.—In one of his rapid courses past us, my sword could only shear off his white plumb and a fragment of his buff coat. In a moment he was at the other side of the square. Our officers eagerly sought a meeting with him. ‘He has the proof of lead,’ cried some of our men.—‘Take the cold steel or a piece of silver.’ ‘No,’ cried Burley, ‘It is his rapid movement on that fine charger that bids defiance to any thing like an aim in the tumult of the bloody fray. I could sooner shoot ten heather cocks on the wing, than one flying Clavers.’ At that moment Burley, whose eye watched his antagonist, pushed into the hollow square. But Burley was too impatient. His blow was levelled at him before he came within its reach. His heavy sword descended on the head of Clavers’ horse and felled him to the ground.—Burley’s men rushed pell-mell on the fallen Clavers, but his faithful dragoons threw themselves upon them, and by their overpowering force drove Burley back, Clavers was in an instant on a fresh steed. His bugleman recalled the party who were driving back the flanking party of Burley. He collected his whole troops to make his last and desperate attack. He charged our infantry with such force, that they began to reel. It was only for a moment. The gallant Hamilton snatched the white flag of the Covenant, and placed himself in the fore front of the battle. Our men shouted ‘God and our country,’ and rallied under the flag. They fought like heroes. Clavers fought no less bravely. His blows were aimed at our officers. His steel fell on the helmet of Hackstone, whose sword was entangled in the body of a fierce dragoon, who had just wounded him. He was borne by his men into the rear. I directed my men on Clavers. ‘Victory or death,’ was their reply to me. Clavers received us. He struck a desperate blow at me as he raised himself, with all his force, in the saddle. My steel cap resisted it. The second stroke I received on my Ferrara and his steel was shivered to pieces. We rushed headlong on each other. His pistol missed fire—it had been soaked in blood. Mine took effect. But the wound was not deadly. Our horses reared. We rolled on the ground. In vain we sought to grasp each other. In the mêlée, men and horse tumbled on us. We were for a few moments buried under our men, whose eagerness to save the respective officers brought them in multitudes down upon us. By the aid of my faithful man Gawn, I had extricated myself from my fallen horse; and we were rushing on the bloody Clavers, when we were again literally buried under a mass of men; for Hamilton had by this time brought up his whole line, and he had planted his standard where we and Clavers were rolling on the heath. Our men gave three cheers and drove in the troops of Clavers. Here I was borne along with the moving mass of men; and, almost suffocated and faint with the loss of blood, I knew nothing more till I opened my eye on my faithful attendant. He had dragged me from the very grasp of the enemy, and had borne me into the rear, and was bathing my temples with water. We speedily regained our friends; and what a spectacle presented itself!—It seemed that I beheld an immense moving mass heaped up together in the greatest confusion.—Some shrieking, some groaning, some shouted, horses neighed and pranced, swords rung on the steel helmets. I placed around me a few of my hardy men, and we rushed into the thickest of the enemy in search of Clavers, but it was in vain. At that instant, his trumpet sounded the loud notes of retreat; and we saw on a knoll Clavers borne away by his men. He threw himself on a horse, and without sword, without helmet, he fled in the first ranks of their retreating host. His troops galloped up the hill in the utmost confusion. My little line closed with that of Burley’s, and took a number of prisoners. Our main body pursued the enemy two miles, and strewed the ground with men and horses. I could see the bare-headed Clavers in front of his men, kicking and struggling up the steep sides of Calder hill. He halted only a moment on the top to look behind him, then plunged his rowels into his horse, and darted forward; nor did he recover from his panic till he found himself in the city of Glasgow.
‘And, my children,’ the Laird would say, after he had told the adventures of this bloody day, ‘I visited the field of battle next day; I shall never forget the sight. Men and horses lay in their gory beds. I turned away from the horrible spectacle. I passed by the spot where God saved my life in the single combat, and where the unhappy Captain Arrol fell, I observed that, in the subsequent fray, the body had been trampled on by a horse, and his bowels were poured out. Thus, my children, the defence of our lives, and the regaining of our liberty and religion, has subjected us to severe trials. And how great must be the love of liberty, when it carries men forward, under the impulse of self-defence, to witness the most disgusting spectacles, and to encounter the most cruel hardships of war!’
