Annals of the persecution in Scotland

by James Aikman

BOOK V.

JANUARY, A.D. 1665-1666.

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

Prelacy, now fenced round with all the forms of law, and supported by all the civil and military authorities, wanted only the concurrence of the people to have become the permanent, as it was the predominant, religion of Scotland; and so fickle is the multitude—so little does real principle take hold on the minds of the mob of mankind—that a little moderation in the use of their power, by the prelates, seemed only wanting to have induced the bulk of the congregations to return to their parish churches, and to have sat down quietly under the ministrations of the curates and the form of Episcopacy. A contemporary Presbyterian writer says—“Truly, at this time the curates’ auditories were reasonably throng: the body of the people, in most places of Scotland, waited upon their preachings; and if they would have been content with what they had, in the opinion of many, they might have stood longer than they did; but their pride vowed they would be more glorious and better followed than the Presbyterians, and because respect would not do it, force should.”[^[45]]

[45]. Kirkton, p. 221.

Much and justly as the king and courtiers have been blamed for the perfidious manner in which Episcopacy was re-introduced into Scotland, and for the establishment of despotism upon the ruins of a free constitution, solemnly approved and sanctioned both by his present majesty and his “martyred” father; yet in this year, at least at the commencement, softened perhaps by the state of the nations, they showed no disposition to proceed to extremities had they not been pushed on by the prelates.

Charles, by his mean subservience to France, had plunged the country into a ruinous war with Holland—an awful pestilence had almost desolated the city of London—while an unusually severe winter had interrupted all rural labour, till March threatened to add famine to the list of plagues. These judgments, calculated to solemnize the mind, and give weight to public instruction, were improved by the non-conforming ministers to rouse the attention of their hearers to their own sins and the sins of the people among whom they dwelt; and the general open apostacy from God which had accompanied the general defection from the national religion, was too palpable to avoid being noticed in the catalogue of crimes that had drawn down divine vengeance. These national visitations were, in some degree, subservient to the preservation of the Presbyterian cause, by impressing the guilt of apostacy more deeply on the minds of the serious, and even recalling the attention of the careless, while the public calamities and disgrace occupied the attention of the king and English government, and perhaps softening their rancour for the time, rendered them less anxious about pursuing their labours of religious persecution.

Although, however, government did not actively interfere to urge on the prosecution of ministers or frequenters of conventicles, the curates and their assistants, the troopers, continued their exertions; and Sir James Turner opened another campaign in the south and west, scouring the country and besieging the churches with a success and renown not unworthy his former fame. But his commission this year was extended; for, dreading the desperation to which the insulted peasantry might be driven, orders were issued for disarming the south and west, under pretence that the fanatics had an intention of joining the Dutch! As these districts had been always the most zealous in the cause of the covenants, so they were likewise the best supplied with arms,[^[46]] and were, in an especial manner, the objects of the prelates’ aversion and dread. When they had got them deprived of arms, therefore, the next step was to deprive them of leaders; and this was effected by an arbitrary order from the Commissioner, to arrest the principal gentlemen in the country who were known to be unfriendly to Episcopacy, and, without accusation or trial, to confine them prisoners in the Castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton. Among the gentlemen thus summarily proceeded with, were Major-General Robert Montgomerie, brother to the Earl of Eglinton; Sir William Cunningham of Cunninghamhead; Sir George Maxwell of Nether Pollock; Sir Hugh Campbell of Cesnock; Sir William Muir of Rowallan; Major-General Holborne; Sir George Munro; Colonel Robert Halket; Sir James Stuart, late provost of Edinburgh; Sir John Chiesly of Carswell; and Dunlop of Dunlop, &c. Yet arbitrary though these proceedings were, perhaps, upon the whole, they may be deemed providential, as, had any insurrection taken place while their leaders were at liberty and the people armed, the struggle might have been protracted—much bloodshed ensued—and the final result been far less propitious to the country and cause of religious liberty.

[46]. The Scottish peasantry had always been accustomed to keep arms, and when summoned to serve in the militia, each provided his own; so that, besides the indignity of being deprived of their weapons, the taking them away without compensation was an act of robbery.

A proclamation for levying the fines imposed by Middleton was immediately planned, with such modifications as evidently showed that not any disloyalty in the parties, but their sincere, tried attachment to the free constitution of their country in church and state, and their conscientious adherence to the religion in which they had been educated, were the delinquencies it was intended to punish. The term of payment for the first half was enlarged to such as had not already paid it, till the first of December; and the second moiety was to be remitted to all who, upon paying the first, should take the oath of allegiance and subscribe the declaration in the express words of the act of parliament—conditions which no true Presbyterian could comply with, and which therefore drew a distinctive line between those who disregarded, and those who feared, an oath; exposing the latter to all the penalties of the various enactments with the expenses of collecting them—a new and no trifling addition to the principal, and which was also intrusted to the military to exact.

Unnecessarily multiplying oaths is a deep species of criminality, of which the rulers of lands called Christian take little account, although nothing tends more to demoralize a people. The prelatic rulers of Scotland seemed to delight in it, and this year introduced a most pernicious practice, afterwards improved upon, of forcing students to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy before they could obtain an university degree; and thus initiated them into the habit of taking oaths, about the propriety of which some of the wisest and best men in the land were divided, and concerning which they could not be supposed to be very accurately informed.

Towards the end of this year, the privy council resumed its cruel activity; and the primate being president, the High Commission was allowed quietly to demit, while its spirit was effectually transfused into the other. December 7th, an act was issued extending the severities of all former acts against Presbyterian ministers, to those who had been settled before 1649, who had relinquished their ministry or had been deposed; and all heritors were forbid to give them any countenance in their preaching or any part of their ministerial office. But, as the general opinion of the more moderate among the politicians was, that the change in the form of religion had been too sudden, that it ought to have been more gradual, to meet the prejudices of the older ministers, whose only crimes consisted in absenting themselves from the church courts—this act was accompanied by another, establishing a new kind of presbyteries, under the name of “meetings for exercise,” which was intended to leave without excuse the adherents of the abrogated system, as men who chose to differ from the present establishment from motives of sedition, and who refusing the substance because it was enacted by the king, would fight for a shadow from mere humour. This species of mock-presbyteries was specially declared to emanate from the royal supremacy, and was to consist of such of the curates as the bishops should judge qualified, who were to convene for exercise and assist in discipline as they should direct them; but the whole power of ecclesiastical censure, except parochial rebukes, was reserved to the bishop, who alone could suspend, deprive, or excommunicate. A kind of caricature session was at the same time brought forward, which was afterwards turned into an instrument of persecution—the established ministers were empowered to make choice of proper persons to assist them in the exercise of discipline, who, if they refused to obey his summons, were to be reported to the bishop; and if they continued obstinate, given up to the secular arm to be prosecuted as the heinousness of the case might require.

The usual strain of the curates’ pulpit services consisted of a quarter or half-hour’s harangue upon those moral duties their lives set at defiance, or in abusing or distorting doctrines they did not understand. Such of the people, therefore, as had the least relish for gospel truth, and who preferred the faithful sermons and earnest manner of their late pastors, to the insipid discourses listlessly read by the present incumbents, continued to follow after the private meetings and public ministrations of the former. The council, in consequence, determined that all such seditious practices should be put down, and, in a virulent proclamation of the same date, strictly charged and commanded all public officers to disperse every meeting assembled under the pretence of the exercise of religion, of whatever number they might consist, except such as were allowed by authority, stigmatizing them as the ordinary seminaries of separation and rendezvouses of rebellion, and subjecting every person who should be present at or give the smallest countenance to them, to the highest pains inflicted by law upon seditious persons.

Enormous as the oppression and injustice which desolated the south and west of Scotland had been, the people had remained quiet. They had seen their civil and religious liberties swept away, the ministers they loved scattered, and hirelings they detested settled in their stead. They had groaned beneath the yoke of tyrannous enactments, the insolence of lordly prelacy, and the licentiousness of military exaction, and yet had abstained from any acts of rebellion. But their patient endurance only encouraged the perpetration of new mischief, and their unexampled loyalty was abused as the occasion of fresh aggression. For, notwithstanding all that has been said about the disloyalty, faction, and refractory spirit of the Scottish covenanters, they were men of thorough monarchical principles, and possessed a more than ordinary reverence and attachment for their royal family, under circumstances that would have justified resistance long before they had recourse to the last remedy. Affairs, however, had now reached that crisis in which their duty to their God and their duty to their king were placed in opposition, and as Christians no choice was left. To have deserted the assembling of themselves together for religious worship and edification, because their rulers forbade it, would have been to acknowledge a regal power over the conscience which neither Scripture nor nature allows; and as yet no disturbances had occurred at any of those meetings, which were peaceably conducted at a distance from places that could reasonably give offence—in the open air, on hills, and in woods, and sometimes under the covert of night, where the ordinances of the Lord were administered in the way of his appointment, and the word of his gospel preached in simplicity and truth. They therefore continued; and, in spite of the tyrannical edicts of their rulers, like the Israelites of old, did not only meet but multiply. John Welsh, minister of Irongray, from the first betook himself to the fields, and, with his co-presbyter Mr Gabriel Semple, laboured constantly within the bounds of his presbytery, officiating alternately in Corsack-wood and the surrounding country, frequently acting as decoys to their persecutors, one of them being actively engaged in preaching, while the curates with their beagles were in full scent after the other in an opposite direction. For upwards of a year, Mr Welsh is asserted to have “preached at least once every week in the parish of Irongray.” Afterwards he extended his labours to the sheriffdom of Ayr; and on Galston moor and various other places, held large conventicles, where he baptized many children. Gabriel Semple was not less zealous. He held large “unlawful assemblages” at Achmannock, Labrochhill, besides many others, not only in the sheriffdom of Ayr, but in Nithsdale, and within the stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Mr John Blackadder ofttimes convened great numbers of the parish of Glencairn and the neighbouring parishes, sometimes to the number of a thousand. Mr Alexander Peden—who had been expelled from New Glenluce, and was especially obnoxious for his exertions and popularity in the west—held meetings under cloud of night and in the winter season; these being now rendered imperative, as the increased diligence of the archbishop and his military satellites forbade more open assemblages. Encouraged by their example, many others ventured to the high places of the field; and their united active endeavours promised to supply, in the districts of Galloway, shire of Ayr, and stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in some degree, the want of a regular Presbyterian ministry.

