Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
THE years 1684 and l685 were years of terrible suffering to the Covenanters. The history of these years is written in letters of blood, and they were emphatically called, by the sufferers, The Killing Time. The savage ruffians, who were scouring the country like incarnate demons, hunted the poor helpless victims of their cruelty like wild beasts, over moors and mountains. If they met with a person who refused to answer their questions, or who did not satisfy them in his answers; or if they found another reading the Bible; or observed a third apparently alarmed or attempting to escape, they reckoned all such persons fanatics, and in many instances shot them dead on the spot. The devil had gone forth, having great wrath, as if knowing that his time was short. Patrick Walker remarks, that during these two years, eighty persons were shot in the fields, in cold blood; and he further says, “Since that time, some that write of court affairs of Britain for twenty of these years, assert that the very design of that killing time was to provoke the Lord's people in the west of Scotland to rise in arms in their own defence, as at Pentland, Bothwell, and Ayr’s Moss, that they might get the sham occasion to raise fire and sword in the west, to make it a hunting field, as the Duke of York had openly threatened, saying, ‘There was no other way of rooting fanaticism out of it.’” [Biograph. Presby., vol. i., p. 302.]But whatever may be as to this, the ferocity of the persecutors had risen to an unprecedented height, creating general alarm, and threatening to wear out the saints of the Most High.
We are now to narrate the history of one of the bloody scenes enacted during the last of these years - the year 1685 - the scene of the judicial murder of two blameless, inoffensive, and pious females, MargaretM'Lauchlan, [Or Lauchlison, which is the name given her in her petition to the privy council.] an aged widow, and Margaret Wilson, a young girl, who were drowned in the tide at the mouth of the river Blednoch, which runs into the sea about a hundred yards to the south of the town of Wigton, in Lower Galloway. The tragical fate of Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey has already been brought under the notice of the reader; and the case before us is no less touching, whether we consider the advanced age of the one sufferer and the youth of the other, or the kind of death to which they were subjected, or the shocking barbarity of their ruthless murderers, or the undaunted courage with which they suffered and yielded up their spirits to God.
MARGARET WILSON, the younger of the two martyrs, who was only about eighteen years of age at the time of her death, was daughter of Gilbert Wilson, farmer, of Glenvernock, the property of the Laird of Castlestewart,in the parish of Penningham, in Wigtonshire. He was in good outward circumstances; and his farm, which was excellent soil, and in the best condition, was well stocked with sheep and cattle. Both he and his wife were conformists to prelacy, and regularly attended the ministry of the curate of Penningham; nor could the government lay any thing to their charge. Their children, however, which is rather remarkable, were, at an early age, not only well acquainted with the principles of religion, but, contrary to the example of their parents, ardently attached to the persecuted faith, and would on no consideration attend the ministry of the prelatic incumbent of the parish... Their parents were forbidden, at their highest peril, to harbour them, to supply their wants, or to have any intercourse with them... Loyal and conforming parents were fined, and otherwise punished, for the nonconformity of their children; loyal and conforming husbands for the nonconformity of their wives; loyal and conforming masters for the nonconformity of their servants; loyal and conforming proprietors for the nonconformity of their tenants...
Margaret Wilson, and her sister, Agnes, who was then only about thirteen years of age, at length fell into the hands of the persecutors. In the beginning of the year 1685, these two girls, to secure their safety, were obliged to leave for some time their father’s house, and, in company with their brother, a youth of not more than sixteen years of age, and other persecuted wanderers, to seek shelter in the mosses, mountains, and caves of Carrick, Nithsdale, and Galloway. On the death of Charles II, when the persecution was for a brief period relaxed, the two sisters, leaving their hiding places, ventured to come secretly to Wigton to visit some of their fellow-sufferers in the same cause, and particularly the aged Margaret M'Lauchlan, whom they greatly loved, and who was well qualified to minister comfort and counsel to them under their troubles. Here both of them were discovered and made prisoners, through the treachery of a man named Patrick Stuart, with whom they were personally acquainted, and who professed to take a deep and friendly interest in their welfare. This base fellow, from what motive it is not said, but doubtless either from pure malignity of disposition, or from the love of the paltry wages given to informers, purposed to betray these friendless and unsuspecting girls. To find some plausible ground of complaint against them, he, with much apparent kindness, invited them to go with him and partake of some refreshment, which being brought, he proposed that they should drink the king’s health. This, as he probably anticipated from what he knew of their character, they modestly declined to do; upon which he left them, and immediately proceeded to the authorities of Wigton, to lodge information against them. A party of soldiers was forthwith dispatched to apprehend them. The two girls were cast into that abominable place called “the thieves’ hole,” and, after lying there for some time, were removed to the prison in which their beloved friend, Margaret M'Lauchlan, who had been apprehended about the same time, or very shortly after, was confined, and of whom we now proceed to give some account.
MARGARET M'LAUCHLAN, was the widow of John Mulligen or Millikin, carpenter, a tenant in the parish of Kirkinner, in the shire of Galloway, in the farm of Drumjargan, belonging to Colonel Vans of Barnbarroch; and she had now nearly reached the venerable age of seventy. [The inscription on her gravestone in the churchyard of Wigton makes her age 63; but in her petition to the privy council, she says that she is “about the age of three score [and] ten years.”]
She was a plain country woman, but superior to most women of her station in religious knowledge; blameless in her deportment, and a pattern of virtue and piety. Being strictly Presbyterian in her principles, she had regularly absented herself from hearing the curate of the parish of Kirkinner; she had also attended the sermons of the proscribed ministers, and had afforded shelter and relief to her persecuted nonconforming relations and acquaintances in their wanderings and distresses. Honourable as was all this to her character, it was in those days of oppression regarded as highly criminal; and, on this account, she suffered much in her property, and at last was apprehended on the Sabbath-day, when engaged in the exercise of family worship in her own dwelling, the day of rest being now the season when the persecutors were most active in searching for “the fanatics,” and often most successful in discovering them. She was immediately carried to prison, in which she lay for a long time, and was treated with great harshness, not being allowed a fire to warm her, nor a bed upon which to lie, nor even an adequate supply of food to satisfy the cravings of nature.
When Margaret M'Lauchlan, Margaret Wilson, and her sister were apprehended, it was demanded of them, asa test of their loyalty, that they should swear the abjuration oath. This was an oath abjuring a manifesto published by the Society People, or the Cameronians, on the 8th of November 1684, [It was fixed upon the market crosses of several burghs, and upon a great many church doors.] entitled “The Apologetic Declaration and Admonitory Vindication of the True Presbyterians of the Church of Scotland, especially anent Intelligencers and Informers.” In this manifesto, after expressing their adherence to their former declarations, in which they disowned the authority of Charles Stuart, and declared war against him and his accomplices; and after testifying that they “utterly detest and abhor that hellish principle of killing all who differ in judgment or persuasion from them;” they declare it to be their purpose to punish, according to their power, and according to the degree of the offence, such as should stretch forth their hands against them by shedding their blood on account of their principles, or willingly give such information as should lead there to. This step we do not undertake to vindicate, it being “calculated, not withstanding all their qualifications, and in spite of all their precautions they might use, to open a door to lawless bloodshed, and to give encouragement to assassination.
At the same time, it is impossible to condemn them with great severity, when we reflect that they were cast out of the protection of law, driven out of the pale of society, and hunted like wild beasts in the woods and on the mountains, to which they had fled for shelter.” [M'Crie’s Review of Tales of My Landlord in his Miscellaneous Writings, p.443.] It is also to be noticed that what they chiefly aimed at was to inspire their persecutors with a wholesome terror, [“The only instances in which it is alleged, so far as we recollect, that it led to murder, were those of two soldiers at Swine-Abbay, and of the curate of Carsphairn. The last of these was publicly disowned and condemned by the Society People.” - M'Crie’s Review of Tales of My Landlord in his Miscellaneous Writings, p. 444.] and this object was to a considerable degree gained, in regard to the more active and malignant informers, who dared not now, as they had done before, to dog the footsteps and discover to the soldiers the hiding places of men, whom intolerable oppression had driven to desperation.
The more virulent and persecuting of the curates in Nithsdale and Galloway, were also so panic-struck on the publication of the paper, as to leave their parishes and seek safety elsewhere for a time.
On the government the effect was different: it roused their fury to the utmost height. On the 22d of November, they passed an act, which Wodrow justly calls a “bloody act,” ordaining “every person, who owns, or will not disown, the late treasonable declaration upon oath, whether they have arms or not, to be immediately put to death; there being present two witnesses, and the person or persons having commission for that effect”[Wodrow’s History, vol. iv., p. 155.] - an act on which is to be charged the blood of not a few who were shot in the fields by officers, and even by private sentinels, who pretended to be invested with such powers.
On the following day, they gave commission, with a justiciary power, to certain noblemen, gentlemen, and military officers, to convocate all the inhabitants, men and women above fourteen years of age (in certain parishes named), to execute, by military commission upon the place, such of them as owned the “late traitorous declaration;” and also to execute the sentence of death on such as refused to disown it, after trying them by a jury. An oath was also framed abjuring the Apologetic Declaration, and hence called “the abjuration oath,” which all, both men and women, above the age of sixteen years, were required to swear, under the pains of high treason.
Margaret M'Lauchlan, and the two youthful sisters, Margaret and Agnes Wilson, refused to swear the abjuration oath. They were accordingly brought to a formal trial before Sir Robert Grierson, of Lagg,* Colonel David Graham (brother to the bloody Claverhouse), Major Windram, Captain Strachan, and Provost Cultrainat Wigton, on the 13th of April 1685. In their indictment, they were charged with being at the battle of Bothwell Bridge, at the skirmish of Ayr’s Moss, at twenty field conventicles, and at an equal number of house conventicles. The two first charges were notoriously false. None of the panels had ever been within many miles of either of these places. It is, besides, to be noticed that at the time of the battle of Bothwell Bridge, the two girls were mere children - the one only about seven years of age, and the other only about eleven or twelve - while sixty-five years had passed over the head of the aged widow; and it cannot for a moment be supposed, that two girls of so tender an age, or that an humble inoffensive female, who had nearly reached the utmost limits of human earthly existence, could be concerned in that insurrection. The same remark applies to the skirmish at Ayr’s Moss, which took place only a little more than a year after the rising at Bothwell Bridge. The other charges brought against these sufferers may have been true in part or in whole; but nothing was proved against them. Being again required to swear the abjuration oath, all of them refused to swear it; and this refusal seems to have been the main ground upon which they were condemned. After the mockery of a trial, a jury was found so unprincipled as to bring in a verdict of guilty against the whole three; and the sentence pronounced upon them was, that, upon the 11th of May; they should be tied to stakes fixed within the flood mark in the water of Blednoch, near Wigton, where the sea flows at high water, there to be drowned.
They were commanded to receive their sentence on their bended knees; and refusing to kneel, they were pressed down by force till it was pronounced. [Cloud of Witnesses, p. 301.] But they were by no means daunted; they heard the cruel sentence with much composure, and even with cheerful countenances, accounting it their honour that they were called to suffer in the cause of Christ.
* Of these commissioners, Grierson, of Lagg has obtained the most infamous celebrity in the annals of the persecution. So cruel and brutal was his temper, that he seems to have felt an infernal delight in murdering, in cold blood, the unarmed and unresisting peasantry of his country. In 1685, he shot five Covenanters dead on the spot, without giving them leave to pray; and when one of them, Mr. Bell, of Whiteside, who was acquainted with him, begged for a quarter of an hour to prepare for death, he remorselessly answered, “What the Devil! have you not got time enough to prepare since Bothwell?”
This extraordinary sentence could not but produce great excitement in Wigton, and the friends of the three females were plunged into the deepest distress. The afflicted father of the two girls, on going to Edinburgh,was allowed to purchase at the price of £100 sterling, the life of his younger daughter, in consequence of her tender age. When in Edinburgh, he would also, no doubt, use every means in his power to save the life of his other daughter; and his intercessions, as we shall afterwards see, had a mollifying effect upon the members of the privy council. At the same time, Margaret Wilson’s friends did all they could to prevail with her to swear the abjuration oath, and to promise to attend the ministry of the curate of the parish in which she lived, but without effect; for by no solicitations would she surrender her convictions of truth and duty, whatever it might cost her. ..The aged Margaret M'Lauchlan, it would appear, exhibited in prison less heroic resolution than her youthful companion. She was induced to send a petition to the privy council, praying them to recall the sentence of death pronounced upon her, acknowledging the justice of the sentence, and expressing her willingness to take the abjuration oath, and regularly to attend her parish church...
Yielding to the prayer of this petition, and to the representations of Margaret Wilson’s father, the privy council granted a reprieve to these two females, and recommended them to the secretaries of state for his majesty’spardon. ..But, not withstanding this reprieve, these two women were, on the day appointed - the 11th of May - conducted from the tolbooth of Wigton to the place of execution, amidst a numerous crowd of spectators, who had assembled to witness so unusual a sight. They were guarded by Major Windram with a company of soldiers, and, on arriving at the place, were fastened to stakes fixed in the sand, between high and low water mark. Margaret M'Lauchlan, who is said to have now manifested great fortitude, though, when in prison, she had offered to make concessions, was tied to the stake placed nearest the advancing tide, that she might perish first; for the obvious purpose of terrifying into submission the younger sufferer, who was bound to a stake nearer the shore. The multitude looked on, thrilled with horror. The flood gradually made its way to the aged matron, rising higher and higher at each successive wave, “mounting up from knee, waist, breast, neck, chin, lip,” until it choked and overwhelmed her. Margaret Wilson witnessed the whole scene, and knew that she would soon share the same fate; but her steadfastness remained unshaken; and so far from exhibiting any symptoms of terror, she displayed a calm courage, rivalling that of the most intrepid martyrs. When her fellow-sufferer was struggling in the waters with the agonies of death, a heartless by-stander, perhaps one of the soldiers, asked the youthful Margaret, to whom the tide had not yet advanced so far, what she thought of the spectacle before her. “What do I see,” she answered, “but Christ, in one of his members, wrestling there?Think you that we are the sufferers? No, it is Christ in us; for he sends none a warfare upon their own charges.”
When bound to the stake, Margaret Wilson sang several verses of the 25th Psalm, beginning at the 7th verse: -She then repeated, with a calm and even cheerful voice, a portion of the 8th chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans; and, through a steadfast faith in the great and consoling truths exhibited in that sublime chapter, and in the interesting verses of the psalm she had sung, she was enabled to meet death with unshrinking courage, looking forward with humble hope to that exceeding great and eternal weight of glory, which would do more than counterbalance all her sufferings in the cause of Christ. She next engaged in prayer; and, while so employed, the waters had risen upon her so high as to reach her lips, and she began to struggle with the agonies of death, At this moment, by the command of her murderers, who pretended to be willing to preserve her life, provided she should swear the abjuration oath, the cords which bound her to the stake were unloosened, and she was pulled out of the waters. As soon as she recovered and was able to speak, it was asked her, by Major Windram’s orders, if she would pray for the king. With the christian meekness which formed so engaging a feature in her character, she answered, “I wish the salvation of all men, and the damnation of none.” “Dear Margaret,” exclaimed a friend, deeply moved with pity, and anxious to save her life, “say, God. save the king! say, God save the king!” With the greatest composure, she replied, “God save him, if he will; for it is his salvation I desire.” Immediately her friends called out to Windram, “Sir, she hath said it! she hath said it!” But with this her murderers were not satisfied. Lagg, we are told, bellowed out, “Damned bitch! we do not want such prayers; tender the oath to her;” [Aikman’s Annals of the Persecution, p. 518.] and Windram, coming near her, demanded that she should swear the abjuration oath, else she should be again instantly cast into the sea. She needed not long to deliberate; in an instant her resolve was taken; preferring to die rather than do what she believed would be a denial of Christ and his truth, she firmly replied, “I will not; I am one of Christ’s children; let me go.” And so, after her sufferings were thus inhumanly protracted, and after being thus cruelly tantalized with the hope of life, she was, by Windram’s orders, thrust into the waters, which speedily closed over her for the last time.
URL: http://www.electricscotland.com/history/ladies/ladies20.pdf
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Lilias Dunbar, Mrs. Campbell.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
LILIAS DUNBAR was the only daughter of Mr. ---- Dunbar of Boggs, by his wife, Christian Campbell, daughterto Sir John Campbell, fifth knight of Calder. She was born about the year 1657...
