and many of them were openly vicious. They were a disgrace to orders, and the sacred functions: and were indeed the dregs and refuse of the northern parts.'1 Kirkton corroborates Burnet, declaring that they were 'a sort of young lads unstudied and unbred, who hade all the properties of Jeroboams priests . . . and so profane and void of conscience themselves that they believed there were none in any other. A gentleman in the north cursed the Presbyterian ministers, because, said he, since they left their churches, wee cannot get a lad to keep our cows, they turn all ministers.'2 Tweeddale described them to Lauderdale as 'insufficient, scandalous, impudent fellows.' 3 It is satisfactory now to know that the almost incredible statements uttered by Stewart, Stirling, Brown, Wellwood, Shields, and commonly supposed to be gendered in Covenanting hatred and spite, were substantiated by Sir Robert Moray, Lauderdale's depute, Sir Robert who, after personal inquiry and observation, concluded that it was Moray's impossible to support such ignorant and scandalous men, ‘unless the greatest part of them could be turned out.'4 testimony. churches. The evicted clergy harangued the people on the sin of intrusion. Riots at Apart from this, it is not natural to expect that the Scottish temper would have tamely submitted to these cruel and unwarrantable acts of tyranny, and the substitution of lewd clodpates for their loved and learned leaders. In Irongray, men and women convened to prevent the serving of the edict regarding Welsh ; and William Arnot of Littlepark, drawing his sword as he placed his back to the church door, cried out boldly: 'Let me see who will place a minister here this day.' Another ebullition occurred when Bernard Saunderson came from the neighbouring parish of Keir, accompanied by his co-presbyters and an armed bodyguard, to fill Welsh's pulpit. A crowd of women, generalled by Margaret Smith, occupied the walled-in churchyard, a natural coign of vantage, and, after a hot skirmish of stones easily got from the Cluden, made the prelatic intruders beat a hasty retreat." 2 Hist., 160-1. 1 Hist., i. 275. 3 Laud. Pap., ii..207. * Dodds, Fifty Years, 124; cf. Naphtali, 119, 135, 301, 302; Brown, Apol. Narr., 270; Wellwood, Sermon on 1 Peter iv. 18; Burnet, i. 379, 441; Laud. Pap., ii. 20. * Wodrow, i. 365-7; Blackadder, Memoirs, 102 note; Kirkton, 162. Origin of the A similar riot occurred on the attempt to settle John Jaffray of Monquhitter in Kirkcudbright, early in 1663. The Council took the matter up in May, and appointed a committee consisting of Linlithgow, Galloway, Annandale, Drumlanrig, and Wauchope of Niddrie (Montrose and Eglinton were afterwards added), to proceed to the district, to bring the offenders to justice, and to inquire if all the officials had obeyed the recent statutes. One hundred horse and two hundred foot of the Guards were told off to accompany the Commission and to exact for themselves free quarters and generous pay for officers and men. This order inaugurated the policy of repression by arms which resulted in the Galloway Rising. The Commission first sat at Kirkcudbright on 25th May, and examined Lord Kirkcudbright (who was a Protester and old friend of Wariston), John Carsan of Senwick, and John Euart (the latter two having formerly acted as provosts of the burgh), and also thirty-three widows and servants. They decerned that the three magistrates, being privy to the revolt, and five women rioters should be apprehended and removed to Edinburgh for trial, while other fourteen women should be put in the local bridewell till they found caution for their compearance before the Council. Some men went to prison for their wives. The Commission examined the Irongray delinquents at Dumfries on 30th May, and remitted Arnot to Edinburgh for trial, sending George Rome of Beoch to prison till he found caution to appear when called on. As a penalty for undiscovered culprits, they quartered soldiery on the parish, and exacted a bond of one hundred pounds from the heritors. The trial in August resulted in Carsan and Arnot being respectively fined eight thousand and five thousand merks-Arnot being forced to stand two Sabbaths in the public place of repentance in Irongray Church. Euart was finally sentenced to banishment. The five women from Kirkcudbright, Agnes Maxwell, Marion Brown, Jean Rennie, Christian M'Cavers, and Janet Biglaw, were ordered home to stand for two market-days at the Cross of Kirkcudbright, with a placard on each face announcing the crime, and the magistrates were empowered to scourge and banish the criminals if they tried to evade this doom. After sixteen weeks' imprisonment, and on finding caution, the male vicarious sufferers were released.1 Gordons. It was while this Commission was visiting Galloway that the The Earlston incident occurred which brought so much distress upon William Gordon, laird of Earlston in Dalry, to be afterwards referred