A. Ritchie, Delt. —— W. Douglas, Sr.
Execution of the Marquis of Argyle, anno 1661.
Vide page [40].
Edinr. Pubd. by Hugh Paton, Carver & Gilder to the Queen, 1841.

ANNALS
OF THE
PERSECUTION IN SCOTLAND,
FROM THE
RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION.

By JAMES AIKMAN, Esq.,

AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND,” &c.

EDINBURGH: HUGH PATON, ADAM SQUARE.

M.DCCC.XLII.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY HUGH PATON, ADAM SQUARE.

CONTENTS.

IntroductionP. [ix]

BOOK I. A.D. 1604.-1660.

Presbytery, the favourite form of religion in Scotland with the people, opposed by James VI.—At first opposed, afterwards sanctioned, by Charles I.—Solemn League and Covenant—Confession of Faith—Defeat of the Duke of Hamilton and death of Charles—State of the Church—Charles II. crowned—Divisions amongst the Presbyterians—Resolutioners—Remonstrators—Protectorate of Cromwell—State of religion during that period—Restoration—Sharpe sent to London—Religious parties in Scotland—Sharpe’s double dealing—Sudden change of manners—Rejoicings—Fears of the Remonstrators—Difference with the Resolutioners—First measures of the King—Promotes the enemies and persecutes the friends of the Covenant—Proceedings of the Committee of Estates, urged on by Sharpe—King’s letter to the Edinburgh ministers—Exultation of the Resolutioners—Persecute their brethren—Committee of Estates order Lex Rex, &c. to be burned—Proclamation against the Remonstrants—Interference with regard to elections—Proclamation for a meeting of Parliament[1]

BOOK II. December 1660 to 12th July 1661.

Lord High Commissioner arrives in Edinburgh—Parliament—Its composition—Act of indemnity withheld—Lord Chancellor restored to the Presidentship—Oath of allegiance—Retrogression in reformation-work—Divine right of Kings asserted—Solemn League and Covenant repealed—Engagement approved, &c.—Declaration—Resolutioners begin to perceive their error—Middleton amuses the ministers of Edinburgh—Manner of concocting the Act rescissory and of getting it passed—Middleton’s interview with D. Dickson and part of the Edinburgh presbytery—Distress of the ministers—Dispersion of the synods—Concluding acts—Trial of Argyle—his behaviour before and at the place of execution—Trial of James Guthrie—his behaviour and execution—Captain Govan —Prosecutions of Mr Traill of Edinburgh—Mr Moncrief of Scone—Intrepid reply of his wife—Mr Robert Macwaird of Glasgow—his striking picture of the effects of the Restoration—his accusation—defence—banishment—Swinton of Swinton—Sir John Chiesly and Mr P. Gillespie’s escape—Parliament rises—Samuel Rutherford[21]

BOOK III. August, A.D. 1661-1662.

Lord High Commissioner sets out for Court—his reception—Deliberations of the Council—Episcopacy resolved upon as the National Religion of Scotland—Glencairn, Rothes, and Sharpe appointed to carry the tidings to Edinburgh—King’s letter—Privy Council announce the overthrow of Presbytery—forbid the election of Presbyterian magistrates in burghs—prosecute Tweeddale—Ministers summoned to London to be episcopally ordained—their characters—their consecration—Grief of the Presbyterians—Re-introduction of Episcopacy—Restrictions on the press—Witchcraft—Synods discharged and bishops ordered to be honoured by royal patent—their consecration—Parliament restores their rank—asserts the King’s supremacy—The Covenants declared unlawful—Act of fines—defeated—Lord Lorn—Blair and other ministers deprived—King’s birth-day—Middleton’s visit to the West and South—Case of Mr Wylie—Brown of Wamphray—Livingston, &c.—Middleton removed and Lauderdale appointed[61]

BOOK IV. December, A.D. 1662-1664.

State of the West and South—Bishops’ curates—their reception—Tumult at Irongray—Commission sent to Kirkcudbright and Dumfries—Field-preaching—Rothes and Lauderdale arrive in Scotland—Parliament—Warriston’s arrest and execution—Principal Wood of St Andrews and other ministers silenced and scattered—Troops ordered to enforce the Acts of Parliament—their outrages—Sir James Turner—High Commission Court—its atrocities—Privy Council—its exactions—prohibits private prayer-meetings or contributing money for the relief of the sufferers—William Guthrie of Fenwick laid aside—Donaldson of Dalgetty’s case—Death of Glencairn—Political changes[96]

BOOK V. January, A.D. 1665-1666.