M^r. Welsh baptizing children anno 1665
Vide page [133]
Edin^r. Hugh Paton, Carver & Gilder to the Queen, 1842.

The council, now entirely under the direction of the primate, on the 25th of January 1666, promulgated another thundering proclamation, in which, reiterating their falsehoods, and re-asserting “that conventicles, and unwarrantable meetings, and conventions, under pretence and colour of religion and exercise thereof, being the ordinary seminaries of separation and rebellion, are altogether unlawful,” they denounced the eminent servants of God mentioned before, who were said to convene, armed with swords and pistols, and some of them to ride in disguise up and down the country in gray clothes, together with Mr John Crookshanks, who avowedly kept by him “that book called Buchanan De Jure Regni, which he had translated out of Latin into English;” and John Osburn in Keir, who acted as officer for giving notice to the people of these unlawful meetings; and in regard they were latent and kept themselves out of the way that they might not be apprehended, and had no certain dwelling-place. They were charged at the market-crosses of Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, and Edinburgh, and at the shore and pier of Leith, “to compear personally before the council to answer to the premises,” which was, in other words, to surrender themselves and be silenced, or sent to join their brethren in exile.

A little before this the cause of the sufferers had been advocated in “An Apologetical Relation of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithful Ministers and Professors of the Church of Scotland, since August 1660,” attributed to John Brown, late minister of Wamphrey, and one of the banished—a performance written in a style of elegance superior to many of the publications of that day, and with a force of argument that defied reply, and which was peculiarly galling to the managers, as it convicted them of the most flagrant apostacy. The facts were too recent to admit of denial, while the cause which the persecuted suffered for defending, continued the same, as when it had been pronounced by their persecutors themselves the cause of their king, their country, and their God! An exposure more complete was never perhaps exhibited to the world; and the sting was the more tormenting, because it was true. The council felt it, and answered it in a becoming manner by another proclamation, in the beginning of February, ordering it to be burned by the hands of the common hangman, “to vindicate,” as they said, “the honour of this kingdom, and to witness and declare, that such principles and tenets as are contained in the said pamphlet, are detested and abhorred by them. With certification, that whosoever should retain any copies in their possession, should be liable in the sum of two thousand pounds, Scots money, to be exacted without any favour or defalcation; and whoever should contribute to disperse it, were declared liable to the punishment due the venders of seditious libels!” And still more strongly to mark their sense of its merit, on the very day this proclamation was issued, before the book had been declared seditious, or keeping it in possession a crime, the venerable relict of James Guthrie and her daughter were brought before the council, and because they refused to give any information respecting the author, they were sentenced to banishment to Zetland, and to be confined there during pleasure. But the sentence which, it is likely, clerical vengeance had dictated, was, upon a petition from the gentlewomen, referred to the Commissioner, and by him remitted.

Winter gave some short respite to the Presbyterians, who as yet were suffered, without much interruption, to attend their conventicles amid the inclemencies of the weather; but, with the return of spring, Sir James Turner was dispatched to commence his third campaign. Formerly, Kirkcudbright and Galloway had been the principal seat of his operations, now they stretched over Nithsdale; nor was his circuit more extended than were his severities increased. The exactions in his former expeditions had been chiefly confined to the common people, now they were imposed upon the gentlemen of the country; and the curates, attended by files of soldiers, fined at their discretion all whom they considered inimical, and of such sums as they judged proper. The landlord was compelled to pay if his wife, children, servants, or tenantry, were not regular church-goers. The tenant was mulcted when his landlord withdrew from public worship—if the curate’s services deserved the name—nor did it avail him, although both himself and his family were as punctual as the parson. The aged and the sick, the poor, the widow, and the fatherless—all were compelled to liquidate the church-fines; and even the beggar was forced to lay down his pittance to satisfy the unhallowed demand. From mere wantonness, the ruffian soldiery would eject from their dwellings the non-compliants—driving husband from wife, and wife from husband—snatch the meat from their children to give it to their dogs—then quarter in their houses till they had wasted their substance, and finish by committing to the flames what they could not otherwise destroy. Thus many respectable families, reduced to utter indigence, were scattered over the country, not only robbed of their property, but deprived of the means of procuring subsistence. Complaints were useless or worse—they were either disregarded, or answered by additional outrage.

The following instances will give some faint idea of the nature of these visitations. John Nielson of Corsack was a proprietor to a considerable extent in the parish of Partan in Galloway—a gentleman of undoubted loyalty, whose only crime was non-conformity. When Sir James Turner came into that county last year, he was instantly delated by the curate for non-attendance—aggravated, however, by his having shown hospitality to Mr Welsh—fined an hundred pounds Scots, and sent prisoner to Kirkcudbright, besides having four, six, or ten troopers quartered on him constantly, from the beginning of March to the end of May, to each of whom he paid half-a-crown per day, in addition to their board and what they might abuse. This year, for the same offence, he had six soldiers quartered upon him from March to the middle of June, when he was forced to leave his house and wander without any certain dwelling-place, while the villanous banditti demolished his household stuff, and rioted upon his provisions. When these were exhausted, they turned his lady and children out of doors, and forced his tenants to bring them sheep, lambs, oatmeal, and malt, till they also were nearly ruined, and then they drove the whole of the black cattle upon the estate to Glasgow and sold them!

Mr Blackadder being under hiding, the Bishop of Galloway ordered Turner to apprehend him. His second son, then a boy of ten years old, has left the following artless and affecting account of Sir James’ visit to the manse:—

“About this time, winter 1666, Turner and his party of soldiers from Galloway came to search for my father, who had gone to Edinburgh to seek about where he might live in safety. These rascally ruffians besett our house round about two o’clock in the morning, then gave the cry—‘Damned Whigs open the door,’ upon which we all got up, young and old, excepting my sister, with the nurse and the child at her breast. When they came in, the fire was gone out: they roared out again, ‘Light a candle immediately, and on with a fire quickly, or els we’l roast nurse, and bairn, and all, in the fire, and mak a braw bleeze.’ When the candle was lighted, they drew out their swords, and went to the stools, and chairs, and clove them down to mak the fire withall; and they made me hold the candle to them, trembling all along, and fearing every moment to be thrown quick into the fire. Then they went to search the house for my father, running their swords down through the beds and bedclothes; and among the rest, they came where my sister was, then a child, and as yet fast asleep, and with their swords, stabbed down through the bed where she was lying, crying, ‘Come out rebell dogs.’ They made narrow search for him in all corners of the house, ransacking presses, chests, and flesh-stands. Then they went and threw down all his books from the press upon the floor, and caused poor me hold the candle all this while, till they had examined his books; and all they thought Whiggish, as they termed it—and brave judges they were!—they put into a great horse-creel and took away, among which were a number of written sermons and printed pamphlets. Then they ordered one of their fellow-ruffians to climb up into the hen-baulks where the cocks and hens were, and as they came to one, threw about its neck, and then down on the floor we’t, and so on, till they had destroyed them all. Then they went to the meat-ambry and took out what was there; then to the meal and beef barrels, and left little or nothing there. All this I was an eyewitness to, trembling and shivering all the while, having nothing but my short shirt on me. So soon as I was relieved of my office, I begins to think, if possible, of my making my escape, rather than to be burned quick as I thought and they threatened. I goes to the door, where there was a sentry on every side standing with their swords drawn—for watches were set round to prevent escape. I approached nearer and nearer by small degrees, making as if I were playing myself. At last I gets out there, making still as if I were playing, till I came to the gate of the house; then, with all the little speed I had—looking behind me now and then to see if they were pursuing after me—I run the length of half-a-mile in the dark night, naked to the shirt. I got to a neighbouring toune, called the Brigend of Monnihyvie, when, thinking to creep into some house to save my life, I found all the doors shut and the people sleeping; upon which I went to the cross of the toune, and got up to the uppermost step of it, and there I sat me down and fell fast asleep till the morning. Between five and six a door opens and an old woman comes out, and seeing a white thing upon the cross comes near it; and when she found it was a little boy, cries out, ‘Jesus save us, what art thou?’ ‘With that I awaked and answered, I am Mr Blackadder’s son.’ ‘O, my puir bairn, what brought thee here.’ I answeres, ‘there’s a hantle of fearful men wi’ red coats has burnt all our house, my brother, and sister, and all the family.’ ‘O, puir thing,’ says she, ‘come in and lye down in my warm bed’—which I did, and it was the sweetest bed I ever met with.”

