Scottish Covenanter Stories

Dane Love

• Publisher: Neil Wilson Publishing
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781906476427
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

Fifty tales from the annals of the 'Killing Times' when Bonnie Dundee carried out King Charles II's edict by hunting down and persecuting the Covenanters throughout Southern and Central Scotland. Many of these have been drawn from little-known sources and verbal records handed down from generation to generation. These include: the murder of John Brown of Priesthill by 'Bonnie Dundee'; the Battle of Drumclog; the Wigtown Martyrs; the shooting of John Hunter of Tweedsmuir; the Pentland Rising at Dalry, 1666 and the execution of James White of Fenwick. This comprehensive and accessible volume of a largely ignored period of Scottish history will be of great worth to Scots everywhere and will be a required reader for history students.

1

EARLY MARTYRS

On Monday 27 May 1661 the guillotine known as the ‘Maiden’ was erected in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. It was a fairly common occurrence, for this was the site of public executions in the city. However, the person to be hanged that day was unique. He was not only from the upper classes, being a Marquis and head of a great highland clan, but he was the first to die for his adherence to the Covenant.

Archibald Campbell, 8th Earl and 1st Marquis of Argyll (created 1641), was born around 1607, the son of Archibald, the 7th Earl, who had converted to Catholicism after marrying his second wife. He fled to western Flanders in 1618 after being outlawed but Charles I reversed the sentence in 1677 after which the old man spent his last ten years in London in reduced circumstances. While his son Archibald was still a child, the estates had been passed down to him.

Argyll took part in many battles. On 2 February 1645 he was active against Montrose at the Battle of Inverlochy. His men were severely defeated, so much so that it was said that the waves on the shores of the loch lapped red with blood. He fled from the scene in his boat, bringing about claims that he was a timorous and feeble person.

Argyll was a royal favourite for many years. In 1651, when Charles was crowned at Scone, it was Argyll who had the honour of placing the crown on the monarch’s head. Charles at that time had accepted the Covenants and had promised to maintain true religious freedom for his subjects, having signed the Covenant at Garmouth in Moray.

After the Restoration, Argyll travelled to London where he tried to gain an audience with the king. He was arrested by Sir William Fleming and sent to the Tower, on a dubious political charge, where he remained for around nine months before being transferred to a cell in Edinburgh.

From the scaffold the Marquis told the crowd assembled below, ‘I had the honour to place the crown upon the king’s brow; now he hastens me away to a better crown than his own.’ His head was then placed on the block and the blade hoisted. Its quick descent left the crowd silent. Argyll’s body was gifted to his friends. They took it to the Magdalen Chapel in the Cowgate where it lay for some time. It was then moved to the Lothian burial vault at Newbattle before being transferred to the kirk of Kilmun, in Argyll, where it was finally laid to rest.¹ His severed head was taken by the hangman and displayed on a pike on top of the Heart of Midlothian. It was to remain there until 8 June 1664.

There were two other men in gaol awaiting the same fate as Argyll. Rev James Guthrie and Lieutenant William Govan were led out to the scaffold five days later. Guthrie was the minister of Stirling’s Holy Rude church; little is known of his life before he became famous as ‘the little man who could not bow’, – this being an allusion to the fact that he would not succumb to the authorities over the church. Born into an Episcopalian family, Guthrie was probably being brought up to enter the ministry of that denomination. He was sent to St Andrews to study, but there he met Rev Samuel Rutherford.

Guthrie attended many of Rutherford’s prayer meetings and theology discussions, which were to influence him considerably. According to what he wrote late in life, ‘until the year 1638 I was treading other steps: and the Lord did then recover me out of the snare of Prelacy, Ceremonies and the Service Book.’ In 1638 Guthrie was ordained as minister of the small town of Lauder, in Berwickshire, remaining until 1649.

A call to Stirling’s Holy Rude church was answered in 1650. His time there was not without trouble, for not all the residents of the town agreed with his strong Protestant views. In 1656 the church was split in two, both figuratively and physically, for a wall was erected dividing the building. One half was ministered to by Guthrie, the other by Rev Matthew Simpson, his former assistant.

Whilst at Stirling, Guthrie wrote a book entitled The Causes of the Lord’s Wrath Against Scotland. This volume was later considered treasonable, and copies of it were burned by the public hangmen. Anyone found with a copy in their possession could be charged with treason against the crown and government.

Guthrie was arrested a number of times for his failure to accept Charles as head of the church, but on each accasion he was later released. Eventually, in 1657 the General Assembly deposed him from his charge.

When Cromwell was abroad in Scotland Guthrie conversed with him, making him aware of the position of the Church of Scotland. It was Cromwell who referred to Guthrie as the ‘short man’. In 1657 Guthrie journeyed to London where he defended the king’s right against Cromwell. Guthrie was noted for his royalist views, but these only went so far and he could not accept the king’s interference in the work of the kirk.

