The second subject which we have proposed to notice belongs to a period of much interest in British history, that of the fruitless attempt of Charles II. to re–impose episcopacy upon the Scottish nation. Few spectacles are more elevating and more improving than the patient endurance of evil for conscience’ sake even in an individual; and it is still more impressive, where a multitude are actuated by common feelings and a common principle. Such was the case with the persecuted body of the Scottish Presbyterian recusants; and if there be any to whom the questions, whether a written ritual or extemporaneous prayer should be used, whether the Episcopal or Presbyterian form of church government should prevail, appear insufficient grounds of dispute to justify a civil war, it is to be remembered that in this case the aggression was entirely on the side of the government; that Charles II. had more than once taken the Covenant, the mere refusal to abjure which was now thought worthy of death; that the rebels, if that name be applicable to them, sought nothing more than liberty to serve God after their own consciences; and further, that the arbitrary violence which would have annulled the established church of Scotland, to substitute another which the bulk of the nation hated, was only one of that series of mistaken and criminal measures which led to the expulsion of the House of Stuart from the throne. Upwards of three hundred ministers were driven from their livings in one day, to derive a scanty maintenance from their poor but zealous hearers: but these men neither offered resistance, nor preached rebellion, until they were debarred from performing their pastoral office. And even when they and their followers did take arms, it was originally in self–defence, to protect meetings for the peaceable purpose of divine worship, held in the wildest recesses of the trackless hills, from the fury of a most licentious soldiery, which even that strict concealment could not mitigate or elude. That the better cause was disgraced by some extravagances and crimes, and that it gave rise in some to a morose and gloomy spirit of fanaticism, will not surprise any who have considered the effect of persecution, which, the very converse of mercy, is twice cursed in its operation, a curse on him who inflicts, as on him who suffers. Driven to assemble in moss and mountain, girt with their swords, and prepared to defend life and faith by the strong hand, it is no wonder if these men turned in preference to the warlike pages of the sacred records, and in tone, and conduct, and phraseology imitated the martial leaders and reformers of Judæa, rather than the milder teachers of the religion which it was their boast to hold fast in its utmost purity. Continually occupied by the thought of death, engaged in a constant struggle to subdue their natural fears and affections into the resolution to serve the Lord after what they deemed the only true faith, and to abide in him to the uttermost, it is no wonder that Cameron, Cargill, Peden, and other zealous preachers, whose rude and stern eloquence roused the Scottish peasant to the indurance of martyrdom, in many instances lost sight of reason in enthusiasm, and in some, themselves or their followers, committed acts which rendered them justly amenable to legal punishment.[220] It forms, however, no part of our subject to enter into a defence of their conduct or doctrine. The lofty spirit of resignation in which they met their fate is the only point in their history which admits of comparison with the subject–matter of this chapter: and in this respect, the Athenian philosopher had no advantage over the humblest of these unlettered peasants. The stories of their resignation, nay of their exultation in the hour of trial, have been preserved by tradition; and their scattered graves in the wild moorlands of Southern Scotland are still regarded with veneration and affection. May it be long before a feeling dies away, so well calculated to keep alive a hatred of oppression, and a strong sense of the importance of religion!
There is extant a singular and affecting account of the death of one of these sufferers, written by Alexander Peden, an enthusiastic preacher of the Cameronian sect, which is rendered more striking by the rudeness of the narrative, and the minute circumstantiality of the details. This is one of the passages which we propose to take from this portion of our history; the other consists of some extracts relative to the sufferings and death of one of the most accomplished and discreet, as well as most pious, of the ministers who suffered during the persecution under the two last kings of the Stuart family. The former of these two, by name John Brown, was a small farmer and carrier, resident at Priesthill, in the parish of Muirkirk, an upland district on the borders of Ayrshire and Lanarkshire; “a man” says Wodrow, “of shining piety, who had great measures of solid digested knowledge and experience, and a singular talent of a most plain and affecting way of communicating his knowledge to others.” This man was orderly, sedate, and discreet, and nowise obnoxious to the ruling party, except as a conscientious and inflexible seceder from the Episcopalian worship attempted to be imposed. Our tale is taken from a publication entitled the ‘Life of Mr. Alexander Peden,’ published about the year 1720.[221]