After this the whole family was dispersed. “We all behoved,” continues the narrator, “to scatter; one neighbour laird in the parish taking one child, and another. I was sent to a place about a mile off, called the Peel-toune, who afterwards, likewise, were quite ruined and all taken from them—the poor mither begging but one lamb for meat to the bairns, but could not get it. The meat they were not able to eat they destroyed, threw down the butter-kirns, and hashed down the cheese with their swords among the horses’ feet.”

Besides all other exactions, the parliamentary fines which had hung so long suspended over the heads of the gentry, were ordered to be levied with the utmost rigour from all who would not take the oath of supremacy and subscribe the declaration; but to those who would, the one-half was remitted, as had been proposed the preceding year. This fine, like the rest, was collected by troopers, whose charges, like those of modern lawyers, were always as much and frequently more than the original debt. The only consolation the sufferers had, was, that their plunder did not go to enrich those who were the authors of the robbery. Neither Middleton’s party, who imposed, nor Lauderdale’s, who uplifted, the mulct, were allowed to pocket a farthing of the proceeds, which were ultimately applied to support that worst and most dangerous instrument of tyranny—a standing body of household troops.

Sharpe, who assuredly was the cause of much of his country’s calamity, and who was often execrated as almost the origin of the whole, has usually got the credit of this arrangement. It is well known that, although an imperious, he was by no means a fearless, character, and it is therefore not unlikely he may have been the author of these precautionary measures which the country viewed with so much detestation. At any rate, about the time that he was in London, the affair was matured, and two regiments of foot and six troops of horse were ordered to be raised, of which Thomas Dalziel of Binns—a rude soldier who had once owned the covenant, and afterwards improved his manners in the Russian service—was appointed Lieutenant-General, with William Drummond, Lord Madderty’s brother, who had gone through the same course of education as Major-General. The troops of horse were disposed of among the nobility. This army was to be maintained from the fines, of whose application the General was to give an account; but from the manner in which they were collected, and the character of the gatherers, the public was little benefited by this revenue, and the maintenance of the troops fell eventually upon the common exchequer.

Reinforced by these mercenaries, the council more strictly enjoined, by a fresh proclamation, (October 11,) submission to the acts of parliament against separation and resistance to ecclesiastical authority, requiring masters to oblige their servants, landlords their tenants, and magistrates the inhabitants of the several burghs, to attend diligently at the parish churches and partake regularly of the ordinances; and no one was to be retained as a servant, kept as a tenant, or suffered to dwell as a citizen, after the parish priest intimated his disobedience. Mandates so wantonly oppressive, which, without any rational object, were calculated to create crime by leading either to a violation of the consciences of the lieges or the laws of the land, seem to carry on their face an incitement to insurrection; and when the manner in which they were put in execution, among a sturdy peasantry, is remembered, it is truly astonishing that they did not excite a spirit of insubordination, general and deadly, and in truth produce those very outrages of which the calumniated Presbyterians were falsely accused. Many were driven from their homes and utterly ruined, who, merely from political motives, or from a desire to see something like decency in their clergymen, or from an aversion to have ministers forced upon them whom they did not like, had opposed the curates and subjected themselves to the fines; others, men of respectable rank in life who themselves had conformed, saw their estates ruined and their families dispersed, because some one, over whom they could have no possible control, would not attend the wretched sermonizing of a worthless parson, or take the sacrament from his polluted hands; besides those who, from a love to the truth and a sincere reverence for their tenets, deemed it a point of duty to withdraw from the ministration of men who neither understood nor preached the first principles of the gospel. Yet, notwithstanding all these terrible encroachments upon their liberty and property, notwithstanding these authorized violations of all that was dear or sacred to them as men or as Christians, they had suffered, they had complained, but they had not rebelled, when an incidental circumstance led to an insurrection, in perfect conformity with the spirit, and even authorized by the letter, of the ancient Scottish constitution before it was destroyed at the Restoration, which hardly deserves the name of rebellion.

Mr Allan of Barscob, and three other of these unfortunate fugitives who had been forced by want from their places of retreat among the mountains or mosses of Galloway, had ventured, November 13th, to the Clachan of Dalry to procure some provisions. Upon the high road, a little from that place, they accidentally met some soldiers driving a few neighbours before them, to compel them to thresh out a poor man’s corn for the payment of his church fines. They naturally sympathized with the sufferers, but passed on. While seated, however, at breakfast in the village, they were informed that the soldiers had seized the old man in his house—stripped him naked—and were threatening to place him on a redhot gridiron because he could not produce the money. Leaving their meal unfinished, immediately they repaired to the spot; and finding the poor man bound, desired the soldiers to let him alone. The soldiers in return demanded how they dared to challenge them, and drew their swords. A scuffle ensued, in which one of the others discharged a pistol and wounded a corporal with some pieces of a tobacco pipe—the only ball they had among them when the military surrendered themselves prisoners, and the man was liberated.[^[47]]

[47]. Sir James Turner says, that the corporal affirmed he was shot, “because he refus’d to sign the covenant.” The corporal himself, in a petition to the privy council, says, “ten pieces of tobacco pipes were, by the surgeon’s care, taken out of his bodie.” Turner’s Memoirs, p. 148. Kirkton’s Hist. note, p. 230.—Sir James in his account of the transactions which took place after his seizure, and till the battle of Pentland Hills, is frequently inaccurate, as might be expected, both from his situation, which prevented distinct information except about what he saw, and his prejudices and interest which led him to pervert even that. Some instances will be given afterwards in which he is palpably, if not designedly, at fault.

Thus fairly engaged, to retreat was as dangerous as to proceed. They knew they would be denounced as rebels and subjected to dreadful reprisals. A party of their friends at Balmaclellan, when they heard of the affair, knowing they too would be involved, seized and disarmed sixteen soldiers who were quartered there, one, who made resistance, being killed; and the whole country taking the alarm, their numbers soon swelled to about fifty horse tolerably mounted, and, perhaps, double that number of foot, miserably armed with pitchforks, scythes, cudgels, and a few pikes, and swords. Turner’s forces were scattered over the country, they therefore, without allowing them time to collect, marched direct to Dumfries, where, on the morning of the 15th, they surprised him, who having only heard some indistinct account of the scuffle, was preparing to go and chastise the culprits. The horse went straight up to head-quarters—the foot remaining without the town; and when Sir James appeared at the window, Nielson of Corsack told him, if he would quietly surrender he should receive no harm, with which he complied; and that gentleman preserved him from personal injury, which some of the party seemed anxious to inflict.[^[48]]

[48]. “While they were speaking, the Commander comes up, and seizing Turner presented a pistol or carabine to have shot him, but Corsack interfered, saying,” “you shall as soon kill me for I have given him quarters.” Crichton’s Life of Blackadder, p. 139.

The person who assumed the command was one Andrew Gray, said to be an Edinburgh merchant whom no body knew, but whose authority all obeyed without inquiry, so totally were they unprepared for any regular rising, and as little was he qualified for the situation into which he had thrust himself. They seized the General’s papers and trunks, but found little money; himself they brought away in his night-gown and slippers, and placing him upon a little pony carried him to the cross, where, with much formality, they drank the king’s health to evince their loyalty—a ceremony which some of their friends thought they might as well have omitted, and for which they received neither credit nor thanks. They then carried him back to his lodgings, and ordered him to make ready and go with them. That night they rested at Glencairn. Here they were alarmed by a report of the approach of the Earl of Annandale and Lord Drumlanrig, and set off hurriedly, carrying their prisoner with them under a strong guard. Next night they reached Carsphairn where they remained; and here their redoubtable Captain Gray left them, not without violent suspicions of having carried a considerable sum of money along with him: yet more probably he retired from fear or a sense of his own utter incapacity,[^[49]] but the numbers increased, and a kind of committee consisting of Maclellan of Barscob, Nielson of Corsack, and Mr Alexander Robertson, a preacher, succeeded to the command.

[49]. This was on the Friday. On the Monday following he was found by Colonel Wallace near Machline in a situation very unlike that of a person possessed of much money. “About that house I saw two men, one whereof I perceived was Andrew Gray. He was in so uncouth a posture, with such a beggar-like habit, and looking with such an abashed countenance, I was astonished and could not speak for a long time. Always he forbids me to be afraid. He tells me the Lord had favoured them with good success in that attempt upon Dumfries; and that, howbeit, after the business was done, many came and owned it that never appeared before, when it was but to be hazarded upon: yet all or most of these gentlemen and countrymen had left it and gone to their houses, as if there had been no more ado: whereupon he had left them to look to his own safety, being in a very insecure condition then, having been the chief actor in the business.” Wallace’s Narrative of the Rising at Pentland, p. 391.

Some days before the scuffle at Dalry, Rothes had taken his departure for London, and the chief cares of the government devolved upon the primate, as president of the council—thus called upon to discharge an important political duty at a very delicate conjuncture. One of the bailies of Dumfries who had witnessed the seizure of Turner, immediately proceeded to Edinburgh with information of the rising; and the members of council, who never calculated upon resistance, were surprised and alarmed beyond measure. Next day, they sent off an express to the king with the unpleasant intelligence, who, passing the Commissioner upon the road, furnished his majesty with very unexpected news to salute him with on his arrival. They ordered General Dalziel to march on the following day with as many men as he could muster to the west country, to establish his head-quarters at Glasgow, and thence to proceed to wherever his presence might be most urgently required—the various noblemen of those most interested in these districts, were, at the same time, required to use their every exertion to preserve the peace, and to receive and assist his majesty’s forces—the guards of the town of Edinburgh were doubled, and the names of all strangers ordered to be registered. These measures, the most obvious and requisite, met of course the king’s approval, but a proposal to enforce the subscription of the declaration respecting the covenant upon the heritors of the southern and western shires, was postponed by his desire as unnecessarily exasperating an evil of which they did not yet know the extent. More effectually to protect the capital, the companies of the train-bands were ordered to be filled up by citizens who would willingly take the oath of allegiance, and further promise to maintain his majesty’s authority with their lives and fortunes; such as would not, to be disarmed and their persons secured.