On 23 August 1660 Guthrie and a number of others met in Edinburgh to draw up a supplication to the restored king. In it they pledged their allegiance to the crown, but desired that the king kept the reformed faith in Scotland. A party of soldiers were sent to the meeting house by the Earl of Middleton. They arrested Guthrie and 10 others, one of their number managing to escape. Guthrie was gaoled in Edinburgh Castle for a short time before being moved on to Stirling Castle. He was to remain imprisoned there for six months.

Guthrie was tried before the Privy Council on two occasions, in February and April 1661. He was charged with treason, but Guthrie, who was defending himself, managed to baffle the lawyers with his knowledge of legal and ecclesiastical matters. The trials lasted for some time, until at length Guthrie himself requested that they be brought to a speedy conclusion. He told the court, ‘having now suffered eight months’ imprisonment, your Lordships would put no other burden upon me. I shall conclude with the words of Jeremiah, “Behold I am in your hands, do to me what seemeth good to you”. If you put me to death you shall bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon the inhabitants of the city.’

The judges considered Guthrie’s plea for some time. Some of them were keen to banish him to the plantations, but Middleton would accept nothing less than the death penalty. Accordingly he was sentenced to die at the Cross. The sentence shocked many throughout the nation. Appeals were sent to the authorities to release him, or else try and persuade him to accept their authority by granting him a bishopric.

Guthrie was hanged on Saturday, 1 June 1661. As he climbed the scaffold steps he addressed the crowds, ‘I take God to record upon my soul, I would not exchange this scaffold for the palace and mitre of the greatest prelate in the land.’ Once his body was lifeless, Guthrie’s head was chopped off and displayed on the Netherbow Port for the next 27 years. Tradition asserts that one day when Middleton was driving his coach through the gateway drops of blood fell from Guthrie’s head onto the coachwork. Despite regular scrubbing and polishing, the stains of the martyr were never to be removed, constantly reminding Middleton of his actions.²

On the same day Guthrie was executed, Lieutenant (or Captain) William Govan (b. 1623) was also hanged from the scaffold. He was a member of the Remonstrant army but had defected to the ranks of Cromwell’s troops. In 1651 a decree of forfeiture was issued against him. Govan had taken a small part in the execution of Charles I, for which he was tried and executed. Before he suffered death, he looked up at the gibbet on which Guthrie’s corpse now hung and declared, ‘It is sweet; otherwise how durst I look upon the corpse of him who hangs there, and smile upon these sticks and that gibbet as the gates of heaven.’ His head was removed and displayed on the West Bow.

Archibald Johnston was also tried for his treasonable beliefs at the same time. Born a son of the Johnstons of Annandale, he was related to a number of law-lords. He inherited a house in Edinburgh’s High Street where the Supplicants, the group who compiled the Supplication which was a forerunner of the National Covenant, met.

He had been Clerk to the General Assembly in 1638 and was instrumental in making sure that the pro-Episcopal members were defeated in their attempt at changing the direction of the kirk by compiling a list of Acts of Parliament which suppressed Roman Catholicism while establishing Protestantism as the religion of Scotland. This was to become the second part of the National Covenant. The first part contained the King’s Confession of 1580-1, the third part was compiled by Alexander Henderson. At a meeting held in Greyfriars’ Church in Edinburgh on Wednesday 28 February 1638 Johnston read this out to the large assembled crowd and when the Glasgow Assembly finally ended he was appointed Procurator of the church.

In 1641 Johnston was knighted and made a Lord of Session taking the title Lord Wariston, later becoming MP for Edinburgh. Wariston had a knack of being able to unearth old parliamentary papers which he used to support the case against the Episcopalians. It was thought that the church records of 1560-90 had been lost, and the supporters of the Covenant regretted this, but Wariston was able to unearth them, thus adding strength to the Presbyterian voice. In April 1641 Wariston referred to the Records of Parliament, which had been given to Hay of Dunfermline to destroy. The king, knowing this, claimed that they did not exist and therefore could not be used as evidence, but Wariston had somehow managed to save them, and produced them in parliament.

In 1646 Johnston was appointed Lord Advocate and in 1649 Lord Clerk Register.

At the Restoration Wariston knew that the king would not allow him to live long. He fled abroad to the Netherlands, Germany and France. The trial went on in his absence, and he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, the proclamation being read out at the Cross of Edinburgh on 13 May 1661.

Wariston was apprehended by one of Charles’ detectives at Rouen as he prayed. He was taken back across the Channel to London where he spent six months imprisoned in the Tower. He was then brought back to Scotland and executed on 22 July 1663, 26 months after he had been sentenced. Like Guthrie, his head was removed from his body and displayed on the Netherbow Port.