Though favoured with a religious education, she did not feel even common serious impressions till she hadnearly reached the seventeenth year of her age, when she became dangerously ill of the small-pox, [This was in the year 1674.] in the family of Lord Duffus, at Elgin. She acknowledges that before this she had no religion,though education and good company had sufficient influence on her conscience to keep her from hating and reproaching the godly, and though she was kept from gross outward sins. Under this sickness, her conscience being awakened, she vowed that should God in his providence recover her, she would strive to be his servant; and having, notwithstanding her previous thoughtlessness about religion, been convinced, that the nonconforming ministers far surpassed the conforming in spirituality of character, as well as in their success in turning sinners to God and in building up saints, she also resolved to embrace such opportunities as offered of hearing them preach. This, and not that intelligent acquaintance with the important principles for which they were suffering, which she afterwards attained, was the reason why she purposed to attend their ministry. “At that time,” says she, “I did not truly perceive how much it was my duty to take heed whom I heard, and to consider them who were my ministers, and to follow their faith, looking to the end of their conversation, and to mark them that make divisions, and turn aside for reward. Neither did I understand that there was so much of popery and will-worship in episcopacy as truly there is. Neither did I know that the Presbyterians’ laying down of life and liberty was for such a weighty matter as owning Jesus Christ in his kingly office. The end for which I intended to hear Presbyterian ministers preach was, because I heard and saw that the Lord had blessed their labours to many, and souls were getting good by them.”
Mrs. Campbell’s own experience of the tyranny of the Stuarts, and especially her sympathy with others who suffered more severely than herself for their constancy in the cause of Christ, made her hail the Revolution as a wonderful deliverance vouch safed by God to the church...
...From the whole of Mrs. Campbell’s diary, it is evident that she greatly delighted in secret prayer; and to find time for that duty, she was in the habit of rising very early, that the exercises of devotion might be no obstruction to her performing such household duties as devolved upon her. “Some of her acquaintance expressed surprise that she who had time at her command, and was not obliged to labour, should so abridge her hours of sleep; to which she replied, that she did not wish to give the enemies of religion occasion to say that she neglected her worldly matters through attention to religious duties.”
Please read more here.
LILIAS DUNBAR was the only daughter of Mr. ---- Dunbar of Boggs, by his wife, Christian Campbell, daughterto Sir John Campbell, fifth knight of Calder. She was born about the year 1657...
Though favoured with a religious education, she did not feel even common serious impressions till she hadnearly reached the seventeenth year of her age, when she became dangerously ill of the small-pox, [This was in the year 1674.] in the family of Lord Duffus, at Elgin. She acknowledges that before this she had no religion,though education and good company had sufficient influence on her conscience to keep her from hating and reproaching the godly, and though she was kept from gross outward sins. Under this sickness, her conscience being awakened, she vowed that should God in his providence recover her, she would strive to be his servant; and having, notwithstanding her previous thoughtlessness about religion, been convinced, that the nonconforming ministers far surpassed the conforming in spirituality of character, as well as in their success in turning sinners to God and in building up saints, she also resolved to embrace such opportunities as offered of hearing them preach. This, and not that intelligent acquaintance with the important principles for which they were suffering, which she afterwards attained, was the reason why she purposed to attend their ministry. “At that time,” says she, “I did not truly perceive how much it was my duty to take heed whom I heard, and to consider them who were my ministers, and to follow their faith, looking to the end of their conversation, and to mark them that make divisions, and turn aside for reward. Neither did I understand that there was so much of popery and will-worship in episcopacy as truly there is. Neither did I know that the Presbyterians’ laying down of life and liberty was for such a weighty matter as owning Jesus Christ in his kingly office. The end for which I intended to hear Presbyterian ministers preach was, because I heard and saw that the Lord had blessed their labours to many, and souls were getting good by them.”
Mrs. Campbell’s own experience of the tyranny of the Stuarts, and especially her sympathy with others who suffered more severely than herself for their constancy in the cause of Christ, made her hail the Revolution as a wonderful deliverance vouch safed by God to the church...
...From the whole of Mrs. Campbell’s diary, it is evident that she greatly delighted in secret prayer; and to find time for that duty, she was in the habit of rising very early, that the exercises of devotion might be no obstruction to her performing such household duties as devolved upon her. “Some of her acquaintance expressed surprise that she who had time at her command, and was not obliged to labour, should so abridge her hours of sleep; to which she replied, that she did not wish to give the enemies of religion occasion to say that she neglected her worldly matters through attention to religious duties.”
Please read more here.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Helen Johnston, Lady Graden
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
HELEN JOHNSTON was the daughter of the well-known Sir Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, who acted so prominent a part in the civil and ecclesiastical transactions of his day, and who at last fell a martyr to the cause of civil and religious freedom....
...Our chief object in introducing this lady to the notice of the reader is, to give a specimen of the Christian sympathy and heroism which ladies often displayed in those trying times, under the sufferings of their near and dear relatives, in the cause of religion and liberty. The part which she acted towards Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, who was her cousin-german, and also her brother-in-law,* during his sickness when in prison, and at the time of his trial and execution, is worthy of all praise...It is highly probable that on that day, as on the day of the trial, Lady Graden attended him to the court, and that, with panting breast and bitter agony of spirit, she heard the sentence of death pronounced upon him. She returned with him again to the prison, resolved to minister to his comfort, as far as in her power, to the last..
“When he was brought into the prison [after receiving his sentence], he fell over into the bed, where he brokeforth into a most wonderful prayer. He seemed to be in a rapture. There seemed to be a shining majesty in his face; the tears abundantly trickling down from his eyes. He spoke like one in heaven; he showed what great and wonderful joy would be at the meeting of the saints with the Lord, and with one another. He said God had begun the good work in him; he had carried it on, and now he was putting the copestone upon it, and now he had received a wonderful cordial: that within a few hours he would be inexpressibly, beyond conception, well. . . He said in his prayer that he was to be made a sacrifice; he prayed it might be an acceptable sacrifice to God, and that his death might put a merciful stop to their cruel shedding of the blood of his people.” The time appointed for Baillie’s execution soon arrived. Owing to his sickness, he was carried in a chair to the scaffold. On coming out of the chair, he was so weak as to be unable, without assistance, to go up the ladder. He wore his night-gown. Lady Graden accompanied him from the prison to the scaffold. On their way to it, they passed the house of her father; and, in passing it, Baillie looked up to the chamber where Lord Warriston usually sat, and a multitude of associations connected with the past vividly rushing into his mind, he said to her, “Many a sweet day and night with God had your now glorified father in that chamber.” “Yes,” she replied; and, thinking of his cruel death, she added, “Now he is beyond the reach of all suffering, equally free from sin and sorrow; and the same grace which supported him is able to support you.” She went up with him to the scaffold, and stood by him while he attempted to address the crowd of spectators; which he no sooner began to do – “My faint zeal for the Protestant religion has brought me to this end” – than he was interrupted by the beating of the drums; after which he made no farther attempt to speak. Previous to his engaging in prayer and being thrown over, she took her last farewell of him, which struck to the inmost feelings of her soul as with the hand of death. The last adieu of a dying friend, even when he dies upon his bed, though gratifying, is always painful – agonizing to the survivors. But when his death is tragical and outwardly ignominious, the final parting is still more overwhelming to the feelings. After Baillie had been thrown over, Lady Graden had still another duty to perform to him. She knew that the very dust of God’s saints is precious in his sight; that their bodies, though they may become the victims of man’s implacable rage, continue to be the objects of his incessant care, and in the faith of this, and in imitation of God, she exercised an anxious care over the body of her friend, after the emancipated spirit had ascended from it to the throne of God, to receive the crown of immortal life. “With a more than masculine courage,” as Fountainhall justly observes, she continued on the scaffold not only till Baillie was executed, but till she saw the hangman quarter his body. She also went with the hangman to see the pieces oiled and tarred, and she took them and wrapped each up in a linen cloth; after which they were thrown into the thieves’ hole, before being dispersed to the respective places where they were to be exhibited as a public spectacle. ..
Of Lady Graden we meet with no additional notices during the persecution. She, however, lived to see the Stuarts expelled from the British throne, and to rejoice in the deliverance which was effected by the Prince of Orange. She also saw the descendants of Baillie raised to situations of high honour and trust under the new government, and, what was still better, adorning their high stations by the Christian virtues which distinguished their martyred father, and proving public blessings to their country in their day and generation. She died in Edinburgh, previous to the 11th of September 1707.
Please read more here.
HELEN JOHNSTON was the daughter of the well-known Sir Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston, who acted so prominent a part in the civil and ecclesiastical transactions of his day, and who at last fell a martyr to the cause of civil and religious freedom....
...Our chief object in introducing this lady to the notice of the reader is, to give a specimen of the Christian sympathy and heroism which ladies often displayed in those trying times, under the sufferings of their near and dear relatives, in the cause of religion and liberty. The part which she acted towards Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, who was her cousin-german, and also her brother-in-law,* during his sickness when in prison, and at the time of his trial and execution, is worthy of all praise...It is highly probable that on that day, as on the day of the trial, Lady Graden attended him to the court, and that, with panting breast and bitter agony of spirit, she heard the sentence of death pronounced upon him. She returned with him again to the prison, resolved to minister to his comfort, as far as in her power, to the last..
“When he was brought into the prison [after receiving his sentence], he fell over into the bed, where he brokeforth into a most wonderful prayer. He seemed to be in a rapture. There seemed to be a shining majesty in his face; the tears abundantly trickling down from his eyes. He spoke like one in heaven; he showed what great and wonderful joy would be at the meeting of the saints with the Lord, and with one another. He said God had begun the good work in him; he had carried it on, and now he was putting the copestone upon it, and now he had received a wonderful cordial: that within a few hours he would be inexpressibly, beyond conception, well. . . He said in his prayer that he was to be made a sacrifice; he prayed it might be an acceptable sacrifice to God, and that his death might put a merciful stop to their cruel shedding of the blood of his people.” The time appointed for Baillie’s execution soon arrived. Owing to his sickness, he was carried in a chair to the scaffold. On coming out of the chair, he was so weak as to be unable, without assistance, to go up the ladder. He wore his night-gown. Lady Graden accompanied him from the prison to the scaffold. On their way to it, they passed the house of her father; and, in passing it, Baillie looked up to the chamber where Lord Warriston usually sat, and a multitude of associations connected with the past vividly rushing into his mind, he said to her, “Many a sweet day and night with God had your now glorified father in that chamber.” “Yes,” she replied; and, thinking of his cruel death, she added, “Now he is beyond the reach of all suffering, equally free from sin and sorrow; and the same grace which supported him is able to support you.” She went up with him to the scaffold, and stood by him while he attempted to address the crowd of spectators; which he no sooner began to do – “My faint zeal for the Protestant religion has brought me to this end” – than he was interrupted by the beating of the drums; after which he made no farther attempt to speak. Previous to his engaging in prayer and being thrown over, she took her last farewell of him, which struck to the inmost feelings of her soul as with the hand of death. The last adieu of a dying friend, even when he dies upon his bed, though gratifying, is always painful – agonizing to the survivors. But when his death is tragical and outwardly ignominious, the final parting is still more overwhelming to the feelings. After Baillie had been thrown over, Lady Graden had still another duty to perform to him. She knew that the very dust of God’s saints is precious in his sight; that their bodies, though they may become the victims of man’s implacable rage, continue to be the objects of his incessant care, and in the faith of this, and in imitation of God, she exercised an anxious care over the body of her friend, after the emancipated spirit had ascended from it to the throne of God, to receive the crown of immortal life. “With a more than masculine courage,” as Fountainhall justly observes, she continued on the scaffold not only till Baillie was executed, but till she saw the hangman quarter his body. She also went with the hangman to see the pieces oiled and tarred, and she took them and wrapped each up in a linen cloth; after which they were thrown into the thieves’ hole, before being dispersed to the respective places where they were to be exhibited as a public spectacle. ..
Of Lady Graden we meet with no additional notices during the persecution. She, however, lived to see the Stuarts expelled from the British throne, and to rejoice in the deliverance which was effected by the Prince of Orange. She also saw the descendants of Baillie raised to situations of high honour and trust under the new government, and, what was still better, adorning their high stations by the Christian virtues which distinguished their martyred father, and proving public blessings to their country in their day and generation. She died in Edinburgh, previous to the 11th of September 1707.
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Sunday, December 25, 2005
Marion Harvey
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
MARION HARVEY was a servant girl in Borrowstounness. Her father, who lived in that village, appears to have been a man of piety, and had sworn the National Covenant and Solemn League. It may, therefore, be presumedthat she had received a religious education. But it was not till she had passed her fourteenth or fifteenth year that her attention was turned, in good earnest, to divine and eternal things...Attracted by curiosity, or following the crowd, she began to attend meetings for the preaching of the gospel in the fields, which had become very frequent in the part of the country where she lived, as well as extremely popular - thousands flocking to hear the persecuted ministers. These conventicles, as they were nicknamed, though denounced by the government, and prohibited, under the penalty of death to the minister, and severe penalties to the hearers, were accompanied with signal tokens of the divine approbation; and among the many thousands who, by their instrumentality,were brought to the saving knowledge of Christ, was the subject of this notice. The change produced upon her character soon became apparent in her life. She left off hearing the curates, whose ministry she had formerly attended without scruple; she venerated the name of God, which she had formerly blasphemed; she sanctifiedthe Sabbath, which she had formerly desecrated; and she delighted in reading the Bible, which she had formerly neglected and undervalued. Among the ministers whom she heard at these field meetings were, Mr. John Welsh, Mr. Archibald Riddell, Mr. Donald Cargill, and Mr. Richard Cameron. In her examination before the privy council, she expresses how much spiritual profit she had derived from the sermons of these worthy men; and in her dying testimony she says, “I bless the Lord that ever I heard Mr. Cargill, that faithful servant of Jesus Christ: I bless the Lord that ever I heard Mr. Richard Cameron; my soul has been refreshed with the hearing of him, particularly at a communion in Carrick, on these words, in Psalm lxxxv. 8: ‘The Lord will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints; but let them not turn again to folly.’” The two last of these ministers,as we have seen before, separated from the rest of the Presbyterian ministers, forming a party by themselves,and to this party Marion Harvey was a zealous adherent...
On the day of her execution, Marion not only retamed her composure, but experienced the utmost joy in the anticipation of future felicity. When coming out of the tolbooth door to go to the council house, whence she was to be conducted to the place of execution, she said, to some friends attending her, in a tone of heavenly joy and ecstacy, at once surprising and delightful to them, “Behold, I hear my beloved saying unto me, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” In the council house, a base and heartless attempt was made, by Bishop Paterson, to disturb her tranquillity, and the tranquillity of her fellow-sufferer in the same cause, Isabel Alison. This man, who had an active hand in bringing them to the scaffold, and who, with a meanness and wanton cruelty worthy of a persecutor, had brought a curate with him to the council house, for the express purpose of annoying them, said to Marion Harvey, “Marion, you said you would never hear a curate, now you shall be forced to hear one;” upon which he called on the curate to pray. This cruel insult, offered to them when placed in circumstances calculated to excite the deepest commiseration, was met by the sufferers, with becoming spirit. They made no reply to the bishop, but as soon as the curate began to pray; Marion said to her fellow-martyr, “Come, Isabel, let us sing the 23d Psalm,” which they accordingly did – Marion repeating the psalm line by line without book – which drowned the curate’s voice, and confounded both him and the bishop. When they were brought to the scaffold, a second attempt was made to harass their feelings and disturb their composure in their last moments, by one of the prelatic curates of the city, who came to pray with the five women condemned to be executed at the same time for child-murder. This man, who appears to have had neither correct views of religion, nor humane feelings, flattered these five murderers with the hope of heaven, though they had given no evidence of repentance, while he vehemently railed on our two martyrs, and remorselessly told them that they were on the road to damnation. But they remained unmoved; “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, kept their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” On the scaffold, Marion sung the 84th Psalm, and read the 3d chapter of Malachi; after which she shortly addressed the vast crowd of spectators. “I am come here to-day,” she said, “for avowing Christ to be head of his Church, and King in Zion. O seek him, sirs! seek him, and ye shall find him; I sought him and found him; I held him and would not let him go.” Then she briefly narrated the manner in which she was apprehended, and the leading questions put, to her by the privy council, with the answers she returned. “They asked me if I adhered to the papers gotten at the Ferry? I said I did own them, and all the rest of Christ’s truths. If I would have denied any of them, my life was in my offer; but I durst not do it, no, not for my soul. Ere I wanted an hour of his presence, I had rather die ten deaths. I durst not speak against him, lest I should have sinned against God. I adhere to the Bible, and Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Covenants, which are according to this Bible.” But, in her dying speech, she chiefly spoke of God’s love to her, and in commendation of free grace. “Much of theLord’s presence,” said she, “have I enjoyed in prison; and now I bless the Lord the snare is broken, and we are escaped.” When she came to the foot of the ladder, she engaged in prayer; and, on going up the ladder, she exclaimed, “O my fair one, my lovely one, come away;” and sitting down upon it, she said, “I am not come here for murder, for they have no matter of fact to charge me with, but only my judgment. I am about twenty years of age; at fourteen or fifteen I was a hearer of the curates, and indulged; and while I was a hearer of these, I was a blasphemer and Sabbath-breaker, and a chapter of the Bible was a burden to me; but since I heard this persecuted gospel, I durst not blaspheme nor break the Sabbath, and the Bible became my delight.”These were her last words; for on her having uttered them, the hangman, at the orders of the provost, cast her over...
