by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
As we drew near Bass Rock, opposite North Berwick, I was elated. We had discussed coming here often, and now, on my 60th birthday, it was happening. Amidst the surf of a rough sea and the raucous calling of the seabirds, we finally reached our destination. ‘Any moment now,’ said our guide, standing remarkably secure on the rocking boat, ‘you will witness one of nature’s wonders: a cascade of gannets.’ Almost on cue, a host of gannet birds tumbled off the whitened rock, forming a torrent of feathered displays. All of us were stunned; we were witnessing something live, which most of us will only see on one of Attenborough’s nature programmes.
The guide continued to explain that the gannet colony of 250,000 birds was the largest in the world. He skimmed through the history and geology of the rock, touching lightly on the ruins of the 17th century prison above us, partially shrouded by thousands of flying and soaring birds. ‘In that prison were kept political and religious agitators,’ he shouted above the guttural racket. I wished that he had elaborated on this subject and spoken of the suffering Covenanters there.
Bass Rock became the property of the Provost of Edinburgh, who sold it in 1671 to the Scottish government, so that a prison could be constructed for the open-air Covenanter preachers, who despite being outlawed, continued to speak in their conventicles to thousands. This rock became known by the beleaguered Christians as the ‘Patmos of many godly men’, as they recalled the apostle John’s exile. Herded into damp, dark cells, with only a daily hour of daylight allowed, and deprived of all human comfort, these men languished for years, brutally treated and scorned by the vicious guards. This was Scotland’s Alcatraz. First in this prison was Robert Gillespie, whose crime was that he ‘had several times preached, expounded Scripture, and prayed at conventicles’. Then there was James Fraser of Brae, whose intellect and love for Christ were honed to the Bible. He had been arrested in a friend’s house in Edinburgh and when he was imprisoned in the Tolbooth, Archbishop James Sharpe, the turncoat-Covenanter, had sent a message to the Provost, saying, ‘If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend.’
Amongst many righteous men, was the famous Revd Alexander Peden, known as the ‘prophet of the Covenant’. This compassionate man wrote a letter to his friend from Bass Rock on 11 August, 1677: ‘Rev and Dear Brother [Patrick Simpson] … We are close shut up by our chambers; not permitted to converse, diet, worship together; but conducted out by two at once in the day, to breathe in the open air, envying, with reverence, the birds their freedom; provoking and calling on us to bless Him for the most common mercies. Again, we are close shut up day and night, to hear only the sighs and groans of our fellow-prisoners… O for grace to credit Him… and His cross in whatever piece of service, in bonds or freedom… Now, peace be to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father; and grace be to all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity! So prayeth your unworthy and affectionate well-wisher in bonds. Alexander Peden.’
‘Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also’ (Hebrews 13:3, NKJV).
Image: Bass Rock with the Covenanter prison. Image by Paul James-Griffiths
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
It was a quiet, grey day when I first visited the Covenanters’ prison in Greyfriars’ Kirk graveyard. Peering through the locked iron gate, I tried to imagine the horrendous scene that the stones would have witnessed. The plaque outside states: ‘Behind these gates lies part of the southern section of Greyfriars Kirkyard which was used in 1679 as a prison for over one thousand supporters of the National Covenant who had been defeated by Government forces at the battle of Bothwell Brig on 22 June. For over four months these men were held here without any shelter, each man being allowed 4 ounces of bread a day. Kindly citizens were sometimes able to give them more food. Some of the prisoners died here, some were tried and executed for treason, some escaped, and some were freed after signing a bond of loyalty to the Crown… In November 1679 the remaining 257 men, who had been sentenced to transportation overseas [as slaves], were taken to Leith and placed on board a ship bound for the American colonies; nearly all were drowned when this ship was wrecked in the Orkney islands (where there is a monument in their memory), but 48 of the prisoners survived.’
What was the Battle of Bothwell Brig, and why did it happen? With Charles II’s clamp down on freedom of faith and parliament, thousands of the Covenanters had been driven out to hold their church services in deserted places. But even here the government soldiers came to break up the outlawed gatherings. This led to some of them carrying arms in self-defence. John Graham of Claverhouse, famed for his cruelty, had tried to break up one such conventicle at Loudoun Hill. However, he met stern resistance at the Battle of Drumclog, losing 36 soldiers. The government, infuriated by this rebellion against the king’s tyranny, launched a reprisal under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. The 5,000 royalist soldiers met on one side of Bothwell Bridge in Lanarkshire, and the 6,000 Covenanters, led by Robert Hamilton, met on the other. The Covenanters, who were divided, were routed within hours, with about 600-700 being killed and about 1200 being taken prisoner and put in the concentration camp at Greyfriars. This battle signaled the end of serious armed resistance.