The noblemen of Fife, with their followers, were summoned, and an act of council was passed to put the country in a posture of defence, and all the lieges were ordered to assist the General with all their power. The ferries across the Forth were at the same time stopped, and even those who passed at Stirling Bridge were to be subjected to a rigid examination. A proclamation also was issued commanding the rebels to lay down their arms, but it was remarked that it contained no offer of pardon; and to desire them to surrender without security, was something like an invitation to confess and be hanged. Some of the nobility felt the degradation of being under an ecclesiastic, and murmured—“Have we none at such a juncture to give orders but a priest?” But they were too wofully spiritless than do more, and they only clanked, sulkily, the fetters themselves had forged.

Intelligence also had been sent by the insurgents to Edinburgh with equal expedition, and a few who were well-wishers to the cause met to consider what was their duty in the present juncture, when, at an adjourned meeting held in Mr Alexander Robertson, a preacher’s lodgings,[^[50]] they resolved after deliberation and prayer, that it was their duty to assist their poor brethren so cruelly oppressed. One only dissented, Mr Ferguson of Kaitloch, who was not convinced of the propriety of rising at that time. The rest were eager to engage immediately, and as soon as the meeting broke up, Colonel Wallace and Mr Robertson set out for the west to see what could be effected there. Mr Welsh went direct to the countrymen whom he found at Dalmellington; thence he proceeded to gather his friends in the south, while they, buoyed up with the expectation of being quickly and numerously joined, marched forward to Ayrshire, and on the 21st had their general rendezvous at the Bridge of Doon. Wallace’s first disappointment was at Libberton, where, instead of forty stout horsemen, he only met eight; and on his journey by Linton, Dunsire, Mauchline, and Evondale, he found the country, in general, had been taken so completely unawares, that he arrived at the main body with a very slender accession of strength—the ministers remaining quietly in their houses, while the leading Whig gentlemen went to wait upon the General. He had by the way received notice from Cunninghame, that a reinforcement from thence might be procured if they had only a party to encourage and protect them till they got formed; and Captain John Arnott, accordingly, had been sent with forty horse to bring them up, and directed to join next day at Ochiltree.

[50]. Kirkton, p. 234. This was a different person from the Alexander Robertson formerly mentioned, though they have been sometimes confounded, owing to the sirnames being spelled indifferently Robison or Robertson, both their first names being Alexander, and both being preachers.

Having received information of General Dalziel’s arrival at Glasgow, they hastened to Ochiltree, where all their parties were ordered to meet, and where Mr Semple preached while they were collecting.[^[51]] Afterwards they marshalled their army, named their officers,[^[52]] and placed their guards. Sir John Cochrane was with Dalziel, and his lady received the leaders who were quartered at the mansion-house very coolly, although she expressed herself not unfriendly to the cause. Here they were joined by Mr John Guthrie, minister of Tarbolton, with some of his parishioners, and Robert Chalmers, a brother of the Laird of Gadgirth’s, who brought a report that the Duke of Hamilton was approaching with his troops, and that they had dispatched John Ross with a small party to ascertain the fact. A council of war was then called, at which it was resolved that they should march eastward, as it was impossible to stay where they were, and there was no probability of farther help from the south or south-west districts, and Captain Arnott would bring with him whoever were well-inclined in Cunninghame and Renfrew. Besides, they had an earnest invitation from Blackwood to come to Clydesdale, where he promised to meet them with one hundred men.

[51]. Wallace’s Narrative, p. 395. “Sir James Turner has a merrie fact, which he says occurred here. I was lodged that night at the principall alehouse of the toune, where I was indifferentlie well used, and visited by some of their officers and ministers. Most of their foot were lodged about the church and churchyard, and order given to ring bells next morning for a sermon to be preached by Mr Welsh. Maxwell of Monreth and Major Mackulloch invited me to heare that phanatic sermon, for soe they merrilie call’d it. They said that preaching might prove ane effectuall meane to turn me, which they heartilie wished. I answered them that I was under guards, and that if they intended to heare that sermon, it was probable I might heare it likewise; for it was not like my guards would goe to church and leave me alone at my lodgings. Bot to what they spoke of my conversion, I said it wold be hard to turne a Turner. Bot because I found them in a merry humour, I said if I did not come to heare Mr Welsh preach, then they might fine me in fourtie shillings Scots, which was duoble the soume of what I had exacted from the phanatickes. Bot there was no sermon that day, which, undoubtedly, I would have heard, if there had been anie.” Pp. 163-4. Afterwards, he has this passage—“This I shall say they were not to learn to plunder, and that I have not seene lesse of divine worship any where, than I saw in that armie of theirs; for thogh at their rendezvouses and halts they had opportunitie enough everie day for it, yet did I never heare any of ther ministers (and as themselves told me there was not so few as two-and-threttie of them, whereof onlie five or sixe convers’d with me) either pray, preach, or sing psalms; neither could I learn that it was ever practised publicklie, except once by Mr Robbison at Corsfairne, ane other time by Mr Welsh at Damellington, and now the third time by Mr Semple at Lanrick, where the lawful pastor was forced to resigne his pulpit to him.” P. 169.

[52]. The officers whose names have been preserved, were—Colonel Wallace, who left a written narrative of the rising at Pentland, and of whom some farther notice will be given; Major Joseph Learmont; Captains Andrew Arnott, John Paton, John Maclellan of Barscob, John Maxwell, younger of Monreith, and Robert Maclellan of Balmagachan; Cornet of Horse, Robert Gordon of Knockbreck; uncertain, Major John M’Culloch of Barholme; Mr George Crookshanks had a command.

Next day they broke up for Cumnock, but were met on the road with the disagreeable intelligence that Ross and his party had been taken prisoners by the Duke, and that the enemy’s whole force was at Kilmarnock; in consequence, they continued their route during a violent storm of rain and wind to Muirkirk. The night fell dark, and the road was detestable; yet the men marched forward with spirit, and even their enemy, Sir James Turner, gave them this credit—“I doe confesse, I never saw lustier fellows than these foot were, or better marchers; for though I was appointed to stay in the rear, and notwithstanding these inconveniences, I saw few or none of them straggle.” When they arrived late at their quarters, wet as if they had been drenched in water, the poor foot were forced to lie all night in the cold church, without victuals and with but little fire. Here Mr Andrew M’Cormack, a pious Irish minister, known by the name of the “Good-man,” came to the Colonel and informed him it was the opinion of Mr Robertson and Mr Lockhart—that, as there was no appearance of any help either from Clydesdale or any other quarter, the business should be followed no farther, but the people dismissed as quietly as possible to their homes, to shift each for himself the best way he could, until the Lord gave some better opportunity. With this advice, which was not at all to the Colonel’s liking, he could not of himself comply, but proposed to consult the other leaders who might join before or when they reached Douglas. Thither they arrived on Saturday night, November 24, without any of their expected reinforcements, excepting forty recruits brought by Captain Arnott.

Having quartered the troops, and, on account of an alarm, doubled their guards, a council of war was held, when, after earnest prayer to God, the question was proposed, whether they should disperse or continue in arms? On the one side was stated the strength of the enemy and the small number of their company, the total want of spirit discovered by the country and the tempestuous season of the year, which rendered it unfit for action. On the other, it was replied—that the coming forth to own the people of Galloway was clearly of the Lord, and in that they had done nothing but followed his call—that numbers had not only urged them, but had solemnly promised also to come forth, and if these should now desert the cause, between them and their master let it be. As for themselves, they believed the Lord could work by few or by many. If he designed the present appearance should prosper, he would send men if necessary; or who could tell but he might honour them to accomplish his end? At all events, the cause they were assured was his; nor would they forsake it, but follow on whatever might be the consequence. Death was all they could endure; and, though they were only to bear their testimony to the truth, that was well worth dying for. It was next proposed, whether they should renew the covenants? On this there was no dispute. They regretted they could not go about that work with the deliberate preparation they deemed necessary for entering into such solemn engagements; but, as the urgency of the case admitted of no delay, and they all understood the nature of the transaction, they determined to prepare for the worst by again dedicating themselves to the Lord in the national bonds, whose obligation they believed to be perpetual, and the renunciation of which they considered as one of the deepest sins of the land. The disposal of their prisoner, as they had no safe place in which to confine him, was then considered. About this they were not so unanimous. Some were for putting him to death as a notorious murderer and bitter instrument of persecution, but others urged that he was a soldier of fortune, acting under a commission, also that he had been promised protection by one of themselves; and it appearing from his papers, though his conduct had been severe, yet that he had not even acted up to his instructions, it was carried to spare him.[^[53]]

[53]. “My guards, whereof David Scott, a weaver, was captain, carried me to Bathket, and took up for my quarters the best alehouse.” Turner’s Mem.

Hearing that Dalziel was at Strathaven, they decamped early next morning—Sabbath—and marched by Lesmahago to Lanark, where they arrived in the evening, having been joined by Robert and John Gordon, the sons of Alexander Gordon of Knockbreck, with a few others from Galloway. Mr Robertson refused to accompany them farther. On their march, they completed the arranging of their troops, but found themselves wretchedly deficient in officers, there not being above four or five who had ever been in an army before, neither were they fully supplied with ammunition or arms; at Lanark, they caused a general search, but the country had been too well scoured before, and they found few or none. Notice, however, was given that the covenants would be renewed on the morrow.

