Annals of the persecution in Scotland

by James Aikman

[63]. Memoir of Fraser of Brae, p. 126-7.

To stimulate their exertions, and still farther “to endear” his beloved prelates to the lieges, the king, on the 25th July, requires them to rid the kingdom of all seditious preachers or pretended ministers who had kept conventicles or gathered people to the fields since January last; “for we look on such,” he adds, “as the great disturbers of the peace and perverters of the people.” And the council urged their officers to be upon the alert; even Tweeddale, who was generally supposed friendly to the Presbyterians, or at least moderate, was not less anxious than his associates to prevent or extinguish the light of the gospel which from these conventicles was spreading over the country. In writing to the Earl of Linlithgow, he says—“Your lordship knows the counsel’s desing reachith furder then to make them peaceable when the rod is over their head, which I beleive your lordship will follow as far as possible; for, iff ther be not som of thes turbulent peopel catched, all is in vayn: when they are chassed out of one place, they will flie to another: for God’s sake, therefor, endeavour by all means possible to learn wher they haunt and whither they are gon;” and then he advises the commander colonel-commandant to send parties “to catch them wher they can be had, wer it 100 mils off, especially Mr Michael Bruce.”

Michael Bruce, thus denounced, was of the family of Airth, so highly and deservedly esteemed in the annals of the Reformation, himself “a worthy, useful, and affectionate preacher.” He had been driven from Ireland, where he had been settled, and was now zealously and boldly preaching in Stirlingshire to large auditories, generally in houses, but occasionally in the fields, and had “presumed also to baptize and administrate the sacraments without any lawful warrant,” he was therefore pursued by the soldiers as a wild beast, and at last surprised, wounded, and taken prisoner. After his wounds would allow of his being moved, he was brought to Edinburgh and sentenced to banishment, but, on his being sent to London, his sentence was altered, and he was ordered to be carried to Tangiers in Africa. He, however, obtained the favour of being permitted to retire secretly to Ireland. Several of the other “outted” ministers were likewise ordered to prison, and some fined for similar misdemeanours; numbers, however, in Fife, in the north, and even in Edinburgh,[^[64]] laboured with much success, while “Mr Blackadder and his accomplices” were not less assiduous in their visits to the west and in the south. Professions of greater indulgence to the Presbyterian ministers were, notwithstanding these proceedings, held out to them by Tweeddale, who had had interviews and made proposals to several of the most eminent then under hiding, when an unfortunate circumstance put an end to all hope of favour for the present.

[64]. Kirkton, Welsh, Blackadder, Donald Cargil, and many others, at this time resided in the capital for months together, and secretly exercised their ministry.

James Mitchell, a preacher, who had been at Pentland, and was by name exempted from the indemnity, considering Sharpe the prime instigator of all the calamities his country had endured, and was enduring, as well as the author of his own exclusion from pardon, and having heard of his keeping up the king’s letter till the last six were executed at Edinburgh, determined to free the land from such a monster, whom he viewed in the light of an enemy whose life he had a right to take in self-defence, as well as in the service of his country.[^[65]] In pursuance of this resolution, he waited for the primate, July 11th, at the head of Blackfriar’s Wynd, where his house was, on purpose to effect it; and having allowed him to be seated in his coach, deliberately walked up and fired at him, but Honeyman, bishop of Orkney, who was in the act of getting up, received the shot, by which his arm was shattered, and Sharpe, for the present, escaped. Mitchell, after firing, walked away coolly, and turning down Niddry’s Wynd, went thence to Stevenlaw’s Close, shifted his clothes, and returning to the High Street, without being discovered, mixed with the multitude who had collected, but who were giving themselves very little concern about the matter, when they heard that it was only a bishop that had been shot.

[65]. Vide Testimony, Naphtali.

Immediately the hue and cry was raised—the city gates were shut—the magistrates were ordered to make strict search after Whigs in the city or suburbs—the constables were called out, and a hundred soldiers sent to assist them. The town being considered a place where those who were proscribed could best conceal themselves, several of this description were then secretly residing there, and had narrow escapes, none of the least remarkable of which was that of Maxwell of Monreith.