Amidst popular accusations of these Covenanters being ‘fanatical extremists’, we have to ask the question whether it is legitimate for Christians to fight in self-defence? Or is everyone else allowed to do this, with the exception of Christians? After all, did not Christ tell his followers to ‘turn the other cheek’, and to ‘love your enemies’? It is very easy for us to decry these Covenanters from our easy armchairs today, but how would we have acted in the same situation? Does not the Bible also say, ‘Love suffers long’? But for how long? For decades? Does not the Bible say, ‘Love… always protects’? Are we allowed to protect those we love? Does not Paul say: ‘If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men’? What if all peaceful, legal and careful ways of negotiating are despised as high treason? What if your loved ones and friends are cruelly tortured, abused and killed?
This issue of self-defence has been debated for 2,000 years in the church. John Knox was so bothered by this, that he sought out the advice of the Swiss scholars and his friend John Calvin. Most of the Scottish reformers and Covenanters came to the same conclusion as Knox in his famous discussion with Mary, Queen of Scots, in which he stated: ‘If their princes exceed their bounds, Madam, no doubt they may be resisted, even by power’, and likened the act of self-defence to children resisting their father who seeks to kill the family in a murderous frenzy.
‘If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men (Romans 12:16, NKJV).
Image: The Covenanters’ Prison in Greyfriars’ Kirk graveyard, Edinburgh. Taken by Paul James-Griffiths.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
On a bitterly cold day on 28 November 1666, a protest march of Covenanters met face-to-face with the government soldiers led by General Thomas (‘Tam’) Dalziel. The Covenanters had hoped that their march would snowball into thousands and that they would enter Edinburgh with the support of the majority of the people to lay their grievances before the authorities for justice and freedom of faith. An ill-equipped and bedraggled group of between 700 and 900 faced an efficient royalist army of 2,000 – 3,000 at Rullion Green, Colinton. A short battle ensued, in which about 50 Covenanters were killed. The rest fled, but 85 were taken prisoner to Edinburgh where many were tortured, and about 36 were executed; some of their hands and heads were impaled on the city gates; others were sent as slaves to Barbados. The Pentland Uprising, full of hope, had been crushed with a bitter blow. But how did it come to this?
Such an uprising was not planned: it was more of an outpouring of frustration, hurt and anger at the injustices of Charles II. The dragoons, or soldiers, had been instructed to force the parishioners to attend the state-controlled Episcopalian services from which their own pastors had been driven out and made homeless. Those who failed to attend were forced to pay fines to the government. This led to faithful Presbyterians going out to outlawed conventicle meetings in remote places to hear their leaders preach. If parishioners refused to pay the fines, soldiers were billeted in their homes, where they abused the women, stole from their hosts, and brought them to poverty. After several years of this kind of injustice, it would only take a spark to kindle a fire. That spark broke out at the small village of Dalry in Galloway on 12 November.
An elderly man was bound by soldiers who were trying to exact a church fine from him. As they threatened to strip him naked and torture him with fire over a gridiron, four young men happened to come into the village from the fields. They rushed to his rescue, and a gun went off in the tussle, leaving a soldier injured. The soldiers surrendered to the villagers who spread the news locally. They realized that if the local commander, Sir James Turner, a brutal man, heard about the incident, he would act with great cruelty. It was determined that 250 men would go to Dumfries and arrest him. He begged for mercy and was graciously spared. The Covenanters were leaderless and not sure what to do, having been driven to intervene because of the inhumane circumstances. A military commander was found in Colonel James Wallace, who gathered the several thousand supporters and led them towards Edinburgh. Foul weather and despairing spirits meant that by the time the Covenanters met General Dalziel’s army, they had been drastically depleted in numbers. The battle was more like the rout of a mob, and their hope of support from Edinburgh a mere mirage. However, an indomitable spirit was rising in thousands who would seek freedom through self-defence in several conflicts, most famously with victory at Drumclog and defeat at Bothwell Brig.
‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion, everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother”’ (Zechariah 7:9-10, NKJV).
Image: Plaque at Rullion Green, from the Scottish Covenanter Memorials Association
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
We resume our account of the period of the Covenanters, after an earlier series on the martyrs. Last week I wrote a special article on her Majesty, the Queen, whose virtue and dedicated Christian faith have been upheld as an example to the 5.1 billion people around the world who viewed her funeral service at Westminster Abbey. It is an extraordinary fact that no monarch had been invited to address the Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland from the time of 1603 until 1969, when her Majesty spoke to both assemblies of the Church of Scotland and Free Church of Scotland, as queen, but also as a normal member of the Presbyterian Church, and not its Head. These days we have a constitutional monarch, which means that the king or queen is not allowed to control either Parliament or the Church. It was this very constitution which the Covenanters had pressed for in their time, but had been viewed as extremists and fanatics by those favouring absolutism of the king.