When they assembled at the rendezvous for this purpose, they were told the enemy was within two miles, and it was proposed to delay; but as the public avowal of their cause and principles, besides being a solemn religious act of imperative obligation, was the best and only testimony they could exhibit in their circumstances, they determined that nothing but absolute necessity should prevent it. They therefore sent forward an advance of twelve horse, placed guards at the ford, and then deliberately went about the work of the day. The horse were drawn up at the head of the town, where Mr Gabriel Semple and Mr John Crookshanks presided. The foot were ranged in the street, near the tolbooth stairs, upon which Mr John Guthrie stood and preached. Very few except the insurgents attended, so great was the universal terror and depression of the times; but the whole proceedings are said to have been deeply impressive, particularly the address of Mr Semple, from Prov. xxiv. 11, 12. “If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? and shall not he render unto every man according to his works?” After sermon, the covenants were read, article by article, and the hearers, with uplifted hands, and apparently with much serious emotion, engaged and vowed to perform. Now in a situation of such peril, and pledged to their country and to their God, could they be other than deeply affected? It was no common ground these witnesses occupied.

About the same time, they emitted the following hurried but well-framed “declaration of those in arms for the covenant 1666,” the effect of which was wonderfully, though sadly, impressed upon the religious part of the community, by the remembrance that these men had been allowed to stand alone, and to fall together in the righteous cause; and by the evils which overtook the adherents to the covenants and afflicted the nation for twenty-two succeeding years of persecution.

“The nature of religion doth sufficiently teach, and all men almost acknowledge, the lawfulness of sinless self-defence; yet we thought it duty at this time to give an account unto the world of the occasion and design of our being together in arms, since the rise and scope of actions, if faulty, may render a thing right upon the matter, sinful. It is known to all that the king’s majesty, at his coronation, did engage to rule the nation according to the revealed word of God in Scripture—to prosecute the ends of the National and Solemn League and Covenants, and fully to establish Presbyterian government, with the Directory for Worship—and to approve all acts of parliament establishing the same; and thereupon the nobility and others of his subjects did swear allegiance: and so religion was committed unto him as a matter of trust, secured by most solemn indenture betwixt him and his people.

“Notwithstanding all this, it is soon ordered that the covenant be burned—the tie of it is declared void and null, and men forced to subscribe a declaration contrary to it—Episcopal government, in its height of tyranny, is established—and men obliged by law not to plead, witness, or petition against these things. Grievous fines, sudden imprisonments, vast quarterings of soldiers, and a cruel inquisition by the High Commission Court, were the reward of all such who could not comply with the government by lordly hierarchy, and abjure the covenants, and prove more monstrous to the wasting their conscience, than nature would have suffered heathens to be. These things, in part, have been all Scotland over, but chiefly in the poor country of Galloway at this day; and had not God prevented, it should have, in the same measures, undoubtedly befallen the rest of the nation ere long. The just sense whereof made us choose rather to betake ourselves to the fields for self-defence than to stay at home burdened daily with the calamities of others, and tortured with the fears of our own approaching misery. And considering our engagement to assist and defend all those who entered into this league and covenant with us; and to the end we may be more vigorous in the prosecution of this matter, and all men may know the true state of our cause, we have entered into the Solemn League and Covenant; and though it be hardly thought of, renewed the same, to the end we may be free of the apostacy of the times, and saved from the cruel usages persons resolved to adhere to this have met with. Hoping that this will wipe off the reproach that is upon our nation, because of the avowed perjury it lies under. And being fully persuaded that this league, however misrepresented, contains nothing in it sinful before God, derogatory to the king’s just authority, the privileges of the parliament, or the liberty of the people; but, on the contrary, is the surest bond whereby all these are secured, since a threefold cord is not easily broken, as we shall make appear in our next and larger declaration, which shall contain more fully the proofs of the lawfulness of entering into covenant, and necessity of our taking arms at this time for the defence of it, with a full and true account of our grief and sorrow for our swerving from it, and suffering ourselves to be divided to the reproach of our common cause, and saddening the hearts of the godly—a thing we sorrowfully remember and firmly resolve against in all time coming.”

At this period the number of the insurgents had reached its maximum—more having joined on that day than for three before—supposed to amount to nearly three thousand; and the opinion of many among them was, if they did intend to fight, it would be better to do it in that quarter, where, if defeated, they were among friends, and could more easily find the means of escape, than in the east, where every thing would be against them; but their want of discipline, and want of arms, did not warrant a trial of strength with the king’s forces, who were equal if not superior in numbers and in a complete state of equipment. They were likewise the more encouraged to try the Lothians, as, at this critical moment, they received from Edinburgh pressing letters of invitation to come thither. They chose what eventually proved the most unfortunate for themselves, and that same evening took the road for Bathgate. Before they left Lanark, Lawrie of Blackwood paid them a visit. He said he had come by desire of the Duke of Hamilton to learn what were their intentions and to endeavour to prevail upon them to lay down their arms and save the effusion of blood; but he produced no written commission, and only spoke in general terms to some of the ministers, which induced in the mind of the Colonel a suspicion that he came merely to spy out their nakedness; and he afterwards blamed his own simplicity in allowing a person of such dubious character to pass between them and the enemy without restraint. Hardly were they in motion when Dalziel made his appearance; but he contented himself with sending a body of horse after them, who, when they found the countrymen prepared for an assault, returned to the General, with whom they remained for the night in the quarters the others had left. The night was deplorable; it rained incessantly and blew a hurricane, and the road across the moors was deep, “plashy,” and broken. When they arrived at their destination, two hours after night-fall, they could get no accommodation, not even a covert from the tempest; and their leaders retired to a wretched hovel to consult about their further operations. After prayer, they discussed the subject. To return was now impracticable, for the enemy was at their heels; but they still expected some assistance from Edinburgh, and thitherwards they resolved to continue their route, convinced that they would at least hear from their friends before they were entirely within the jaws of Leviathan.

But never were poor men more completely deceived, disappointed, and entangled. On every side was danger. The whole spasmodic energy of government had been forced into action by the fearful throes of the primate; almost all Scotland south of the Tay, had been set in motion, while the capital was fortified more in proportion to his ecclesiastical terrors than to the band that was approaching. Sir Andrew Ramsay, the provost, had barricaded the gates and planted them with cannon—Lord Kingston was stationed on Burntsfield Links with an advanced guard of horse and foot—the advocates were accoutred and the citizens in arms—and all the array of the Lothians, Merse, and Teviotdale, were ordered to hold themselves in readiness. Yet such was their want of intelligence, that the covenanters, upon an alarm being given, broke up about twelve o’clock in this dark and foul night—“One of the darkest,” says Wallace in his Narrative, “I am persuaded that ever any in that company saw. Except we had been tied together, it was impossible to keep together; and every little burn was a river.” During this disastrous march, which many were unable to accomplish—as “they stuck in the clay and fainted by the road”—the army diminished wofully; and the remainder who arrived in the morning at the New Bridge, within eight miles of Edinburgh, “looked rather like dying men than fighting soldiers—weary, worn out, half-drowned, half-starved creatures.” Yet, beyond expectation, in an hour or two, they mustered nearly a thousand men, only officers were sorely lacking; and now when the enemy was within five miles in their rear, they first learned that all Edinburgh and Leith were in arms against them.

Dreadfully perplexed—without directors, without intelligence, without food—they knew not what to do, but they resolved to march to Colinton. On their way thither, Blackwood again came to them with a verbal requisition from the Duke for them to lay down their arms, and he would endeavour to procure an indemnity; but desperate as their situation was, had they had no other aim than their own personal safety, they could not have listened to so vague an arrangement with such men as they had to deal with; and when Blackwood urged their compliance, they dismissed him with a caution to beware how he behaved himself, and see well that he walked straightly and uprightly between the parties. Having had so little rest, and scarcely tasted any thing since they left Lanark, a few horsemen were sent out to try and procure some provisions and forage in the neighbouring farms, as they intended, if possible, to take some repose and refreshment in their quarters that night, which, continuing tempestuous, seemed to promise them, for some hours at least, security from any hostile incursion. Accordingly, having provided in the best manner they could for the foot in the village, and sent the horse to the neighbouring farms, they set their guards, and the officers were retiring to rest, when Blackwood came to them again, accompanied by Richards, the laird of Barskimming, and repeated the proposal he had formerly made; telling them at the same time, he had the General’s parole for a cessation of arms till to-morrow morning, having given in return the same for them. Wallace, who was little pleased with the officious presumption of “the tutor,” told him, “he did not understand this paroling of his, but he believed neither would break the truce in such a night.” Upon this they parted, and Barskimming, without taking leave, set off early next morning, but Blackwood waited till daybreak, and requested to know what answer was to be returned. The leaders upon calmly considering their situation—their men now hardly nine hundred, the greater part without arms—their spirits broken by the apparent want of heart in the country—their bodies worn out by fatigue, hunger, want of sleep, and exposure to the weather—the utter hopelessness of any reinforcements—and their great inferiority in numbers to Dalziel’s troops—were strongly induced to attempt coming to some terms not incompatible with the object for which they had ventured to the field, they therefore proposed sending one of their number along with Blackwood to represent to the General their grievances, and the grounds of their appearance in arms; but the only person they had to whom they could intrust such a message being objected to as an outlaw, Wallace sent a letter by Blackwood to Dalziel, stating—“That, on account of the intolerable insolences of the prelates and their insupportable oppressions, and being deprived of every usual method of remonstrating or petitioning, they were necessitated to assemble together, in order that, jointly, they might the more securely petition his majesty and council for redress, they therefore requested of his excellency a pass for a person whom they might send with their petition, and begged an answer might be returned by Blackwood who had promised to fetch it.”

