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“Tyrants! Could not misfortune teach
That man has rights beyond your reach?
Thought ye the torture and the stake
Could that intrepid spirit break,
Which even in women’s breast withstood
The terrors of the fire and flood!”
The Scottish Reformation
which proved the outcome of John Knox’s preaching was, as Carlyle
observed, “the one epoch in the history of Scotland.” The internal life of
the country was then kindled: after a prolonged period of slumber Scotland
at length rose from the dead. The Covenants were the natural product of
this resurrection, and were destined to be, in the words of the martyr
James Guthrie, “Scotland’s reviving.” But a country that was in the throes
of such a revival had necessarily to pass through a period of persecution
and bloodshed. The lives and liberties of her sons were freely sacrificed
upon the altar of patriotism and principle. Nor were her daughters exempt
from the persecution of these tyrannical times.
The martyrology of Scotland
supplies many examples of feminine heroism: Catherine Douglas,
immortalised as the “Kate Barlass” whose self-sacrifice delayed but could
not avert the murder of James I.; Isabella, Countess of Buchan, the
intrepid old lady who claimed the ancestral privilege of crowning Robert
Bruce at Scone in 1305, and thereby suffered four years’ imprisonment in a
wooden cage in one of the outer turrets of Berwick Castle; Jane Douglas,
Lady Glamis, who was burnt alive on Castle Hill, Edinburgh, in the sight
of her husband, on a trumped-up charge of designing to poison James V.;
and many others. And, in the Covenanting days, women of all classes were
haled to the prison-house or to the stake, languished in the gloomy
dungeons of Dunottar Castle, were branded on the cheek and transported to
America, or perished in the waters of the Solway, victims of the bigotry
and prejudice of a narrow-minded age.
The Scottish Presbyterians
of the seventeenth century were engaged in a hard fight for a continuance
of that religious liberty which their forefathers had long enjoyed. And
when a royal hand attempted to enforce the adoption of the obnoxious
English liturgy, they preferred persecution and death itself to admitting
the divine right of kings to impose their will upon the conscience of
their subjects. They had been strongly attached to Presbytery for many
years. It was the form of church government which King Charles I. had
promised to preserve. When, therefore, he proceeded to restore Episcopacy,
declaring the Solemn League and Covenant unlawful, investing himself with
the sole right of deciding all ecclesiastical and civil affairs – an act,
as Bishop Burnet says, which was “only fit to be concluded after a drunken
bout” [“It shook all possible security for the future, and laid down a
most pernicious precedent. It was a roaring time, full of extravagance.
And no wonder it was so, when the men of affairs were almost perpetually
drunk.” –Burnet’s History of His Own Times.] – he succeeded in
arousing in the bosoms of the Covenanters the strongest sense of injustice
and a spirit of the most inflexible opposition. Further, when the renegade
Sharp, who had gone to London to represent the Presbyterian view of the
case, was induced by the offer of the archbishopric of St. Andrews to
betray his trust, less venal Scotsmen were fully justified in adopting the
most drastic measures to prove their own unswerving loyalty to the sacred
Covenant.
A period of religious
persecution of an extremely rigorous kind ensued. Parliament, by the
king’s command, ordered all ministers who had been admitted to parishes
since 1649 to receive collation from the bishops or else leave their
churches. The places of the three or four hundred who preferred the latter
course were filled by youthful curates, many of them incompetent, some
quite unworthy to officiate. As a result, Presbyterians very naturally
discontinued their attendance at the parish kirk, flocking instead to the
meetings which the dismissed ministers began to hold in the fields. To
counteract this desertion, the authorities, moved by the protest of the
Episcopalian clergy, decreed in 1663 that all who absented themselves from
their parish kirks on the Lord’s Day should incur stringent penalties. [“Each
nobleman, gentleman, and heritor, the loss of a fourth of each year’s
rent; and each yeoman or tenant the loss of such part of their movables as
the Lords of Council shall modify, not exceeding a fourth; and every
burgess his liberty, and the fourth of his movables.”] Women were not
included in this Act, but, as they were the chief offenders, [The Earl
of Rothes, writing to the Earl of Lauderdale in 1665, on the subject of
field meetings, declares that the women were mostly to blame, being
stirred up by the ministers until they became “worse than devils.” “I dear
say, (he adds) if it uear not for the uimin uie should have litile trubell
with conventickils or such caynd of stuff, bot ther ar such a ffulith
(foolish) jenerasione of pipill in this cuntrie who ar so influensied with
ther fanatick uayffs (wives) as I thinck will bring reuin upon them.”
(Lauderdale Papers, vol. i. p.234.)] it was soon found necessary to
hold their husbands responsible for their misdoings. “Not many gentlemen
of estate,” says Kirkton, “durst come to the field meetings, but many
ladies, gentlemen, and commons came in great multitude.” Thus it came
about that women, whose only crime lay in non-attendance at church, were
not only a cause of persecution to their husbands, but were themselves
insulted, fined, imprisoned. [The following list of the fines imposed
by inferior courts in the single shire of Roxburgh is given in Woodrow’s
History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, vol. iv. p.52.
(The penalties imposed by the Council, from which there was no appeal, are
not included.)
Lady Chesters . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . £14,780
Lady Mangerton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,974
“ “ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Lady Castles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,500
Lady Tempendean . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,405
Lady Hassendean Scot . . . . . . . . . . 2,146
Lady Fotherly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Lady Cranston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,657
“ “ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,412
Lady Garinberry . . . . . . . . . . . 5,700
Lady Craigend . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
----------
£68,861]
Ill-treatment, however,
only served to fan the flame of their enthusiasm to a white heat.
Among those who were most
zealous in the Covenanting cause we find the names of the Duchesses of
Rothes and Hamilton, the Countess of Wigtown, Lady Kenmure, Lady Colvill,
and many another well-known in Scotland. Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, was a
particularly active partisan of the Covenanters. After the battle of
Bothwell Bridge, when a number of them took refuge in the woods round
Hamilton Palace, she successfully interposed to prevent the soldiers from
continuing their pursuit of the fugitives. Her grandmother had achieved
even greater distinction by the personal resistance she offered to
Episcopacy. In 1639 Charles I. sent a fleet to Leith to enforce his views
upon the religious enthusiasts of that locality. Lady Hamilton, [Lady
Anne Cunningham, daughter of the 7th Earl of Glencairn, and
wife of the 2nd Marquis of Hamilton.] whose son was in
command of the king’s naval force, appeared on the seashore with a brace
of pistols at her saddle-bow, loaded with balls of gold – it was supposed
that lead bullets could not pierce the magic armour of the devil’s agents
– and personally opposed his landing.
[“The Covenanters
conveened in great Numbers of Horse and Foot on both sides of the River
Forth, to impede his landing (which he made no great Haste to do)
and among the many comical Inventions of theirs for that Purpose one was,
That his zealous Mother came riding to Leith, at the Head of some
arm’d Troops, with two Cases of Pistols at her sadle, protesting that she
would kill her Son with her own two Hands, if he did venture to land in an
hostile Manner.” – The History of the Ancient Noble and Illustrious
Family of Gordon from the year 1576 to 1699, vol. ii. p.280. (Edin.,
1729.)]
But the ladies of the
Covenant did not enjoy a monopoly of this militant form of religious
partisanship. Another Amazon, Ann Keith, Lady Methven, as keen in her
hatred of Presbytery as the King himself, expressed her feelings with
equal violence against the Covenanters. While her husband was away in
London, it came to her knowledge that a field meeting was being held on
his estate. Lady Methven thereupon assembled a force of sixty armed men,
and proceeded to charge the conventicler-holders, who were about a
thousand strong. With less valour than discretion the Covenanters retired
before the attack of this infuriated lady, who celebrated her victory by
attending a service at the parish church with her triumphant force. [“My
blessed love” (she wrote to her husband of this occasion), “if the
fanaticks chance to kill me, it shall not be for noucht … in the
strength of the Lord God of Heaven, I’ll hazard my person with the men of
my command, before these rebells rest where ye have power; sore I miss
yow, but now mor as ever.” Scott’s Works, vol. xix. Pp.270-1.]
Another anti-Covenanting woman, whose husband had been ordered to appear
before the court at Glasgow on a charge of attending conventicles,
presented herself before the astonished judges and begged them to pass
sentence of death upon him. “He is a rebel!” she declared with fervour;
“hang him, my lords!” The judges, however, on discovering that it was the
culprit’s wife who was making this frantic appeal for his punishment,
ordered his name to be scored out of the roll of misdemeanants. “That poor
man suffers enough already at home!” they said. [Woodrow’s
Analecta, vol. ii. p.114.]