Let us rejoin our timeline in the year 1662. Charles II had been restored as king in 1660, and now he wanted total control. On 27 May 1662, the Great Charter of Presbytery of 1592 was repealed, thus abolishing the Presbyterian Church, and the king had now become the ‘pope’ over the church in our nation, with his puppet bishops being restored to power in both Church and State. By law the patronage system was introduced, making all ministers in the Church of Scotland subject to the authority of the local landowners and bishops. Either they compromised and accepted, or were thrown out of the church. This was the year which led to about 2,000 ministers in England being ejected, and almost 400 in Scotland. The Abjuration Act was passed by our Parliament, in which it was declared that ‘these oaths, the national covenant, as sworn and explained in 1638, and afterward, and the solemn league and covenant were, and are in themselves unlawful oaths, and imposed against the fundamental laws of the kingdom.’ It was now required that anybody holding offices of responsibility in Scotland, including the church pastors, must renounce the Covenants. By doing this, Charles II was committing blatant perjury, for he had himself signed the Covenants, and had promised to God and the people at his coronation at Scone, to support and uphold the Presbyterian Church. Furthermore, he had the Covenants burned at Linlithgow on 29 May, 1662.
The new oath now required from the people in Scotland was that ‘I acknowledge my said sovereign, only supreme governor of this kingdom, over all persons, and in all causes.’ This would also mean, theoretically, that if Charles II wanted the nation to return to Rome, everyone would have to submit, or be accused of high treason. With hundreds of pastors being driven out from their churches, they became homeless. Soon their loyal parishioners rallied round them to supply their needs and came to hear their beloved pastors preach in remote locations. When the puppet bishops realized what was happening, they alerted the king to make sure laws were passed, banning these gatherings. As time progressed, Scotland would witness the ‘Killing Times’, in which 18,000 faithful Presbyterians would suffer horrendously, or be killed – a subject, which I have already covered.
‘How the faithful city has become a harlot! It was full of justice; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers’ (Isaiah 1:21, NKJV).
Image: Charles II by John Michael Wright, Wikipedia Free Commons: National Portrait Gallery: NPG 531
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
The tour guide was in full throttle. His group stood outside St Giles’ by the brass markers outlining where the old Tolbooth Prison used to stand. ‘Edinburgh was once a hotbed for a group of religious fanatics called Covenanters’, he yelled; ‘today we would regard them as the Islamic State of the 17th century. I’m so glad that we live in a Scotland that celebrates democracy and human rights, and prevents such religious extremism and bigotry.’Many in the group nodded; some even clapped and cheered. Again, our history was being rewritten. It is not just the uninformed tour guides who unwittingly repeat this mistake; even some of our historians and scholars do the same. For example, Professor Tom Devine could say, ‘[The Covenanters] are seen as a sort of Scottish Taleban who would have turned Scotland into a theocracy not unlike modern Iran.’
Are such statements true? Were the Covenanters really religious fanatics and dangerous extremists who would have turned Scotland into a theocracy like Iran? Usually, people who say these things have not dug deep enough in our history, and without realising it, are victims of some of the propaganda of men like Sir George Mackenzie, the chief persecutor of the Covenanters. In his short book written in 1691, called A Vindication of the Government in Scotland during the Reign of King Charles II, he outlines his version of the truth. He wrote that ‘This Paper comes to set Things in their True Light.’He continued: ‘In the year 1637, we liv’d under the most Pious and Orthodox Prince of the Age, and yet a Rebellion was form’d against him, as a Papist, and a Tyrant, by which all the Fundamental Laws were shaken, and all honest Men ruin’d. Neither needs there any other Proof for this Assertion, than the Records of Parliament, General Assemblies, and Justice Court.’
If Charles I was so pious and non-tyrannical, why did he trample over Scottish rights and force the church and nation to be under his authority as Head of the Church, when he knew that what he was doing was illegal? Why did he break English law and violate the rights of the English Parliament? Why would there be fears that even the Magna Carta, our foundational British charter for freedom, would be lost? Why would there be the necessity of going to all the trouble of producing two Covenants for multitudes to sign? To which records before 1637 does Mackenzie allude? The Presbyterian form of church had already been enshrined in the Great Charter by 1592.
‘No man in Scotland ever suffer’d for his Religion’, wrote Sir George Mackenzie, ‘not one died for any Principle in Religion.’ So, what did all those Covenanters die for? ‘They are guilty of atrocious crimes against the whole of Society’, says Mackenzie, and especially because of their defiance of the divine right of the king. In answer to this pamphlet and others, copies of which were being distributed all over Britain, Mackenzie’s contemporary, Revd Robert Wodrow, painstakingly copied up a mass of evidence from legal documents, letters, diaries, church proceedings, and inscriptions, compiling them into four volumes in his book The History of the Suffering of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution. He wrote:
‘There is a Party among us who deny there was any persecution of the Presbyterians for conscience sake in that period… It is boldly asserted and published to the world, that no man in Scotland ever suffered for his religion… Sir George Mackenzie’s Vindication of the Reigns of King Charles and King James, was represented, and carefully spread, with many other pamphlets… perfectly contrary to the knowledge and experience of multitudes yet alive… As an historian, I was chiefly concerned to represent facts… I have charged our Prelates [bishops] with being the first movers of most parts of the persecutions of these times: this is a matter of fact, fully known in Scotland.’ It is no wonder that the Covenanters and their descendants raised epitaphs all over southern and central Scotland in memory of their loved ones, lest we forget. We only have to think about the holocaust deniers to realise how this can happen, and why the Jewish people are so keen to keep their own memory alive.