Trusting, however, very little to this negotiation, they commenced a retreat, and turning the west end of the Pentland Hills, took the Biggar road. As their men were straggling, they drew up near the House of Muir, on a spot now well known—Rullion Green. The ground rises from the south towards the north, where the Hill terminates abruptly. Here the poor fatigued remnant were posted in three bodies. Upon the south, a small body of horse, under Barscob and the Galloway gentlemen—in the centre, the foot commanded by Wallace himself—and upon the north, the greater part of the horse along with Major Learmont. Hardly had this small company got arranged, when an alarm was given that the enemy was approaching; and upon moving towards the ridge of the hill, they observed their horse under Major-General Drummond upon an opposite hill, within a quarter of a mile—for their foot had not arrived. The little band of covenanters being so posted that the enemy could not attack them from the north, about fifty picked troopers marched along the ridge to the westward, evidently with a design to approach from that quarter. Observing this, a party of about the same strength, under Captain Arnott, was dispatched by Wallace to meet them, which they did in the glen, at no great distance. Having fired their pistols, they instantly closed, and a sharp contest ensued in sight of both armies, which lasted for a considerable time, when the troopers gave way and fled in confusion to their own body. In this rencounter, Mr John Crookshanks and Andrew M’Cormack fell;[^[54]] and several were killed and wounded on both sides.

[54]. “Two main instruments of the attempt, two Ireland ministers.” Wallace’s Narrative, p. 416. It appears doubtful if ministers in any case may lawfully take arms—Peter was reproved for drawing his sword in defence of his master. Matt. xxvi. 52.

The nature of the ground preventing pursuit by cavalry, a party of the covenanters’ foot was ordered to support their horse, but the enemy moved to another and safer eminence farther to the east, where they waited till their own foot came forward; and then descending from the hill, drew up upon Rullion Green in front of their opponents, in order to provoke them to leave their ground and engage. But seeing that they were not inclined to leave their vantage ground, they pushed forward a squadron of their horse, flanked by foot, upon the south, which the others observing, consulted whether they should give them a second meeting, when considering that, although they might be able to defer an engagement for that night, they must inevitably be forced to fight on the morrow, and under much greater disadvantage—as the enemy would be certainly increased in numbers—they, after prayer, resolved that they would not decline the combat—“they would quit themselves of their duty though it should serve for no more than to give a testimony by leaving their corpses on the field.” A party of Learmont’s horse, also supported by foot, was then sent forth, whose onset the regulars were unable to sustain, and staggered and fled. Each now endeavoured to support their own men by successive detachments.

While the combatants were at all equal, the covenanters successfully maintained the honour of the day, till Dalziel, about night-fall, brought up the whole of his force, and, with one simultaneous and vigorous charge, broke their array. Overwhelmed by numbers, they found it impossible to rally, and every one shifted for himself as he best could. The slaughter was not great, for the countrymen made to the hills, and their flight was covered by the darkness; nor were the horsemen very eager in the pursuit, for, being chiefly gentlemen, they sympathized in the sufferings, and many approved of the cause of the vanquished. About a hundred were killed and taken prisoners at the time, and about fifty were brought in afterwards. Of Dalziel’s troops, the casualties never appear to have been fairly reported. They acknowledged some half-dozen, but the allowed valour of the covenanters, and the obstinacy and nature of the skirmishing, forbid our accepting this as any thing like an accurate return. Some of the neighbouring rustics, more cruel even than the military, probably expecting money, are said to have murdered several of the fugitives, but the crime was held in deserved execration; and the popular tradition, that these “accursed spots” were the scenes of foul nocturnal visions, sufficiently mark the general opinion of the country. Sir James Turner, who had accompanied the insurgents in all their movements, when the battle was about to commence, bargained with his guards that, if they would save his life from the vengeance of their friends, if defeated, he would secure their safety from the conquerors, which was agreed to, and was one of the few agreements which appears to have been faithfully kept. Those who were slain on the field were stripped where they fell, and lay naked and unburied till next day, when some godly women from Edinburgh brought winding-sheets and interred them; but such is the brutality of avarice, that the bodies were afterwards taken out of their graves by some miscreants for the sake of the linen!

The victors entered the capital shouting with their prisoners.[^[55]] “A sight,” says a contemporary, “the saddest that ever Edinburgh had seen, which drew tears in abundance from the eyes of all that feared God, considering what vast difference there was between the persons and the cause on the one side and the other: and surely a most astonishing dispensation it was to see a company of holy men—for such were the greatest part, yea, but few otherwise—and that in a good cause, given up into the hands of a most desperate crew of scoffing, profane atheists. But God had called them together, it seems, to have a testimony at their hands, and that he missed not, for he helped them to glorify him in their sufferings, which made their cause more lovely throughout all parts of the land, even in the eyes of enemies, than victory would have done!” They were imprisoned, the common men in the kirk, called Haddo’s-Hole[^[56]]—those of superior rank were sent to the common jail. In the height of their exultation, the privy council sent off their dispatches announcing the victory, and breathing a spirit of the most implacable hatred against the Presbyterians. “Although,” said they, “this rabble be totally dissipated for the time, yet we conceive ourselves obliged, in the discharge of our duty, to represent unto your majesty that those principles which are pretended as the ground of this rebellion, are so rooted in many several places through the kingdom, and there be such just ground of apprehension of dangers from persons disaffected to your majesty’s government, as it is now established by law, as will require more vigorous application for such an extirpation of it, as may secure the peace of the kingdom and due obedience to the laws.” Orders were immediately given by the council to sequestrate the property of all who had been at Pentland, and to apprehend all who were suspected of having been with them, or of having aided or abetted them before or since.

[55]. “Mr Arthur Murray, an honest “outted” minister (from Orkney,) dwelling in a suburb of Edinburgh, by which Dalziel’s men entered the city after the victory. He, hearing they were passing by, opened his window to view them, where he saw them display their banners tainted in the blood of these innocent people, and heard them shout victory, upon which he took his bed and died within a few days.” Kirkton, p. 247.

[56]. It received this name from Gordon of Haddo having been confined there previous to his execution in the civil war in the reign of Charles I. Burnet tells us that Wiseheart, Bishop of Edinburgh, and indeed the whole town, were so liberal to the prisoners, that they were in danger from repletion. Wallace, with an appearance of more accuracy, says, “the charity of the godly people of the town appeared in furnishing them with all necessaries, both for maintenance and the healing of their wounds.” P. 428.

Priestly resentment is proverbially implacable; but if those priests happen to be infidels, or apostates, such as the generality of the Episcopalian-restoration-church of Scotland were, their revenge assumes a degree of rancour bordering on the diabolical, of which the punishments that followed the suppression of this feeble and ill-supported insurrection, afford afflicting examples. There cannot be a stronger proof that the rising was unpremeditated and accidental, than that, notwithstanding the enormous oppression the country had endured, and the universal discontent both in the south and west, so few attempted to join the insurgents. In Renfrew, only one small company assembled; but before they were ready, Dalziel had interposed between them and the covenanters, and they retired without doing more than showing goodwill and incurring punishment. William Muir of Caldwell was their leader; and among them were, Ker of Kersland, Caldwell of Caldwell, Cunningham of Bedland, Porterfield of Quarrelton, with Mr Gabriel Maxwell, minister of Dundonald, George Ramsay, minister of Kilmaurs—and John Carstairs, minister of Glasgow, unwillingly forced out by the entreaties of his friends, with several others, who all afterwards suffered confiscation, fining, or banishment. What was, perhaps, not the least galling part of the trial, they were denounced by John Maxwell of Blackston, one of themselves, who either through treachery or terror was induced to become an informer and witness against them.

It was natural, and followed as a matter of course, that, of men taken with arms in their hands, some examples should be made by the government against whom they were alleged to have rebelled. But what gave to the executions in this case their peculiar features of atrocity, was, their victims had surrendered upon a promise of quarter, and the more appalling fact of a letter from the king to the council, forbidding any more to be put to death, having been kept up by one or both of the archbishops,[^[57]] till they were satiated with the blood of some obnoxious victims. When the question, whether the prisoners should be sent to trial, was first agitated at the privy council-board, Sharpe violently urged the prosecution. Sir John Gilmour, esteemed one of the best lawyers of his day, pusillanimously shrunk from giving any decided opinion, and the rest seemed inclined to be silent, when, unhappily, Lord Lee started the vile jesuitical distinction, not, however, unmatched in later times, that men may be granted quarter on the field as soldiers, yet only be spared to die on a scaffold as citizens—a distinction which General Dalziel, notwithstanding his little respect for the lives of covenanters, could not by any means be brought to comprehend.

[57]. Kirkton asserts it of Sharpe, p. 255. Burnet says that his namesake, Burnet of Glasgow, kept up the letter, pretending that there was no council-day between and the day of execution, vol. i. p. 348.