Please read more here.
MARION HARVEY was a servant girl in Borrowstounness. Her father, who lived in that village, appears to have been a man of piety, and had sworn the National Covenant and Solemn League. It may, therefore, be presumedthat she had received a religious education. But it was not till she had passed her fourteenth or fifteenth year that her attention was turned, in good earnest, to divine and eternal things...Attracted by curiosity, or following the crowd, she began to attend meetings for the preaching of the gospel in the fields, which had become very frequent in the part of the country where she lived, as well as extremely popular - thousands flocking to hear the persecuted ministers. These conventicles, as they were nicknamed, though denounced by the government, and prohibited, under the penalty of death to the minister, and severe penalties to the hearers, were accompanied with signal tokens of the divine approbation; and among the many thousands who, by their instrumentality,were brought to the saving knowledge of Christ, was the subject of this notice. The change produced upon her character soon became apparent in her life. She left off hearing the curates, whose ministry she had formerly attended without scruple; she venerated the name of God, which she had formerly blasphemed; she sanctifiedthe Sabbath, which she had formerly desecrated; and she delighted in reading the Bible, which she had formerly neglected and undervalued. Among the ministers whom she heard at these field meetings were, Mr. John Welsh, Mr. Archibald Riddell, Mr. Donald Cargill, and Mr. Richard Cameron. In her examination before the privy council, she expresses how much spiritual profit she had derived from the sermons of these worthy men; and in her dying testimony she says, “I bless the Lord that ever I heard Mr. Cargill, that faithful servant of Jesus Christ: I bless the Lord that ever I heard Mr. Richard Cameron; my soul has been refreshed with the hearing of him, particularly at a communion in Carrick, on these words, in Psalm lxxxv. 8: ‘The Lord will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints; but let them not turn again to folly.’” The two last of these ministers,as we have seen before, separated from the rest of the Presbyterian ministers, forming a party by themselves,and to this party Marion Harvey was a zealous adherent...
On the day of her execution, Marion not only retamed her composure, but experienced the utmost joy in the anticipation of future felicity. When coming out of the tolbooth door to go to the council house, whence she was to be conducted to the place of execution, she said, to some friends attending her, in a tone of heavenly joy and ecstacy, at once surprising and delightful to them, “Behold, I hear my beloved saying unto me, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” In the council house, a base and heartless attempt was made, by Bishop Paterson, to disturb her tranquillity, and the tranquillity of her fellow-sufferer in the same cause, Isabel Alison. This man, who had an active hand in bringing them to the scaffold, and who, with a meanness and wanton cruelty worthy of a persecutor, had brought a curate with him to the council house, for the express purpose of annoying them, said to Marion Harvey, “Marion, you said you would never hear a curate, now you shall be forced to hear one;” upon which he called on the curate to pray. This cruel insult, offered to them when placed in circumstances calculated to excite the deepest commiseration, was met by the sufferers, with becoming spirit. They made no reply to the bishop, but as soon as the curate began to pray; Marion said to her fellow-martyr, “Come, Isabel, let us sing the 23d Psalm,” which they accordingly did – Marion repeating the psalm line by line without book – which drowned the curate’s voice, and confounded both him and the bishop. When they were brought to the scaffold, a second attempt was made to harass their feelings and disturb their composure in their last moments, by one of the prelatic curates of the city, who came to pray with the five women condemned to be executed at the same time for child-murder. This man, who appears to have had neither correct views of religion, nor humane feelings, flattered these five murderers with the hope of heaven, though they had given no evidence of repentance, while he vehemently railed on our two martyrs, and remorselessly told them that they were on the road to damnation. But they remained unmoved; “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, kept their hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” On the scaffold, Marion sung the 84th Psalm, and read the 3d chapter of Malachi; after which she shortly addressed the vast crowd of spectators. “I am come here to-day,” she said, “for avowing Christ to be head of his Church, and King in Zion. O seek him, sirs! seek him, and ye shall find him; I sought him and found him; I held him and would not let him go.” Then she briefly narrated the manner in which she was apprehended, and the leading questions put, to her by the privy council, with the answers she returned. “They asked me if I adhered to the papers gotten at the Ferry? I said I did own them, and all the rest of Christ’s truths. If I would have denied any of them, my life was in my offer; but I durst not do it, no, not for my soul. Ere I wanted an hour of his presence, I had rather die ten deaths. I durst not speak against him, lest I should have sinned against God. I adhere to the Bible, and Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Covenants, which are according to this Bible.” But, in her dying speech, she chiefly spoke of God’s love to her, and in commendation of free grace. “Much of theLord’s presence,” said she, “have I enjoyed in prison; and now I bless the Lord the snare is broken, and we are escaped.” When she came to the foot of the ladder, she engaged in prayer; and, on going up the ladder, she exclaimed, “O my fair one, my lovely one, come away;” and sitting down upon it, she said, “I am not come here for murder, for they have no matter of fact to charge me with, but only my judgment. I am about twenty years of age; at fourteen or fifteen I was a hearer of the curates, and indulged; and while I was a hearer of these, I was a blasphemer and Sabbath-breaker, and a chapter of the Bible was a burden to me; but since I heard this persecuted gospel, I durst not blaspheme nor break the Sabbath, and the Bible became my delight.”These were her last words; for on her having uttered them, the hangman, at the orders of the provost, cast her over...
Please read more here.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Isabel Alison
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
WE have previously met with some of our female worthies who suffered great hardships, though not unto the death. We now come to record the history of others of them who were called to seal their testimony with their blood. Of this class were Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey, two young women in humble life, but of unsullied character and genuine piety. Their tragic and deeply interesting story, is enough of itself to entail everlasting infamy on the bloody rulers who pursued them to the death, not for any crime, for they had committed none, but simply and solely for their private opinions, which the council had extorted from them by artful and ensnaring questions. They were tried together upon the same indictment, and executed on the same day at the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. We shall give a separate account of each, beginning with the eldest.
ISABEL ALISON was an unmarried woman who lived at Perth, and probably did not exceed twenty-seven years of age. Among her religious acquaintances she maintained a high reputation for sobriety of character and enlightened piety. She had sometimes heard Mr. Donald Cargill and some other ministers preach in the fields, before the battle of Bothwell Bridge, but not often, field conventicles not having been common in the part of the country where she lived. The sermons she heard on these occasions were greatly blessed to her, and if not the means of her conversion, had consumed her in the faith, and fortified her for suffering in the cause of Christ. By the ministrations of Mr. Cargill, she had in particular been deeply impressed, and had imbibed the peculiar opinions held by him and Mr. Richard Cameron.
These two ministers, though different as to age, were one in spirit. Cargill had seen many years pass over him; his head had become gray in the service of his Master: Cameron was in the prime of youth, and had but Cargill preaching in the Fields recently put on the harness. Yet both were actuated by the fearless intrepidity which high principle and deep piety, combined with constitutional fortitude, often impart. With the exception of Mr. John Blackadder, they were the only ministers, who, after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, preached in the fields, till Mr. James Renwick appeared on the stage; the other field preachers having desisted, by reason of the increased danger arising from the increased exasperation of the government. They and their followers thus became the special objects of persecuting vengeance, and the consequence was, that, driven to extremity, they renounced Charles Stuart as their lawful sovereign, and proclaimed war against him as a tyrant and usurper.* To this party, we have said, Isabel Alison belonged; and it was for holding their principles in regard to the unlawfulness of the then existing civil government, that she was doomed to undergo a traitor’s death.
These principles, as we learn from herself, she had been led to embrace from the severities exercised by the curates of Perth upon the Presbyterians in that place, and from the cruelty of the government in publicly executing many of the Presbyterians in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, and sending soldiers through the country to oppress and murder the poor inoffensive people. But while holding these sentiments, she held them quietly, there being no evidence that she had endeavoured to propagate them in any way, either by calm representation or by inflammatory speeches; nor had the government any ground for alarm from any influence which a female, in so humble a condition of life, could have in weakening, or undermining their authority.
Please read more here.
WE have previously met with some of our female worthies who suffered great hardships, though not unto the death. We now come to record the history of others of them who were called to seal their testimony with their blood. Of this class were Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey, two young women in humble life, but of unsullied character and genuine piety. Their tragic and deeply interesting story, is enough of itself to entail everlasting infamy on the bloody rulers who pursued them to the death, not for any crime, for they had committed none, but simply and solely for their private opinions, which the council had extorted from them by artful and ensnaring questions. They were tried together upon the same indictment, and executed on the same day at the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. We shall give a separate account of each, beginning with the eldest.
ISABEL ALISON was an unmarried woman who lived at Perth, and probably did not exceed twenty-seven years of age. Among her religious acquaintances she maintained a high reputation for sobriety of character and enlightened piety. She had sometimes heard Mr. Donald Cargill and some other ministers preach in the fields, before the battle of Bothwell Bridge, but not often, field conventicles not having been common in the part of the country where she lived. The sermons she heard on these occasions were greatly blessed to her, and if not the means of her conversion, had consumed her in the faith, and fortified her for suffering in the cause of Christ. By the ministrations of Mr. Cargill, she had in particular been deeply impressed, and had imbibed the peculiar opinions held by him and Mr. Richard Cameron.
These two ministers, though different as to age, were one in spirit. Cargill had seen many years pass over him; his head had become gray in the service of his Master: Cameron was in the prime of youth, and had but Cargill preaching in the Fields recently put on the harness. Yet both were actuated by the fearless intrepidity which high principle and deep piety, combined with constitutional fortitude, often impart. With the exception of Mr. John Blackadder, they were the only ministers, who, after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, preached in the fields, till Mr. James Renwick appeared on the stage; the other field preachers having desisted, by reason of the increased danger arising from the increased exasperation of the government. They and their followers thus became the special objects of persecuting vengeance, and the consequence was, that, driven to extremity, they renounced Charles Stuart as their lawful sovereign, and proclaimed war against him as a tyrant and usurper.* To this party, we have said, Isabel Alison belonged; and it was for holding their principles in regard to the unlawfulness of the then existing civil government, that she was doomed to undergo a traitor’s death.
These principles, as we learn from herself, she had been led to embrace from the severities exercised by the curates of Perth upon the Presbyterians in that place, and from the cruelty of the government in publicly executing many of the Presbyterians in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, and sending soldiers through the country to oppress and murder the poor inoffensive people. But while holding these sentiments, she held them quietly, there being no evidence that she had endeavoured to propagate them in any way, either by calm representation or by inflammatory speeches; nor had the government any ground for alarm from any influence which a female, in so humble a condition of life, could have in weakening, or undermining their authority.
Please read more here.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Catherine Rigg, Lady Cavers.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
CATHARINE RIGG was the eldest daughter of Thomas Rigg of Athernie, by his wife, Margaret Monypenny...
Of the early life of this lady no particulars have been preserved. In March, 1659, she was married to Sir William Douglas of Cavers, younger. The circumstances in which their courtship and marriage originated are thus recorded by Crawford, in his Genealogical Collections: - “I have heard that Sir William Douglas of Cavers applied to Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, to have borrowed from him the sum of 50,000 merks, that he wanted to pay off some of his pressing debts. Sir John told him he could not do it himself at present; but there was a young gentlewoman at his house who had just as much portion, in ready money, as he wanted to borrow, and he did not know but both the lady and her portion might be at his service. From this hint Sir William made his application and addresses to Miss Catharine Rigg and obtained the lady in marriage soon after that.” [MS. folio in Advocates'’Library.] Crawford adds, “A mighty religious good woman she was as any could be in her time.”
Both Lady Cavers and Sir William, who was a man of principle, adhered to the cause of the ministers ejected in 1662; by which they excited the resentment of the government...For refusing to take the declaration which abjured the National Covenant, Sir William was removed from his office of sheriff of Teviotdale, in which be stood infefted. He and his wife also suffered when, on their children having so far advanced in years as to require a tutor, they selectedone from among the students or preachers of the nonconformists...
Being now left a widow with numerous children, she [Lady Cavers] felt that to educate them in the principles of religion and of the Reformed Church of Scotland, was one of the most important duties of her life, or rather the most important duty which devolved upon her as a widowed mother. This appears from the proceedings instituted against her,... and from which it will be seen how anxious the government and its supporters were to prevent the education of children, and especially those of rank, in Presbyterian principles...Lady Cavers’ eldest son William, was accordingly taken from her, and educated for several years at schools in Dalkeith and Edinburgh. But William having, for the benefit of his health, been permitted to stay at his own house with his mother for some time, she refused to allow him to return to the schools where he had been formerlybred. At the same time, she refused to deliver up to the tutors her other two sons, Archibald and John, who were still within the years of “pupillarity,” not of course because she was hostile to their receiving a complete education and every accomplishment suitable to their station, but because she wished their education to be conducted under her own eye; and so long as they were with her, she did not fail to instil into their minds the principles of Presbytery and of the Covenant. This gave great offence to the tutors, and letters were raised against her at their instance, to compel her to deliver up to them her children. They complain that “she wilfully keeps them that she may give them those disloyal impressions which may prove very dangerous to that family, breeding them up in a perfect aversion to the government of church and state, and who are already arrived at that wildness, that they will neither frequent the public ordinances themselves, nor converse with those who so do: And therefore,” they add, “in all equity and justice the said Lady Cavers should not only be decerned to deliver up to the complainers the persons of the said William, Archibald and John Douglas, the complainers’ pupils, that they may take care for their education, and be discharged to withdraw or detain them from schools and their other education, but also punished, to the terror of others to do the like in time coming.” She was charged to compear personally before the privy council on the 27th of January, 1680, to answer to the premises, and to bring with her, exhibit and produce the persons of her three sons above named, and to hear and see herself decerned to deliver them up to their tutors, or else to show a reasonable cause to the contrary; and farther, to hear and see such other order taken in the foresaid matter, as shall appertain under the pain of rebellion. In obedience to the summons, she compeared personally before the council to defend herself. After having heard and considered the libel and the answers made thereto, the lords of council decerned and ordainedher to deliver to the pursuers the persons of the said William, Archibald and John Douglas, their pupils, and to do so within the course of eight days, to be educated as they should order, and, if need be, ordained letters of horning upon a charge of six days, to be directed for that effect. [Decreets of Privy Council.] Nearly two years and a half after this, Lady Cavers was brought to still greater trouble, on account of her Presbyterian principles....While living peaceably at her own house, attending to her household and maternal duties, she was, in 1682, disturbed by the harsh intrusion of the rugged messengers of the law, with letters raised against her, at the instance of Sir George M'Kenzie, his majesty’s advocate. In these letters she is charged with “keeping and being present at conventicles, harbouring, resetting, entertaining, intercommuning, and corresponding with declared rebels and traitors, and disorderly and irregular persons.”...
Such was the issue of the grievous outrage committed upon the person of Lady Cavers, who was first foully slandered, then punished by a heavy fine, a without proof of any offence committed, then thrown into prison, where she was detained till security was given that the fine should be paid; and who, even when that security had been given, and after she had for years been so deeply injured, was compelled to leave the kingdom. How unfeeling the rapacity of these unjust rulers! How contemptible their unmanly treatment of a lady whose helpless situation claimed for her sympathy and protection! But so hateful in their eyes was the taint of Presbyterianism, and so lost were they to every honourable feeling, that the most eminent virtue and piety in ladies of this persuasion, afforded no security against their becoming the victims of the most fragrant injustice and oppression.
Please read more here.
CATHARINE RIGG was the eldest daughter of Thomas Rigg of Athernie, by his wife, Margaret Monypenny...
Of the early life of this lady no particulars have been preserved. In March, 1659, she was married to Sir William Douglas of Cavers, younger. The circumstances in which their courtship and marriage originated are thus recorded by Crawford, in his Genealogical Collections: - “I have heard that Sir William Douglas of Cavers applied to Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet, to have borrowed from him the sum of 50,000 merks, that he wanted to pay off some of his pressing debts. Sir John told him he could not do it himself at present; but there was a young gentlewoman at his house who had just as much portion, in ready money, as he wanted to borrow, and he did not know but both the lady and her portion might be at his service. From this hint Sir William made his application and addresses to Miss Catharine Rigg and obtained the lady in marriage soon after that.” [MS. folio in Advocates'’Library.] Crawford adds, “A mighty religious good woman she was as any could be in her time.”
Both Lady Cavers and Sir William, who was a man of principle, adhered to the cause of the ministers ejected in 1662; by which they excited the resentment of the government...For refusing to take the declaration which abjured the National Covenant, Sir William was removed from his office of sheriff of Teviotdale, in which be stood infefted. He and his wife also suffered when, on their children having so far advanced in years as to require a tutor, they selectedone from among the students or preachers of the nonconformists...
Being now left a widow with numerous children, she [Lady Cavers] felt that to educate them in the principles of religion and of the Reformed Church of Scotland, was one of the most important duties of her life, or rather the most important duty which devolved upon her as a widowed mother. This appears from the proceedings instituted against her,... and from which it will be seen how anxious the government and its supporters were to prevent the education of children, and especially those of rank, in Presbyterian principles...Lady Cavers’ eldest son William, was accordingly taken from her, and educated for several years at schools in Dalkeith and Edinburgh. But William having, for the benefit of his health, been permitted to stay at his own house with his mother for some time, she refused to allow him to return to the schools where he had been formerlybred. At the same time, she refused to deliver up to the tutors her other two sons, Archibald and John, who were still within the years of “pupillarity,” not of course because she was hostile to their receiving a complete education and every accomplishment suitable to their station, but because she wished their education to be conducted under her own eye; and so long as they were with her, she did not fail to instil into their minds the principles of Presbytery and of the Covenant. This gave great offence to the tutors, and letters were raised against her at their instance, to compel her to deliver up to them her children. They complain that “she wilfully keeps them that she may give them those disloyal impressions which may prove very dangerous to that family, breeding them up in a perfect aversion to the government of church and state, and who are already arrived at that wildness, that they will neither frequent the public ordinances themselves, nor converse with those who so do: And therefore,” they add, “in all equity and justice the said Lady Cavers should not only be decerned to deliver up to the complainers the persons of the said William, Archibald and John Douglas, the complainers’ pupils, that they may take care for their education, and be discharged to withdraw or detain them from schools and their other education, but also punished, to the terror of others to do the like in time coming.” She was charged to compear personally before the privy council on the 27th of January, 1680, to answer to the premises, and to bring with her, exhibit and produce the persons of her three sons above named, and to hear and see herself decerned to deliver them up to their tutors, or else to show a reasonable cause to the contrary; and farther, to hear and see such other order taken in the foresaid matter, as shall appertain under the pain of rebellion. In obedience to the summons, she compeared personally before the council to defend herself. After having heard and considered the libel and the answers made thereto, the lords of council decerned and ordainedher to deliver to the pursuers the persons of the said William, Archibald and John Douglas, their pupils, and to do so within the course of eight days, to be educated as they should order, and, if need be, ordained letters of horning upon a charge of six days, to be directed for that effect. [Decreets of Privy Council.] Nearly two years and a half after this, Lady Cavers was brought to still greater trouble, on account of her Presbyterian principles....While living peaceably at her own house, attending to her household and maternal duties, she was, in 1682, disturbed by the harsh intrusion of the rugged messengers of the law, with letters raised against her, at the instance of Sir George M'Kenzie, his majesty’s advocate. In these letters she is charged with “keeping and being present at conventicles, harbouring, resetting, entertaining, intercommuning, and corresponding with declared rebels and traitors, and disorderly and irregular persons.”...
Such was the issue of the grievous outrage committed upon the person of Lady Cavers, who was first foully slandered, then punished by a heavy fine, a without proof of any offence committed, then thrown into prison, where she was detained till security was given that the fine should be paid; and who, even when that security had been given, and after she had for years been so deeply injured, was compelled to leave the kingdom. How unfeeling the rapacity of these unjust rulers! How contemptible their unmanly treatment of a lady whose helpless situation claimed for her sympathy and protection! But so hateful in their eyes was the taint of Presbyterianism, and so lost were they to every honourable feeling, that the most eminent virtue and piety in ladies of this persuasion, afforded no security against their becoming the victims of the most fragrant injustice and oppression.
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Thursday, December 22, 2005
Lady Colvill
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
LADY COLVILL, whose maiden name was Margaret Wemyss, was the daughter of David Wemyss of Fingask, and wife of Robert, Lord Colvill, who succeeded his uncle, of the same name, in 1662, as second Lord Colvill of Ochiltree. In 1671 she became a widow, his lordship having died at Cleish on the 12th of February that year. ...
The severity with which Lady Colvill was treated by the government, may be regarded as an involuntary testimony to the fidelity and stedfastness with which she adhered to the persecuted cause of Presbytery. She was classed among that “desperate and implacable party who keep seditious and numerous field conventicles, and that in open contempt of our authority, as if it were to brave us and those that are in places of trust under us.” Other marks of the government’s displeasure were fixed upon her, all which in fact were so many badges of honourable distinction. She became early conspicuous as a frequenter of field conventicles; and her name appears among the ladies against whom the government first proceeded on that account, - an honour for which she was no doubt indebted to Archbishop Sharp, who, as he resided in Fife, was particularly zealous in his endeavours to arrest and put down the progress of “fanaticism” within his own borders, and who had a great abhorrence of fanatic ladies.
About the close of the year 1672, and in the years 1673 and 1674, meetings in the open fields were frequently held in Kinross-shire, where Lady Colvill resided; and she was in the habit of attending these meetings, as well as of hospitably entertaining in her house the ministers who preached at them, among whom were Mr. John Welsh, Mr. Samuel Arnot, Mr. Gabriel Semple, Mr. Thomas Hog, minister at Larbert, and many others. The zeal and liberality with which she countenanced the preaching of the gospel at field conventicles, and befriended the persecuted ministers, coming to the ears of the government, the storm of persecution began to gather around her. The more immediate cause of this was the following circumstance: A party of soldiers had been sent to disperse a field conventicle held in the Lomonds of Fife; they met with no resistance from the people; but Sharp, to excite the council to greater violence, falsely alleged that the people had made resistance. This fabricated story being communicated to the court, a letter came from the king to the council, dated June 23d, 1674, requiring the council to bring the ringleaders of that disorder to punishment, and promising to send for their assistancesome forces from England and Ireland.This letter occasioned a bitter persecution against all in Fife, both men and women, who attended conventicles. Along catalogue of names, including several ladies as well as gentlemen, and a number of the common people, was sent over to the agents of the government in Fife, who were required to summon them to appear before the privy council at Edinburgh. Lady Colvill’s name was in this list; and she, with several other ladies and gentlemen,were summoned to appear before the lords of the privy council on the 9th of July; The charges for which they were summoned to answer, were their keeping and being present at house and field conventicles, at Dunfermline, Cleish, Orval, and other places; their inviting and countenancing outed ministers in their invasion and intrusion upon the kirks and pulpits of Forgan, Balmerinoch, Collessie, Monzie, and Auchtermuchty, and hearing them preach and pray therein; and their harbouring, resetting, and entertaining Mr. John Welsh, a declared and proclaimed traitor, in their houses and elsewhere. Lady Colvill and the others who were summoned, not being prepared to make any confessions of criminality, or to promise to abstain from attending conventicles in future, deemed it prudent to disobey the summons, probably dreading imprisonment had they made their appearance. For this contempt of authority they were, upon the 15th and 16th of July that same year, denounced his majesty’s rebels, and put to the horn at the market crosses of Cupar and Forfar, by virtue of letters of denunciation raised and executed at the instance of his majesty’s advocate.
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LADY COLVILL, whose maiden name was Margaret Wemyss, was the daughter of David Wemyss of Fingask, and wife of Robert, Lord Colvill, who succeeded his uncle, of the same name, in 1662, as second Lord Colvill of Ochiltree. In 1671 she became a widow, his lordship having died at Cleish on the 12th of February that year. ...
The severity with which Lady Colvill was treated by the government, may be regarded as an involuntary testimony to the fidelity and stedfastness with which she adhered to the persecuted cause of Presbytery. She was classed among that “desperate and implacable party who keep seditious and numerous field conventicles, and that in open contempt of our authority, as if it were to brave us and those that are in places of trust under us.” Other marks of the government’s displeasure were fixed upon her, all which in fact were so many badges of honourable distinction. She became early conspicuous as a frequenter of field conventicles; and her name appears among the ladies against whom the government first proceeded on that account, - an honour for which she was no doubt indebted to Archbishop Sharp, who, as he resided in Fife, was particularly zealous in his endeavours to arrest and put down the progress of “fanaticism” within his own borders, and who had a great abhorrence of fanatic ladies.
About the close of the year 1672, and in the years 1673 and 1674, meetings in the open fields were frequently held in Kinross-shire, where Lady Colvill resided; and she was in the habit of attending these meetings, as well as of hospitably entertaining in her house the ministers who preached at them, among whom were Mr. John Welsh, Mr. Samuel Arnot, Mr. Gabriel Semple, Mr. Thomas Hog, minister at Larbert, and many others. The zeal and liberality with which she countenanced the preaching of the gospel at field conventicles, and befriended the persecuted ministers, coming to the ears of the government, the storm of persecution began to gather around her. The more immediate cause of this was the following circumstance: A party of soldiers had been sent to disperse a field conventicle held in the Lomonds of Fife; they met with no resistance from the people; but Sharp, to excite the council to greater violence, falsely alleged that the people had made resistance. This fabricated story being communicated to the court, a letter came from the king to the council, dated June 23d, 1674, requiring the council to bring the ringleaders of that disorder to punishment, and promising to send for their assistancesome forces from England and Ireland.This letter occasioned a bitter persecution against all in Fife, both men and women, who attended conventicles. Along catalogue of names, including several ladies as well as gentlemen, and a number of the common people, was sent over to the agents of the government in Fife, who were required to summon them to appear before the privy council at Edinburgh. Lady Colvill’s name was in this list; and she, with several other ladies and gentlemen,were summoned to appear before the lords of the privy council on the 9th of July; The charges for which they were summoned to answer, were their keeping and being present at house and field conventicles, at Dunfermline, Cleish, Orval, and other places; their inviting and countenancing outed ministers in their invasion and intrusion upon the kirks and pulpits of Forgan, Balmerinoch, Collessie, Monzie, and Auchtermuchty, and hearing them preach and pray therein; and their harbouring, resetting, and entertaining Mr. John Welsh, a declared and proclaimed traitor, in their houses and elsewhere. Lady Colvill and the others who were summoned, not being prepared to make any confessions of criminality, or to promise to abstain from attending conventicles in future, deemed it prudent to disobey the summons, probably dreading imprisonment had they made their appearance. For this contempt of authority they were, upon the 15th and 16th of July that same year, denounced his majesty’s rebels, and put to the horn at the market crosses of Cupar and Forfar, by virtue of letters of denunciation raised and executed at the instance of his majesty’s advocate.
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Barbara Cunningham, Lady Caldwell.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
BARBARA CUNNINGHAM was descended from the Cunninghams of Cunninghamhead in Ayrshire, one of the most ancient and powerful cadets of the Glencairn family, which possessed at one time large properties in Lanarkshire, and even in Mid-Lothian, as well as in Cunningham, but which began to decline about the end of the seventeenth century. [Robertson’s Ayrshire Families, vol. i., p. 303.] Her ancestors early distinguished themselves as warm promoters of the Reformation from popery. Her great-grand-father, William Cunningham of Cunninghamhead, who joined the Lords of the Congregation, and maintained with ardent zeal the cause for which they erected their standard, sat in the memorable parliament of August,1560, which approved and ratted the Confession of Faith, and abolished the jurisdiction of the pope throughout the kingdom of Scotland. His name appears at the most important public documents of the Scottish Reformers, as at “Ane Contract of the Lords and Barons, to defend the Liberty of the Evangell of Christ,” in 1560; at the Book of Discipline, which he subscribed January 27, 1561, as one of the members of the privy council; and at the famous Band for the support of the Reformed Religion, in 1562. He was a member of the assembly of 1565, which was so obnoxious to Queen Mary and the Roman Catholics, and was one of five commissioners sent to the queen by that assembly, with certain articles, - the first of which was that the mass and all papistical idolatry and jurisdiction should be universally abolished throughout the realm, - humbly desiring her to ratify and. approve the same in parliament....Barbara Cunningham was married, in 1657, to William Muir of Caldwell; and hence by the courtesy of the time she was usually styled Lady Caldwell. This “honourable and excellent gentleman,” as he is called by Wodrow, zealously adhered to the ministers ejected in 1662, and was among the first who left off attending the ministry of the intruded curates.On the ejectment of Mr. Hugh Walker, the minister of Neilston, from his charge, by the act of the privy council at Glasgow, in 1662, Muir of Caldwell, who resided in that parish, ceased to attend the parish church, for which he was in some danger of being involved in trouble. ... Lady Caldwell, being of similar ecclesiastical principles with her husband, no doubt acted in a similar manner.
The sufferings of this lady in the cause of religion and liberty, may be said to have commenced in the year 1666, after the unsuccessful attempt of the Covenanters at Pentland Hills. Her husband and a few gentlemen in the west, having gathered together a small company of horsemen, amounting to about fifty, intended to join the Covenanters under Colonel Wallace, who were then near Edinburgh; but being informed, after proceeding a short way on their journey, that General Dalziel was between them and their friends, they dispersed. Caldwell, who was captain of that little band, soon after found it necessary to provide for his safety by flight, and concealing himself for some time, he succeeded in getting safely over to Holland, where, like many others of his expatriated countrymen, he found a secure retreat, but from which he never returned to his native land. Meanwhile he was prosecuted by his majesty’s advocate, before the lords justiciary, for high treason, simply because he had been on the road to join those in arms; and on the 16th of August, 1667, being found guilty of treason by a jury in his absence, he was sentenced to undergo capital punishment, and to be demeaned as a traitor, when he should be apprehended, and all his lands, tenements, annual rents, offices, titles, tacks, dignities, steadings, rooms, possessions, goods and gear whatsoever, were declared to be forfeited to his majesty’s use....On the 12th of October, the privy council appointed James Dunlop, of Househill, to uplift Muir of Caldwell’s rents for the year 1667, and bygone terms since the rebellion, and in future years, and to take an exact inventory of his whole movable goods and gear. His excellent estate, it is said, was at this time promised to General Dalziel, as a reward to the General for his success in suppressing the Pentland insurrection. It was not, however, actually gifted to him till July 11, 1670, when Charles granted in his favour a charter, under the great seal of the kingdom of Scotland, in due form, disponing to him, his heirs and assignees whatsoever, in perpetuity the lands of Muir of Caldwell; and every means was taken to render the gift secure. On the 22d of August, 1670, an act of parliament was passed ratifying the royal grant, and giving validity to all steps taken to secure the estate to him and his heirs in perpetuum; and on the 8th of October that same year, he was infefted in the estate. These proceedings against Muir of Caldwell, it is obvious, could not but deeply strike against Lady Caldwell. By the sentence of forfeiture pronounced upon him, she, though not the object avowedly aimed at, suffered in fact as much as he suffered himself. It affected the temporal comfort of herself and her children, as much as it affected his. While he remained lurking in the country, she had to endure the anxiety arising from the danger to which he was exposed of falling into the hands of the government; and during that time, or after he had made his escape to Holland, she suffered, previous to her joining him, many hardships at home.
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BARBARA CUNNINGHAM was descended from the Cunninghams of Cunninghamhead in Ayrshire, one of the most ancient and powerful cadets of the Glencairn family, which possessed at one time large properties in Lanarkshire, and even in Mid-Lothian, as well as in Cunningham, but which began to decline about the end of the seventeenth century. [Robertson’s Ayrshire Families, vol. i., p. 303.] Her ancestors early distinguished themselves as warm promoters of the Reformation from popery. Her great-grand-father, William Cunningham of Cunninghamhead, who joined the Lords of the Congregation, and maintained with ardent zeal the cause for which they erected their standard, sat in the memorable parliament of August,1560, which approved and ratted the Confession of Faith, and abolished the jurisdiction of the pope throughout the kingdom of Scotland. His name appears at the most important public documents of the Scottish Reformers, as at “Ane Contract of the Lords and Barons, to defend the Liberty of the Evangell of Christ,” in 1560; at the Book of Discipline, which he subscribed January 27, 1561, as one of the members of the privy council; and at the famous Band for the support of the Reformed Religion, in 1562. He was a member of the assembly of 1565, which was so obnoxious to Queen Mary and the Roman Catholics, and was one of five commissioners sent to the queen by that assembly, with certain articles, - the first of which was that the mass and all papistical idolatry and jurisdiction should be universally abolished throughout the realm, - humbly desiring her to ratify and. approve the same in parliament....Barbara Cunningham was married, in 1657, to William Muir of Caldwell; and hence by the courtesy of the time she was usually styled Lady Caldwell. This “honourable and excellent gentleman,” as he is called by Wodrow, zealously adhered to the ministers ejected in 1662, and was among the first who left off attending the ministry of the intruded curates.On the ejectment of Mr. Hugh Walker, the minister of Neilston, from his charge, by the act of the privy council at Glasgow, in 1662, Muir of Caldwell, who resided in that parish, ceased to attend the parish church, for which he was in some danger of being involved in trouble. ... Lady Caldwell, being of similar ecclesiastical principles with her husband, no doubt acted in a similar manner.
The sufferings of this lady in the cause of religion and liberty, may be said to have commenced in the year 1666, after the unsuccessful attempt of the Covenanters at Pentland Hills. Her husband and a few gentlemen in the west, having gathered together a small company of horsemen, amounting to about fifty, intended to join the Covenanters under Colonel Wallace, who were then near Edinburgh; but being informed, after proceeding a short way on their journey, that General Dalziel was between them and their friends, they dispersed. Caldwell, who was captain of that little band, soon after found it necessary to provide for his safety by flight, and concealing himself for some time, he succeeded in getting safely over to Holland, where, like many others of his expatriated countrymen, he found a secure retreat, but from which he never returned to his native land. Meanwhile he was prosecuted by his majesty’s advocate, before the lords justiciary, for high treason, simply because he had been on the road to join those in arms; and on the 16th of August, 1667, being found guilty of treason by a jury in his absence, he was sentenced to undergo capital punishment, and to be demeaned as a traitor, when he should be apprehended, and all his lands, tenements, annual rents, offices, titles, tacks, dignities, steadings, rooms, possessions, goods and gear whatsoever, were declared to be forfeited to his majesty’s use....On the 12th of October, the privy council appointed James Dunlop, of Househill, to uplift Muir of Caldwell’s rents for the year 1667, and bygone terms since the rebellion, and in future years, and to take an exact inventory of his whole movable goods and gear. His excellent estate, it is said, was at this time promised to General Dalziel, as a reward to the General for his success in suppressing the Pentland insurrection. It was not, however, actually gifted to him till July 11, 1670, when Charles granted in his favour a charter, under the great seal of the kingdom of Scotland, in due form, disponing to him, his heirs and assignees whatsoever, in perpetuity the lands of Muir of Caldwell; and every means was taken to render the gift secure. On the 22d of August, 1670, an act of parliament was passed ratifying the royal grant, and giving validity to all steps taken to secure the estate to him and his heirs in perpetuum; and on the 8th of October that same year, he was infefted in the estate. These proceedings against Muir of Caldwell, it is obvious, could not but deeply strike against Lady Caldwell. By the sentence of forfeiture pronounced upon him, she, though not the object avowedly aimed at, suffered in fact as much as he suffered himself. It affected the temporal comfort of herself and her children, as much as it affected his. While he remained lurking in the country, she had to endure the anxiety arising from the danger to which he was exposed of falling into the hands of the government; and during that time, or after he had made his escape to Holland, she suffered, previous to her joining him, many hardships at home.
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Lady Mary Johnston, Countess of Crawford.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
LADY MARY JOHNSTON was the eldest daughter of James, Earl of Annandale and Hartfell, by his wife Lady Henrietta Douglas, daughter of William, first Marquis of Douglas, by his second wife, Lady Mary Gordon. She was married at Leith, on the 8th of March, 1670, to William, sixteenth Earl of Crawford, and second Earl of Lindsay, the son of John, Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, of whom some notices have already been given, and brother to the Duchess of Rothes, the subject of the preceding sketch. ...Her husband, like his parents, was a nonconformist, and great deference was paid to him by the Presbyterians. On this account he was, throughout the period of the persecution, a marked man; and, from the danger towhich he was exposed, he once intended to go abroad, though he never went, but lived in retirement till the Revolution, which brought him deliverance and honour....
The early education and family connections of this lady tended to prejudice her mind against the suffering Covenanters. But her marriage into a family distinguished at once for their warm attachment to that persecuted body, and for personal piety, was followed by a great change both upon her personal character and religious sentiments. She became, at one and the same time, a genuine Christian and a true blue Presbyterian. The instrument of effecting this change upon her was Mr. John Welsh, a minister almost unequalled in the times of persecution, for the Christian intrepidity with which he jeopardied his life on the mountains and in the moors of Scotland, in his ardent and indefatigable zeal to proclaim to his fellow-countrymen the unsearchable riches of Christ, and whose intrepid labours of love were blessed by the Spirit of God for turning multitudes from disobedience to the wisdom of the just. In the beginning of the year 1674, - the first three months of which, as we have seen, were called “the Blink,” from the little molestation then offered to the ejected ministers in holding conventicles, whether in houses or in the fields, - Welsh went over from Edinburgh to Fife with his wife, where he spent about six weeks in preaching, none presuming either to pursue him from Edinburgh, or to lay hands on him in Fife, not even Sharp, who had his residence in that part of the country, and who of all others most thirsted for his blood. ...During that period Welsh had large meetings both on the Sabbath day and on week days, at which many of the gentry, attracted by the weight of his character and by his homely but powerful eloquence, were often present; the most of whom seemed to be impressed by the word, and favourably disposed to the work in which he was engaged. ...It was at this time that Lady Crawford had an opportunity of hearing him preach for the first time, in the neighbourhood of her own residence, Struthers House, ...and his discourse, accompanied by the influences of the divine Spirit, was the means of turning her from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. From that day she became an altered person; the pride of her heart was humbled, so that, like Mary in the Gospel, she sat at Jesus’ feet, a teachable disciple, listening to his voice, and in the whole of her subsequent deportment she exhibited the living marks of a child of God. Now, indeed, she had not many years to live, but during the brief course allotted to her on earth, she exemplified in an eminent degree the power of vital godliness. In her character were combined the devotion of the saint and the resolution of the martyr. Previous to her hearing Welsh she attended the curates without scruple, but after that, no arguments and no menaces employed by her relatives could prevail upon her to go and hear them; and she embraced every opportunity within her reach of attending field conventicles. In her the persecuted, the poor, and the suffering found a sympathizing friend.... The vast change she had undergone, her relatives and acquaintances did not fail to observe; and her Christian friends were struck with the rapidity with which she advanced in all the graces of the Spirit, outstripping many who had preceded her in their entrance on the Christian course. Her husband, who loved her with the tenderest affection, was improved in character by the imitation of her virtues, and encomiums upon her worth were extorted even from enemies.
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LADY MARY JOHNSTON was the eldest daughter of James, Earl of Annandale and Hartfell, by his wife Lady Henrietta Douglas, daughter of William, first Marquis of Douglas, by his second wife, Lady Mary Gordon. She was married at Leith, on the 8th of March, 1670, to William, sixteenth Earl of Crawford, and second Earl of Lindsay, the son of John, Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, of whom some notices have already been given, and brother to the Duchess of Rothes, the subject of the preceding sketch. ...Her husband, like his parents, was a nonconformist, and great deference was paid to him by the Presbyterians. On this account he was, throughout the period of the persecution, a marked man; and, from the danger towhich he was exposed, he once intended to go abroad, though he never went, but lived in retirement till the Revolution, which brought him deliverance and honour....
The early education and family connections of this lady tended to prejudice her mind against the suffering Covenanters. But her marriage into a family distinguished at once for their warm attachment to that persecuted body, and for personal piety, was followed by a great change both upon her personal character and religious sentiments. She became, at one and the same time, a genuine Christian and a true blue Presbyterian. The instrument of effecting this change upon her was Mr. John Welsh, a minister almost unequalled in the times of persecution, for the Christian intrepidity with which he jeopardied his life on the mountains and in the moors of Scotland, in his ardent and indefatigable zeal to proclaim to his fellow-countrymen the unsearchable riches of Christ, and whose intrepid labours of love were blessed by the Spirit of God for turning multitudes from disobedience to the wisdom of the just. In the beginning of the year 1674, - the first three months of which, as we have seen, were called “the Blink,” from the little molestation then offered to the ejected ministers in holding conventicles, whether in houses or in the fields, - Welsh went over from Edinburgh to Fife with his wife, where he spent about six weeks in preaching, none presuming either to pursue him from Edinburgh, or to lay hands on him in Fife, not even Sharp, who had his residence in that part of the country, and who of all others most thirsted for his blood. ...During that period Welsh had large meetings both on the Sabbath day and on week days, at which many of the gentry, attracted by the weight of his character and by his homely but powerful eloquence, were often present; the most of whom seemed to be impressed by the word, and favourably disposed to the work in which he was engaged. ...It was at this time that Lady Crawford had an opportunity of hearing him preach for the first time, in the neighbourhood of her own residence, Struthers House, ...and his discourse, accompanied by the influences of the divine Spirit, was the means of turning her from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. From that day she became an altered person; the pride of her heart was humbled, so that, like Mary in the Gospel, she sat at Jesus’ feet, a teachable disciple, listening to his voice, and in the whole of her subsequent deportment she exhibited the living marks of a child of God. Now, indeed, she had not many years to live, but during the brief course allotted to her on earth, she exemplified in an eminent degree the power of vital godliness. In her character were combined the devotion of the saint and the resolution of the martyr. Previous to her hearing Welsh she attended the curates without scruple, but after that, no arguments and no menaces employed by her relatives could prevail upon her to go and hear them; and she embraced every opportunity within her reach of attending field conventicles. In her the persecuted, the poor, and the suffering found a sympathizing friend.... The vast change she had undergone, her relatives and acquaintances did not fail to observe; and her Christian friends were struck with the rapidity with which she advanced in all the graces of the Spirit, outstripping many who had preceded her in their entrance on the Christian course. Her husband, who loved her with the tenderest affection, was improved in character by the imitation of her virtues, and encomiums upon her worth were extorted even from enemies.
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Monday, December 19, 2005
Lady Anne Lindsay, Duchess of Rothes.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
LADY ANNE LINDSAY was the eldest daughter of John, first Earl of Lindsay and fifteenth Earl of Crawford, Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, by his wife, Lady Margaret Hamilton, second daughter of James, second Marquis of Hamilton. [Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p, 387.] Her paternal grandmother was the excellent Lady Boyd, already noticed; and her maternal grandmother was Lady Anne Cunningham, Marchioness of Hamilton, of whom some account has also been given.Her father, who was the son of Lady Boyd by her first husband, Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres, was, as we have seen before, a man of sound religious principle, and a stedfast supporter of the second Reformation cause. ..
Lady Anne, thus descended from godly parents, enjoyed the inestimable benefit of a religious education; and her parents had the satisfaction of witnessing the fruits of their instructions and example in the eminence of her piety, which she exemplified throughout life by a conversation becoming the gospel. The fervour of her devotion, the benevolence of her disposition, the humility of her demeanour, and the sanctity of her deportment, are all honourably mentioned by her contemporaries. Law describes her as “a discreet, wise, virtuous, and good lady.” [Law’s Memorials, p. 202.] And others who knew her, speak in the highest terms of her christian excellence...Her husband, John, sixth Earl of Rothes, to whom she had been previously married, was a member of the persecuting government of Charles, and she was under the necessity of mingling, to a considerable extent, with the unprincipled and persecuting statesmen of that period. But her convictions and feelings remained unaltered, and the ejected ministers, on whose side her sympathies were enlisted, she was ever ready, to the utmost of her ability, to befriend. Some of them she succeeded in continuing in their charges after their persecutors had marked them out for ejectment. Mr. Black, minister of Leslie, for example, a man whom she highly esteemed, and under whose ministry she sat when residing at Leslie House, was, though a nonconformist, through her intercession with the Bishop of Dunkeld, continued in the exercise of his ministry in his own parish, when that prelate, in 1664, summarily deposed all the other nonconforming ministers in his diocese. [Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 473.] The friendly interest she took in the persecuted ministers, she evinced in many other ways. “Rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate,” she often ministered to their temporal necessities, and entertained them with hospitality and kindness when they visited her at Leslie House. On these occasions they endeavoured to keep out of the eye of the duke, for, though not naturally inclined to cruelty, yet from political considerations, he put on the appearance of severity. He was not, however, ignorant that they wereharboured and reset by the duchess, but he connived at them on her account; and on happening, as he sometimes did happen, to see any of them about the house, being a man of humour, he was in the habit of saying to her, “My lady, I would advise you to keep your chickens in about, else I may pick up some of them.” [M'Crie’s Memoirs of Veitch and Brysson, p. 295. Among other instances of the persecuted finding shelter in similar situations, it may be mentioned that, previous to the civil wars, while Dr. Scott, dean of York, was employed at cards, or other games, to which he was much addicted, Mrs. Scott was attending a conventicle in another room; the Dean’s house being reckoned the safest place for holding suchassemblies. Brooke’s Lives of the Puritans, vol, iii., p. 528.] Other anecdotes of a similar kind are still current, and havebeen recorded by Miss Strickland, in her very interesting work, entitled “Lives of the Queens of England.” After noticing that the duchess “favoured the doctrines of the Covenanters, and, as far as she could, protected their preachers, who were frequently concealed in the neighbourhood of Leslie House,” she adds, “The duke . . . . never sent out his officers to apprehend any of these persons without previously endeavouring to provide for their escape, by giving a significant hint to his compassionate duchess in these words, ‘My hawks will be out tonight, my lady, - so you had better take care of your blackbirds!’The local traditions of Leslie add, that the signal by which her Grace warned her spiritual protégés of their danger, was a white sheet suspended from one of the trees on the brow of the hill behind the house, which could be seen from a considerable distance. Other telegraphic signs the good lady had, no doubt, to intimate the absence of her spouse when they might safely come forth and preach to their hill-side congregation.” [Vol. ix., p, 117.] Nor was she backward to intercede with the duke and the other members of the government for the persecuted ministers. Well assured of her friendly disposition, they confidently applied to her to exert in their behalf the influence which, from her situation, she had with the duke and the other members of the privy council.
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LADY ANNE LINDSAY was the eldest daughter of John, first Earl of Lindsay and fifteenth Earl of Crawford, Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, by his wife, Lady Margaret Hamilton, second daughter of James, second Marquis of Hamilton. [Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p, 387.] Her paternal grandmother was the excellent Lady Boyd, already noticed; and her maternal grandmother was Lady Anne Cunningham, Marchioness of Hamilton, of whom some account has also been given.Her father, who was the son of Lady Boyd by her first husband, Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres, was, as we have seen before, a man of sound religious principle, and a stedfast supporter of the second Reformation cause. ..
Lady Anne, thus descended from godly parents, enjoyed the inestimable benefit of a religious education; and her parents had the satisfaction of witnessing the fruits of their instructions and example in the eminence of her piety, which she exemplified throughout life by a conversation becoming the gospel. The fervour of her devotion, the benevolence of her disposition, the humility of her demeanour, and the sanctity of her deportment, are all honourably mentioned by her contemporaries. Law describes her as “a discreet, wise, virtuous, and good lady.” [Law’s Memorials, p. 202.] And others who knew her, speak in the highest terms of her christian excellence...Her husband, John, sixth Earl of Rothes, to whom she had been previously married, was a member of the persecuting government of Charles, and she was under the necessity of mingling, to a considerable extent, with the unprincipled and persecuting statesmen of that period. But her convictions and feelings remained unaltered, and the ejected ministers, on whose side her sympathies were enlisted, she was ever ready, to the utmost of her ability, to befriend. Some of them she succeeded in continuing in their charges after their persecutors had marked them out for ejectment. Mr. Black, minister of Leslie, for example, a man whom she highly esteemed, and under whose ministry she sat when residing at Leslie House, was, though a nonconformist, through her intercession with the Bishop of Dunkeld, continued in the exercise of his ministry in his own parish, when that prelate, in 1664, summarily deposed all the other nonconforming ministers in his diocese. [Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 473.] The friendly interest she took in the persecuted ministers, she evinced in many other ways. “Rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate,” she often ministered to their temporal necessities, and entertained them with hospitality and kindness when they visited her at Leslie House. On these occasions they endeavoured to keep out of the eye of the duke, for, though not naturally inclined to cruelty, yet from political considerations, he put on the appearance of severity. He was not, however, ignorant that they wereharboured and reset by the duchess, but he connived at them on her account; and on happening, as he sometimes did happen, to see any of them about the house, being a man of humour, he was in the habit of saying to her, “My lady, I would advise you to keep your chickens in about, else I may pick up some of them.” [M'Crie’s Memoirs of Veitch and Brysson, p. 295. Among other instances of the persecuted finding shelter in similar situations, it may be mentioned that, previous to the civil wars, while Dr. Scott, dean of York, was employed at cards, or other games, to which he was much addicted, Mrs. Scott was attending a conventicle in another room; the Dean’s house being reckoned the safest place for holding suchassemblies. Brooke’s Lives of the Puritans, vol, iii., p. 528.] Other anecdotes of a similar kind are still current, and havebeen recorded by Miss Strickland, in her very interesting work, entitled “Lives of the Queens of England.” After noticing that the duchess “favoured the doctrines of the Covenanters, and, as far as she could, protected their preachers, who were frequently concealed in the neighbourhood of Leslie House,” she adds, “The duke . . . . never sent out his officers to apprehend any of these persons without previously endeavouring to provide for their escape, by giving a significant hint to his compassionate duchess in these words, ‘My hawks will be out tonight, my lady, - so you had better take care of your blackbirds!’The local traditions of Leslie add, that the signal by which her Grace warned her spiritual protégés of their danger, was a white sheet suspended from one of the trees on the brow of the hill behind the house, which could be seen from a considerable distance. Other telegraphic signs the good lady had, no doubt, to intimate the absence of her spouse when they might safely come forth and preach to their hill-side congregation.” [Vol. ix., p, 117.] Nor was she backward to intercede with the duke and the other members of the government for the persecuted ministers. Well assured of her friendly disposition, they confidently applied to her to exert in their behalf the influence which, from her situation, she had with the duke and the other members of the privy council.
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Sunday, December 18, 2005
Mrs. John Livingstone. &c.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
MRS. LIVINGSTONE, whose maiden name was Janet Fleming was the eldest daughter of Bartholomew Fleming,merchant in Edinburgh, by his wife Marion Hamilton. She was married, June 23, 1635, to the famous Mr. John Livingstone... she had experienced many vicissitudes and trials, having shared in the hardships endured by Mr. Livingstone, in the cause of nonconformity, both in Ireland and in Scotland; and when, on his being banished his Majesty’s dominions, by the privy council, for his fidelity to the same cause, he had embarked for Holland, in the beginning of April, 1663, she followed him in December that year, taking with her two of her children, and leaving the other five in Scotland. She remained in Holland till the death of Mr. Livingstone, which took place in August, 1672, when she returned to Scotland...On her return to Scotland, she took up her residence in Edinburgh, where two of her sons were resident. .. Our narrative relates to a petition which she and these ladies drew up and presented to the lords of his majesty’s privy council, praying for liberty to enjoy undisturbed the preaching of the gospel by the nonconforming ministers; and to the proceedings of the privy council against these ladies on that account. This will furnish a good illustration of the patriotic interest taken by the ladies of that period in the cause of suffering nonconformity, as well as of the determination of the government to ride rough-shod over every attempt to obtain a mitigation or redress of grievances.
The state of matters in which this petition originated, may be briefly described. For about three months in the early part of the year 1674, an almost entire cessation from persecution took place. During this respite, which was called “the Blink,” the proscribed ministers, fearing that it would be of short duration, preached both in private houses, and in the fields, with unremitting and ardent zeal. In the west, field meetings were not of very frequent occurrence, the indulgence of 1672, which extended chiefly to that part of the country, rendering such meetings unnecessary; but in Fifeshire, Perthshire, Stirlingshire, Dumbartonshire, Lothian, Merse, Teviotdale, Annandale, Nithsdale, and other places, to which the indulgence did not extend, or where it was more limited in its operation, they were very frequently held in mountains, mosses and moors, and attended by immense multitudes. This liberty was owing not to any change in the spirit or policy of the government, but solely to political causes, among which the chief cause was the animosities then existing between the different parties of statesmen. Lauderdale, who had now for a considerable time been a privy counsellor in England, and the chief manager of affairs in Scotland, had, by his intolerable arrogance, and more especially by his violent and tyrannical administration, created, a powerful opposition against him, both in England and in Scotland. So strong was the faction against him in Scotland, which was headed by the Duke of Hamilton, that when he came down as his majesty’s commissioner to hold the Scottish parliament, which was to meet in March, 1674, finding it would be difficult or impossible for him to maintain his ground in it, he adjourned it to October, but never after ventured upon another Scottish Parliament. To this state of political parties in Scotland, we are mainly to trace the tranquillity enjoyed during “the Blink.” Lauderdale secretly encouraged conventicles, promising the persecuted ministers ample and unrestrained liberty; that he might blame his opponents to the king, as encouragers of these “seminaries of rebellion;” and on the other hand his opponents connived at such meetings, that they might impute the prevalence of them to him. But matters changed upon a sudden; the tempest of persecution again rose into fury. On his return to London, after the adjournment of the Scottish parliament, Lauderdale, who, notwithstanding the opposition made to him both in England and in Scotland, retained the royal favour, laid the blame of the conventicles held in Scotland upon his opponents.
The Scottish privy council was remodelled according to his wishes, the most of his enemies being kept out, and others friendly to him put in their places; and by his advice, letters from the king to the council, followed each other in succession requiring them to adopt every means for suppressing conventicles. On the 4th of June, 1674, when the new council met for the first time, a letter from his majesty, dated May 19th, was read, complaining that not only private, but also field conventicles were held, and that the pulpits of the regular ministers were invaded in some places; and requiring the council to use their utmost endeavors for apprehending and trying field preachers, invaders of pulpits, and such heritors as were ringleaders at field conventicles, and in pulpit invasions, calling in the standing forces and militia to their aid. Such were the circumstances which gave rise to this petition. Mrs. Livingstone, and a considerable number of other Presbyterian ladies in Edinburgh, especially the wives and widows of ejected nonconforming ministers, and some ladies of rank, were in no small degree distressed at the threatened prospect of renewed and aggravated persecution. Little could they do to prevent the impending calamity. Prayer to God was almost their only remaining resource. But necessity is prolific in suggesting expedients, and it occurred to some of them that, as it was dangerous for ministers to petition the privy council for the redress of their grievances, imprisonment being the only answer likely to be made, they themselves might petition the council for the undisturbed enjoyment of the gospel preached by the nonconforming ministers. Mrs. Livingstone, it is not improbable, was the person by whom this expedient was suggested. Precedents for such a course, of which she was not ignorant, were not wanting in the history of the Church of Scotland in former days. ..When Robert Blair, and other nonconforming ministers, who had been deposed by the bishops of Ireland for nonconformity, had come over to Scotland in 1637, and when Mr. Blair was threatened with still harsher treatment from the Scottish prelates, these ladies presented to the privy council a petition, praying that he and other ministers similarly situated might have liberty to preach the gospel publicly wherever they were called or had opportunity to do so; and they at once obtained their request.
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MRS. LIVINGSTONE, whose maiden name was Janet Fleming was the eldest daughter of Bartholomew Fleming,merchant in Edinburgh, by his wife Marion Hamilton. She was married, June 23, 1635, to the famous Mr. John Livingstone... she had experienced many vicissitudes and trials, having shared in the hardships endured by Mr. Livingstone, in the cause of nonconformity, both in Ireland and in Scotland; and when, on his being banished his Majesty’s dominions, by the privy council, for his fidelity to the same cause, he had embarked for Holland, in the beginning of April, 1663, she followed him in December that year, taking with her two of her children, and leaving the other five in Scotland. She remained in Holland till the death of Mr. Livingstone, which took place in August, 1672, when she returned to Scotland...On her return to Scotland, she took up her residence in Edinburgh, where two of her sons were resident. .. Our narrative relates to a petition which she and these ladies drew up and presented to the lords of his majesty’s privy council, praying for liberty to enjoy undisturbed the preaching of the gospel by the nonconforming ministers; and to the proceedings of the privy council against these ladies on that account. This will furnish a good illustration of the patriotic interest taken by the ladies of that period in the cause of suffering nonconformity, as well as of the determination of the government to ride rough-shod over every attempt to obtain a mitigation or redress of grievances.
The state of matters in which this petition originated, may be briefly described. For about three months in the early part of the year 1674, an almost entire cessation from persecution took place. During this respite, which was called “the Blink,” the proscribed ministers, fearing that it would be of short duration, preached both in private houses, and in the fields, with unremitting and ardent zeal. In the west, field meetings were not of very frequent occurrence, the indulgence of 1672, which extended chiefly to that part of the country, rendering such meetings unnecessary; but in Fifeshire, Perthshire, Stirlingshire, Dumbartonshire, Lothian, Merse, Teviotdale, Annandale, Nithsdale, and other places, to which the indulgence did not extend, or where it was more limited in its operation, they were very frequently held in mountains, mosses and moors, and attended by immense multitudes. This liberty was owing not to any change in the spirit or policy of the government, but solely to political causes, among which the chief cause was the animosities then existing between the different parties of statesmen. Lauderdale, who had now for a considerable time been a privy counsellor in England, and the chief manager of affairs in Scotland, had, by his intolerable arrogance, and more especially by his violent and tyrannical administration, created, a powerful opposition against him, both in England and in Scotland. So strong was the faction against him in Scotland, which was headed by the Duke of Hamilton, that when he came down as his majesty’s commissioner to hold the Scottish parliament, which was to meet in March, 1674, finding it would be difficult or impossible for him to maintain his ground in it, he adjourned it to October, but never after ventured upon another Scottish Parliament. To this state of political parties in Scotland, we are mainly to trace the tranquillity enjoyed during “the Blink.” Lauderdale secretly encouraged conventicles, promising the persecuted ministers ample and unrestrained liberty; that he might blame his opponents to the king, as encouragers of these “seminaries of rebellion;” and on the other hand his opponents connived at such meetings, that they might impute the prevalence of them to him. But matters changed upon a sudden; the tempest of persecution again rose into fury. On his return to London, after the adjournment of the Scottish parliament, Lauderdale, who, notwithstanding the opposition made to him both in England and in Scotland, retained the royal favour, laid the blame of the conventicles held in Scotland upon his opponents.
The Scottish privy council was remodelled according to his wishes, the most of his enemies being kept out, and others friendly to him put in their places; and by his advice, letters from the king to the council, followed each other in succession requiring them to adopt every means for suppressing conventicles. On the 4th of June, 1674, when the new council met for the first time, a letter from his majesty, dated May 19th, was read, complaining that not only private, but also field conventicles were held, and that the pulpits of the regular ministers were invaded in some places; and requiring the council to use their utmost endeavors for apprehending and trying field preachers, invaders of pulpits, and such heritors as were ringleaders at field conventicles, and in pulpit invasions, calling in the standing forces and militia to their aid. Such were the circumstances which gave rise to this petition. Mrs. Livingstone, and a considerable number of other Presbyterian ladies in Edinburgh, especially the wives and widows of ejected nonconforming ministers, and some ladies of rank, were in no small degree distressed at the threatened prospect of renewed and aggravated persecution. Little could they do to prevent the impending calamity. Prayer to God was almost their only remaining resource. But necessity is prolific in suggesting expedients, and it occurred to some of them that, as it was dangerous for ministers to petition the privy council for the redress of their grievances, imprisonment being the only answer likely to be made, they themselves might petition the council for the undisturbed enjoyment of the gospel preached by the nonconforming ministers. Mrs. Livingstone, it is not improbable, was the person by whom this expedient was suggested. Precedents for such a course, of which she was not ignorant, were not wanting in the history of the Church of Scotland in former days. ..When Robert Blair, and other nonconforming ministers, who had been deposed by the bishops of Ireland for nonconformity, had come over to Scotland in 1637, and when Mr. Blair was threatened with still harsher treatment from the Scottish prelates, these ladies presented to the privy council a petition, praying that he and other ministers similarly situated might have liberty to preach the gospel publicly wherever they were called or had opportunity to do so; and they at once obtained their request.
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Saturday, December 17, 2005
Mrs. William Veitch
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
This Notice of Mrs. Veitch is drawn up chiefly from her own Diary, and from the Memoirs of Mr. Veitch, written by himself.
MARION FAIRLIE, the subject of this sketch, “who,” as the editor of her Diary well observes, “endured an amount of domestic affliction and vexatious persecution, in many cases more trying than martyrdom itself,” was born in 1638, a year famous in the annals of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Her father was descended from the ancient family of the Fairlies, of the house of Braid, near Edinburgh, and was related to Lord Lee’s first lady, who was of that house and name. Both her parents, being eminent for piety, were careful to instruct her in her tender years in the principles of divine truth, and to impress upon her mind the importance of the one thing needful. By the divine blessing on these labours of parental love, together with the pastoral instructions of an evangelical and faithful minister, Mr. Robert Birnie of Lanark, she early acquired that deep sense of the things of God which she exemplified to the close of a long life. “It pleased God,” says she, “of his great goodness, early to incline my heart to seek him, and bless him that I was born in a land where the gospel was at that time purely and powerfully preached; as also, that I was born of godly parents and well educated. But above all things, I bless him that he made me see that nothing but the righteousness of Christ could save me from the wrath of God.” She adds, “One day having been at prayer, and coming into the room where one was reading a letter of Mr. Rutherford’s, (then only in manuscript,) directed to one John Gordon of Rosco, giving an account how far one might go, and yet prove a hypocrite and miss heaven, it occasioned great exercise to me. [See Rutherford’s Letters, p. 552, Whyte and Kennedy’s Edition.] Misbelief said, I should go to hell; but one day at prayer, the Lord was graciously pleased to set home upon my heart that word, ‘To whom, Lord, shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life,’ (John vi. 68.) And at another time, that word, ‘Those that seek me early shall find me,’ Prov. viii. 17.”
On the 23d of Nov., 1664, she was united in marriage to Mr. William Veitch, son of Mr. John Veitch, the nonconforming ejected minister of Roberton. Mr. Veitch had been for some time previous chaplain to Sir Hugh Campbell of Calder, in Morayshire, but was forced to leave that family about September that year; for, on the restoration of prelacy, none, according to an act of parliament, were permitted to be chaplains in families, to teach any public school, or to be tutors to the children of persons of quality, without the license of the bishop of the diocese; [Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 267.] and Mr. Murdoch M'Kenzie, bishop of Moray, having, upon making inquiry, found Mr. Veitch’s opinions hostile to prelacy, would not suffer him to remain in that situation. He accordingly came south, and, staying for some time with his father, who, since his ejection, had taken up his residence at Lanark, became acquainted with the godly families of that place, among which was the family of the young lady whom he married. Several of her friends endeavoured, but without effect, to dissuade her from the marriage, urging, among other reasons, the worldly straits to which, from the discouraging aspect of the times, she might be reduced. This at first occasioned her no inconsiderable anxiety of mind; but she resolved to trust in God’s promises for all needful temporal good things, as well as for spiritual blessings. “And,” says she, “these promises were remarkably made good to me in all the various places of my sojourning in diverse kingdoms, which I here mention to the commendation of His faithfulness. His word in this has been a tried word to me, worthy to be recorded, to encourage me to trust him for the future; who heretofore has not only provided well for me and mine, but made me in the places where my lot was cast useful to others, and made that word good, ‘As having nothing, and yet possessing all things,’ 2 Cor. vi. 10.”
Scarcely two years after her marriage, the storm of persecution burst upon her and Mr. Veitch, separating them from each other, and ultimately forcing them to seek refuge in England. ..
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This Notice of Mrs. Veitch is drawn up chiefly from her own Diary, and from the Memoirs of Mr. Veitch, written by himself.
MARION FAIRLIE, the subject of this sketch, “who,” as the editor of her Diary well observes, “endured an amount of domestic affliction and vexatious persecution, in many cases more trying than martyrdom itself,” was born in 1638, a year famous in the annals of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Her father was descended from the ancient family of the Fairlies, of the house of Braid, near Edinburgh, and was related to Lord Lee’s first lady, who was of that house and name. Both her parents, being eminent for piety, were careful to instruct her in her tender years in the principles of divine truth, and to impress upon her mind the importance of the one thing needful. By the divine blessing on these labours of parental love, together with the pastoral instructions of an evangelical and faithful minister, Mr. Robert Birnie of Lanark, she early acquired that deep sense of the things of God which she exemplified to the close of a long life. “It pleased God,” says she, “of his great goodness, early to incline my heart to seek him, and bless him that I was born in a land where the gospel was at that time purely and powerfully preached; as also, that I was born of godly parents and well educated. But above all things, I bless him that he made me see that nothing but the righteousness of Christ could save me from the wrath of God.” She adds, “One day having been at prayer, and coming into the room where one was reading a letter of Mr. Rutherford’s, (then only in manuscript,) directed to one John Gordon of Rosco, giving an account how far one might go, and yet prove a hypocrite and miss heaven, it occasioned great exercise to me. [See Rutherford’s Letters, p. 552, Whyte and Kennedy’s Edition.] Misbelief said, I should go to hell; but one day at prayer, the Lord was graciously pleased to set home upon my heart that word, ‘To whom, Lord, shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life,’ (John vi. 68.) And at another time, that word, ‘Those that seek me early shall find me,’ Prov. viii. 17.”
On the 23d of Nov., 1664, she was united in marriage to Mr. William Veitch, son of Mr. John Veitch, the nonconforming ejected minister of Roberton. Mr. Veitch had been for some time previous chaplain to Sir Hugh Campbell of Calder, in Morayshire, but was forced to leave that family about September that year; for, on the restoration of prelacy, none, according to an act of parliament, were permitted to be chaplains in families, to teach any public school, or to be tutors to the children of persons of quality, without the license of the bishop of the diocese; [Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 267.] and Mr. Murdoch M'Kenzie, bishop of Moray, having, upon making inquiry, found Mr. Veitch’s opinions hostile to prelacy, would not suffer him to remain in that situation. He accordingly came south, and, staying for some time with his father, who, since his ejection, had taken up his residence at Lanark, became acquainted with the godly families of that place, among which was the family of the young lady whom he married. Several of her friends endeavoured, but without effect, to dissuade her from the marriage, urging, among other reasons, the worldly straits to which, from the discouraging aspect of the times, she might be reduced. This at first occasioned her no inconsiderable anxiety of mind; but she resolved to trust in God’s promises for all needful temporal good things, as well as for spiritual blessings. “And,” says she, “these promises were remarkably made good to me in all the various places of my sojourning in diverse kingdoms, which I here mention to the commendation of His faithfulness. His word in this has been a tried word to me, worthy to be recorded, to encourage me to trust him for the future; who heretofore has not only provided well for me and mine, but made me in the places where my lot was cast useful to others, and made that word good, ‘As having nothing, and yet possessing all things,’ 2 Cor. vi. 10.”
Scarcely two years after her marriage, the storm of persecution burst upon her and Mr. Veitch, separating them from each other, and ultimately forcing them to seek refuge in England. ..
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Friday, December 16, 2005
Lady Anne, Duchess of Hamilton
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
LADY ANNE, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON, was descended from an ancient and honourable family, which originallycame from Normandy, [Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 689.] and which at one time was for fifty years togetherpresumptive heir to the crown of Scotland. From the year 1543, when King James V died, leaving his only daughter, Queen Mary, but a few days old, till the year 1593, when Prince Henry was born, there were only Queen Mary and her son, King James, of the royal blood; and, in the event of their death, the crown would have fallen by right to the then representative of the house of Hamilton, who was their nearest kinsman. [Burnet’s Preface to his Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton.] Lady Anne was born in the year 1630. Her father, James, third marquis and first Duke of Hamilton, [He was created Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Clydesdale, Earl of Arran and Cambridge, Lord Avon and Innerdale, by patent, dated at Oxford, 12th April, 1643, to him and the heirs male of his body, which failing, to his brother and the heirs male of his body, which failing, to the eldest heir female of the Marquis’s body, without division, and the heirs female of the body of such heir female, they bearing the name and arms of Hamilton, which all failing, to the nearest legitimate heir whatsoever of the Marquis. - Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 704.] a distinguished man in his day, espoused with ardent zeal the cause of Charles I, in which, however, he was actuated more by personal attachment to Charles than by a sincere desire to establish prelacy, or to elevate the royal prerogative. He was his Majesty’s high commissioner to the famous General Assembly, which met at Glasgow in 1688, and he dissolved it abruptly; but, the dissolution was disregarded, and the Assembly continued to sit till they abolished prelacy. In the subsequent year he was sent down, by the king’s orders, to Scotland, with a fleet and three regiments, to subdue the Covenanters, and appeared in the Firth of Forth. It was on this occasion that his mother, the Marchioness Dowager of Hamilton, headed a troop of horse on the shores of Leith to oppose his landing. In 1648, an army being raised in Scotland with the design of rescuing Charles from the English Parliament, and restoring him to liberty and power, without his being required to make any concessions to his subjects, the duke was appointed by the Parliament commander-in-chief, and entered England in July, 1648. But the enterprize, which is usually called “The Engagement,” proving unsuccessful, ultimately brought him to the block...
To Lady Anne, who was now in the 19th year of her age, and to her sister, Susanna, who was somewhat younger, this was a great affliction. The loss of a father who loved them with an almost unequalled parental tenderness, and to whom they reciprocated the tenderest filial affection, was calculated, considered in all its distressing circumstances, to lacerate their feelings in the most painful manner; and the more especially at their green age, when the feelings were most tender, and when, consequently, the bereavement would pierce the heart with the intensest agony...
During the persecution, applications were often made to her to employ her interest in behalf of the persecuted. To such applications she always listened with christian sympathy, and was ever ready to do all in her power to afford assistance and relief to the oppressed.
Please read more here.
LADY ANNE, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON, was descended from an ancient and honourable family, which originallycame from Normandy, [Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 689.] and which at one time was for fifty years togetherpresumptive heir to the crown of Scotland. From the year 1543, when King James V died, leaving his only daughter, Queen Mary, but a few days old, till the year 1593, when Prince Henry was born, there were only Queen Mary and her son, King James, of the royal blood; and, in the event of their death, the crown would have fallen by right to the then representative of the house of Hamilton, who was their nearest kinsman. [Burnet’s Preface to his Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton.] Lady Anne was born in the year 1630. Her father, James, third marquis and first Duke of Hamilton, [He was created Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Clydesdale, Earl of Arran and Cambridge, Lord Avon and Innerdale, by patent, dated at Oxford, 12th April, 1643, to him and the heirs male of his body, which failing, to his brother and the heirs male of his body, which failing, to the eldest heir female of the Marquis’s body, without division, and the heirs female of the body of such heir female, they bearing the name and arms of Hamilton, which all failing, to the nearest legitimate heir whatsoever of the Marquis. - Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 704.] a distinguished man in his day, espoused with ardent zeal the cause of Charles I, in which, however, he was actuated more by personal attachment to Charles than by a sincere desire to establish prelacy, or to elevate the royal prerogative. He was his Majesty’s high commissioner to the famous General Assembly, which met at Glasgow in 1688, and he dissolved it abruptly; but, the dissolution was disregarded, and the Assembly continued to sit till they abolished prelacy. In the subsequent year he was sent down, by the king’s orders, to Scotland, with a fleet and three regiments, to subdue the Covenanters, and appeared in the Firth of Forth. It was on this occasion that his mother, the Marchioness Dowager of Hamilton, headed a troop of horse on the shores of Leith to oppose his landing. In 1648, an army being raised in Scotland with the design of rescuing Charles from the English Parliament, and restoring him to liberty and power, without his being required to make any concessions to his subjects, the duke was appointed by the Parliament commander-in-chief, and entered England in July, 1648. But the enterprize, which is usually called “The Engagement,” proving unsuccessful, ultimately brought him to the block...
To Lady Anne, who was now in the 19th year of her age, and to her sister, Susanna, who was somewhat younger, this was a great affliction. The loss of a father who loved them with an almost unequalled parental tenderness, and to whom they reciprocated the tenderest filial affection, was calculated, considered in all its distressing circumstances, to lacerate their feelings in the most painful manner; and the more especially at their green age, when the feelings were most tender, and when, consequently, the bereavement would pierce the heart with the intensest agony...
During the persecution, applications were often made to her to employ her interest in behalf of the persecuted. To such applications she always listened with christian sympathy, and was ever ready to do all in her power to afford assistance and relief to the oppressed.
Please read more here.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Mrs. James Guthrie, Mrs. James Durham, and Mrs. John Carstairs
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
We shall here cluster together some notices of three excellent women, ministers’ wives, who lived during the persecution- Jane Ramsay, the widow of Mr. James Guthrie, who suffered martyrdom in 1661; Margaret Mure, the widow of Mr. James Durham, one of the ministers of the High Church, Glasgow; and Janet Mure, wife of Mr. John Carstairs, also minister of the High Church, Glasgow. Many facts or incidents of their lives have not indeed been spared by the mouldering hand of time; but even the few which remain are not without interest, particularly when we consider the relation in which these ladies stood to three of the most eminent men who adorned the Church of Scotland during the 17th century, by the lustre of their talent, the fervour of their piety, and their unswerving faithfulness to the cause of God. These women were in every respect suitable companions for the eminent men to whom they were united. Distinguished for enlightened and ardent piety, they proved mainsprings of encouragement and strength to them in the work of the Lord, by their conversation, their demeanour and counsel; and having taken up the cross, instead of tempting them to unfaithfulness to conscience, when, trials and difficulties in doing the will of God arose, they encouraged them to stedfastness and resolution, exhibiting that humility, patience, and self-sacrifice, which constitute the genuine spirit of the cross. All of them suffered more or less in the cause of Presbytery, and they thanked God that “unto them it was given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.”
Please read a more indepth account of these faithful and heroic ladies here.
We shall here cluster together some notices of three excellent women, ministers’ wives, who lived during the persecution- Jane Ramsay, the widow of Mr. James Guthrie, who suffered martyrdom in 1661; Margaret Mure, the widow of Mr. James Durham, one of the ministers of the High Church, Glasgow; and Janet Mure, wife of Mr. John Carstairs, also minister of the High Church, Glasgow. Many facts or incidents of their lives have not indeed been spared by the mouldering hand of time; but even the few which remain are not without interest, particularly when we consider the relation in which these ladies stood to three of the most eminent men who adorned the Church of Scotland during the 17th century, by the lustre of their talent, the fervour of their piety, and their unswerving faithfulness to the cause of God. These women were in every respect suitable companions for the eminent men to whom they were united. Distinguished for enlightened and ardent piety, they proved mainsprings of encouragement and strength to them in the work of the Lord, by their conversation, their demeanour and counsel; and having taken up the cross, instead of tempting them to unfaithfulness to conscience, when, trials and difficulties in doing the will of God arose, they encouraged them to stedfastness and resolution, exhibiting that humility, patience, and self-sacrifice, which constitute the genuine spirit of the cross. All of them suffered more or less in the cause of Presbytery, and they thanked God that “unto them it was given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.”
Please read a more indepth account of these faithful and heroic ladies here.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Lady Margaret Douglas
MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson
Margaret... was born about the year 1610. Of her youthful years no memorials are known to exist; but at an early age she was married to Archibald, Lord Lorn, afterwards eighth Earl and first Marquis of Argyll, a nobleman of eminent piety, and a warm friend of the Presbyterian interest, to which he adhered with unwavering constancy, and for which he at last was honoured to die a martyr. She also was distinguished for piety, and held sentiments on ecclesiastical and religious questions similar to his...
The first family incident we meet with in the history of the Marchioness of Argyll is a dangerous illness with which she was attacked at the time of her first confinement. The physicians who attended her, when consulted, gave it as their opinion that her life could not be preserved without destroying that of the child. But from this proposal the heart of the mother recoiled, and on no consideration would she give her consent. In the good providence of God, however, the life both of the mother and of the infant was saved...
When the marquis [Lady Margaret's husband] was lying a prisoner in the castle, the marchioness entertained the worst apprehensions as to the intentions of his enemies. She was persuaded that they would be satisfied with nothing less than his life, and she, therefore, with a number of spirited gentlemen, entered into a plan for effecting his escape. In the execution of this plan she herself was to act the principal part. On visiting him she was to put on his clothes and remain in prison, while he was to put on her’s, and, thus disguised, make his escape, which could be the more easily effected as they were of the same stature. In order the more effectually to remove suspicion, he kept bed for some days, as if he had been unwell, and one day when she came in a chair to visit him, they resolved to make the attempt. Being left alone, they proceeded to undress and exchange each other’s clothes. This done, she was ready to remain in his place, whatever she might suffer from the resentment of the government. But her purpose was defeated by the marquis himself, who, when about to be taken out in the chair, on a sudden changing his mind, said he would not flee from the cause he so publicly owned, and throwing aside his disguise, put on his own clothes, resolving to suffer the uttermost... Thus she left the prison without having effected the object which lay so near her heart. What she dreaded was soon realized. On Saturday the 25th of May he was sentenced to be beheaded at the cross of Edinburgh for high treason on Monday the 27th, and his head to be fixed on the west end of the tolbooth... The distress of the marchioness on hearing of this sentence is not to be described. On learning where he was to be confined during the brief period he had to live, she hurried to the prison in order to meet him. She was there before he reached it, and on his entrance a most affecting interview took place between them. “They have given me till Monday,” said he, on seeing her, “to be with you, my dear, therefore let us make for it.” The afflicted wife, in the agony of grief, burst into a flood of tears, and, embracing him, exclaimed, “The Lord will require it, the Lord will require it.” On her uttering this appeal to the justice of heaven, which we conceive was nothing but the simple, unpremeditated and instinctive outburst of nature under a sense of such unmerited and grievous wrong, and which neither christian principle nor christian feeling condemned, a minister present, doubtless with the best intentions, gently reminded her that we should not be revengeful; to whom she replied, “We need not be so,” alluding to the words of Paul, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”... Her distress, in these painful circumstances, was so deeply affecting that even the bailie who accompanied the marquis to the prison, though no great friend to him, was softened into tears, and none in the room could refrain from giving vent in a similar way to their feelings. Meanwhile the marquis, though at first he wept himself, soon became perfectly composed, and endeavoured to comfort his beloved and sobbing wife. “Forbear, forbear,” said he affectionately to her; “truly I pity them; they know not what they are doing: they may shut me in where they please, but they cannot shut out God from me: for my part I am as content to be here as in the Castle, and as content in the Castle as in the Tower of London, and as content there as when at liberty; and I hope to be as content upon the scaffold as any of them all.” He added, “that he remembered a scripture cited to him by an honest minister lately in the Castle, and endeavoured to put it in practice. When Ziklag was taken and burnt, and the people spake of stoning David, he encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”
Please read more here.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson
Margaret... was born about the year 1610. Of her youthful years no memorials are known to exist; but at an early age she was married to Archibald, Lord Lorn, afterwards eighth Earl and first Marquis of Argyll, a nobleman of eminent piety, and a warm friend of the Presbyterian interest, to which he adhered with unwavering constancy, and for which he at last was honoured to die a martyr. She also was distinguished for piety, and held sentiments on ecclesiastical and religious questions similar to his...
The first family incident we meet with in the history of the Marchioness of Argyll is a dangerous illness with which she was attacked at the time of her first confinement. The physicians who attended her, when consulted, gave it as their opinion that her life could not be preserved without destroying that of the child. But from this proposal the heart of the mother recoiled, and on no consideration would she give her consent. In the good providence of God, however, the life both of the mother and of the infant was saved...
When the marquis [Lady Margaret's husband] was lying a prisoner in the castle, the marchioness entertained the worst apprehensions as to the intentions of his enemies. She was persuaded that they would be satisfied with nothing less than his life, and she, therefore, with a number of spirited gentlemen, entered into a plan for effecting his escape. In the execution of this plan she herself was to act the principal part. On visiting him she was to put on his clothes and remain in prison, while he was to put on her’s, and, thus disguised, make his escape, which could be the more easily effected as they were of the same stature. In order the more effectually to remove suspicion, he kept bed for some days, as if he had been unwell, and one day when she came in a chair to visit him, they resolved to make the attempt. Being left alone, they proceeded to undress and exchange each other’s clothes. This done, she was ready to remain in his place, whatever she might suffer from the resentment of the government. But her purpose was defeated by the marquis himself, who, when about to be taken out in the chair, on a sudden changing his mind, said he would not flee from the cause he so publicly owned, and throwing aside his disguise, put on his own clothes, resolving to suffer the uttermost... Thus she left the prison without having effected the object which lay so near her heart. What she dreaded was soon realized. On Saturday the 25th of May he was sentenced to be beheaded at the cross of Edinburgh for high treason on Monday the 27th, and his head to be fixed on the west end of the tolbooth... The distress of the marchioness on hearing of this sentence is not to be described. On learning where he was to be confined during the brief period he had to live, she hurried to the prison in order to meet him. She was there before he reached it, and on his entrance a most affecting interview took place between them. “They have given me till Monday,” said he, on seeing her, “to be with you, my dear, therefore let us make for it.” The afflicted wife, in the agony of grief, burst into a flood of tears, and, embracing him, exclaimed, “The Lord will require it, the Lord will require it.” On her uttering this appeal to the justice of heaven, which we conceive was nothing but the simple, unpremeditated and instinctive outburst of nature under a sense of such unmerited and grievous wrong, and which neither christian principle nor christian feeling condemned, a minister present, doubtless with the best intentions, gently reminded her that we should not be revengeful; to whom she replied, “We need not be so,” alluding to the words of Paul, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”... Her distress, in these painful circumstances, was so deeply affecting that even the bailie who accompanied the marquis to the prison, though no great friend to him, was softened into tears, and none in the room could refrain from giving vent in a similar way to their feelings. Meanwhile the marquis, though at first he wept himself, soon became perfectly composed, and endeavoured to comfort his beloved and sobbing wife. “Forbear, forbear,” said he affectionately to her; “truly I pity them; they know not what they are doing: they may shut me in where they please, but they cannot shut out God from me: for my part I am as content to be here as in the Castle, and as content in the Castle as in the Tower of London, and as content there as when at liberty; and I hope to be as content upon the scaffold as any of them all.” He added, “that he remembered a scripture cited to him by an honest minister lately in the Castle, and endeavoured to put it in practice. When Ziklag was taken and burnt, and the people spake of stoning David, he encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”
Please read more here.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Lady Jane Campbell
VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
Lady Jane Campbell, Viscountess of Kenmure, was one of the most eminent of the religious ladies who lived during the seventeenth century, and her name is well known to the religious people of Scotland. No female name of that period has indeed been more familiar to them than hers for nearly two centuries. Nor is this owing to her having left behind her any autobiography or diary containing a record of the Christian graces which adorned her character, or of the remarkable events of the times in which she lived; for nothing of this kind is known to have ever existed. It is the letters of the celebrated Mr. Samuel Rutherford - those wonderful effusions of sanctified genius - which have immortalized her memory, and made her name familiar to the pious peasantry of our land. Who is there that has read the beautiful letters addressed to her by that eminent man, who has not felt the attractions of her character? although it is only indirectly that we can deduce from them the elements which rendered it so attractive. [Rutherford was singularly free from the vice of flattery; and this greatly enhances the value of the illustrations of character which maybe derived from his Letters. "I had rather commend grace than gracious persons," says he, to Lady Kenmure, in his Dedication of his “Trial and Triumph of Faith” to her; and on this principle he proceeded in writing his Letters.]
Lady Jane Campbell was the third daughter of Archibald, seventh Earl of Argyll, by his first wife, Anne, fifth daughter of William, sixth Earl of Morton, of the house of Lochlevin. [Douglas' Peerage, vol. i. p. 94. In vol ii. p. 274, her mother is called Agnes.] The precise date of her birth is uncertain, but her parents were married before October, 1594. Descended both on the father’s and the mother’s side from ancient and noble families of great distinction, she was particularly honoured in her paternal ancestors, who were renowned for the zeal with which they maintained the cause of the Reformation...
In the welfare and happiness of the ministers ejected from their charges for nonconformity, Lady Kenmure took a deep interest, being warmly attached to the cause in which they suffered. Their integrity and conscientiousness in renouncing their livings rather than do violence to their conscience, excited both her approval and admiration; and if she could not restore them to the places from which they were extruded, she was willing, according to her ability, to mitigate the privations and hardships of their lot. After the death of her son, Lord Viscount Kenmure,and of her second husband, the Honourable Sir Henry Montgomery of Giffen, her pecuniary means were indeed much reduced, but having devoted herself and her all to the Saviour who redeemed her, she was liberal in communicating even beyond her ability to the necessities of the suffering Presbyterian ministers; and these acts of benevolence and generosity, which she felt to be sacred duties, she performed with a readiness and an alacrity corresponding to the deep sense she had of a Saviour’s love...
It would no doubt be interesting to know the circumstances connected with the last sickness and death of a lady so eminent for piety; but these have not been transmitted to posterity. We have, however, traced her from early life to advanced age, and we have seen throughout that whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, on these things she thought, and these things she practised. Although, then, we lose sight of her at the closing scene, we may be sure that the light of heaven rested upon it, dispelling the darkness of death and the grave; and whether she gave utterance to the triumphant exclamation of the Apostle Paul, in the prospect of his departure, or no, that exclamation from her dying lips would have been an appropriate close to a life which so eminently exemplified the Christian graces, - faith, purity, humility, charity, - “I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
Please read more here.
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
Lady Jane Campbell, Viscountess of Kenmure, was one of the most eminent of the religious ladies who lived during the seventeenth century, and her name is well known to the religious people of Scotland. No female name of that period has indeed been more familiar to them than hers for nearly two centuries. Nor is this owing to her having left behind her any autobiography or diary containing a record of the Christian graces which adorned her character, or of the remarkable events of the times in which she lived; for nothing of this kind is known to have ever existed. It is the letters of the celebrated Mr. Samuel Rutherford - those wonderful effusions of sanctified genius - which have immortalized her memory, and made her name familiar to the pious peasantry of our land. Who is there that has read the beautiful letters addressed to her by that eminent man, who has not felt the attractions of her character? although it is only indirectly that we can deduce from them the elements which rendered it so attractive. [Rutherford was singularly free from the vice of flattery; and this greatly enhances the value of the illustrations of character which maybe derived from his Letters. "I had rather commend grace than gracious persons," says he, to Lady Kenmure, in his Dedication of his “Trial and Triumph of Faith” to her; and on this principle he proceeded in writing his Letters.]
Lady Jane Campbell was the third daughter of Archibald, seventh Earl of Argyll, by his first wife, Anne, fifth daughter of William, sixth Earl of Morton, of the house of Lochlevin. [Douglas' Peerage, vol. i. p. 94. In vol ii. p. 274, her mother is called Agnes.] The precise date of her birth is uncertain, but her parents were married before October, 1594. Descended both on the father’s and the mother’s side from ancient and noble families of great distinction, she was particularly honoured in her paternal ancestors, who were renowned for the zeal with which they maintained the cause of the Reformation...
In the welfare and happiness of the ministers ejected from their charges for nonconformity, Lady Kenmure took a deep interest, being warmly attached to the cause in which they suffered. Their integrity and conscientiousness in renouncing their livings rather than do violence to their conscience, excited both her approval and admiration; and if she could not restore them to the places from which they were extruded, she was willing, according to her ability, to mitigate the privations and hardships of their lot. After the death of her son, Lord Viscount Kenmure,and of her second husband, the Honourable Sir Henry Montgomery of Giffen, her pecuniary means were indeed much reduced, but having devoted herself and her all to the Saviour who redeemed her, she was liberal in communicating even beyond her ability to the necessities of the suffering Presbyterian ministers; and these acts of benevolence and generosity, which she felt to be sacred duties, she performed with a readiness and an alacrity corresponding to the deep sense she had of a Saviour’s love...
It would no doubt be interesting to know the circumstances connected with the last sickness and death of a lady so eminent for piety; but these have not been transmitted to posterity. We have, however, traced her from early life to advanced age, and we have seen throughout that whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, on these things she thought, and these things she practised. Although, then, we lose sight of her at the closing scene, we may be sure that the light of heaven rested upon it, dispelling the darkness of death and the grave; and whether she gave utterance to the triumphant exclamation of the Apostle Paul, in the prospect of his departure, or no, that exclamation from her dying lips would have been an appropriate close to a life which so eminently exemplified the Christian graces, - faith, purity, humility, charity, - “I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
Please read more here.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Lady Culross
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
Elizabeth Melvill [Lady Culross], a contemporary of the two ladies previously noticed, was the daughter of Sir James Melvill of Halhill in Fife. Her father, who was one of the most accomplished statesmen and courtiers of his age, was ambassador from Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, and a privy counsellor to King James VI. He was also a man of sincere piety, and as Mr. John Livingstone informs us, “professed he had got assurance from the Lord that himself, wife, and all his children should meet in heaven.”
At what period the subject of this notice experienced the renewing of the Holy Spirit we are ignorant, but few women of her day became more eminent for exemplary piety and religious intelligence, or more extensively known, and more highly esteemed among the ministers and professors of the Church of Scotland. Taking her place among those who resisted the attempts made to wrest from the church her own free and independent jurisdiction, and to bring her in her worship and whole administration under the entire control of the crown, she interested herself greatly in their contendings. The fortitude displayed by the defenders of truth and freedom commanded her admiration: their sufferings excited her sympathy.
On the preaching of the gospel, Lady Culross attended with exemplary regularity. She was also much in the practice of frequenting sacramental solemnities. In those days the dispensation of the Lord’s Supper in the parishes of ministers famed for preaching the gospel, was flocked to by vast multitudes from the surrounding districts, so that often many thousands were assembled together to partake of, or to witness, this feast of love. These were interesting occasions. They generally took place in the summer season; and the sermons were preached in the open air. The solemnity of the public services powerfully engaged the attention as well as affected the heart; and in the fervent love which pervaded the private christian fellowship of the people with one another, there was exhibited a spectacle on which angels might have looked with delight. The families of the parish, on whom their minister was careful to enforce the duty of entertaining strangers, from the consideration that “thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” exemplified an open-hearted and, open-handed hospitality. Many of them accommodated so great a number that their domestic circle had the appearance of a small congregation, and it seemed as if the primitive days of Christianity had returned, when the disciples had all things in common. Thus Christians from different parts of the country became acquainted with one another, fraternal love was cultivated, and by their religious conversation and devotional exercises, they strengthened the ardour of their mutual piety. .. Few were more in the habit of waiting upon these observances than Lady Culross; and when circumstances prevented her from being present, she frequently secured the services of a friend to take notes of the sermons for her use. She indeed appears not to have been without fears of exceeding in her attendance on sacraments the bounds of duty, and of thereby neglecting the concerns of her family at home. At one time meeting with Euphan M'Cullen, a poor but pious woman in the parish of Kilconquhar, who was well known among the devout of her day, and who is said to have seldom prayed without getting a positive answer, Lady Culross requested her to pray for her in regard to the outward condition ofher family. On being inquired at what answer she had got, the good old woman replied that the answer was, “He that provideth not for his own house, hath denied the faith.” At which Lady Culross said, “Now you have killed me; for I go to preachings and communions here and there, neglecting the care of my own family.” Euphan replies, “Mistress, if you be guilty in that respect, you have reason to be humbled for it; but it was not said in that sense to me; but the Lord said, ‘I that have said, he that provideth not for his own is worse than an infidel,will not I provide for her and her house, seeing she is mine?’”
Please read more here.
Elizabeth Melvill [Lady Culross], a contemporary of the two ladies previously noticed, was the daughter of Sir James Melvill of Halhill in Fife. Her father, who was one of the most accomplished statesmen and courtiers of his age, was ambassador from Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, and a privy counsellor to King James VI. He was also a man of sincere piety, and as Mr. John Livingstone informs us, “professed he had got assurance from the Lord that himself, wife, and all his children should meet in heaven.”
At what period the subject of this notice experienced the renewing of the Holy Spirit we are ignorant, but few women of her day became more eminent for exemplary piety and religious intelligence, or more extensively known, and more highly esteemed among the ministers and professors of the Church of Scotland. Taking her place among those who resisted the attempts made to wrest from the church her own free and independent jurisdiction, and to bring her in her worship and whole administration under the entire control of the crown, she interested herself greatly in their contendings. The fortitude displayed by the defenders of truth and freedom commanded her admiration: their sufferings excited her sympathy.
On the preaching of the gospel, Lady Culross attended with exemplary regularity. She was also much in the practice of frequenting sacramental solemnities. In those days the dispensation of the Lord’s Supper in the parishes of ministers famed for preaching the gospel, was flocked to by vast multitudes from the surrounding districts, so that often many thousands were assembled together to partake of, or to witness, this feast of love. These were interesting occasions. They generally took place in the summer season; and the sermons were preached in the open air. The solemnity of the public services powerfully engaged the attention as well as affected the heart; and in the fervent love which pervaded the private christian fellowship of the people with one another, there was exhibited a spectacle on which angels might have looked with delight. The families of the parish, on whom their minister was careful to enforce the duty of entertaining strangers, from the consideration that “thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” exemplified an open-hearted and, open-handed hospitality. Many of them accommodated so great a number that their domestic circle had the appearance of a small congregation, and it seemed as if the primitive days of Christianity had returned, when the disciples had all things in common. Thus Christians from different parts of the country became acquainted with one another, fraternal love was cultivated, and by their religious conversation and devotional exercises, they strengthened the ardour of their mutual piety. .. Few were more in the habit of waiting upon these observances than Lady Culross; and when circumstances prevented her from being present, she frequently secured the services of a friend to take notes of the sermons for her use. She indeed appears not to have been without fears of exceeding in her attendance on sacraments the bounds of duty, and of thereby neglecting the concerns of her family at home. At one time meeting with Euphan M'Cullen, a poor but pious woman in the parish of Kilconquhar, who was well known among the devout of her day, and who is said to have seldom prayed without getting a positive answer, Lady Culross requested her to pray for her in regard to the outward condition ofher family. On being inquired at what answer she had got, the good old woman replied that the answer was, “He that provideth not for his own house, hath denied the faith.” At which Lady Culross said, “Now you have killed me; for I go to preachings and communions here and there, neglecting the care of my own family.” Euphan replies, “Mistress, if you be guilty in that respect, you have reason to be humbled for it; but it was not said in that sense to me; but the Lord said, ‘I that have said, he that provideth not for his own is worse than an infidel,will not I provide for her and her house, seeing she is mine?’”
Please read more here.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Lady Boyd
Excerpt from "The Ladies of the Covenant" by Rev. James Anderson.
Lady Boyd, whose maiden name was Christian Hamilton, was the only child of Sir Thomas Hamilton of Prestfield, afterwards first Earl of Haddington, by his first wife Margaret, daughter of James Borthwick of Newbyres. ..
Like the Marchioness of Hamilton, Lady Boyd joined the ranks of the Presbyterians who resisted the attempts of James VI and Charles I to impose prelacy upon the Church of Scotland. With many of the most eminent ministers of those times, as Mr. Robert Bruce, Mr. Robert Boyd, Mr. Robert Blair, Mr. Samuel Rutherford, and Mr. John Livingstone, she was on terms of intimate friendship; and her many Christian virtues procured her a high place in their esteem, and, indeed, in the esteem of all ranks and classes of her countrymen. Experiencing in her own heart the saving influence of divine truth, she was desirous that others, in the like manner, might experience its saving power; and with this view she encouraged the preaching of the gospel, exercising a generous hospitality and liberality towards its ministers, receiving them into her house, and supplying them with money. In his Life, written by himself, Mr. John Livingstone speaks of residing for some time, during the course of his ministry, in the house of Kilmarnock, with “worthy Lady Boyd;” and mentions her as one of four ladies of rank “of whom he got at several times supply of money.” ..
During the struggle of the Presbyterians in behalf of the liberties of the church, for many years previous to the second Reformation, it was the practice of the more zealous among them, both with the view of promoting their own personal piety and of commending to God the desolate condition of the church, to hold meetings in various parts of the country, for humiliation and prayer, on such stated days as were agreed upon by general correspondence. And such as could not conveniently attend at the particular place fixed upon in the part of the coutry where they resided, not unfrequently kept the diet either at their own house or at the house of a friend, where a few assembled; and in these cases they endeavoured, if possible, to obtain the presence of a minister. Of these private social meetings Lady Boyd was an encourager; and when it was inconvenient or impossible for her to be present at the appointed place of meeting in her locality, she spent the day in humiliation and prayer in her own house. ..
At the period of the attempted imposition of the book of canons and the service book or liturgy upon the Scottish Church, by royal authority, many, both ministers and laity, were subjected to persecution for resisting these invasions on the liberties of the church; and to such persons, as might be anticipated from the benevolence of her character and her ecclesiastical principles, Lady Boyd was at all times heartily disposed to extend her encouragement and aid by letter, word, or deed. When Rutherford was confined to Aberdeen, she maintained epistolary correspondence with him; and that worthy minister repeatedly expresses how much his soul was refreshed by her letters, as well as gratefully acknowledges that she “ministered to him in his bonds.”
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Lady Boyd, whose maiden name was Christian Hamilton, was the only child of Sir Thomas Hamilton of Prestfield, afterwards first Earl of Haddington, by his first wife Margaret, daughter of James Borthwick of Newbyres. ..
Like the Marchioness of Hamilton, Lady Boyd joined the ranks of the Presbyterians who resisted the attempts of James VI and Charles I to impose prelacy upon the Church of Scotland. With many of the most eminent ministers of those times, as Mr. Robert Bruce, Mr. Robert Boyd, Mr. Robert Blair, Mr. Samuel Rutherford, and Mr. John Livingstone, she was on terms of intimate friendship; and her many Christian virtues procured her a high place in their esteem, and, indeed, in the esteem of all ranks and classes of her countrymen. Experiencing in her own heart the saving influence of divine truth, she was desirous that others, in the like manner, might experience its saving power; and with this view she encouraged the preaching of the gospel, exercising a generous hospitality and liberality towards its ministers, receiving them into her house, and supplying them with money. In his Life, written by himself, Mr. John Livingstone speaks of residing for some time, during the course of his ministry, in the house of Kilmarnock, with “worthy Lady Boyd;” and mentions her as one of four ladies of rank “of whom he got at several times supply of money.” ..
During the struggle of the Presbyterians in behalf of the liberties of the church, for many years previous to the second Reformation, it was the practice of the more zealous among them, both with the view of promoting their own personal piety and of commending to God the desolate condition of the church, to hold meetings in various parts of the country, for humiliation and prayer, on such stated days as were agreed upon by general correspondence. And such as could not conveniently attend at the particular place fixed upon in the part of the coutry where they resided, not unfrequently kept the diet either at their own house or at the house of a friend, where a few assembled; and in these cases they endeavoured, if possible, to obtain the presence of a minister. Of these private social meetings Lady Boyd was an encourager; and when it was inconvenient or impossible for her to be present at the appointed place of meeting in her locality, she spent the day in humiliation and prayer in her own house. ..
At the period of the attempted imposition of the book of canons and the service book or liturgy upon the Scottish Church, by royal authority, many, both ministers and laity, were subjected to persecution for resisting these invasions on the liberties of the church; and to such persons, as might be anticipated from the benevolence of her character and her ecclesiastical principles, Lady Boyd was at all times heartily disposed to extend her encouragement and aid by letter, word, or deed. When Rutherford was confined to Aberdeen, she maintained epistolary correspondence with him; and that worthy minister repeatedly expresses how much his soul was refreshed by her letters, as well as gratefully acknowledges that she “ministered to him in his bonds.”
Please read more here.
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