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The Martyrs’ Monument, in Greyfriars’ Churchyard, Edinburgh. 
 
THE 
 
 MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 OF THB 
 
 SCOTTISH COVENANT 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE GILFILLAN 
 
 (Rev. Geo. Gilflllan of Dundee) 
 
 EIGHTH EDITION 
 
 GALL & INGLIS 
 
 jE&fnburgb: 20 Bernard terrace 
 Xonbon : 25 paternoster square 
 
" They of old, whose tempered blades 
 
 Dispersed the shackles of usurped control. 
 
 And hewed them link from link, — then Britain s sons 
 Were sons indeed; they felt a filial heart 
 Beat high within them at a mother’s wrongs; 
 
 And, shining each in his domestic sphere, 
 
 Shone brighter still when call’d to public view. * 
 
 Co WPJEJv 
 
 04 Yet, freedom 1 yet thy banner, torn but flying, 
 Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.” 
 
 Byrobj, 
 
/ 0 My 2Ct 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. THE OCCASION OP THE COVENANT, ... 
 
 II. THE HISTORY OP THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, 
 
 III. THE PERSECUTION UNTIL THE AFFAIR AT DRUMCLOG, ... 
 
 IV. DRUMCLOG, BOTH WELL BRIDGE, AND THEIR RESULTS, ... 
 
 V. CLOSE OP THE PERSECUTION, 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OP THE CHARACTER, LITERATURE, AIMS, AND 
 ATTAINED OBJECTS OP THE COVENANTERS, 
 
 LITERATURE REGARDING THE COVENANTERS, 
 
 Aird, Thomas, 
 
 Aytoun, Professor, 
 
 Calderwood, 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas,... 
 
 Cloud of Witnesses, 
 
 “Delta,” 
 
 Duncan of Ruth well, 
 
 Galt, John, 
 
 Grahame, James,... 
 
 Hislop, ... 
 
 Hogg, The Ettrick Shepherd, 
 
 Howie, ... 
 
 Irving, Edward, ... 
 
 Naplitali, 
 
 Pollock, Robert, ... 
 
 Scots Worthies, ... 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 
 
 Shields, ... 
 
 Wilson, Professor, 
 
 Wodrow, 
 
 DEDUCTIONS FROM THE HISTORY AND CHARACTER OF THE 
 COVENANTERS, 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 PAGB 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 45 
 
 69 
 
 110 
 
 145 
 
 204 
 
 235 
 
 236 
 
 204 
 
 235 
 
 205 
 
 235 
 
 228 
 
 228 
 
 212 
 
 229 
 
 229 
 
 205 
 
 233 
 
 205 
 
 232 
 
 205 
 
 215 
 
 204 
 
 230 
 
 204 
 
 245 
 
 259 
 
 599499 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/martyrsheroesofsOOgilf 
 
THE SALIENT POINTS OF THE COVENANT 
 AND CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. 
 
 Cause. — The Reformation of 1560 left the country without a 
 clear understanding in regard to ecclesiastical authority. 
 The Court sought to appoint suitable overseers or Bishops 
 under the king, to be the supreme authority in the church. 
 The People wished an elected representative General Assem- 
 bly to be the final arbiter in matters ecclesiastical. 
 1580-96. The National Confession of Faith drawn up and signed. 
 1603. Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England in James VI. 
 1625. Accession of Charles I. 
 
 1638. The attempt to enforce the King’s wishes produced the 
 National Covenant (embodying the Confession of Faith). 
 The people and their leaders pledge themselves to support 
 the Presbyterian form of Church Government. 
 
 1643. In view of the struggle between King and people in both 
 England and Scotland, the Solemn League and Covenant 
 embodying above, ratified by the English Parliament. 
 
 1649. Revolution ; execution of Charles I. Cromwell dictator. 
 
 1650. The Covenant accepted by the fugitive son of Charles I. 
 1659. The Restoration. Charles II. ascends the throne. 
 
 1661. The Covenant repudiated by Charles II. The Duke of 
 
 Argyle, and Guthrie executed for their adherence to it. 
 
 1662. The Covenant publicly torn. Bishops and curates appointed. 
 1664. Executions, ejections, and petty persecutions begun for non- 
 
 compliance in regard to the new ecclesiastical requirements. 
 THE FIRST RESISTANCE— The Pentland Rising. 
 
 1666. In an attempt to wring fines out of an old man by torture, 
 
 the soldiers are seized and disarmed. The leaders find- 
 ing great popular support in the south, move northwards 
 to Edinburgh, but are not supported, and are defeated 
 at Bullion Green. The prisoners hanged. 
 
 1667. Governor Lauderdale sympathises with the causes of the 
 
 movement. 
 
 1669. The Indulgence issued, and the persecution almost ceases. 
 
 THE SECOND RESISTANCE— “ The Killing Time.” 
 
 1679. The persistent enforcing by Archbishop Sharp and others of 
 the unpopular system, and the suppression of the Presby- 
 terian form of worship, causes great irritation. Field 
 preaching forbidden. Archbishop Sharp murdered. 
 Claverhouse undertakes the suppression of the resisters. 
 Skirmish at Drumclog. Claverhouse defeated. 
 
 Battle of Bothwell Bridge. Covenanters utterly routed. 
 
 1684. Soldiers empowered to shoot suspicious persons at sight. 
 
 1685. Death of Charles II. Accession of James II. Argyle’s 
 
 Expedition against James II. fails, also the Duke of 
 Monmouth’s in England. 
 
 1688. Execution of Renwick. 
 
 1689. Landing of William of Orange. James escapes. 
 
 END OF THE PERSECUTION. 
 
 1690. Claverhouse, upholding James II. ’s cause, killed at Battle 
 
 of Killiecrankie. 
 
 1691. Massacre of Glencoe. 
 
 1701. Union of the Scottish and English Parliaments. 
 
THE INSCRIPTION 
 
 On the Martyrs' Monument , Greyfria/rs ? Churchyard , 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 Halt passenger, take heed what you do see, 
 
 This tomb doth shew, for what some men did die. 
 
 Here lies interr’d the dust of those who stood 
 ’Gainst perjury, resisting unto blood ; 
 
 Adhering to the Covenants, and laws 
 Establishing the same, which was the cause 
 Their lives were sacrific’d unto the lust 
 Of prelatists abjur’d. Though here their dust 
 
 Lies mixt with murderers, and other crew, 
 
 Whom justice justly did to death pursue ; 
 But as for them, no cause was to be found 
 
 Worthy of death, but only they were found. 
 
 Constant and stedfast, zealous, witnessing. 
 
 For the Prerogatives of CHRIST their KING. 
 Which truths were seal’d by famous Guthrie's head. 
 
 And all along to Mr. Renwick’s blood. 
 
 They did endure the wrath of enemies. 
 Reproaches, torments, deaths and injuries. 
 
 But yet they’re those who from such troubles came, 
 
 and now triumph in glory with the LAMB. 
 
 From May 27 th 1661, that the most noble Marquis 
 
 of Argyle was beheaded, to the 17th Febry. 1688 
 
 that Mr. James RcnwicJc suffered ; were one way 
 
 or other Murdered or Destroyed for the same Cause, about 
 
 Eighteen thousand, of whom were execute at Edinburgh, about an 
 hundred of Noblemen, Gentlemen, Ministers, and Others ; noble 
 Martyrs of JESUS CHRIST. The most of them lie here. 
 
 For a particular account of the cause and manner of their Sufferings ; 
 see the Cloud of Witnesses, Crookshank’s and Defoe’s Histories. 
 
 Rev. vi., 9, 10, 11. 
 
 And when he had opened the 
 fifth seal, I saw under the altar 
 the souls of them that were slain 
 for the word of God, and for 
 the Testimony which they held ; 
 and they cried with a loud voice, 
 saying, How long, O Lord, holy 
 and true, dost thou not judge and 
 avenge our blood on them that 
 dwell on the earth. And white 
 robes were given unto every 
 one of them ; and it was said 
 unto them that they should 
 rest yet for a little season, un- 
 
 At foot — 
 
 This tomb was first Erected by James Curie, Mercht. in Pentland 
 and others in 1706. Renewed 1771. 
 
 til their fellow - servants also, 
 and their brethren, that should 
 be killed as they were, should 
 be fulfilled. 
 
 Rev. vii., 14. These are they 
 which came out of great tri- 
 bulation, and have washed 
 their robes, and made them 
 white in the blood of the Lamb. 
 
 Chap. 2nd, 10. Be thou faith- 
 ful unto death, and I will give 
 thee a crown of life. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
c 
 
 
 
THE MARTIES AND HEROES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 PRINCIPLES ON WHICH HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN, 
 
 [t is intended in this book to include in a series of 
 chapters an outline of the story of the Covenanters, 
 as well as an estimate of their character in its merits 
 and demerits. It does not seem, therefore, out of 
 place to commence by a few remarks on the principles 
 and the spirit on and in which history should be 
 written 
 
 The true idea of history is only as yet dawning 
 on the world, and though the “ old almanac ” form 
 of history has been generally renounced, much of 
 the old almanac spirit remains. The avowed par- 
 tizan still presumes to write his special pleading, and to 
 call it a history. The romance writer still decorates his 
 fancy piece, and for fear of mistake, writes under it, 
 “This is a history.” The bald retailer of the dry bones 
 i 
 
11 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 of history is not yet entirely banished from our litera- 
 ture, nor is the hardy but one-sided Iconoclast, who has 
 a quarrel with all established reputation, and would 
 underrate the sun if he durst ; nor is the sagacious 
 philosophiste, who has access to the inner thoughts and 
 motives of men who have been dead for centuries, and 
 often imputes to deep deliberate purpose, actions which 
 were the result of momentary impulse, fresh and sudden 
 as the breeze — who accurately sums up, and ably rea- 
 sons on, all calculable principles, but omits the incalcul- 
 able, such as inspiration, frenzy, and enthusiasm. The 
 ideal of a historian we have, may perhaps appear too 
 high, and may have the effect of crushing our own little 
 effort under the standard we have ourselves set up ; 
 but we are, nevertheless, bound to state it, although the 
 book it prefaces aspires not to the full measure and 
 stature of a history. 
 
 The true historian, intellectually and morally, must 
 possess many of the faculties of the epic poet. He must 
 aim at his severe purpose — his cumulative interest — his 
 conjunction of grandeur in the whole with simplicity 
 in the parts — the solemnity of his spirit — the general 
 gravity of his tone — the episodes, in which he gathers 
 up, as in baskets, the fragments of his story — the high 
 argument or moral, less standing up from, than living 
 through, the whole strain — his union of imaginative 
 and intellectual power, and his perspicuity, purity, and 
 clear energy of language. Besides all this, the historian 
 must do the following things : he must be able to live 
 in and reproduce the age of which he writes; he must 
 sympathize with its ruling passions and purposes, with- 
 out being swallowed up or identified with them; he 
 must understand the points, alike of agreement and of 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 iii 
 
 difference, between the past age and his own time ; he 
 must exercise a judicial impartiality in determining the 
 deeds, motives, purposes, and pretexts of various parties; 
 he must make the proper degree of allowance — nor 
 more nor less — when judging of dubious or criminal 
 conduct, for diversities of moral codes, national customs 
 and states of progress ; he must practise the power of 
 severe selection of facts, looking at them always in their 
 representative character ; he must unite broad views of 
 the general current of events, and of the advance of 
 the whole of society, with intense rushing lights, cast 
 upon particular points and pinnacles of his subject; he 
 must have a distinct and valid theory of progress ; he 
 must map out the undercurrents, as well as the upper 
 streams of his story; he must add a love of the pictu- 
 resque, the beautiful, and the heroic, to an intense pas- 
 sion for truth ; he must give to general principles the 
 incarnate interest of facts, and make facts the graceful 
 symbols of general principles ; he must, in fine, be ac- 
 quainted not only with the philosophy, science, statistics, 
 and poetry, but with the religion of his art, and regard 
 Clio not as a muse, but as a goddess. He must, in 
 other words, not only believe in the prevalence of gene- 
 ral laws — of fixed trade-winds of tendency, and steady 
 currents of progress — but in the control, constant super- 
 intendence, and all-informing influence of a Divine 
 mind, whose Spirit at once impels and moves in the 
 advancing wheels of society ;— not only that 
 
 “ through the ages an increasing purpose runs, 
 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns 
 
 but that the “ purpose” is that of an intelligent and 
 conscious being, and that the “ process” is overruled 
 by a personal and presiding Deity. 
 
iv INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 All the qualities thus enumerated are worthy of 
 separate enforcement and illustration. But our space 
 confines us to a few. We select first that of judicial 
 impartiality. A judge is the historian of a single day; 
 and a historian should be the judge of centuries. He 
 should anticipate, as it were, the judgment of all ages, 
 and sit down on the tribunal, shorn of all prejudice, 
 prepossession, party, and even, if possible, human 
 spirit ; passionless as a cherub, and, while sympathizing 
 with man’s position and feelings, looking at his motions 
 at an angle in which they assume their true proportions 
 — counters in the great general game of the universe — 
 significant in their insignificance certainly, but as surely 
 in their significance comparatively small. History 
 should be like the shorthand which we can conceive a 
 superior spirit to use in recording his impressions of 
 earthly events, simple, condensed, severe, marking prin- 
 cipally the summa fastigia rerum , and giving to these 
 nothing more than their just prominence. This severe 
 selection will not, however, exclude the historian from 
 the walks of the private, personal, and domestic life of 
 his period. Nay, these, so far as they are important 
 and representative, will call for his particular survey, and 
 he will ever recognise the principle that the songs of a 
 country are on a level with its laws, and that more may 
 be learned from the details of village and rural life — 
 from the statistics of city crime, or from the preserved 
 gossip of courts, than from the bulletins of great battles, 
 or from the public life of illustrious conquerors 
 
 Another important requisite in a historian is the 
 power of making proper allowance for the crimes or du- 
 bious actions of other ages and countries. There are 
 here two extremes. Some seek to apply one test and 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 V 
 
 measure — that namely of our, modern enlightened judg- 
 ment and Christian conscience — to the dark deeds of 
 other days ; to transfer, for instance, the shudder with 
 which we now read the unmentionable barbarities which 
 accompanied the death of Algernon Sidney, and manj 
 other patriots, entire, into the past, and to deem thau 
 had we lived then, we, and all others, should and would 
 have had our present feelings of disgust and horror. This 
 is unphilosophical and ridiculous. It is throwing a light 
 on the picture which it cannot bear. It is giving a false 
 point of view. It is making the barbarism stand out too 
 prominently from the accessories and relief supplied by a 
 barbarous age. We forget the immense stride civilization 
 has taken since; and we forget, also, that custom has re- 
 conciled the majority of us to practices, such as the 
 miserable details of a modern execution, which are sura 
 in their turn to awaken the contempt and the loathing 
 of posterity. But there is another extreme — that of 
 making no account at all for the unity and all-pervasive 
 sympathy of the human heart, which existed then as well 
 as now, and which was often then — and even according 
 to the standard of ruder manners — outraged, and felt 
 to be so. Our fathers were not mere devouring monsters. 
 In their treatment of each other, fierce though it was, 
 there was a point beyond which if cruelty or any other 
 vice went, there arose, on all sides, an outcry, and the 
 criminal did in nowise go unpunished. There have been 
 matters of Uriah, as well as mere stormings of Kabbah 
 — murders of the Innocents, as well as deserved des- 
 tructions of David’s personal foes — massacres of 
 Glencoe, and shootings of Ayrshire carriers, as well as 
 rough sieges of Drogheda — events, so vile or so bloody, 
 that universal man has risen and protested against them, 
 
VI 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 lest they should become for ever brands on his brow 
 And it is the part of a historian sternly and strongly to 
 mark the point where allowance and palliation must 
 cease, and where justice is compelled to lift her iron 
 scales. This may be safely left to his own instinct if 
 he be worthy of his calling; farther statement on our 
 part, of the principles which should determine his judg- 
 ment, might rather hinder than help him. 
 
 The historian must unite general breadth with oc- 
 casional intensity. In his calm and patient narrative 
 of the course of society, and the current of events, he 
 will be sustained by looking forward to certain pinnacles 
 of commanding prospect, and to scenes of profounder 
 interest. When a great battle impends, he will smell 
 it afar off — the thunder of the captains and the shout- 
 ing. " How I thirst for Zama,” said Arnold, and, like 
 him, the true historian will go on thirsting for Both- 
 well Bridge, for Lodi, and for Waterloo. When a hero 
 is stepping on the deck of a great conquering emprize, 
 his step will echo its thunder. When a nation is angry, 
 up in one of those terrible epidemics of feeling, which 
 shew for a season man in his true character as a whole — 
 like a giant tree filled from trunk to topmost twig with 
 one furious wind — the historian will rise, dilate and 
 burn beside the awful possession. When the current of 
 his story bears him into some beautiful channel, where 
 natural beauty reflects great events, he will pause and 
 linger fondly — but not too long — in its description, like 
 Livy painting the fair plains of Italy, seen by Hannibal 
 from the Alps — or, like Arnold as he breathes more 
 freely amid the romantic uplands of the Samnite 
 country. When he passes on his way, by the lintel of 
 the door of neglected genius, or forgotten valour, he 
 
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 Fac-simile of one of the many copies of the Confession of Faith. The original 
 copy had also signatures all round the border. The first signatures are : 
 Argyll, Rothes, Montrose, Cassillis, Lothian, Wemyss, &c., &c. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 vii 
 
 will do so uncovered, and with his shoes off his feet. 
 When he comes to speak of the deaths of men who 
 were nations in themselves, his melodious and plaintive 
 eulogy will seem like the homage of the star, fabled 
 sometimes to shine forth when a Caesar or a Charlemagne 
 has departed, and when he describes a pestilence or a 
 reign of blood, passing over a devoted land, he will, in 
 sympathy and bold identification of himself with the 
 spirit of the judgment, appear to 
 
 “Ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm.” 
 
 A passion for truth is not always, or very often, united 
 with a sense of the picturesque and the beautiful. Gene- 
 rally, the power of severe analysis and that of admira- 
 tion for the concrete are found apart. The one man 
 seeks to reduce each object to its skeleton, and the other 
 clasps the living reality in his arms. Hence a twofold 
 falsehood — the falsehood of those who regard the letter 
 more than the spirit, and that of those who, while seek- 
 ing to catch the hovering spirit, neglect the letter. In 
 history, accordingly, we find the unimaginative and 
 spiritless retailer of facts, or the bare expounder of 
 principles, on the one hand; and, on the other, the 
 painter of imaginary scenes, weakly lingering over the 
 outer form and comeliness of his subject, instead of at 
 once admiring its contour, and piercing to its heart. 
 But the true historian knows that beauty is truth, and 
 that truth is beauty; and that his business is to 
 shew the identity of both. He labours now to 
 reduce each character or event to its elements, and 
 now to build it up into a fair and living whole. On 
 his page, there will alternate profound discussion and 
 
 brilliant picture-writing — nay, at times there will 
 
 A 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 viii 
 
 appear that most difficult and most delightful of all 
 styles, in which severe truth and poetical beauty, like 
 the bough and the bloom of the apple-branch, seem in- 
 extricable and one; in which truth springs from earth, and 
 yet remains truth still; in which thought seems severely 
 and in measured steps, to dance, and the music is no 
 mortal business, and “ no sound that the earth owns.’* 
 He will remember that true metaphor is often the algebra, 
 at once of facts and of principles, lessening their bulk 
 and not their value, and, unlike algebra, shewing them in a 
 new and vivid lustre. A thousand facts may thus some- 
 times be enclosed in a short description, like a whole 
 vein of ore in one massive bar of bullion. Those who 
 remember some of the descriptions in Tacitus, Gibbon, 
 Burke, Carlyle, and that wondrous one of the Reign of 
 Terror by Hazlitt, will understand what we mean. 
 
