So for the time the case of our land is most sad. Monk, by sea and land, is to beset Glencairn and his party, and with much severity to crush them, and for their sakes to lie more heavily on the whole subjected country, beginning with the best of the ministers; who, after mutual advice, find themselves in conscience necessitated to keep the King still in their publick prayers. They have been very careful to give the English no other offence at all; for in all this northland rising, to my best knowledge, there is no minister in Scotland who has had the least hand or any meddling. However, for this our great treason of naming the King in our publick prayers, (as we conceive our duty, covenant, and directory of worship do require, as you will see in the papers herewith sent you), we are like to suffer heavy things. For all this our eyes are towards the Lord. We expect protection from him; and if so he think meet, we are willing to seal our testimony, in faith and humble modesty, with all the sufferings which the injustice of men may be permitted of our heavenly Father to impose upon us.

Being called the other week to confer with the brethren of Edinburgh, I was comforted to find all that met, fully in my sense about prayer for the King, and affairs of our divided synod, divided presbytery, troubled college, and all else we spoke of. But it was a sad sight to see the general affliction at the proclamation of the Protector, of the act of union, the act of forfaultry and deep sinning of so many, the preparations of Monk by sea and land presently to swallow up the northern party, destitute of all hope of the oft-promised foreign supplies, as common fame surmised. As our miseries, (without a kingdom wholly, without any judicatories to count of of our own, without a church well near), are great; so we expect they shall increase, and the next heavy dint shall fall on the chief of the ministry. At once it will not be safe to have any audible complaints of these things either to God or man.

Postscript, July 20, 1654.

While I waited long for a bearer, I add further, our triumviri, Mess. Livingston, Gillespie, and Menzies, staid long at London without much access to the Protector. He thought it good to write for Mess. Douglas, Blair, and Guthrie. Mr Blair excused his health. Mr Guthrie, by a fair letter, declared his peremptoriness not to go. Mr Douglas, by Monk’s friendly letter, got himself also excused. On their not coming, Mr Livingston got leave to return, and is at home. Mr G. and Mr M. are expected. The business of the plot gave not the Protector much leisure for auditing of them. Only we fear that our church shall be cast under such a committee as now guides all ecclesiastical affairs in England, absolutely as the Protector thinks fit, the most whereof are Anabaptists, Independents, and gentlemen of no ecclesiastical relation. We thank God that persecution on the ministry is not yet begun, except what the remonstrants draw from the English on some few. Mr John Waugh and Mr Robert Knox were long prisoners for naming the King in their prayers; yet now they are at their liberty, and at their charges, to our great joy.

As to our anti-synod, after the pranks in Lanerk they met synodically very frequent at Glasgow, fell on a committee for purging all the presbyteries. I alone went up to them, intreated them with many fair words to delay any such work, and for that end gave them in a large paper, which a very gracious and wise brother, somewhat a mid-man betwixt us, had drawn for that end, which I send to you, that from it you may more fully learn our present temper. All this labour procured little; for notwithstanding they proceeded in their work, and appointed their purging and planting committees; but with this proviso, that they should have, at their next meeting, a conference with any I pleased of my mind before they proceeded. Against their day I had our part of the synod met, and full information of the brethren of Edinburgh and others for our proceeding. We presently set up a purging and planting committee as well as they, and of these we appointed a number to confer with them. With much ado we got them to stay till the first of August, upon a new conference: against that day Mr James Ferguson drew up a paper of his overtures for our reunion, and I drew up another. You have both here. What the issue shall be you may hear afterward; only these things lie heavier on my heart than any man’s else I know, for usually at the times of these comfortless janglings, I am sick and distempered with grief and discontent, though every one of them gives me more respect than to any other; yet for the remediless breach I am heavily oft troubled in my own mind, which I use to pour out before God, and get them courage and strength to go on, and bear the burden.

