Meanwhile the society-men—who carefully marked the signs of the times in a general meeting at Priest-hill, in the parish of Muirkirk, held on the 15th March—after being properly constituted, chose a committee of sixteen, with a preses, to watch over the conduct of the members, in order to regulate their intercourse together to prevent improper persons obtaining admission among them, and also to see that none made any sinful compliances with the rulers in church or state. They then nominated Alexander Gordon of Earlston and John Nisbet of Hardhill to proceed to the Continent, to represent their sufferings and explain their principles to the reformed churches there,[[149]] “in order to their sympathizing with them and holding up their case unto the Lord, as members of the same body, under Jesus their head, and to seek the rolling away of reproaches industriously heaped upon them;” but some dissension arising about this appointment, Earlston proceeded to the Netherlands alone. It was also ordered that the delegates there present should desire every man of his respective society to provide himself fit weapons, in case they should be required for self-defence. At their next quarterly meeting, 15th June, held at Tala-linn, Tweedsmuir, their dissensions increased. James Russell, designated “a man of a hot and fiery spirit,” introducing a number of captious questions, such as, whether any of the society were free of paying customs at ports or bridges? which the greater part never had any scruples about, as being necessary for keeping the roads and bridges in repair, but which he endeavoured to confound with the cess levied for the express purpose of putting down the gospel; nor would he or the party who joined with him listen to any terms of forbearance, but insisted that both taxes were equally sinful, and that the payers should be separated from their meetings; nor although the enemy was at the gates, would they cease bitterly to strive with their friends within the camp.
[149]. The societies every quarter of a year gathered a collection of money, sometimes more, sometimes less, and sent with their commissioner to the general meeting, when it was conscientiously distributed—a part of it for public uses, wherein the whole was concerned, if any such thing called for the same; or to prisoners, of whom always there were not a few; or to indigent persons as their need required.—Faithful Contendings, p. 24.
Ever on the alert, the curates were more united in their exertions to hinder or to punish all meetings of the wanderers; nor did they hesitate about the means they employed. The curate of Tweedsmuir immediately transmitted to the council an exaggerated account of this convention, and they, July 8th, issued a proclamation, stating that “some traitors, runagates, and fugitives, having convocate towards the number of eighty, (although the real number was not above twenty,) and with forbidden weapons, and in an unlawful manner, near Tala-linn; and that the people in that county had been so defective in the duties of loyal subjects or good countrymen, as to neglect giving timeous notice either to the council or the sheriff of the shire;—they therefore commanded whoever heard of such meetings to give information to the chancellor, the secret council, or the nearest commander of the forces, repairing thither at the rate of at least three Scottish, about six English, miles an hour, under pain of being themselves held equally guilty with the offenders and liable to the same punishment. All magistrates, upon receiving such information, were required to raise the country and pursue the miscreants from shire to shire until they be apprehended or expelled forth of this realm; and in case any hurt or skaith fall out in the pursuit or apprehending those so unlawfully convocate, the actors thereof are to be free and unpunished in any manner of way; but whosoever should fail, magistrates or others, in the forementioned duties, were to be held as disaffected to the government, and to undergo the punishment of the law due to the crimes of the foresaid traitors and fugitives!”
As the meetings of the persecuted were necessarily secret assemblies, whose times and places were known only to themselves and their friends, the magistrates, who had other duties to attend to, could not possibly detect and disperse every little band when met for devotional purposes, and could not therefore vie with or satisfy the prelatical sleugh-hounds, who were more keen in the scent and less frequently at fault. They were accused of being remiss, and the council, August 9th, gave roving commissions to their stanch military beagles, Major White and the Laird of Meldrum, along with instructions to confer with the magistrates, and to call before them and fine all suspected persons, only, while in cases of blood they had a previous remission, in cases of money they were to render a strict account to their masters. Both were men of the most brutal manners, of which White gave a disgusting specimen with regard to James Robertson, a respectable merchant, who, according to the times, travelled the country with a pack. Having rather imprudently gone to visit a friend confined in Kilmarnock jail, he was himself stripped of his goods and detained a prisoner in the guard-house about ten days; during that time, being brought before the major, and refusing to give his oath super inquirendis, his judge pulled him by the nose, and wrung it till the blood gushed out, and sent him to prison. While there, he and a fellow-prisoner sang praises to God, and their keeper, the captain of the guard, heard them; but, unlike the jailer at Philippi, he rushed in, tore the Bible out of his hand, and swore he would burn it if they again offered thus to be engaged. A few weeks after, he was being carried to Edinburgh; and at Linlithgow, because he refused to drink the king’s health, the soldiers tied him literally neck and heel, and left him all night in that posture. On the morrow he was taken to the capital, with his feet bound under the horse’s belly, where, after the usual mock trial, he was sent to suffer on the 15th December, and, as if to complete the baseness of their cruelty, when he complained of not being suffered to speak to the people on the scaffold, the town-major, Johnstoun, who superintended the execution, beat him with his cane at the foot of the ladder.[[150]]
[150]. Wodrow remarks—“This abominable rudeness to a dying man, and the patience and cheerfulness of this good man in suffering all this, I know was the occasion of a deep conviction to some who were present of the evil of persecution and prelacy; and there are severals yet alive who can date their first serious impressions of religion from their seeing some of the persecuted party suffer, as they themselves have informed me.”—Vol. ii. p. 266.