BATTLE OF BOTHWELL BRIDGE.
“Heu! victa jacet pietas.”
* * * After the ranks of the patriotic Whigs were broken by overwhelming forces, and while Dalzell and Clavers swept the south and west of Scotland like the blast of the desert, breathing pestilence and death—the individual wanderers betook themselves to the caves and fastnesses of their rugged country. This was their situation chiefly from A. D. 1680, to the Revolution. The Laird spent his days in seclusion; but still he fearlessly attended the weekly assemblies in the fields, for the worship of Almighty God. What had he to fear?—His estate had been confiscated. His wife and babes stript by the life guards of the last remnant of earthly comfort which they could take away; and himself doomed as an outlaw, to be executed by the military assassins when taken. He became reckless of the world.
‘I have lived,’ said he in anguish, ‘to see a Prince, twice of his own choice, take the oath of the covenants to support religion, and the fundamental laws of the land. I have lived to see that Prince turn traitor to his country, and, with unblushing impiety order these covenants to be burned by the hands of the executioner. I have seen him subvert the liberty of my country, both civil and religious.—I have seen him erect a bloody inquisition. The priest imposed on us by tyranny, instead of wooing us over by the loveliness of religion, have thrown off the bowels of mercy. They occupy seats in the bloody Council. They stimulate the cruelties of Lauderdale, M’Kenzie and York. Their hands are dipt in blood to the wrests. This Council will not permit us to live in peace. Our property they confiscate. Our houses, they convert into barracks. They drag free men into chains. They bring no witnesses of our guilt.—They invent new tortures to convert us. They employ the thumb-screws and bootkins. If we are silent they condemn us. If we confess our Christian creed, they doom us to the gibbet. Not only our sentence, but the manner of our execution is fixed before our trial. Clavers is our judge; his dragoons are our executioners; and these savages do still continue to employ even the sagacity of blood hounds to hunt us down.—My soul turns away from these loathsome spectacles.’
At this moment his brother John entered, with looks which betrayed unusual anxiety. ‘My brother,’ said he, ‘a trooper advances at full speed, and he is followed by a dark column. We have not even time to fly.’—The mind of the laird like those of the rest of the wanderers, always brightened up at the approach of danger. ‘Let us reconnoiter,’ said he, ‘what do I see, but one trooper. And that motely crowd is but a rabble—not a troop. That trooper is not of Clavers’ band; nor does he belong to Douglas—nor to Ingles—nor to Strachan’s dragoons. He waves a small flag. I can discover the scarlet and blue colour of the Covenanters flag. Ha! welcome you, John Howie of Lochgoin.—But what news?—Lives our country? Lives the good old cause?’—‘Glorious news,’ exclaimed Howie, ‘Scotland for ever! She is free. The tyrant James has abdicated. The Stuarts are banished by an indignant nation, Orange triumphs, our wounds are binding up.—Huzza! Scotland, and King William and the Covenant for ever!’
The Laird made no reply. He laid his steel cap on the ground, and threw himself on his knees; he uttered a brief prayer, in which this was the close: ‘My bleeding country, and thy wailing kirk, and my brethren in the furnace, have come in remembrance before thee. For ever lauded be thy name.’—‘Hasten to the meeting at Lesmahagow. Our friends behind me, you see, have already set out,’ said Howie. And he set out with enthusiastic ardour to spread the news.
‘These news,’ said the Laird, after a long pause while his eyes followed the courser over the plains of Aven—‘these news are to me as life from the dead. I have a mind to meet my old friends at Lesmahagow. And then, when serious business is despatched, we can take Bothwell field in our return. It will yield me at least a melancholy pleasure to visit the spot where we fought, I trust, our last battle against the enemies of our country, and of the good old cause.’
Serious matters of church and state having been discussed at the public meeting, the brothers found themselves, on the fourth day, on the battle ground of Bothwell.
‘On that moor,’ said the Laird, after a long silence—and without being conscious of it, he had, by a kind of instinct, natural enough to a soldier, drawn his sword, and was pointing with it—‘On that moor the enemy first formed under Monmouth. There, on the right, Clavers led on the life-guards, breathing fury, and resolute to wipe off the disgrace of the affair of Drumclog. Dalzell formed his men on that knoll. Lord Livingstone led the van of the foemen. We had taken care to have Bothwell Bridge strongly secured by a barricade, and our little battery of cannon was planted on the spot below us, in order to sweep the bridge. And we did rake it. The foemen’s blood streamed there. Again and again the troops of the tyrant marched on, and our cannon annihilated their columns. Sir Robert Hamilton was our Commander-in-Chief.—The gallant general Hackston stood on that spot with his brave men. Along the river, and above the bridge, Burley’s foot and Captain Nisbet’s dragoons were stationed. For one hour we kept the enemy in check; they were defeated in every attempt to cross the Clyde. Livingstone sent another strong column to storm the bridge. I shall never forget the effect of one fire from our battery, where my men stood. We saw the line of the foe advance in all the military glory of brave and beautiful men, the horses pranced—the armour gleamed. In one moment nothing was seen but a shocking mass of mortality. Human limbs, and the bodies and limbs of horses were mingled in one huge heap, or blown to a great distance. Another column attempted to cross above the bridge. Some threw themselves into the current. One well-directed fire from Burley’s troops threw them into disorder, and drove them back. Meantime, while we were thus warmly engaged, Hamilton was labouring to bring down the different divisions of our main body into action; but in vain he called on Colonel Cleland’s troop—in vain he ordered Henderson’s to fall in—in vain he called on Colonel Fleming’s. Hackstone flew from troop to troop—all was confusion; in vain he besought, he intreated, he threatened. Our disputes and fiery misguided zeal, my brother, contracted a deep and deadly guilt that day. The Whig turned his arm in fierce heat that day against his own vitals. Our Chaplains, Cargil and King, and Kid, and Douglas, interposed again and again, Cargil mounted the pulpit; he preached concord; he called aloud for mutual forbearance. ‘Behold the banners of the enemy,’ cried he, ‘hear ye not the fire of the foe, and of our brethren? Our brothers and fathers are fallen beneath their sword. Hasten to their aid. See the flag of the Covenant. See the motto in letters of gold—“Christ’s Crown and the Covenant.” Hear the wailings of the bleeding Kirk. Banish discord. And let us, as a band of brothers present a bold front to the foeman—Follow me all ye who love your country and the Covenant. I go to die in the fore-front of the battle.’ All the ministers and officers followed him, amidst a flourish of trumpets; but the great body remained to listen to the harangues of the factious.—We sent again and again for ammunition. My men were at the last round. Treachery, or a fatal error, had sent a barrel of raisins instead of powder. My heart sunk within me while I beheld the despair on the faces of my brave fellows, as I struck out the head of the vessel. Hackstone called his officers to him. We threw ourselves around him.—‘What must be done?’ said he in an agony of despair. ‘Conquer or die,’ we said, as if with one voice. ‘We have our swords yet. Lead back the men to their places and let the ensign bear down the blue and scarlet colours. Our God and our country be the word.’ Hackstone rushed forward. We ran to our respective corps—we cheered our men but they were languid and disspirited. Their ammunition was nearly expended, and they seemed anxious to husband what remained. They fought only with their carabines. The cannons could no more be loaded. The enemy soon perceived this. We saw a troop of horse approach the bridge. It was that of the life-guards. I recognised the plume of Clavers. They approached in rapid march. A solid column of infantry followed. I sent a request to Captain Nesbit to join his troop to mine. He was in an instant with me.—We charged the life-guards. Our swords rung on their steel caps.—Many of our brave lads fell on all sides of me. But we hewed down the foe. They began to reel.—The whole column was kept stationary on the bridge. Clavers’ dreadful voice was heard—more like the yell of a savage, than the commanding voice of a soldier. He pushed forward his men, and again we hewed them down. A third mass was pushed up. Our exhausted dragoon fled.—Unsupported, I found myself by the brave Nesbit, and Paton, and Hackstone. We looked for a moment’s space in silence on each other. We galloped in front of our retreating men. We rallied them. We pointed to the General almost alone. We pointed to the white and to the scarlet colours floating near him. We cried, ‘God and our Country.’ They faced about. We charged Clavers once more.—‘Torfoot,’ cried Nesbit, ‘I dare you to the fore-front of the battle.’ We rushed up at full gallop. Our men seeing this followed also at full speed.—We broke down the enemy’s line, bearing down those files which we encountered. We cut our way through their ranks. But they had now lengthened their front. Superior numbers drove us in. They had gained entire possession of the bridge. Livingstone and Dalzell were actually taking us on the flank.—A band had got between us and Burley’s infantry. ‘My friends,’ said Hackstone to his officers, ‘we are last on the field. We can do no more.—We must retreat.—Let us attempt, at least, to bring aid to the deluded men behind us. They have brought ruin on themselves and on us. Not Monmouth, but our own divisions have scattered us.’