General Monk went to the fields in the beginning of June, thinking and professing that the discussing of the northern Tories would cost him but a few weeks labour; and we indeed expected no other; for the English in men, horse, money, and all things they could desire, had the clear advantage: yet we cannot hear of any great progress he has made. So soon as Glencairn had rendered his commission to Middleton; on a jar between Monro and Glengary, Glencairn speaking for Glengary, got a challenge from Monro; which he answered, and beat Monro, to his great commendation. This affront, not so much resented by Middleton as need had been, together with the King’s too much neglect, as some say, in his late commissions, of Glencairn’s very great services, upon the information, as it is thought, of Lorn and Balcarras, he left Middleton, and came with a small party to the Lennox. The noise of this malecontentment exceedingly discouraged many; but at once Glencairn carried it so, that all this discouragement was quickly changed; for with the small party he had, he defended the pass of Aberfoyle so well against Monk’s frequent assaults, and sent out, for good purpose, so many small parties to Clydesdale, Renfrew, Cunningham, Kyle, Carrick, and Galloway, as retarded a while Monk’s march to the north; and when he went north, notwithstanding of all the garrisons, and beside them one full regiment of foot and another of horse, left at Glasgow and Kilsyth, the party sent out from Glencairn, ran up and down the whole country, and did what they liked, without great impediment. Monk found his march to the north very troublesome. The people carried all out of his way; stragglers were snapped up; the hills made sundry both horse and men sicken and die. It was oft printed, that Morgan had Middleton so enclosed in Sutherland, that he could not escape to the south; yet when Middleton thought it time, he divided his men in parties, and passed by, with ease, both Morgan and Monk, coming to Perthshire and Argyle, notwithstanding all they could do to impede him. Colonel Brian’s regiment from Ireland, landing in Lochaber, was lighted on by the country-people, and near 100 of them slain: for this Monk did cause burn all the lands of Lochaber, Glengary, and Seaforth, as he came through. Glenorchy had been too great an intelligencer to the English, and sided with Argyle against Lorn his son: so Middleton caused burn much of his land. This burning, now begun on both hands, may ruin the whole country. It is thought the English have their full of the highland hunting, and that the flux is fallen among them, which make them speak already of quartering. It seems Middleton minds no fighting in any body, but shifts till he see what time may bring forth. The country every where suffers much; yet is patient, for they see no remedy; also the victual all this year, is at 4 lb. the boll, a greater appearance of the continuance of this greater plenty, than has been seen in our days....

That you may know the way of planting our churches, have this late practice. Mr John Galbraith of Bothkennar was deposed for tippling and other faults, some three or four years ago. When Mr James Guthrie continued to preach in Stirling, after his deposition by the general assembly, Mr Galbraith followed his example, and returned to his pulpit. His people loved him better than Stirling did the other. Of the presbytery of Stirling, Mr James Simpson, of Airth, likewise deposed and Mr Jo. Hogg, of Larber, adhered to Mr Guthrie, and these three made one presbytery. Mr R. Wright and other two or three adhering to the assembly, made themselves another presbytery. Mr George Bennet and other two were neutrals, and abstained from both. Mr Guthrie began a process of excommunication against Mr Galbraith; but he boasted so fast to excommunicate Mr James if he proceeded against him, that this was left off. Mr James professes to have no meddling with the English at all, and to be much averse from all compliance with them, yea to mislike Mr P. Gillespie’s way; yet Sir William Bruce of Stonehouse, his special and intimate friend to this day, has taken the sheriffship of Stirling from the English, and continues ruling elder in Mr James’s presbytery. By his means an order is procured from the English, that Mr John Galbraith shall give over preaching. This he is forced to obey. The whole parish gives an unanimous call to Mr William Galbraith, a good young man; but an order comes from the English to hinder his plantation; and the whole parish’s supplication oft presented to the English, could not get it helped; for the judges are fully for the remonstrants, though General Monk seems to dislike them. Thereafter one Mr John Blair, never heard nor seen by the parish, is named by Mr Guthrie’s presbytery to be minister of that kirk; for that people having adhered to a deposed minister must be counted malignant, and so lose their right to call, and the right of calling must fall in the hands of the presbytery; so an order is procured by the presbytery’s ruling elder, Sir William Bruce, from the English, to admit that Blair. Mr Ja. Guthrie causes convene a great number of this faction from divers parishes about, and gets Mr Robert Traill from Edinburgh, and Mr John Carstairs from Glasgow, and others to spend a day in preaching and prayer at his admission. The whole people of the parish meet, and keep the other out of the kirk; the tumult begins; dry strokes are distributed; some fell upon the sheriff’s neck. The gentlemen-parishioners, so soon as the sheriff produced his English orders for the admission, ceded; but the people continued all day casting stones and crying: yet they went on with their work, and thrust in the man. For all this, Mr Guthrie has no dealing with the English, and does no wrong. Our oppression is great and crying.

[FOOTNOTES:]

[1] 1597.

[2] Dec. 19, 1597.—1606, c. 2. 1612, c. 1.