“In the beginning of May, 1685, he (Mr. Alexander Peden) came to the house of John Brown and Marion Weir, whom he married before he went to Ireland, where he staid all night, and in the morning, when he took farewell, he came out of the door, saying to himself, ‘Poor woman, a fearful morning,’ twice over; ‘A dark misty morning.’ The next morning, between five and six hours, the said John Brown having performed the worship of God in his family, was going with a spade in his hand to make ready some peat ground: the mist being very dark, he knew not until cruel and bloody Claverhouse compassed him with three troops of horse, brought him to his house, and then examined him; who, though he was a man of a stammering speech, yet answered him distinctly and solidly; which made Claverhouse to examine those whom he had taken to be his guide through the muirs, if ever they heard him preach. They answered, No, no; he was never a preacher. He said, ‘If he has not preached, mickle has he prayed in his time.’ He said to John, ‘Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die.’ When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times: one time that he stopt him, he was pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the day of his anger. Claverhouse said, ‘I gave you time to pray, and ye are begun to preach:’ he turned about upon his knees and said, ‘Sir, you know neither the nature of preaching or praying, that calls this preaching.’ Then continued without confusion; when ended, Claverhouse said, ‘Take good–night of your wife and children.’ His wife standing by with her child in her arms that she had brought forth to him, and another child of his first wife’s, he came to her, and said, ‘Now Marion, the day is come, that I told you would come when I first spake to you of marrying me.’ She said, ‘Indeed, John, I can willingly part with you.’ ‘Then,’ he said, ‘this is all I desire, I have no more to do but to die.’ He kissed his wife and bairns, and wished purchased and promised blessings to be multiplied upon them, and his blessing. Claverhouse ordered six soldiers to shoot him:[222] the most part of the bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains on the ground. Claverhouse said to his wife, ‘What thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?’ She said, ‘I thought ever much of him, and now as much as ever.’ He said, ‘It were justice to lay thee beside him.’ She said, ‘If ye were permitted, I doubt not but that your crueltie would go that length; but how will ye make answer for this morning’s work?’ He said, ‘To man I can be answerable; and for God, I will take him in my own hand.’ Claverhouse mounted his horse, and marched, and left her with the corpse of her dead husband lying there; she set the bairn upon the ground, and gathered his brains, and tied up his head, and straighted his body, and covered him in her plaid, and sat down and wept over him. It being a very desolate place, where never verdure grew, and far from neighbours, it was some time before any friends came to her; the first that came was a very fit hand, that old singular Christian woman in the Cummerhead, named Elizabeth Menzies, three miles distant, who had been tried with the violent death of her husband at Pentland, afterwards of two worthy sons, Thomas Weir, who was killed at Drumclog, and David Steel, who was suddenly shot afterwards when taken. The said Marion Weir sitting upon her husband’s grave, told me, that before that, she could see no blood but what she was in danger to faint; and yet she was helped to be a witness to all this, without either fainting or confusion, except when the shots were let off, her eyes dazzled. His corpse was buried at the end of his house, where he was slain, with this inscription on his grave–stone:—
In earth’s cold bed, the dusty part here lies
Of one who did the earth as dust despise!
Here in this place, from earth he took departure;—
Now he has got the garland of the martyr.
This murder was committed between six and seven in the morning: Mr. Peden was about ten or eleven miles distant, having been in the fields all night; he came to the house between seven and eight, and desired to call in the family, that he might pray amongst them. When praying, he said, ‘Lord, when wilt thou avenge Brown’s blood? Oh! let Brown’s blood be precious in thy sight! and hasten the day when thou wilt avenge it, with Cameron’s, Cargill’s, and many others of our martyrs’ names; and oh! for that day, when the Lord would avenge all their bloods.’
“When ended, John Muirhead inquired what he meant by Brown’s blood? He said twice over, ‘What do I mean? Claverhouse has been at the Priesthill this morning, and has cruelly murdered John Brown: his corpse was lying at the end of his house, and his poor wife sitting weeping by his corpse, and not a soul to speak a word comfortably to her.’”
