Annals of the persecution in Scotland

by James Aikman

“The landlady of the house expecting trouble, left it also, which was shortly broken up, rifled, and made a prey of by order. The wretched man, the major, being enraged, forgetting the terror he was in, and all the vows he had sworn to grow better, did first stir up the council to seize the house, break open the door, and plunder all. On the morrow or third day, a narrow and formidable search was made throughout the town for strangers, and to find out the persons who had offered such an affront to their major, so useful a servant, not only to the town of Edinburgh, but to the prelates and their interest. Linlithgow’s men, with the town constables, were appointed to search. However, none of the persons present were found.”

I add as one instance of the manner in which these affairs were represented by the leaders of the persecution, the edition they gave of the affair to Lauderdale, in the despatches they sent to court. “Eighteen or twenty men, prompted by the bloody principles of their traitorous books, did send for the major to the house of one Mrs Crawford, a known and irregular fanatic, and, at his entry discharged several shots at him; after which, with drawn swords, they beat, bruised, and threatened to kill him, if he would not swear never to dissipate conventicles, which he having refused, according to his duty, they mortally wounded him and some that were with him.”

Immediately the hue and cry was raised, offering a reward of one thousand merks to any person who should discover and apprehend any of the assassinates. Several persons were mentioned, chiefly men already intercommuned themselves, or the sons or relatives of such as were, but none were ever taken or tried for the affray. The same day, the council ordered the magistrates to cause their constables take up a list of the names of all the inhabitants between sixteen and sixty, and deliver it to the council; and likewise a list of all the strangers who lodged in town, to be delivered each night at ten o’clock to the major-general or commanding officer in his absence, under a penalty of one hundred merks for each name omitted. And, besides, the magistrates were required to turn out of the burgh and suburbs the wives and families of all “outted” ministers and vagrant preachers, under a penalty of one hundred pounds, sterling, for each family who should be found residing there after the 20th day of the month. This capriciously cruel order, at once useless and tormenting, does not appear to have been very rigorously enforced by the magistrates, for “few ministers,” one of themselves informs us, “went off the town, but retired to more private houses, and hid themselves for a season, only it caused them disperse among different friends’ houses, and keep themselves under hiding for a season.”

The other incident was the murder of two soldiers at Loudonhill, under very suspicious circumstances, also by persons who were never discovered. Three privates of Captain Maitland’s company had been quartered upon a petty farmer who had not paid the cess, and continued there nearly ten days, behaving rather more civilly than many of their fellows. The man himself being sick, his wife or the maid-servant desired them to leave, otherwise they might repent it. They replied, they could not do so without orders. On a Saturday, one of them went to Newmills, where he remained over night. But about two o’clock on the Sabbath morning, five horsemen and as many foot came and knocked loudly at the door of the barn, where the remaining two soldiers were lying. Supposing it to be their comrade, one of them rose in his shirt and opened the door, when he was saluted with—“Come out you damned rogues,” and instantly shot through the body, he fell dead upon the spot; the other alarmed got up, and was attempting to shut the door, when he also received a shot which wounded him on the thigh. The assassin who was on horseback dismounting, seized the soldier by the throat, and they struggled together till another of the rogues came up and knocked him down. While he lay stupified by the blow, the murderers went off, taking with them all the arms and clothes they could find. The wounded man lingered a few days, and expired. The people of the house declared their ignorance of the whole matter, only the deceased had told them that the ruffian who shot him appeared to him to be one John Scarlet, a tinker; the rest he could not distinctly see, owing to the darkness and his own confusion. Scarlet was a notorious rogue who roved through the country with several women he called his wives, and who some years before this had been apprehended as a vagabond, and gifted to a French recruiting officer, but had contrived to raise a mutiny in the vessel which was carrying him across the channel, and made his escape; since when he had returned to his old avocation, and was one of the gang attending Captain Carstairs when Garret was wounded.[^[112]]

[112]. Mr Laing (Hist. vol. iii. p. 97,) considers this as an act of retaliation on the part of the covenanters. Of this I cannot see any credible evidence. The language used by the assassins was not such as the covenanters would have employed, nor were the persons attacked of that station the persecuted would have deliberately formed any design of destroying. It is not unlikely that the soldiers were the objects of private revenge, and were wounded by some rough companions of their own, whom their insults had irritated.

Perhaps nothing places the conduct of the Scottish government in a more disgraceful light than the current belief which pervaded the country, that they were implicated in this foul murder, at least that they were capable of abetting it, although it be extremely difficult to perceive what advantage they could reap from it. All their proclamations and abuse of the fanatics availed nothing, but only to confirm the general report that they had authorized the assassination merely to throw additional odium on the already grievously calumniated wanderers. The heritors of Ayrshire, who had seen their country devastated when there was much less cause, took the alarm, and despatched the Earl of Loudon, Lord Cochran, and Sir John, to explain the state of the country, and to express their detestation of the deed. The armed field-meetings, attended by numbers of the commonalty, had increased on the confines of their own and the neighbouring shires, occasioned they alleged by a few unsound, turbulent, hotheaded preachers, most part whereof were never ministers of the church of Scotland, making it their work to draw people to separation and schism from pure ordinances, and instil into them the seeds of rebellion by their exhortations and doctrine.

