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.