John Findlay, the prisoner visited by his dear comrade James Robertson when he was taken, came from the same neighbourhood. On his examination before the committee, he also refused to say—God save the king, although he said he loved the king as well as any person, confessed he was at Drumclog, but without arms; and being asked if he conversed with Mr Cargill within these two years, refused to answer otherwise than that a man is neither by the law of God nor man bound to have a hand in shedding his own blood.
William Cochrane, belonging also to the parish of Evandale, who was apprehended about the same time, when examined before the council as to whether he thought it lawful for subjects to rise in arms against the king? and whether he considered the king to be a lawful king? answered—“These are kittle questions, and I will say nothing about them, being a prisoner;” and when desired to say—God save the king—remained silent. He was sent to the justiciary, and thence with the other two to the Grassmarket. The soldiers, however, were produced against him and Findlay, who swore that they took their arms from them, and left them bound in the fields. In a testimony that he left, he assigns the following reasons for his refusal:—“Now the main article of my indictment upon which I have received my sentence of death from man, was, that I would not say—God save the king, which, as they now stated him an idol in the mediator’s room, I could not do without being guilty of saying—Amen, to all that he hath done against the church and people of God; and [against the] true subjects of this kingdom, and the ancient and fundamental laws thereof, and doing contrary to that in the second Epistle of John, ver. 10. ‘If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, nor bid him God speed; for he that biddeth him God speed, is partaker of his evil deeds.’ And also ye know that taking the name of God in our mouth is a part of worship, and so a worshipping of their idol; for before our faces they said that he was supreme over all persons and over all causes, which is putting him in God’s room.”
The year closed with scenes of plunder and blood. Fourteen gentlemen and ministers were (December 11th) declared rebels, outlawed, and their estates forfeited; and Lady Douglas of Cavers was fined £500 sterling, because she would not swear that she had not been at a conventicle for three years preceding. Alexander Hume of Hume, a small heritor in the Merse, was sacrificed under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. He was indicted and tried for rebellion in November, when the proof entirely failed; but instead of being set free, he was kept in prison till December, when he was on the 20th brought a second time to the bar, charged with holding converse with those who besieged the house of Sir Henry M’Dowall at Mackerston. The only evidence in support of the charge was, that he, attended by his servant, had called at Sir Henry’s on his return from hearing a sermon, and offered to buy a bay horse! Yet did the jury bring him in guilty of “commanding a party of the rebels’ horse in besieging the castle of Hawick,” and “he was hanged at Edinburgh,” adds Fountainhall, “in the Christmas week, because the Viscount Stafford was execute in London in the same week 1680.”—“He died more composedly than others of his kidney did.”[[151]] Among his last words were—“It doth minister no small peace and joy to me this day that the Lord hath set his love upon me, one of Adam’s unworthy posterity, and has given me the best experience of his grace working in my heart, whereby he hath inclined me to look towards himself, and make choice of him for my soul’s everlasting portion. It is the Lord Jesus, and he alone, who is my rock and the strength and stay of my soul.” When the rope was about his neck, and immediately before his being turned over, he concluded his life by singing the last verse of the seventeenth Psalm.
[151]. The most atrocious part of this villanous transaction was—a pardon had actually been procured by Mr Hume’s friends at London, and arrived at Edinburgh some days before the execution, but was kept up by the Earl of Perth. “And on the day of his execution, his spouse, Isobel Hume, came in the most moving manner to the Lady Perth, begging she would interpose for her husband’s life, urging she had five small children. The Lady’s answer was so inhumane, that I shall not put it in writing.”—Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 268.
In the midst of these troubles, the apostate Duke of Lauderdale went to his place[[152]]—a man who sacrificed his conscience and character to serve a sovereign who left him in his old age.