It is important that we neither demonise the Covenanters, nor follow a 19th century hagiography that elevates them above frail humanity: often we hear of their tears for their own sins and shortcomings. At times, in the bloody war that dragged on and on, liberty seemed like an empty dream: the reality that stalked them on a daily basis was survival, cruelty, false accusations, and death. Mackenzie was correct in bringing to our attention three of the atrocities committed by some of the Covenanters. After the battle of Philiphaugh, near Selkirk, on 13th September 1645, the commanding officer, Sir David Leslie, on the advice of a pastor, had 80 women and children put to death, along with the remaining Royalist soldiers as an example. Two years later he put to death some prisoners of war at Dunaverty Castle. Leslie was haunted by these acts of cruelty for the rest of his life. The third atrocity was in 1679, when nine extremist Covenanters knifed and shot Archbishop James Sharpe in retaliation for his key part in the brutal persecution of their friends. Such an act of murder was condemned by most of the Covenanters.
Desperate times bring out desperation in people. Would you or I have assassinated Hitler during the Second World War, knowing that he was exterminating the Jews and others? Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a gentle teacher and pacifist, but after he saw the dreadful photos of holocaust victims which had been smuggled out of a death camp, he changed his mind and joined with others to plot Hitler’s death, which failed and led to his own execution.
‘In wrath, remember mercy’ (Habakkuk 3:2, NKJV).
Image: Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
If you venture down to Greyfriars’ Kirk graveyard, which these days sees hordes of Harry Potter devotees brandishing their wands and reciting Potterite spells, you will find a large monument at the bottom right of this fascinating corner of Edinburgh. The monument towers above you and recalls the Covenanting struggle. The monument, first erected in 1706, then rebuilt in its 1771 version, has undergone restoration work up until recent times. The curious visitor is held by the opening words: ‘Halt passenger, take heed what you do see…’ The text then outlines the Covenanters’ cause ‘Gainst perjury, resisting unto blood: Adhering to the Covenants and Laws, their lives were sacrific’d unto the lust of Prelatiffs [bishops] abjur’d …’. The words ‘CHRIST their KING’ is deliberately written in large letters, designating their struggle against tyrant kings who wanted absolute power over Church and State. At the bottom of the monument, it states that ‘one way or other [were] Murdered and Destroyed for the same Cause, about Eighteen thousand of whom were execute at Edinburgh, about one hundred of Noblemen, Gentlemen, Ministers and others, noble martyrs for JESUS CHRIST.’
The figure of an estimated 18,000 Covenanters being killed or destroyed for their faith has been contested by some scholars, who think the figure is much lower. However, the estimate can be substantiated, if we look at the data more closely and view the number in terms of people who suffered real harm. John Howie, in the conclusion of his Scots Worthies, a book which once adorned the bookshelves of many homes in Scotland, states that of this number, 1,700 were banished to America, 750 to the northern islands of Scotland, 3,600 were imprisoned, outlawed, or sentenced to be executed when caught, 680 were killed in battle, 7,000 voluntarily left Scotland to escape persecution, 362 were executed after process of law, and 498 were killed without process of law. This figure reaches a total of about 14,590, but it does not include the numbers who died, or suffered with severe cold, disease, hunger, and other distresses.
Michael Shields, a contemporary of the ‘Killing Times’, listed some of Charles II’s acts of ‘cruelty over the bodies of Christians, in chasing and killing upon the fields, many without sentence, and bloody butchering, hanging, heading, mangling, dismembering alive, quartering upon the scaffolds, imprisoning, laying in irons, torturing by boots, thumbkins, fire-matches, cutting pieces out of the ears of others, banishing and selling as slaves old and young men and women in great numbers, oppressing many others in their estates, forfeiting, robbing, spoiling, pillaging their goods, casting them out of their habitations, interdicting any to reset them, under the pain of being treated after the same manner.’