It is not to be supposed that this atrocity was single or singular in its nature, or that it and others rest upon doubtful testimony. “No historical facts,” says Mr. Fox, “are better ascertained than the account of these instances of cruelty which are to be found in Wodrow.” And the extent to which they were carried may be appreciated from the number of military executions or murders recorded by that author,[223] in the two first months only of the year in which the above tragedy was enacted. Neither must it be supposed that these were the unwarranted excesses of a brutal soldiery: the Privy Council, the chief executive power of Scotland, clearly pointed out the line of conduct to be pursued in its instructions;[224] and in its dealings with the prisoners brought before it, showed equally clearly that the exceeding of their orders in severity would not be harshly construed. There are few who do not recollect the scene in ‘Old Mortality,’ in which the preacher Macbriar is examined before the Council: and the fiction does go one step beyond the reality, as detailed in the authentic pages of Wodrow. Those who did not perish by shot or sword, had often reason to wish that their sufferings had been ended by the summary method of military execution. Torture was pitilessly used to extract confession; and branding, banishment, and hanging, were largely employed, not only against the violent spirits whom persecution had driven to assume arms, but against those who offered none but passive resistance. And this severity was the cause, not the consequence, of the more violent sects rising in arms: it was the result of a premeditated scheme to oppress, if not to root out, Presbyterianism, as tending to keep alive a spirit of independence, civil as well as religious. With this intention, the ministers and other prominent persons were first attacked under form of law: it was not until their firmness proved to be inexpugnable, that the act of assembling for worship was itself proscribed. Even so early as 1661, Mr. James Guthrie, one of the most eminent ministers of the Scottish church, a man of moderation and discretion, as well as zeal, learning, and piety, was singled out as a victim. Hume’s account of this transaction is a good specimen of the spirit in which he treats of this period of history. “It was deemed political to hold over men’s heads for some time the terror of punishment, till they should have made the requisite compliances with the new government. Though neither the king’s temper nor plan of administration led him to severity, some examples, after such a bloody and triumphant rebellion, seemed necessary; and the Marquis of Argyle and one Guthrie were pitched upon as the victims.... Guthrie was a seditious preacher, and had personally affronted the king: his punishment gave surprise to nobody.” On this passage, we have to observe, that Guthrie was not a person unknown or insignificant, to be spoken of thus contemptuously (one Guthrie); and in denial the latter statements, to quote the following extract from Wodrow, whose testimony we do not hesitate to prefer to that of Hume, neither quoting their authority. “The king himself was so sensible of his (Guthrie’s) good services to him and his interest when at the lowest, and of the severity of this sentence, that when he got notice of it, he asked with some warmth, ‘And what have you done with Mr. Patrick Gillespie?’ It was answered that Mr. Gillespie had so many friends in the house, his life could not be taken. ‘Well,’ said the king, ‘if I had known you would have spared Mr. Gillespie, I would have spared Mr. Guthrie.’[225] And indeed there was reason for it, as to one who had been so firm and zealous a supporter of his Majesties title and interest, and had suffered so much for his continued opposition to, and disowning of the English usurpation.” And far from being an insignificant person, whose death might be passed over as a matter of no account, the greatest pains were taken to induce him to save his life by[226] making concessions, with the value of which, as coming from him, the court party were well acquainted. But his offence and the reason for pursuing him to death are not obscurely hinted at in the first sentence of our extract from Hume: he had stood up against invasion of the rights of the Presbyterian kirk, which the king, in swearing to the Covenant, had bound himself to uphold; and therefore he was made an example, “to hold over men’s heads the terror of punishment, till they should have made the requisite compliances with the new government.” The charge against him was treason and sedition, founded principally on the language of a petition adopted by a meeting of ministers, August 23, 1660, of which he was one, and on two publications, the ‘Western Remonstrance,’ and ‘Causes of God’s Wrath,’ in the sentiments of both of which he expressed his concurrence on his trial: and in his last speech he acknowledged himself the author of the latter. From one of his speeches before the parliament, we extract the following passage, which is worth the attention of those who think that opinions are to be stifled by violence.
“My lord, my conscience I cannot submit, but this old crazy body, and mortal flesh I do submit, to do with it whatsoever you will, whether by death, or banishment, or imprisonment, or anything else; only I beseech you to ponder well what profit there is in my blood: it is not the extinguishing of me or many others that will extinguish the Covenant and work of reformation since the year 1638. My blood, bondage, or banishment will contribute more for the propagation of those things than my life or liberty could do, though I should live many years.”[227]
His death, however, was resolved on; and in spite of the vigour of his defence, and the laxness of the charges against him, on which no lawyer since the Revolution would have dared to build a charge of constructive treason, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged; which sentence was carried into effect June 1, 1661. He commenced his dying speech in these words:—
“Men and brethren, I fear many of you are come hither to gaze, rather than to be edified by the carriage and last words of a dying man; but if any have an ear to hear, as I hope some of this great confluence have, I desire your audience to a few words. I am come hither to lay down this earthly tabernacle and mortal flesh of mine, and, I bless God, through his grace, I do it willingly, and not by constraint. I say, I suffer willingly: if I had been so minded, I might have made a division, and not been a prisoner; but being conscious to myself of nothing worthy of death or bonds, I could not stain my innocency with the suspicion of guiltiness, by my withdrawing; neither have I wanted opportunities and advantages to escape since I was prisoner,—not by the fault of my keepers, God knoweth, but otherwise; but neither for this had I light or liberty, lest I should reflect upon the Lord’s name, and offend the generation of the righteous: and if some men have not been mistaken, or dealt deceitfully in telling me so, I might have avoided not only the severity of the sentence, but also had much favour and countenance in complying with the courses of the times. But I durst not redeem my life with the loss of my integrity, God knoweth I durst not; and that since I was prisoner, he hath so holden me by the hand, that he never suffered me to bring it in debate in my inward thoughts, much less to propose or hearken to any overture of that kind. I did judge it better to suffer than to sin; and therefore I am come hither to lay down my life this day.”