 The historian must have a valid theory of progress. 
 He must believe that we are involved in a regular and re- 
 sistless current, but must, besides, understand properly, 
 what that current is, and how it flows. It is not, on the 
 one hand, a mere oscillatory motion, although it has some- 
 times this aspect. It is a pendulum which at last 
 breaks the sides of the clock that confined it. Nor is 
 it exactly circular, like that of a wheel — although it has 
 often this aspect also. The wheel at last resembles a 
 momentary circle produced by a stone or rock in an ad' 
 vancing stream. Nor is it distinct, on-rushing, without 
 any let or hindrance, like that of a river between even 
 and polished cliffs. It is one motion compounded of 
 many. To liken it to the history of an individual man, 
 from birth to age and death, is not a fair or complete 
 comparison, unless indeed, we couple this with the 
 thought of resurrection. Nations have an age, society 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 IX 
 
 has none — its decay, decrepitude and death, are only- 
 apparent. It renews its youth like the eagle’s. There 
 may be indeed a point at which it shall actually stop 
 and die; but that point has never been reached. Per- 
 haps, we may best compare its progress to that of a 
 race, or family, in which wise and foolish, healthy and 
 unhealthy, children succeed each other, almost alter- 
 nately, till its bright consummate flower is produced, in 
 the form of some son of genius, or man of exalted 
 worth; after which it often comes abruptly to a close, or 
 drags out a short and shameful existence, or has new 
 blood injected into its veins. Thus society is advan- 
 cing, now swiftly, now slowly, now creeping through 
 muddy channels, now foaming in wild cataracts, now in 
 glimmer and now in gloom — till it shall reach that apex 
 in the future which may, perhaps, form the signal for 
 its overthrow and removal — its work and its destiny 
 done, and a sublimer system prepared to take its place. 
 
 Emerson somewhere says, “ Society never advances. 
 It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. 
 It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is 
 civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; 
 but this change is not amelioration. For everything 
 chat is given, something is taken. Society acquires 
 new arts, and loses old instincts. The civilized man 
 has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He 
 has a fine Geneva watch, but cannot tell the hour by the 
 sun.” These dicta are repeatedly, in other places, con- 
 tradicted by this author himself. But apart from this, 
 they contained only a portion of truth mixed with a 
 predominance of fallacy. They merely mark the irregu- 
 larity of advancement, and the limitations, deductions, 
 and discounts to which it is necessarily exposed. They 
 
X 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 shew only that there are sinkings, as well as swellings, 
 in the vast on-moving billow, and they indirectly deny 
 that that billow ever has moved, or ever shall move, 
 more quickly than at ordinary times, to the breath of 
 supernatural impulse. 
 
 It is granted to this author, that all the great good 
 gained hitherto by the progress of society, has been at- 
 tended with great new evils, as well as with the loss of 
 important old advantages. But it is maintained that, 
 on the whole, the progress has been real and in the 
 right direction; that the good gained counterbalances 
 alike the new evil and the old loss; that, although it 
 be true, perhaps, that the savage is stronger and less 
 exposed to bodily and mental disease — to consumption 
 and to madness — than the civilized man, yet the latter 
 is, taking him all in all, the better and nobler being; 
 even as the dog, though often the victim of hydrophobia, 
 is superior to the tiger and the sloth; that the lengthen- 
 ing shadow is caused by the lengthening stature of 
 man; that the new power and wisdom generated by the 
 progress of society, are mitigating its new evils, and if 
 able already to mitigate, may be able soon to remove 
 them — and that, in fine, we Christians, at least, are cer- 
 tain that we are in good hands, that God careth for the 
 race, as for a family of children, has interfered, ere now, 
 directly in our behalf, and has promised another and a 
 final interference. 
 
 The advantages to a historian of a proper theory of 
 progress are obvious. Possessed of it, he will not look 
 upon the ages as linked together in an iron chain of 
 blind necessity, with each link of equal weight and 
 blackness. Nor will he see in them a chaos of ever- 
 lasting and aimless fluctuations. Nor will he see in 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 XI 
 
 them a current of partial brightness, strangely inter- 
 rupted by blank chasms, which not only disturb the 
 steady stream, but seem to render its progress a mere 
 illusion. But recognizing in them a subdued, calm, 
 cumulative course of tendency, all whose pauses are but 
 apparent, all whose seeming blanks are but clouds dis- 
 guising an interior line of light, all whose retrograde 
 movements are but coils in one complicated mass of 
 gold — and believing, also, in divine interference, as well 
 as providential superintendence, he will rate every age 
 at its proper value, call none low or high, clean or 
 common, except according to the highest standard of com- 
 parison, and endeavour to look on each and all, as steps, 
 more or less visible, in the path of the divine circuits. 
 
 For, we name now, as springing directly from our 
 former remark, as the last and principal quality of the 
 genuine historian, that he be able to perceive, amidst 
 the developments of history, the grand purpose and 
 agency pervading and directing the whole. He will, with 
 the perseverance of a bloodhound, but with the heart of a 
 man and the faith of a Christian, trace that divine ray, 
 which, from the first hour of man’s existence has followed 
 his course — pierced his dungeons — crossed his battle- 
 fields — beckoned forward smiling from his scaffolds — 
 touched the axes and flames of his revolutions with the 
 glory of hope — and which is to shine on more and more 
 till the perfect day arrive, and till its solitary beam, at 
 the gates of earth’s golden evening, meet and mingle 
 with heaven’s 
 
 “ Bright pomp descending jubilant.” 
 
 “ God in history ” has become of late a common and 
 almost a hackneyed term. Its true meaning is not that 
 God capriciously interferes with events — or that he 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 xii 
 
 watches them with the eye of a partizan — or that he 
 lies in eager ambuscade to strike into the plot and peril 
 — or that we are to find in every national calamity a 
 display of his special anger, or in every blessing and for- 
 tunate turn of affairs a special manifestation of his love. 
 There are those who write as if the Divine Being were 
 a Huguenot, and others as if he were a Legitimate — 
 some as if the cause of the Covenant had been the only 
 cause of God on earth, and others as if, after the death 
 of Charles, he was somehow provoked into a royalist. 
 This is one extreme. There is another equally perni- 
 cious. It is that of looking on history as the mere 
 development of certain moral principles — mighty, irre- 
 sistible, but cold and dead — unconnected with a per- 
 sonal Deity, and seeming to the imagination huge 
 scythed mill-wheels, grinding down all below and all 
 around them into powder or blood. Some celebrated 
 authors of this day are perpetually speaking of “ eternal 
 laws of retribution” without a law-giver — of “judgment 
 days” without a judge — of giant crimes punished, yet pun- 
 ished by no one , like the famous extinction of the eyes of 
 the Cyclops, when (using the name given by the crafty 
 Ulysses) he told his brethren without the cave, “No man 
 kills me.” Such laws, principles, and punishments there 
 do, doubtless, exist ; but ere we feel their awfulness, or at 
 all understand their method, we must regard them as 
 the expressions of a merciful, righteous, regal Mind, 
 possessing a personal identity and a positively distinct 
 will. There is a third error committed by some — that, 
 namely, of perpetually, at every turning of their story 
 pointing to God and saying, “Is he not there?” while 
 the reader has seen him all along. The historian should 
 first of all, strongly state his conviction that God is in 
 
INTRODUCTORY. xiii 
 
 history — in it all, and not in mere sections — should 
 proceed to steep his whole narrative in a spirit of faith, 
 should pause occasionally to make distinct and solemn 
 reference to the great original — but should not run 
 along, bawling out at every step, under the blazing noon, 
 “Yonder’s the sun!” It is thus that Rollin, and even 
 D’Aubigne, have often stultified themselves. More par- 
 ticularly, the historian of God incarnate in human story, 
 should recognize the varied attributes of divinity and 
 the leading principles of the Christian faith, as interpene- 
 trating, overarching, and underlying it all. He should 
 see in the past the wine-press of divine wrath — the hall 
 of divine justice — the harvest-field of divine goodness 
 and love — the spot where divine truth has never failed 
 to keep its solemn assignations — the arena of divine 
 power — the school where presides eternal wisdom — the 
 darkened stage where walks the shrouded sovereignty 
 of the Most High — the sensorium of his omniscience — 
 the listening ear of his omniprescence — and the centre 
 or meeting-place of all the wondrous throng. He should 
 hail in the moral character and developments of history, 
 the reconciliation of the various divine principles, mercy 
 and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace 
 embracing each other; and should see in this a type 
 and foretaste of man’s reconciliation to himself and to 
 his God. Above all, he should find in history addi- 
 tional proof of the great leading truths of Christianity, 
 and should find these, in their turn, reflecting light 
 upon many of the dark places and intricate questions of 
 history. 
 
 Such is, in part, our ideal of a historian after truth, 
 love, and beauty’s “own heart.” We state it as a guide 
 to others and to ourselves especially, should we ever 
 
XIV 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 attempt a larger and more elaborate work than the fol- 
 lowing, with a more systematic historical aim. We 
 produce it as a gauge for judging of the histories of the 
 past. We produce it, in fine, because we are convinced 
 that, while intellect, learning, and historical power are 
 valuable to a historian, or to a sketcher of historical 
 outlines, candour, width of view, sincerity of spirit, 
 love of truth, and Christian feeling and belief, are incom- 
 parably more so. These latter were not found in 
 Gibbon, although the former were. Arnold possessed 
 a large measure of all, and had he lived would have 
 approached the highest standard. One man lately 
 survived, who could have with ease snatched the richest 
 laurels from the hand of the historic muse, and written 
 the history of the fourth, or even of the fifth, monarchy, 
 in a style of colossal breadth and grandeur, blended 
 with minute finish, in some degree worthy of the theme. 
 But, alas ! since this little book first appeared, he has 
 dropt in death that potent chisel. No man who has 
 read ‘the Caesars/ ‘Joan of Arc/ and other historical 
 papers of the late Thomas De Quincey, can be astonished 
 that it was to him the reference was made. 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE OCCASION OF THE COVENANT. 
 
 he term Covenant, as well as the 
 thing, is far older than the period to 
 which this book refers. Not to speak 
 of the covenants so often mentioned 
 in Scripture between man and mam 
 and. between God and the people, 
 we know that some of the protestant 
 princes in Germany, and the protes- 
 tant church of France, formed bonds 
 or covenants, solemnly pledging 
 themselves to defend their religion 
 against its enemies, and that these 
 
 Covenanter’s Banner. « ■, • . , • , 
 
 were ot much service m their strug- 
 gles against popery and arbitrary power. But in Scotland 
 there was no imitation of such continental engagements, 
 till it was created by circumstances of a peculiar and 
 painful kind. These we proceed now briefly to detail. 
 
 In Scotland, as in England, the Beformation was very 
 mainly the work of a single individual. Henry VIII., 
 by the strength of his passions, relieved South Britain 
 from the papal yoke, and J ohn Knox, by the energy of 
 his will, character, and eloquence, reformed Scotland. 
 The result in both cases, therefore, was very imperfect. 
 The one was not England’s, but Henry VIII.’s, and the 
 other not Scotland’s, but Knox’s Beformation. In Eng- 
 land the elements of religious reaction and of strife com 
 
2 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 tinued to exist profusely in the arbitrary power of the 
 bishops — in the Erastian authority exercised by the 
 crown, and in the popish pomp and formality which still 
 distinguished the ceremonies of the church. In Scotland 
 a wider sweep had taken place — more of the rubbish of 
 the old system had been removed, and the power of the 
 king was better balanced by the joint influence of the 
 ministers and the nobility. Still, at and before Knox’s 
 death, the affairs of the kirk were in a very unsettled 
 state. On the one side were the clergy, in general 
 sincere and learned men, neither void of ambition nor 
 devoured by it, but naturally disposed to maintain what 
 they thought their own divinely-given right of presby- 
 terian parity; and backed in this purpose by the great 
 mass of their flocks, including many eminent nobles. 
 On the other hand was the court, the regent Morton, 
 and some of the superintendents (a sort of rude half- 
 shaped bishops who had been appointed, extempore, to 
 rule over their brethren during the first anarchy of the 
 Reformation), whose avowed object was to retain the 
 ancient hierarchy of archbishops, bishops, &c. Apart 
 from conscientious conviction, motives can easily be 
 assigned for the conduct of both parties. The ministers 
 did not choose to be lorded over by persons no better 
 than themselves, and thus degraded in the eyes of their 
 people. Those of the nobility who took their side, 
 feared the rise of a class of ecclesiastical dignitaries wh& 
 should rival them in weaith and influence, and both 
 dreaded the additional power which might thus accrue 
 to the crown. The superintendents, on the other hand 
 wished the episcopal power they had partially enjoyed 
 confirmed and extended, and Earl Morton was anxious 
 to secure his own authority, and by making certain 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 3 
 
 ministers bishops to render them and the whole order 
 slaves. His plan, however, although carried by a con- 
 vention of his creatures, was overruled by the General 
 Assembly, and the result was a compromise, which con- 
 sisted in the creation of certain nominal dignitaries, who 
 were honoured with the name of bishops, and a small 
 part of their revenue, but who allowed the principal 
 portion to slip quietly into the pockets of the nobles. 
 These were called derisively tulchan bishops — a tulchan 
 being a calf’s skin stuffed with straw, which the country 
 people set up beside the cow to induce her to give her 
 milk more freely. The bishop, it was said, had the title, 
 but my lord had the milk. These tulchans were lay- 
 men ; they wielded no influence, and seem to have been 
 merely used to keep warm the stalls till the union of 
 the crowns of England and Scotland, under James VI., 
 should make it safe and prudent to fill them with veri- 
 table bishops. 
 
 It is said that Knox on his death-bed protested 
 against this arrangement, and told Morton that he 
 would rue it. He probably saw, with prophetic eye, 
 through the thin ribs of those men of straw, the long 
 procession of their successors, whose line was to stretch 
 out almost to the crack of Scotland’s doom. He knew 
 his countrymen, and he knew what he called the “ estate 
 of the bishops ” well. He knew, whatever may be said 
 in favour of the episcopal institution, and of its work- 
 ing in certain serene conditions of society, that, first of 
 all, the perfevvidum ingenium of his countrymen would 
 never abide its semi-papal rule; and that, secondly, in 
 the rough and troublous contests which were at hand, 
 it was certain to become the ally of the nobles when 
 they were disposed to be oppressors; the creature of 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 4 
 
 the crown when it was bent on despotism; and an iron 
 rod to the people whenever they began to feel and to 
 assert their rights. The experience of three centuries 
 has confirmed the sagacity of his views. 
 
 For a considerable period thereafter the ecclesiastical 
 state of Scotland was very singular. The poor bishops, 
 or tulchans, were standing ridiculous and contented in 
 their pastures — their masters were draining the milk, 
 and the General Assembly of the north were surround- 
 ing the absurd scene, now barking at it, now laughing, 
 but totally unable to prevent it. In other words, the 
 tulchans had the name of revenue, the ministers the 
 name of power, and the courts and nobles the reality of 
 both. The assembly called the tulchans to account, 
 but they refused to own their authority, and the weight 
 of the court and nobility was exerted in behalf of those 
 anconsecrated calf-skins, for not even consecration was 
 theirs. 
 
 This ludicrous scene was interrupted by the entrance 
 of a Man . That man was Andrew Melville. He came 
 back from a ten years’ residence on the Continent, 
 mature in learning, and with not a little of the fire and 
 fervour of his predecessor, Knox. He entered almost 
 instantly into the arena of religious politics. He was 
 employed in drawing up the Second Book of Discipline 
 — a work containing, among other things, a strong pro- 
 test against lay patronage, and a vigorous, if not suc- 
 cessful, attempt to draw a boundary line between civil 
 and ecclesiastical authority. He did other and sterner 
 work when employed a little later, in defending the 
 rights of the church against the usurpation of J ames 
 VI. Having presented, on one occasion, a bold remon- 
 strance from the assembly to the council, Arran, one of 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 5 
 
 its members, looking round witb a threatening counte- 
 nance, exclaimed, “ Who dare subscribe these treason- 
 able articles V* “ I dare,” replied Melville, and stepping 
 forward to the table he took the pen from the clerk and 
 subscribed. There spoke the spirit of John Knox, and 
 of a greater than he, the man who said, “ I appeal unto 
 Caesar.” 
 
 Meanwhile Morton was compelled to resign, and 
 James VI., at twelve years of age, was persuaded by 
 his interested and parasitical lords to mount the throne. 
 Fool, pedant, despot, and learned ignoramus as he ulti- 
 mately approved himself — George Buchanan’s unworthy 
 pupil, and chased, as it were, all his life afterwards by 
 the echo of his vengeful lash — his reign, nevertheless, 
 commenced auspiciously. The boy-king entered Edin- 
 burgh in triumph; his old tutor, we can fancy, for he 
 was still alive, looking on with grim sardonic pleasure, 
 blended with contempt, and with wonder that he had 
 made so much of the “ saul-less blockhead.” The next 
 year James did one act which deeply tended to ingratiate 
 him with his people, he agreed to a solemn league, 
 called the National Covenant. This engagement in- 
 cluded an abjuration of popery, and an obligation, 
 ratified by an oath, to support the protestant religion. 
 It was sworn and subscribed, first of all, by the king 
 and his household, and afterwards, in consequence of 
 an order of council and an act of General Assembly, by 
 all ranks of persons in the kingdom. 
 
 Still the prelatical party were not idle. On the death 
 of Boyd, the titular archbishop of Glasgow, Lennox 
 having offered the vacant see to several ministers, on 
 condition of their making over to him most part of its 
 revenues by a private bargain, one Montgomery, minister 
 
6 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 of Stirling, was base enough to accept the temptation. 
 Around this person there arose a memorable contest, 
 which for a season shook the kingdom. The king and 
 court took his part. The assembly, on the other hand, 
 were proceeding to confirm a sentence of suspension 
 against him, when a messenger-at-arms appeared, to 
 arrest procedure and charge rebellion against the assem- 
 bly, if they should carry their purpose into execution. 
 This was the beginning of that long strife between the 
 civil and the ecclesiastical powers, which was of late 
 dubiously terminated by the Disruption — the first of that 
 long line of Interdicts , which have become so painfully 
 notorious. The assembly acted with great spirit and 
 promptitude — summoned Montgomery to their bar, and, 
 on his not appearing, laid him under the extreme sen- 
 tence of excommunication — a sentence which, in spite of 
 violent opposition on the part of the culprit, backed by 
 the magistrates, was intimated from various churches, 
 and carried into effect. Montgomery himself, having 
 shortly after visited Edinburgh, underwent a species of 
 lynch law, and was at iast literally kicked out at one of 
 the city gates. And even King James, when he heard 
 of it, lay down on the Inch of Perth, and roared his fill 
 of laughter, saying, that Montgomery was a “ seditious 
 loon.” 
 
 His laughter, however, was soon turned into tears, on 
 the occasion of the celebrated “Raid of Ruthven.” Some 
 of the presbyterian lords, chafing under the yoke of 
 Lennox and Arran, seized on the king’s person, and 
 treated “the Lord’s anointed” with very little ceremony. 
 It is uncertain whether they were instigated to this by 
 the clergy, but it is certain that the assembly approved 
 of the deed, and equally so, that it was of great ultimate 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 7 
 
 injury to their cause. It issued in the restoration of 
 the unworthy favourites, and exasperated in James’s 
 childish mind the hatred which he had all along felt 
 against the presbyterian cause. 
 