2

FOUGHT WITH GREAT RENOWN

On 13 November 1666 the soldiers from the garrison at Dalry in Galloway were out and about exacting fines from those who had failed to attend church. Corporal George Deanes and three other soldiers from Sir Alexander Thomson’s guards had claimed the corn of an old farmer by the name of Grier in lieu of his fine, which he had been unable to pay. Grier had fled his home, but the soldiers caught up with him and brought him back to the village. The soldiers tied his hands and feet together and intended carrying him trussed below a pole ‘like a beast’. They were then about to strip him of his clothes and lower him onto a red-hot gridiron.

Four Covenanters who had spent some of the previous months hiding amidst the hills had risked coming into the village that day in order to eat a hearty breakfast at the local inn. One of the men was John MacLellan of Barscobe Castle, a local laird who had fled his home. As they left the inn they witnessed the cruel treatment meted out to old Grier.

‘Why do you use the honest man so?’ Barscobe asked.

The soldiers, incensed, drew their swords, intending to capture the men and try them. Barscobe took out his pistol (into the barrel of which, having no shot to spare, he had previously rammed fragments of his pipe) and fired. The clay blasted into Deanes’s leg, wounding him. It was recorded that a surgeon later removed ten pieces of the pipe from his body. The other soldiers quickly surrendered.

The Covenanters moved to the nearby village of Balmaclellan, where Alexander Robertson was preaching at a conventicle. The larger group decided that they were strong enough to attack the local garrison, which had 16 soldiers in residence. In the scuffle one of the soldiers was killed. The Covenanters then moved on to Irongray kirkyard, near Dumfries, where they formed themselves into an army of volunteers.

The Covenanters realised that things were now getting serious. They decided that they should kidnap the local commander, Sir James Turner, known as ‘Bloody Bite-the-sheep’, and hold him whilst negotiations went on with the king. Turner was stationed in Dumfries. Accordingly 54 Covenanters on horseback rode towards the town, followed by around 150 on foot. The weather was wet and wild, resulting in the journey taking longer than expected. They arrived at around nine o’clock on the Thursday morning, 15 November.

A Covenanter by the name of Andrew Gray seems to have taken charge. He led the Covenanters into Dumfries by crossing Devorgilla’s Bridge and made their way to Bailie Finnie’s house, where Turner was staying at the time, and called out to him to surrender. Turner appeared at the window and asked for quarter, which John Neilson of Corsock duly granted. Gray was ready to shoot Turner, but Neilson intervened, telling him that he had promised Turner that he would be held prisoner. In revenge, Gray searched through the house, taking papers from Turner’s chest as well as 6,000 merks. The Covenanters then marched to the burgh cross, where they toasted the king’s health and pledged their allegiance to the Covenant, before heading to the Sands beside the River Nith where they held a council of war. Turner was taken with them, at first dressed in his night-clothes, but later allowed to wear everyday clothing.

The Covenanters gathered as many arms as they could find in the town before deciding to make their way to the north-west again. They travelled up the side of Cluden and Cairn waters to Glencairn church, where they rested for a short while. During the hours of darkness they marched back to Dalry, a total of 32 miles. Word came that some soldiers were in the vicinity, so during the following night they made their way north to the wilder countryside around Carsphairn. It was around this time that Andrew Gray, who had claimed to be a captain, mysteriously disappeared. He had already sent on Turner’s money ‘for safe keeping’, and apart from a claimed sighting in Newcastle, he was never to be seen again.

From Dumfries Steven Irvine, bailie in the town, rode to Edinburgh to raise the alarm with the authorities. Lieutenant-General Thomas Dalyell was sent to the west with 2,500 foot soldiers and six troop of horse, marching by way of Glasgow and Kilmarnock to Mauchline in Ayrshire. At the same time the authorities issued a proclamation declaring that the uprising was to be classed as rebellion and all who refused to lay down their arms would be tried as traitors and thus be incapable of pardon.

The Covenanters decided that they should gather as much support as they could muster and march on Edinburgh, where they would lay their demands before the authorities. Thus they headed at first across Glen Muck to Dalmellington and into Ayrshire. At Dalmellington they were joined by the ousted minister of Irongray, John Welsh, who preached at a large conventicle in their midst. He also prayed that Turner would be converted to their beliefs and that he could be forgiven for his sins. The route then led on to Tarbolton and Ayr, near where Colonel James Wallace of Auchans joined them and was appointed commander. Turner’s memoirs noted with admiration the leadership qualities Wallace displayed. By this time the force numbered around 700.