Eleven of the prisoners were accordingly picked out for trial, and, on the 4th of December, Captain Andrew Arnott; Major John M’Culloch; John Gordon of Knockbreck, and his brother Robert; Gavin Hamilton, Mauldslie, Carluke; Christ. Strang; John Parker, Kilbride; John Ross, Mauchline; James Hamilton, Killiemuir; and John Shiels, Titwood, appeared before the Court of Justiciary. Thomas Patterson, merchant in Glasgow, died in prison of his wounds. The objections to the relevancy of the indictment were argued with great ability, and, in particular, that one arising from the quarter granted by the General, which, if we may judge from the pleadings, he appears to have himself considered a point of honour. It was alleged, that being in the form of an army, and as such assaulted by his majesty’s forces, and as such having accepted quarter, and in consequence delivered up their arms, and that that quarter being publica fides, and offered and granted, should be inviolably observed. To this it was answered, that their presumption in appearing in arms against their sovereign lord was an aggravation of their rebellion; that unless his majesty had given a special commission for the purpose, the General had no right to grant a pardon to rebels, whatever he might have done in fair and honourable war. In return, it was replied, that without debating the justness of the war, the pannels being then in arms, might have defended their own lives and reached the lives of the greatest that opposed them. In laying aside these arms, they in effect ransomed their lives; and soldiers who may defend their own lives, are not obliged, nor is it in use, nor would the urgency of the case permit it to them, to seek the granter’s commission, common soldiers being accustomed to grant quarter, which their superiors never annulled; and this had been the practice, not only between the contending parties in France, but likewise practised by his majesty’s own forces in the hills, and with the rebellious English, which, unless it were adhered to, a method of martial massacre would be introduced, and rebels of necessity would become desperate and indomitable traitors. The court repelled the objections; and as none of the pannels denied the facts of which they were accused, they were unanimously found guilty, and sentenced to suffer the doom of traitors on the 7th of December.

Previous to their execution, they drew up a united testimony, which stands upon record an evidence of the purity of their motives and the justice of their cause—a cause which, however defamed by the advocates of passive obedience, or oppugned by more modern objections, was in their hands the sacred cause of civil and religious liberty, only these patriots were driven by enormous oppression prematurely to assert it. “We are condemned,” say they, “by men, and esteemed as rebels against the king, whose authority we acknowledge; but this is the testimony of our conscience, that we suffer not as evil-doers, but for righteousness, for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ—particularly for renewing the covenant,[^[58]] and, in conformity with its obligations, for defending ourselves by arms against the usurpation and insupportable tyranny of the prelates, and against the most unchristian and inhuman oppression and persecution that ever was enjoined and practised by rulers upon free, innocent, and peaceable subjects! The laws establishing prelacy, and the acts, orders, and proclamations made for compliance therewith, being executed against us by military force and violence—and we with others, for our simple forbearance, being fined, confined, imprisoned, exiled, scourged, stigmatized, beaten, bound as beasts, and driven unto the mountains for our lives, and thereby hundreds of families being beggared, several parishes, and some whole country sides, exceedingly impoverished; and all this either arbitrarily, and without any law or respect had to guilt or innocency, or unjustly contrary to all conscience, justice, and reason, though under the pretence of iniquitous law, and without any regard to the penalty specified in the law; while all remonstrating against grievances, were they ever so just and many, and petitions for redress being restrained by laws—there was no other remedy left us but that last of necessary, self-preservation and defence. And this being one of the greatest principles of nature, warranted by the law of God, scriptural instances, and the consent and practice of all reformed churches and Christian states abroad, and of our own famous predecessors at home—it cannot, in reason or justice, be reputed a crime, or condemned as rebellion, by any human authority.” Then, after lamenting the perjury, backsliding, and breach of covenant throughout the land, the overturning of the work of reformation, the obtrusion of mercenary hirelings into the ministry, the universal flood of profanity and apostacy from participating in the guilt of which they ardently prayed to be cleansed, they exhort their countrymen and fellow-christians to remember the example of their noble and renowned ancestors, and warn them not to be offended with the cross of Christ on account of their sufferings, and conclude in a strain of exhilarating, animated, and believing anticipation, almost prophetical—“Though this be the day of Jacob’s trouble, yet are we assured that when the Lord hath accomplished the trial of his own, and filled up the cup of his adversaries, He will awake for judgment, plead his own cause, avenge the quarrel of his covenant, make inquiry for blood, vindicate his people, break the arm of the wicked, and establish the just, for to him belongeth judgment and vengeance; and though our eyes shall not see it, yet we believe that the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing under his wings—that he will revive his work, repair his breaches, build the old wastes, and raise up the desolations.”

[58]. On the binding obligation of the Covenants.—How far the vows of a parent are obligatory on a child, is a question both delicate and difficult to determine. That, in certain circumstances, they are imperative, is perfectly clear; and national compacts, vows, or covenants—by whatever name they may be called—entered into by the heads of the people, are, in Scripture, considered as binding upon the succeeding generations, even when the parties have rashly entered into them, under circumstances of ignorance, delusion, or deceit, provided they contain nothing in opposition to the moral law of God, which is unchangeable in its enactments, though they should contravene extraordinary enunciations of the divine will, as in the case of the covenant between Joshua and the Gibeonites.

Ten were executed together; and, on the scaffold, their dying speeches, containing similar sentiments, were delivered with a high and elevated courage, that excited no common emotion among the spectators, while their kindlier feelings were melted into tenderness when the two brothers—the Gordons—were thrown off locked in each other’s arms, and whose last agonies were expressed by the convulsive clasp of a fraternal embrace. The heads of the sufferers were sent to various parts of the country, but the right hands which they had uplifted at the oath of the covenant, were sent in derision to be affixed to the top of Lanark jail.

Enraged to find that no appearance of any premeditated scheme of rebellion could be traced in the confessions of the late sufferers, who all agreed in assigning as the cause of the rising, the intolerable oppression they endured in soul, body, and estate, they determined to elicit by torture, if possible, some plausible confession that might afford a colouring of justification for the cruelties they were perpetrating and determined to perpetrate. Accordingly, Nielson of Corsack, whose enormous oppression we have already seen, and Hugh M’Kail, a preacher, were brought before the council on the 4th of December; and the boots, an instrument which had not been used in Scotland for a century, was again put in requisition. This “infernal machine” was a kind of box, strongly hooped with iron, into which the leg of the prisoner was put, where it was compressed by wedges, driven frequently till the bone was crushed, and even the marrow sometimes extruded. Nielson was fearfully tormented; but his cries, which were most piercing, had no effect upon Rothes, before whom he was examined, who frequently called for “the other touch.” Hugh M’Kail, whose fate produced a stronger and more indelible impression than any that occurred during this period, was a young man of great promise. He had been tutor in the family of Sir James Stewart of Coltness some time before the Restoration, when Sir James was provost of Edinburgh. He was licensed to preach at the early age of twenty-one, and soon became so deservedly popular, that he eminently attracted the hatred of the prelates, particularly Sharpe, and was forced to keep under hiding. During this time, he went to Holland, and for four years attended one of the Dutch Universities, then distinguished for theological literature. In 1664—5, he returned secretly to his father’s house, where he remained, till, hearing of the appearance made by the people of God for the cause of the covenants, he joined them in the west; but his tender constitution was unable to bear the fatigue of their severe toil and privations, and he was, finally, obliged to leave them near Cramond Water. On his return home to Libberton, he was seized at Braid’s Hills and brought to Edinburgh. His limb, also, was shattered by repeated strokes of the mallet; but from neither of the two could torture extort any other fact than their confessions contained.

Nielson, notwithstanding the treatment he had undergone, was indicted to stand trial on the 10th of December. When he was placed at the bar along with other four—Mr Alexander Robertson, preacher, who had been basely betrayed by the Laird of Morton, his friend, to whose protection he had committed himself; George Crawford, in Cumnock; John Gordon, Irongray; and John Lindsay, Edinburgh—they were found guilty upon their own confessions, and were executed on the 14th, except Lindsay, who was pardoned. They all left testimonies in similar terms to those who went before, lamenting the defection of the times, but rejoicing in the hope that God would return and bless his church and people. They all pointedly refused the appellation of rebels, avouched their loyalty to the king and the constitution of their country before it was illegally overturned, and warned their friends not to be discouraged because the few who had taken their lives in their hands had fallen before their adversaries, but to abound more in holiness, prayer, and steadfastness, nothing doubting, but that the Lord would arise in due time and plead the cause which is his own.

M’Kail having fevered from the torture, had not been tried along with Nielson, and it was thought his youth and the torments he had already endured would have been deemed sufficient punishment; but they knew little the mortal strife of ecclesiastics, when power is the object, who thus calculated, although the highest interest was made for him. He had insinuated a likeness between the primate and Judas—a crime never to be forgiven, for it was true; and being recovered so far as to allow his being moved, he was carried to court, December the 18th, and, together with seven others, indicted for rebellion, found guilty, and condemned. When allowed to answer for himself, he pled the obligations that were laid upon the land, and the oath of God under which they were bound. The last words of the National Covenant, he said, had always had great weight on his spirit; upon which the Lord Advocate interrupted him, and desired him to answer to his own particular charge. His answer was, “that he acted under a solemn impression of the saying of our Lord Jesus—‘Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God.’” When the sentence was pronounced, he cheerfully said, with meek resignation—“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

His prison hours were enviable, not composed merely, but full of joy. “Oh, how good news!” said he to a friend, “to be within four days’ journey of enjoying the sight of Jesus Christ.” When some women were weeping over him—“Mourn not for me,” was his cheering exhortation; “though but young, and cut down in the budding of my hopes and labour of the ministry, yet my death may do more good than many years sermons might have done.” On the last night of his life, after having supped with his father, some friends, and his fellow-prisoners, he burst forth in a strain of animated queries; among others, “How they who were hastening to heaven should conceive of the glories of the place, seeing it was written, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him?’ It is termed a glorious city and a bride; but, oh, how insufficient, how vastly disproportionate, must all similitudes be! therefore the Scripture furnishes yet a more excellent way, by conceiving of the love of Christ to us; that love which passeth knowledge, the highest and sweetest motive of praise—‘Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory, and dominion, for ever and ever, amen!’—by holding forth the love of the saints to Christ, and teaching us to love him in sincerity. This, this, forms the very joy and exultation of heaven!—‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing!’ Nothing less than the soul breathing love to Jesus can rightly apprehend the joys of heaven.” Then, after a while, he added, “Oh! but notions of knowledge, without love, are of small worth, evanishing into nothing and very dangerous.”