 From the Eaid of Buthven till the year 1592, things 
 went ill with the Scottish kirk. Melville, and many 
 others of like mind, had to flee for their lives to Eng- 
 land. A succession of acts were passed by an obsequious 
 parliament, ordaining that no ecclesiastical assembly 
 should be held without the king’s consent, and giving 
 absolute power to the king and the privy council, and 
 supremacy to the bishops over their brethren. Against 
 these Black A els, as they were called, protests were 
 taken, and denunciations uttered by some of the bolder 
 ministers, but to no purpose. The two dark wings of 
 arbitrary and hierarchical power seemed meeting and 
 elosing around Scotland, when, to the astonishment and 
 delight of thousands, James himself, partly frightened 
 at the Spanish Armada, and the disclosure it made of 
 the hostile designs of the popish princes of the continent, 
 and partly induced by the counsels of a new adviser, 
 the subtle Chancellor Maitland, announced himself a 
 convert to presbyterianism, proclaimed the kirk of Scot- 
 land purer than even that of Geneva ; and characterised 
 the service of the Anglican church “ as an ill-mumbled 
 mass in English,” — words well remembered afterwards, 
 and which should not have been implicitly believed 
 even then. But a little concession or liberality, as well 
 as a little learning, or wit, or continence, goes a great 
 way in the case of kings. Two years after the parlia- 
 ment restored presbytery in all its breadth, abolished 
 all the “ acts contrair to the trew religion,” and, with 
 the exception of the law of patronage, which was left 
 
8 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 untouched, put the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland on 
 a footing which was perfectly satisfactory to the presby- 
 terian party. It perhaps could hardly have been ex- 
 pected that any party at that time should have felt the 
 degradation incurred by permitting a parliament to 
 settle the affairs of a church; or that they should have 
 anticipated the evils which were to spring from the in- 
 terference of the civil power with religion. It was 
 decreed in this, as in so many other cases, that we should 
 be instructed by the memory of ancestral errors, not of 
 ancestral wisdom. 
 
 This act, deemed so important, won by a struggle, 
 and accepted with boundless gladness, was far from 
 closing the controversy, or leading to permanent peace. 
 In place of prelacy, remanded for time to its den, a 
 mightier enemy began to stalk abroad. Popery was 
 again lifting up its blood-stained crest in the land. A 
 plot for destroying the protestant religion, concocted in 
 Spain, found some willing agents among the Scottish 
 lords. Energetic measures against the traitors were 
 advised, and in part taken. But James, as usual, 
 shrunk and shuffled. He had little love for popery, 
 but he had a great dread of papists. They were good 
 king-killers, he said; and he had no notion of being 
 murdered, either by papists or presbyterians. He even 
 went so far as to invite some of the popish lords back 
 to court; and might have gone further, had not the re- 
 monstrances of the clergy, and, especially, the rough 
 voice of Andrew Melville, compelled him to pause. 
 This brave man, returned from his banishment, headed 
 a deputation to the king, and made the roof of Falkland 
 palace, if not the echoes of the near Lomond hills, to 
 ring with the harsh thunder of his warning and conn- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 9 
 
 eeL We can easily conceive of poor King James ex- 
 hibiting similar symptoms and signals of distress to 
 those which Scott had described in the park at Green- 
 wich, when he found himself alone with Lord Glenvar- 
 loch — fidgetting, shaking, fingering at his garments, 
 rolling to and fro, and becoming pale with fright — as 
 Melville told him that “ there were two kings and two 
 kingdoms in this realm — one King James, and the other 
 Jesus Christ, whose subject James VI. is, and of whose 
 kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a 
 member.” He recovered himself, however, and with 
 something of the air of his “fair and fause” mother, 
 Mary, dismissed the deputation. 
 
 In 1596, the National Covenant, amid circumstances 
 of peculiarly solemn interest, was renewed in Edinburgh 
 and the action was, by the Assemblies’ order, repeated 
 throughout all Scotland, which seemed as one man to 
 rejoice in the oath of God. This gave a short-lived im- 
 pulse to the presbyterian cause; but so soon as this 
 last sincere assembly, as the historian calls it, of the 
 kirk dispersed, the old controversy between the king 
 and the clergy broke out with renewed violence. They 
 attacked his arbitrary conduct from the pulpit; and he 
 threatened them with civil pains, as rebels to his sup- 
 reme authority. By dint of incessant attempts, com- 
 pound of cajolery and terror, he at last prevailed upon 
 the church courts to allow certain ministers to have a 
 vote in parliament, thus endowing them with political 
 power, and subjecting them to still more complete poli- 
 tical subservience. He had created these ministers 
 bishops, and they, contrary to the caveats ot an after 
 Assembly, sat and voted in the next parliament. The 
 Gowrie conspiracy succeeded; and the general incredu* 
 
10 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 lity of the ministers as to James’ account of it, gave 
 him a new handle against them. One Kobert Bruce, a 
 man of determined courage, was banished to France for 
 his unbelief in the king’s version of a matter which 
 even now seems involved in impenetrable mystery. 
 
 Such was the unsatisfactory state of matters in Scot' 
 land, when, in 1603, Queen Elizabeth died, and James 
 mounted the throne of England. Scarcely was he. 
 crowned, than, his ears still tingling with the bare bold 
 words of Bruce and Melville, and instigated by the 
 English bishops, who hailed in him a king after 
 their own heart, he renewed his efforts to establish 
 episcopacy in Scotland. To secure this, he must, 
 through his royal prerogative, trample on the rights of 
 the General Assemblies, and assume the power of sum- 
 moning or dismissing them at his pleasure. Notwith- 
 standing, a few ministers dared to meet at Aberdeen; 
 constituted themselves, in spite of a royal communica- 
 tion; transacted business and dissolved, after having 
 fixed their next meeting. Six of them were forthwith 
 dragged to Linlithgow, tried and found guilty of high 
 treason, and transported to France. A few years later, 
 Melville, who had been summoned to London, was, 
 on a trifling pretext, thrown into the Tower; and, after 
 a confinement of four years, had to follow his brethren 
 to France; and there, in 1622, he surrendered to God 
 his indomitable spirit. 
 
 The thing next proposed was, that the bishops should 
 be appointed perpetual moderators, or presidents of all 
 meetings of presbyteries, synods, and assemblies. To 
 secure this most unpopular measure, James called an 
 assembly, and, by the dexterous distribution of bribes, 
 compassed the end. Golden coins, called angels , were 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 11 
 
 plentifully bestowed on the needier and more clamorous 
 of the clergy; and hence the assembly obtained the 
 name of the Angelical Assembly ! This corruption 
 was practised under the pretext of discharging the 
 expenses of poor ministers from a distance. But, as 
 old Bow naively remarks, “ Some, neare Glasgow, who 
 voted the king’s way, got the wages of Balaam. And 
 some gracious ministers in the north, who voted nega- 
 tive, got no gold at all.” He does not tell us whether 
 all the money was distributed before the vote. No 
 sooner was this object of the bishops gained, than three 
 of them set out for London; and having received epis- 
 copal ordination from the English prelates, returned, 
 and consecrated the rest of their brethren. This did 
 not, apparently, add much to the respect entertained 
 for them in Scotland. Their persons were ridiculed 
 when living: satirical epitaphs were composed on them 
 when dead. The presbyterian historians, as might 
 have been expected, have always reviled them. But, 
 perhaps, a better proof of their insignificance lies in the 
 fact of the extraordinary scheme by which James was 
 obliged to prop up their influence. He founded a 
 Court of High Commission, composed of knights, noble- 
 men, prelates, and ministers; who were empowered to 
 receive and judge of all appeals from church courts; to 
 summon, fine, excommunicate, or depose ministers 
 chargeable with actions or speeches opposed to the 
 established order of the church, and to combine, in a 
 monstrous and tyrannical hybrid, the offices of a civil 
 and ecclesiastical tribunal. An institution so well 
 fitted to be a formidable machine in the hands of 
 despotism was permitted for awhile, but not long, to 
 lie in abeyance. 
 
12 THE MART YES AND HEROES 
 
 In 1617, James came down to Scotland, from a 
 desire he said, “ like a salmon, to visit his breeding- 
 place,” and from this journey there dates a succession 
 of new efforts to thrust both the government and the 
 worship of England upon his ancient subjects. Not 
 contented with establishing the Anglican forms in his 
 own chapel at Holyrood, he compelled parliament to 
 pass an act, giving him, along with the bishops, abso- 
 lute authority over the external government of the 
 church. Upon the increased resistance of the clergy 
 to this arbitrary measure, he called an assembly, first 
 at St. Andrews, and then at Perth, where five articles, 
 — generally known as the five articles of Perth — were 
 enacted. They consisted of — First: Kneeling at the 
 communion. Second: The observance of certain holi- 
 days, such as Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, &c. 
 Third: Episcopal confirmation. Fourth: Private bap- 
 tism. And Fifth: Private communicating. Many 
 good reasons the presbyterians assigned against these 
 articles, but the fact was, that they abhorred the manner 
 of their imposition more than the articles them- 
 selves, and foresaw, besides, that were they passed, the 
 king and his creatures would make them a precedent 
 for other and more obnoxious measures. The five 
 articles were carried in Perth by a majority, and con- 
 firmed by parliament, amid a violent storm of thunder 
 and lightning, in which the presbyterians read an omen 
 of the divine displeasure, and which the church party, 
 with equal sense and justice, compared to the sanction 
 given to the Ten Commandments by the tempests of 
 Sinai ! 
 
 If sanctioned, they certainly did not obtain the 
 authority of the laws of Moses. The history of the kirk 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 1 3 
 
 for some time after records principally the particulars of 
 the indignant resistance made to the articles of Perth. 
 Christmas was not observed, private baptism was not 
 sought, and the practice of kneeling at the Lord’s table 
 was shunned with especial horror, as an act of idola- 
 trous worship to the mere symbol of Christ’s body, so 
 that sometimes the congregations went out during the 
 ceremony — the elders stood back and refused to officiate, 
 and the poor minister was left on his knees alone. If 
 to any there seem a littleness in such recusance, was it 
 not less still to impose dubious or insignificant rites 
 which were certain to provoke it? The question, 
 “ Who began first? Who took the initiative?” — in any 
 play of ruinous nonsense, is always of essential impor- 
 tance in judging of the distribution of the respective 
 shares of ridicule or blame ? Besides, while the offend- 
 ing party were in general contemptible tools of power, 
 the offended discover traits of magnanimity and heroism 
 which rank them with the great of their country. 
 This will be confessed, we think, by all who read the 
 lives of John Welch, and his nobler wfife (who, when 
 the king said he would pardon her husband if he sub- 
 mitted to the bishops, lifted up her apron, and said 
 “I’d rather kep his head there;”) of Bobert Bruce, 
 George Dunbar, Andrew Duncan, and others. King 
 James had probably no intention whatever of making 
 the five articles of Perth the feelers of popery; — but, if 
 wrong, the men were not mere wranglers; they were 
 profoundly conscientious; they were intelligent as well 
 as sincere, and the sacrifices they endured in the cause 
 rose almost to the sublime. 
 
 Between this and the death of James VI. nothing of 
 particular moment occurred, except deplorable com- 
 
14 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 plaints f rom the clergy of general religious destitution, 
 coldness, and laxity, with occasional revivals in various 
 parts of the country, such as at Stewarton, in Ayrshire, 
 and the Kirk of Shotts, in Lanarkshire. These revivals 
 are interesting, because they seem to have been con- 
 ducted with less extravagance than in after times; 
 because in the week-day and out-of-door assemblies con- 
 vened at them, we find the distinct germ of the famous 
 field-preachings of Charles II. ’s day; and because they 
 were the first of a long series of religious-revival pheno- 
 mena, not yet entirely extinct, which have been pro- 
 ductive of a vast amount both of good and evil, and on 
 which history is compelled to pass a severely-measured 
 and cautious verdict. The revivals of Wesley and 
 Whitfield, of Cambuslang, ’of America, and latterly of 
 Kilsyth, Dundee, and of late the whole country 
 may all be traced to the Kirk of Shotts, and to 
 contemporaneous movements. The common-sense 
 view of these religious agitations may perhaps be 
 completely comprised in the following remarks: 
 First: They are not to be stimulated by artificial 
 means. Second: Their rise is generally on slight 
 occasions — sudden — electric — irresistible. Third: Wise 
 men will neither recklessly oppose, nor passively yield 
 to, their current, but will watch, measure, and manage 
 it. Fourth: It is impossible to keep them up beyond a 
 certain time, and the moment their spontaneity becomes 
 doubtful, that moment they should be viewed with 
 suspicion. Fifth: Good and evil are both produced by 
 them, in varying proportions — the good consisting in 
 the awakening of the careless and sensual, the stirring 
 up of the pious, and the revelation of the fact that the 
 old power can still be exerted by the old truths; the 
 
OF THE SCOTTI8H COVENANT. 15 
 
 evil consisting in the excessive excitement, the un- 
 healthy agitation, the self-delusion, fanaticism, spiritual 
 pride, and hypocrisy, they sometimes largely produce, 
 besides the setting up of a false standard, and the 
 temptation to the use of improper and morbid means. 
 The good, however, decreases, and the evil swells as 
 they continue; till at last, on their subsidence, it is fre- 
 quently found that the residuum of benefit they have 
 left is inconsiderable, and not very pure, and that the 
 reaction in which they have issued, is great, various, 
 and fraught with direct danger to the general cause of 
 Christianity. 
 
 James VI. having closed a reign as nondescript and 
 awkward in its aspects as the man himself, his unfortu- 
 nate son, Charles, mounted the throne. He was 
 destined, as being a more decided character, to encounter 
 more decided opposition, to meet a more decided fate, 
 and to leave a more decided and definite impression, 
 whether it were good or bad, upon the history of his 
 country. One might imagine him to have formed him- 
 self, or been formed, upon the principle of entire and 
 contemptuous contradiction to his father’s character. 
 James was pusillanimous— Charles brave, at times even 
 to rashness. James was fickle — Charles obstinate. 
 James was pawky, as the Scotch call it — in Charles, 
 prudence deepened into craft. James had a bonhommie , 
 which propitiated his enemies — the cold and haughty 
 manners of Charles were as repulsive as his temper was 
 high and his principles arbitrary. James had learning 
 without wisdom — Charles had taste, talent, and accom- 
 plishments. James was despised without being hated 
 — Charles was detested and respected in equal propor- 
 tions,, James was very little of the king or Stuart, he 
 
16 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 was designed by nature for a rough-tongued, but kind- 
 hearted, Scottish Dominie — great on longs and shorts, 
 and never liking his scholars so well as when storming 
 and wielding the lash in their midst — Charles added the 
 policy of an Italian prince and the hauteur of a Spanish 
 hidalgo to the hot-blooded pride of a Highland chieftain. 
 In three respects only they resembled each other, namely, 
 in disregard to truth, in high estimate of their royal 
 prerogative, and in aversion to all dissent, whether in 
 politics or in religion. Each, however, expressed the two 
 last in his own particular way — James in testy and irre- 
 gular bursts, and Charles by a steady, cumulative system 
 of attack, like a serpent sliding along his brilliant and 
 deadly path through the bushes to his prey. 
 
 Charles visited Scotland in 1633, and disgusted the 
 stricter presbyterians, first, by permitting his house* 
 hold to profane the Lord’s day; then by allowing some 
 of the bishops, Laud among the rest, to insult the 
 public forms of church- worship; and next, by getting 
 parliament to pass an act empowering him to regulate 
 ecclesiastical vestments. This measure was carried 
 with difficulty, and only in consequence of violent 
 threats on the part of his majesty. When expressing 
 immediately after, his astonishment at the change of 
 popular feeling towards him, Lord Loundoun pithily re- 
 marked, “ Sire, the people of Scotland will obey you 
 in everything with the utmost cheerfulness, if you do 
 not touch their religion and conscience.” This noble 
 Lord knew the Scotch well. They have never, as a 
 nation, been distinguished by any violent attachment 
 to theoretical freedom, and they are constitutionally a 
 loyal people. No cause has ever moved them to their 
 depth, or stung them into lengthened resistance, except 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 17 
 
 that of fheir national independence, when threatened ir, 
 the days of Wallace, and that of their national church, 
 when persecuted in the times of the Covenanters. 
 
 The last ounce was now about to be added to the 
 back of the patient camel. Laud, in place of a book of 
 prayers, which from John Knox’s time had been per- 
 mitted to weaker ministers, determined to draw up a 
 new service of his own, more closely modelled on the 
 popish breviary, and to force it upon the Scotch. After 
 very short preliminary notice this service-book came 
 down, with orders from the king and council that it 
 should be used in all the churches. This alarmed the 
 ministers, who, although obliged to submit to much, 
 were determined not to endure this, and made their 
 pulpits ring with invectives against it and its authors. 
 But an old woman became a far more effective orator in 
 the case. On the appointed 23rd of July, when the 
 Dean of Edinburgh, in the midst of a great crowd pro- 
 ceeded in the high church of St Giles to read the 
 Liturgy, J enny Geddes — honour to her name ! lifted up 
 her stool, and crying out, “ Villain, wilt thou read the 
 mass at my lug,” launched it at his head ! It was the 
 signal for universal uproar, and the dean fled, The 
 Bishop of Edinburgh strove next to stem the tumult, 
 but in vain; and both, as they were guarded homewards, 
 were saluted with hard epithets, and very narrowly 
 escaped more formidable weapons than words. 
 
 The Edinburgh mob are proverbially fierce, and were 
 now thoroughly roused. Their excitement speedily 
 spread to the rest of the country. Women, in all direc- 
 tions, headed risings against the liturgy; amidst which, 
 by and by, the crests of some of the gentry appeared ; 
 a petition for the suppression of the new service waa 
 
18 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 generally signed. It was followed, indeed, by a new 
 and more stringent proclamation, enjoining obedience 
 to the canons, condemning the proceedings of the sup- 
 plicants, as they were called, and forbidding their public 
 meetings under the penalties of treason. But the sup- 
 plicants determined, as a lasfr resource, to proceed in a 
 body to the Scottish privy council in Stirling, and pro- 
 test against the proclamation as soon as it was fairly 
 issued. This was done accordingly, both at Edinburg!;. 
 and Stirling ; and such were the crowds, and such the 
 excitement in the former place, that the council sought 
 a parley, and agreed that, if the multitudes would dis- 
 perse, the commissioners might appoint some of their 
 number to represent the rest, and remain in Edinburgh 
 for the settlement of the affairs of the church. To this 
 they agreed, but determined, before they parted, to re- 
 new and extend the National Covenant. 
 
 It was accordingly renewed in the Greyfriars’ Church, 
 Edinburgh, on the 1st of March, 1638. On an appointed 
 day, after sermon, an immense parchment was produced, 
 spread on a tombstone, and subscribed by such numbers 
 that the parchment fell short, and many had only room 
 for their initials, some of which were written in blood. 
 Great was the j oy and enthusiasm in the city, and through- 
 out the land. It was one of those moments in which the 
 spiritual passion of a nation comes to a climax, and its deep 
 tup runs over. It reminds of the federation feasts of the 
 French revolution — although the principles of the two 
 nations were diametrically opposite — and, like them, 
 may be compared to those unnaturally fine days, which 
 seem to lose their way from one season to another, and 
 which are certain to be succeeded by foul or stormy 
 weather, There are in Scotland some who still sigh 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 19 
 
 for the year 1638 to come round, as if any combination 
 of circumstances could restore its like, any more than 
 the great passover of Josiah — as if its restoration were 
 desirable — as if the prolongation of such excitement as 
 then prevailed were not certain to produce more evil 
 than good, and as if there were not waiting for us in 
 the future more glorious, because calmer, moral and 
 spiritual gala-days, to which that of 1638 was but a 
 lowering and cloudy morn. It is the child who cries to 
 get yesterday back again — the man accepts to-day, and 
 looks forward with faith and hope to a bright to-morrow. 
 