Partial moderation of the King—Sir James Turner’s campaign through Kirkcudbright and Galloway—Unpaid fines levied—Students’ oaths—All meetings for religious purposes forbid—Quietude of the country—Proclamation of the council—Apologetical Relation—Sir James Turner’s third campaign extended to Nithsdale—visits Mr Blackadder at Troqueer—More troops raised—Rigorous acts more rigorously enforced—Rising of the persecuted—they gather strength—their operations—Defeated at Pentland—Prelatic revenge—Testimony of the sufferers—Torture introduced—Nielson of Corsack—Hugh M’Kail—Executions in Edinburgh and the west country—William Sutherland—Executions at Ayr[127]

BOOK VI. January, A.D. 1667-1669.

Dalziel sent to the South and West—his cruelty, and that of the inferior officers—Sir Mungo Murray—Sir William Bannatyne—Arrival of the Dutch fleet—Crusade abates—Forfeitures increase—Standing army proposed—Convention of estates—Cess—King’s letter—West country disarmed—Sir Robert Murray sent to Scotland—Army partially disbanded—Political changes—Bond of peace—Trials of Sir James Turner and Sir William Bannatyne—Field-preaching proscribed—Michael Bruce—John Blackadder—Attempt upon Sharpe’s life—Search for the assassin—Remarkable escape of Maxwell of Monreith—Case of Mr Robert Gray, merchant—Mrs Kelso and Mrs Duncan—Death of Mr Gillon, minister of Cavers—Field-preaching and family-worship punished—Mr Fullarton of Quivox before the Council—Mr Blackadder patrols his “diocese” untouched safely—Mr Hamilton, minister of Blantyre[169]

BOOK VII. July, A.D. 1669-1670.

An indulgence proposed—partially accepted by the ministers—Mr Hutchison’s address—Proclamation against those who refused it—Archbishop of Glasgow’s remonstrance—Parliament asserts the king’s supremacy—vote the militia, and a security for orthodox ministers—Field-meeting in Fife—Difference between Presbyterians and prelatists in doctrine and teaching—Curates disturbed—Lecturing forbid—Compromising ministers—Success of the gospel—Remarkable meeting at the Hill of Beath, &c.—Rage of the Primate—Strange escape of four prisoners[187]

BOOK VIII. July, A.D. 1670-1674.

Parliament—Act against conventicles—Bond—Leighton’s efforts to reform the Episcopate—Council appoint a committee—Leighton attempts an accommodation—Conference—Rigid treatment of indulged ministers—Conventicles increase—Implacability of the prelates—Lady Dysart—Ascendency of Lauderdale—Parliament—Finings—Indulgence—Dissensions of the ministers—Sufferings of the indulged—Mr Forrester and Mr Burnet abandon Prelacy—their testimony—Proceedings at the meeting of estates—Mr Blackadder’s tour in Fife—Ministers’ widows’ petition—its consequences—Sharpe’s troubles[207]

BOOK IX. A.D. 1674-1676.

Divisions among the ministers respecting the church and self-defence—Armed meetings—Severities increase—Lord Cardross—Religious revivals in the North—Mr M’Gilligan—Civil oppression—Home of Polwart—Finings—Durham of Largo—Magistrates of Edinburgh—Sufferers sent to France as recruits—Proclamation to expel the families of gospel-hearers from the Burghs, and enforce the conventicle act—Instructions for the indulged—Progress of the gospel—Rage of the prelates—Mitchell tortured[238]

BOOK X. A.D. 1676-1677.

Remarkable sacramental solemnities occasion harsher measures—Council new-modelled—Committee for public affairs—Kerr of Kersland—Kirkton—The expatriated pursued to Holland—Colonel Wallace[256]

BOOK XI. A.D. 1677.

Meeting of the ministers in Edinburgh—Prosecutions for not attending the kirk—Lord Cardross—Conventicle at Culross—Bond—Lauderdale comes to Scotland—Pretended moderation—Alarm of the bishops—Carstairs attacks John Balfour’s house—Council’s design of raising a standing force—Resolutions of the West country gentlemen—Conventicles increase—Communion at East Nisbet—Common field-meeting—King authorizes calling in the Highland clans[265]

BOOK XII. A.D. 1678.

