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On The Trail of Claverhouse: The Killing of Matthew MacIlwraith in 1685

By Dr. Mark Jardine - Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs: Matthew MacIlwraith’s death is one of the most difficult events of the Killing Times to place in a chronological context. He was shot by John Graham of Claverhouse ’s troops in Colmonell parish in Carrick at some point in 1685, but no specific date for that event is given. For all the sources about his death, see here . McIlwraith’s Grave © Keith Brown and licensed for reuse . When I first wrote about MacIlwraith, it was not clear when he was killed. However, after further research, there is a way of narrowing down the broad time frame for his death by looking at the known movements of Claverhouse in the historical sources for 1685. Where was Claverhouse? Claverhouse was involved in operations in Galloway in late 1684, when he was involved in the killings at Auchencloy after a raid on Kirkcudbright Tolbooth . However, the debacle of the raid and its aftermath led to him being replaced in the field by his rival, Colonel Ja

Samuel Rutherford’s Word of Comfort for the Grief of a Child

Posted at Regeneration, Repentance and Reformation: Letter 310, to Lady Kenmure, on the occasion of the death of her infant daughter. Written by, Samuel Rutherford MADAM, Saluting your Ladyship with grace and mercy from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. I was sorry, at my departure, leaving your Ladyship in grief, and would be still grieved at it if I were not assured that ye have one with you in the furnace whose visage is like unto the Son of God. I am glad that ye have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings of God, knowing that if ye were not dear to God, and if your health did not require so much of Him, He would not spend so much physic upon you. All the brethren and sisters of Christ must be conform to His image and copy in suffering ( Rom. 8.29 ). And some do more vividly resemble the copy than others. Think, Madam, that it is a part of your glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders pointed out to John, ‘These are they which came out of g

The Covenanters’ Prison, Edinburgh, 1679

By Dr. Mark Jardine - Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs: After the Covenanters were defeated in the battle of Bothwell Brig on 22 June, 1679, at least 1,184 prisoners were delivered to Edinburgh. They were held in Inner Greyfriars’ Yard. What is today called The Covenanters’ Prison in Greyfriars’ churchyard only covers a small portion of the area where the prisoners were actually held. At that time, The Covenanters’ Prison was not part of the graveyard, but part of a considerably larger enclosure – the Inner Yard – which ran east from the Covenanters’ Prison through the houses, across Forest Road and through the buildings there, to Bristo Place. Today, the pub called Sandy Bell’s lies approximately in the centre of what was the Inner Yard. It was a grass park of over three acres surrounded on all sides by high walls and accessed via a single gate by the Society Port. There was no access via the present-day gate to the Covenanters’ Prison. Instead, a continuous dyke ran across t

Lady Colvill imprisoned for her faith (1684)

Administration of the Lord's Supper in the Fields. Image is from Rev. James Anderson's book "Ladies of the Covenant." By Rev. David T. Myers - Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History: Entitled to the Benediction of the Savior In the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pronounced a blessing upon His followers in Matthew 5:10, 11 when He said, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (NASB) There can be no doubt that the subject of our post today was entitled to the benediction of the Savior in her life. Her name at birth was Margaret Wemyss, but through marriage with the Lord of Colvill, she was called Lady Colvill. From that union, which ended with the death of her husband in 1671, she bore two daughters. Our focus today is on this wife, and her son. The former wa

The Covenanter James Renwick’s Tree in Moniaive

By Dr. Mark Jardine - Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs : Renwick's Tree in 2006 - Image from Jardine's Book of Martyrs It is a curious fact, that James Renwick , the minister of the Covenanters, has remarkably few places named after him considering his central role in their struggle in the 1680s. That stands in marked contrast to Alexander Peden, whom Renwick opposed, who has a plethora of trees, caves and stones associated with him. One reason for that may be that Peden’s wanderings through the landscape had a superb and evocative publicist in the form of Patrick Walker, whose Life of Peden was a very popular work in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One place where Renwick is remembered in the landscape is at his place of birth, Moniaive, in his native parish of Glencairn in Dumfriesshire. There a monument was erected ‘about 100 yards from the place where he is supposed to have been born’ just over the hill to the north of the monument. Thanks to Evelyn Boyes