Although the exact numbers of those who suffered as Covenanters for their faith between 1661 and 1688 is not known, the above evidence shows the barbarity of Charles II and James VII. It was certainly a storm of great intensity which broke out on the Covenanting Christians of Scotland in that period. As the tyrannical noose tightened and temptations to compromise abounded, the numbers of the remaining faithful were depleted to the thousands in Scotland. Decried as fanatics and rebels, it was these stalwarts who stood firmly to usher in a new day of liberty for us all.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Image: The Greyfriars’ Martyrs’ Monument in Edinburgh, by Paul James-Griffiths.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
One grey day we arrived at the Martyrs’ Stake in Wigtown. A stillness came upon us as we stood on the wooden boards next to the stone pillar. Well over 300 years have passed since the local people witnessed the deaths of two brave women at this spot. Today, it is surrounded by a bog, but then it was sandy, where the Blednoch runs into the sea. The two women, Margaret McLachlan of Kirkkinner, a widow aged 63, and Margaret Wilson of Glenvernock, a young woman of 18, had been sentenced to death for high treason against King James VII. On 11 May 1685, the two women were ‘tied to the palisades and fixed in the sand within the flood mark, at the mouth of the Blednoch stream, and there to stand till the flood flowed over them and drowned [them].’
Gilbert Wilson, a wealthy farmer, had three children who stood for the Covenants. In 1685, Thomas was 16 years old, Margaret 18, and Agnes 13. In the dark times of persecution, they had fled home and had survived in the caves and dens of the earth, choosing to suffer for their beliefs, rather than to compromise. Their distraught father had been forced by the local council to house and feed up to a hundred soldiers at a time, leaving his family poverty-stricken. When his children were tricked and caught, they were flung into the Thieves Hole where they languished whilst the king’s men decided their fate. Thomas caved in under pressure, and Agnes, being only a child, was released on bail, her father being crippled with a costly fine. Another Covenanter woman arrested was Margaret Maxwell, aged 21, who was the household servant of a local nobleman. She was publicly flogged for three days as a punishment, but the townsfolk refused to turn up to see this injustice.
Although the Privy Council of Edinburgh granted a reprieve to Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson, following petitions for mercy, the local Wigtown council ignored this and pressed on with murdering the two women. They had been falsely accused of attending the battles of Bothwell Brig in 1679 and Airdsmoss in 1680, but they had been at 20 illegal field gatherings and another 20 house gatherings to hear the Bible preaching. When it boiled down to it, they had both refused to take the king’s Oath of Abjuration, submitting to him being the Head of the Church and State. Scottish Parliament had also passed an Act on 8 May 1685, against ‘the fanatical party’ who ‘still keep their house and field conventicles [gatherings], which are nurseries and rendezvouses of rebellion’. The Act continues: ‘Therefore, His Majesty, with consent of Parliament, ordains that all such persons who shall hereafter preach at such house or field conventicles, also those who shall be present as hearers, shall be punished by death and confiscation of their goods.’
Thus, the two Margarets were caught in the mesh designed to separate the faithful Covenanters from the rest of the Presbyterians who had compromised. The soldiers hoped that by staking the older Margaret first on the beach, the younger Margaret would see her suffering and compromise, as she saw her mentor drowning in the incoming tide. Instead, she was strengthened, and called out, ‘I see Christ wrestling there’. After the death of her friend, the crowd called out to the younger Margaret to just say ‘God save the King!’, meaning that she should submit to his absolute rule. ‘God save him, if He will,’ she replied, ‘for it is his salvation I desire.’ After this she read Romans chapter 8, sang some of Psalm 25, then perished in the sea.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Image from 1714, taken from Thomson, John Henderson (1871): A cloud of witnesses, for the royal prerogatives of Jesus Christ : being the last speeches and testimonies of those who have suffered for the truth in Scotland, since the year 1680. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier. pp. 435–442.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
Revd Richard Cameron was either the most loved, or most hated man in Scotland in 1680. He was hailed as a martyr and the Lion of the Covenant by the stalwart covenanting militia in their struggle for freedom; but by the Royalists, Episcopalians and moderate Presbyterians, he was called a ‘fanatic’, and the ‘notorious leader’ of the rebel Covenanters. The price on his head was 5,000 merks, dead or alive. When he was finally killed at Airds Moss in Ayrshire, after a short battle with the king’s men, his head and hands were cut off by the soldiers and taken to Edinburgh. Cameron’s body parts were shown to his father Alan, who was languishing in the Tolbooth prison, and then placed on spikes at the Netherbow Port on the Royal Mile, as a warning to others.
As a friend of Revd Donald Cargill, Cameron was determined to stand fast to the Covenants of 1638 and 1643, which he viewed as a vow to God. Charles II had tried to manipulate the Presbyterians into a compromise with his so-called Indulgences between 1669 and 1679. On the surface, he was extending amnesty to the beleaguered Presbyterians, but in reality, they had to give up their treasured Christian democratic polity and become Episcopalians under the absolute control of the king. Many pastors, weary of the struggles, and desperate to resume their work in the parishes, caved in under this pressure. However, a minority, like Cameron, held fast. The king’s ploy was effective in driving a wedge between the moderate Presbyterians and the covenanting Presbyterians.
