be difficult to conceive any act more tyrannical than one passed by them
the same day, ordering such as would not declare the rising at Bothwell
rebellion, the primate’s death murder, or owned the covenants, or who
only hesitated respecting them—to be prosecuted criminally, _i.e._, in
other words, to be put to death!

These were preparations for the circuit courts, which set out for the
south and west in the beginning of October. On the 2d, the division of
which Queensberry, his son Drumlanrick, and Claverhouse, were the
judges, sat down at Dumfries. As money was the everlasting cry of all
these political cormorants, Queensberry procured an offer of five
months’ cess for eight years from the county; but when he proposed a
similar vote at Ayr, Lord Dumfries opposed it, desiring to know when
there would be an end of taxes, and then he would offer as cheerfully as
any. To make up for this disappointment, the heritors were all required
to take the test, and the recusants were fined. They were besides
required to swear whether they had held any communication with the
rebels, for this most cogent reason, “that no man can complain when
judged by his own oath, by which he is in less danger than by any
probation of any witness whatsomever;” and they were finally to swear
that, upon hearing or seeing any who were or should be denounced, they
should raise the hue and cry, or give notice to the nearest garrison, in
order to their apprehension. There does not appear to have been any
murders committed at this time by the court of Dumfries; but one case of
extortion deserves to be mentioned. A young man, William Martin, a son
of Martin of Dullarg, having been lately married, when at Edinburgh
Queensberry sent for him and offered to purchase the property he held in
right of his wife, the heiress of Carse. Martin refused to part with it
for the sum Queensferry offered, when the latter told him he would make
him repent it, and threatened to pursue him for his life, to escape
which Martin let him have the estate upon his own terms. Yet,
notwithstanding, he was at this time fined in seven hundred pounds,
Scots, and his wife forced to give bond for another hundred pounds,
having had a child baptised by a Presbyterian minister.

The court of which Mar, Livingstone, and General Drummond, afterwards
Lord Strathallan, were the commissioners, sat down at Ayr in the
beginning of October; and the heritors, being assembled in various
sections, were told that they would display their loyalty to great
advantage were they to petition to have the test administered to them,
when those who agreed were dismissed, and those who refused were sent to
prison, and had indictments for crimes which many of them were incapable
of committing. Some young men who lived with their parents were charged
with irregular marriages, and others who had no children with irregular
baptisms; but none were set at liberty even after the absurdities of the
charges were evident, till they found exorbitant bail to appear at
Edinburgh when called. Almost all the indulged ministers were silenced
by this vile junto, and those who would not oblige themselves to
exercise no part of their ministry were sent to the Bass or other
prisons; while, to terrify some young gentlemen recusants into
compliance, a gibbet was erected at the cross, and pointed out as a most
convincing argument. Quintin Dick, when urged to take the oath of
allegiance, declared “he was ready to take it in things civil, but as to
supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, he was too much the king’s friend
to wish him such an usurpation upon Christ’s kingdom, being persuaded
that the church of Christ hath a government in ecclesiastical matters
independent upon any monarchy in the world, and that there are several
cases which in no way come under the king’s cognizance.” For this
saying, he was fined in one thousand pounds sterling, and ordered to be
banished to the plantations.

The western circuit court, of which the Duke of Hamilton, with Lords
Lundin (afterwards Earl of Melford) and Collington, were the judges, met
at Glasgow on the 14th, when they commenced their proceedings by issuing
a proclamation for disarming the counties of Clydesdale, Renfrew, and
Dumbarton. They then imprisoned Schaw of Greenock, Sir James Montgomery
of Skelmorly, Sir John Maxwell of Pollock, Cunningham of Craigends, and
Porterfield of Douchal, all of whom they served with indictments for
resetting rebels, which having no proof they referred to their oath,
declaring their confession of guilt should not infer life or limb, but
with a design to fine them in sums nearly equivalent to their estates.
Next, they declared the parishes of the indulged ministers vacant to the
number of thirty-six, whom they also imprisoned for some alleged breach
of the council’s instructions. They likewise prevailed with the gentry
and freeholders to become bound for the conformity of themselves, their
families, and tenantry, to the whole of the present ecclesiastical
constitution; and further, to offer voluntarily to the king three
months’ cess more than was voted by parliament for the maintenance of an
additional troop of horse for two years. They finished their proceedings
in this quarter by fining Mr Archibald Hamilton, advocate, in five
hundred merks, for not attending them, though he was burying his
servant, who was accidentally drowned in Irvine water.

The heritors of Stirlingshire voluntarily came forward with a bond
similar to the above, accompanied by a loyal address, expressing their
abhorrence of all rebellious principles and practices, declaring their
dutiful and absolute submission to his majesty’s authority and
government, and offering their lives and fortunes to support the same.

The Merse circuit, of which Lord Balcarras, Lord Yester, and Hay of
Drumellzier, were the commissioners, appear to have interested
themselves to afford some relief or redress to the sufferers. They fined
Pringle of Rigg, sheriff-depute, in five hundred merks, for oppressing
the people, besides “modifying and discerning the restitution of the
parties’ damage,” and fined one Alexander Martine, in Dunse, £1000
sterling, and deprived him of his place as clerk. The shire of Berwick
being urged either to vote four months’ cess or maintain a troop, agreed
to give two, which was opposed by Home of Wedderburn and some others,
when the Earl of Home struck in “and out-bad a month more.”

Unless some special providence prevent, continued persecution must at
last drive religion from a land. This was accomplished by the
inquisition in Spain, and partially by the horrible St Bartholomew
festival in France; and in Scotland, now it must have been driven to
skulk in holes and corners, where even some worthy men were glad to meet
a few disciples, but for the fearless Christian intrepidity of one pious
youth! James Renwick, who, during all these dark and stormy times, when
almost every other minister had left the service, continued to carry on
the warfare, and when many of the standard-bearers fainted, planted his
in the high places of the field; and his ministrations were wonderfully
owned of God. He attracted crowds and revived with more than primitive
vigour those field-meetings which the tyrants had prematurely imagined
were crushed for ever. This added fuel to their fury. Letters of
intercommuning were issued against him and his followers, and all loyal
subjects were not only forbidden to hold the least intercourse with the
wanderers, but ordered to hunt them out of their most retired deserts,
and to raise the hue and cry wherever they appeared; in consequence of
which, many of the poor persecuted pilgrims were reduced to incredible
distress through hunger and cold, while secret informers, and
hypocritical professors, were bribed to associate with them, to discover
their hiding-places, and give information to the satellites of the
prelates and the underlings of government. At the same time, the country
was traversed incessantly, night and day, by a bloody and merciless
soldiery, composed of the lowest offscourings of society, aided by the
sleugh-hound, in ever active pursuit of those under hiding—several of
whom they shot, after asking them merely a few questions—while the
sea-ports were shut, and flight, the last refuge of the denounced,
denied them.

Every rational ground upon which a government can ask, or has a right to
ask, obedience from a subject, being thus wantonly trampled under foot
by the apostate prelatists of Scotland, nothing was left to a brave and
a hardy race, placed beyond the pale of society, but to resign
themselves and their children to hopeless slavery, or to resist.
Fortunately for succeeding generations, they chose the latter; and,
having done so, they resolved at a general meeting, held October 15, in
order “to evite their ineluctable ruin, to warn intelligencers and
bloody Doegs of the wickedness of their ways, and to threaten them in
case of persisting in malicious shedding of their blood, or instigating
or assisting therein, that they would not be so slack-handed in time
coming to revenge it.” They therefore caused Mr James Renwick, on the
28th October, to draw up a declaration for this purpose, which he did in
“The apologetical declaration and admonitory vindication of the true
Presbyterians of the church of Scotland, especially anent intelligencers
and informers.” In it they testify their constant adherence to their
covenants, and also to their declarations, wherein they had disowned the
authority of Charles Stuart, and declared war against him and his
accomplices. But they utterly detested and abhorred the hellish
principle of killing all who differed in judgment from them, and
proposed not to injure or offend any, but to stand to the defence of the
glorious reformation and of their own lives; yet they declared unto all,
that whosoever stretched forth their hands against them by shedding
their blood, either by authoritative commanding, as the justiciary; or
actual doing, as the military; or searching out and delivering them up
to their enemies, as the gentry; or informing against them wickedly and
willingly, as the viperous and malicious bishops and curates; or raising
the hue and cry, as the common intelligencers—that they should repute
them enemies to God and the covenanted work of reformation, and punish
them according to their power and the degree of the offence.

This declaration was affixed to several market-crosses, and posted upon
a great many church-doors in Nithsdale, Galloway, Ayr, and Lanark
shires, and produced considerable effect upon the baser sort of
informers, who were deterred for some time from pursuing their infamous
vocation, and a few of the most virulent curates in Nithsdale and
Galloway, who withdrew for a time to other quarters.

The state of the country, which had been rapidly declining, was now
wretched beyond conception. What prosperity it had begun to enjoy under
the equitable and liberal dominion of Cromwell, was now blasted in the
bud. The little commerce which he encouraged, and the agricultural
improvements which the English army are said to have introduced, were
interrupted and destroyed by the cultivators being in vast numbers
called to attend the autumnal circuits, or forced to wander as
fugitives, while the soldiers rioted in the spoliation of their crops,
the breakage of their utensils, and the seizure of their horses. A
famine threatened, and the bishops had appointed a fast to mourn for the
sins of the land; but neither they nor the rulers appear to have had any
sympathy for the suffering people.

The persecution continued with unabated or rather increasing violence;
and the following are a few instances illustrative of the style in which
it was conducted:—William Hanna, in the parish of Turnergarth, in
Annandale, had been imprisoned in the year 1667, and fined one hundred
pounds for hearing a Presbyterian minister preach. After his liberation,
the curate of the parish was exceedingly troublesome, citing him before
his session, and threatening him with excommunication. When one of his
children died, the curate would not allow it to be buried in consecrated
ground, because it had not been “regularly” baptized! and when some
friends came to dig a grave in William’s own burying-ground, he came out
of the manse in great fury, and carried off the spades and shovels,
telling them “if they buried the child there by night or day he would
cause trail it out again.” In 1681, he had a horse worth four pounds
sterling carried away for not paying thirteen shillings Scots of cess;
and after a train of constant harassings he was at last denounced and
declared fugitive. He then hoping to find a little repose, went into
England; but no sooner had he crossed the border, than he was seized and
sent back prisoner to Scotland, which Queensberry no sooner heard of
than he ordered him to be laid in irons in Dumfries jail, till he was
sent to Edinburgh (October this year) to be immured in a dark hole under
the Canongate jail, where he had neither air nor light. Here, being
taken ill, he begged only for a little free air; but the soldier who
guarded him, told him to “seek mercy from Heaven, for they had none to
give.” In this dungeon he lay till sent to Dunotter.

His son William, a youth not sixteen years of age, was denounced for not
keeping the church—How many youths in Scotland would be denounced if
that were _now_ a crime?—and forced to flee to England a year after his
father, where he abode some time. Venturing to return home in September
1682, he fell sick of an ague, and, while labouring under this disorder,
was captured by some of the straggling soldiery, and forced to accompany
them on foot for several days, in their ranging through the
neighbourhood. At one time, coming to a martyr’s grave, who had been
shot in the fields, they placed him upon it, and covering his face,
threatened him if he would not promise regularity and ecclesiastical
obedience, they would shoot him. The intrepid youth told them, “God had
sent him to the world and appointed his time to go out of it; but he was
determined to swear nothing he thought sinful.” Instead of respecting
this courage in one so young, they sent the boy to Edinburgh, where he
was first tortured with the thumbkins, then laid him in irons so strait
that his flesh swelled out above them, after having been robbed of all
the money sent him by his friends. This year he was banished to
Barbadoes, and sold for a slave.

Age or sex was no protection. A respectable woman, seventy-three years
old, who dwelt in Carsphairn, had a son cited to appear before one of
these courts, 1680, for hearing Mr Cameron preach. Not, however, making
his appearance, he was intercommuned—his mother’s house was searched for
him, when not finding him, the soldiers spulzied the furniture. This
year the military ruffians came again, and again missing the son, and
finding nothing worth plundering, carried the mother to Dumfries. Here
she was offered the test, and was about to comply, when the monsters in
human shape, seeing her likely to yield, added a clause to the oath,
that she would never speak to or harbour her son. This her maternal
feelings refused; and for this was publicly scourged through Dumfries on
the next market day. Nor was she even after her punishment liberated
till she paid two hundred merks.

Enraged at the Apologetical Declaration, the council were still more
infuriated by what seemed a practical following up of its principles, in
the putting to death of two soldiers, Thomas Kennoway [vide p. 420] and
Duncan Stuart. Kennoway was returning from Edinburgh, whither he had
been for instructions with a list of one hundred and fifty persons he
was required, it was said, upon his own information, to apprehend.
Meeting Stuart at Livingstone, they both went into a public-house, when
Kennoway produced his commission, and boasted over his cups that he
hoped in a short time he would be as good a laird as many in that
country, only he regretted he was turning old, and would not have long
to enjoy his good fortune. They thence adjourned to Swine-Abbey, where
they were both murdered, but by whom was never discovered. The authors
of the declaration were, however, immediately suspected; and the council
resolving upon an indiscriminate revenge, consulted the session as to
whether avowing or refusing to disavow the declaration constituted
treason? That prostituted court replied in the affirmative. But the
forms of law were too dilatory for the sanguinary council. On the same
day they voted “that any person who owns or who will not disown the late
treasonable declaration upon oath, whether they have arms or not, shall
immediately be put to death;” and on the day following, gave a
commission with justiciary powers to Lords Livingstone, Ross,
Torphichen, and a number of other officers of the army, five to be a
quorum, with instructions to assemble the inhabitants of Livingstone and
the five adjacent parishes, and to murder upon the spot, after a mock
trial, all who would not disown the late traitorous declaration or
assassination of the soldiers; and if any be absent, their houses to be
burned and their goods seized; and as to the families of those who were
condemned or executed, every person above the age of twelve years, were
to be made prisoners in order to transportation. They also approved of
an oath (known by the name of the abjuration-oath) to be offered to all
persons whom they or their commissioners should think fit, renouncing
the pretended declaration of war and disowning the villanous authors
thereof.

The extortions were tremendous. In the month of December, six gentlemen
of Renfrew were fined in nearly twenty thousand pounds sterling, and
although some abatement was made, yet had Sir John Maxwell of Pollock to
pay five thousand; the Cunninghams of Craigends, elder and younger, four
thousand; Porterfield of Fulwood, upwards of sixteen hundred; and Mr
James Pollock of Balgray, five hundred pounds sterling; besides various
other gentlemen in the same districts, who were robbed of upwards of
twenty thousand pounds sterling, by the council and the sheriffs. The
pretexts under which such impositions were levied were, the dreadful
negative treason of not attending ordinances in their own parish
churches, and the more positive delinquencies of hearing Presbyterian
ministers preach the gospel, or holding converse with the proscribed—men
of whom the world was not worthy.

The real cause will be found in the grants which the debased and
thievish councillors received of the spoils.[157] To accomplish their
laudable designs, they despatched Lieut.-General Drummond to the south
and west, to pursue and bring the rebels and their abettors to trial,
and pass sentence upon them as he should see cause; and likewise ordered
him to plant garrisons where he should think it expedient, especially in
Lanarkshire; and besides gave commission to William Hamilton, laird of
Orbiston, to levy two hundred Highlandmen of the shire of Dumbarton, not
only “to apprehend the denounced rebels and fugitives in that quarter,
and in case of their refusing, to be taken, to kill, wound, and destroy
them,” but “to employ spies and intelligencers to go in company with the
said rebels and fugitives, as if they were of their party, the better to
discover where they haunt and are reset.”

Footnote 157:

  Sir George Mackenzie got £1500 of Sir William Scott of Harden’s fine;
  the Duke of Gordon and the Marquis of Atholl shared the fine of
  Harden, junior—three thousand five hundred pounds between them! Some
  degree of honour, as the times went, might perhaps then attach to the
  open driving of their neighbours’ cattle, not infrequent on the
  Highland borders, as it was accompanied with danger and required at
  least brute-courage; but these legal thefts, like the pilfering of the
  pick-pocket or the petty-fogging lawyer—his twin-brother in our
  day—excite unmingled disgust, because the thieves know they can do it
  safely.

But the chief instigators were the curates, and among them Peter
Pierson, at Carsphairn, particularly distinguished himself. When
Grierson of Lag held a court at Carsphairn church the preceding autumn,
he sat with him, described the characters of the parishioners who were
summoned, and appeared and gave information respecting the absentees.
Soldiers were in consequence sent after them, who spoiled their houses
and haled many old and infirm people, and women with child, and the
sick, before the commissioner, who handled them but roughly. The whole
parish was thus thrown into confusion, and Pierson being a surly
ill-natured man, and very “blustering” withal, boasting in public
companies that he feared no whigs—he only feared rats and mice—he came
to be very generally disliked throughout the district, and was
particularly obnoxious to the wanderers who were under hiding in that
quarter. A few of them, therefore, determined to force him to sign a
written declaration, that he would give up his trade of informer, and
proceeded to the manse early in December, when they understood he was
alone; for he did not even keep a servant. Two of their number being
sent before, got entrance and delivered their commission, which put
Pierson into the utmost rage, and drawing a broadsword and cocking a
pistol, he got between them and the door. Upon this they called out,
when other two, James Macmichael, gamekeeper to the Laird of Maxwellton,
and Rodger Padzen came and knocked at the door. Pierson opened it, and
was proceeding to attack them, when Macmichael shot him dead on the
spot. The rest at a distance, on hearing the noise, ran up and
cried—“Take no lives;” but it was too late. This deed was instantly and
strongly disavowed by the wanderers, who would never allow any of the
party to join with their societies; but one of the assassins was
afterwards discovered to be a government spy, and Padzen ere long
enlisted in Strachan’s troop of dragoons, which gave credibility to the
report, that the whole had been a government plot, to bring discredit on
the persecuted wanderers, and justify the savage, unconstitutional
measures the managers were pursuing.

Several instances of severity, which occurred during this month, evince
the natural tendency of persecution to harden the hearts and destroy
every good feeling in the breasts of the persecutors. A poor man, who
had been imprisoned in Dumfries jail, for not hearing the curate, having
broken the prison and fled to England, his wife with seven small
children begged their way after him; but finding no shelter there, she
was forced to return. When journeying back, she had stopped to rest at a
small alehouse. While sitting peaceably there, Johnston of Wester-raw,
with some other persecutors happening to come in, required her to take
the test, which she refusing, they haled her to Dumfries prison; and
though she earnestly begged they would allow her to take her
sucking-child—an infant of three months old—along with her, they would
not consent, but threatened unless she complied next day they would
drown her. Still she held fast her integrity, and lay for five weeks in
jail, till she was sent to Edinburgh, whither her poor children, who,
forbid to enter Dumfries, had been supported by charity, followed her,
and where she somehow or other got released.[158]

Footnote 158:

  The poor children who were able to walk came afterwards to Dumfries,
  and the eldest applied to the bailies that they might only have
  liberty to see and speak to their mother. This request was refused,
  and they were turned out of the town. When going past the prison, one
  of them saw her looking out at a window, but was not suffered to speak
  to her. When forced away from the spot, the child blessed the Lord
  that he had once more seen his mother.—Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 441.

John Linning, a dyer in Glasgow, a blind man, chargeable with nothing
but non-conformity, was confined fourteen weeks. When a young daughter
of his was taken sick, she cried out passionately for her father; yet
would not the magistrates either suffer him to visit her on her deathbed
or attend her funeral.

Claverhouse acted up to his instructions, and merited well of his
employers. When ranging through Galloway (December 18) he came
unexpectedly upon some of the wanderers, who were under hiding at
Auchincloy, near the Water of Dee, and surprised six of them together;
four he murdered upon the spot, and two he carried with him to
Kirkcudbright, where, calling an assize, he went through the farce of a
trial, and immediately ordered them to be executed! Nor would he permit
them to write a few lines to their relatives to inform them of their
fate. Other two escaped, and were pursued by some of the soldiers, who
being informed of a house at which they had called in passing, but never
sat down, entered the cottage, and missing their prey, took all its
inmates prisoners and burnt it to the ground.

James Graham, a tailor in Corsmichael, was not so fortunate. Returning
home from his work to his mother’s house, he too was overtaken, when
walking peaceably along the highway, by Claverhouse and his squad. They
knew him not, and had nothing to lay to his charge; but searching him,
and finding a Bible in his pocket, that was crime enough. They took it
and his tools from him, and carried him as a disloyal rebel to
Kirkcudbright; thence he was sent to Dumfries, where he lay some time in
irons, and was afterwards sent to Edinburgh, where, being questioned
upon the declaration of the societies, and refusing to answer, he was
found guilty of the treason he had not confessed—and of which there was
no proof—condemned and hung!

About the latter end of this month, Lady Cavers, who had been in prison,
first in Edinburgh tolbooth and then in Stirling Castle, upwards of two
years, for keeping conventicles and being present at them, was released
through the intervention of her son, Sir William Douglas, upon his
return from his travels, who became bound for her living regularly in
future or leaving the kingdom within three months. Yet was she not let
go till she paid an enormous fine of five hundred pounds sterling—a sum,
says Wodrow, exceeding three years’ rent of her estate—though the said
rents had been sequestered, and her tenants plundered, during the time
of her imprisonment.

About the same time, Dame Margaret Weems, Lady Colville, was imprisoned
in Edinburgh tolbooth, for her ecclesiastical irregularities, especially
for breeding up her son, Lord Colville, in fanaticism, and putting him
out of the way when the council was going to commit his education to
others.

In the parish of Nithsdale, James Crosbie, for refusing the test, had
his ears cropt and was banished as a slave to Jamaica. In the parish of
Auchinleck, William Johnstone being summoned to the court, and not
appearing, a party of soldiers were sent to his house, which they
plundered; and, as he and his wife had fled, they carried away with them
a maid-servant who had charge of the children, leaving two or three
destitute infants to shift for themselves; and because she refused to
take the abjuration, which she told them she did not understand, they
put burning matches between her fingers, and roasted the flesh to the
bone. Her patience and composure under such torment so astonished the
savages, that, after the infliction, they allowed her to return home.
John Hallome, a youth of eighteen, seized while travelling on the road
by Lieutenant Livingstone, and refusing the oath, was carried to
Kirkcudbright, where a jury of soldiers being called, and he of course
found guilty, he was instantly shot.

The year closed with the appointment of ten special commissioners, to
whom two were added in January next year, to hold justiciary courts in
twelve shires. Their instructions were, to hang immediately in the place
all males who owned or did not disown the “horrid principles” of the
declaration, and to drown such women as had been active in disseminating
them; and the same day a proclamation was issued, requiring all
heritors, and in their absence, their factors and chamberlains, to
convocate all the inhabitants on their lands, and to bring them before
any of the privy councillors or commissioners appointed by the council,
and cause them swear the abjuration-oath, and receive a testificate to
serve as a free pass, without which any person who should adventure to
travel should be holden and used as a communer with the said execrable
rebels; and all housekeepers, as well as hostler-houses, inn-keepers, or
other houses of common resort, were forbid to entertain any person who
could not produce such a testificate, under the same penalty; which
testificate the holders, if required, were obliged to swear was no
forged or false document—so suspicious ever are rogues of deceit!—and
finally, whoever should discover any of the said traitors and assassins,
who had been in any way accessary to the said traitorous and damnable
paper, or the publishing or spreading of the same, were to receive a
reward of five hundred merks, Scots, for each of them who should be
found guilty.

[1685.] This year was ushered in by increasing severities, and whoever
would not disclaim the society’s declaration, and take the
abjuration-oath, were subjected to be shot by any trooper who chose to
interrogate them, or to be sent by the justiciary miscreants to slavery,
exile, imprisonment, or death, after being robbed of all they possessed.
Nor did the decrepitude of age, the stenderness of sex, or even boyhood,
afford any plea for mitigation. Captain Douglas, the Marquis of
Queensberry’s brother, stationed in the parish of Twineholme, oppressed
it terribly in the beginning of January, having prevailed with a poor
tenant, after many severities, to swear the oath, they insisted upon his
discovering the retreats of the wanderers. While dragging him along with
them for this purpose, they met another poor man upon the road, who
would neither answer their questions nor swear. Him they immediately
murdered; and when their prisoner entreated the captain to give him a
little more time, and not be so hasty, they beat and bruised the
intercessor so cruelly, that in a few days he died the victim of his
humanity.[159]

Footnote 159:

  How low the clergy could descend in their malice, may be judged from
  the case of a cripple but pious beggar, John Watson, in the parish of
  Cathcart. Mr Robert Fennie, curate of the parish, enraged at the poor
  man, because he would not come to hear him, gave information against
  him as a disloyal and dangerous person, and procured a party of
  soldiers to be sent to seize him. John could neither get from them nor
  go with them; nor would he swear the abjuration-oath. The soldiers,
  ashamed of their errand, were at a loss what to do, when some of his
  neighbours offered to send him to Hawk-head, Lord Ross’s residence, in
  a sledge; and they were proceeding accordingly, when his lordship
  hearing of the cavalcade, and being informed of the circumstances,
  sent his servant with an alms, and ordered them to carry the cripple
  home again.—Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 457.

On the 18th, four of the persecuted were surprised at prayer, in a
sequestered spot in the parish of Monigaff, in Galloway, by Colonel
Douglas, with a party of horse; and as their serious occupation was
sufficient evidence of their “atrocious rebellion,” they were, without
any process, murdered on the spot. On the 26th, three remarkable
characters were forfeited—Sir Patrick Home of Polwart, George Pringle of
Torwoodlee, and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. They all escaped to the
Continent, and were reserved by Providence for better days. On the 30th,
Dalziel of Kirkmichael and Lieutenant Straiton, with fifty soldiers,
surprised a few of those under hiding asleep in the fields at Mortoun,
in Nithsdale; but they all fled and escaped, except David Macmichael,
who from bodily indisposition, and being wounded, could not follow. Him
they took to Durisdeer, and told him if he would not own the supremacy
in church and state, and take the oath that would be tendered, the law
declared him guilty of death. “That,” said David, “is what of all things
I cannot do; but very cheerfully I submit to the Lord’s disposal as to
my life.” The commander said, “Do not you know your life is in my
hands.”—“No!” replied he, “I know my life is in the Lord’s hand; and if
he see good, he can make you the instrument to take it away.” Being
ordered to prepare for death next day, he answered, “If my life must go
for his cause, I am willing; my God will prepare me!” He next day
suffered at Dalveen with a composure and courage that melted even the
rude soldiers who shot him.

An instance of the ferocious thirst after blood which urged on the
persecutors, occurred February 1st. John Park and James Aldie, two young
men, in Eastwood, were brought before the commissioners for
Renfrewshire, Lord Ross and Hamilton of Orbiston; and when they were
persuaded to consent taking the abjuration, “that shall not save you,”
said Orbiston; “unless you take the test, you shall hang.”—“Then,”
replied the intrepid conscientious youths, “if the abjuration will not
save us, we will take no oath at all.” They were condemned, and
immediately led to execution. While they were yet hanging, Robert King,
miller at Pollockshaws, in the same parish, was brought into court, and
had the test offered to him, which he refused. He was then led to the
window, bid look upon the two suspended before it, and told if he did
not comply, he should immediately be tied up along with them. Still
resisting, he was shut up in a dark corner and assured that he had only
an hour to live. They would, however, out of charity, give him three
warnings by sound of trumpet, but if he sat the third, there was no
mercy. He heard the two blasts, when his courage failing, he took the
test. His wife was a “composed woman, of uncommon sound sense.” One day,
as some of the plunderers were driving away her cattle, having rifled
the house besides, she came to the door, and was looking after them,
when a soldier, rather more merciful than his comrades, turned and said,
“Poor woman, I pity thee.” Janet answered with great gravity, yet
cheerfulness, “Poor! I am not poor; you cannot make me poor! God is my
portion; you cannot make me poor!”

On the 3d of February, the privy council passed an act for classifying
prisoners; but the king dying, these measures underwent considerable
alteration. Charles, it is said, having become dissatisfied with the
rash violence of the Duke of York’s proceedings, meditated the recall of
his favourite bastard Monmouth, the exile of his brother, and the
adoption of more moderate measures. If he entertained any such designs,
they were never to be accomplished. An attack of apoplexy, or poison, as
was suspected at the time, finished all his earthly projects; and, after
a few days’ illness, he died in the fifty-fifth year of his age. But oh!
how different his deathbed from the scaffold scenes we have been
recording. He could only mutter he hoped he would climb to heaven after
all! and eagerly grasped at the delusive phantoms of Romish
superstition. When Huddleston, a papist priest, who had saved his life
at Worcester, was introduced to save his soul, he sighed out
expressively, “He is welcome!” received the last sacraments of that
church, and expired in her communion.

                               BOOK XXI.

                               A.D. 1685.

Accession of James VII.—Proceedings of the privy council—Field
   murders—Northern commission—Indemnity—Outrages in the south—Two women
   drowned—John Brown, the Christian carrier—Parliament—Argyle’s
   expedition—Suspected persons sent to Dunotter—Argyle
   defeated—taken—executed—Colonel Rumbold—Nisbet of Hardhill and other
   sufferers.

An express which left London on the 2d of February, arrived in Edinburgh
on the 6th, bringing intelligence of the king having been struck with an
apoplectic fit. On the 10th, early in the morning, the privy council
received the news of his death, and at ten o’clock, the authorities
proceeded in their robes to the cross, where the Chancellor, “who,” says
Fountainhall, “carried his own purse, and weeping,” proclaimed James
Duke of Albany, the only undoubted and lawful king of this realm, under
the name of James VII. But he had not taken, and never did take, the
Scottish coronation oath:—so scrupulous was he with regard to his own
conscience in matters of religion. The proclamation, however, which was
sent down from London, paid less respect to the consciences of his
subjects, who were bound by every sacred and constitutional tie to
resist popery and popish rulers. After declaring that his majesty, their
only righteous sovereign over all persons and in all causes, held his
imperial crown from God alone, thus concluded—“And we—(the lords of his
majesty’s privy council, with the concurrence of several others, lords
spiritual and temporal, barons and burgesses of this realm)—hereby give
our oaths, with uplifted hands, that we shall bear true and faithful
allegiance unto our said sacred Sovereign, James VII., King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith!! &c. and to his
lawful heirs and successors; and shall perform all duties, service, and
obedience to him, as becomes his faithful, loyal, and dutiful subjects.
So help us GOD.” Then followed another, announcing that his majesty
continued all the servants of the crown in their offices till he had
leisure to send down new commissioners.

Next day the Court of Session met, when the lords not only took the oath
of allegiance, and swore the test again themselves, but administered
them likewise to all the advocates, clerks, and writers. The king’s
speech to his cabinet—-in which he promised to follow the example of his
brother in his great clemency and tenderness to his people, to preserve
the government in church and state, as by law established; and as he
would never depart from the just rights and prerogatives of the crown,
so he would never invade any man’s property—was extensively circulated;
and the people were desired to believe that the royal papist would
promote the Protestant religion, or at least preserve it.

As a practical illustration of his majesty’s professions, the council
appointed a committee to inquire into the state of the prisoners in the
Canongate jail; and, upon their report, sent two to the justiciary, and
fourteen to the plantations, because they would not violate their
consciences; and for the same obstinacy, the Dumbarton commission court
fined John Napier of Kilmahew in £2000 sterling; John Zuil of Darleith,
£1000; John Campbell of Carrick, £1500, for himself and lady; and Isabel
Buchanan, £100; and ordered them to be imprisoned till they paid their
fines, or gave satisfaction to Queensberry, the lord-treasurer.

At the same time, the work of blood went on in the fields. Captain Bruce
surprised (February 19th) six of the wanderers on Lochenket-muir, in
Galloway, and ordered four of them to be shot without further inquiry.
The other two he carried to Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, at Irongray,
who, upon their refusing the abjuration, instantly hanged them upon an
oak-tree. One of them, a married man, before his execution, was asked if
he had any word to send to his wife, answered, “I leave her and my two
babes on the Lord and on his promise;—a father to the fatherless, and an
husband to the widow is the Lord, in his holy habitation.” Two days
after, five were murdered at Kirkconnel; and early next month, other
three, in the parish of Kirkpatrick, were despatched in the same summary
manner, by the same miserable slave of the prelates.

But the day did not suffice. Like the wild beasts, these monsters
prowled about at night, seeking for their prey. On the 28th, about
eleven o’clock, p.m., Lieutenant Douglas surrounded the house of Dalwin,
and apprehended David Martin. When going away, they perceived a youth,
Edward Kyan, concealing himself between the end of one house and the
sidewall of another. He was immediately dragged forth; and, without
being asked any other question than where he lived, the lieutenant shot
him through the head, first with one pistol and then with another; and
the soldiers pretending to observe some motion, shot him a third time.
Martin underwent a more aggravated death. When the soldiers stripped him
of his coat, they made him kneel beside the mangled body of his friend.
Six were ordered to present their pieces, when another of the party
stept between them and their intended victim, and begged the lieutenant
to spare him till next day, alleging they might get some discoveries, to
which Douglas consenting, his life was spared; but terror had deprived
the poor youth of his reason, who at the same time being struck with
palsy, was carried to bed, where he lingered four years, and died.
Several women compassionating the sufferer, were cruelly beat and
wounded, for displaying the natural sympathy of their sex. After this
exploit, Douglas caught one Edward Mackeen, and because he had a
flint-stone, perhaps for striking fire in his hiding-place, shot him
without other evidence of guilt.

Sir Robert Grierson of Lag, while ranging the country, having surprised
Mr Bell of Whiteside, step-son to Viscount Kenmuir, with whom he himself
was well acquainted, and other four in company, in the parish of
Tongland, Galloway, they surrendered without resistance, upon assurance
of having their lives spared; but the wretch murdered them instantly,
without even allowing them time to pray; and when Mr Bell earnestly
begged only for a quarter of an hour to prepare for death, he refused it
with an oath, asking contemptuously, “What the devil! have you not had
time enough to prepare since Bothwell?”

While the south suffered severely, the north was not exempted. On the 2d
of March, the Earls of Errol and Kintore, and Sir George Monro of
Culrain, who had been sent thither commissioners, gave in their report
to the council, and have thus themselves recorded the oppressions for
which they received the thanks of their worthy employers. On their
arrival in Morayshire, their first act was to cause a gallows be erected
at Elgin, where the court sat, in order to stimulate the loyalty of the
inhabitants. Then they issued orders to the sheriff for summoning all
disorderly persons within the shires of Banff, Ross, and Sutherland, to
appear before them on a certain day, and forbade any person to leave the
district without their license, and all who entered it from the south to
produce their papers for examination. At the same time, they graciously
“allowed” the heritors and the burghs to meet and make address of what
they would offer for the security and the peace of the government; and
they “unanimously and voluntarily!” made offer of three months’ supply,
signed a bond for securing the peace, and did also swear the test and
oath of allegiance, except a few heritors, to whom the lords thought fit
not to tender the same at that time, but who appeared willing to take
it, and some loyal persons absent on excuses—evidently papists, as these
alone among the recusants found any favour.[160]

Footnote 160:

  This appears pretty plain from the manner in which Presbyterians were
  treated and the way their fines were disposed of. The Laird of Grant
  was fined in £42,000, Scots; the Laird of Brody, £24,000; Laird of
  Lethin, £40,000; Francis Brody of Miltoun, £10,000; Francis Brody of
  Windyhills, £3333: 6: 8.; James Brody of Kinlee, £333: 6: 8. These
  were the sums as reported to the council. In a particular narrative
  sent Wodrow by “a worthy gentleman in Murray, upon whom the reader may
  depend for the truth of it,” the sums are rated higher; and it is
  mentioned besides, that the Laird of Brody—this Brody’s grandfather,
  which family seems, either from their wealth or worth, or both, to
  have been peculiarly mulcted—was fined forty-five thousand merks,
  merely for having a conventicle in his house. Of this plunder, £22,000
  were paid to one Colonel Maxwell, a papist; £40,000, Lethin’s fine,
  were gifted to the Scottish papistical college at Douay, which was
  compounded for; £30,000 paid to the Earl of Perth. The remainder
  appears to have been bestowed on the satellites of the party. Gray of
  Crichy, who adjudged the estate, got the proceeds.—Wodrow, vol. ii. p.
  468.

They did very strictly examine all the ministers and elders, with
several persons of honour and loyalty, anent the disorderly persons
therein, libelled all persons delated, banished some, fined others, and
remitted a few to the council. The aged Laird of Fowlis—“a disorderly
person not able to travel”!—they imprisoned at Tain, and the younger, at
Inverness, in case he refused the bond of peace. They cleansed the
country of all “outted” ministers and vagrant preachers; banished four
of them for keeping conventicles and refusing to keep the kirk!!—one
being an heritor, they fined in ten thousand merks besides!—and sent the
five prisoners to Edinburgh. A good many common and very mean people,
who were accused and indicted for church disorders, upon inquiry being
found to have been formerly punished and since regular, were set free
upon finding security for their future good behaviour.

The case of the Laird of Grant, however, deserves especial notice, for
the peculiarly unprincipled rapacity displayed by the ravening crew. The
decreet against him was founded on his wife’s having confessed two years
and a half’s withdrawing from ordinances, his keeping an unlicensed
chaplain, hearing “outted” ministers preach and pray several times,
which he himself had confessed. To this he answered in a petition to the
council, for relief, April 2:—that the parish church was vacant for a
year and a half of the time mentioned; and that during the remainder his
wife was so unwell, that she was given over by her physicians; and that
both before and after the time libelled, she had been a constant hearer.
Nor did he or his wife ever hear an “outted” minister either preach or
pray, except in the House of Lethin, when his mother-in-law, the Lady
Lethin, was on her deathbed, and there were not more than five or six
present, who were members of the family, performing the last sacred
duties to their dying relative; that Alexander Murray, called his
unlicensed chaplain, was never in his service, but was a minister,
instituted by Bishop Murdo Mackenzie into the kirk of Daviot, who had
given up his charge in consequence of bodily infirmity; and he (Grant)
was most desirous, and cheerfully offered, to give all the evidences and
demonstrations of his loyalty and affection to the government that could
be demanded. Yet did his majesty’s high commissioner and the lords of
the privy council, find “that the lords commissioners of the district of
Moray had proceeded conform to their instructions, in fining the Laird
of Grant, and ordained the same to be put to execution, ay and while the
said fine be fully satisfied and paid.”

About this time, rumours of Argyle’s intended invasion having reached
the council, they published what they called the king’s act of indemnity
to all below the rank of heritors and burgesses; but all who were
capable of paying a fine being excepted, it was considered as a just
“demonstration of Our innate clemency, which also has shined in the
whole line of our royal race;” and as it declared “Our resolution to
imitate our said dearest royal brother,” the Presbyterians anticipated
that they would reap little advantage from such a boon. Nor were they
mistaken; or if they had been so, the council would soon have undeceived
them; for on the 10th, they gifted to the Laird of Pitlochie, one
hundred of the prisoners “who were willing to go to the plantations,”
only excluding such as were able to be fined—“all heritors who had above
£100, Scots, rents.”

Nor did the wanton massacre in the fields intermit. Subalterns intrusted
with the power of life and death abused it, as might have been expected;
and the most valuable of the Scottish peasantry were destroyed by a
licentious soldiery, who delighted to indulge in riot with the worst;
but now their outrages deplorably increased, especially those in the
south and west, where a Cornet Douglas and a Lieutenant Murray eminently
distinguished themselves in this cowardly warfare. Claverhouse went
still farther, and endeavoured to ruin the peace of mind, as well as
plunder the estates and torture the bodies, of the sufferers. On the
10th of March, he parcelled out Annandale and Nithsdale into a number of
divisions, of about six or eight miles square. He then assembled the
whole inhabitants, men and women, old and young, belonging to each of
them in one place, and made them swear the oaths of allegiance and
abjuration, and afterwards promise that they would renounce their hopes
of heaven, if ever they repented of what they had done! If any one
refused, he was carried to a little distance from the rest, a napkin
tied over his face, and blank cartridge fired over his head. Having thus
suffered the terror of death, he was once more offered his life upon
taking the test and becoming bound to inform against all disloyal
persons. Few were able to withstand so trying a compulsitor. But perhaps
the most heartless trait in his conduct, was his treatment of the
children. Those above six and under ten years of age were collected
together, and a party of soldiers being drawn out before them, they were
bid pray, for they were going to be shot; and when the terrified
creatures answered—“Sir, we cannot pray,” they were told they would be
let free if they would tell where they saw men with guns in their
houses, and if they got any meat or drink there.

Among the villanous apostates who associated with the wanderers, on
purpose to betray them, was Andrew Watson, who got acquainted with many
of their hiding-places throughout Galloway and Nithsdale, and among
others of a cave near Ingliston, which had been a secret and secure
retreat to many for several years. He gave information of it. In
consequence, Colonel James Douglas and Lieutenant Livingstone surprised
five lurking within it; among whom was a brother of the proprietor of
the estate, John Gibson. He was first taken out; and being permitted to
pray, he went through his devotional exercises with a cheerfulness that
astonished his murderers, and greatly encouraged his sister, who through
the compassion of some of the soldiers, had got admission to him,
telling her that was the joyfulest day he had ever had in the world; and
his mother also being allowed to speak with him, he begged her not to
give way to grief, but to bless the Lord upon his account, who had made
him both willing and ready to suffer for his cause. The rest were then
despatched, without being allowed formally to pray. They lie buried in
Glencairn churchyard. Another wretch of the same description, an
Alexander Ferguson of Kilkerran, informed against John Semple, one of
the excellent of the earth, who led a quiet and peaceable life, nor had
ever carried arms or had been connected with any disturbance, only he
came not to church to hear the Episcopal minister, and did sometimes
relieve the poor. A party at midnight, guided by the informer, came to
his house, and after seeing them shoot the good man, while attempting to
escape at a window, the miscreant went with the murderers to the barns
of Bargeny, and caroused with them till next night.

Towards the end of this month, three women—Margaret Maclauchlin, a widow
about sixty-three years of age; Margaret Wilson, aged eighteen; and
Agnes Wilson, aged thirteen—were brought to trial before the commission
court, composed of the Laird of Lag, Colonel David Graham, sheriff,
Major Windham, Captain Strachan, and Provost Cultrain, indicted for
rebellion, Bothwell Bridge, Airs-moss, and being present at twenty
conventicles. The absurdity of the charges carried their own refutation.
But this was not sufficient, there was no proof produced; but they
refused to swear the abjuration-oath, and were therefore condemned to be
drowned. On the last day of April, the council, when the subject was
laid before them, suspended the execution of the sentence for an
indefinite time, and recommended to the secretaries to procure a
complete remission; but the voice of mercy, though uttered by the
council on behalf of helpless females, could not be listened to. The
only argument that had any effect was money; and the afflicted father
was allowed to purchase, with nearly the whole of his worldly substance,
the life of his youngest daughter. Windram guarded the others to the
place of execution, where an immense number of spectators assembled to
witness the unusual sight. The old woman’s stake was fixed much further
in the sands than her companion’s, and thus was first despatched. When
the water was overflowing her, one of the persecutors asked her what she
thought of that sight? She answered, “What do I see? Christ and his
members wrestling there. Think you we are the sufferers? No! it is
Christ in us; for he sends none a warfare on their own charges.” She
then sung the 25th Psalm from the 7th verse, and read the 8th chapter of
the Romans, and then prayed. While engaged in prayer, the water covered
her. She was then dragged out by Windram’s orders, and when sufficiently
recovered to speak, was asked if she would pray for the king. She
answered, she wished the salvation of all men, and the damnation of
none. “Dear Margaret,” urged a bystander, deeply affected, “Dear
Margaret, say—God save the king; say—God save the king!” She replied
with great composure—“God save him if he will; it is his salvation I
desire!” on which, it is said, Lag bellowed out—“Damned bitch! we do not
want such prayers:—tender the oaths to her;” which she refused, and was
immediately thrust under the water.

Sir James Johnstone of Wester-raw, another hypocritical turncoat who had
sworn the covenants and was now a zealous apostle of Episcopacy, evinced
his ardour in the cause, by ordering the corpse of one of the wanderers
who had died in the house of Widow Hislop, to be dug out of his grave
and exposed. The house they pillaged and pulled down, and turned the
widow and her children to the fields. Her son had been previously
murdered by Wester-raw, to whom Claverhouse had brought him; yet while
procuring his death, the latter seemed to have some compunctious
visitations, for he said to his associates, ere the deed was
perpetrated, “The blood of this poor man be upon you, Wester-raw—I am
free of it.”

  _The christian Carrier shot by Claverhouse anno 1685._

  _Vide page 529_

  Edin^r. Hugh Paton, Carver & Gilder to the Queen 1842.
]

May-day morning was dewed this year with the blood of John Brown, in
Priestfield, a carrier to his employment, distinguished by the
honourable title, or, as they called it, nicknamed, “The Christian
Carrier.” Having performed Airs-moss between five and six
o’clock—fearless of danger, for he was blameless in life—he had gone out
to cast peats in the field. While thus engaged, he was suddenly
surrounded by Claverhouse with three troops of horse, and brought back
to his humble dwelling. After the usual questions, Claverhouse said to
him—“Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die.” He did so; but
when praying, the impatient assassin thrice interrupted him, saying—“I
gave you time to pray, and ye’re begun to preach.” John turning calmly
round upon his knees, replied—“Sir, you know neither the nature of
preaching nor praying, that calls this preaching,” and then continued
without confusion. When he had ended, Claverhouse said, “Take good-night
of your wife and children.” She was standing weeping, with an infant in
her arms, and another child of his first wife beside her. He came near
and said, “Now, Marian, the day is come that I told you would come when
I first spoke to you of marrying me.”—“Indeed, John,” she replied, “I
can willingly part with you.”—“Then,” answered he, “that’s all that I
desire. I have no more to do but die. I have been in case to meet with
death for many years.” He kissed his wife and bairns, and wished
purchased and promised blessings to be multiplied upon them. When he had
finished, Claverhouse ordered six of his men to fire, which they did;
and the most part of the bullets striking, splintered his skull, and
scattered his brains upon the ground.[161] “What thinkest thou now of
thy husband, woman?” asked Claverhouse. “I ever thought much good of
him,” she replied; “and as much now as ever.”—“It were but justice to
lay thee beside him,” said the murderer.—“If ye were permitted,”
answered the new made widow, “I doubt not but your cruelty would go that
length:—but how will ye make answer for this morning’s work?”—“To man,”
said he, “I can be answerable; and as for God I will take him in my own
hand,” and mounting his horse, marched off with his troop. The poor
woman, left with the corpse of her husband lying before her, set the
bairns upon the ground, and gathered his brains, and tied up his head,
and straighted his body, and covered him with her plaid, and sat down
and wept; it being a very desert place, where never victual grew, and
far from neighbours. Claverhouse afterwards repeatedly confessed, that
he never could altogether forget Brown’s prayer.

Footnote 161:

  Wodrow says the men refused, and Claverhouse pistolled the good man
  with his own hand.

Amid these bloody scenes, a parliament was convoked, April 28, to
confirm the despotism by which they were enacted, for so subservient had
those assemblies now become, that, like the parliaments of Paris, they
met only to register the royal edicts. The Duke of Queensberry was the
commissioner. In his first message to his first high court, James
frankly told them that his main design was to give them an opportunity
not only “of showing their duty to Us in the same loyal manner as they
had done to Our late dearest brother, but likewise of being patterns to
others in their exemplary compliance with Our desires as they had most
eminently been in times past, to a degree never to be forgotten by Us;
but also of protecting religion against fanatical contrivances,
murderers, and assassins, and to take care that such conspirators might
meet their just deservings.”

The speeches of the Commissioner and Chancellor echoed the letter, and
inveighed against the persecuted Presbyterians, as wretches of such
monstrous principles and practices, as past ages never heard, nor those
to come will hardly believe, whose extirpation his majesty asked, as no
more rebels against their king, than enemies of mankind. The address
followed in a strain of adulation and abject baseness, clearly evincing
the absence of every right-hearted man from the meeting. “We can assure
your majesty,” said they, “that the subjects of this your majesty’s
ancient kingdom, are so desirous to exceed all their predecessors in
extraordinary marks of affection and obedience, that, God be praised!
the only way to be popular with us is to be eminently loyal;” “and
therefore your majesty may expect that we will think your commands
sacred as your person, and that your inclination will prevent our
debates.”

Their first act was “an act ratifying and confirming all the acts and
statutes formerly passed for the security, liberty, and freedom of the
true church of God and the Protestant religion.” Their next, an offer of
their lives and fortunes to the king, accompanied by a declaration of
their abhorrence and detestation, not only of the authors and actors of
all preceding rebellions against the sovereign, but likewise all
principles and positions which are contrary or derogatory to the king’s
sacred, supreme, sovereign, absolute power and authority, which none,
whether persons or collective bodies, can participate of any manner of
way, or upon any pretext, but in dependance on him, and by commission
from him. All persons summoned as witnesses against frequenters of
conventicles, who refused to answer, were to be reputed guilty of the
same crimes as the persons accused—to administer or receive the
covenants, or even to write in their defence, was declared treason.
Field preachers were already subjected to confiscation or death. Hearing
was now made liable to the same punishment, which was also extended to
preachers in house conventicles, expounding the Scriptures, or even
worshipping God in a private house. If there were more than five
persons, in addition to the family, present, it was to be considered as
an house-conventicle; but if any were listening outside, it was to be
reputed a field-conventicle, for which the whole congregation, with the
preacher, were to suffer death. At the same time, the test was extended,
with exemptions only favourable to the papists. Then, as a final winding
up of this scene of iniquity, followed the forfeiture of Sir John
Cochrane, Sir Patrick Home, Lord Melville, Pringle of Torwoodlee, Stuart
of Cultness, Fletcher of Saltoun, and several other gentlemen,
implicated in the late conspiracy with Cessnock and his son, whose
estates, together with those of Argyle, Douchal, and Jarvieswood, were
annexed for ever to the crown; while to preserve their own estates from
a similar fate, the act of entail was passed, professing to secure the
estates of the nobles, but in fact enabling them to evade the just
claims of their creditors.

Meanwhile the Scottish exiles, reduced to despair, resolved to attempt
the liberation of their native land, with which they had never ceased to
hold a secret correspondence; and after many meetings in Holland, an
expedition set sail on the 2d of May, of which Argyle was elected
General, and the expense supplied by Mrs Smith, a rich sugar baker’s
widow, at Amsterdam; but accounts of his preparations had been sent to
the government, and measures were taken to frustrate his object before
his arrival, which were increased on the council’s receiving notice from
the Bishop of Orkney, that the Earl had touched there on his passage.
The strengths in Argyleshire were ordered to be dismantled, and the sons
of the chiefs to be sent as hostages to Edinburgh; and all the
non-conformist prisoners, about two hundred and fifty, were, on May
18th, hurried off under night from the jails of Edinburgh and Canongate,
and sent across the Firth in open boats to Burntisland, and confined for
two days and nights in two small rooms, where they had no space almost
to lie down, and no place to retire to. Nor had they any provisions, and
only a few were allowed to purchase a little bread and water.

When it was imagined hunger and fatigue would have worn out their powers
of endurance, liberty was offered them on condition of swearing the
oaths of allegiance and supremacy; but many who could have taken the
first refused the last as blasphemous. To acknowledge a papist as the
head of Christ’s church, was what they durst not do. About forty
complied and were released, the rest were driven like cattle to Dunotter
Castle—an old, ruinous building, in the county of Kincardine, situated
on an almost insulated perpendicular rock, 150 feet above the level of
the sea, where they were received by George Keith of Whiteridge,
sheriff-depute of Mearns, and thrust into a dark vault, with only one
small window towards the sea, and full of mire ancle deep. They had no
provision but what they were forced to purchase, at a dear rate and of
the worst quality, from the governor’s brother. Even their water was
brought in small quantities, though their keepers would sometimes pour
whole barrels into the cavern to increase their discomfort. Means of
cleanliness they had none, and the smell of the place became so noxious,
for it was a warm summer, that several of them died; and it was
considered little less than miraculous that any survived.

Within a few days, the governor removed about forty of the men to
another low small cell, scarcely less disagreeable, as the only light or
air they had was through a small crevice in the wall, near which they
used to lie down by turns, that they might breathe a little fresh air.
Shortly after, the governor’s lady having visited these miserable
abodes, prevailed upon her husband to separate the prisoners; and the
females were removed from the large vault into two more comfortable
smaller apartments. The men, however, continued to suffer the utmost
misery in the large vault, and a contagious disorder having broken out
among them, many died. The survivors, reduced to desperation,
endeavoured to escape, and having got out one night by the window, were
creeping along the hazardous precipice, when an alarm was given by some
women—most probably the soldiers’ wives—who were washing near the rock.
Immediately the guards were called, the gates shut, and the hue and cry
raised, and fifteen were intercepted; yet twenty-five had got off before
the alarm was given. Those who were retaken, were most inhumanly
tortured. They were laid upon their backs upon a form, their hands bound
down to the foot of the form, and a burning match put between every
finger—“six soldiers attending by turns to blow the matches,” and keep
them in flame—and this was continued for three hours without
intermission by the governor’s orders! Several died under this torture,
and those who survived were disabled for life. About July, in
consequence of representations to the council, the prisoners were
brought south, and the Earls Marishal, Errol, Kintore, Panmure, and the
Lord President of the Court of Session, empowered to call them before
them, and banish such as would not take the oaths of allegiance and
abjuration, to his majesty’s plantations—the men having their ears cut
off, the women their cheeks branded—with certification that such as
should return to the kingdom should incur the pain of death.

Unfortunately for the success of Argyle’s expedition, while the Scottish
government were fully apprised of its approach, adverse winds and
untoward circumstances retarded its progress; so that when the Earl
arrived, he found he had been anticipated by the measures of the
council; and where he expected willing vassals, he met only heartless or
deceitful adherents; but the worst symptom was the insubordination of
his officers, especially Sir Patrick Home and Sir John Cochrane, who
disputed when they ought to have obeyed, and argued when they should
have acted. In such circumstances, after landing, he lost instead of
gathering strength as he advanced, while the ships and military stores
he left behind in the Castle of Ellengreg, fell, together with it, into
the hands of some English frigates, which arrived on the coast. He
published two proclamations, but they produced no effect, and unhappily
were even counteracted from quarters whence, if he had not received
decided support, it was not too much to have expected a friendly
neutrality.

The wanderers, although they were favourable to Argyle, unfortunately
could not embark with him, upon account of the too promiscuous
admittance of persons to trust in that party, and because they could not
espouse his declaration as the state of their quarrel. But they
published another declaration at Sanquhar, May 28, 1685, against the
usurpation of a bloody papist advancing himself to the throne, as the
height of confederacy with an idolater, forbidden by the law of God and
contrary to the law of the land.

Thwarted at every step, and prevented from following his own brave
resolution, and giving the enemy battle, Argyle was at last, either by
treachery or mistake, landed in a morass, where his baggage and horse
were swamped, and universal confusion ensuing, his little band, which
had with difficulty been collected and kept together, despersed during
the night. Argyle himself, forced to withdraw, was retiring in the
disguise of a peasant, when he was attacked in crossing the Cart at
Inchannon (June 17th) by two of the militia, with whom he grappled, and
would have overcome, had not five more arrived and wounded and secured
him. When falling, he had exclaimed—“Alas! unfortunate Argyle,” which
first discovered him to his captors, who appeared deeply concerned at
his seizure, but durst not let him go. He was immediately carried to
Edinburgh, where the marked ignominy with which he was treated, bore
strong testimony to the high estimation in which the illustrious
prisoner was held. By an especial order of the council, dated June 20th,
he was conducted through the Water-gate, and carried up the main streets
to the Castle, with his hands bound and his head bare, preceded by the
hangman, and surrounded by Captain Graham’s guards; and there he was
safely lodged in irons. In the privy council, it was debated whether he
should be tried for his present rebellion or executed upon his former
sentence. The most iniquitous proposition of the two prevailed, in which
the king of course concurred, only he suggested the propriety of the
Earl’s being tortured before he was executed, in order to try if any
information could be elicited respecting those who had assisted or who
were acquainted with the expedition. His openness upon his examination
prevented his persecutors incurring the infamy which the royal mandate
implied, and he was ordered to prepare for execution next day after the
receipt of the royal letter.

The interval he spent with a cheerful tranquillity, which soothed his
afflicted relatives and amazed his political antagonists. Being
accustomed to sleep a little after dinner, on his last solemn day he
retired to his closet, and laid himself down on bed, and for about a
quarter of an hour slept as sweetly as ever he did. At this moment an
officer of state came to inquire for him. Being informed that he was
asleep and desired not to be disturbed, the officer, who doubted the
story, insisted upon being admitted to his lordship. He was admitted
accordingly, but instantly rushed from the apartment to a friend’s house
on the Castle Hill, and threw himself on a bed in great agony of mind.
When asked by the lady of the house if he was unwell or would take a
glass of sack—“No! no!” replied he; “I have been at Argyle, and saw him
sleeping as pleasantly as ever a man did, within an hour of eternity;
but as for me——.”

The Earl left the Castle, accompanied by a few friends; and while
waiting in the laigh council-house, wrote a farewell letter to his
Countess. “Dear Heart,—As God is of himself unchangeable, so he hath
been always good and gracious to me, and no place alters it; only I
acknowledge I am sometimes less capable of a due sense of it. But now,
above all my life, I thank God I am sensible of his presence with me,
with great assurance of his favour through Jesus Christ, and I doubt not
will continue till I be in glory. Forgive me all my faults; and now
comfort thyself in Him in whom only true comfort is to be found. The
Lord be with thee, bless thee, and comfort thee. My dearest—adieu.” He
also wrote the following to his daughter-in-law, Lady Sophia
Lindsay:—“My dear Lady Sophia,—What shall I say in this great day of the
Lord, wherein, in the midst of a cloud, I find a fair sunshine? I can
wish no more for you, but that the Lord may comfort you and shine upon
you, as he doth upon me, and give you the same sense of his love in
staying in the world, as I have in going out of it. Adieu. ARGYLE.—P.S.
My blessing to dear Earl Balcarras. The Lord touch his heart and incline
him to his fear.”

He was accompanied to the scaffold by Mr Annand, dean of Edinburgh,
appointed by the council, and Mr Laurence Charteris, named by himself.
Before they left the council-house, the Earl pleasantly asked Mr Annand,
“If he thought the Pope was that antichrist the Scripture speaks of?” He
answered, “Yes, my lord, the Protestant churches hold so.”—“But what
think you?” asked the Earl.—“I think so too,” replied Mr Annand.—“Then,”
said the Earl, “be sure you instruct the people so.” When they had
mounted the scaffold, Mr Charteris exhorted him if there were any sin
unrepented of to lay it open before God, who is ready to forgive all
penitent sinners. The Earl regretted, as the chief, that he had set too
little time apart to wrestle with God in private, in behalf of his work
and interest, and for his own poor soul; also that he did not worship
God in his family so much as he ought to have done; likewise his public
failings. Here Mr Annand interrupted him; but without taking notice of
the interruption, he lamented that he did not improve the three years’
respite the Lord had given him, so much for his glory and the
advancement of his work, as he might have done in his station; and he
looked on his death as a just punishment from God, though undeserved at
the hands of men, and added, “I would have thought as little to have
appeared in this place some time of day after this manner, as many of
you who are now satiating your eyes in beholding me; but the Lord in his
divine wisdom hath ordered it otherwise, and I am so far from repining
and carping at his dispensations towards me, that I bless his name and
desire to give him endless praise and thanks for the same.” The
clergymen then prayed, after which the Earl fell down on his knees, and
having his face covered and his hands clasped together, prayed in
silence for a considerable time. Upon rising, he delivered a speech he
had previously composed, expressive of his cheerful submission to the
divine will, and his willingness to forgive all men, even his enemies.
“Afflictions,” he said, “are not only foretold, but promised to
Christians. We are neither to despise nor faint under them; nor are we
by fraudulent pusillanimous compliance in wicked courses to bring sin
upon ourselves. Faint hearts are ordinarily false hearts, choosing sin
rather than suffering—a short life with eternal death, before temporal
death and a crown of glory.” “I know many like Hazael go to excesses
they never thought they were capable of.” He then prayed God to send
peace and truth to these three kingdoms; to continue and increase the
glorious light of the gospel, and restrain a spirit of profaneness,
atheism, oppression, popery, and persecution; and was about to conclude,
when it was suggested to him that he had said nothing about the royal
family; he added, “this remembers me that before the justices, at my
trial about the test, I said that at my death I would pray that there
might never want one of the royal family to be a defender of the true,
ancient, apostolic, Catholic, and Protestant faith, which I now do; and
may God enlighten and forgive all of them that are either hid in error
or have shrunk from the profession of the truth; and in all events, I
pray God may provide for the security of his church, and that antichrist
nor the gates of hell may never prevail against it.”

When he had ended, he turned to the south side of the scaffold, and
said, “Gentlemen, I pray you do not misconstruct my behaviour this day.
I freely forgive all men their wrongs and injuries done against me, as I
desire to be forgiven of God.” Mr Annand repeated these words louder to
the people. The Earl then went to the north side of the scaffold, and
had the same or like expressions. Mr Annand again repeated them, adding,
“This nobleman dies a Protestant;” on which Argyle stepped forward
again, and said, “I die not only a Protestant, but with a heart hatred
of popery, prelacy, and all superstition whatsomever.” Returning to the
middle of the scaffold, he embraced and took leave of his friends,
delivering to Lord Maitland some tokens to be given to his lady and
children; then he stript himself of his upper garments, which he also
gave to his friends, and kneeling, embraced the instrument of death,
saying, “It was the sweetest maiden he ever kissed, it being a mean to
finish his sin and misery, and his inlet to glory, for which he longed.”
Having prayed a little in silence, he said aloud three times—“Lord Jesus
receive me into thy glory;” and lifting up his hand, the sign agreed
upon, the executioner let the knife of the maiden fall, and his head was
severed from his body.

The misfortunes and death of this excellent nobleman did not destroy the
cause for which he suffered. The universal sympathy they excited, from
the diffusion of his speech, which was widely circulated, aided by
concurring circumstances, accelerated rather than retarded the event of
his country’s liberation. His vassals, however, were cruelly treated by
Atholl and Breadalbane. Upwards of twenty of the name of Campbell were
put to death, and more than fifty sent to the plantations. Their houses
were pulled down, their mill-stones broken, the woods burned, and the
whole shire of Argyle cruelly ravaged for thirty miles round Inverary;
his estate was given to strangers, his children scattered, his creditors
defrauded, and his brother, Lord Neil Campbell, forced to go as an exile
to America.

Besides Argyle, very few of any note suffered upon this occasion. These
were—Colonel Rumbold, known by the name of the maltster, who underwent a
form of a trial; but being severely wounded, lest he should have
disappointed their revenge, the council had prescribed the mode of his
death the day before,[162] according to which he was taken from the bar
to the scaffold, supported by two officers, and preceded by the hangman
with his hat on. When he attempted to explain his principles, the drums
beat, at which he shook his head and said, “Will they not suffer a dying
man to speak his last words to the people?” And even when praying for
the extirpation of popery, prelacy, and other superstitions, the drums
again drowned his voice. He then silently breathed out his soul to God,
and giving the signal, the executioner turned him off. Ere yet dead, his
heart was torn from his bosom, and exhibited, while still palpitating on
the point of a bayonet, to the people by the hangman, who bawled
out—“Here is the heart of a bloody murderer and traitor,” and threw it
disdainfully into the fire. His quarters were distributed through the
country and his head fixed on an high pole at the West Port of
Edinburgh.

Footnote 162:

  When before the council, he expressed his joy in suffering for such a
  cause, on which one of the gang called him “a confounded villain.” He
  sedately replied, “I am at peace with God through Jesus Christ; to men
  I have done no wrong—what, then, can confound me?”

Some time after, Mr Thomas Archer, a popular preacher, now in the last
stage of a decay. Having been wounded severely, much interest was made
to obtain his liberation, as he was evidently dying; even the Duke of
Queensberry’s own son entreated his father for his life, without effect.
Nothing would satisfy the rulers but his blood. A plan had been laid for
his escape out of prison, but he would not consent, saying, that since
he could not serve his Master in any other manner, he thought it his
duty not to decline a testimony for him and for his truth by a public
death on the scaffold. He was several times interrupted when addressing
the spectators, but enough was heard to evince that he died steady to
his principles, rejoicing in hope, and anticipating deliverance for the
church, notwithstanding the then threatened visitation of popery. “I
will bring them to Babylon, and there will I deliver them,” would, he
believed, be accomplished in their case. He sung the latter part of the
73d Psalm, and prayed. Before being turned off, he said—“Fear of death
does not fright or trouble me; I bless the Lord for my lot,” and
submitted with cheerfulness to the hands of the executioner. He was
about thirty-two years of age, of uncommon abilities, and very learned.

Ayloffe was sent to London and examined by James in person. He was
related to the royal family, and the king pressed him to make
discoveries. “You know,” said the tyrant, “it is in my power to save
you.”—“Yes,” replied Ayloffe, “but it is not in your nature.” He was
hanged accordingly.

Sir W. Denholm of Westshiels, Mr James Stuart, and Mr Gilbert Elliot,
were condemned in absence, and ordered to be executed when apprehended;
the Earl of Loudon, Dalrymple of Stair, Fletcher of Saltoun, with a
number of other gentlemen of rank and fortune, were forfeited, whose
only crimes were their estates, and the charges their having honestly
fulfilled their duties as public men.

Of the prisoners at Leith, many of whom had been brought back from
Dunotter, about seventy-two were ordered for banishment; but in the
greatness of their humane condescension, the council came to Leith and
sat in the tolbooth to re-examine them, when such as made some moderate
compliances, a few who were sickly, and others who had friends, got
free; for government were now beginning to relax in their severities, in
contemplation of extending the same or greater freedom to the Roman
Catholics; but a number who still unyieldingly adhered to their tenets,
were given as a present to the Laird of Pitlochie, and shipped by him
for his plantations in New Jersey.[163] They, however, had scarcely left
land, when a malignant fever broke out, especially among those who had
been confined in Dunotter. Most of the crew also died, as did Pitlochie
and his lady; yet, notwithstanding, the captain and some other hardened
wretches would not suffer the persecuted exiles to worship God in peace,
but when they heard them engaged in their devotions, threw down great
planks of wood in order to annoy them. After their arrival, Pitlochie’s
son-in-law claimed the prisoners as his property, but the governor
remitted the case to a jury, who immediately freed them. The greater
part retired to New England, where they were kindly received; and many
of them settled in the colony. Others returned to their native country
at the Revolution.

Footnote 163:

  The following incident was much spoken of at the time. Mr W. Hanna,
  one of these prisoners, on being threatened with banishment, told the
  council he was now too old to work or go to war. General Dalziel
  bitterly replied, “But you are not too old to hang.” On that same day,
  the General, in the act of drinking a glass of wine, was suffocated,
  and went to his own place.

About the latter end of this year, John Nisbet of Hardhill, with three
of his fellow-sufferers, was surprised by a relation of his own,
Lieutenant Nisbet, in a house in the parish of Fenwick. They defended
themselves bravely, till the three were killed and he was wounded and
taken. When tauntingly questioned what he thought of himself now? “I
think,” he replied, “as much of Christ and his cause as ever; but I
judge myself at a loss, being in time, and my dear brethren, whom you
have murdered, being in eternity.” He was sent to Edinburgh, and, on his
examination before the council, behaved with much Christian fortitude.
Being asked if he would own the king’s authority? He said he would not.
“Why?” said they; “do you not own the Scriptures and Confession of
Faith?”—“I own both,” he replied, “with all my heart, but the king is a
Roman Catholic; and I have not only been educated a Presbyterian, but
solemnly sworn against owning popery.”

The council ordered him to be prosecuted before the justiciary. His
confession was adduced against him, and he was sent to follow those who
had not counted their lives dear unto them, that they might finish their
course with joy, and set to their seals to the truth. “Now,” said he, in
his last testimony, “we see open doors, that are made wide, to bring in
popery and set up idolatry in the Lord’s covenanted land. Wherefore, it
is the indispensable duty of all who have any love to God, or to his
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to witness faithfully, constantly, and
conscientiously, against all that the enemies have done, or are doing,
to the overthrow of the glorious work of reformation. But it will not be
long to the fourth watch, and then will He come in garments died in
blood, to raise up saviours upon Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau;
and then the house of Jacob and Joseph shall be for fire, and the
malignants, papists, and prelates shall be for stubble, the flame
whereof shall be great. But my generation work being done with my time,
I go to him who loved me, and washed me from all my sins in his own
blood.” And thus, after much, long, and painful suffering (upwards of
twenty years), did this faithful servant enter into the joy of his Lord.
Edward Marshall of Kaemuir, formerly forfeited, was executed along with
him.

From this period we shall meet only with one other public judicial
murder, expressly on account of religion; yet many died in prison and
exile who may be numbered among the martyrs, as having suffered unto
death. Many others were scourged, had their ears cropt, and were sent to
the plantations. The indecent cruelty of their conduct towards pious
women was unworthy of manhood. Thus a number of old women were whipped
at Glasgow; at Dumfries two women were scourged, and the youngest
afterwards sent to New Jersey with Pitlochie, merely because they would
swear no oaths; another poor woman was tied to a man, and both scourged
together through the town, because they would not tell what wanderers
they had harboured, though to have acknowledged the fact would have been
exposing themselves to the gallows. But the banishments, plunderings,
and varied modes of harassing still continued, or were intermitted only
by arbitrary and insidious indulgences, intended to prepare the way for
the introduction of popery.

Without natural affection is one of the peculiar marks of a reprobate,
but the prelatical rulers of Scotland deemed its possession a peculiar
object of punishment. By order of the sheriff of Wigton, a party of his
underlings after destroying the furniture of a Sarah Stuart, the wife of
William Kennedy, in the parish of Cunningham, marched the poor woman,
with a child in her arms, not quite nine months old, to Wigton, a
distance of several miles, forcing her to leave other three behind
without any one to look after them, though the oldest was not nine years
of age. There she was kept eleven weeks prisoner, though a conformist
herself, because she would not engage never to converse with her
husband, nor consent to discover him! And another, Jean Dalziel, a
tenant of Queensberry’s, was banished for the same reason.

Thus closed the year sixteen hundred and eighty-five—a year long
remembered by the sufferers, and which was remarkable also for that
terrible revocation of the edict of Nantz by Louis XIV., which made
Europe resound with tales of horror, equalled only by the retributive
sufferings the descendants of the persecutors endured in the days of
Robespierre, from a revolution whose origin may perhaps be traced back
to the ambition, mis-government, and cruelty of Voltaire’s Louis le
Grand.

                               BOOK XXII.

                            A.D. 1686-1688.

Conduct of the soldiers—A riot—Recantation of Sibbald—Alexander
   Peden—Proceedings of the society-men—Synod of
   Edinburgh—Parliament—Disputes among the
   persecuted—Indulgence—Thanksgiving for the Queen’s pregnancy—Seizure
   and death of Mr Renwick—Dr Hardy’s trial and acquittal—Rescue of
   David Houston—Murder of George Wood—Arrival of the Prince of Orange.

[A.D. 1686.] The entrance of the new year was signalized by an exploit
worthy of the heroes of the day. A party of their marauders came to the
parish of Stonehouse, in Lanarkshire, and carried off eight men and two
women who had infants at the breast, for alleged hearing an ejected
minister; while another no less heroic band, under Skene of Hallyards,
plundered the house of a widow, in the neighbouring parish of Glassford,
and destroyed what they could not carry off, because they chose to
allege her son had been at Bothwell.

Intent upon forcing his favourite object, the king had ordered his
chapel of Holyrood-house to be repaired[164] for the use of the royal
servants who had embraced the royal religion; and the paraphernalia
necessary for conducting its Romish rites with becoming splendour, being
openly brought to Leith, this, with the ostentatious celebration of mass
in the popish meetings, roused such indignation in the Edinburgh
populace, that “a great rabble of prentices” rose, who threatened to
pull down the mass-house. They insulted the Chancellor’s lady and her
company coming from chapel, assailing them with opprobrious language,
and throwing dirt at them, but doing no further damage. For this riot
several were apprehended, and one “baxter lad” sentenced to be whipped;
but when the hangman was about to perform his duty, the mob rose,
rescued their associate out of his hands, and gave himself a sound
drubbing. The confusion, however, continuing, the troops in the Castle
and Canongate were called out to assist the town-guard, when a woman and
an apprentice of one Robert Mein, were killed. Next day, a women and two
youths were scourged, guarded by soldiers; and one Moubray, an
embroiderer, was indicted for his life. At the place of execution, he
told Mr Malcolm, a minister who attended him, that he was offered a
pardon if he would accuse the Duke of Queensberry of having excited the
tumult; but he would not save his life by so foul a calumny.

Footnote 164:

  He also erected a seminary in the Abbey—the Royal College; and in
  order to allure youth and induce Protestant parents to send their
  children, the scholars were to be taught gratis; and no particular
  system of religion was to be inculcated by the Jesuits!—_crede._

This was not the only ominous circumstance which preceded the meeting of
parliament. Another took place at the same time, which bore more
immediately upon the grand question that was to come under their
consideration, and for which they had especially been called
together—the recantation of Sir Robert Sibbald, M.D. This celebrated
antiquarian, who lived in a course of philosophical virtue, but in great
doubts of revealed religion, had been prevailed upon by the Earl of
Perth to turn papist, in order to find that certainty which he could not
find upon his own principles. But he was ashamed of his conduct almost
as soon as he had made his compliance, went to London, and for some
months retired from all company. There, after close application to
study, he came to be so convinced of the errors of popery, that he
returned to Scotland some weeks before the parliament met, and could not
be easy in his own mind till he made a public recantation. The Bishop of
Edinburgh was so much a courtier, that, apprehending many might go to
hear it, and that it might be offensive to the court, he sent him to do
it in a church in the country; but the recantation of so learned a man,
after so much studious inquiry, had a powerful effect.

Fining, that lucrative branch of persecution, though still a favourite,
began now to descend to the humbler classes of consistent Presbyterians;
for the chief gentlemen and heritors among them were either dead,
forfeited, or in exile; yet the gleanings were by no means despicable,
and far from being so regarded by some of the under-hirelings of
government. In the parish of Calder, John Donaldson, portioner, was
fined £200 for a prayer-meeting held at his house on a Lord’s day; John
Baxter, £40; Walter Donaldson, for his wife being present, £36; with
several others in smaller sums, making in all £816. 16s. Scots. William
Stirling, bailie-depute of the regality of Glasgow, who imposed these
fines, received a gift of them for his zeal and exertions.[165]

Footnote 165:

  While the rulers were plundering the best in the land, solely because
  they were the best, they were no less anxious to protect those who
  were at least not the most worthy; but they were their own minions.
  The universal profligacy of manners which had been introduced at the
  Restoration, appears to have been followed by its natural consequence,
  an almost universal bankruptcy; for, when those who had wasted their
  substance in riotous living could no longer supply their waste by the
  plunder of the persecuted Presbyterians, they supported themselves for
  a while by the scarcely less dishonourable shift of living upon their
  creditors; then failing, and throwing themselves upon the crown.
  Fountainhall notices some such circumstances as mere matters of
  course:—“Provost George Drummond,” says he, “turnes bankrupt, as alsoe
  George Drummond, town-treasurer, [and] Drummond of Carlourie; and the
  Chancellor gets protections to them all, and to Skene of Hallyards in
  Louthian, and John Johnstoun of Poltoun;” and he adds, in the same
  business-like style, “William Seaton, in the life-guards, gets a gift
  of 5000 merks he had discovered resting to Argyle.”

On the 4th of January, at the criminal court, Sir Duncan Campbell of
Auchinbreck and thirty-two more Argyleshire heritors, were forfeited for
joining with the Earl, and their estates were gifted chiefly to those of
the same family who had joined the royal party during the invasion,
although, as usual, the prelates and their relatives came in for a share
of the spoil, Campbell of Otter’s estate being gifted to Commissary
M’Lean, son to the Bishop of Argyle. Fountainhall adds, “there were
sundry apparent heirs amongst the forfeited, whose second brothers were
on the king’s side with Atholl. It were but charity to encourage them,
to make them donators to their brothers’ forfeitures.” On the same day,
the Earl of Lothian, brother-in-law to Argyle, was admitted a privy
councillor, with a pension of £300 per annum, given, it was said, in
reward of the great courage he displayed in the Dutch war, when fighting
under the king, then Duke of York; but rather, as the same author hints,
to engage his interest in the ensuing parliament. Protestant heritors
who had not taken the test were also ordered by his majesty to be
pursued and fined; but within a few days a letter came, postponing the
time for taking the test, and shortly after another dispensing with it
altogether in their favour during the king’s pleasure.

About this time, Mr Alexander Peden died (January 26th), full of
assurance of faith, and was privately interred in the churchyard of
Auchinleck. He was certainly an extraordinary man, whose memory was long
cherished in the south and west of Scotland with fond affection, and
where he had laboured long and faithfully and with much success. A
little before the Restoration, he was settled as minister at New Luce,
in Galloway, where he remained about three years, till he was thrust out
by the tyranny of the times. When about to depart, he lectured upon Acts
xx. from the 7th verse to the end, and preached in the forenoon from
these words—“Therefore, watch and remember, that for the space of three
years I ceased not to warn every man,” &c., asserting that he had
declared unto them the whole counsel of God, and professing he was free
from the blood of all men. In the afternoon, he preached from the 32d
verse; “And, now, brethren, I commend you to the word of his grace,”
&c.—a sermon which occasioned a great weeping in the church. Many times
he requested them to be silent; but they sorrowed most of all when he
told them they should never see his face in that pulpit again. He
continued till night; and when he closed the pulpit door, he knocked
three times on it with his Bible, saying each time—“I arrest thee in my
master’s name, that none ever enter thee but such as come in by the
door, as I have done.” And it is somewhat remarkable that neither curate
nor indulged entered that pulpit, which remained shut till it was opened
by a Presbyterian preacher at the Revolution. Yet it may be doubted
whether he would have thought that any one entering by that settlement,
did so exactly in the manner that he did. Some time before his death,
through the misrepresentations which were brought him, he had been much
alienated from James Renwick, and had spoken bitterly against him; but
when on his deathbed he sent for Mr Renwick, and asked if he was that Mr
Renwick there was so much noise about. “Father,” he replied, “my name is
James Renwick; but I have given the world no ground to make any noise
about me, for I have espoused no new doctrine.” He then gave him such an
account of his conversion and call to the ministry—of his principles and
the grounds of his contending against tyranny and defection—that Mr
Peden was satisfied, and expressed his sorrow for having given credit to
the reports that were spread against him.[166]

Footnote 166:

  Ker of Kersland, in his memoirs, speaking of Mr Peden, says—“Abundance
  of this good man’s predictions are well known to be already come to
  pass. When he was sick unto death in the year 1686, he told his
  friends that he should die in a few days; ‘but having,’ said be,
  ‘foretold many things which will require some time before they be
  verified, I will give you a sign which will confirm your expectation,
  that they will as surely come to pass as those you have already seen
  accomplished before your eyes. I shall be decently buried by you; but
  if my body be suffered to rest in the grave where you shall lay it,
  then I have been a deceiver, and the Lord hath not spoken by me:
  whereas, if the enemy come a little afterwards to take it up and carry
  it away to bury it in an ignominious place, then I hope you will
  believe that God Almighty hath spoken by me, and consequently there
  shall not one word fall to the ground.’ Accordingly, about 40 days
  after his interment, a troop of dragoons came, lifted his corpse,
  carried them two miles to Cumnock, and buried them under the
  gallows.”—Crookshanks, vol. ii. p. 320.—James Nisbet, in his memoirs,
  states the same fact, p. 134.

The unflinching confessors of the truth in this day, like those in
primitive times, were often in perils among false brethren, and often
persecuted with the scourge of the tongue, even by some who were
suffering in the same cause. They were accused “of overturning the
Presbyterian government in the church, and substituting a loose kind of
independency, by committing the trial and censure of offences to persons
who were not office-bearers—of usurping the magistrates’ place in the
state, by constituting themselves a convention of estates, and managing
the civil affairs of their community by their edicts—and of disowning,
as silent and unfaithful, all ministers who cannot preach upon their
terms, there being not now, according to them, one minister in Scotland,
England, or Ireland, save one Mr James Renwick, who, by his own
confession in a letter to a friend in Ireland, is not one either.”

To this Mr Renwick, at the desire of the societies, replied—“That they
never committed the trial of ‘scandals’ to the people in a judicial way,
but only allowed them, when there were no church judicatories, to
withdraw privately from associating with those who erred, that they
might not partake of other men’s sins, but by this be a means of
reclaiming offending brethren; which certainly was not overturning
Presbyterian government, any more than their declining the authority of
tyrants was thrusting themselves into the magistrates’ room.” He added,
personally—“As to that, that by my own confession I am not a minister of
the church, I altogether deny. I said I am a minister wherever I have a
call from the people and do embrace it.—O! that all those who shall
agree together in heaven, were agreeing upon earth, I think if my blood
could be a mean to procure that, I could willingly offer it.”

A change having taken place in the cabinet about the end of the year,
the administration was now intrusted only to papists, chiefly to Perth
the chancellor, and his brother Melford, who had gained the king’s
entire confidence by embracing his religion, and the Earl of Murray,
another proselyte, who was appointed Commissioner to open the
parliament, from which was expected a repeal of those penal statutes his
ancestor, “the good regent,” had procured to be enacted against papists.

Preparatory to the sitting of parliament, the synod of Edinburgh met,
when its usual tranquil submissiveness was interrupted by a
contrariety of sentiment respecting the test; some contending for it,
and others urging toleration to all who differed in judgment,
insinuating a charitable accommodation with the papists. Paterson,
bishop of Edinburgh, who had lately returned from London, gratified by
a pension of £200 sterling, told them that the king would defend their
religion, and only craved the exercise of his own for those of his
persuasion in private, which he said could not be denied him, because
he might take it by his prerogative of church supremacy, asserted by
parliament 1669. He further told them that the Archbishop of St
Andrews (Ross) and himself had got ample power to suspend and deprive
any that preached sedition, _i. e._ impugned the king’s religion, even
though they should be bishops. Mr George Shiels, minister at
Prestonhaugh, was sharply reproved “for that he declaimed rudely
against popery in the Abbey church on the preceding Sunday, having
said the Pope was as little infallible as the Bishop of the Isles”—who
was one of the silliest in the world—“and that he would believe the
moon to be made of green cheese, and swallow it, as soon as he would
believe in transubstantiation.”

Parliament met, April 29th. In his letter, the king was perfectly
explicit. After hanging out the lure of a free trade with England, and
an indemnity for his greatest enemies themselves, _i. e._ the consistent
Presbyterians, he came to the point:—“Whilst we show these acts of mercy
to the enemies of our person, crown, and royal dignity, WE cannot be
unmindful of others, our innocent subjects, those of the Roman Catholic
religion, who have, with the hazard of their lives and fortunes, been
always assistant to the crown in the worst of rebellions and
usurpations, though they lay under discouragements hardly to be named:
Them we do heartily recommend to your care, that they may have the
protection of our laws, and that security under our government, which
others of our subjects have, not suffering them to lie under obligations
which their religion cannot admit of.”

The Commissioner enforced this communication by what he must have
thought an irresistible argument. He informed the house that he was
instructed to give the royal assent to any acts prohibiting the
importation of Irish cattle, horses, and victual, or any measures which
might prevent smuggling these articles into Scotland to the prejudice of
the landholders of the country! and likewise promised to authorise such
regulations as should secure exact payment to the tenantry from all his
officers and soldiers in their quarters, both local and transient, for
the future. In return, he expected that they would show themselves the
best and most affectionate subjects, to the best, the most incomparable,
and most heroic prince in the world!

The dutiful parliament humbly thanked the king for his care of the trade
of his ancient kingdom, and expressed their astonishment at his
clemency, testified in the offer of an indemnity to these desperate
rebels, who could have expected pardon from no monarch on earth but his
sacred majesty! and sincerely and heartily offered their lives and
fortunes for suppressing all such as should, upon any account or pretext
whatsoever, attempt either by private contrivance or open rebellion, to
disquiet his glorious reign. As to that part of the royal letter
relating to his subjects of the Roman Catholic religion, they promised,
in obedience to his majesty’s commands, to go as great lengths as their
consciences would allow, not doubting that his majesty would be careful
to secure the Protestant religion established by law. “This,” says
honest Wodrow, “is the first time since the Restoration I remember that
the parliament speak of their conscience.”

Their answer, however, was so little satisfactory at court, that
although the custom always had been to print these official documents,
it was not allowed to be printed; and within a few days the royal
displeasure was expressed against such as had opposed the Commissioner
in this affair. Sir George Mackenzie, lord advocate—who with rat-like
sagacity, when he perceived the vessel was sinking, had already shown a
disposition to leave her—was laid aside from an office he might curse
the day he ever was appointed to fill. Lord Pitmedden was removed from
the bench, and the Earl of Glencairn and Sir William Bruce from the
privy council. Glencairn was besides deprived of his pension, as was
also the Bishop of Dunkeld.—“Thir warning shots,” observes Sir John
Lauder, “were to terrify and divert other members of parliament from
their opposition.”

Could any inconsistency or tergiversation in unprincipled politicians
astonish us, we might well be amazed at the shamelessness of the parties
on this occasion. When a bill for repealing the penal statutes was
brought in, the papists—or Roman Catholics, as they were styled by their
foster-brethren the Scottish bishops, in compliment to the king—were now
strong advocates for liberty of conscience, contending that nothing can
bind the conscience as a divine law, which neither directly nor by clear
consequence is founded on the doctrine or practice of Christ or his
apostles, or of the primitive church; that no oath whatsoever can bind
or oblige to that which is sinful or unlawful to be done; and that for a
Christian magistrate to take away the life or estate of a subject who is
not guilty of sedition or rebellion, nor of injuring his neighbour, but
is quiet, and peaceable, and contents himself in the private exercise of
his own religion, merely for difference of opinion, is neither founded
on the doctrine or practice of our Saviour or his apostles, nor of the
church in the following ages, who never urged their kings or emperors,
when the empire became Christian, to take away the lives and fortunes of
open infidels and heathens who did worship stocks and stones, although
these idolatrous heathen, when they had power, did execute all manner of
cruelty against the Christians.

The Episcopalians, taking up the arguments of some of the first
reformers, asserted “that by the doctrine of the New as well as of the
Old Testament, the magistrate beareth not the sword in vain, for he is
the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth
evil. Idolaters are ranked among the very chief of evil-doers; and John
foretells it as that which God requires of, and approves in, the king’s
of the earth, in times of reformation, that they shall hate the
Babylonish whore, and make her desolate and naked, and shall burn her
with fire—a just punishment upon her who made and cruelly executed laws
for burning to death the innocent saints of God! But the penal laws were
enacted merely for the safety of the religion of the country against
papists, who are not the meek lambs they pretend to be—as witness the
Irish massacre and the murderous conduct at present in France, towards
persons who were guilty of no rebellion, and who only sought to worship
God according to their conscience!”—It is impossible not to pause here
and ask, whether those who urged these reasons for keeping papists out
of power, had no sense of shame, or no memory—whether they did not
recollect, that, for more than twenty-five years, they had been pursuing
exactly the same course towards their own Protestant brethren in
Scotland?

During the first month of the session, the Commissioner was incessant in
his attention to the nobles and leading men, and liberal both of his
promises and threatenings, but all he could prevail upon them to consent
to, was a bill for allowing Roman Catholics “the exercise of their
religion in private houses—all public worship being excluded—without the
danger of incurring sanguinary or other punishments contained in any
laws or acts of parliament against the same.” But as such a restricted
liberty would not satisfy the king, it was dropped; and an act in favour
of the heir of Argyle, who had been prevailed upon to profess the royal
religion, closed the session.

Several of the bishops had strenuously opposed the repeal, clearly
perceiving that their craft was in danger, because, had the papists
obtained power, they would not long have retained their livings without
apostatizing from their religion; others were prepared to go every
length to please the king and keep their places. Nor is it perhaps
judging too harshly, to say, that if the alternative of allowing liberty
to Presbyterians, or themselves turning papists, had been offered them,
they would have chosen the latter, such appeared to be their hatred at
what they called the fanatical rigidity of the former.[167]

Footnote 167:

  The methods of solicitation to obtain consent to this act were very
  strange and extraordinary. The laying aside of men from their places,
  who could have no interest but serving their consciences—commanding
  Mar, Ross, Kilsyth, Sir John Dalziel, &c. to their charges, but they
  offered to give up their commissions—the imprisoning my two servants,
  I being a member of parliament—the importunities used by Sir William
  Paterson and others in concussing members of parliament—their dealing
  with members not clear to stay away or go home, and then prolonging
  the meeting to weary out the poorer sort, who had exhausted both their
  money and credit—and lastly, the letters were one post all broken up
  and searched, to see if any correspondence or intelligence could be
  discovered between Scotland and England.—Fountainhall’s Decis. vol. i.
  p. 419.—The burrows, because they were obstinate against the court
  party, could justly expect no favour. They never were so unanimous in
  any parliament as in this, but formerly depending on noblemen: and
  therefore some called this an independent parliament.—Ib. p. 418.

Defeated in parliament, contrary to all expectation, James determined to
carry through his favourite project by the power of his prerogative.
First, he re-modelled his privy council, turning out the most stubborn
opponents, as the Earls of Mar, Lothian, and Dumfries, with other
decided Protestants, and introducing the Duke of Gordon, the Earls of
Traquair and Seaforth, and other papists in their room, dispensing, by
his own absolute authority, with their taking the test. To them he most
undisguisedly communicated his royal intentions in the plainest language
of tyrannical assumption:—“It was not any doubt WE had of our power in
putting a stop to the unreasonable severities of the acts of parliament
against those of the Roman Catholic religion, that made us bring in OUR
designs to our parliament, but to give our loyal subjects a new
opportunity of showing their duty to US, in which we promised ourselves
their hearty and dutiful concurrence, as what was founded on that solid
justice we are resolved to distribute to all, and consequently to our
Catholic subjects. And to the end the Catholic worship may, with the
more decency and security, be exercised in Edinburgh, we have thought
fit to establish our chapel within our palace of Holyrood-house, and to
appoint a number of chaplains and others whom we require you to have in
your special protection and care. You are likewise to take care that
there be no preachers nor others suffered to insinuate to the people any
fears or jealousies, as if we intended to make any violent alteration;
and if any shall be so bold, you are to punish them accordingly; for it
is far from our thoughts to use any violence in matters of conscience,
consistent with our authority and the peace of our ancient kingdom.”

Still Mr Renwick was the Mordecai in the gate. He kept the fields, and
continued to pursue his course steadfastly, notwithstanding the
calumnies to which he was exposed, and the opposition he met with from
several of the other persecuted ministers, and the dissensions among
some who attended his ministry. About the end of the year, as he was
preaching through Galloway, a protestation was presented to him by
William M’Hutchison, in the name of all the professors between the
rivers Dee and Cree, lamenting the woful effects of their divisions, and
the adherence of so many to him without the consent and approbation of
the remnant of godly and faithful ministers, and referring and
submitting themselves in all these to an assembly of faithful ministers
and elders. He retorted, “The divisions had arisen from those
Presbyterian ministers who changed their commission and exercised their
ministry under this abjured antichristian prelacy: from others, who took
a new holding of their ministry from an arrogated headship over the
church, by accepting indulgences, warrants, and restrictions from the
usurper of their Master’s crown: from others, who have been unfaithful
in not applying their doctrine against the prevailing sins of our day:
from others, who have satisfied themselves to lie by from the exercise
of their ministry, and desisted from the work of the Lord, and that when
his vineyard stood most in need: and, he adds, from others, who have
carried on or countenanced hotch-potch confederacies with malignants,
and sectaries, and temporizing compilers.”[168] But he was strengthened
and comforted by the accession of two efficient coadjutors in his
work—Mr David Houston from Ireland, and Alexander Shiels, who had
escaped from the Bass, where he had been a considerable time confined.
On the 9th of December, a proclamation was issued, offering a reward of
£100 sterling to any who should bring him in dead or alive. In the end
of the month, David Steil, in the parish of Lesmahago, was surprised in
the fields by Lieutenant Crichton; and after he had surrendered upon
promise of safety, was barbarously shot.

Footnote 168:

  This last accusation seems rather strained, as at this time there were
  no sectaries visible in Scotland, except Quakers or Gibbites, with
  neither of whom did the indulged confederate. In England and upon the
  borders, it is true, the good persecuted ministers united together,
  without much regard to church government, which the state of the times
  did not permit being very strictly observed among the sufferers, who
  appear to have practically adopted the general principle of the people
  judging of the character and qualifications of the ministers they
  heard, and of the consistent conduct of those with whom they held
  communion.—_vide_ Memoirs of Veitch and Brysson.

[1687.] James’s precipitation in forcing popery upon his people appeared
so impolitic, that even a jesuit missionary thought he made too great
haste; but he told him he would either convert England or die a martyr;
and, when one of his popish lords gently remonstrated with him,
replied—“I am growing old, and must take large steps, else, if I should
happen to die, I might perhaps leave you in a worse condition than I
found you.” Yet with a strange inconsistency, he allowed both his
daughters to be educated in the Protestant faith; and when he was asked
why he was so little concerned about their conversion, replied—“God will
take care of that!” But he had introduced shoals of seminary priests and
jesuits for the instruction of his other subjects; and, while he
interdicted the Presbyterian ministers from preaching or publishing any
thing against his religion, under pain of treason, he employed these
emissaries of Rome in every quarter; and having appointed Watson, a
papist, his printer, assiduously caused publications in favour of popery
to be widely disseminated. His most powerful argument, however, was,
bestowing the chief places upon papists, especially converts, which
induced many of the nobility and gentry to apostatize; and, like all
apostates, they became the bitterest persecutors of the faith they had
forsaken.

Mr Renwick and his hearers continued to be the objects of unmitigated
hatred, in proportion as they continued to hold fast their integrity and
preach the gospel. Two persons returning from hearing him, James
Cunningham, merchant, and John Buchanan, cooper in Glasgow, were seized,
sent prisoners to Edinburgh, and banished to Barbadoes;[169] and, on the
17th of February, the council received a letter from the king, in which
he expressed his highest indignation against these enemies of
Christianity, as well as government and human society, the
field-conventiclers, whom he recommended to the council to root out with
all the severity of the laws, and the most vigorous prosecution of the
forces, it being equally his and his people’s concern to be rid of them.
At the same time, he sent a royal proclamation, allowing, “by OUR
sovereign authority, prerogative, royal and absolute power,” moderate
Presbyterians and quakers to meet in their private houses, but to hear
such ministers only as have accepted or are willing to accept the
toleration without explanation; and in like manner, by the same absolute
power, he suspended all laws and acts of parliament, and other
proceedings, against Roman Catholics, so that they should in all time
coming, not only be as free as Protestants to exercise their religion,
but to enjoy all offices, benefices, &c., which he should think proper
to bestow, upon their taking an oath acknowledging him as rightful king
and supreme governor of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, and over
all persons therein, and that they would never resist his power or
authority; at the same time, he declared he would never suffer violence
to be offered to any man’s conscience, nor use force or invincible
necessity against any man on account of his persuasion. This, which was
termed the first indulgence, did not pass the council unanimously. The
Duke of Hamilton, and the Earls of Panmure and Dundonald, refused to
sanction it; for which the Duke was reprimanded and the two Earls
dismissed the board; and as a practical exposition of its real meaning,
sixteen men and five women were shortly after, in the month of April,
banished to America, because they would not own the present authority to
be according to the word of God, nor engage never to hear Mr Renwick
preach.

Footnote 169:

  Perhaps it does not belong exactly to _religious_ persecution, but as
  it is a curious trait of the times, I quote the following:—“Reid the
  mountebank pursues Scot of Harden and his lady for stealing away from
  him a little girl, called the tumblin-lassie, that danced upon his
  stage; and he claimed damages and produced a contract, whereby he
  bought her from her mother for £30 Scots. But we have no slaves in
  Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns; and physicians
  attested the employment of tumblin would kill her; and her joints were
  now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a
  prentice, and so could not run away from her master: yet some cited
  Moses’ law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee against his
  master’s cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The lords
  _renitente cancellario_, in opposition to the Chancellor, assoilzied
  Harden.”—Fountainhall’s Decis. vol. i. p. 440. A few days after, his
  lordship adds, “Reid the mountebank is received into the popish
  church, and one of his blackamores was persuaded to accept of baptism
  from the popish priests, and to turn christian papist, which was a
  great trophy. He was called James, after the king, the chancellor, and
  the Apostle James.”—Ibid. p. 441.

None of these indulgences satisfied fully the Presbyterian ministers,
while they were decidedly testified against by the denounced wanderers.
Another was therefore issued, July 5th, to palliate the former, giving
them leave to meet and serve God after their own way, be it in private
houses, chapels, or places purposely built or set apart for that use;
while it again denounced the full vigour of the law and of the army
against such as should be guilty of field-conventicles; “for which,
after this our royal grace and favour—which surpasses the hopes and
equals the very wishes of the most zealously concerned—there is not the
least shadow of excuse left!”

On the 20th, the Presbyterian ministers from various parts of the
country met at Edinburgh, and agreed to accept the benefit of the new
toleration; but an address of thanks to the king, “for granting them the
liberty of the public and peaceable exercise of their ministerial
functions without any hazard,” was not carried without considerable
opposition. Upon this, many of the exiles returned from Holland, and
among them Mr Patrick Warner, to whom the Prince of Orange, at parting,
gave the following significant advice:—“I understand you are called home
upon the liberty granted there; but I can assure you that liberty is not
granted from any favour or kindness to you or your party, but from
favour to papists and to divide you among yourselves; yet I think you
may be so wise as to take the good of it and prevent the evil designed,
and, instead of dividing, come to a better harmony among yourselves,
when you have liberty to see one another and meet freely together.”

The wanderers, as they were excepted, so they disregarded the
toleration. Persecution had made them cling closer to their principles.
They refused to accept as a favour what they believed themselves
entitled to claim as a right—the liberty of worshipping God according to
their conscience—and they published their reasons:—They could not have
any transactions with a person whose principles bound him to keep no
faith with heretics, and whose dissimulation they had already detected.
They considered accepting toleration from him as bargaining with an
apostate, excommunicated, bigoted papist, and as such under the
Mediator’s malediction, “yea, heir to his own grandfather’s [James VI.]
imprecations, who wished the curse of God to fall upon such of his
posterity as should at any time turn papists. They renounced him as a
magistrate, because he had not taken the oath constitutionally required;
and to accept this toleration flowing from his absolute power, would be
acknowledging a power inconsistent with the law of God and the liberties
of mankind; for, though nothing can be more desirable than when true
liberty is established by the government, nothing can be more vile than
when true religion is tolerated under the notion of a crime, and its
exercise only allowed under certain restrictions.” As to the address of
thanks by the ministers, they considered it “a train of fulsome
flatteries, dishonourable to God, the reproach of his cause, the
betraying of the church, the detriment of the nation, and the exposing
of themselves to contempt.”

The conduct of the government, amid all their professions of toleration,
fully warranted the worst suspicions of the persecuted. On the 25th
July, John Anderson, younger of Wastertown, was indicted before the
court of justiciary, for having in a tavern, over a glass of wine,
argued in favour of using defensive arms against tyrants, and, by an
execrable majority of that degraded tribunal, condemned to die. He was
not executed, but the stain of the sentence remains upon the memories of
the servile senators who pronounced it. And this was followed on the 5th
October by a proclamation, not only forbidding all field-conventicles,
under the usual penalty, but even indulged ministers, from preaching in
houses, unless they observed the prescribed directions; that is, unless
they abstained from exposing or in any way reflecting upon the king’s
religion, _i. e._ the errors of popery; and on the 18th, by another, all
officers, civil and military, were ordered to apprehend James Renwick,
and assured of the sum of £100 sterling for taking him dead or alive—a
high price! but so cautious had he been, that he had eluded fifteen
desperate searches made after him within five months since the first
toleration, which exasperated the rulers beyond measure.

The year ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHT—a year greatly to be
remembered as the last in the annals of the persecution in Scotland—was
ushered in by a circumstance which threatened to rivet their chains upon
the Presbyterians, but which in the good providence of God was the means
of accelerating their deliverance. On the 2d of January, the Queen’s
pregnancy was announced; and the 29th was ordered to be observed as a
day of thanksgiving in the diocese of Edinburgh, where the clergy were
commanded to pray, after this form, for “Our gracious Queen Mary:—Good
Lord, strengthen her, we beseech thee, and perfect what thou hast begun.
Command thy holy angels to watch over her continually, and defend her
from all dangers and evil accidents, that what she has conceived may be
happily brought forth to the joy of our sovereign lord the king, the
further establishment of his crown, the happiness and welfare of the
whole kingdom, and the glory of thy great name!” The papists, who
pronounced the conception miraculous in answer to a vow the Queen had
made to the lady of Loretto, prophecied that the promised birth would be
a son. The Protestants sighed in secret, and began to whisper their
suspicions of a fraud.

On the 17th, Mr Renwick published a testimony against the toleration and
in vindication of field-meetings, the convening of which he contended
was a testimony for the headship, honour, and princely prerogative of
Jesus—“Since in these meetings there is a particular declaration of our
holding our ministry and the exercise thereof from Christ alone, without
any dependence on, subordination to, or license from, his usurping
enemies;” and this testimony he was shortly after called upon to seal
with his blood. From Edinburgh he went to Fife and preached several
Sabbaths, then re-crossed the Firth, and upon the 29th of January,
preached his last sermon at Borrowstounness; thence he returned to the
capital, where he arrived on the 31st, under cloud of night. Having gone
to a friend’s house on the Castle-hill, who dealt in English wares, a
custom-house officer, Thomas Justice, was informed by one of his spies
that a stranger had arrived; and early next morning he came with some
others on pretence of searching for prohibited goods. Mr Renwick hearing
the noise, came out of his room, when the officer standing at the door
exclaimed—“My life for it, this is Mr Renwick!” on which Mr Renwick went
to another door, and finding it also beset, fired a pistol to terrify
his pursuers, and was attempting his escape, when he received a severe
blow on the breast, that stunned him; and he fell several times as he
was running, and was taken. He was carried directly to the guard-house,
and from thence to a committee of the privy council, who ordered him
immediately to be laid in irons.

Previously to his being indicted, he was examined in Viscount Tarbet’s
chamber, when he undauntedly maintained his principles, disclaiming the
idea that lineal descent alone gave a right to the crown, and disowning
especially the authority of James as a papist, who had never taken the
Scottish coronation oath, and therefore could not legally reign;
justifying the non-payment of cess, as it was an impost levied for
suppressing the gospel; and asserting the right of carrying arms at
field-meetings as necessary self-defence. On every point about which he
was questioned, he answered with an openness which greatly softened his
inquisitors, and saved him the torture. He received his indictment on
the 3d of February, charging him with having cast off the fear of God
and all regard to his majesty’s laws; of having entered into the society
of rebels of most damnable and pernicious principles, and become so
desperate a villain, as openly to preach in the fields these his
treasonable doctrines. On the 8th he was brought to the bar of the