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 GUTHRIE,
JAMES, one of the most zealous of the protesters, as they were called,
during the religious troubles in the 17th century, was the son
of the laird of Guthrie, an ancient and highly respectable family. Guthrie
was educated at St Andrews, where, having gone through the regular course
of classical learning, he commenced teacher of philosophy, and was much
esteemed, as well for the equanimity of his temper as for his erudition.
His religious principles in the earlier part of his life are said to have
been highly prelatical, and, of course, opposite to those which he
afterwards adopted, and for which, in the spirit of a martyr, he
afterwards died. His conversion from the forms in which he was first bred,
is attributed principally to the influence of Mr Samuel Rutherford,
minister of Anwoth, himself a zealous and able defender of the Scottish
church, with whom he had many opportunities of conversing.
In 1638 Mr Guthrie was
appointed minister of Lauder, where he remained for several years, and
where he had already become so celebrated as to be appointed one of the
several ministers selected by the committee of estates, then sitting in
Edinburgh, to wait upon the unfortunate Charles I. at Newcastle, when it
was learned that the unhappy monarch had delivered himself up to the
Scottish army encamped at Newark.
In 1649, Mr Guthrie was
translated from, Lauder to Stirling, where he remained until his death.
While in this charge he continued to distinguish himself by the zeal and
boldness with which he defended the covenant, and opposed the resolutions
in favour of the king (Charles II.). He was now considered leader of the
protesters, a party opposed to monarchy, and to certain indulgences
proposed by the sovereign and sanctioned by the committee of estates, and
who were thus contra-distinguished from the resolutioners, which
comprehended the greater part of the more moderate of the clergy.
Mr Guthrie had, in the
meantime, created himself a powerful enemy in the earl of Middleton, by
proposing to the commission of the General Assembly to excommunicate him
for his hostility to the church; the proposal was entertained, and Guthrie
himself was employed to carry it into execution in a public manner in the
church of Stirling. It is related by those who were certainly no friends
to Guthrie, regarding this circumstance, that on the morning of the
Sabbath on which the sentence of excommunication was to be carried into
effect against Middleton, a messenger, a nobleman it is said, arrived at
Mr Guthrie’s house with a letter from the king, earnestly requesting him
to delay the sentence for that Sabbath. The bearer, waiting until he had
read the letter, demanded an answer. Guthrie is said to have replied, "you
had better come to church and hear sermon, and after that you shall have
your answer." The messenger complied; but what was his surprise, when he
heard the sentence pronounced in the usual course of things, as if no
negotiation regarding it had taken place. On the dismission of the
congregation, he is said to have taken horse and departed in the utmost
indignation, and without seeking any further interview with Guthrie. It is
certain that a letter was delivered to Guthrie, of the tenor and under the
circumstances just mentioned, but it was not from the king, but, according
to Wodrow, on the authority of his father who had every opportunity of
knowing the fact, from a nobleman. Who this nobleman was, however, he does
not state, nor does he take it upon him to say, even that it was written
by the king’s order, or that he was in any way privy to it..
However this may be, it is stated further, on the authority just alluded
to, that the letter in question was put into Mr Guthrie’s hands in the
hall of his own house, after he had got his gown on, and was about to
proceed to church, the last bell having just ceased ringing; having little
time to decide on the contents of the letter, he gave no positive answer
to the messenger, nor came under any promise to postpone the sentence of
excommunication: with this exception the circumstance took place as
already related.
Soon after the Restoration,
Mr Guthrie and some others of his brethren, who had assembled at
Edinburgh, for the purpose of drawing up what they called a
supplication to his majesty, and who had already rendered themselves
exceedingly obnoxious to the government, were apprehended and lodged in
the castle of Edinburgh; from thence Mr Guthrie was removed to Dundee, and
afterwards back again to Edinburgh, where he was finally brought to trial
for high treason, on the 20th of February, 1661; and, notwithstanding an
able and ingenious defence, was condemned to death, a result in no small
degree owing to the dishlike which Middleton bore him for his
officiousness in the matter of his excommunication, and which that
nobleman had not forgotten.
It is said that Guthrie had
been long impressed with the belief that he should die by the hands of the
executioner, and many singular circumstances which he himself noted from
time to time, and pointed out to his friends, strengthened him in this
melancholy belief. Amongst these it is related, that when he came to
Edinburgh to sign the solemn league and covenant, the first person he met
as he entered at the West Port was the public executioner. On this
occasion, struck with the singularity of the circumstance, and looking
upon it as another intimation of the fate which awaited him, he openly
expressed his conviction, that he would one day suffer for the things
contained in that document which he had come to subscribe.
Whilst under sentence of
death, Guthrie conducted himself with all the heroism of a martyr. Sincere
and enthusiastic in the cause which he had espoused, he did not shrink
from the last penalty to which his adherence to it could subject him, but,
on the contrary, met it with cheerfulness and magnanimity. On the night
before his execution he supped with some friends, and conducted himself
throughout the repast as if he had been in his own house. He ate heartily,
and after supper asked for cheese, a luxury which he had been long
forbidden by his physicians; saying jocularly, that he need not now fear
gravel, the complaint for which he had been restricted from it. Soon after
supper he retired to bed, and slept soundly till four o’clock in the
morning, when he raised himself up and prayed fervently. On the night
before, he wrote some letters to his friends, and sealed them with his
coat of arms, but while the wax was yet soft, he turned the seal round and
round so as to mar the impression, and when asked why he did so, replied,
that he had now nothing to do with these vanities. A little before coming
out of the tolbooth to proceed to execution, his wife embracing him said,
"Now, my heart," her usual way of addressing him, "your time is drawing
nigh, and I must take my last farewell of you."—"Ay, you must," he
answered, "for henceforth I know no man after the flesh." Before being
brought out to suffer, a request was made to the authorities by his
friends, to allow him to wear his hat on the way to the scaffold, and also
that they would not pinion him until he reached the place of execution.
Both requests were at first denied; the former absolutely, because, as was
alleged, the marquis of Argyle, who had been executed a short while
before, had worn his hat, in going to the scaffold; in a manner markedly
indicative of defiance and contempt, and which had given much offence. To
the latter request, that he might not be pinioned, they gave way so far,
on a representation being made that he could not walk without his staff,
on account of the rose being in one of his legs, as to allow him so much
freedom in his arms as to enable him to make use of that support, but they
would not altogether dispense with that fatal preparation. Having ascended
the scaffold, he delivered with a calm and serene countenance an
impressive address to those around him; justified all for which he was
about to suffer, and recommended all who heard him to adhere firmly to the
covenant. After hanging for some time, his head was struck off and placed
on the Netherbow Port, where it remained for seven and twenty years, when
it was taken down and buried by a Mr Alexander Hamilton at the hazard of
his own life. The body, after being beheaded, was carried to the Old Kirk,
where it was dressed by a number of ladies who waited its arrival for that
purpose; many of whom, besides, dipped their napkins in his blood, that
they might preserve them as memorials of so admired a martyr. While these
gentlewomen were in the act of discharging this pious duty, a young
gentleman suddenly appeared amongst them, and without any explanation,
proceeded to pour out a bottle of rich perfume on the dead body. "God
bless you, sir, for this labour of love," said one of the ladies, and then
without uttering a word, this singular visitor departed. He was, however,
afterwards discovered to be a surgeon in Edinburgh named George Stirling.
Guthrie was executed on the 1st of June, 1661. |