Being unacquainted with the town when the search began, he came running to Nicol Moffat, a stabler in the Horse Wynd, and begged him to conceal him, for he knew of no shelter. “Alas!” answered Nicol, “there is not a safe corner in my house.” But there was an empty meal-barrel that stood at the head of a table in his public room, and he added, if he chose to go in there, he would put something over and cover him. There was no alternative, and in Mr Maxwell went. Scarcely was he out of sight when a constable arrived, with a band of soldiers, and demanded if there were any Whigs there? “Ye may look an’ see,” replied Nicol carelessly, and the constable, deceived by his manner, proceeded no further; but, being thirsty, called for some ale for his party, and they sat down at the table. While drinking, they began talking about their fruitless search, when one said he knew there were many Whigs in town, and he did not doubt but there were some not far distant, to which another answered with an oath, knocking at the same time on the head of the barrel, “there may be one below this;” but they were restrained from lifting the lid; and when they had finished their potations, they went quietly away.

Others were not, however, so fortunate. The servant girl of a Mr Robert Gray, a merchant in Edinburgh and a godly man, having quarrelled with her mistress, out of revenge went to Sharpe, and told him that there they would find a receptacle of Whigs, and might discover the assassin, on which Mr Gray was brought before the council. Conjecturing what his servant might have told, he at once informed them that Major Learmont, Mr Welsh, and a Mrs Duncan, a minister’s widow, had dined with him not long before; but with regard to the assassin he knew nothing. The advocate then going up familiarly, after a short conversation, took the ring off his finger, telling him he had use for it, and dispatched a messenger of his own with it to Mrs Gray to tell her that her husband had discovered all, and sent this as a token that she might do the same. Deceived by this trick, worthy of the Inquisition, she acquainted them that Mr Welsh sometimes lodged with Mrs Kelso, a rich widow, and preached in her house, and also where Mrs Duncan was to be found. Mrs Gray and her two female friends were immediately sent to prison, and soon after brought before the council, when Mrs Kelso was fined five thousand merks and banished to the plantations. Mrs Duncan also was sentenced to banishment, and only escaped torture by Rothes observing, “it was not customary for gentlewomen to wear boots.” After a long confinement, the sentence of banishment was relaxed; but Mr Gray felt so keenly, from having been the innocent cause of so much suffering, that he sickened, and died within a few days. Mr Gillon, the “outted” minister of Cavers, likewise met his death upon this occasion in a very inhuman manner. He had retired to Currie, a few miles from Edinburgh, for the benefit of his health, where, being apprehended about midnight by two or three rascally soldiers, who pretended to be searching for the bishop’s assassin, he was forced, in sport, to run before them a distance of nearly four miles to the West Port, where, after he arrived, he was kept standing for some hours in the open air before he could obtain admission, and then was sent to lodge in a cold jail. Next day, on being brought before the council, he was recognized and dismissed, but he did not survive the treatment he had received above forty-eight hours. During this year, to compensate for the loss of the regulars, the militia were modelled, properly officered, and prepared for service—a circumstance which, as it was a time of profound peace, might have created some misgivings respecting any alteration in the plans of government.

[1669.] Flattering themselves still with the returning favour of government, the ministers pursued their prohibited labours, and conventicles continued to increase, while the council, impelled on by the repeated injunctions of the king and solicitations of the prelates, not unfrequently forgot their professions of moderation, and proceeded to acts which might have dispelled the delusion. Conventicles found no mercy. The magistrates of burghs were now made responsible for any that might be held within their bounds; and early this year, the civic rulers of the capital were fined fifty pounds sterling, because “Mr David Hume, late minister of Coldingham, took upon him to preach in the house of widow Paton on the last Sunday of February”—a circumstance, it is highly probable, the worthy provost and bailies had never heard of till they were summoned to pay for the exercise. An act of council immediately followed, prohibiting every person from having their children baptized by any other than the Episcopal clergy, under the penalty, to an heritor, of the fourth part of his valued rent—a tenant £100 Scots and six weeks’ imprisonment—and a cottar twenty, and the same. To enforce this decree, the militia were to be employed in seizing the disobedient, and ordered to be supported by them, while on this service, at the rate of one shilling and sixpence sterling each man, and three shillings each officer per day; at the same time, collectors of fines were appointed to take care that the whole penalty was exacted; and among these, it is somewhat ludicrous to observe the Earl of Nithsdale, a papist, required to see a measure faithfully executed, the professed intention of which was, to prevent the growth of popery! then it seems lamentably on the increase—an increase the council had the effrontery to aver, was owing to the frequency of field-preaching.