One day, on 22 June 1680, Richard Cameron and 20 other Covenanters, rode into the village of Sanquhar, read out a document, sang some Psalms, and nailed the document to the market cross, then rode off again. It was this act of defiance that led to Cameron’s death. The government called the Declaration of Sanquhar an ‘execrable’ document, enacted by Cameron’s ‘Wicked Crew’. So, what was it that made the king’s blood boil? The document lists three necessary reformations in the church to free it from the papacy, prelacy (control by the political bishops), and ‘Erastianism’ (control by the State, or king). It contains the reminder that Scotland is a covenanted nation before God, and that the people ought to ‘disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning (or tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these years byegone’. It recalls that the king is a perjurer and law-breaker, and that he has also usurped both church and parliament in Scotland. The declaration concludes that they ‘do declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper’ in self-defence. Furthermore, it rejects the Duke of York, afterwards King James VII, as an avowed papist, whose intention was to take Scotland back to Rome.
Today, in our comfortable culture, it is easy for critics to castigate Cameron and his followers as fanatics, but few pause to think. In our Scotland of the 21st century, the church enjoys freedom by law from the absolute control of papacy, prelacy, and the State; it also has a constitutional monarch, and a democratic system. We even had a regiment in the British army until 1968, celebrated for its bravery, named the Cameronian Regiment, after Revd Richard Cameron. Are we all ‘fanatics’, then?
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Richard Cameron, Heroes and Heroines of the Scottish Covenanters; Dryerre, J. Meldrum; Partridge & Co London; 1901, Penarc, Wikipedia Commons.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
On the River Ericht, just upstream from Blairgowrie, lies a stunning gorge. This scenery, famous as a beauty spot in Scotland, once witnessed a minister fleeing for his life in 1679 from the dragoons of King Charles II. As the soldiers came in hot pursuit, Revd Donald Cargill leapt the narrow river at the Keith Falls, safely to the other side, leaving the soldiers foiled and fuming. He had often evaded the king’s soldiers, and even those who sought him dead or alive for the king’s ransom of 2000 merks became frustrated. Finally, he was caught and sentenced to death for treason by hanging in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket on 27 July, 1681, along with four other Covenanters.
This man of prayer and resolute boldness had defied King Charles II, causing his wrath to fall. When the king was restored in 1660, 29 May became a compulsory day of celebration for Charles II, enforced by Parliament. Openly disregarding this, Cargill said to his congregation on 29 May, 1662: ‘We are not come here to keep this day upon the account for which others keep it. We thought once to have blessed the day wherein the king came home again, but now we think we shall have reason to curse it; and if any of you come here in order to the solemnising of this day, we desire you to remove.’ Cargill was reported to the authorities for his insubordination and removed from his pastorate at the Barony Church in Glasgow. It was this same year that witnessed the cruel ejecting of about 2,000 English Puritan ministers who had stood by the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, and almost 400 Presbyterian ministers in Scotland. During this period, Cargill became an outlaw and field preacher to crowds of Christians who sought to hold fast to their confession.
After being wounded in the battle between the Covenanters and Royalists at Bothwell Bridge in 1679, Cargill escaped to Holland to recover. By 1680 he was back in Scotland, where he was nearly caught by soldiers at South Queensferry, but they apprehended his accomplice Covenanter called Henry Hall, who had in his possession a document known as The Queensferry Paper. Their enemies called this document ‘A Treasonable and Bloody Paper called the Fanatics New-Covenant’. In this paper, Cargill expounded the gospel and the cause of the Reformation, and called Presbyterians to repent from compromise, but it also rejected Charles II as king, and called for a Christian-based democratic republic, as well as a declaration of self-defence against the king’s soldiers. The text calls for the removal of the worldly control of the king and bishops over the church, and states that Charles II had ‘overturned the fundamental and established laws of the kingdom [of Scotland], taken away altogether Christ’s church-government, and changed the civil government of this land, which was by a king and free parliament, into tyranny’. It is no wonder that the king and his followers’ blood boiled when they read this document. Fanatics, in their eyes, were people who rejected Charles II’s absolute autonomy, and promoted a more fair and just system of church and state.
In his Last Speech and Testimony, which Cargill wrote in the Tolbooth prison in Edinburgh, he exulted in his heavenly homecoming: ‘THIS is the most joyful day that ever I saw in my pilgrimage on earth. My joy is now begun, which I see shall never be interrupted.’ However, he expressed his grief at the compromised state of the Church of Scotland. ‘My soul trembles to think how little of regeneration there is amongst the ministers and professors of Scotland,’ he said.‘O the ministers of Scotland, how have they betrayed Christ’s interest and beguiled souls! ‘They have not entered in themselves, and them that were entering in, they hindered.’ They have sold the things of Christ and liberties of His Church for a short and cursed quiet to themselves.’ How we need to heed his words today.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Image: Revd Donald Cargill’s Queensferry Paper of 1680, as viewed by his enemies. Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
On a cold, dreary day in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, a 26-year-old pastor was led by the soldiers to the hangman’s gallows. It was 17 February, 1688, and he would be the last martyr for the Covenanters’ cause. In less than a year, freedom would finally come for them, but for now a gloom settled on the watching crowd. Revd James Renwick’s joy in the face of death lit up many hearts as he sang part of Psalm 103 on the scaffold, then read a portion of Scripture from his Bible. Pouring out his heart to God, he raised his voice: ‘Lord, I die in the faith that Thou wilt not leave Scotland, but that Thou wilt make the blood of Thy witnesses the seed of Thy Church, and return again, and be glorious in our land. And now, Lord, I am ready — the bride, the Lamb’s wife, hath made herself ready.’