Privy Council forbids emigration—Mitchell’s trial and execution—Highland host—Committee of the council arrive at Glasgow—Deputation from Ayr sent to the Commissioner—Bond refused—Committee proceed to Ayr—Earl of Cassilis—Law-burrows—Case of Lord Cochrane—Ravages of “the Highland Host”—their return home—Earl of Cassilis goes to court—Duke of Hamilton follows—Complaints dismissed—State of the country[286]

BOOK XIII. January to May, A.D. 1679.

Public teachers and students required to take the oath of supremacy—A boy imprisoned for refusing—Husbands punished for their wives’ contumacy—landlords for their tenants’—Overture of the council—Country put under military law—Reprisals—Outrages of the commissioners of shires—Death of Sharpe—Escape of Veitch—Murder of Inchdairney[336]

BOOK XIV. May to December, A.D. 1679.

Outrages of the soldiery—Dissensions among the persecuted—Commotions in the West—Rutherglen declaration—Rising of the Presbyterians—Skirmish at Drumclog—Royal troops retire to Edinburgh—Divisions among the Presbyterians—Arrival of Monmouth—Battle of Bothwell Bridge[359]

BOOK XV. A.D. 1680.

Perplexity of the moderate ministers—Murder of Mr Hall—Queensferry paper—Cargill joins Cameron—Sanquhar declaration—Council’s proclamation in reply—Reflections—Bond—Fresh plunderings by Dalziel—Skirmish at Airs-moss—Death of Cameron—of Rathillet—Cargill—Torwood excommunication—York arrives in Edinburgh—Spreul tortured—Skene, Stewart, and Potter executed—Effigy of the Pope burnt[397]

BOOK XVI. A.D. 1681.

Edinburgh College shut—Isobel Alison and Marion Harvy executed—Other executions—Search for covenanters—Thomas Kennoway’s exploits—Mock courts held by Cornet Graham and Grierson of Lag—Mr Spreul tried—acquitted—sent to the Bass—John Blackadder, Gabriel Semple, and Donald Cargill seized—Walter Smith, William Cuthil, and others apprehended, tried, and executed[414]

BOOK XVII. A.D. 1681.

Parliament—Act for securing the Protestant religion—asserting the divine right and lineal succession of their kings—for securing the peace of the country—Lord Bargeny’s case—The Test—debate upon it—Belhaven—Argyle—objections to its imposition—Argyle takes it with an explanation—his trial—escapes from the Castle—forfeited—Fraser of Brea—fined—banished[437]

BOOK XVIII. A.D. 1681-1682.

Society-men—their first general meeting—State of the country—Ure of Shargarton—Wavering of the Episcopalians—Lanark declaration—burned at Edinburgh—Harvey hanged—Mr P. Warner—York recalled to court—New government—Robert Gray executed—Dalziel sent to the west—Meeting at Priest-hill—at Tala-linn—Major White and the Laird of Meldrum—their proceedings—Hume of Hume executed—Lauderdale’s death[452]

BOOK XIX. A.D. 1682-1683.

Persecution instigated by the curates in the South and West—Noble conduct of a boy—Rapacity of the military—Instructions of the council—exploits of Claverhouse, Meldrum, &c.—Retributive justice—Justiciary court—Lawrie of Blackwood—Circuit courts—Rye-house plot—Scottishmen implicated—Various instances of oppression[465]

BOOK XX. A.D. 1684-1685.

Persecutions increase—“Killing Time”—Proscription and plundering—Husbands fined for their wives’ non-attendance at church—Torture—Executions—Campbell of Cessnock—Paton of Meadowhead, &c.—Females sold for slaves—Spence—Carstairs—Baillie of Jarvieswood—Circuit courts—Porterfield of Douchal—Finings—Proceedings of the society-men—Review of the state of the country during this period—Death of Charles[481]

BOOK XXI. A.D. 1685.

Accession of James VII.—Proceedings of the privy council—Field murders—Northern commission—Indemnity—Outrages in the south—Two women drowned—John Brown, “the Christian Carrier”—Parliament—Argyle’s expedition—Suspected persons sent to Dunotter—Argyle defeated—taken—executed—Colonel Rumbold—Nisbet of Hardhill and other sufferers[510]

BOOK XXII. A.D. 1686-1688.

Conduct of the soldiers—A riot—Recantation of Sibbald—Alexander Peden—Proceedings of the society-men—Synod of Edinburgh—Parliament—Disputes among the persecuted—Indulgence—Thanksgiving for the Queen’s pregnancy—Seizure and death of Mr Renwick—Dr Hardy’s trial and acquittal—Rescue of David Houston—Murder of George Wood—Arrival of the Prince of Orange[533]