At this moment one of the life-guards aimed a blow at Hackstone.—My sword received it—and a stroke from Nesbit laid the foeman’s hand and sword in the dust. He fainted and tumbled from the saddle. We reined our horses, and galloped to our main body. But what a scene presented itself here! These misguided men had their eyes now fully opened on their fatal errors. The enemy were bringing up their whole force against them. I was not long a near spectator of it; for a ball grazed my courser. He plunged and reared—then shot off like an arrow. Several of our officers drew to the same place. On the knoll we faced about—the battle raged below us. We beheld our commander doing every thing that a brave soldier could do with factious men against an overpowering foe. Burley and his troops were in close conflict with Clavers’ dragoons. We saw him dismount three troopers with his own hand. He could not turn the tide of battle, but he was covering the retreat of these misguided men. Before we could rejoin him, a party threw themselves in our way. Kennoway, one of Clavers’ officers led them on. ‘Would to God that this was Grahame himself,’ some of my comrades ejaculated aloud. ‘He falls to my share,’ said I, ‘whoever the officer be.’—I advanced—he met me, I parried several thrusts, he received a cut on the left arm; and the sword by the same stroke, shore off one of his horse’s ears; it plunged and reared. We closed again. I received a stroke on the left shoulder. My blow fell on his sword arm. He reined his horse around, retreated a few paces, then returned at full gallop. My courser reared instinctively as he approached; I received his stroke on the back of my ferrara, and by a back stroke, I gave him a deep cut on the cheek. And before he could recover a position of defence, my sword fell with a terrible blow on his steel cap. Stunned by the blow, he bent himself forward—and, grasping the mane, he tumbled from his saddle, and his steed galloped over the field. I did not repeat the blow. His left hand presented his sword; his right arm was disabled; his life was given to him. My companions having disposed of their antagonists, (and some of them had two a-piece,) we paused to see the fate of the battle. Dalzell and Livingstone were riding over the field like furies, cutting down all in their way. Monmouth was galloping from rank to rank, and calling on his men to give quarter. Clavers, to wipe off the disgrace of Drumclog, was committing dreadful havoc. ‘Can we not find Clavers,’ said Halhead, ‘no,’ said Captain Paton, ‘the gallant Colonel takes care to have a solid guard of his rogues about him. I have sought him over the field; but I found him, as I now perceive him, with a mass of his guards about him.’ At this instant we saw our General, at some distance, disentangling himself from the men who had tumbled over him in the mêlée. His face, his hands, and clothes, were covered with gore. He had been dismounted, and was fighting on foot. We rushed to the spot, and cheered him. Our party drove back the scattered bands of Dalzell. ‘My friends’ said Sir Robert, as we mounted him on a stray horse, ‘the day is lost! But—you Paton; you Brownlee of Torfoot, and you Halhead; let not that flag fall into the hands of these incarnate devils. We have lost the battle, but by the grace of God, neither Dalzell, nor Clavers shall say that he took our colours. My ensign has done his duty. He is down. This sword has saved it twice. I leave it to your care. You see its perilous situation.’ He pointed with his sword to the spot.—We collected some of our scattered troops, and flew to the place. The standard bearer was down, but he was borne upright by the mass of men who had thrown themselves in fierce contest around it. Its well known blue and scarlet colours, and its motto, ‘Christ’s Crown and Covenant,’ in brilliant gold letters, inspired us with a sacred enthusiasm. We gave a loud cheer to the wounded ensign, and rushed into the combat. The redemption of that flag cost the foe many a gallant man. They fell beneath our broad swords; and, with horrible execrations dying on their lips, they gave up their souls to their Judge.