As the napkin was put around his face, he addressed his friend next to him: ‘Farewell. Be diligent in duty. Make your peace with God, through Christ. There is a great trial coming. As to the remnant I leave, I have committed them to God. Tell them from me not to weary, nor be discouraged in maintaining the testimony. Let them not quit nor forego one of these despised truths. Keep your ground, and the Lord will provide you teachers and ministers, and when He comes, He will make these despised truths glorious upon the earth.’ On the ladder he cried out, ‘Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit, for Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth.’ The trapdoor was released, and finally his kicking body came to rest.
Before his execution the captain of the guard had expressed his surprise at Renwick because of his small stature and youthful look. ‘What?’ he said, ‘Is this the boy Renwick that the nation hath been so much troubled with?’ Renwick: beloved by those who stood faithfully for the Reformation and the Covenants, but hated by the compromisers and sycophants of King James II (VII of England). Having watched the execution of the Revd Donald Cargill at Mercat Cross in Edinburgh, he had decided to throw in his lot with the persecuted minority of Scotland. When in 1684 he had drawn up a document called the Apologetical Declaration and dispersed copies of it throughout parts of Scotland, he was sealing his death. In defiance of the Act of Supremacy of 1669, which stated that ‘his majesty has the supreme authority and supremacy over all persons and in all causes ecclesiastical within this kingdom’, and the annulling of the Covenants, he had written:
‘We Declare our firm resolution of constant Adherence to our Covenants & engagements… we have disowned the authority of Charles Stewart… And wherein also we have Declared war against him & his accomplices, such as lay out themselves to promote his wicked & hellish designs. Therefore, that therein our mind may be the more clearly understood, & for preventing further mistakes anent our purposes, We do hereby jointly & unanimously Testify & declare; that as we utterly detest and abhor that hellish principle of killing all who differ in judgment or persuasion from us, it having no bottom upon the word of God or right reason; so we look upon it as a duty binding upon us, to publish openly unto the world, That, forasmuch as we are firmly & really purposed not to injure or offend any whomsoever, but to pursue the ends of our Covenants, in standing to the defence of our glorious work of Reformation…’
Regarded by the king’s men as fanatics, and by modern liberals, as being extremists comparable with the Islamic State, Renwick and his supporters have been unfairly dismissed. After all, today in Britain we enjoy the benefits of freedom for our religious and civil rights because the tyranny of the kings was overthrown and the presbyterian democratic polity inspired Parliament.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Image: James Renwick on his way to be hanged in the Grassmarket, via West Bow, off the Royal Mile: Thomas Allom, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
Seldom has Edinburgh’s Royal Mile witnessed such an open display of weeping by so many. Large crowds had gathered at Mercat Cross near St Giles and the window places along that section of the street were packed. A young man was being roughly dragged up to the scaffold to be hanged for high treason against King Charles II. Revd Hugh McKail, a 26-year-old minister of Christ, had angered the authorities, and now he must be punished as a rebel.
In September 1662, when McKail had only been a minister for less than a year, he had had the opportunity to preach in St Giles. Being a committed Covenanter, like his father, he had stood for the National Covenant. During his last recorded sermon, he made a veiled reference to Charles II, the Earl of Middleton, and Archbishop James Sharp, when he said that the Bible gave abundant ‘evidence that the people of God have been persecuted, sometimes by Pharaoh upon the throne, sometimes by a Haman in the state, and sometimes by a Judas in the church.’ The believers may have been edified, but the king’s spies reported him as a trouble-maker.
McKail was a respected, godly, and scholarly young man, whose work was partially to educate the children of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir James Stewart. Having been tipped off by friends that he would be arrested for high treason, McKail fled to Holland, just before the soldiers arrived. After lying low for some years, he made his way back to Scotland. Hearing about the injustice against the people by the government soldiers, he joined a protest march known as the Pentland Rising, which began in Ayr and continued towards Edinburgh, collecting supporters as it went. With the onset of a blasting November wind, the thousands-strong protest movement began to lose momentum. Hugh McKail was of a frail constitution, and although he was determined to walk the whole way to Edinburgh, he was forced to give up after nine miles. He never witnessed the ‘Battle’ of Rullion Green at Colinton, with its defeat at the hands of the soldiers, but he trudged on back home. When soldiers found a small sword on him, he was immediately arrested and sent to the Tolbooth prison in Edinburgh. Despite suffering the agonizing torture of the boot, which gradually crushed his knee, he refused to inform on his friends.
On 22 December 1666, he was taken to the scaffold, in great pain and with a high fever due to the maiming of his body. Despite the pain, McKail addressed the huge crowd, exhorting them to stand for Christ, the Reformation and the Covenants. ‘Now I leave off to speak any more with created beings and begin my communion with God, which shall never be broken off,’ he said. ‘Farewell, father and mother, friends and relations! Farewell, the world and all delights! Farewell meat and drink! Farewell, sun, moon and stars! Welcome, God and Father! Welcome, sweet Lord Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant! Welcome, blessed Spirit of grace, God of all consolation! Welcome glory! Welcome eternal life! Welcome death!’ With that, the trapdoor was released, leaving his cousin Matthew to be allowed to cling to his body to speed up the death process on the hangman’s gibbet. The speech and life of McKail caused ‘such a lamentation as was never known in Scotland before, not one dry cheek upon all the street, or in all the numberless windows in the market-place.’ His body was prepared for burial in Magdalene Chapel in the Cowgate, and buried in the Covenanters’ grave at Greyfriars’ Kirk.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Image: The execution of Hugh McKail at the Mercat Cross, on the Royal Mile, near St Giles. Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
Down in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, a plaque records the 110 Covenanters who were executed by hanging there, and elsewhere in the city, between 1661 and 1688. The third entry simply says, ’22 July 1663, Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, Architect of the National Covenant’. Lord Warriston was one of the chief leaders of the covenanting movement, and as a lawyer he was the man responsible for constructing the legal part of the 1638 National Covenant document. As such, he became a special target during Charles II’s purging of Scotland.
Although Warriston’s diary had been known about, it went missing until 1896 and 1906 when sections were discovered. Unfortunately, 1639-1650 has still been lost, but what we have is invaluable for this period of our turbulent history. In his diary we do not find the ramblings of some extremist, but rather the heart of a deeply compassionate man who loved God. ‘I began to tremble,’ he wrote when experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit as he confessed his sins, ‘my soul ever crying with utterance, ‘God’s mercy, God’s mercy, God’s mercy… ‘Father, glorify thyself in my life and death’… I thought at this time that my Jesus took my heart in his hand and knit it and wrapped it within the heart of God, so that I found God as it were within my heart, possessing and filling all the wounds and holes thereof… God was mine, yes, fully mine; and I was his, yes, totally his…’
As he prayed between 3.00 and 6.00 am on 23 April 1637, God was preparing him for what would come. ‘The Lord makes me to apprehend that this clear day will have a dark night’, he wrote,‘and this fair calm will have a foul storm.’ As he and his wife Helen prepared themselves for the storm which would come, he was requested by the leaders of Edinburgh to use his lawyer’s skill to draw up the legal section of the National Covenant. This section was taken from the Acts of Scottish Parliament which promised to uphold the Scottish Protestant Church. On 27 February 1638 he read out the National Covenant to the leaders and ministers for their combined critique, with only two words being changed. The next day the lords, barons and nobles signed the first copy in Greyfriars’ Kirk.
As he travelled around parts of Scotland explaining the document to packed congregations, over and over again, there were scenes of weeping and confessing the sins of compromise in the church. On 1 April 1638, in St Giles in the Royal Mile, after the lords Loudon, Montrose, Boyd and Balmerino put up their right hand in agreement, the congregation did the same, and ‘there rose such a yelloch [tumult], such abundance of tears, such heavenly harmony of sighs and sobs, universally through all the corners of the church, as the like was never seen nor heard of. The Spirit of the Lord so filled the sanctuary…’ For Warriston it was more than he could have imagined, causing him to pen the following words: ‘The Lord make us never forget his presence in it, but rather make us tell it to our posterity, and make us walk worthy of it, within the compass of this Covenant… O Edinburgh, Edinburgh, never forget this day of April, the gloriest day that ever you enjoyed.’
Alexander Henderson had been asked by John Pym, the Puritan and Parliamentarian leader of England, to draw up the 1643 Solemn League and Covenant, which combined a covenant for religious freedom, along with the liberty of Parliament and civil rights. A team of eight was chosen to travel down to London, including Warriston. Everywhere they went they were treated as heroes, but after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, they were branded as fanatics and rebels. A warrant for his arrest went out on 1 February 1661, but he had already fled to Europe. He was captured in France, then sent to the Tower of London, before being taken to the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. He was hanged on 22 July 1663, just yards from his own house near Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile, and just a stone’s throw from St Giles where he had witnessed the ‘gloriest day’ that Edinburgh ever enjoyed. His head was cut off and impaled by the soldiers on the Netherbow Port, and was years later buried with his body in Greyfriars’ Kirkyard.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints’ (Psalm 116:15, NKJV).
Image: Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston: George Jamesone, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