 Nevertheless, Scotland, almost unanimous in religious 
 opinion, and wearing one strong bond around its hardy 
 heart, though only for a season, is a spectacle as spirit- 
 stirring as it has been rare; and impartial history must 
 admit that this movement, begun by the clergy and the 
 gentry, was seconded warmly, not only in the southern 
 and midland districts, but in the north too, by great 
 masses of the people; and must record with respect the 
 names of some of the leaders of the movement, both 
 clerical and lay, such as Alexander Henderson, Andrew 
 Cant, Kobert Dickson, and the Earls of Eothes and 
 Loudoun. 
 
 Charles next sent down the Marquis of Hamilton with 
 terms of peace on his lips, but, as was generally believed, 
 with concealed and bitter enmity in his heart. Vain, 
 however, were all his efforts to conciliate or to deceive 
 the Covenanters. He entered Edinburgh in procession, 
 amid an assemblage of seventy thousand, including seven 
 thousand ministers in their cloaks — many scowling out 
 their contempt and suspicion — and more dissolved in 
 tears, and beseeching him to remove the bishops, and to 
 restore their beloved pastors. In vain did the king him- 
 
20 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 self offer to sign the original form of the Covenant, in 
 which prelacy was unnoticed; nothing would satisfy 
 these determined men but a free General Assembly to 
 settle unreservedly the state of the church. 
 
 This was at length called. It met in Glasgow, in 
 November 1638; and forms one of the most critical 
 events in the history of these times ; critical, because it 
 committed both the church and the government to their 
 respective sides in the controversy, and drove them to a 
 point where the sword of Brennus must be cast into the 
 scale. The royal commissioner after having in vain 
 protested against certain proceedings of the assembly, 
 attempted to dissolve it and retired. The assembly and 
 their president, the brave Henderson, protested in their 
 turn, continued their sittings, surrounded by the re- 
 tainers of the covenanting nobles, set the arms of the 
 court at defiance — condemned the service-book — re- 
 nounced the five articles of Perth — abjured prelacy, and 
 restored presbyterianism in its room — and, as they at 
 last rose — 
 
 “ Their rising, all at once, was like the sound 
 Of thunder, heard remote — ” 
 
 — the ominous thunder of approaching conflict, confu- 
 sion, and blood. They did, indeed, forward to London 
 another supplication, seeking to explain the reasons of 
 their conduct. Charles answered this by pouring two 
 armies, one of which he commanded in person, into 
 Scotland. Thus came the “Bishop’s War,” — the nick- 
 name Charles received of “Canterbury’s Knight,” — and 
 the strong measures instantly taken by the Covenanters 
 to resist his double missive of liturgies and leaden 
 bullets. General Leslie, who had been a soldier in the 
 army of Gustavus Adolphus, was promoted to the com- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 21 
 
 mand of the troops by the orders of parliament, which 
 had now identified itself with the General Assembly. 
 He acted with great energy — summoned troops together 
 by beacon-fires, as had been done in England in the 
 time of the Spanish Armada — seized on all the fortified 
 places — and erected fortifications around the town of 
 Leith, to secure Edinburgh against the king’s fleet. 
 When that fleet at last appeared, with five or six thou- 
 sand troops on board, commanded by Hamilton, the 
 people thronged every avenue, prevented the soldiers 
 from setting foot on shore. Hamilton’s mother, a 
 genuine Deborah of the Covenant, came on horseback to 
 meet, and, if necessary, to shoot her son, carrying pistols 
 loaded with gold balls for the purpose; and the mar- 
 quis, partly overpowered by an interview with her on 
 board his ship, and partly frightened at the news of a 
 fight at Kelso, in which the Scotch were victors, was 
 glad to make his escape. 
 
 Concentrating his forces around a hill to the south- 
 east of Edinburgh, called Dunse Law, Leslie awaited 
 the approach of the king. It was fine, we are told, to 
 see these bold extempore troops, consisting mainly of 
 stout, fresh-coloured ploughmen, the blue banner, now 
 for the first time unfurled, with the words, “For Christ’s 
 Crown and Covenant,” in golden letters, stamped on it, 
 floating over their heads — here “eating their legs of 
 lamb,” there stretched in their cloaks and blue ribbands, 
 yonder listening to “good sermons” each morning and 
 evening; and yonder again singing psalms in their own 
 tents. Their general enjoyed their affection, and they 
 proved it, like all other armies, by giving him a nick- 
 pame; even as Cromwell’s soldiers called him “ Old 
 Noll;” Napoleon’s the “ Little Corporal;” and as 
 
22 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Caesar’s men sang ribald songs about their mighty 
 leader, Leslie’s named him the old little crooked soldier; 
 for, like Alexander the Great, Nelson, Napoleon, and 
 Suw arrow, his bodily presence was extremely small, 
 composed, like theirs, of skin, marrow, bone, and fire. 
 
 The king, feeling, as it were by instinct, that that blue 
 flag was already fluttering with the blast of his destruc- 
 tion, proposed a negotiation. A treaty of a vague and 
 unsatisfactory kind was agreed upon, and the general 
 disbanded his troops, retaining, however, his officers 
 upon half-pay. The king was dissatisfied with the 
 treaty, and with the manner in which the Covenanters 
 fulfilled their stipulations; he sought, it is said, to en- 
 tangle their ministers by treachery, but was at last 
 induced to grant them another General Assembly 
 in Edinburgh, August 1639. Here the “pacification 
 at Birks,” as the recent truce was called, seemed re- 
 enacted upon another stage. The king’s commissioner 
 sanctioned an act affirming substantially the decisions 
 of the assembly of Glasgow. The leaders of the Edin- 
 burgh assembly expressed their gratitude and surprise 
 by loyal terms and by streaming tears; and having 
 obtained the consent of the commissioner and the Scotch 
 privy council, ordered, alas ! in the fulness of their 
 hearts, and in the blindness of their “ times of igno- 
 rance,” the covenant to be subscribed by all classes 
 within the kingdom, under certain formidable pains 
 and penalties. But “ all was false and hollow.” The 
 king, displeased at the conduct of the assembly, threw 
 the blame of the concessions upon the commissioner, 
 and when the Scottish parliament met in June 1640, to 
 sanction what the assembly had done, he abruptly pro- 
 rogued it. The members remonstrated through the 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 23 
 
 medium of Lord Loudoun, who was cast into the Tower, 
 and nearly suffered death, for his pains. Charles, 
 shortly after, in defiance of former treaties, prepared 
 again to invade Scotland, but the Scottish army got 
 the start, entered England by hasty marches, and en- 
 countering him at Newburn, gained a decisive victory. 
 This led to negotiations, begun at Eipon, and trans- 
 ferred to London. Henderson, Baillie, Gillespie, and 
 Blair, repairing thither, on “ little nags,” to assist in 
 bringing them to a successful termination. 
 
 In England it was already the “beginning of the 
 end.” Laud and the star-chamber had long been busy 
 pillorying, whipping, slitting the noses, cutting the ears, 
 and branding the faces of the puritans. But in 1641 
 broke out the Irish rebellion with its fearful butcheries, 
 and the shock of it made the persecutors themselves 
 pause and tremble. Charles, about the same time, 
 visited Scotland, for the purpose of gaining over the 
 Covenanters and obtaining their aid against the English 
 parliament. He declared himself ready to throw epis* 
 copacy overboard, and even ratified the deeds of the 
 Glasgow assembly. But it was too late. The Scotch 
 were already on terms with the Long Parliament, and 
 projecting an extension of the covenant to the southern 
 side of the border. Meanwhile Laud was impeached 
 of high treason. Public feeling rose higher and higher 
 every day against the prelates, and at last the parlia- 
 ment summoned an assembly of divines, both from 
 England and Scotland, to meet at Westminster on the 
 1st of July, 1643, to take the state of church reform 
 into their consideration. 
 
 The civil war having now begun, Charles denied the 
 
 Scotch a parliament, but. in lieu of this, a convention of 
 
 o 
 
24 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 the estates was called, and commissioners from England 
 having been sent to join the deliberations, it was resolved 
 to form a " solemn league and covenant between the 
 three kingdoms, as the only means, after all others had 
 been essayed, for the deliverance of England and Ireland 
 out of the depths of affliction, and the preservation of 
 the church and kingdom of Scotland from the extremity 
 of misery, and the safety of our native king and his 
 kingdom from destruction and desolation.’’ And thus 
 the germ of the National Covenant, first sanctioned by 
 James VI., in the second year of his reign, had at 
 length fairly blossomed into that league, before which 
 his son and his son’s darling systems of arbitrary power 
 and prelacy were doomed to fall ; and which, as a sign, 
 at one time victorious over a conquered empire, and at 
 another “ everywhere spoken against,” and trampled 
 down into dust and blood, shall live long in the 
 memory of mankind. But the history of this docu 
 ment deserves and requires a chapter to itself. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. 
 
 We may indicate in a word our general sentiments as 
 to the document, the story of which we are now to trace. 
 Looking at it by the lights of this age, it seems liable 
 to strong objections; it was an attempt to produce an 
 impossible result by an unchristian method. It sought 
 uniformity of creed and discipline by the sword. It 
 seemed a monstrous mixture of Mahometanism and 
 Christianity — the voice was Jacob’s, the hands were 
 Esau’s — the doctrine and government were, as we be- 
 lieve, those of the New Testament, but the means of 
 propagation were carnal, and not spiritual. It were 
 ridiculous to pretend that it was not, at the beginning, 
 as essentially a political paper as is the “ People’s Char- 
 ter.” The men who summoned the meeting of the 
 commissioners were political men. The convention of 
 estates was a political assembly, and it was there that 
 the Solemn League was first proposed, In fact, at that 
 era religion and politics were inextricably intermingled, 
 and the Covenant was just the full result of that con- 
 fusion between the roots of the two, which the reforma- 
 tion had failed to remove. Certain we are, that a genuine 
 nonconformist of this age would as soon petition for the 
 restoration of the Star Chamber, as he would sign the 
 Solemn League and Covenant. Still, even from our 
 point of view, we can see not only palliating circum 
 stances but noble elements mingled in the idea and the 
 
26 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 purpose from which the Covenant sprang. The thought 
 of uniformity proceeded in part from the desire of 
 Christian union. The uprise against oppression was 
 inevitable, and could no longer be delayed. The men 
 were in blood-red earnest, — they were also in imminent 
 danger. Civil and religious liberty were about to be 
 crushed for ever. The extremity of the case seemed to 
 demand extreme measures, for their scheme was in reply 
 to a still more iron uniformity, which seemed closing 
 hopelessly around them. Certainly, it had been better 
 if they had contented themselves with a defensive atti- 
 tude. Assuredly, their renown, if not their success, 
 had been far greater if they had soared to those views 
 of ecclesiastical polity which were already beginning to 
 dawn on the great soul of Milton. But non omnic 
 possumus omnes. We, with our present views, would 
 as soon uplift the hammer of Jael, or wield the Kabbah- 
 axes of David, as re-enact much that the Covenanters 
 did; but, like Deborah and Samson, and Jael and 
 David, they were on the level of their day. In the 
 eternal substance of their character they were worthy 
 of any age, and therefore, on the whole, we hail the 
 blue banner of the Scottish Covenant as one of the 
 brightest points of the past, and bright especially be- 
 cause it prophecied other pinnacles in the future — the 
 banner of Cromwell — the flag of William, Prince of 
 Orange — the American flag of Independence — the tri- 
 color, and that yet unnamed and unstamped standard 
 round which the good and the free are to rally in the 
 last great contest between truth and error — between 
 tyrants and risen slaves. 
 
 To proceed to the history of the Covenant. A General 
 Assembly met in Edinburgh in August 1643. Com- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 27 
 
 missioners from England were again present, as at tlie 
 convention of estates. The Assembly met in the new 
 church aisle of St Giles ; and there the Solemn League 
 and Covenant was fairly formed. A civil league was 
 at first, all that was designed, founded on a mutual 
 basis of defence against the common enemy; and it 
 would have been well if the Covenant had been nothing 
 more. Henderson, however, who was now moderator 
 of the assembly for the third time, thought otherwise, 
 and himself prepared and read the draft of a religious 
 union, which electrified the court, made its aged 
 ministers weep for joy, and gave equal satisfaction to 
 the estates. 
 
 In the month of September 1643, in the church of 
 St Margaret’s, Westminster, there met a most remark- 
 able assembly, consisting of both houses of parliament, 
 the assembly of divines, and the Scottish commissioners. 
 After divine service, the Covenant was read from the 
 pulpit, and the whole assembly stood the while un- 
 covered. Henderson next raised his strong voice, and 
 likened the Covenant to the hand- writing on Belshazzar’s 
 wall, which, did the pope know of it, would make his 
 heart to tremble and his knees to shake. Having been 
 thus sworn to, it was sent back to Scotland, and ordained 
 by the conjunct authority of the commission of the 
 church and the convention of estates, to be subscribed 
 throughout the kingdom, the former enjoining it under 
 ecclesiastical penalties, and the latter under pain of 
 being punished as enemies to the king and the king- 
 doms. 
 
 Meanwhile, in July 1643, the assembly of divines, to 
 the number of one hundred and fifty-one, had convened 
 in the Abbey Church. Westminster. The members, the pro- 
 
28 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 ceedings,and the results of this meeting have combined to 
 invest it with profound interest. A glance at the list 
 of names is like looking at a scale of mountains. How 
 the blood rises as we read a roll-call containing such 
 words as Selden, Henry Vane, Oliver St John, Dr Good- 
 win, Dr Calamy, Dr Lightfoot, Archbishop Usher, Dr 
 Gataker, Dr Hammond, and Samuel Rutherfurd, men 
 only over-topped in that age of Anakim by three who 
 were not members — Howe, Cromwell, and Milton. The 
 assembly was the collected pith, essence, and glory of 
 the theology of the age; composed of men full of the 
 ripe spirit of the reformation, their hearts as bold as 
 their piety was ardent — their learning extensive, and 
 their faith firm. The purpose of their meeting, how 
 grand ! To settle and, as it were, to crystallise the 
 chaos of controverting ages and elements — to frame a 
 system of truth which should rule generations yet un- 
 born — to cast protestantism into a pyramidal pile, on 
 which the waves of infidelity and of superstition should 
 beat in vain; and by so doing to save a church and a 
 kingdom from ruin, distraction, and civil war, this, 
 whatever we think of the success of their accomplish- 
 ment, was unquestionably their aim. Their proceedings, 
 as recorded, have little grace, but they have occasion- 
 ally some grandeur. Above the level of the interminable 
 disputes about presbytery, independency, &c., how noble, 
 for example, stands up that figure of the aged divine, 
 with grey, streaming locks; who, when the assembly 
 came to answer the question, “ What is God ? ” started 
 from his seat, lifted up his hands to heaven, and cried 
 out “ Da Domine lucent I” The fruit of the “ great 
 consult” is before us in the shape of those documents 
 which are still the standards of presbyterian faith and 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 29 
 
 worship throughout the world. And, whatever the 
 severer criticism of after times may say of some parts, 
 and of many expressions in those standards; however 
 sternly it may condemn, for instance, the persecuting 
 principles which poison one of their chapters, and the 
 extremes of opinion and harshness of statement to which 
 aversion to popery has sometimes pushed the authors 
 in others; and whatever many may think about the 
 propriety or value of such documents at all, no candid 
 Christian man will deny, that they contain in them 
 masses of condensed and sublime truth — that some of 
 their individual sentences, such as " God alone is Lord 
 of the conscience,” stand out as if written in stars — that 
 as a clear, compact, popular manual of orthodox divinity 
 the Shorter Catechism has never been equalled; and 
 that, altogether, had it been possible to stereotype any 
 form or shape of that infinite thing, the truth of God, the 
 Westminster divines would have stereotyped it; and that 
 had it been possible to arrest and fix the elastic energies 
 of that “ fire unfolding itself ” which we call religion — 
 they would have arrested and fixed it for ever. This, 
 thank God ! was impossible, and this they have failed to 
 do; but let them have their praise for the instruction, 
 and the deep moral influences, which their writings 
 have given and exerted over millions, and in a degree, 
 perhaps, only inferior to the inspired volume itself. 
 
 After four years of constant and laborious sitting, the 
 Scotch commissioners, Henderson, Baillie, Rutherfurd, 
 and Gillespie, came back and reported the proceedings 
 to the assembly of August, 1647, which received the 
 Westminster Confession, the Larger and Shorter Cate- 
 chisms, Propositions for Church Government, and the 
 Directory for Public Worship, as parts of the covenanted 
 
BO THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 uniformity of the three kingdoms, and the estates 01 
 parliament soon after said “ Amen ” to their proceed- 
 ings. 
 
 Presbytery was now in the ascendant throughout the 
 three kingdoms. In 1646, the parliament granted it a 
 partial establishment in England, by appointing pro- 
 vincial synods and a national assembly: an arrange- 
 ment, however, which took effect only in London and 
 Lancashire. This establishment would probably have 
 been extended to the whole country, and been found a 
 worthy successor to the episcopalian hierarchy in bigotry 
 and bloodshed — for it matters little who draws the 
 sword, whether Peter or Paul, or John, or Judas, — but 
 for the opposition of the erastians on the one hand and 
 the independents on the other. What the presbyterians 
 wished was a civil sanction to the divine right of their 
 form of government. The erastians resisted this on 
 their principle that the church was the creature of the 
 state, and the independents upon theirs of toleration. 
 The latter doctrine was carried to its full extent by some 
 of the minor sectaries, who advanced the statement 
 “ that it is the will and command of God, that since the 
 coming of his Son, a permission of the most Paganish, 
 Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and wor- 
 ships be granted to all men in all nations.” Although 
 the principle implied in this, will to most men now 
 appear reasonable enough, and even a fair deduction 
 from the words quoted above from the Confession of 
 Faith, “ God alone is Lord of the conscience,” it seemed 
 to the presbyterians absolutely blasphemous. Loud 
 and angrily did this controversy rage. The more that 
 the Covenanters pressed their principles of uniformity 
 the faster did sects increase and multiply, and the faster 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 31 
 
 that they grew the more determined against toleration 
 the Covenanters became. 
 
 Meanwhile, all eyes were now turned to the north, 
 where the meteor of Montrose was blazing for a season. 
 Originally a vehement Covenanter, this remarkable man 
 changed sides; some say owing to an interview with 
 the king, and some because his pride and ambition were 
 wounded by the ascendancy of Argyle and Leslie. He 
 then levied an army — uplifted the white flag — descen- 
 ded the defiles of the Perthshire Highlands — gained the 
 battle of Tippermuir — seized on Perth — marched north 
 to Aberdeen, the inhabitants of which, on some pretext, 
 he put to the sword — retreated farther north to avoid 
 Argyle, who was upon his track — made an irruption 
 into Argyle’s country, which he ravaged with fire and 
 sword — met and routed Argyle at Inverlochy — became 
 the undisputed master of the Highlands — was created 
 marquis by Charles— encountered Leslie at Philiphaugh 
 — sustained a complete defeat — retired from Scotland 
 till 1650, when, returning with a few followers to 
 Orkney, he was seized, conveyed to Edinburgh, and 
 hanged and quartered on the 21st of May. He is re- 
 presented by his partizans as a demi-god, and by his 
 enemies as a monster. Of course he was neither; but, 
 by comparing the two versions, it is not difficult to form 
 a proper conception of his character. He was a minor 
 Napoleon — the Napoleon of Scotland. Like him, in- 
 domitable in resolution — masterly in tactics — the idol 
 of his soldiers — fond of sudden strokes of strategy— 
 always sure to alarm and astonish, even when he failed 
 to conquer — impatient of repose, and full of stern self- 
 sufficiency and contempt for all meaner men. Like him, 
 too. his heart seems to have been originally good and 
 
32 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 tender; but like him, unfortunately, he was unscrupu- 
 lous in his means, hasty in his temper, careless of life, 
 and not averse to dark plots and intrigues. His course 
 was brief and bright; but the brightness was that of a 
 blood-red comet crossing the shuddering midnight, and 
 not of a calm and steady star. His death was heroic 
 and manly, although not more so than that of his rival, 
 Argyle, and of many others in the same dreadful period. 
 Yet, after all, he did nothing — ripened nothing — re- 
 tarded nothing — wrought no deliverance on the earth ; 
 and it is best to look at him through the medium of the 
 novels and ballads of which he is the hero, for it was 
 never more true of any than of the “ Great Marquis,’' 
 that 
 
 “ He left a name at which the world grew pale, 
 
 To point a moral, or adorn a tale.” 
 
 Before the field of Philiphaugh, Charles had lost the 
 decisive battle of Naseby, and in the following spring 
 he betook himself to the north of England, where the 
 covenanting troops were stationed. His motives were 
 obvious. He hated the Covenant much, but he hated 
 and feared Cromwell more. He knew, and wished to 
 take advantage of, the jealousies that were gathering 
 between the Scotch covenanters and the English inde- 
 pendents. He threw himself, therefore, into the arms 
 of the former, and was cordially received. They, on 
 their side, were becoming apprehensive of the growing 
 power of Cromwell. They had no need of Leslie to 
 testify of the genius and prowess he had witnessed when 
 fighting by his side at JSTaseby, and which had dwindled 
 him into insignificance. They felt, as all men do, in- 
 stinctively, the approach of the great man of their age 
 — heard the “ far shoutings which tell a monarch comes,” 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 33 
 
 and confessed it by the fears which mingled with the 
 welcome they gave to their unfortunate king. They en- 
 gaged to support him on their own terms, namely, that 
 he should dismiss his popishly-affected counsellors, and 
 subscribe the Covenant. On their principles, they were, 
 no doubt, perfectly right in this. The wise among 
 them knew enough of Charles to be certain that he was 
 slippery, and must be bound; and what better bond 
 had they at hand than the covenant ] But the king 
 remembered, probably, his breach of other pledges and 
 oaths, and perhaps saying in his heart, “ the petition of 
 right is nothing to the Solemn League and Covenant,” 
 persisted in refusing. In vain did Henderson enter 
 into a conference with him at Newcastle on the points 
 of difference between prelacy and presbyterianism. The 
 minds of both were made up beforehand; and although 
 the collision of two flints produces fire, they are not 
 melted, but remain flints still. From this unsatisfactory 
 dispute the strong-hearted Henderson returned to Edin- 
 burgh to die, the prelatic party finding the cause of his 
 death to be a mixture of chagrin and remorse in being 
 defeated in argument by his majesty. Peace to his 
 memory ! He was a lion-hearted man of God, and we 
 shall never pass the quiet kirk of Leuchars, standing on 
 its gentle ascent, and looking eastward to the towers of 
 St Andrews and the round sea, without blessing the 
 name of the stout spirit who laboured there ! 
 
 A transaction followed which we do not profess fully 
 to understand — the transference of Charles from the 
 hands of the Scotch to that of the English insurgents. 
 This was not, as many used to think, a sale; for, al- 
 though money was paid to the Scotch, it was not for 
 the value received in the person of the king, but in re- 
 
34 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 luctant discharge of old arrears. Nor, although accom- 
 panied with stipulations for their sovereign’s safety, can 
 we believe that this transference was entirely dictated 
 by anxiety for his interests or those of the country. We 
 suspect the truth to be this : Charles they felt to be an 
 unmanageable subject; like a hot cinder, to use a homely 
 image, the sooner he passed out of their hands into 
 others the better. He would give them no pledges, 
 and as long as they harboured him, they were not only 
 in danger from his duplicity or obstinacy, but also from 
 the parliament and the parliamentary army. Hence 
 unwittingly they began to enact the scene in Scripture, 
 “ the adversary delivered him to the judge, and the 
 judge to the officer, and he was cast into prison,” from 
 which, verily, he did not escap e. 
 
 Then followed the rash “ Engagement,” projected by 
 the Duke of Hamilton to save the king out of the hands 
 of Cromwell — an engagement, which, as projected by 
 malignants, was approved of by the church, and which 
 met with a disastrous issue at Preston, where the Scotch 
 fled like sheep before the general’s sword. It was the 
 last effort in behalf of Charles. The army returned, 
 flushed with victory. The parliament was purged. The 
 Rump appointed a high court of justice. Charles was 
 tried, condemned, and, on the 30th of January 1649, 
 executed — Cromwell, like Danton, afterwards, being 
 determined to throw down to his enemies, “ as gage of 
 battle, the head of a king.” 
 
 This was undoubtedly an imprudent, but still a sub- 
 lime and significant, action. It was not Charles that 
 suffered, it was the idea of divine right that was mar- 
 tyred there. Divine right has never recovered from 
 that headsman’s blow, which might be said to have 
 
OP THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 35 
 
 resounded through the universe. Rings had been killed 
 before for personal tyranny, and in hot warfare, but 
 never till Charles did any suffer as a representative per- 
 son — and never had the class before such cause to tremble 
 From that hour, the “ touch me not,” “the consecration,” 
 “the divinity” which had “hedged kings,” vanished like a 
 dream — even as the paternal qualities which at first led 
 to their creation had vanished long before. The death 
 of Louis XYI. was only a miserable echo — a contemp- 
 tible mimicry of the grand and solemn scene at White- 
 hall. For the thing done once needed no renewal ! 
 Louis, besides, was only an amiable imbecile, who had 
 never even tried to reign. Charles had bent all the 
 energies of a proud and powerful mind to be a king — 
 nay, a tyrant — and had failed; and was not this a 
 fitting and a splendid sacrifice ] Again, the French 
 regicides were, on the whole, ruffians. The English, 
 however mistaken, were men with genius and virtues, 
 alike gigantic. 
 
 Bold was the deed — boldly was it done — and boldly 
 was it protested against. The Scotch, while glad to 
 part from Charles, had no suspicion when they transferred 
 him that he was to be put to death. They received the 
 news with horror, and the next day proclaimed his son 
 in his stead. In 1650, after preliminary negotiations, 
 Charles II. landed at the mouth of the Spey, having 
 first pledged his word to sign the Covenant. It seems 
 now at once ludicrous and disgusting that a man like 
 Charles should ever have been a Covenanter. “ He 
 never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one ; ” 
 and, certainly, the most false and foolish thing he 
 ever did was signing the Solemn League. We said, 
 that Charles I. seemed made in contradiction to his 
 
36 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 father; and Charles II., too, was the express opposite 
 of his . There was only one quality in common with 
 the three , and that was falsehood, — an element which, 
 indeed, has run like a current of scrofula through the 
 blood of most kings. In James, as we saw, it wore a 
 veil of bonhommie; in Charles I. of pride and outward 
 show of virtue. In Charles II. it was more deeply 
 disguised under light and careless manners. He was 
 a villain, wearing at one time the cap and bells of a 
 fool; at another the masque of a comic actor; and, at 
 a third, making his profligacy the cover for a deeper 
 and more malignant wickedness. Belief, hope, virtue, 
 enthusiasm, Christianity, were words to him, and nothing 
 more ; he could syllable them deftly when it suited his 
 purpose, but he had no belief in their existence, nor 
 even in the reality of any other person’s belief in them. 
 This should be his epitaph , — “ He was the most profli- 
 gate of men, and his profligacy was the best thing about 
 him, at least, the most sincere. His very clinging to 
 popery in death was a last trick, — a clumsy attempt to 
 cheat the devil, who was quite competent, however, to 
 attend to his own interests.” 
 
 It was impossible that such a man could get on well 
 with the determined enthusiasm, bordering on fanaticism, 
 of the Scottish Covenanters. He became what they 
 willed his father not to become — a hot and very trouble* 
 some cinder in their grasp. Indeed, he seemed the evil 
 genius of the Covenant; and hence at Dunbar, at the 
 pointing of Cromwell’s sword, “ the Lord arose, and his 
 enemies were scattered.” Never was there a truer word 
 than Cromwell’s, “ the Lord has delivered them into 
 our hands.” It was the story of Achan over again. 
 There was a man of Belial in their camp — the accursed 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 37 
 
 thing in his hands — and the weak divided interest, with 
 all its props of prayer, sincere as that prayer was, sank 
 before the energy of a hero “ who moved altogether, if 
 he moved at all and was great, because he could in 
 spire thousands with his own spirit, and receive theirs 
 into his bosom in return. Napoleon, in St Helena, 
 attributed much of his success to the fact that he moved 
 with the millions; and so, with a higher, holier purpose, 
 did Cromwell. He moved with, nay, by throwing him- 
 self into, he became the concentrated spirit of, the real 
 movement of his times; and hence his “ strength was 
 doubled,” like Gabriel's, to “ trample his foes into mire” 
 at Dunbar, and often besides. 
 
 Nevertheless, after the king, detained like Doeg the 
 Edomite before the Lord, had in vain attempted to 
 escape from his covenanting partisans, he was crowned 
 at Scone, on the 1st of January 1651. A curious coro* 
 nation ! It was preceded by a very plain-spoken dis- 
 course, by Robert Douglas, who more than hinted the 
 suspicions of Charles’s sincerity which prevailed. After 
 sermon, the king swore to the Covenants; and another 
 oath to defend the church of Scotland, closed the solemn 
 farce. Quarrels broke out almost immediately between 
 the various parties who surrounded the king. These 
 led to the famous schism between the resolutioners and 
 protesters: the one party being favourable to the ad- 
 mission of malignants to fight with them against the 
 “ common enemy,” the other protesting against the em- 
 ployment of any but “ God’s saints.” We are not apt 
 to praise the narrower of two parties, but we think the 
 protesters were, on the whole, right. They knew the 
 wedge-like power of a united army — they had felt it to 
 their cost at the battle of Dunbar. They felt that a 
 
38 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 host, however large, if composed of motley materials, 
 and not animated by a unique enthusiasm, would either 
 fall to pieces of itself or would be scattered like chaff 
 before the fierce collected might of Cromwell’s forces. 
 They saw also more clearly into the character of Charles 
 and his party; and, as they predicted, it came to pass. 
 Charles made an irruption into England, and was pur- 
 sued and overtaken at Worcester by Cromwell, who 
 gained a victory so complete, that it compelled Charles 
 to seek shelter on the Continent, and gave the victor the 
 command of the three kingdoms. 
 
 It is amusing to read the accounts by the Presbyterian 
 writers of Cromwell’s conduct in Scotland. They lavish 
 every epithet of reproach on his head. They call him a 
 “ usurper !” — a “ despot!” — a“ dissembler !” — a“profane 
 person !” — and give curious pictures of his soldiers 
 carrying their swords with them into the pulpits, which 
 they had scarce the decency to relinquish till their 
 sermons were finished, and of his summary dissolution 
 of the General Assembly. We think that Cromwell 
 could hardly have acted otherwise. The ministers were 
 his avowed enemies. They were ever and anon launch- 
 ing their thunderbolts against him. When he could 
 not gain he was compelled to crush them. This he 
 did with his usual mastery; and, on the whole, with 
 sovereign good humour. His officers wished him to 
 “ pistol” Zachary Boyd, when he railed on him from the 
 pulpit. He chose a “more excellent way,” he invited 
 him to his supper ! What a subject for a great novelist 
 — that supper of Old Noll’s, with the author of the 
 metrical version of the Bible ! It seemed a type of the 
 conduct of the kings in most ages toward the clergy. 
 They have, when not inclined to shoot, invited them to 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 39 
 
 supper, and comparatively few have had the virtue to 
 refuse. 
 
 During the rest of the protectorate a series of wretched 
 disputes continued to rage between the resolutioners and 
 protesters, especially in reference to the tender, which 
 was an acknowledgment of Cromwell’s authority. Pro- 
 minent among those who took this, was the unfortunate 
 James Sharp, afterwards archbishop of St Andrews, 
 James Guthrie was one of its bitterest opponents. Scot- 
 land, as a nation, however, was tolerably prosperous 
 during CromwelPs reign ; and even the presbyterians are 
 reluctantly compelled to admit that religion flourished, 
 and none the less, it would seem, that no General As- 
 sembly was then permitted to meet. The ministers 
 did their duty quietly, and, although constantly quarrel- 
 ling with each other about the tender and the resolu- 
 tions, their quarrels never assumed such virulence, or 
 issued in such grave consequences, or were conducted 
 on such a broad scale, as the meeting of an assembly 
 would probably have led to. General synods sometimes 
 become salutary safety-valves, sometimes add energy to 
 principle, and act as checks to the encroachments of 
 arbitrary power, but often, too, are useless or injurious; 
 and, on the whole, those churches are in the best case 
 which hold them least frequently, and find least for 
 them to do. 
 
 At last, the great sun of Cromwell set, and “ at on 
 stride, came the dark ” of Scotland. The church during 
 his reign had not been paramount, but it had been 
 peaceful, successful, and comparatively free. The state 
 had been strong, victorious, and respected throughout 
 the whole world. Scotland, a rough young colt, had 
 found a rider who could guide it at his will, — one who 
 
 D 
 
40 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 had bridled the war-horse of England, and tamed the 
 wild wolf of Ireland herself. But all this was now to 
 be changed. Charles II. had contracted deep arrears 
 of hatred and contempt for the Covenanters, when in 
 their hands, and he now took his own sure, though 
 sluggish, method for discharging the debt. He never 
 again visited Scotland, but its history for many years 
 was the history of a series of his creatures, each rising 
 above each in unfitness for their office, in ignorance of 
 the spirit and the heart of the country, in subserviency 
 to the king, and in cruelty and personal worthlessness. 
 Of these, Middleton was first, and the packed parliament, 
 to which he was commissioner, and which was popu- 
 larly called by his name, proceeded to pass one slavish 
 act after another, — an act of supremacy, making the 
 king supreme judge in all matters civil and ecclesiasti- 
 cal ; an oath of allegiance, which was meant for a seal 
 upon this document of bondage, and an act rescissory, 
 undoing all the reformatory deeds of former parliaments, 
 including the Covenants, and annulling the authors of 
 the parliaments themselves. 
 
 But something more was desiderated by these miser- 
 able governors. Not content with destroying acts of 
 parliament, and with trampling on consciences, they 
 began to thirst for blood. Argyle was their first victim. 
 He was neither a very great nor a very brave man, but 
 all his faults are forgotten when we remember the ini- 
 quity of his trial, and the Christian courage of his end. 
 Sir Walter Scott and Aytoun have both disgraced them- 
 selves by their treatment of Argyle. It was no “ master 
 fiend,” who said, on his way to the scaffold, “ I could 
 die like a Roman, but choose rather to die like a Chris- 
 tian.” He had faults, but his greatest fault was his 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 41 
 
 putting the crown on the head of the man who at last 
 wrought his ruin. Guthrie, of Stirling — a zealous yet 
 mild-tempered minister, who long before had “ met the 
 executioner of the city as he entered the West Port to 
 sign the Covenant,” and read in this an omen of his 
 future fate — suffered next. He died heroically, crying 
 with his last breath, “the Covenants — the Covenants 
 shall yet be Scotland’s reviving ! ” These were the 
 first rich drops for the young tiger of tyranny. He 
 was yet to be sated and drenched with manly and 
 Christian blood. 
 
 Soon after, presbytery was, by an act of parliament* 
 abolished, episcopacy reinstated, and the country half- 
 tamed by fear, and half-drunk with the heady must of 
 its raw, renewed loyalty, at first submitted. James 
 Sharp, the minister of Crail, had been sent to London 
 to secure the preservation of the presbyterian govern- 
 ment. There, however, he played a double game, writ- 
 ing letters to his constituents at home calculated to lull 
 their suspicions to sleep, while he was secretly pro- 
 moting the designs of the episcopal church. Un- 
 doubtedly, whatever his motives might be, his secession 
 from the covenanting interest, and his acceptance of 
 the archbishopric of St Andrews, were terrible 
 blows to the cause, and, among presbyterians, his name 
 has ever since been embalmed in the odour of infamy 
 The divided state of the Scottish church, combined with 
 his treachery to surrender the country, a powerless and 
 palsied victim, into the hands of episcopacy. Sharp, 
 Fairfoul, Hamilton, and Leighton, proceeded to London, 
 were ordained bishops in Westminster Abbey, and re- 
 turned in triumph; the three first-named making a pub- 
 lic procession in Edinburgh. From the equivocal 
 
42 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 honour implied in this Leighton shrunk — whether from 
 modesty, or disgust at his colleagues. On the day 
 succeeding their entrance, parliament passed an act re- 
 storing them to their former prerogatives — restored 
 patronage in its fullest extent, and enacted that all per- 
 sons in public trust should subscribe a declaration, re- 
 nouncing the Covenants as unlawful and seditious. On 
 the 29th of May 1662, on the occasion of a public 
 thanksgiving for the king’s return, the Covenants were 
 torn by the hands of the common hangman, and in 
 Linlithgow they were burned amidst shouts of drunken 
 mockery. The clergy were next commanded to attend 
 diocesan meetings and to acknowledge the authority of 
 the bishops; and to compel this, Middleton and a com- 
 missioner made a tour to the west of Scotland, where 
 the spirit of the covenant was strongest. In obedience 
 to the recommendation of this commission, the council 
 issued a proclamation, banishing all ministers from 
 their parishes who had been admitted since 1649, un- 
 less they received a presentation from the bishop of the 
 diocese before the 1st of November. The warning 
 given was only that of a month, and the soldiers were 
 commanded to pull the ministers from the pulpits if 
 they should venture to preach contrary to their orders. 
 Few expected the result which followed. Nearly four 
 hundred ministers consented rather to resign their 
 livings than to submit to the episcopal yoke. It was 
 a sad yet sublime sight, to see these brave men, in the 
 depth of winter, leaving their manses, pleasantly situ- 
 ated among wooded nooks, amid green pastures, and by 
 the side of still waters. They had made no preparation 
 for the step. They threw themselves immediately on 
 the care of God who feeds the young lions and ravens 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 43 
 
 in the wilderness. And, although to us they appear to 
 have come out, not so much on a broad principle as on 
 the paring of a principle, yet they deserve honour none 
 the less for their honesty, determination, and faith. 
 “ Scotland,” says Wodrow, “ was never witness to such 
 a Sabbath as the last on which those ministers preached; 
 and I know no parallel to it save the 17th of August, 
 or St Bartholomew’s day, to the presbyterians in Eng- 
 land.” It was a day of tears and bursts of irrepressible 
 sorrow. The silencing of four hundred pulpits were 
 even now a sad fact, but more so then, when in most 
 parishes the pulpit was the only means of moral and 
 intellectual instruction, when the kirk, standing in its 
 quiet grave-yard, embosomed in its woodlands, or 
 towering bare and clear upon its knoll, was the spiritual 
 sun of the district. 
 
 To fill up their places, a whole army of raw recruits, 
 principally from the north of Scotland, was brought 
 into the field. These were the far-famed curates. A 
 more contemptible class of men never assumed the 
 clerical office. They were created by a process which 
 reminds one of the last conscriptions of Napoleon, when 
 beardless boys were sublimated into soldiers; or rather 
 of that immortal levy ot EalstafFs, with which he 
 shrank from marching through Coventry. It was even 
 complained in the north, that all the herd -boys had be- 
 come ministers, and that the cows were in jeopardy. 
 Burnet paints them in colours which seem as true as 
 they are stern, “ as the dregs and refuse of the northern 
 parts.” Either debauched or stupid, or both, alike 
 ignorant and imperious, they became objects of mingled 
 contempt and hatred to the people. Even the mar- 
 tyrdom they occasionally endured, served further to 
 
44 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 make them ridiculous. They were not “ stoned oi 
 sawn asunder, or burnt,” but the doors of the churches 
 were sometimes barricaded against them, and the 
 poor curate had to climb in at the window to his “ ill- 
 mumbled mass sometimes his boots were filled with 
 ants; and sometimes women brought their children to 
 church with them, and encouraged them to cry till the 
 voice of the preacher was drowned in a storm-chorus 
 from this infant choir. 
 
 And now, the ministers of the Covenant expelled, the 
 curates imposed upon their reluctant charges, liberty ir 
 fetters, and tyranny riding rough-shod over the land, 
 there commenced a series of persecutions on the part of 
 the government, and of sufferings on the part of the 
 presbyterian people of Scotland, to which history fur- 
 nishes few parallels. This brings us to the period of 
 the persecution, and to a new chapter. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PERSECUTION TILL THE AFFAIR AT DRUMCLOG. 
 
 The Covenant might now be said to have completed its 
 history. Once towering triumphant over three conquered 
 lands, it was about to go down in an ocean of blood; its 
 name had become a jest, and its partisans were objects 
 at one time of bitterest scorn, and anon of fiercest 
 obloquy. Their evil day had fully come, and although 
 better times were yet to arrive, the full power and glory 
 of their banner were never to return. There was never 
 more to be a covenanting king, a covenanting parlia- 
 ment, or a covenanting nation. And, meanwhile, they 
 must pay the penalty of their brief triumph. Sternly 
 was it to be exacted, and manfully was it to be paid. 
 
 Many ejected ministers had the boldness to preach 
 against the measures of government, some of whom 
 were thrown into prison, and others compelled to seek 
 refuge in foreign lands. The fate of Lord Warriston 
 next attracted great sympathy. He had been an eminent 
 Covenanter ; he was clerk to the assembly of Glasgow ; 
 he had taken an active share in all public measures, 
 particularly in the punishment of Montrose; he had ac- 
 cepted an appointment which gave offence to some of 
 his weaker brethren, under Cromwell, and, after the re- 
 storation, had escaped to the Continent. The vengeance 
 of his enemies pursued him thither. He was surprised 
 at his prayers, dragged on board a ship, and, notwith- 
 
46 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 standing the accumulated infirmities of age, conducted 
 on foot, and bareheaded, from Leith to the Tolbooth of 
 Edinburgh. Utterly broken down in body and spirit, 
 feeble as a child in mind, he moved the pity of his 
 sternest judges, although it is said that Sharp and the 
 other bishops treated his superannuation with shouts of 
 brutal laughter. While his intellect was nearly gone, 
 his piety remained. He submitted meekly to the sen- 
 tence of the court, and calmly prepared for death. Hard 
 as the hearts of hell must have been those which re- 
 mained unmoved, as he tottered up the scaffold, sup- 
 ported by his friends, and died, with hands uplifted to 
 heaven, and with the words, “ Pray, pray; praise, praise,” 
 trembling on his tongue. 
 
 The people of the west and south began about this 
 time those field-meetings which were destined to become 
 so famous. These assemblies at first were peaceable; no 
 arms were worn, and when worship was over the con- 
 gregations quietly dispersed. Peaceable, however, as 
 they were, they gave offence to the bishops, who pro- 
 cured an act ordaining that all ministers preaching 
 without the sanction of the bishops, should be punished 
 for sedition, and that certain pains and penalties should 
 be inflicted on those who absented themselves from their 
 parish church. This act, popularly called the “ Bishop's 
 Drag-net,” was necessarily inquisitorial, and led to in- 
 cessant and most vexatious oppressions. Troops, under 
 the command of Sir James Turner — a soldier of fortune, 
 and the unscrupulous instrument the cause required — 
 were poured into suspected parishes, and proceeded by 
 every method to torment the people into obedience. 
 Now they exacted large fines for non-attendance, and 
 again, if these fines were not paid, they quartered them- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 47 
 
 selves on the unfortunate recusants, devoured their food, 
 sold their cattle, and reduced them to starvation. Some- 
 times they snatched the coats of men and the mantles 
 of women from their shoulders. Indeed, every authentic 
 account represents the soldiers of prelacy as detestable 
 ruffians, uniting in themselves all those qualities of 
 cruelty, recklessness, lust, blasphemy, and debauchery, 
 which have in too many ages rendered the name of 
 soldier a hissing and a byeword on the earth* 
 
 In 1664, a new and potent engine of oppression was 
 invented. This was the high commission court, — a 
 court composed of bishops and laymen, endowed with 
 almost absolute powers, and which served fiercely to 
 stimulate persecuting zeal, and terribly to grind the 
 face of the Covenanters. During the two years in which 
 it “ practised and prospered,” it banished ministers, or 
 put them in ward ; in typical anticipation of the butcher, 
 Haynau, it publicly whipped women, and after brand- 
 ing and scourging boys shipped them off to Barbadoes 
 as slaves. Worst of all, it made it sedition to give 
 charity to the ejected ministers, so that if any of these 
 had knocked at the door of one of his own parishioners, 
 and sought a cup of cold water, or a piece of pease-meal 
 bannock, the asking and the giving were alike a crime. 
 
 Next year the exactions in the west and south multi- 
 plied to such a degree, that fifty thousand pounds Scots 
 were raised in Ayrshire, in fines for nonconformity, and 
 a much larger sum in the shires of Galloway and Dum- 
 fries. In 1666, occurred the rising, which issued in 
 the rout of Pentland. This could not be justified in 
 point of prudence, for there never was even a chance of 
 success ; but it was a fair index to the state of public 
 feeling, and showed that the wrong had become to many 
 
48 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 altogether intolerable. It was in this respect remark- 
 able — unlike the risings of Scotland on most former 
 occasions — that it began with simple countrymen. It 
 was not excited by the gentry, nor the clergy, although 
 some of them afterwards joined it ; it was originally the 
 mere projection of the rugged horn of peasant power; 
 and the Scottish peasantry are not prone to become 
 rebels. 
 
 The circumstances were these : — On Monday the 12th 
 of November, two or three fugitives had come down 
 from the hills to a little village called the Clachan of 
 Dairy, where were some of the soldiers of Sir James 
 Turner. He was one of the most active of the persecu- 
 tors, had been carrying matters with a high and a cruel 
 hand against the recusant peasantry, and was then at 
 Dumfries. The fugitives entered an alehouse, and were 
 quietly eating their breakfast, when they were told that 
 four soldiers had bound an old man, and were threaten- 
 ing to roast him on a gridiron, because he would not 
 pay the church fines. They rushed out and tried to 
 rescue him. A scuffle ensued — pistols were fired — 
 swords drawn — wounds interchanged, and, in fine, the 
 four were made prisoners. The news soon reached 
 Balmaclellan, where a larger company of the covenanters, 
 feeling the contagion of the example, or fearing to be 
 themselves involved, seized on sixteen of Sir James’s 
 men who were quartered in the neighbourhood. They 
 were now too far committed to stop. They resolved to 
 surprise Turner in Dumfries. For this purpose, they 
 invited a meeting of the district at the kirk of Iron- 
 gray — a sweet spot, situated near the brink of the 
 romantic Cluden, with the birth-place of Helen Walker, 
 the prototype of Jeanie Deans, and the monument 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 49 
 
 erected to her by Sir Walter Scott, standing beside, and 
 with the beautiful copses and green hills of Galloway 
 bounding the scene. Ere they could muster, the sun 
 was up, and it was ten in the morning before they 
 reached Dumfries. They amounted to fifty horse, and 
 two hundred foot. They passed the bridge which leads 
 from Galloway to Dumfries without opposition — found 
 Turner in bed — admitted him to quarter, but set him, 
 in his night-gown and night-cap, on the back of a horse, 
 and took him to the cross of the town, where, to shew 
 their loyalty, they drank the king’s health. In the after- 
 noon, they marched along with him and the other 
 prisoners to the west, in a state of complete uncertainty, 
 with regard to their future measures. Before they 
 reached Lanark, considerable numbers had joined them, 
 but no gentry or nobles. There they amounted it is 
 said to three thousand, and if they had given battle to 
 Dalziel, whose army was watching them on the other 
 side of the river Clyde, they might have had the ad- 
 vantage, since their numbers were considerable, and 
 since the first panic produced by their revolt had not 
 yet subsided. Instead of this, after renewing the Cove- 
 nant and issuing a defensive declaration, they marched 
 toward the parish of Bathgate, amid a storm of wind 
 and rain, which discouraged many and made them drop 
 off, and thence to Collington, where they fixed a tem- 
 porary encampment. The enemy continuing to press 
 on their rear, and the country around either maintaining 
 a sullen neutrality, or rising to resist them, they resolved 
 on a retreat to Galloway again. One Colonel Wallace, 
 a brave and experienced soldier, did all he could to keep 
 them together, but hearing that Edinburgh was up in arms 
 against them, they marched in disorder toward the Pent- 
 
50 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 land hills. These rise about six miles to the south of Edin- 
 burgh, and from their rounded yet bold outline, repos- 
 ing like massive blue clouds against the horizon, and 
 the green vales which seem to have stolen into and to 
 nestle in their midst, form a very interesting feature of 
 the landscape. Thither, wearied with marching through 
 winter roads, hungry and wet, “ liker dying men, than 
 men going to conquer,” reduced to nine hundred, came 
 this little host, and determined to make a last desperate 
 stand. It was at a spot called Bullion Green, and on 
 the 28th of November, 1666. The Covenanters were 
 stationed on a little knoll. After waiting three hours 
 for the troops of Dalziel, the two armies at last came in 
 sight almost simultaneously, and each sent off a company 
 of horse, which met in the midst, and the royal soldiers 
 were compelled to flee. It is said that the Covenanters 
 did not sufficiently follow up this advantage, else they 
 might at least have secured a safe retreat. Larger 
 forces, meanwhile, poured against them from both the 
 enemy’s wings, while only their left wing could be 
 brought into action. On that side they fought vigor- 
 ously, but in vain, their horses were not trained, they 
 themselves were worn out; their right wing was no 
 sooner assailed than broken, and, just as the winter day 
 was darkening down into night, the whole army fled. 
 About fifty were killed, and about the same number 
 were taken prisoners. The darkness of the night 
 secured the escape of the rest. And thus was this un- 
 fortunate little rising, beginning in Galloway, and ex- 
 citing a transient convulsion throughout Lanarkshire 
 and a portion of the Lothians, within a fortnight, 
 swallowed up and went down amid the defiles of the 
 Pentlands, and the gloom of a November night. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 51 
 
 Severe and summary was the punishment inflicted on 
 the hapless prisoners. Although taken on the field of 
 battle, and on terms of quarter, they were tried as 
 traitors, and hung up in tens together; their voice, as it 
 proclaimed their innocence of the guilt of intended re- 
 bellion, being drowned amid the beating of drums. One 
 of these sufferers is worthy of special remark, in himself, 
 and as the prototype of MacBriar in Old Mortality — a 
 character disfigured in some traits, but on the whole of 
 surpassing power, beauty, and pathos. This was Hugh 
 Mackail. He was a young minister of twenty-six — had 
 travelled on the Continent, possessed a liking for letters 
 — amused himself in prison composing Latin verses, but 
 was withal a zealous and fiery Covenanter. He was put 
 to a species of torture equally cruel and clumsy, called 
 the Boots. This instrument was composed of four 
 pieces of narrow boards nailed together, into which when 
 the leg was laid wedges were driven down with a ham- 
 mer, mangling the limb, forcing out the marrow, and 
 producing exquisite pain. Mackail bore it with great 
 firmness, denied all knowledge of the existence of a con- 
 spiracy, and asserted that the rising of Pentland was 
 altogether accidental. His appearance on the scaffold 
 excited floods of tears from the spectators. There was 
 not, says an eye-witness, “ a dry eye in the whole street.” 
 He was so young, had been so popular, and was pos- 
 sessed of a hectic beauty which now seemed, from the 
 composure of his mind and the magnanimity of his re- 
 solve, to be tinctured with the hues of heaven. The 
 pale white cloud assumed a golden tinge as it approached 
 the west. He went up the ladder, telling his fellow 
 sufferers that he felt every step of it a degree nearer 
 heaven. And when he reached the summit, he burst 
 
52 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 out into the words, “ Farewell, father and mother, 
 friends and relations ! farewell, the world and all de- 
 lights ! farewell, meat and drink ! farewell, sun, moon, 
 and stars ! Welcome God and Father ! welcome sweet 
 Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant ! wel- 
 come blessed Spirit of grace, the God of all consolation! 
 welcome glory ! welcome eternal life ! and welcome 
 death !” It was worth a hundred poems. An apostle 
 could not have left the stage of time with a firmer as- 
 surance, or with loftier language on his lips. With 
 what true unconscious taste he makes the climax, not 
 in glory, but in “ death !” 
 
 In the west country similar executions took place, 
 till the very hangman refused to act, and a prisoner had 
 to be bribed and drugged into the degrading office. To 
 crush still more completely the recusants, General 
 Dalziel was sent westward with a body of troops. This 
 man was of Binns, in West Lothian. He had been 
 taken prisoner by Cromwell at Worcester and confined 
 in the Tower, whence he escaped to Russia, and became 
 a general in the army of the Czar, to whom he did good 
 service in butchering Turks and Tartars. He had re- 
 turned after the restoration, and was appointed com- 
 mander-in-chief of the royal forces in Scotland. He 
 had a craze on two points : one was that after the death 
 of Charles I. he never shaved his beard, but allowed it 
 to grow down, white and bushy, to his girdle; the other 
 that lie bound himself to repair once or twice every 
 year to London, to kiss the hand of the king, when the 
 singularity of his appearance generally drew crowds of 
 boys after him. “ Bearded like the pard,” he was also 
 “ full of strange oaths,” and “ sudden and quick in 
 quarrel.” Hating the Covenanters with a perfect hatred 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 53 
 
 -taught contempt for human life in the rude wars of 
 Moscovy — fretted by the memory of past imprisonments, 
 he became a monomaniac of murder, and his grisly beard 
 flared like a meteor of wrath and fear over the west of 
 Scotland. He was, Scott says, still more detested by 
 the whigs than Claverhouse himself, and many anecdotes 
 are extant to corroborate the truth of this statement. 
 Once he shot a countryman who could give no informa- 
 tion to him about the fugitives of Pentland, although 
 the poor fellow besought him for one night’s reprieve 
 to “ prepare for eternity !” a request which could be no 
 sham in the mouth of a Covenanter. On another occa< 
 sion he hanged a man for not telling where his father 
 was. Upon another occasion still, he is said to have 
 thrown a woman, who had declined to betray the retreat 
 of a pursued whig, into a hole in Kilmarnock filled with 
 toads and reptiles, where she miserably perished. But 
 his favourite amusement was in putting lighted matches 
 between the fingers of women, and compelling them to 
 “ peach” or to perish. His threats, according to Burnet, 
 were even worse than his actions. He swore in his 
 drunken moments that he would spit his enemies or 
 roast them alive. A coarser Claverhouse, he scattered 
 destruction over the westland shires, till the bolder of the 
 whigs retired to caves or coal-pits — and the more timid 
 returned to the prelatized churches again — till the 
 curates triumphed, and the whole country sank into 
 sullen slumber under the sword of martial law. 
 
 Before this, Middleton had been supplanted in the 
 administration by Bothes, and he was now succeeded by 
 Lauderdale, under whose government, in the next year, 
 (1667), there came a brief and precarious gleam of hope 
 to the persecuted presbyterians. Lauderdale had been 
 
54 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 a Covenanter, and had become a courtier, but at first 
 seemed indisposed to press matters to extremity. He 
 disbanded the standing army, and proclaimed an indem- 
 nity to those who had fought at Bullion Green, on the 
 condition of their signing a bond of peace. Turner was 
 dismissed; Sharp was disgraced for proven duplicity; 
 and there was even a rumour that the presbyterian 
 ministers were to receive liberty to exercise their minis- 
 try independent of the bishops. Either the rumour was 
 true that Lauderdale had at heart a leaning to his old 
 party, or, more probably, the reaction of disgust which 
 succeeds violence and crime had now arrived. The 
 calm, however, was treacherous, and was soon broken. 
 A pistol was fired at Sharp by one Mitchell — a preacher, 
 and probably a Pentlander — a man partially insane, 
 who with three bullets took his aim at the obnoxious 
 archbishop as he entered his coach in Edinburgh. He 
 failed in his object, but wounded Honeyman, Bishop of 
 Orkney, and then walked back unmolested to his lodg- 
 ings, changed his dress, and returned to the street, nor 
 was he apprehended for six years afterwards. The 
 crowd were not anxious for his detection. They cried 
 out when they heard that a man was killed, “Oh! it’s 
 only a bishop !” showing how profoundly they had be- 
 come aware of the distinction between a reality and a 
 sham — a dead surplice and a living skin. But this 
 foolish action alarmed the government; led to an in- 
 effectual search, and brought into trouble some of the 
 more zealous Covenanters. 
 
 Several attempts to bring relief and unity to the un- 
 happy land were next made, at short intervals of time. 
 The first was the act called The Indulgence. This 
 doleful measure, as it was afterwards called by its op* 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 55 
 
 ponents, appointed again to their parishes those ousted 
 ministers who had not been guilty of any breach of the 
 peace; permitted them to meet in presbytery, but en- 
 joined them to keep strictly to the bounds of their own 
 parishes; put them under strict surveillance, and sus- 
 pended over their heads severe punishments for any 
 possible sedition, or any encouragement of future field- 
 meetings. It was coupled with a formal statutory de- 
 claration of the supreme authority of the king in matters 
 ecclesiastical, and for this erastian principle, as well as 
 for the hampering confinements proposed, the majority 
 of the ministers refused the benefit of the Indulgence. 
 A considerable number, however, accepting it, came 
 back, like Poundtext,* to their warm nests again, and 
 made for a season such a harmonious concert of drowsy 
 talking with the curates, that they were called “ the 
 king’s curates,” while the others were those of the 
 bishops. We have not the heart strongly to condemn 
 the men, who were tempted back from peat-haggs, coal- 
 pits, dens by moaning river-sides, and exposure to 
 famine and to fire, by a measure which seemed at least 
 to relieve their consciences, as well as to restore their 
 simple comforts — their little gardens and glebes — their 
 low-roofed studies — their porridge and milk, or, on Sun- 
 day evenings, their temperate jug of ale; and, above all 
 the undisturbed society of their parishioners and their 
 families. But we honour infinitely more the sturdy 
 children of God, who, for their notions of truth, rejected 
 all this, and preferred the songs of plovers, the kiss of 
 homeless streams, the peasant’s hard bed, or the soft 
 greensward under the gleaming midnight, and felt their 
 souls severely satisfied with the companionship of 
 * See Old Mortality. E 
 
56 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 u Cloud, gorse, and whirlwind on the lonely moors.** 
 
 The one class were men, the others rose to martyrs, 
 heroes, and confessors. They had a principle, although 
 not a broad one, and they kept by it; and it is principle 
 alone that can give sanctity to life, dignity to endurance, 
 body to the spirit of enthusiasm, or true sublimity to 
 death. 
 
 The Indulgence was issued in 1669. In 1670, 
 another plan was attempted. A deputation who were 
 popularly denominated the “ Bishop’s Evangelists,” were 
 sent to the west for the purpose of conciliating the 
 people. This was a scheme of the excellent Leighton. 
 Bishop of Dunblane. He was one of the best, holiest, 
 and mildest men of his time. His work on Peter re- 
 mains a lasting monument of his fine genius — his ele- 
 gance of taste — his evangelical unction, and his profound 
 but gentle piety. Had all the bishops been like him, 
 this history or any other of the sufferings of the Cove- 
 nanters, had never been written. But he was not fitted 
 for that rough age. He was too gentle, too fond of 
 half measures — was, shall we call him ? a divine trimmer, 
 and in his half measures was not seconded by his 
 brethren. With him went several others, all obscure, 
 with the exception of the notorious Gilbert Burnet, 
 afterwards the clever, officious, gossiping, twaddling, 
 bustling Bishop of Salisbury. He also was a trimmer, 
 but not a divine one, often seeming to hover, like a bat, 
 between truth and falsehood, light and darkness; 
 neither an Arminian nor a Calvinist, but now the one, 
 now the other, and now both; neither a thorough-going 
 roundhead nor cavalier, presbyterian nor episcopalian, 
 but for ever vaulting dexterously between pairs of 
 steeds; and yet, on the whole, a worthy man, a credible 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 57 
 
 historian, an eloquent preacher, an amusing writer, and 
 one who, in his ecclesiastical capacity, plucked at least 
 one brand from the burning when he converted on his 
 deathbed the infamous Earl of Eochester. 
 
 This raid was not successful. The very peasantry 
 were able to abash and confute the bishop and his 
 coadjutors. The rough logic, ready wit, fearless honesty, 
 and terrible sarcasm of the westland people, which were 
 ninety years after to bear their full product in the strong 
 peasant of Ayrshire — Robert Burns — were, even in 
 their embryo, too much for the gracious Leighton, and 
 the adroit Burnet. So there was nothing for them but 
 to return and report “ no progress.” 
 
 Still another scheme flashed on the benevolent eye of 
 Leighton. This was the Accommodation — by which he 
 meant an attempt to reconcile presbytery with a mode- 
 rate episcopacy. According to this plan, presbyteries 
 were to be held. The bishop was to be present; but to 
 waive his veto on the proceedings, and to sit as a dumb 
 moderator in their assemblies. To this the presby* 
 terians objected on various grounds. If the bishop 
 had a right to sit, had he not also a right to speak ? If 
 he had no right to a negative, had he to a place in the 
 assembly? If once seated there, was it likely that he 
 would retain his silence ? Did not his very appearance 
 seem to ratify the prelatical claims ? Was this not 
 a snare for entrapping the Covenanters into an 
 acknowledgment of episcopacy, — an attempt, by recon- 
 ciling them to the presence, ultimately to reconcile 
 them to the power, of a bishop 1 For these reasons, 
 the negotiations were broken off, greatly to the chagrin 
 of Burnet and the good Leighton but much to the joy of 
 Sharp, who foresaw that now it would be " war to the 
 
58 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 knife,” but foresaw not that the knife would speedily 
 
 be applied to his own throat. 
 
 Field -meetings became every day more common, and 
 were now attended by many who bore arms. This 
 partly arose from the custom of those fierce times, but 
 partly, also, from motives of self-defence. Such meet- 
 ings were watched by the government with peculiat 
 jealousy. On occasion of one held near Dunfermline, 
 a military officer, acting as a spy, was threatened, and 
 had a pistol presented to his head. This led to edicts 
 sternly prohibiting conventicles, and making the atten- 
 dance of any preacher there a capital crime. Notwith- 
 standing, they grew and multiplied, and for nearly ten 
 years the authorities durst only proceed against those 
 who frequented them by the occasional enaction of 
 heavy fines. It is ennobling to think of the best of a 
 nation worshipping God for years together in the open 
 air, — the Druids of the Christian faith. Their psalms 
 made the wilderness to rejoice, and mingled pleasingly 
 with the bleating of the sheep, the distant cry of eagles 
 and ptarmigans, and the musical thunder of cataracts 
 and streams; the radiant faces of their young men and 
 maidens made the desert to blossom as the rose; the 
 voice of their preachers became a wild melody, and 
 seemed reverberated from the blue dome of the sky 
 overhead; thousands of visages lightened or darkened, 
 sweetened or stormed, as the preacher kindled with his 
 theme, or melted under it; sometimes infants were 
 baptised in the clear water that was rushing by; some- 
 times marriages were celebrated at these mountain- 
 altars — God and nature giving away their children; and 
 sometimes thousands communicated amid the wilder- 
 ness, and at the close of the sacramental work set up a 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 59 
 
 6train of holy song, “ like a steam of rich-distilled per- 
 fumes,” heard afar on earth, heard farther still in 
 heaven, and welcomed there as incense, or as the morn- 
 ing and evening sacrifice. Seldom, since J esus trod the 
 Galilean hills, has there been such worship in this world. 
 The great sky was transfigured into a temple; every heart 
 said, “ How dreadful is this place!” and as the evening 
 drew on, and still the services unweariedly continued, 
 the stars rising over the mountain-tops seemed looking 
 down in love on the scene, and listening with interest to 
 the tidings of great joy which were there by “ Cameron 
 thundered, or by Ken wick poured in gentle stream.” 
 And even when a dark shadow of clouds gathered over 
 the landscape, and when, like a grim spectre, the storm 
 appeared above their heads, and 
 
 <l Lightning, like a wild bright beast 
 Leaped from his thunder lair” — 
 
 the softness of the scene was only lost in its sublimity, 
 and every heart in the assembly felt that the God who 
 was speaking was on their side, that that thunder 
 echoed the deep protest of their consciences, and that 
 that lightning was writing in its own burning hiero- 
 glyphics the wrongs of their country and faith ! 
 
 So far all as yet was well. But fiercer elements began 
 soon to mingle in and to embitter these peaceful and 
 hallowed scenes. It could not be expected that the 
 government could regard such meetings either with 
 Christian or with aesthetic eyes. It came at last to this 
 alternative, either it must continue to wink at them, or 
 it must dissolve them by doing justice to their demands, 
 or it must wait its opportunity of dispersing them by 
 force. Nor was this opportunity long in presenting 
 
GO THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 itself. Sharp had continued to be extremely obnoxious 
 to the presbyterians. Had he become mild and tole- 
 rant, his apostacy might have been forgotten, or at least 
 been regarded with less aversion and disgust. But his 
 conduct became more and more irritating to their feel- 
 ings. Take one example. Mitchell, the poor mono- 
 maniac who had fired at him, was at last recognised at 
 a funeral, and apprehended. It is said that since there 
 was difficulty in identifying him as the assassin, Sharp 
 promised him his life should he make a confession. This 
 he did, and, after having been terribly tortured, was 
 imprisoned on the Bass Rock. After some years’ in- 
 carceration, he was again brought up for trial. He 
 pleaded the promise of his life which he had received. 
 It was denied by the lords of council and by Sharp that 
 any such promise had been made or recorded, and 
 Mitchell was condemned to death. When the council 
 broke up, the records were examined, and there thej 
 found the act recorded, and with the signature of Lord 
 Rothes ! There was a talk of reprieving him, but the 
 result was that, in the rough language of Lauderdale, 
 he was sent to “ glorify God in the Grassmarket,” — to 
 be executed — on the 18th of January. The fate of 
 this man, otherwise insignificant, was long resented, and 
 it was soon bloodily avenged. 
 
 We now come to the tragedy of Magus Muir. This 
 is now partially wooded but was then an open moor, or 
 common, about three miles from St Andrews. The 
 view from it in these days was bare, but extensive, in- 
 cluding the houses, spires, and colleges of that old city; 
 its sandy links; the restless waters of its bay; the Ger< 
 man ocean spreading out to the east; the sands of Angus- 
 shire on the northern coast ; the hills of Fife to the 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 61 
 
 south and west, and on the north-west the Law of Dun- 
 dee, rising abruptly, and interrupting the prospect. For 
 other purposes than view-hunting did twelve persons, 
 on the 3d of May 1679, assemble on that dull moorland. 
 Their object was to waylay and to chastise, or perhaps 
 kill, one Carmichael, a subordinate, but active, tool of 
 the prevalent tyranny, noted for harassing, fining, tor- 
 turing, and imprisoning men, women, and children. At 
 the head of this little party were two remarkable men 
 connected together by marriage, David Hacks toun, of 
 Bathillet, and John Balfour, of Burley, or Kinloch. 
 Both were Fife lairds , i.e., small proprietors. Hack- 
 stoun’s estate lay a few miles westward from Magus 
 Muir, in a green wooded, lovely vale, not far from Kil- 
 many, the parish where Chalmers began first to mutter 
 those thunders of eloquence which ultimately astonished 
 the world. Balfour came from the banks of Loch Leven, 
 where Queen Mary had been imprisoned, and where 
 still they point the ruins of his house, which are as bold 
 and rugged as his own character. Both were brave men. 
 Balfour, however, is generally characterised as a deter- 
 mined homicide, “few escaping that came into his 
 hands, 55 and with this his appearance corresponded, he 
 being a little man, red-haired, with a squint, and a very 
 fierce countenance. Hackstoun, the milder character, 
 met with the w r orse fate ; he was, as we shall afterwards 
 see, executed at Edinburgh. Balfour, who had escaped 
 to Holland, died at sea when returning home — returning, 
 according to some accounts, with a commission from the 
 Prince of Orange to re-enact Sharp’s tragedy on all 
 who continued to oppose the presbyterian cause, but, 
 according to others, as a soldier in the Prince’s army 
 Our readers cannot have forgot the delineation given by 
 
62 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Scott of this extraordinary character; a delineation not 
 probably very flattering to the real person, but which 
 we have always thought the most original in design 
 and the most Shakesperean in execution of all Scott’s 
 portraits. There are no pictures in literature more 
 thrillingly powerful, than those of Burley toasting the 
 dead Sharp in the inn; Burley asleep in the barn; 
 Burley killing Bothwell at Drumclog; and, above all, 
 Burley spurning the oak-tree from the mouth of his 
 cave, and telling Morton to defend himself or die. 
 
 Such were the leaders of the party. Disappointed of 
 Carmichael, they were apprized that Sharp himself was 
 approaching in his carriage from Edinburgh. This 
 seemed to them providential. They were seeking for 
 the fox’s cub; and here was the old fox himself. They 
 probably knew that he had been in the capital on busi- 
 ness adverse to their cause. Such at least was the fact. 
 He had just procured the passing of a new proclamation 
 against field-meetings, making it treason for any to be 
 found there in arms, and is said to have intended the 
 very next week a journey to London, to advise still 
 severer measures. Sharp saw his foes approaching, and 
 put his carriage to full speed. His daughter, Isabel, 
 (afterwards married to Cunningham, of Barns, in Fife) 
 was with him in the carriage. Mounted as the pursuers 
 were, they soon gained on it, disarmed the servants, 
 and ordered the old man to come out and to prepare 
 for death. It was a shocking scene — the servants 
 palsied with terror — the old man and his daughter 
 clinging to the carriage, as to an ark of safety — the 
 stern faces of twelve men, like the apostles of " God’s 
 vengeance,” glaring in upon the wretched pair — Hack- 
 stoun, alone, half withdrawn from the scene (because 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 63 
 
 he had had a personal dispute with the Archbishop) — 
 Burley’s sword advanced, and quivering with homicidal 
 eagerness — the broad landscape below, and the young 
 sun of May above, watching the tragedy. Their victim 
 refused to obey their orders, but, with the frantic ear- 
 nestness of Morris, in Bob Boy, he poured out entreaties 
 for his life. He would save their lives — he would give 
 them money — he would even lay down his title of 
 bishop if they would but spare him. Their answer was 
 ready: — “we intend to take your life, not for hatred of 
 your person, nor for prejudice you have done to us, but 
 because you have been an avowed opposer of the Gospel 
 and kingdom of Christ, and a murderer of his saints, 
 whose blood you have shed like water — thy money 
 perish with thee! — mercy for thee! who never didst 
 show mercy to others !” Also they made the name of 
 murdered Mitchell ring in his ears. At last the wretched 
 man left the carriage, but still refusing to prepare by 
 prayer for his fate, clung on his knees to Hackstoun, 
 whom he knew, and entreated him — an entreaty backed 
 by the wild cries of his daughter — to save his life. It 
 was in vain; Hackstoun refused to interfere, either for 
 or against him. Another of the party pleaded for him 
 to no purpose, and then the swords of Burley and the 
 rest were plunged into his body, and he died pierced 
 by wounds, each one of which might have let out a life. 
 They even mangled his body after he was dead, and 
 committed other brutalities we do not record. And all 
 this was done in broad daylight, within three miles of 
 his own home — and the twelve men left the moor um 
 molested ; and not one of them was ever, for that action, 
 put to death. Enough, surely, in such an age, to make 
 many exclaim, “ It is the judgment of God !” 
 
64 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 Nevertheless, the deed was even then condemned 
 loudly by the more moderate of the Covenanters. We 
 have a severe, yet measured, sentence to pronounce. It 
 was “ a crime, and worse, a blunder.” Although Sharp 
 had been the persecution incarnate, it was clear that 
 from his ashes another and a fiercer persecution would 
 arise. Blood thus shed would become the seed of a 
 hundred other persecutors. But while the principal 
 persecutor, he was not the only one, and it was certain 
 that his death would intensify the zeal of his associates. 
 Besides, the man was defenceless, aged, taken at terrible 
 odds, and was killed, clinging, as it were, to the horns of 
 the altar of a daughter’s tenderness and misery. “ Oh, oh, 
 ’twas foul ” to see those silver hairs dabbled in blood — to 
 see his home in the distance, sending perhaps its smoke 
 forward to meet him — and to hear the shrieks of 
 parent and child, blended in one discordant wail, to 
 which even the wild bay of St Andrews, one might 
 dream, would have listened in pity ! But, at the same 
 time, we must make much allowance for the distempered 
 times — the oppression making wise men mad — the 
 mistaken sense of duty evidently actuating at least soma 
 of the parties — the suddenness of the impulse — the 
 greatness of Sharp’s crimes, and the fact that he was 
 taken “ red handed,” new from an act of cruel pro- 
 spective persecution, and hastening on toward others. 
 As for the man himself, the keenest advocates of the 
 Scottish episcopal church are not much inclined to 
 identify their cause with him, but have treated his 
 character rather coldly. He seems to have been a man 
 of respectable morality and tolerable attainments, 
 although some of the presbyterians will have it that he 
 was a “ fornicator,” a “ murderer ” of his own illegiti- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 65 
 
 mate child, and what, if a more venial, is rather a more 
 probable offence, a pilferer of other men’s sermons— 
 the parent thus of a very numerous progeny of clerical 
 thieves — but mean, double-minded, cruel, and all whose 
 real glory, in after times, has probably been lent him by 
 his figure seeming to stand in the painted window of a 
 bloody death. 
 
 The times were savage, and there was not, on the 
 side of either party, much regard paid to human life. 
 But Wodrow and other presbyterian writers contend 
 that assassination was never inculcated ere this at field- 
 meetings; and that actions of this kind on the part of 
 the persecuted, bare no proportion to the murders com- 
 mitted in “ cold-blood ” by the persecutors, who had 
 not the same excuse. Without stopping to criticise the 
 term “ cold blood,” as if the blood of the assassin were 
 not seven times hotter than that of the regular soldier, 
 we must say, that we think much of the sympathy felt 
 for Sharp arose from the fact that he was an arch- 
 bishop. But is the blood of a pheasant more provoca- 
 tive of pity than that of a meaner fowl ? And surely, 
 if there be a balance in such a matter as brutality, the 
 cruel death of Sharp must kick the beam if weighed 
 against that of J ohn Brown, the Ayrshire carrier. 
 
 The persecutions now, as might have been expected, 
 began to wax hotter and hotter. The death of Sharp 
 furnished the government with a new and comprehen- 
 sive test, to be applied to all suspected persons: — “ Is 
 Sharp’s death murder or no ] ” If the person said yes, 
 he was passed over — if no, he was laid in prison — if he 
 remained silent, his silent thought was dug out into a 
 quick treason. To Sharp, in the council and court, 
 succeeded the celebrated advocate, Mackenzie, currently 
 
66 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 called tlie “ Bluidye Mackenzie ” — a harsh, imperious, 
 and brow-beating lawyer — the Jeffries of Scotland; and 
 in the field there soon after appeared the notorious 
 Claverhouse. 
 
 Previously, what was called the “ Highland host,” an 
 army of eight thousand barbarians from the Grampian 
 mountains, had been quartered in the west, and had 
 committed fearful ravages upon property, and outrages 
 upon human life. To support these savages, and their 
 successors in the miserable warfare, what was called 
 “ the Cess ” was imposed. This, like the Indulgence, 
 served to divide the presbyterian party. Many paid 
 it under protest. Others denounced the payment of it, 
 as implicating them in the guilt of the purpose to which 
 it was applied, and as expressing obedience to the 
 tyrannical government by whom it was imposed. Those 
 who refused to pay became of course the victims of a 
 double share of the general persecution; and to stimu- 
 late that to its fiercest point, Claverhouse was dispatched 
 and commissioned to lash those with scorpions, for whom 
 the whips of Turner, Dalziel, and the Highland host 
 were thought too merciful. 
 
 He was a man, on the whole, fitted for the office of 
 gathering up the gleanings of a harvest' field of confis- 
 cation and blood. He was not one of those whose eyes, 
 as has been said of Charles I. — 
 
 “ Could bear to look on torture , but durst not look on war." 
 
 He was equal to both, and in both he had, sooner 01 
 later, large experience. Having served abroad with dis- 
 tinction, he returned in time for the hideous work that 
 was now allotted him in Scotland. He was, unques- 
 tionably, a soldier of skill, courage, and success, and 
 faithful to the Stuart cause; but there the catalogue of 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. QJ 
 
 his merits must end. He was cruel and heartless, even 
 beyond those who preceded him in that “ bad eminence.” 
 He seemed to exult and luxuriate in the wretched chase, 
 as well as in the spoils it procured him. As “ an 
 orphan’s curse,” according to Coleridge, " can drag to 
 hell a spirit from on high,” so it is not easy to resist 
 the curse of a country, and that curse is pre-eminently 
 the curse of C] avers. Well says Junius, “ the people 
 are often wrong in their opinions; in their sentiment s 
 they are never mistaken,” and it were as wise to seek to 
 alter the general sentiment about Nero, or Richard III., or 
 George IV., as to whitewash the blood-stained reputa- 
 tion of Claverhouse. Let those who try it beware lest 
 none should be found equally ready to defend their 
 fame, however tarnished it should become, in the act of 
 praising a brutal ruffian. Let his recorded deeds and 
 general opinion, found too, as fresh this hour in the 
 rural districts of Scotland as ever it was, be his fitting 
 monument. What generous sentiment did he ever 
 utter ] What good deed has ever been laid to his 
 charge ? Suppose the accusations made against him 
 exaggerated, what is there to counterbalance them ? 
 Fidelity and courage, undoubtedly, he possessed, but so 
 does a bull-dog, and what had he more ? — His face has 
 been pleaded as his vindication, and so has Nero’s — 
 and so, for aught we know, might be that of Judas 
 himself. To us, as we saw it on the walls of the 
 ancient castle of Glammis, it seemed precisely the proud, 
 melancholy, haughty, self-centred visage, which we had 
 imaged to ourselves, reflected back scowling from the 
 many pools of presbyterian blood which he recklessly or 
 malignantly shed. 
 