Unhappily, the contentions among the persecuted continued, and a root of bitterness sprung up among them, which produced the most lamentable fruit. Instead of dropping minor differences, they seemed to set a higher value on them as the dangers attendant on holding them increased. Paying cess and hearing the indulged became bars to fellowship; and Robert Hamilton, who now took the lead, publicly forbade any of the compilers to join with them or bring arms; nor was it without difficulty that Richard Cameron got them to forbear proceeding with such an high hand at such a time; but although he smothered these heats for a season, there was a secret heart-burning left which he could not extinguish. Yet it is impossible not to sympathize with the side who felt most keenly, even when a knowledge of the consequences may have led us to disapprove of their too rigid particularity, for which they themselves suffered so severely. At all events, when men have evinced the purity of their motives by their disinterestedness and the sincerity of their principles, by suffering for them unto the death, it becomes those who are sitting at ease, and not exposed to their trials, to speak and write very tenderly about them.

Oppressions under form of law kept pace with those without it;—if the mere acts of men in place can be called in any sense legal while they are trampling under foot the constitutional rights of their countrymen, simply because these men happen to hold offices, the names of which are in the statute-book, or pervert possession of power, a proper exercise of which would be legal. The council, the willing slaves of the clergy, eagerly laid hold of the story of the popish plot in England to increase their severities against field-preaching, the antipathy at which raged with every symptom of monomania among the prelatic hypocrites. They issued a fierce proclamation against the papists, and did nothing to disturb their increasing numbers; but they nominated an especial committee of thirteen of their own number, to meet during the spring vacation, to whom they delegated the judicial authority of the bench and the active duties of the executive. It comprised the two Archbishops of St Andrews and Glasgow, and the Bishop of Galloway, with the law officers of the crown, any three to be a quorum; and as the Bishop of Galloway had obtained a dispensation allowing him to reside constantly in Edinburgh, they were always certain of an ecclesiastical president or director. They were instructed to issue orders for executing the laws as to the public peace, particularly those against conventicles; to call before them noted delinquents, secure their persons and examine them upon oath, pronounce sentences and decreets against the guilty, and issue such orders as they should find necessary to magistrates and officers of the forces; and with power to nominate a committee of themselves by turns, to perform what was committed to them, or call the council upon any emergency; and the whole concluded with the ominous charge to use diligence in discovering any powder or lead lately brought into the kingdom. On the report of this committee (May 1st), the council ordered the Earl of Linlithgow, commander-in-chief, to despatch a body of horse, foot, and dragoons, to scour the country, especially where Welsh, Cameron, Kid, or Douglas kept their conventicles; to apprehend them where they might be found; and, in case of resistance, to pursue them to the death, and declared that neither officers nor soldiers should be called in question, civilly or criminally, for the same.

Armed with such powers and secured by such indemnity, it may be readily supposed what ravages would be committed by a banditti, composed, as the standing army of that day in Scotland was, of all the idle, dissolute reprobates that could be collected. These roamed through the country, objects of hatred and dread to the humbler ranks.

The commissioners of shires and sheriff-deputes were more obnoxious to the middling and higher classes, whom they summoned to their courts, and plundered and imprisoned if they appeared, or intercommuned if they did not. The cruelties they exercised upon the domestics of the petty heritors who were forced under hiding, to make them discover the haunts of their relatives or masters, are almost incredible, and rivalled the tortures of the inquisition; beating and wounding with their muskets or bayonets were common, and burning matches were often applied between the fingers to extort a confession from these faithful confidents of the suspected. When the honest, industrious tenantry and small farmers were ruined by fines, their houses were poinded, and themselves turned out to bear the pelting of the pitiless storm, nor dared their neighbours either shelter or sooth them, under pain of being also sent to wander houseless on the heath—reduced to desperation for “disobeying the discipline of the church,” or “wilfully withdrawing from the ordinary meetings for divine worship,”—it would not have been at all wonderful if the wanderers had perpetrated the horrible deeds of which they were falsely accused; nor can it appear strange, when every avenue to relief was shut up, that they should take whatever methods of redressing their wrongs they could command; neither was it conduct unprecedented in history, their seeking to rid themselves of their most violent, lawless persecutors, of whom they could not by any legal or moderate measures get free, by methods which were not strictly legal. It would require powerful logic to convince persons suffering under the lash of distorted laws, that they were in duty bound to allow their persecutors the safety and privilege of men who had never violated law.