Whilst the Covenanting force was in the middle of Kyle, two men were sent on to scout and drum up support. They were John Ross, who came from Mauchline, and John Shields, tenant of Titwood farm in the parish of Mearns in Renfrewshire. Some of the soldiers marching from Edinburgh, under the command of the Duke of Hamilton, captured them near Kilmarnock and they were taken back to the town and held prisoner. They were later moved to Edinburgh where they were tried and hanged on 7 December 1666. Their heads were cut off and sent back to Kilmarnock where they were publicly displayed for a while before being interred in the Laigh kirkyard.¹

The Covenanters then headed inland, passing through Coylton to Ochiltree, where they rested for the night. On 23 November they continued to Cumnock where they were warned that Dalyell was advancing on Kilmarnock. The weather closed in on them, and they were all soaked to the skin as they made their way across Airds Moss towards Muirkirk. James Turner noted that:

The way to that church [Muirkirk] was exceeding bad, a very hie wind, with a grievous raine in our faces. The night fell dark before we could reach the place where the foot were quartered, with no meate or drink, and with very little fire. I doe confesse, I never saw lustier fellows than these foote were, or better marchers.

The Covenanters rested as best they could in the parish church but many of them became disheartened at this point, and a number began to drift away. Wallace, however, pushed them onward, and when they reached Douglas they rested again in the old kirk of St Bride before marching to Lanark where it was decided to renew the Solemn League and Covenant.

On Monday 26 November Rev John Guthrie, evicted minister of Tarbolton, stood on the forestairs of Lanark tolbooth and addressed the 500 infantry. At the burgh’s Townhead Gabriel Semple preached to the 500 riders. A bond was compiled, explai...

Table of contents

• SCOTTISH COVENANTER STORIES
• REVIEWS
• TITLE PAGE
• INTRODUCTION
• AUTHOR’S NOTE
• 1. EARLY MARTYRS
• 2. FOUGHT WITH GREAT RENOWN
• 3. A FAT CHRISTMAS-PIE TO THE PRELATES
• 4. GIBBETS WERE IN FASHION THEN
• 5. CONVENTICLES
• 6. THE HIGHLAND HOST
• 7. PEACE TO EACH NOBLE MARTYR’S HONOUR’D SHADE
• 8. BLUIDY CLAVERS
• 9. BLOODY BRUCE DID MURDER ME
• 10. FLYING THITHER FOR HIS LIFE
• 11. A FOLLOWER OF THE LAMB
• 12. HEADS AND HANDS OF MARTYRS OFF
• 13. AN ENCOUNTER AT DRUMCLOG
• 14. WE AT BOTHWELL DID APPEAR
• 15. DEERNESS
• 16. AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE BLOODY ENEMIES OF TRUTH
• 17. THE GALLANT GORDONS
• 18. NONCOMPLYANCE WITH A WICKED TIME
• 19. DUST SACRIFICED TO TYRANNY
• 20. WHERE PLEASANT NISBET LIES
• 21. GRISELL HUME’S MIDNIGHT TRYST
• 22. CAPTAIN PATON – THE GALLANT OFFICER
• 23. BLESS’D JOHN, ON YONDER ROCK CONFIN’D
• 24. LYONS THUS CRUELLY DEVOURED ME
• 25. BY BLOODY GRAHAM WERE TAKEN
• 26. DONALD CARGILL
• 27. COLONEL JAMES DOUGLAS’S KILLING YEAR
• 28. BY LAG SO WICKEDLY WERE SHOT
• 29. MOST IMPIOUSLY AND CRUELLY MURTHERED
• 30. SHOT TO DEATH UPON KIRKCONNELL MOOR
• 31. TO MURDER SAINTS WAS NO SWEET PLAY
• 32. SOME MUIRKIRK COVENANTERS
• 33. SHOT AT MINNYHIVE MOSS
• 34. A TYGER RATHER THAN A SCOT
• 35. BY BLOODY DRUMMOND THEY WERE SHOT
• 36. BABEL’S BASTARD HAD COMMAND
• 37. BUTCHERED BY CLAVERS
• 38. WITHIN THE SEA TY’D TO A STAKE
• 39. THEY SOCHT THEM OUT
• 40. SHOT IN THIS PLACE
• 41. JOHN PATERSON OF PENNYVENIE
• 42. WITHOUT SENTENCE OF LAW
• 43. THE DUNNOTTAR DUNGEON
• 44. THE SORN GARRISON
• 45. RAISED AFTER SIX WEEKS OUT OF THE GRAWF
• 46. A WAND’RER NOW A MARTYR
• 47. BANISHT I WAS FOR COVENANTED CAUSE
• 48. WILLIAM CLELAND
• 49. JAMES RENWICK
• 50. APPEARING FOR THE RESCUE OF MR DAVID HOUSTON
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX
• AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
• ALSO WRITTEN BY DANE LOVE
• FOOTNOTE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE