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IT was a terrible and most exciting crisis for
Scotland, when the people found themselves constrained by all they held
sacred to resist their sovereign. Revering the institution of monarchy,
and long accustomed to yield to the powerful king of Great Britain a
deference which had neither been asked by nor paid to the sovereign of
their own rude and inferior state, nothing could have brought them into
such an attitude but their anxiety for the avoidance of soul-endangering
errors. Even after the riots of July—such was the unwillingness to adopt
strong measures—they might have been induced to remain at peace under
bishops and Perth articles, if the king had been so far well counselled as
at once and gracefully to withdraw the Service-book. So might a moderate
Episcopacy have been preserved in Scotland, and the Civil War itself
avoided or postponed. The king unfortunately determined to persevere in
his unlucky course. The consequence was that the great mass of the people,
including many of the nobility and gentry, was led into measures, at first
of protestation, and latterly of resistance. There was indeed a district
in the north-east where Episcopacy was the favourite system. In some other
places, papist nobles exercised a limited local influence. The Highlanders
were an uninstructed people, with no religious predilections. But in the
Lowland provinces generally, a people far from void of intelligence were
intensely earnest in favour of their old simple forms of worship and model
of church-government. In the agitation of the subject during a few months,
their prepossessions acquired a strength and fervour which never had been
known before. It were quite impossible for any individual of our cool and
temperate age, to form an adequate idea of the earnest feelings of the men
who now arrayed themselves against Charles’s Episcopal innovations,
without a careful perusal of the numberless documents in which these
feelings found expression.
In the latter part of 1637, the Service-book not being
withdrawn, four committees, called Tables, respectively
representing the nobles, gentry, clergy, and burgesses, met in Edinburgh
to concert measures for giving it an effective resistance. When it became
evident, in the ensuing February, that the king was obdurate, the Tables
framed a NATIONAL COVENANT, binding all who should sign it to spare
nothing which might save their religion. It was signed by a large majority
of the people, in a paroxysm of enthusiasm beyond all example in our
history. The king, at length alarmed, sent the Marquis of Hamilton (June
1638) as a
commissioner to treat with the Covenanters; and he soon
after was induced to offer concessions far beyond what would have been
grasped at a twelvemonth before—namely, to withdraw the Service-book and
an equally unpopular Book of Canons, to abrogate the Court of High
Commission, and place the Perth articles on a footing of indifferency. But
while the people at large were at first disposed to be at peace on these
terms, the leaders were by this time influenced with higher views. Feeling
their power, they now hoped by perseverance to obtain a complete abolition
of Episcopacy. Accordingly, when the matter came to be debated in a
General Assembly of the Church, which sat at Glasgow in November, the
royal commissioner proved unable to keep them within moderate bounds. On
his formally dissolving the Assembly, they sat still under a clerical
president, until they had deposed the bishops and declared Episcopacy
wholly at an end.The king,
notwithstanding that a respect for his person and rule was still
professed, could not acquiesce in a movement so contrary to the policy he
had so long maintained, and which interfered so violently with his own
religious convictions. He began to prepare an army for the subjugation of
the Covenanters. They on their part made ready for an armed resistance,
not professedly to their sovereign, but to the statesmen who guided his
counsels. By a great effort, he got together twenty thousand men, and (May
1639) led them towards the Border. A fleet, having a few thousand troops
on board, at the same time entered the Firth of Forth, under the command
of the Marquis of Hamilton. Under their nobles, gentry, and clergy, the
Scots mustered forces to defend their shores from the fleet, to meet the
anti-Covenanting party in the north, and to oppose the king at the Border.
To the number of about twenty thousand men, commanded by Sir Alexander
Leslie, an experienced officer from the German wars, they took post on
Dunse Law, while the king advanced with his army towards the Tweed. What
with constant praying, preaching, and fasting, it was such a camp as
perhaps never existed before or since. The king, seeing their resolution
and discipline, and feeling that he had but slack support from his own
army, was induced to offer a pacification. He could not sanction the acts
of a General Assembly which had defied his authority; but he proposed that
everything should be submitted to another such body sitting under his
representative, and to a subsequent parliament. His hope was that time and
his personal influence with the leaders might bring things to some
passable issue. At the worst, he should meanwhile prepare a greater army
for enforcing subjection.
The new General Assembly and the
parliament met in the course of summer (1639) under royal commissioners,
but with only the effect of formally affirming the abolition of
Episcopacy. The king accordingly resolved on a second expedition against
the Scots. After trying in vain to induce an English parliament to grant
supplies, he obtained some assistance from a convocation of the English
clergy, and from a number of friends among the gentry. He calculated much
on the public fortresses of Scotland being now in his hands, and on the
zeal of a small loyal party. All his hopes were frustrated. In the early
part of
1640,
the Scots mustered a second army as good as his own.
They succeeded in seizing the most of the fortresses. His expectations of
co-operation from the loyalists in Aberdeenshire proved fallacious. The
attention of a patriotic party in England was now hopefully fixed on the
proceedings of the Scots. The truth is, Charles was leading the army of a
party of his English subjects through a country generally disaffected to
his policy, against a country altogether hostile. In such circumstances, a
great blow to his authority was inevitable.
The Covenanters did not now deem it
necessary to confine themselves to a defence of their own borders. They
crossed the Tweed with a gallant army (August 28, 1640), and advanced on
the Tyne. After a smart action, in which they were victorious, they
crossed that river, and took possession of Newcastle. With a disaffected
army, and all but a few zealots muttering around him, the king could only
come a second time to a convention, but now it was upon less favourable
terms than before. It was arranged that a new parliament should be called
in England for the settlement of the affairs of the kingdom, and that
meanwhile the Scottish army should remain in the north under English pay;
thus the patriotic party calculated on having a guard to protect them
while reforming the state. Efforts were made to raise resentment against
the Scots as invaders of the English territory; but the Scots took care,
by their published declarations, to shew that they solely aimed at the
preservation of the religious forms which had long before been established
among them, and that they desired nothing more than the friendship of the
English people. Among the English themselves, objections to Episcopal
authority and a formal style of worship had been advancing since early
in
the reign of Elizabeth; giving rise to what was called
the Puritanic party. English Puritans, aiming at the same objects as the
Scottish Covenanters, readily gave them their sympathy. Thus it was with
the cordial concurrence of a large portion of the English nation that the
Covenanters rested under arms in England.
The parliament which now sat down,
and which was not to rise again for eleven years, proceeded to take into
consideration a number of grievances under which the country was
considered as having suffered during the king’s reign. His prime advisers,
Land, archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Strafford, were
imprisoned. Other ministers of the king—opprobriously styled
Malignants—were obliged to fly from the kingdom.
It became evident that the church itself was in danger. Strafford, after a
trial in which it has never been pretended that he got fair-play, was (May
1641) condemned and beheaded. While thus sorely pressed by his English
parliament, Charles began to think that his Scottish subjects might be
conciliated so as to become his friends, and perhaps to some degree his
partisans. In August 1641, he revisited Edinburgh, in order to preside at
a meeting of the Estates; and there he sanctioned all the measures they
had themselves taken, and distributed honours and rewards among the
Covenanting leaders. He spent three mouths in Edinburgh, doing all in his
power to cultivate the affections of the Covenanters, and apparently with
success, though there were not wanting some troubles, occasioned by a
small loyalist party, who wished to act more energetically in his behalf
than was convenient for him. He at length returned, as he said, a
contented prince from a contented people. Before this time, the Scottish
army had been satisfied of their pay by the English parliament, and had
returned from Newcastle, and been disbanded.
While the king still remained in
Scotland (November 1641), intelligence arrived of a frightful outbreak of
the Catholics in Ireland, and the dreadful vengeance executed by them upon
their Protestant fellow-subjects. Ten thousand Scottish troops were
quickly mustered, and sent over to assist in preserving the king’s
authority in that country.
The arbitrary rule which King
Charles had exercised down to 1637, had in four years been brought low in
both Scotland and England. A severe lesson had been read to him, if he had
had the wisdom to profit by it. After such a struggle, it is not easy,
either for the monarch to rest corrected, or for his subjects to make
moderate uses of their victory. Bigoted views on his part as to both state
and church, fostered by the support of a loyal party more generous than
wise; a strong sense in the patriotic or parliamentary party that the king
and his friends would resume the system of arbitrary authority if
possible, and use it mercilessly against all who had taken part in the
late movements; made it in a manner impossible that things should rest at
the point now attained. Accordingly, soon after the return of the king to
London, the popular party in the English parliament presented to him their
famous Remonstrance, recapitulating all the errors of his past
government, and recommending that he should put himself into the hands of
ministers who enjoyed the confidence of the people. His imperious spirit,
strengthened by his hopes of support in Scotland, refused to yield to such
counsels. When he made his unfortunate attempt (January 1642) to seize the
five leading patriots in the House of Commons, the distrust of the
parliament was completed, and reconciliation became impossible. The king
had for some time contemplated warlike means of recovering his lost
ground; but it was not till the bishops had been impeached, and he had
been asked to surrender the command of the militia to the parliament, that
hh raised his standard at Nottingham (August 1642), with the support of a
large body of loyal gentry.
In this civil war, the Scottish
nation had no formal reason or pretext for joining on one side or the
other; but their sympathies and interests were all engaged in behalf of
the parliamentary cause. When the first two campaigns, therefore, made it
seem likely that the king would be triumphant, they naturally felt some
uneasiness, as fearful that if he should put down the parliament, their
recovered liberties and reinstated church would be in danger. The
temptation to assist the English patriots thus became irresistible. A. set
of commissioners from the English parliament came into Scotland to court
its alliance; they were instructed to give the Scottish nation hopes that,
in the event of success against the king, the Presbyterian model should
supersede the Episcopalian both in England and Ireland. With the
enthusiastic conceptions the Scots then had of the value of
Presbyterianism, as the only pure and saving vehicle of the gospel, they
were unable to resist this bait, though it was after all put into an
ambiguous shape. Their Estates, accordingly, entered into what was called
a SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT with the English parliament (August 1643),
one of the provisions of which engaged them to send an army against the
king. Eighteen thousand foot and three thousand horse, to be supported by
English pay at the rate of £30,000 a month, crossed the Tweed in the depth
of winter (January 1644). With a view to gratify and encourage them, their
enemy, Laud, was taken from his prison in the Tower, tried, and sent to
the block—a piece of political revenge merely, as the old man was unable
to have done any one further harm. Joining the parliamentary troops at
York, the Scots assisted materially in gaining the important victory of
Marston Moor, from which the king’s party never entirely recovered. They
also besieged and took Newcastle, preserving a laudable moderation in
their triumph. The season ended with a marked depression of the royal
cause.
While affairs in Scotland were
wholly managed by a Committee of the Estates and the Commission of the
kirk, several of the nobles and the inhabitants of certain districts,
chiefly in the Highlands, formed a tacitly royalist party. The young Earl
of Montrose, raised to the rank of marquis, and invested by the king with
a commission, set up the royal standard in Perthshire (August 1644), and
was soon surrounded by three thousand men, part of whom were Irish
papists. Montrose was a man of extraordinary genius, with conceptions far
beyond his narrow sphere. Originally a zealous Covenanter, he had changed
when he thought the king too hard pressed by his subjects. A generous
loyalty and romantic heroism enabled him to perform wonderful exploits;
but it is at the same time to be owned that he was fearfully unscrupulous
about plunder and the shedding of blood. With his ill-armed followers, he
overthrew a carefully embodied army of militia, of twice his number, at
Tippermuir (September 1644). Then marching to Aberdeen, he defeated a
second army under Lord Burleigh, and entering the city, subjected it to a
pillage even severer than any he had inflicted on it as a Covenanter. The
Marquis of Argyle pursued him round the Highlands without gaining any
advantage. Suddenly breaking off his course, he invaded Argyleshire in the
depth of winter, and ravaged it without mercy, killing a great number of
the men fit to bear arms. The Marquis of Argyle came to revenge this
frightful proceeding at Inverlochy, but was there defeated with immense
slaughter (February 1645). Montrose then made a deliberate march through
Inverness-shire, Moray, Banffshire, and the east coast, using fire and
sword wherever the king’s cause was not at once acknowledged and
supported. It was a warfare such as had not taken place in England since
the contentions of the Roses, and strongly marks the lower civilisation of
Scotland at this date. At Dundee, he received a check from a Covenanting
army under General Baillie, and with some difficulty succeeded in
obtaining a refuge in the mountains. Descending again to the plains in
Nairnshire, he defeated with great slaughter a small army under Colonel
Urry at Auldearn; soon after, he in like manner overthrew Baillie’s forces
at Alford. He was now confident enough to promise King Charles the speedy
recovery of Scotland; and the king, finding his affairs becoming more and
more discouraging in England, was inclined to trust to this promise, and
migrate northward. Montrose, however, only distressed his country; he did
not conquer or convert it to loyalty. He never accomplished any solid or
permanent advantage, but was as much the mere guerrilla chief at the last
as at the first. One other victory, gained over a large militia force at
Kilsyth (August 1645), left him without any apparent opposition in
Scotland. Yet within a few weeks (September 13), he was completely
defeated at Philiphaugh, in Selkirkshire, by a body of horse detached
under David Leslie from the Scottish army in England; and he was soon
after obliged to retire to the continent. Montrose’s course was like that
of a meteor, which alarms and excites wonder, but passes without leaving
any tangible effects.
Meanwhile the battle of Naseby and
the second battle of Newbury had left the king’s cause in a hopeless
condition, and at the close of 1645, he was scarcely able to keep the
field. It was now absolutely necessary for him to make peace with his
subjects, if he hoped to retain even a nominal power or place in the
state, and, seeing that the resources of the pure royalists had proved
insufficient for his support, his best course would have been to place
himself in the hands of the party next in the sentiment of regard for his
person. This was the party of Presbyterians, as distinguished from a more
extreme party, which had latterly sprung into importance in England, under
the name of Independents, who professed to support a primitive form of
Christianity without any ecclesiastical organisation whatever. The
Presbyterians hated Episcopacy; but they were not averse to a moderate or
limited monarchy; while the Independents were generally of republican
principles. Charles, unfortunately a bigot for Episcopacy, could not bring
himself to sanction the Presbyterian model, even for a limited time on
trial. He hoped to bring out a better issue for himself by the dangerous
game of playing off the various parties against each other. Having thus
lost a good opportunity of treating, he was obliged, in May 1646, to take
refuge with the Scottish army at Newark.
Whatever may be thought of the
conduct of the Scots in entering into the Solemn League and Covenant, and
sending troops against a sovereign who had so thoroughly redressed their
own national grievances, there can be no reasonable doubt that they were
prompted on that occasion by a pure zeal for their church establishment,
and a sympathy with those of the neighbouring nation who desired to be
equally free from the rule of bishops. But it cannot be denied that in
engaging themselves to ‘endeavour, without respect of persons, the
extirpation of popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness,
and whatsoever shall be contrary to sound doctrine ‘—for such are the
terms of the League—they had wholly changed the nature of their policy.
From a laudable defence of cherished institutions of their own, menaced
with danger, they passed into a very questionable system of propagandism
and aggression. It might be said that they were committing the same
mistake as King Charles had done in his original policy towards
themselves, going against the religious traditions and prepossessions of a
people; for, while Puritans and Independents had an apparent ascendency in
England, ‘the church,’ nursed by the blood of martyrs, and endeared by
long habit, had still a great hold on the bulk of the English nation.
Success in such a movement, if it could by any be considered as deserved,
was scarcely by common sense to be expected. As if in natural punishment
for a great error, nothing had gone well with the Scots ever since. An
Assembly of Divines, including commissioners from Scotland, had sat at
Westminster for two years, in deliberation on the proper ecclesiastical
system and articles of faith to be adopted by both nations; and its
decision was substantially for the Presbyterian forms and Calvinistic
doctrines so much beloved in the north. But the English House of Commons
could never be induced to take any active measures for imposing this
decision on the nation, doubtless feeling that it was not generally
acceptable. Pure presbytery never came into true operation except in
London and in Lancashire. To the Scottish leaders, who had been accustomed
to impose and enforce doctrine upon all recusants in their own country,
this slackness seemed inexcusable, and occasioned the deepest
disappointment. They also found that their army, after the first useful
service at Marston Moor, was comparatively neglected in England, and its
pay allowed to fall into arrear. Themselves courted at first as allies,
they had latterly been little inquired for or consulted; their advices and
their remonstrances were alike overlooked. Sternest punishment of all,
while their best troops were kept idle and half mendicant in England,
Montrose avenged the king’s sense of injury by sweeping their defenceless
provinces with the besom of destruction, and putting thousands of hastily
armed citizens to the sword. It was a most melancholy result of a movement
entered on, as they in all sincerity protested, purely for the glory of
God.
There still remained an event most
unfortunate for Scotland before the war could be concluded. The arrears of
pay due by the English parliament to the Scottish army had been allowed to
run up to £1,400,000. The House of Commons tried to abate the sum to a
comparative trifle, but ultimately (August 1646) agreed to pay £400,000,
the one half immediately, after which the Scots were to retire into their
own country. But, meanwhile, the Scots were awkwardly placed by the king
being in their camp. If he had agreed to the propositions of the
parliament, all would have been well, for then he would have proceeded in
peace and honour to London. As he could not be induced to assent to these
propositions, a question arose between the two nations as to the disposal
of his person. The English parliament affected the sole right to deal with
it. The Scottish Estates could not agree to this; but as they were not
disposed to take up the king’s cause against the English—and indeed, such
a step would have been ruinous— it was not easy for them on any terms or
understanding to retain him within their grasp. After much troublesome
negotiation, they were induced by some of the leading English
Presbyterians to give up the king, in order to facilitate the disbanding
of the English army, which latterly was manifesting a refractory spirit.
There was scarcely a relation, if any, between the receiving of the
arrears of pay and the surrender of the king; nevertheless, as the events
took place about the same time, they have become connected in popular
conception, to the discredit of the Scottish name. It will be ages before
the English commonalty ceases to believe that the Scots sold their king,
and for slaughter too, although such a tragical end for his life was
certainly not dreamed of by anybody till long after.
The king being now a captive, and
his friends reduced to silence, the English parliament set themselves to
two objects—a re-establishment of the royal authority on suitable terms,
and the disbanding of the army. The king’s obstinacy defeated the one
object; the growth of sectarianism in the army balked the other. Charles
hoped to thrive by the disunion of these two bodies, and coquetted with
both. The army seized his person; but he afterwards escaped, and fell
under the care of a kind of neutral power, in the person of the governor
of Carisbrook Castle, in the Isle of Wight. The Scots, hating
sectarianism, still maintained a modified loyalty. Under the influence of
the Duke of Hamilton and a few other nobles, who had come to an
understanding or engagement with the king regarding a possible
restoration of his authority, the Estates in spring 1648 raised an army in
his behalf, thus renewing the Civil War; and with this movement the
remaining English loyalists concurred. The more zealous Presbyterians of
Scotland denounced it on that account, notwithstanding many plausible
pretences set forth in its favour. The English Presbyterians gave it their
good-will, but could do little in its behalf. In July, a too hastily
prepared army of 15,000 Scots entered England under the command of
Hamilton, and proceeded as far as Preston, while a small army of English
loyalists marched near by, but, for the sake of appearances, carefully
abstained from a junction. A portion of the English army, under Oliver
Cromwell, attacked the small body of loyalists and destroyed it; then met
and overthrew the Scottish army; soon after which, the Duke of Hamilton
was taken prisoner. Cromwell came to Edinburgh, and fraternised with the
more zealous Presbyterian leaders, who had by that time resumed an
ascendency. Then, returning as a victor to London, with no force to oppose
him in any part of the island, he joined with a number of other men of his
own stamp, in putting an end to the English monarchy. In January 1649, the
king was tried for the alleged crime of raising war upon his subjects, and
publicly beheaded.
1637, July
Till the occurrence of the tumult this month, there was, according to the
confession of Clarendon, so little curiosity felt in England, either in
the court or country, ‘to know anything of Scotland, or what was done
there, that, when the whole nation was solicitous to know what passed
weekly in Germany, Poland, and other parts of Europe, no man ever inquired
what was doing in Scotland, nor had that kingdom a place or mention in one
page of any gazette.’
Oct 3
This day began a fall of rain in Morayland, of ten days’ continuance, and
attended by effects which remind us of the celebrated flood of 1829;
‘waters and burns flowing up over bank and brae; corn-mills and
mill-houses washen down; houses, kilns, cots, faulds wherein beasts were
keipit, all destroyed. The corns, weel stacked, began to moch and rot till
they were casten over again. Lamentable to see, and whereof the like was
never seen before.... There were four ships lying at anchor in the harbour
of Aberdeen; in one of which ships Major Ker and Captain Lumsden had a
number of soldiers. Through a great spate of the water of Dee, occasioned
by this extraordinary rain, thir haill four ships brake loose, for neither
tow nor anchor could hold them, and were driven out at the water mouth,
upon the night, and by a south-east wind were driven to the north shore,
where thir ships were miserably bladded [beaten] with leaks by striking
upon the sands. The soldiers, sleeping carelessly in the bottom of the
ship upon heather, were all in a swim, to their great amazement and dread.
They got up, with horrible crying and shouting; some escaped, other some
pitifully perished. About the number of fourscore and twelve soldiers were
wanting, drowned or got away.’—Slightly altered from Spalding.
Oct 19
A quantity of gold had been brought into the kingdom by ‘the adventurers
of Guinee.’ It was ordered to be formed into coin by Nicolas Briot and
John Falconer, masters of the cunyie-bouse, according to the arrangements
ordered by the Privy Council in April 1625.—P. C. R. Some gold
subsequently brought from the same country to England by the African
Company, ‘administered the first occasion,’ as Clarendon tells us, ‘for
the coinage of those pieces which, from thence, had the denomination of
guineas.' The digging of gold in Guinea is connected in a melancholy
way with Scotland, for fifteen hundred of the Scottish prisoners taken at
Worcester in September 1651, were granted to the Guinea merchants, ‘to be
transported to Guinea to work in the mines there."
Dec 4
In the night arose ‘ane horrible high wind,’ which blew down the rafters
of the choir of Elgin Cathedral, left without the slates eighty years
before. This fact reminds us how much of the destruction of our ancient
ecclesiastical buildings was owing, not to actual or immediate damage at
the Reformation, but to neglect afterwards.
Dec 26
This day, in consequence of the late inundation and storms, a bar made its
appearance athwart the mouth of the river Dee, ‘mixed with marble, clay,
and stones.’ The contemplation of so fatal a stoppage to their harbour
threw the citizens of Aberdeen into a state of the greatest anxiety. ‘They
fell to with fasting, praying, preaching, mourning, and weeping all day
and night. Then they went out with spades, shools, mattocks, and mells, in
great numbers, men and women, young and old, at low-water, to cast down
this dreadful bar; but all for nought, for as fast as they cast down at a
low-water, it gathered again as fast at a full sea.’ The people bad
resigned themselves to despair, when ‘the Lord, of his great mercy,
without help of mortal man, removed and swept clean away this fearful bar,
and made the water mouth to keep its own course, as it was before.’-Slightly
altered from Spalding.
1637-8
On the hill of Echt, in Aberdeenshire, famous for its ancient
fortification called the Barmkyn of Echt,
there was heard, almost every night, all this winter, a prodigious beating
of drums, supposed to foretell the bloody civil wars which soon after
ensued. The parade and retiring of guards, their tattoos, their reveilles,
and marches, were all heard distinctly by multitudes of people.
‘Ear-witnesses, soldiers of credit, have told me,’ says Gordon of
Rothiemay, ‘that when the parade was beating, they could discern when the
drummer walked towards them, or when he tuned about, as the fashion is for
drummers, to walk to and again, upon the head or front of a company drawn
up. At such times, also, they could distinguish the marches of several
nations; and the first marches that were heard there were the Scottish
March; afterwards, the Irish March was heard; then the English March. But
before these noises ceased, those who had been trained up much of their
lives abroad in the German wars, affirmed that they could perfectly, by
their hearing, discern the marches upon the drum of several foreign
nations of Europe—such as the French, Dutch, Danish, &c. These drums were
so constantly heard, that all the country people next adjacent were
therewith accustomed; and sometimes these drummers were heard off that
hill, in places two or three miles distant. Some people in the night,
travelling near by the Loch of Skene, within three mile of that hill, were
frighted with the loud noise of drums, struck hard by them, which did
convoy them along the way, but saw nothing; as I had it often from such as
heard these noises, from the Laird of Skene and his lady, from the Laird
of Echt, and my own wife then living in Skene, almost immediately after
the people thus terrified had come and told it. Some
gentlemen of known integrity and truth affirmed that, near these places,
they heard as perfect shot of cannon go off as ever they heard at the
battle of Nordlingen, where themselves some years before had been
present.’
1638, Feb 8 or 9
By order of the king, in consideration of the rebellious proceedings in
Edinburgh, ‘the session sat down in Stirling. Ye may guess if the town of
Edinburgh was angry or not.’—Chron. Perth.
Feb 28
This day commenced at Edinburgh the signing of that NATIONAL
COVENANT which for some years exercised so strong an
influence over the affairs of Scotland. Public feeling, as far as the
great bulk of the people was concerned, had been wrought up to a paroxysm
of anxiety and enthusiasm regarding the preservation of the Presbyterian
model. An eternal interest was supposed to depend on their not allowing
their religion to be assimilated to that of England, and, weighed against
this, everything else looked mean and of no account. After the document
had been subscribed by the congregation at the Greyfriars’ Church, before
whom it was first presented, it went through the city, every one
contesting who might be first, many blindly following the example of
others—not only men, but ‘women, young people, and servants did swear and
hold up their hands to the Covenant.’ Many copies, written out on
parchment, and signed by the leading nobles, were carried into the
country, and laid before the people of the several towns and districts.
‘The greater that the number of subscribents grew,’ says the parson of
Rothiemay, ‘the more imperious they were in exacting subscriptions from
others who refused to subscribe; so that by degrees they proceeded to
contumelies, and exposing of many to injuries and reproaches, and some
were threatened and beaten who durst refuse, especially in greatest
cities... Gentlemen and noblemen carried copies of it about in their
portmantles and pockets, requiring subscriptions thereto, and using their
utmost endeavours with their friends in private for to subscribe... All
had power to take the oath, and were licensed and welcome to come in...
Such was the zeal of many subscribents, that, for a while, many subscribed
with tears on their cheeks; and it is constantly reported that some did
draw their own blood, and used it in place of ink to underwrite their
names. Such ministers as spoke for it were heard so passionately and with
such frequency, that churches could not contain their hearers in cities;
some of the devouter sex (as if they had kept vigils) keeping their seats
from Friday to Sunday, to get the communion given them sitting; some
sitting alway let before such sermons in the churches, for fear of losing
a room or place of hearing; or at the least some of their handmaids
sitting constantly there all night till their mistresses came to take up
their places and to relieve them; so that several (as I heard from very
sober and credible men) under that religious confinement, were... These
things will scarce be believed, but I relate them upon the credit of such
as knew this to be truth.’
The Rev. John Livingstone says: ‘I was present at
Lanark, and at several other parishes, when, on a Sabbath, after the
forenoon sermon, the Covenant was read and sworn, and may truly say that
in all my lifetime, except one day at the Kirk of Shotts, I never saw such
motions from the Spirit of God; all the people generally and most
willingly concurring; where I have seen more than a thousand persons all
at once lifting up their hands, and the tears falling down from their
eyes.’
Maitland, describing the Edinburgh copy of the
Covenant, says: ‘It is written on a parchment of the length of four feet,
and the depth of three feet eight inches, and is so crowded with names on
both sides, that there is not the smallest space left for more. It appears
that, when there was little room left to sign on, the subscriptions were
shortened by only inserting the initials of the Covenanters’ names; which
the margin and other parts are so full of, and the subscriptions so close,
that it were a difficult task to number them. However, by a cursory view;
I take them to be about five thousand in number. - Hist. Ed.
Apr
The household book of the Dowager-countess of Mar commencing at this time,
and running on for several years, affords a few rays of scattered light
regarding the domestic life of the aristocracy of the period. They are not
susceptible of being worked up to any general effect, and the reader must
therefore take them as they occur.
'April 21, to ane little boy for two buiks of the
Covenant, 12s. May 4, for pressing ane red scarlet riding-coat for John
the Bairn [a grandson of the countess], 12s. May 16, to ane blind singer
who sang the time of dinner, 12s. May 17, ane quire paper, 5s. May 18, to
ane of the nourices who dwells at the Muir, who came to thig [beg], 29s.
May 25, for ane belt to Lord James [an elder grandson of the countess],
18s.; for ane powder-horn to him, 4s 6d.; for raisins to Lord James and
Charles, 10s. June, to William Shearer his wife for ane pair hose to Lord
James, £3. Paid for contribution to the Confederat Lords, £4. To ane old
blind man as my lady came from prayers, 4s. Edinburgh, July 18, for a
periwig to Lord James, £8, 2s. July 19, ane pound and ane half pound of
candles, 6s. July 21, ane pound raisins to keep the fasting Sunday, 6s.
8d. July 27, given to the kirk brodd [board], as my lady went to sermon in
the High Kirk, 6s. Stirling, August 17, to my lady to give to the French
lacquey that served my Lord Erskine when he went back to France, 4s.
August 25, sent to my lady, to play with the Lady Glenurchy after supper,
4s. September 1, for making a chest [coffin] to Katherine Ramsay, who
deceased the night before, 20s.; for two half pounds tobacco and eighteen
pipes to spend at her lykewake, 21s.; to the bellman that went through the
town to warn to her burial, 12s.; to the makers of the graff, 12s. 4d.
September 8, to twa Highland singing-women, at my lady’s command, 6s.
September 23, to ane lame man callit Ross, who plays the plaisant, 3s.
Paid for ane golf-club to John the Bairn, 5s. 9th November, to Andrew
Erskine, to give to the poor at my lady’s onlouping, 12s. December, paid
to John, that he gave to ane woman who brought ane dwarf by my lady, 12s.
[Edinburgh], January 23, 1639, to my lady as she went to Lord Belhaven his
burial, and to visit my Lady Hume, £5, 8s. February, to Charles [son of
the countess], the night he was married, to give the poor, £5, 8s. 3d.
February 23, paid for ane pound of raisins to my lady again’ the
fasting Sunday, 8s. June 11, to Thom Eld, sent to Alloa for horses to take
my lady’s children and servants to the army then lying at the Border, 2s.
Paid to the Lady Glenurchy for aqua-vitae that she bought to my lady, 6s.
Paid for carrying down the silver wark to the Council house, to be weighed
and delivered to the town-treasurer of Edinburgh, 10s. August 23, paid for
twa pair sweet gloves to Lord James and Mr Will. Erskine, £3. September 9,
to Lord James to play at the totum with John Hamilton, 1s. 4d. To my lady
as she went to dine with my Lord Haddington [for vails to the servants?],
ane dollar and four shillings. Paid in contribution to Edward the fool,
12s. Paid to Gilbert Somerville, for making ane suit clothes to Lord James
of red lined with satin, £7, 10s. November 29, paid to the Lady Glenurchy
her man, for ane little barrel of aqua-vitae, £3. May 27, 1640, to ane man
who brought the parroquet her cage, 4s. June 15, to ane poor woman as my
lady sat at the fishing, 6d. August, for tobacco to my lady’s use,
1s. March 4, 1641, to Blind Wat the piper that day, as my lady went to the
Exercise, 4s. March 6, given to John Erskine to buy a cock to fight on
Fasten’s Even [Shrovetide], 6s. June 8, to ane masterful beggar who did
knock at the gate, my lady being at table, 2s. [It was then customary to
lock the outer door during dinner.] November 15, [the countess having
visited Edinburgh to see the king], given for two torches to lighten in my
lady to court, to take her leave of the king, 24s. February 21, 1642, sent
to Sir Charles Erskine to buy escorse de sidrone and marmolat, £5, 6s. 8d.
March 21, to ane woman clairshocher [harper] who usit the house in my
lord his time, 12s. August 10, to John Erskine to buy a bladder for trying
a mathematical conclusion. December 7, paid for three white night-matches
[caps] to my Lord of Buchan, £3, 12s. January 13, 1643, for ane
Prognostication [an almanac], 8d. February 17, for dressing ane red
four-tailed coat of Mr William’s, 1s. 8d. February 13, to my lady
in her own chamber, when the Valentines were a-drawing, £10, 12s. 4d.
April 13, to Mr William Erskine, to go to the dwarf’s marriage, 7s.
6d.’
July 20
While the generality of the Lowland people of Scotland were wrought up to
the highest pitch of enthusiasm in favour of Presbyterianism, the
inhabitants of Aberdeen and the surrounding district remained faithful to
a moderate Episcopacy, and therefore disinclined to accept the Covenant.
It was a crisis to make men impatient of dissent in a milder age than the
seventeenth century. As men then felt about religion—perfectly assured
that they themselves were right, and that dissent was perdition—this
Aberdonian recusancy could look for no gentle treatment; and it met with
none. The first assault, however, was not of a very deadly character.
It was under the leadership of the young Earl of
Montrose—afterwards so energetic on the other side—that a Covenanting
deputation came to Aberdeen with the bond into which most of the nation
had entered. ‘The provost and bailies courteously salute them at their
lodging, offers them wine and comfits, according to their laudable custom,
for their welcome; but this their courteous offer was disdainfully
refused, saying they would drink none with them while [till] first the
Covenant was subscribed; whereat the provost and bailies were somewhat
offended. Always they took their leave, [and] suddenly cause deal the wine
in the Bede-house amang the puir men, whilk they so disdainfully had
refused; whereof the like was never done to Aberdeen in no man’s memory.’
—Spal.
This discourteous party included, besides the Earl of
Montrose, Lord Arbuthnot, the Lairds of Morphy and Dun, and three
ministers, Cant, Dickson, and Henderson. ‘Because they could not get
entres to our church to preach, they went to the Earl of Marischal his
close in the Castle Gate, and preached three sermons on Sunday, where they
had such enticing sermons for the common people, that after ages will not
believe it. I was both an eye and ear witness to them. At that time, they
were [sac] cried up and doated upon, that the Laird of Leys (otherwise ane
wise man) did carry Mr Andrew Cant his books. Yet at that time there was
but very few that subscribed, only fourteen men, [including] Provost Lesly,
ane ringleader, but afterwards he did repent it . . . .
Alexander Jaffray, Alexander Burnet.... and some others, but not of
great quality; for at this time, good reader, thou shalt understand that
there was worthy preachers in Aberdeen, as Britain could afford..
. . . Thir men had many disputes with the
Covenanters, for they wrote against other plies, replies, duplies,
thriplies, and quadruplies; but in all these disputes the Covenanters came
as short to the ministers of Aberdeen as ane grammarian to a divine.’—Ab.
Re..
The Aberdeen doctors, as they were called, formed a
remarkable body of men, learned much above Scotch divines in general, of
that or any subsequent age. Dr John Forbes of Corse, professor of
divinity; Dr William Leslie, principal and professor of divinity in King’s
College; Dr Robert Barron, principal and professor of divinity in
Marischal College; and Drs Scroggie, Sibbald, and Ross, ministers; were
all prepared to defend the moderate Episcopacy against which the
Covenanters were waging war; and there exists an unchallenged and uniform
report of their having had the superiority in the argument, though all
incompetent to stem the torrent of enthusiasm which had set in against
them. It was under the dignified patronage and care of the late Bishop
Patrick Forbes, that these men had grown up in Aberdeen, ‘a society more
learned and accomplished than Scotland had
hitherto known." Connected with them in locality were other men of talents
and accomplishment - Arthur Johnston, John Leech, and David Wedderburn,
all writers of elegant Latin poetry—thus adding to the reputation
which Aberdeen enjoyed as a seat of learning,
that of a favourite seat of the Muses. For some years this
system of things had flourished at the northern city, amidst handsome
collegiate buildings, tasteful churches, and scenes of elegant domestic
life. One cannot reflect without a pang on the wreck it was
destined to sustain under the rude shocks imparted by a religious
enthusiasm which regarded nothing but its own dogmas, and for these
sacrificed everything. The university sustained a visitation from the
Presbyterian Assembly of 1640, and was thenceforth much changed. ‘The
Assembly’s errand,’ says Gordon of Rothiemay, ‘was thoroughly done; these
eminent divines of Aberdeen either dead, deposed, or banished; in whom
fell more learning than was left in all Scotland beside at that time. Nor
has that city, nor any city in Scotland, ever since seen so many learned
divines and scholars at one time together as were immediately before this
in Aberdeen. From that time forwards, learning began to be
discountenanced; and such as were knowing in antiquity and in the writings
of the fathers, were had in suspicion as men who smelled of popery; and he
was most esteemed of, who affected novelism and singularity most; and the
very form of preaching, as weel as the materials, was changed for the most
part. Learning was nicknamed human learning, and some ministers so far
cried it down in their pulpits, as they were heard to say: "Down doctrine,
and up Christ! "
Aug 8
As a characteristic incident of the period—an outlaw of the Macgregor
clan, named John Dhu Ger, came this day with his associates to the lands
of Stuart, Laird of Corse, in the upper vales of Aberdeenshire, and began
to despoil them, pretending to be the king’s man, and that what he did was
only justice, as against a rebellious Covenanter. ‘Wherever he came in
Strylay and other places, he would take their horse, kine, and oxen, and
cause the owners compound and pay for their own geir... He took out of the
Laird of Corse’s bounds a brave gentleman-tenant dwelling there, and
carried him with him, and sent word to the laird, desiring him to send him
a thousand pounds, whilk the lords of Council had given his name [the
Stuarts of Athole] for taking of Gilderoy, or then he would send this
man’s head to him. The Laird of Corse rode shortly to Strathbogie, and
told the marquis, who quickly wrote to Macgregor, to send back Mr George
Forbes again, or then he would come himself for him. But he was obeyed,
and [Forbes] came to Strathbogie, haill and
sound upon the 15th of August, but [without] payment of any ransom.’—
Altered from Spalding.
‘This year was ane very dry year, for about the end of
August all the corns was within the yards.’—Ab. Re.
Oct
Amidst the excitement of the time, a young woman named Mitchelson, who had
been subject to fits, attracted attention in Edinburgh by becoming a sort
of prophetess or Pythoness of the Covenant. ‘She was acquainted with the
Scripture, and much taken with the Covenant, and in her fits spoke much to
its advantage, and much ill to its opposers, that would, or at least that
she wished to befall them. Great numbers of all ranks of people were her
daily hearers; and many of the devouter sex prayed and wept, with joy and
wonder, to hear her speak. When her fits came upon her, she was ordinarily
thrown upon a down bed, and there prostrate, with her face downwards,
spoke such words as were for a while carefully taken from her mouth by
such as were skilful in brachygraphy. She had intermissions of her
discourses for days and weeks; and before she began to speak, it was made
known through Edinburgh. Mr Harry Rollock [one of the clergymen of
Edinburgh], who often came to see her, said that he thought it was not
good manners to speak while his Master was speaking, and that he
acknowledged his Master’s voice in her. Some misconstered her to be
suborned by the Covenanters, and at least that she had nothing that
savoured of a rapture, but only of memory, and that still she knew what
she spoke, and, being interrupted in her discourse, answered pertinently
to the purpose. Her language signified little: she spoke of Christ, and
called him Covenanting Jesus; that the Covenant was approved from heaven;
that the king’s covenant was Satan’s invention; that the Covenant should
prosper, but the adherents to the king’s covenant should be confounded;
and much other stuff of this nature, which savoured at best of senseless
simplicity. The Earl of Airth, upon a time, getting a paper of her
prophecies, which was inscribed, "that, such a day and such a year, Mrs
Mitchelson awoke and spoke gloriously," in place of the word "gloriously,"
which he blotted out, writt over it the word "gowkedly" or foolishly,
[and] was so much distested for a while among the superstitious admirers
of this maid, that he had like to have run the fate of one of the bishops,
by a charge with stones upon the street. But this blazing star quickly
vanished...'
There seems no reason to doubt that Mrs Mitchelson was
a sincere young woman, but in an unsound nervous condition. Ecstatics like
her are common in the Romish Church, in which case there is much tendency
to visions of St Catherine, instead of ravings about the Covenant. From
analogous cases of persons under hallucinations, the giving pertinent
answers to ordinary questions, which Gordon adduces as a ground of doubt,
does not necessarily infer that Mrs Mitchelson was a cunning woman playing
a part.
1639, Feb
The Earl of Montrose went about in the north country with a large armed
band, forcing the Covenant upon those who were disinclined to sign it, and
raising funds for the use of the Covenanting party. As it never once
occurred to the ‘Tables’ that anybody could have a conscientious scruple
on the subject, much less that any scruple called for respect and
forbearance, force seemed quite fair as a means of attaining to
uniformity. The city of Aberdeen, looking with apprehension to this kind
of mission, ‘began to choose out captains, ensigns, sergeants, and other
officers for drilling their men in the Links, and learning them to handle
their arms;’ also ‘to big up their back yetts, close their ports, have
their catbands in readiness, their cannons clear, and had ane strict watch
day and night keepit.’—Spal. All this to battle off an Idea. Still
they feared it might not be sufficient. So, looking to the victual they
had against a siege, they began to cast ditches, and towards the south
raised up timber sconces, clad with deals. They had eleven pieces of
ordnance, each provided with a sconce, planted commodiously on the
streets. In short, it was a town pretty well fortified, as such things
were in those days, and no doubt the worthy citizens were in good hopes of
resisting the storm of Christian reformation which was mustering against
them. Alas!
It soon became evident to the poor Aberdonians that,
however well their doctors might argue, the Covenant was not to be
resisted. Dismayed at the accounts they got of large forces mustering
against them, they abandoned all design of defence. All that the more
notable friends of the king and church could do was to fly.
Spalding’s account of the entry of the Covenanting
militia under Montrose and Leslie into Aberdeen is highly picturesque.
Mar 30
‘.... they came in order of battle, weel armed both on horse and
foot, ilk horseman having five shot at the least... ane carabine on his
hand, two pistols by his sides, and two at his saddle-tore. The pikemen in
their ranks [with] pike and sword; the musketeers in their ranks with
musket, musket-staff, bandelier, sword, powder, ball, and match. Ilk
company both on horse and foot had their captains, lieutenants, ensigns,
sergeants, and other officers and commanders, all for the most part in
buff coats and goodly order. They had five colours or ensigns.
. . . They had trumpeters to ilk company of
horsemen, and drummers to ilk company of footmen. They had their meat,
drink, and other provision, bag and baggage, carried with them, done all
by advice of his Excellency Field-marshal Leslie... Few of this army
wanted ane blue ribbon hung about his craig [neck] down under his left
arm, whilk they called the Covenanter’s Ribbon... [Having passed to
the Links], muster being made, all men was commanded to go to breakfast,
either in the Links or in the town. The general himself:, the nobles,
captains, commanders, for the most part, and soldiers, sat down, and of
their awn provision, upon ane serviet on their knee, took their breakfast’
Here was a sight for a poor town of Episcopalian prepossessions—eleven
thousand men come to convert them to proper views! This was on Saturday:
on the Tuesday, all persons of any note, and all persons in any authority
in the city, were glad to come before the marching committee and subscribe
and swear the Covenant, ‘albeit they had sworn the king’s covenant
before.’ A week later, a solemn fast was kept; and after sermon by one of
the marching clergy, the Covenant was read out, and he ‘causit the haill
town’s people convened, who had not yet subscribed, to stand up before him
in the kirk, both men and women, and the men subscribed this Covenant.
Thereafter, both men and women was urged to swear by their uplifted hands
to God, that they did subscribe and swear this Covenant willingly,
freely, and from their hearts, and not from any fear or dread that
could happen. Syne the kirk scaled and dissolved. But the Lord knows that
thir town’s people were brought under perjury for plain fear, and not from
a willing mind, by tyranny and oppression of thir Covenantars, who
compelled them to swear and subscribe, suppose they knew it was against
their hearts.’—Spal.
As a pleasant finale, to compensate in some degree for
the trouble they had given, the citizens were laid under a contribution of
ten thousand merks, besides being forced to promise their taking share in
all expenses that might thereafter be necessary for promotion of the good
cause.
May 25
Aberdeen had not kept steady in the Covenanting faith—since so solemnly
and sincerely signing the bond in April, it had maintained a loyal
correspondence with the king. The Covenanters, now on the eve of their
expedition to Dunse Law, had to take order with it; and as the movement at
such a moment was inconvenient, they were in no good-humour. What
happened, as described in the simple notes of the town-clerk Spalding,
gives such a picture of civil war as it may be salutary to keep in mind.
‘They were estimate to 4000 men, foot and horse, by
[besides] baggage-horse 300, having and carrying their provision, with
thirteen field-pieces. They enterit the town at the over Kirkgate in order
of battle, with sounding of trumpets, touting of drums, and displayed
banners; went down through the Braid-gate, through the Castle-gate, and to
the Queen’s Links march they....Now Aberdeen began to groan and make sore
lamentation at the incoming of this huge army, whom they were unable to
sustain, or get meat to buy.
‘Upon the 26th, being Sunday, the Earl of Montrose,
with the rest of the nobles, heard devotion; but the renegate soldiers, in
time of both preachings, is abusing and plundering New Aberdeen pitifully,
without regard to God or man. And in the meantime, garse and corn eaten
and destroyed about both Aberdeens, without fear of the maledictions of
the poor labourers of the ground... The bishop’s servants saved his books,
and other insight and plenishing, and hid them in neighbours’ houses of
the town, from the violence of the soldiers, who brake down and demolishit
all they could get within the bishop’s house, without making any great
benefit to themselves... Richt sae, the corns were eaten and destroyed by
the horse of this great army, both night and day, during their abode. The
salmon-fishers, both of Dee and Don, masterfully oppressed, and their
salmon taken from them....The country round about was pitifully plundered,
meal girnels broken up, eaten, and consumed; no fowl, cock or hen, left
unkilled. The haill house-dogs, messans, and whelps within Aberdeen,
fellit and slain upon the gate, so that neither hound nor messan nor other
dog was left that they could see. The reason was, when the first army came
here, ilk captain, commander, servant, and soldier had ane blue ribbon
about his craig [neck]; in despite and derision whereof, when they removed
frae Aberdeen, some women, as was alleged, knit blue ribbons about their
messans’ craigs, whereat their soldiers took offence, and killit all the
dogs for this cause.
‘They took frae Aberdeen ten thousand merks to save it
from plundering, and took twelve pieces of ordnance also from them.... The
town, seeing themselves sore oppressed by the feeding and susteining of
thir armies without payment, besides other slaveries, began heavily to
regret their miseries to the general and rest of the nobles and
commanders, saying they had subscribed the Covenant..... There was no
compassion had to their complaints... So the country anti-Covenanters was
pitifully plagued and. plundered in their victuals, fleshes, fowls, and
other commodities, whilk bred great scarcity in this land...'
This was but a beginning of the troubles and damages of
Aberdeen from civil war. In the very next month, in consequence of the
town being taken possession of by a royalist band under the Earl of Aboyne,
a Covenanting army came against it, and forcing its way in, subjected it
to further fining and spoiling. Altogether, the Aberdonians considered
themselves as having been injured to the extent of £12,000 sterling in the
first half of this year, besides thirty-two of the citizens being fined
specially in 42,000 merks. It would be tedious to enumerate the losses of
the city during the few subsequent years.
May
Gordon of Rothiemay notes a quasi prodigy as happening at Dunse Law
while the Scottish army lay there. It has a whimsical character, as
connecting the Covenanting war with a geological fact. The matter
consisted of ‘the falling of a part of a bank upon the steep side of a
hill near by to the Scottish camp, which of its own accord had shuffled
downward, and by its fall discovered innumerable stones, round, for the
most part, in shape, and perfectly spherical, some of them oval-shapen.
They were of a dark gray colour, some of them yellowish, and for quantity
they looked like ball of all sizes, from a pistol to field-pieces, such as
askers or robenets, or battering-pieces upwards. Smooth they were, and
polished without, but lighter than lead by many degrees, so that they were
only for show, but not for use. Many of them were carried about in men’s
pockets, to be seen for the rarity. Nor wanted there a few who interpreted
this stone magazine at Dunse Hill as a miracle, as if God had sent this by
ane hid providence for the use of the Covenanters for at this time all
things were interpreted for the advantage of the Covenant. Others looked
upon these pebble-stones as prodigious, and the wiser sort took no notice
of them at all. I suppose that at this present the quarry is extant, where
they are yet to be seen, no more a miracle; but whether the event has
determined them to be a prodigy or not, I shall not take it upon me to
define pro or con.’
A modem writer may feel little difficulty in defining
this magazine of pebbles as merely part of an ancient alluvial terrace,
such as are found in most mountain valleys in Scotland, being, in
geological theory, the relics of gravel-beds deposited in these situations
by the streams, when, from a lower relative position of the land, the sea
partially occupied these glens in the form of estuaries. On the banks of
the Whitadder, close to Dunse Law, we still see such banks of pebbles, the
water-rolled spoils of the Lammermuirs, and chiefly of the transition or
Silurian rocks. It gives a lively impression of the excited state of men’s
minds in the time and place, to find them accepting, or disposed to
accept, so simple a natural phenomenon as something significant of the
attention of Providence to the strife which they were unhappily waging.
July
At this time we hear of some strangers from England and Ireland who had
crept in and drawn the people to certain religious practices, accordant
with the general strain of the period, but not exactly with the specific
regulations prescribed by the Presbyterian Kirk. At their own hands,
without the allowance of minister or elders, the people had begun to
convene themselves confusedly about bedtime in private houses, where, for
the greater part of the night, they would expound Scripture, pray, and
sing psalms, besides ‘discussing questions of divinity, whereof some sae
curious that they do not understand, and some so ridiculous that they
cannot be edified by them.’ The consequence was, that they began to
‘lichtly and set at naught the public worship of God.’ Seeing in this a
movement towards Brownism, the kirk-session of Stirling called on the
presbytery to take the matter into consideration, and meanwhile discharged
the congregation from giving any favour to such practices.’ |