Here I met in front that ferocious dragoon of Clavers, named Tam Halliday, who had more than once, in his raids, plundered my halls; and had snatched the bread from my weeping babes. He had just seized the white staff of the flag. But his tremenduous oath of exultation, (we of the covenant never swear)—his oath had scarcely passed its polluted threshold, when this Andrew Ferrara fell on the guard of his steel and shivered it to pieces. ‘Recreant loon!’ said I, ‘thou shalt this day remember thy evil deeds.’ Another blow on his helmet laid him at his huge length, and made him bite the dust. In the mêlée that followed, I lost sight of him. We fought like lions—but with the hearts of Christians. While my gallant companions stemmed the tide of battle, the standard, rent to tatters, fell across my breast. I tore it from the staff, and wrapt it round my body. We cut our way through the enemy, and carried our General off the field.
Having gained a small knoll, we beheld once more the dreadful spectacle below. Thick volumes of smoke and dust rolled in a hazy cloud over the dark bands mingled in deadly fray. It was no longer a battle, but a massacre. In the struggle of my feelings I turned my eyes on the General and Paton. I saw, in the face of the latter, an indiscribable conflict of passions. His long and shaggy eye-brows were drawn over his eyes. His hand grasped his sword. ‘I cannot yet leave the field’ said the undaunted Paton—‘With the General’s permission, I shall try to save some of our wretched men beset by those hell-hounds. Who will go?’—At Kilsyth I saw service. When deserted by my troops, I cut my way through Montrose’s men, and reached the spot where Colonels Halket and Strachan were. We left the field together. Fifteen dragoons attacked us. We cut down thirteen, and two fled. Thirteen next assailed us. We left ten on the field, and three fled. Eleven Highlanders next met us. We paused and cheered each other: ‘Now, Johnny,’ cried Halket to me, ‘put forth your metal, else we are gone,’ nine others we sent after their comrades, and two fled—‘Now, who will join this raid!’[A] ‘I will be your leader,’ said Sir Robert, as we fell into the ranks.
We marched on the enemy’s flank. ‘Yonder is Clavers,’ said Paton, while he directed his courser on him. The bloody man was, at that moment, nearly alone, hacking to pieces some poor fellows already on their knees disarmed, and imploring him by the common feelings of humanity to spare their lives. He had just finished his usual oath against their ‘feelings of humanity,’ when Paton presented himself. He instantly let go his prey and slunk back into the midst of his troopers. Having formed them, he advanced.—We formed, and made a furious onset. At our first charge his troop reeled. Clavers was dismounted.—But at that moment Dalzell assailed us on the flank and rear.—Our men fell around us like grass before the mower. The buglemen sounded a retreat. Once more in the mêlée I fell in with the General and Paton, we were covered with wounds. We directed our flight in the rear of our broken troops. By the direction of the General I had unfurled the standard. It was borne off the field flying at the sword’s point. But that honour cost me much. I was assailed by three fierce dragoons; five followed close in the rear. I called to Paton,—in a moment he was by my side. I threw the standard to the General, and we rushed on the foe. They fell beneath our swords; but my faithful steed, which had carried me through all my dangers was mortally wounded. He fell. I was thrown in among the fallen enemy. I fainted. I opened my eyes on misery. I found myself in the presence of Monmouth—a prisoner—with other wretched creatures, awaiting, in awful suspense, their ultimate destiny. * * * *
W. C. B.