As the resistance of the
Covenanters grew more strenuous and determined, the authorised persecution
became more bitter. Neither the age nor sex of the victims was any
security against ill-treatment. [See A Hind Let Loose, by
Alexander Shields, p.15. (1687)] In 1681 a pair of youthful martyrs,
Isabel Alison and Marion Harvie – the latter a domestic servant – were
sentenced to death by the Justiciary for attending field preachings and
commenting adversely upon the barbarity of the soldiers. Both, and Napier
says, were “amply gifted with godliness, and the grace of unshaken
obstinacy.” [Life and Times of John Graham of Claverhouse, vol, i.
p.303. ] On the scaffold they joined in singing the Thirteenth Psalm,
thereby drowning the voice of the curate who had been ordered to preach to
them. Marion assured the assembled multitude that she was dying with a
light heart. “I am come here today,” she said, “for avowing Christ to be
head of His Church. O seek Him and ye shall find him! I sought Him and
found Him; I held Him, and would not let Him go!”
In 1685 we read of six
women being branded and transported to New Jersey for a similar offence. [Woodrow’s
History of the Sufferings of the Church, vol, iv. P.218.] This
same year saw the tragic death of the two wretched women, Margaret
McLauchlin and Margaret Wilson, now known to fame as the Wigtown martyrs.
Margaret Wilson was the
elder of the two daughters of Gilbert Wilson, a Lowland farmer of moderate
means. He himself had agreed to conform to the Established Church, but
both his daughters resolutely declined to do so. As was customary in such
cases, the authorities visited the sins of the children upon the father by
quartering a large body of troops upon his farm, in whose hands the
unfortunate man saw his stock rapidly disappearing, and was finally
reduced to beggary. Meanwhile, Margaret, a girl of eighteen, and her small
sister Agnes, who was five years younger, ran away from home and lay for
some time concealed in the woods near Wigtown. Here they were eventually
found by an informer, and presently dragged before the local military
tribunal. Gilbert Wilson succeeded in persuading the authorities to
reprieve his youngest daughter on payment of a fine of £100. but Margaret
was condemned to death, in spite of all her father’s efforts on her
behalf. Margaret McLauchlin was an elderly widow of humble rank, whose
crime of non-conformity had gained for her a sentence similar to that of
her younger co-religionist.
Mark Napier, the
self-constituted apologist for the official brutalities inflicted at this
time, ingenuously remarks that “a humane order had been issued by the
Privy Council that women, if condemned to death, were to suffer simply
by drowning, and neither to be hanged nor mangled.” [The Case for the
Crown in re the Wigtown Martyrs, by Mark Napier, p.83. (1863.)] But
it may be wondered whether the victims themselves were ever sufficiently
appreciative of such humanity.
On the day appointed for
their execution the two women were led down together to the banks of the
Solway and bound to stakes set in the sand on the seashore where the
incoming tide would gradually rise and suffocate them. In order to
frighten the younger woman – perhaps with a merciful idea of terrifying
her into renouncing her obstinate religious opinions and thus gaining a
reprieve – she was fastened to a stake nearer the shore than her
companion, whose slow struggle with death she was consequently compelled
to watch. The sight did not, however, have the desired effect of cooling
her ardour; if anything, it seems to have strengthened her convictions.
When the waters finally overwhelmed the first victim, Margaret Wilson was
asked what she thought of such a fate. “What do I see but Christ wrestling
there?” she replied. “Ye think that we are sufferers? No. It is Christ in
us, for He will send none a warfare of his own charge.” By this time the
waves had risen rapidly about her, and when they reached her lips she
fainted away. Whereupon the brutes who had charge of the execution
unloosed her from the stake and revived her, bidding her, as a last hope
of pardon, pray for the King. Margaret answered that she prayed for all
men, since she desired the salvation of all. Some of her friends now
approached and earnestly begged her to say “God save the King!” “God save
him if He will,” she replied, “for it is his salvation that I desire.” The
officer in command, Major Windram by name, then asked her to take the
oath, but she stoutly refused. “I am one of Christ’s children,” she
declared, “Let me go!” Seeing that it was useless to argue with her any
further, the soldiers thrust her back into the water and held her down
with their spears until she was drowned. The martyrdom of these two women
– of whom it may truly be said that
“Persecution dragged them
into fame
And chased them up to
heaven”
- is commemorated by two monuments erected in their
memory. [The one at Wigtown, in the form of a cone-shaped pillar
supporting an urn, is inscribed as follows:-
“Here lyes Margaret Lachlane, who was by
unjust law sentenced to dye by Lagg, surnamed Grier, Strachane, Winram,
and Grame, and tyed to a stake within the flood for her adherence to
Scotland’s Reformation Covenants, National and Solemn League, aged 63,
1685.”
The other monument, to
the memory of Margaret Wilson, is at Stirling, and bears the inscription:-
HERE LYES MARGRAT
WILLSON, DOUGHTER TO GILLBERT WILSON, IN GLENVERNOCH, WHO WAS DROUNED ANNO
1685, AGED 18.
LET EARTH AND STONE
STILL WITNES BEARE
THEIR LYES A VIRGINE
MARTYRE HERE
MURTHER’D FOR OUNING
CHRIST SUPREAME,
HEAD OF HIS CHURCH AND
NO MORE CRIME
BUT NOT ABJURING
PRESBYTRY.
AND HER NOT OUNING
PRELACY
THEY HER CONDEMN’D BY
UNJUST LAW;
OF HEAVEN NOR HELL THEY
STOOD NO AW
WITHIN THE SEA TY’D TO A
STAKE
SHE SUFFERED FOR CHRIST
JESUS’ SAKE.
THE ACTORS OF THIS CRUEL
CRIME
WAS LAGG, STRACHAN,
WINRAM, AND GRHAME.
NEITHER YOUNG YEARES NOR
YET OLD AGE
COULD STOP THE FURY OF
THEIR RAGE.”]
Almost synchronously with
the date on which the Wigtown martyrs were executed, another woman in an
equally humble sphere of life displayed a spirit as courageous as theirs,
though under somewhat different circumstances. Isobel Weir was the second
wife of John Brown, and Ayrshire peasant, a carrier by profession and the
mildest and most harmless of men. She and her husband had been married in
1682 by Alexander Peden. This famous minister had taken the opportunity of
including in his address to the bride a prophecy which was scarcely
calculated to promote the cheerfulness of the wedding ceremony. “Isobel,”
he said, “you have got a good man to be your husband, but you will not
enjoy him long. Prize his company, and keep linen by you to be his
winding-sheet, for you will need it when you are not looking for it, and
it will be a bloody one.” (While admiring the prophetic instinct of Mr.
Peden, one may be truly thankful that the clergy of the present day are
not addicted to interspersing such remarks into the marriage service.)
Three years later, as John
Brown was returning home one evening, he was arrested by Claverhouse’s
troopers, and led back to his own house, where his wife and children were
awaiting him. The bloodthirsty “Clavers,” who was present, expressed his
intention of having the carrier shot at once, but gave the doomed man a
few moments to prepare himself for death. Three times did the soldier
interrupt Brown in his loud and somewhat protracted devotions, saying that
he had given him time to pray, not to preach. “Sir,” answered the
condemned man, “you know neither the nature of preaching nor praying if
you call this preaching.” Then, turning to his wife, he reminded her of
Peden’s gloomy warning, and asked her if she were willing to part with
him. “I am heartily willing,” said she. “This is all I desire,” replied
her husband, “I have nothing more to do but to die.” He then gave her his
blessing, commended his children to her care, and placed himself at the
disposal of the dragoons. These men, touched no doubt by so affecting a
scene, showed signs of nervousness and seemed unwilling to murder their
prisoner. But Claverhouse, whether because he feared that his troopers
might bungle the execution, or in the interests of military discipline,
drew his pistol and himself shot Brown through the head.
“What do you think of your
husband now?” he brutally inquired of Isobel as she knelt over the dead
body.
“I aye thocht muckle o’
him, sir,” she replied. “But never sae muckle as I do this day.”
“I would think little to
lay thee beside him!”
“If you were permitted,
sir, I doubt not you would; but how are ye to answer for this morning’s
work?”
“To men I can be
answerable,” said Clavers, “and as for God, I will take him in my own
hands!”
Mark Napier has drawn a
flattering portrait of Graham of Claverhouse, in which that general
appears as a polished scholar, a gallant soldier, and a gentleman engaged
in an unpleasant duty which he performed with firmness but tolerance. [The
bravest commander, and one of the most distinguished and proudest
gentlemen who graced the highest society in those days.”- Life and
Times of John Graham of Claverhouse, vol. i. p.11.] Doubtless
Graham’s methods were not those of that notorious persecutor, Sir Robert
Grierson, laird of Lagg, who held burning matches between the fingers of
mere girls in order to make them divulge the whereabouts of their fathers
and brothers. Nor was he a murderous ruffian like General Dalziel, who
thrust women into pits filled with toads and snakes because they were
loyal to their persecuted kinsmen or supplied hunted refugees with food.
But if the story of Isobel Weir be true – and doubts have been cast upon
it – one must admit that Macauley’s picture [“A soldier of
distinguished courage and professional skill, but rapacious and profane,
of violent temper and of obdurate heart [who] has left a name which,
wherever the Scottish race is settled on the face of the globe, is
mentioned with a peculiar energy of hatred.”] of the famous Dundee is
more likely to be a correct one that that of his biographer. Sir Walter
Scott does not seem able to make up his mind as to the character of the
“bloody Clavers.” At one moment he calls him “fierce, unbending, and
rigorous,” and declares that “no emotion of compassion prevented his
commanding and witnessing every detail of military execution against the
nonconformists.” [Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p.62.] At another we
find him telling a friend that Graham was “every inch a soldier and a
gentleman.” [Lockhart’s Life of Scott.] And in Old Mortality
[Vol. ii. p54.] he says that he “united the seemingly inconsistent
qualities of courage and cruelty, a disinterested and devoted loyalty to
his prince, with a disregard of the rights of his fellow-subjects.”
Sir Walter was not at all
disinclined to ridicule the Covenanters and laugh at the rigour of the
extreme Calvinists, though his sympathetic drawing of the blind widow,
Bessie MacClure, sitting in her blue gown by the wayside to warn the
hillfolk, makes amends for a few unjust caricatures. No doubt there was
many a Gabriel Kettledrummle, many a Habakuk Mucklewraith, in the camp of
the Covenanters. [Lord Cockburn in his Journal (vol. ii. p.80)
gives an example of the survival of the old covenanting spirit. A poor
woman, named Jenny Fraser, occupied a few yards of ground in one of the
Duke of Buccleuch’s parishes in Edinburgh, which, it was discovered, were
not his, but hers, “being the only spot in that inconvenient condition.”
Jenny was offered a huge price for it, but declined, saying, “Na, na. It
cam’ frae the Lord, an’ the Lord wants’t again he shall hae’t,” A Free
Church was eventually erected on this site.] But the religious
enthusiasts of Scotland were not all grim fanatics, devoid of humour and
with the narrowest sense of right and wrong. Even in those serious time
people could be good without being gloomy. John Knox himself sometimes
spoke scornfully of the fair sex, and might well be considered an ascetic.
But he, too, as we know from Stevenson, relied very largely upon the
sympathy of women, and was in the habit of giving small but by no means
unconvivial supper-partied to his friends. Even when he was dying, and
some guests turned up unexpectedly, he insisted on trying to join them at
table, and ordered a hogshead of wine in the cellar to be broached. The
first two martyrs of the Covenant, Dr. James Guthrie and the Marquis of
Argyll, were broad-minded men, humorous and without prejudice. “I could
die like a Roman,” were the latter’s last words, “but I choose rather to
die like a Christian.” And Guthrie, on the eve of his execution, ordered a
supper of cheese, a dish which his doctors had long forbidden him,
remarking with a smile that he was now well beyond the hazard of all
earthly diseases. [See Our Scots Reformers and Covenanters, by
the Right Hon. Lord Guthrie, p.13.]