Apples of Gold: Lady Mary Johnston

Covenant Ladies Index Page  (Apples of Gold) Lady Mary (Johnston) Lindsay Countess Crawford Lady Mary Johnson 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, and brother to the Duchess of Rothes. 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 to which 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. Bu

William Guthrie

William Guthrie - Image from Banner of Truth Posted at Banner of Truth : William Guthrie, one of the holiest and ablest of the experimental divines of Scotland, was born at Pitforthy, Angus, the seat of his ancestors, in the year 1620. He was the eldest son of the family, and his superior genius was displayed in his early and successful attention to learning; but till his entrance into college life, he did not obtain that intimate and saving acquaintance with Divine truth which enabled him at once to stay his own soul upon God as the God of his salvation, and to prescribe most skilfully for the cases of spiritual disease that came under his notice. He felt himself greatly indebted for acquaintance with the way of holiness to the instructions of a near kinsman. This was his cousin, James Guthrie, then holding one of the chairs in the New College of St Andrews, and afterwards highly esteemed as the faithful minister of Stirling during the period of the Covenant, for his faithful adherenc

Apples of Gold: 'The Two Margarets'

The Two Margarets Covenant Ladies   Index Page  (Apples of Gold) Margaret McLauchlan and Margaret Wilson The years 1684 and 1685 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 f

The Woman Who Never Was

By Dr. Mark Jardine -  Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs : Amid the flotsam of the Killing Times of 1685 are a few brief lines on a threatened drowning of a woman at Kirkcudbright. She never was drowned, but her remarkable story deserves to be told… The case of Grizel Fullarton has striking parallels with the drowning of the two Wigtown martyrs, Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson . Grizel Fullarton was captured by Colonel James Douglas, who commissioned the court that initially sentenced the two Wigtown women to be drowned for refusing the abjuration oath in April, 1685, under powers awarded to him on 27 March . The events of Fullarton’s case took place earlier in the same year in the same jurisdiction, Galloway, but under a slightly different set of judicial commissions. She was scheduled to face some of the same judges that went on to condemn the Wigtown women, but under their commission to press the abjuration oath in January, 1685. Read more...

Handed Down From the Scaffold: The Cargill Bible

By Dr. Mark Jardine - Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs : Image from Jardine's Book of Martyrs One of Cargill’s last acts on the scaffold on 27 July, 1681, was to hand down his bible to a sympathizer and instruct them to pass it on to his sister. The incident is recorded in a handwritten entry in Cargill’s bible: ‘[Cargill] Bore this Bible to the Scaffold as his last best friend and handed it therefrom as his last sad legacy to be carried to his oldest sister Anne Cargill with these memorable words – ‘I am sure of my salvation being complete in Jesus Christ as I am of the truth of all that is contained in this holy this inestimable book of God!’ (Quoted in Crawford,  Scotland’s Books , 214 .) Cargill had three sisters. His bible was handed down via the family of Anne Cargill, the eldest of them. A second sister, Grizel Cargill, was married to Donald Crockatt , a notary in Alyth parish, Perthshire. A third sister may have been married to John Miller in Watershaugh in Shotts pa

Janet Geddes - Laud's Liturgy

For more background of the account of Jenny Gedde's tossing her stool at the minister at St. Giles, here is an excerpt from Laud's Liturgy as posted at The Salty Scrivener : Dean Hannay first read the new Scottish Prayer book, which became known as ‘Laud’s Liturgy’, at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, on the third Sunday in July 1637. There is an interesting story relating to the first reading of the Liturgy. It is believed that a vegetable-seller, known as Jenny Geddis was in the church for the service. When the Dean began to read the liturgy, Geddis rose to her feet, shouting, “The devil give thee bellyache! Woulds’t thou say mass in my lug!”   Geddis then proceeded to throw her stool across the room at the dean. How much of this is legend is unknown, but there is a plaque on the floor of St. Giles Cathedral today, which marks the point from where Geddis registered her protest. The protest is thought to have been both heavily organised and heavily politicised. One thin