to. The family of Gordon was strong in the Glenkens, and the Earlston Gordons had favoured Lollardy and other reform movements. They had also an influential local connection by marriage. John M‘Michan, minister of Dalry, was evicted, and the bishop presented George Henry to the vacant charge. The Commissioners enjoined Earlston to take steps to have the presentee settled. Earlston replied, on 22nd May, declining the order, refusing to intrude, claiming the right of patronage, and stating that he too had nominated a pastor. They replied citing him to the Council to answer for contempt. Before leaving Kirkcudbright the Commission appointed a bench of loyal magistrates under heavy caution, and left a party of the Guards to aid them in keeping order. It was soon manifest that the would-be religious King and Council were not to brook bucolic pietists interfering with their sacred prerogatives and mission, or thwarting their infallible purposes. Prophet, A remarkable and unique personage came into prominence at this Peden the critical time. Alexander Peden (1626-86), Pethein, or Peathine, was a 1626-1686. native of Auchincloich, in the parish of Mauchline (now Sorn). Like his ancestry he was a bonnet-laird. He studied in Glasgow, and before entering the ministry became a teacher and precentor in Tarbolton and Fenwick. He was appointed minister of the Moorkirk of Glenluce in 1660. He did not conform and was deprived in 1662. Nevertheless, according to the charge preferred against him by the Privy Council on 24th February 1663, he continued in his office, 'labouring to keep the hearts of the people from the present government in Church and State.' At length, compelled to desist, he 1 Wodrow, i. 364-8. The Castle of Earlston still stands. It bears the inscription '1655, W. G. M. H.' The Lowlanders incensed. finished his parochial ministry with a dramatic climax. His sorrowful The migrations through the south-west of Scotland of so many reputable, influential, and dogged opponents of the new repressive policy made the Lowlands lively, and created the necessity for the installation of a government agent as unique and as notorious as the elusive Peden. It was in September 1663 that the despot, Sir James Turner, was sent to the south to quell the disturbances. The vexation consequent on the operation of the obnoxious statutes was not confined to embittered Presbyterians. The less scrupulous opponents of Episcopacy showed antipathy in an offensive way. Church doors were locked in the incumbent's face: the tongues of bells were removed to make the hour of worship uncertain: the intruded pastors were terrified by rough-tongued men or stone-throwing termagants who adjured them to stay away and ruin no more souls: an ingenious herd-lad emptied a box full of pismires into a curate's boots, so as to torment him during service; and even more vulgar and vicious pranks were played upon the unhappy presentees. On the other hand, the decorous multitudes of worshippers who gathered to hear the evicted clergy soon became armed convocations of the lieges. 1 Wodrow, Hist, ii. 4; iii. 73-5; iv. 396; Analecta, ii. 85, 86; Walker, Some Remarkable Passages, etc., in Fleming, Six Saints, i. 1-177 ; ii. 129. 2 Kirkton, 161. CHAPTER XXIII THE RULE OF ROTHES AND THE RISING OF RULLION GREEN of Lauderdale, IN June 1663, Holyrood House once more resounded with revelry The mission when the new Commissioner, Rothes, and the Secretary of State, June 1663. Lauderdale, took up residence there. Lauderdale had returned to displace Middleton, to undo the Billeting business, to make vengeance overtake Wariston, for whom formerly he had owned 'great friendship, to guide Parliament in framing repressive measures for dissenters, to take the conceit out of the Church dignitaries, and generally to advance his own interests by proving to the King how clever and indispensable he was. His first step in debasing Middleton was the promotion of the bibulous Rothes to be Commissioner; and his second was his personal compearance in Parliament to get the crafty Acts of his rival expunged from the Statute Book. Rothes, 1630 1681. John Leslie, seventh Earl and first Duke of Rothes, a coarse, The Duke of illiterate boor, salacious in talk and indecent in behaviour, was the agent best fitted to give effect to the atrocities conceived in the cunning brain of Archbishop Sharp. His greed of gain made him a tool most amenable to a persecutor. His carnal characteristics distinguished him as the type of man the King loved. He roguishly excused his own uncleanness of life by asserting that 'the King's Commissioner ought to represent his person.'1 When Rothes arrived Session of to preside, on 18th June, in the third session of Charles's first 1663. Parliament, 167 members met, including 2 archbishops, 8 bishops, I duke, I marquis, 35 earls, 4 viscounts, 26 lords, 48 county members, and 42 representatives of burghs. Rothes intimated Parliament, |