The last 1688. churchyard an old slab tells: 'Here lyes G[e]org[e] Wood who was shot at Tinkhornhill by bloody John Reid Trvper for his adherance to the Word of God and the Covenanted Work of Reformation, 1688.' Wood was a boy of sixteen, whom Reid shot without asking him a question, afterwards justifying his ruthless act by saying: 'He knew him to be one of the Whigs, and they ought to be shot wherever they were found.'1 According to the author of The Scots Worthies, and other authorities, the number of sufferers for the Covenants, by imprisonment, banishment, and death, was 18,000-a computation which is probably too great. Of these 1700 were transported; 750 were banished to the North Isles; 2800 suffered imprisonment; 7000 went into exile; 680 were killed fighting; 498 were dispatched in the fields; 362 were judicially executed; and many others perished in their wanderings.2 1 Wodrow, iv. 457; Martyr Graves, 343. This incident took place shortly before 1st August 1688 Shields to Hamilton, Faithful Contendings, 355. 2 The Scots Worthies, 626; M'Crie, Sketches, ii. 239; Defoe, 319; A Short Memorial, 33-8. The author of Answer to the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence (pp. 40-1) declares that, of 1310 who suffered banishment and death, 700 were banished, 400 slain in skirmishes; 140 executed judicially; and 70 murdered in cold blood-in all 610. Of the 700 who were banished, 200 died abroad. Among the exiles who perished abroad was John Balfour of Kinloch, said to have been drowned on his return from Holland. But accounts differ as to the fate of this fugitive, and nothing certain is known of his last deeds and days. CHAPTER XXXI THE REVOLUTION DELIVERANCE was at hand. The good sense of the nation re-asserted itself, and found expression in the joy of the people, who almost universally hailed with acclamation the overthrow of the unconstitutional dominion after a bloodless campaign. The identical arguments used by the Cameronians for justifying their renunciation of the Stuarts became the reasons offered to Europe for the righteousness of the invasion of Britain by a foreign liberator. The Society-men took credit to themselves for inaugurating that successful revolution for which they had long been reproached and persecuted.1 Although A tottering the throne was trembling, the myopic Government pursued as hot a persecution as that proceeding before the Toleration was published. The whole catena of Covenanting literature was proclaimed as pernicious treason-such as De Jure, Lex Rex, Jus Populi, Naphtali, The Cup of Cold Water, The Scots Mist, The Apologetical Relation, Mene Tekel, A Hind Let Loose, and the various Declarations of the later Covenanters. The soldiery was active. 2 throne. Protestant For long, British Protestants at home and abroad had been looking William, the to William Henry, third Prince of Orange, as the Joshua who would Joshua. complete their flight from bondage and lead them into the Promised Land. This Protestant sovereign had strong claims on them. He was the son of one British princess, the husband of another-Mary, the heiress of the Crown, also a Protestant-and the nephew and son-in-law of the King. He had at his ear gossiping Gilbert Burnet. How far, if at all, the Prince of Orange encouraged the VOL. II. 1 Faithful Contendings, 392. 2 15th August: Aldis, List, 2791; Wodrow, iv. 444 note. 3 T 'the old Pretender.' onfall on Britain of the unsuccessful invaders—Argyll and Monmouth -and intrigued with the exiled dissentients, has not been made clear. Birth of James, Two events changed the relationship of William to James, namely, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the birth of the 'hopeful prince,' James-'the Chevalier de St. George'-on 10th June 1688. The Council and Claverhouse hailed the birth as 'so extraordinary a mercy.' William saw in it the menace of a Popish dynasty. Whig and Tory perceived that and the peril of an alliance with belligerent Louis of France. The acts of James, in his autocratic madness, brought matters to a head. The Indulgence, the dissolution of Parliament, the prosecution of seven bishops accused of sedition, and other intolerable doings, incensed the people and incited the courage of seven influential patriots, who invited William to come and protect the liberties of Britain. Declaration by William promulgated a Declaration of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms in defence of Protestantism and of the liberty of Scotland.' These, in fine, were the new unconstitutional régime, the miseries of the downtrodden, the violation of anti-Popish statutes, the despotism of the governors, the illegal, brutal persecution, punishment, and slaughter of the lieges, the subversion of Protestantism, the spurious birth of Prince James, and William's interest in Mary's heritage. No mountain man-Cargill, Cameron, Renwick, or Patrick Walker-could have issued a more explicit proclamation of extreme Covenanting principles than was therein published by William of Orange. William and his fourteen thousand