It is not to be wondered at
if the dangers to which the Covenanters were hourly exposed, the
atmosphere of suspicion and persecution in which they dwelt, the very
scenery which surrounded their secret field meetings, engendered a spirit
of enthusiasm bordering upon fanaticism. In some cases this took the form
of hysterical frenzy, which impressed the devout, but only moved the
unbeliever to mirth. In 1638, for instance, we read of one Margaret
Mitchelson becoming subject to “fits of distraction” [Napier’s
Montrose and His Times, vol. i. p.530.] which had the effect of
throwing her face downwards on her bed, where she spoke in favour of the
Covenanters with such eloquence that her hearers wept. Bishop Burnet
frankly calls her an “impostress,” but we find that “many of the nobility
and ministry and well-affected Christians thronged to hear her, being
wonderfully moved with her speeches.” [MS. In the Advocates’ Library,
Edinburgh: A True Relation of the Bishops in Introducing of the
Service Book, etc.] They listened attentively to the ravings of one whom
they regarded as the mouthpiece of God, declaring that it was the height
of bad manners to interrupt their Maker. A selection of her prophecies,
taken down by “such as were skilful in brachygraphy,” and headed with a
notice to the effect that on such and such a day “Mrs. Mitchelson
gloriously spoke as follows,” fell into the hands of the sceptical Earl of
Airth. He facetiously altered the word “gloriously” to “gowkedly” (or
foolishly), and became, in consequence, so unpopular that he narrowly
escaped stoning in the public street.
As a rule the Covenanters
were simple, quiet, unassuming folk, whose one desire was to be let alone
to worship their God in their own way in accordance with the faith of
their fathers. It is a great mistake to suppose that they were chiefly
recruited from among the poorer classes of the community. This popular
error is due, perhaps, to the fact that it was a poor market-woman, Jenny
Geddes, who inaugurated the revolt against the prelacy by hurling her
stool at the head of the Dean of Edinburgh. [It may be noted that she
subsequently contributed the materials of her stall to the bonfire lighted
in honour of the King’s coronation.] As a matter of fact, the
labouring classes and peasantry were as often as not as hostile to the
Covenanters. The latter were generally well-educated and well-to-do,
county gentlefolk, farmers, and their wives. They had much to lose in the
way of property and comfort, but they gladly risked all in this great
national cause. On the womenfolk the ceaseless persecution fell with
especial weight. Some, like Lady Earlston, who wrote the famous
Soliloquies, shared their husbands’ imprisonment, being subjected to
the same rigorous confinement, though they did not suffer the ignominy of
being kept in irons. Some, again, were stripped of their property and
turned out of their homes by the villainous Dalziel, as was the case with
the wife of William Mure of Caldwell, afterwards imprisoned for three
years in a damp cell at Blackness. [It is satisfactory to note that
Lady Caldwell was subsequently restored, and after the Revolution,
Dalziel’s grandson was forced to return the Caldwell estates to their
lawful owners.] Others, Lady Campbell of Auchinleck, Lady Douglas of
Cavers, Lady Greenhill, and many more, lived in a perpetual state of
panic, while their husbands played an endless game of hide-and-seek with
the indefatigable Clavers.
The fate of the Covenanters
very often lay in the hands of their womenfolk. It was owing to the
cleverness of his stepdaughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay, who smuggled a page’s
costume into his cell, that Archibald, 9th Earl of Argyll,
escaped from his prison in the Castle of Edinburgh in 1681. His father,
the old marquis, could have gained his liberty by a similar ruse, and even
went so far as to change clothes with his devoted wife, had not his spirit
rebelled at the last moment against the adoption of so ignominious a
method of flight.
But perhaps the story of
Sir Patrick Hume supplies as good an example of feminine fearlessness as
any other, his escape being largely due to the devotion of his favourite
daughter, Grisell. The tale of heroism with which her name is indissolubly
connected, gives her the right to rank high among the Scottish heroines of
the past.
Few women have been called
upon to display such courage as was demanded of Grisell Hume from
childhood; still fewer have spent themselves so unceasingly or so
successfully in the cause of patriotism and filial duty. She lived in an
age when, as we have seen, the rights of minorities were unrecognised,
when the law was invariably on the side of the party in power, when
independence of thought and freedom of speech were looked upon a
treasonable, and the name of reformer was synonymous with that of rebel.
Her childhood was spent in an atmosphere of political stress and social
turmoil, with the shadow of the prison and the still darker silhouette of
the scaffold in the background of her landscape, ever threatening the
peace and happiness of her home. The peculiar circumstances in which her
early life was passed, the hardships she underwent and the adventures she
experienced, combined to strengthen a naturally strong character. She was,
indeed, provided with many opportunities of proving that intrepid spirit
of optimism which was her most priceless possession, and to which her
family owed so much of their subsequent welfare. |