His great delight was in the Bible. Having read the 16th Psalm before going to bed, he observed, “If there were any thing in the world sadly and unwillingly to be left, it were the reading of the Scriptures—‘I said, I shall not see the Lord in the land of the living;’ but this needs not make us sad, for wherever we go, the Lamb is the book of Scripture and the light of that city, and there is life, even the river of the water of life, and living springs to delight its inhabitants.” He laid him down in peace, and slept sweetly from ten o’clock till five next morning. When he arose, he called his companion, John Wodrow, in a tone of pleasantry—“Up John, you are too long in bed—you and I look not like men going to be hanged this day, seeing we lie so long.” Some time after, he made a striking and peculiarly happy allusion to his own situation, and that of his fellow-sufferers—“Earthly kings’ thrones have advocates against poor rebels; thy throne, O God, hath Jesus an advocate for us.” He early requested his father to take leave, lest their parting afterwards might discompose him, and to retire and pray earnestly that the Lord might be with him to strengthen him, that he might endure to the end. On the scaffold, a heavenly serenity beamed in his countenance. He ascended the ladder with alacrity, saying, “Every step of this ladder is a degree, nearer heaven.” Then looking down to his friends, he said, “Ye need neither be ashamed nor lament for me in this condition, for I can say, in the words of Christ, I go to your Father and my Father, to your God and my God.” Just before he was turned off, he burst out into this rapturous exclamation—“This is my comfort, that my soul is to come to Christ’s hand, and he will present it blameless and faultless to the Father, and then shall I be ever with the Lord! And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God which shall never be broken off. Farewell, father and mother, friends and relatives—farewell, the world and all delights—farewell, sun, moon, and stars. Welcome—welcome, God and Father—welcome, sweet Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant—welcome, blessed Spirit of grace and God of all consolation—welcome, glory—welcome, eternal life—welcome, death!” Then, after praying a little within himself, he said aloud, “O Lord into thy hands I commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed my soul, Lord God of truth!” And thus leaving time, was joyfully launched into the boundless ocean of eternity.

The crowd of spectators was immense; and “when he died,” Kirkton tells us, “there was such a lamentation as was never known in Scotland before, not one dry cheek upon all the street, or in all the numberless windows in the mercate place. He was a proper youth, learned, travelled, and extraordinarily pious. He fasted every week one day, and signified, frequently, his apprehension of such a death as he died; and heavy were the groans of the spectators when he spoke his joys in death. Then all cursed the bishops who used to curse; then all prayed who used to pray, entreating God to judge righteous judgment. Never was there such a mournful day seen in Edinburgh—never such a mournful season seen in Scotland, in any man’s memory.”

The others were equally supported in the last trying hour, and cheerfully laid down their lives for a cause which they believed to be the cause of God and of their country, and which they never doubted would ultimately and gloriously triumph. Their names were, John Wodrow, a merchant in Glasgow—Ralph Shields, a merchant in Ayr, but an Englishman by birth—a Humphry Colquhoun, of whom Kirkton testifies, “that he spoke not like ane ordinary citizen, but, like an heavenly minister relating his comfortable Christian experiences, called for his Bible, and laid it on his wounded arm, and read John iii. 8., and spoke upon it most sweetly to the admiration of all”—John Wilson, of the parish of Kilmaurs, in Ayrshire—and Mungo Kaipo, from Evandale. Three of little note, and who agreed to some partial compliances, were pardoned.

While these bloody transactions were going forward in the capital, a commission was issued for the Earls of Linlithgow and Winton, Lord Montgomerie, and Mungo Murray, to hold a Justiciary Court in Glasgow, and Sir William Purves, solicitor-general, dispatched to prosecute. Four of the covenanters were accordingly brought before them, Monday, December 17th, all men in humble life—Robert Buntine, in Fenwick; John Hart, in Glassford; Robert Scott, in Dalserf; and Matthew Paton, in Newmills—found guilty that same day, and ordered to be hanged on Wednesday. They went to the gibbet with the same Christian fortitude, and evinced, by their deportment, that the same peace of God which had comforted the martyrs in the capital, dwelt also in them. But the impression which the dying declarations of the martyrs had made, especially of those last murdered in Edinburgh, forbade that they should be allowed the privilege of addressing the spectators in a quarter where their solemn testimonies might have deeper effect; and when the sufferers attempted to address the crowd, the drums were ordered to beat and drown their voices—a detestable practice, which proclaimed their dread of the truth they were vainly attempting to stifle. Rothes himself took a tour to the south-west, accompanied by the Earl of Kellie, Lieutenant General Drummond, Charles Maitland of Hatton, and James Crichton, brother to the Earl of Dumfries, as a Justiciary commission. At Ayr, twelve were tried and ordered for execution; eight in that town, two at Irvine, and two at Dumfries. When those at Ayr were to be executed, the executioner fleeing, and none being willing to perform the hated office, in this dilemma, the Provost had recourse to the shocking expedient of offering any of the prisoners pardon, upon condition of his hanging the rest of his brethren; and one Anderson was found, who purchased a few days’ miserable existence at this expense; yet even he had to be filled half drunk with brandy to enable him to perform the dreadful ceremony, while the sufferers, more to be envied than him, courageously met that death which he basely inflicted.

The conduct of William Sutherland, the executioner of Irvine, stands out in fine contrast with that of Anderson. This man, who had been born of poor parents in the wildest part of the Highlands, had been seized with an uncommon desire to learn the English language, which, with much difficulty, he acquired so well, as to be able to read the Scriptures in that tongue. He had acted as common hangman in the town of Irvine for some time; when, having been converted to God through the reading of the Bible, and the instructions of the persecuted, he scrupled about executing any person whom he was not convinced deserved to die. When the Ayr hangman fled, he was sent for, but would not move till carried by force to that town, and peremptorily refused to execute the prisoners, because he had heard they were godly men, who had been oppressed by the bishops; upon which he was committed to prison, and flattered, and threatened—first promised money, then told he would be hanged himself, if he persisted; yet nothing could either terrify or induce him to comply. When they called for the boots, “You may bring the spurs too,” said William, “ye shall not prevail.” The provost offered him fifty dollars, and told him he might go to the Highlands and live. “Aye, but where can I flee from my conscience?” was the pointed query of the honest mountaineer. He was then placed in the stocks, and four musketeers stood ready with lighted matches, but the dauntless man bared his bosom, and told them he was willing to die; and they, finding him immoveable, dismissed him.[^[59]] Anderson was also obliged to execute those condemned to be hung at Irvine. Universally detested, he left the country soon after and settled in Ireland, near Dublin, where his cottage was burned, and he perished in the flames. The others were, pursuant to their sentence, hung at Dumfries, whither the Commissioner went to endeavour to trace the conspiracy; but no other discovery was made than that the rising had been accidental, and that oppression had been the cause. Upwards of thirty-four had now been put to death by the hands of the executioner; yet these executions did more harm to the cause of prelacy than almost any other circumstance could have done, for the universal detestation of the people was heightened in proportion to the fortitude and composure of the sufferers, whose dying testimonies possessed a power and energy beyond that of a thousand sermons.

[59]. Some curious interviews took place with Sutherland and one White, a curate, of which he afterwards published an account. The following is a specimen:—“Then came one Mr White, a curate, to persuade me, who said to me, ‘What are you doing? Do you not know that these men are guilty of the sin of rebellion, and rebellion in Scripture is as the sin of witchcraft?’ ‘I answered, I know the Scripture, it is in 1 Sam. xv. 28. That was Saul’s rebellion against the immediate revealed will of God, in sparing Agog and the best of the flocks; and that it was like that rebellion spoken of in the Israelites, when they rebelled and refused to go to the land of Canaan, according to God’s command, but would have chosen a captain and gone back again to Egypt. He then instanced Shemei, who cursed David and flang earth and stones at him; yet David forgave him, and much more should the king forgive the Galaway men who respect and pray for him, and would not let a hair of his head fall to the ground if he were among them.’ ‘But,’ says Mr White, ‘David was a prophet and a merciful man!’ ‘Ho!’ says I, ‘ye will not take a good man for your example, but an ill man; what divinity is that?’ At which, the soldiers laughing, he said in his anger, the devil was in me, and that I had to do with a familiar spirit. I said, than he was an unnatural devil, for he was not like the rest of the devils who desire the destruction of many, that he may get many souls, but the spirit that is in me, will not suffer me to take good men’s lives; so at that time Mr White went away as ashamed.” Life and Declaration of William Sutherland, pp. 4, 5. Wodrow says of this declaration, I am well assured it is genuine, and formed by himself, vol. i. p. 260.

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