men- Butterboxes,' the Jacobites called them-landed at Brixham, Torbay, on 5th November. In his entourage were Sir James Dalrymple, Carstares, and Burnet. On touching British soil they consecrated their mission by worship. On the 18th December, the Prince of Orange reached St. James's Palace; five days later the absconding monarch, James, left England for ever. The country was soon in a ferment of excitement. So early as September, King James commissioned the Earl of Perth, who employed Sir Patrick Murray, to discover if the Presby 1 10th October: Wodrow, iv. 470; Aldis, List, 2828. had James's futile his terian party generally, in consideration of the clemency he displayed towards them, would not out of gratitude adhere to cause in this crisis. The leaders equivocated, and declared that they 'would meddle no more with him' or his officials, and would act as God inspired them.1 move. Dutch. The Society-men, realising that they were escaping martyrdom The Societymen testify by the skin of their teeth, resolutely testified against both Jacobites against and Dutch, styling the latter 'a promiscuous conjunction of reformed Jacobites and Lutherans, Malignants, and Sectaries.' At a meeting held at Wanlockhead on 24th October, they resolved to put themselves in a 'posture of defence' when circumstances were favourable; to league themselves with unadulterated Covenanters only; to refuse amalgamation while operating with the Dutch and accepting their ammunition and drill-sergeants. At a subsequent convention they testified that the Prince of Orange's Declaration was 'too lame and defective,' having ignored 'the Covenanted Work of Reformation.' They showed their practical sympathy with the invasion, by proceeding with phenomenal activity to purge the churches in south-west Scotland of their 'intruded hireling curates.' On the 3rd of November, the Scots bishops, all but two, met in The Scots bishops support Edinburgh and subscribed a letter to the King, whom they styled 'the darling of Heaven,' so 'miraculously prospered with glory and victory.' They could not more fawningly-such a contrast to the conduct of the bishops in England at this crisis—have lauded the Archangel Michael than James, for whom they prayed God to give him victory with 'the hearts of your subjects and the necks of your enemies.' They appointed a deputation of their number to go to London and watch over their interests. This mission of Bishop Rose accomplished nothing." Scottish The Scots Privy Council, seeing the tight corner they were driven The wily into, resolved with the wisdom of the serpent to display the harm- council. lessness of the dove, and discharged the punitive measures that were 4 Wodrow, iv. 468. 2 Faithful Contendings, 365, 370, 371. 1 Balcarres, An Account, 24. 3 Ibid., 371. Representative conventions. Claverhouse on the march. ordered after the rescue of David Houston; and, in order to evince a more marked show of magnanimity and tenderness of feeling towards Presbyterians, gave instructions that the heads of the martyrs were to be removed from the public gaze on the jail spikes. Shields naïvely remarks on this expedient act-'for fear lest these monuments of their cruelty standing might occasion the question to be moved, By whom and for what were they set up.' In December, the Council disarmed Papists and threw them on the protection of heritors, who were summoned to a muster 'for security of the Protestant Religion." The obedient soldiers, taking an example from their masters, drove their swords into their scabbards. 1 Two important conventions met in January 1689-a meeting of Scots nobles and gentlemen summoned to St. James's by William, and a convocation of Presbyterian ministers frequently assembling in Edinburgh. Each of these representative gatherings framed an Address to that Prince, and concluded with definite requests regarding political and ecclesiastical freedom. The laymen asked for a free Parliament at which no oath was to be taken, at which 'no bishop or evil counsellor be called to sit to be our judges.' The ministers demanded the extrusion of Episcopacy, alleged to be 'contrary to the genius of the nation,' the restoration of Presbytery, and a 'quiet harbour' for 'this poor weatherbeaten church.'s The Societies still held aloof from their Presbyterian brethren, till they owned their defections, only agreeing to attend meetings for the purpose of convincing of error, but not to amalgamate with the unreformed. They also lent a willing hand in the newly begun rabbling. Since the appearance of Claverhouse as a witness against Renwick, he had been busy with his new duties in the Provostship of Dundee and other civil business, which he performed with military exactitude. In September, the standing forces in Scotland, the chief garrisons 1 A Short Memorial, 28. 2 Wodrow, iv. 475; Aldis, List, 2742, 2743-14th and 24th December. 3 Wodrow, iv. 477-82; lay desire for the expulsion of the bishops was due to their own indiscretions-Queensberry to Sancroft, 24th December 1688: Letters, 99. 4 Faithful Contendings, 421. |