 In spite of his efforts, and the many proclamations 
 
68 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 which were issued against field-meetings, these continued 
 to be held, and with greater audacity than ever. On 
 the 29th of May 1679, the day appointed to commemo- 
 rate the restoration of Charles II., a band of conventic- 
 lers, to the number of eighty men, led by Robert 
 Hamilton, entered Rutherglen, a village near Glasgow, 
 put out the bonfires kindled in honour of the day — 
 burned at the cross all the acts which had been issued 
 against the covenanted reformation — and published a 
 declaration, condemning all the proceedings of govern- 
 ment since the restoration. It was a bold act, had it 
 been well seconded. As it was, its immediate result 
 was the mission of Claverhouse to the west, at the head 
 of a body of dragoons, with full powers to put down 
 the rising. Sweeping along, at full speed, he reached 
 Hamilton, where he surprised John King, chaplain of 
 Lord Cardross, with fourteen others, whom he seized, 
 bound, and drove before him, on his way to disperse a 
 large field meeting, which he heard was to assemble on 
 Sabbath morning, the 1st of June, at Loudon Hill. We 
 know not if he wrote to his masters, “ God willing,” he 
 would scatter them. But, certainly, God was not 
 willing that this meeting should be so summarily dis- 
 persed. It must, instead, fight a battle — gain a victory 
 — create a rising — and become memorable for evermore. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT 
 
 69 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 THE BATTLES OF DRUMCLOG AND B0THWELL BRIDGE, 
 WITH THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 The country, around Drumclog, was then a dreary, 
 desolate mixture of muirs and quagmires — sullen brown 
 and bright treacherous green alternating ; with high but 
 heavy fells above, and deep morasses and rough streams 
 below — Loudon Hill stands up king of the desolation, 
 looking down, however, upon the fair straths of Avon 
 and of Clyde, and up, “ with awful reverence prone,” to 
 his monarch on the east, the gigantic Tinto. In the 
 heart of these dark wolds, there met, on Sabbath morn- 
 ing, the 1st of June, (1679) a very singular assembly. 
 It consisted of neighbouring presbyterian peasants, 
 mingled, however, with fugitives from various parts of 
 the country; some on horseback, and almost all armed. 
 We recognize, in yonder stern -faced man, with broad 
 blue bonnet, and red hair, seated like a pillar on his 
 horse, and keeping his eye fixed upon the distant hill, 
 John Balfour, of Burley, who has come hither from 
 Loch Leven and Magus Muir, in search of safety. Near 
 him is a taller man, of military appearance; it is Colonel 
 Cleland. That tall thin man with the black hair is 
 Hackstoun, and beside him you descry the portly form 
 of Robert Hamilton,* who has retreated from the bon- 
 fire at Rutherglen to these moors. The services of the 
 
 *Of Preston, afterwards Sir Robert. 
 
70 THE martyrs and heroes 
 
 day have commenced, and Douglas is denouncing the 
 evils of tyranny, when, hark ! a watchman, posted upon 
 the neighbouring height, fires his carabine, and runs to 
 ward the meeting. The sign of danger is recognised — 
 the preacher pauses — the armed men fall into position 
 — and the women and the children retire to the rear. 
 Burley, Cleland, and Hamilton busy themselves in 
 arranging their troops; so that when Claverhouse and 
 his men cross Calder Hill they find the Covenanters 
 posted to the utmost advantage, with a morass in front, 
 a hill behind, the foot occupying the centre, and a com- 
 pany of horse on each of the flanks. Claverhouse sends 
 a flag, summoning them to surrender. It is answered 
 by a shout of defiance, and, after a short silence, the 
 whole army break out into the trumpet-like psalm — 
 
 “ In Judah’s land God is well known, 
 
 His name’s in Israel great ; 
 
 In Salem is his tabernacle ; 
 
 In Zion is his seat. 
 
 There, arrows of the how he brake, 
 
 The shield, the sword, the war ; 
 
 More glorious thou, than hills of prey, 
 
 More excellent art far. 
 
 Those that were stout of heart are spoiled, 
 
 They slept their sleep outright ; 
 
 And none of those their hands did find 
 That were the men of might. 
 
 When thy rebuke, 0 Jacob’s God ! 
 
 Had forth against them passed, 
 
 Their horses and their chariots both, 
 
 Were in a dead sleep cast. ” 
 
 How solemn and thrilling this old psalm of Israel, 
 om a thousand strong voices, echoing through the 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 71 
 
 wilderness, and sounding like the challenge of God 
 among the everlasting hills ! 
 
 Claverhouse and his men replied to it with a loud 
 cheer, and rushed upon the morass. They were met by 
 a close fire — staggered under it— returned to the charge, 
 and made several desperate but unsuccessful attempts 
 to cross the bog. Failing in these, their leader next 
 sent flanking parties to the right and the left. Cleland 
 and Burley, who commanded upon the left, permitted 
 the flanking party to cross the ditch, and then furiously 
 assailed and cut them to pieces. At this moment there 
 arrived John Nisbet, of Hardhill, one of the bravest of 
 the Covenanters, who, himself a host, had been sent 
 for in haste to his house, which was not far off, but 
 was too late for the beginning of the fray. He cried 
 out instantly “ Jump the ditch and charge the enemy.” 
 Burley and he led the men across and attacked the 
 right flank at the same time that Hamilton and Hack- 
 stoun brought the main body into full action in front. 
 Claverhouse bore their shock bravely, and performed, 
 it is said, prodigies of valour, the boldest of the Coven- 
 anters bearing back from him, and some crying out, 
 “ He has the proof of lead — try him with silver or the 
 cold steel.” He might, perhaps, have redeemed the 
 fortunes of the day, had not a countryman, with a 
 pitch-fork, to use his own language in his despatch, 
 “ made such an opening in my roan horse’s belly, that 
 his guts hung out half an ell, and yet he carried me off 
 a mile.” This threw his men into confusion, and it 
 became a hopeless rout. Up Calder-hill, crestless, 
 staggering on his mangled steed, surrounded by his 
 men in the last state of disorder, and pursued by the 
 Covenanting horse, rode the “ man of blood.” When 
 
 F 
 
72 THE MART YES AND HEROES 
 
 he reached the village of Strathaven, the villagers rose 
 and tried to cut off his retreat. He broke through them, 
 however, leaving a dozen killed and wounded on the 
 ground, and never rested till he reached Glasgow, 
 whence he sent a letter, dated the 1st of June, although 
 probably written after midnight, to the commander of 
 the forces, giving a laconic and curious account of his 
 defeat. He owns to having lost eight or ten men, be- 
 sides wounded, of his company; but says that the 
 dragoons lost many more. By comparing all accounts, 
 the entire loss of the royal army in this memorable 
 skirmish must have been about forty or fifty, and that 
 of the Covenanters amounted to at least a dozen. It 
 was the first and the last battle ever lost by Claverhouse. 
 
 Claverhouse’s watchword on that day had been “ No 
 quarter,” and had he succeeded a fearful butchery had 
 stained the brown moors, and reddened the dull marshes 
 of Loudon Hill. The Covenanters behaved with greater 
 humanity. In spite of their general, Hamilton, who 
 appears to have been a brave fanatic and pious fool, and 
 who quoted Psalm cxxxix. to sanction his meditated 
 barbarity, they saved the lives of their prisoners. The 
 same evening they marched to the town of Hamilton, 
 the country rising en masse to join them; and the next 
 day they made an imprudent sally into Glasgow, where 
 they were easily repulsed, and compelled to retreat, and 
 to set up their camp in Hamilton again. The dead they 
 left in the streets of the city were denied burial, and 
 otherwise brutally maltreated. But Claverhouse, satis- 
 fied with repelling the first assault, withdrew his troops 
 to Edinburgh, and the insurgents entered Glasgow with- 
 out opposition. The success at Dramclog had taken 
 the Covenanters, as well as the country, by surprise, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 73 
 
 and it became soon evident that they were not equal to 
 the crisis they had created. They had thousands pour- 
 ing in to join their ranks, but these were, for the most 
 part, undisciplined. They had some able officers, but 
 no great leading mind. Hamilton we have just 
 characterised. Burley was brave as a lion, " fierce as 
 ten furies, 1 ” and possessed, probably of as much sagacity 
 as courage; but there were doubts as to his religion, and 
 the stain of Magus Muir, so vividly branded on his brow, 
 rendered him unpopular with many. Hackstoun was 
 gallant but did not win his richest laurels till Bothwell 
 Bridge. “ Oh ! for an hour of Cromwell 1” must have 
 been the exclamation of some in that motley host who 
 had served at Marston or at Dunbar. There were, 
 besides, too many clergy in the army, who, not con- 
 tented with exerting their due influence in preaching 
 and exciting the courage of the warriors, carried their 
 controversial spirit into council, and, as one of the party 
 complains, “ broke by their divisions this little army 
 before it was broken by the enemy. 
 
 Discord had shed many of her apples amidst the 
 Covenanting host. But the principal points of contro- 
 versy were connected with the “ Black Indulgence,” and 
 the authority of the king. The question about the In- 
 dulgence was not whether it was wrong — in this most 
 of them were agreed — but whether it should be ex- 
 pressly condemned in a proclamation which they were 
 preparing to justify their conduct. Hamilton, along 
 with two ministers, Cargill and Douglas, carried in op- 
 position to the moderate party, that it should. They 
 moved also a day of fasting; but as there was a 
 difference of opinion about the reasons of the humilia- 
 tion, it was never kept. The moderate party insisted 
 
74 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 that in their proclamations they should own the autho- 
 rity of the king ; Hamilton and his faction were for 
 ignoring the subject. Ultimately, a declaration was 
 published at Glasgow, on the 13th of June, in which 
 the king’s authority was expressly asserted. But while 
 such vain j anglings, and the heart-burnings produced 
 by them, were distracting the little camp, a cry from 
 the east began to strengthen every day, — “ They come.” 
 Monmouth had been summoned from England to take 
 the command ; and now he, Lord Livingstone, Claver- 
 house, and the fierce Dalziel, at the head of a large 
 compact force, were marching slowly towards Hamilton 
 to extinguish the rebellion. 
 
 This army is said to have been ten thousand strong 
 — about double the number of the Covenanters. It 
 was composed of some English Regiments, the flower of 
 Charles’s army — of the Scottish Life-Guards, the chosen 
 troops of Clavers, still smarting under the disgrace of 
 Drumclog — of other Scottish regiments of regulars — a 
 large body of cavalry, including many gentlemen-volun- 
 teers, and several strong parties of Highlanders, whose 
 savage appearance, language, and arms, rendered them 
 peculiarly terrible, many of whom had served in the 
 “ Highland host,” and had then imbibed or communi- 
 cated grudges, received or inflicted injuries, which were 
 not likely to be forgotten, by them or by their enemies, 
 in the coming battle. Monmouth was inclined to heal- 
 ing measures, and hence the slowness of his march 
 westward. But the fiercer spirits around him were, no 
 doubt, smelling the battle afar off, anticipating a swift 
 and summary vengeance, and perhaps sufficiently aware 
 of the dissensions of the army of the Covenant to be 
 certain that it was an easy prey. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 75 
 
 Alas ! for that doomed host ! A fanatical imbecile at 
 their head — eighteen squabbling ministers as their 
 spiritual fathers — controversy raging in every rank — a 
 panic, too, beginning to spread, and hundreds dropping 
 off hourly to seek their homes, or to plunge into the 
 moors — only a few men of remarkable conduct and 
 courage among their officers, the rest, ministers, officers 
 and men, became a mere mob, agitated to and fro, like 
 trees in the wind, by an odium theologicum , instead of 
 being urged forward by one determination to conquer or 
 to die — our wonder is, not that they were scattered, but 
 that they made head for an hour before the foeman. 
 Of all the satires written on the Covenanters, from Old 
 Mortality downwards, none has been, by ten thousand 
 degrees, so withering as that recorded by themselves on 
 the field on the south-western side of Bothwell Bridge. 
 
 On Saturday the 21st of June, the royal forces were 
 coming into sight, and still the disputes were waxing 
 hotter and hotter. It had become not a camp, but a 
 very large, confused, and angry congregational meeting, 
 with dozens speaking at one time, and the president 
 having left the chair. One was urging that all the 
 places in the army should be declared vacant and that 
 officers should be harmoniously chosen; others intro- 
 duced again the subject of the Indulgence, which led to 
 a fierce dispute, and to the withdrawal of Hamilton and 
 some others of his party from the place of meeting. 
 The only result of the disputes of this long summer day 
 was, that a supplication should be presented to Mon- 
 mouth, giving an account of their grievances, and crav- 
 ing an audience early on the morrow. 
 
 The morning of the 22d of June at last dawned. It 
 was a Sabbath-day, precisely three weeks after the 
 
76 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 victory at Prumclog. Calm was the morning, and 
 brightly did the sun shine on the rippling Clyde — the 
 bulwarks of the old bridge — the moor edged with trees, 
 on which the Covenanters were encamped — the scarlet 
 and blue colours of their banner and on the advancing 
 standards, parti-coloured uniforms, and glittering arms 
 of the royal forces, which occupied the north-eastern 
 side of the stream. A deputation had gone early that 
 morning to Bothwell village, where the duke had spent 
 the night, and had laid before him their supplication, 
 which sought, among other things, for the free exercise 
 of their religion, for a free parliament, and a free general 
 assembly. The duke received them civilly, and heard 
 them with patience, but refused to treat unless they 
 first laid down their arms, and submitted to the mercy 
 of the king. He wished them to return to their army, 
 and send him back an answer in half an hour. They 
 returned accordingly to their constituents — delivered 
 their message — the disputes revived with tenfold fury — • 
 the half hour expired, and all was over. 
 
 The position of the Covenanters was undoubtedly 
 strong. They had between them and the enemy a long 
 narrow bridge, well fortified, with a barricade in the 
 midst, and with houses and thickets on their side of the 
 river, which were crowded with defenders. The river 
 on both sides of the bridge was fordable ; but still, had 
 efficient measures been taken, the passage might have 
 been kept, and “ Bothwell had been Bannockburn/’ 
 But the palsy of fear united with the frenzy of faction 
 to unman and distract them. While one strong party 
 defended the bridge, the mass on the moor fluctuated 
 to and fro, like the waves of the sea. Hackstoun led 
 the men on the bridge ; Burley and Captain Nisbet, with 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 77 
 
 their foot and horse, were above it, and along the river- 
 side. Lord Livingstone conducted the assault. For an 
 hour the bridge was bravely defended. Hackstoun won 
 himself honour by the energy and courage he displayed. 
 As column after column rushed on, they were annihilated 
 by the raking fire of the Covenanting guns. When 
 another column attempted to cross the river, it was 
 thrown into disorder by a well-directed fire from Burley’s 
 troops, staggered in the stream, and was forced to retreat. 
 The main body should have pushed on to support 
 these brave defenders; but they were too busily em- 
 ployed in listening to harangues. Even without their 
 aid, the force on the bridge might have maintained its 
 ground, had not its ammunition failed. Again and 
 again they sent for supplies in vain. At last a barrel 
 arrived, which, when opened, was found to be of 
 raisins, instead of powder! We may well conceive the 
 astonishment and rage, deepening into horror, if not 
 blasphemy, of the whigs when the cask was opened. 
 Nevertheless, they continued the struggle. Without 
 ammunition, without a reserve, without hope, Claver- 
 house and Livingstone pressing in the front, and con- 
 fusion fast dishevelling into a rout in the rear, they 
 fought on, till overpowered by numbers and literally 
 driven off the bridge. Then the main body became 
 sensible, when too late, of the fatal mistake they had 
 committed. In vain did some of the leaders try to 
 rally them. The Lord had, in their own emphatic 
 language, “ delivered them into the enemy’s hands ! 19 
 Burley might well, as Scott describes him, lean on his 
 sword, in resolute despair, as he contemplated the ruin 
 before him. The controversialists, as might be expected, 
 were miserable combatants. They yielded like snow to 
 
78 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 the charge of the life-guards. It now ceased to be a 
 battle, and became a butchery. Claverhouse, burning 
 for revenge, encouraged his men to every excess of 
 cruelty. Twelve hundred men threw down their arms 
 on the moor. They were stripped almost naked, and 
 forced to lie down flat on the ground. If one raised his 
 head for a moment he was instantly shot. About four 
 hundred perished in all, some of whom had no arms, 
 and had come to the camp merely to hear sermon. The 
 confused and routed mass rolled toward the town of 
 Hamilton. Here Burley attempted a rally, and, shielded 
 by the streets, might have kept the enemy at bay for a 
 time, had not his sword-arm been broken by a shot. 
 He is said to have exclaimed, “ May the hand wither 
 that fired that shot ! ” and to have sought for safety in 
 flight. At Hamilton we part from this fearless man, 
 who soon after found a refuge in Holland, and is said 
 to have descendants there to this day. Peace to his 
 memory ! History preserves the names of few sterner, 
 stronger, and more ruggedly- determined men. 
 
 The victory was complete, and but for Monmouth’s 
 interference the carnage would have been frightful. 
 Some of the officers talked of burning Glasgow, Hamil- 
 ton, and the country around Bothwell; but the general 
 rejected the proposal with indignation. Instead of 
 this he issued a proclamation, promising pardon and 
 indemnity to all tenants and sub-tenants who had been 
 at Bothwell, provided they submitted themselves by a 
 certain day. But before this was issued, innumerable 
 barbarities had been committed by the parties of 
 soldiers who were scouring the country; the borders 
 were secured to prevent the escape of fugitives, and the 
 prisoners on their way to Edinburgh were treated with 
 revolting cruelty. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 79 
 
 Rushing into Galloway, Claverhouse far overstepped 
 all others, and his commission besides, in acts of 
 cruelty and annoyance. His memory, especially in the 
 parishes of Carsephairn, Balmaclellan, and Glencairn, 
 is that of a destroying angel. He made little distinc- 
 tion between those who had been at Bothwell, and 
 those who had not. He seized on horses, plundered 
 houses, and committed men, women, and children to 
 imprisonment, when he did not doom them to death. 
 
 The prisoners in Edinburgh were now to be dealt 
 with. The two ministers, King and Kidd, whom 
 Claverhouse had seized, and whom the Covenanters had 
 rescued at Drumclog, were put to death, although they 
 had not been at Bothwell, and were merely passive 
 spectators of the former battle. Five others, who had 
 no participation in the death of Sharp, were taken to 
 Magus Muir, executed, and hung in chains. Twelve 
 hundred were huddled together in Greyfriars church- 
 yard, with no covering but the sky, and no couch but 
 the cold earth. Of these some died; others made their 
 escape; others were set free on signing an obligation 
 never to take arms against the king; and about two 
 hundred and fifty-seven were expelled their country, 
 and shipped for the island of Barbadoes, there to be 
 sold as slaves. Of these, two hundred were drowned in 
 a storm off the Orkneys, the captain having first 
 secured his crew, and then shut the hatches upon the 
 unhappy prisoners. The remainder were saved. 
 
 But the results of the battle of Both we] 1 Bridge were 
 of a much more extensive and disastrous kind. It led 
 to more severe and systematic oppression on the part of 
 the government; it drove the persecuted into deeper 
 seclusions than they had ever penetrated before ; and it 
 
80 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 produced extravagances of sentiment, action, and Ian* 
 
 guage, which only barbarous treatment can excuse. 
 
 They now retired into remoter wildernesses, compared 
 to which the moor of Loudon Hill was a champaign 
 country. Sunless glens; dank morasses, where peat- 
 water was the only drink ; old forests ; the summits of 
 hills, lonely and buried among the surrounding moun- 
 tains; dark wooded and rocky dens by roaring cataracts ; 
 caves, the mouths of which were concealed by brush- 
 wood or by rowan trees, and the roof and sides of 
 which were dripping with a damp and unwholesome 
 dew ; such were the retreats into which Scotland’s per- 
 secuted children were now compelled to carry their Bibles 
 and their swords. The wildernesses of Galloway, of 
 Nithsdale, and of Ayrshire, were suddenly peopled with 
 strange, wild-seeming, solitary men, with long grizzly 
 beards, gaunt visages, eyes burning with the glow of 
 earnestness — the grey gleam of the partition between 
 enthusiasm and madness — all bearing little clasped 
 Bibles in their bosoms, and short, but true-tempered, 
 shabbies by their sides. Sometimes they met in broad 
 day-light for worship, but in numbers much less, and 
 with spirits not nearly so buoyant, as on that Sabbath 
 morning at Drumclog. Now the precautions they took 
 against surprise were much stricter, but at the same 
 time their spirits were even prouder and more deter- 
 mined. They were like chafed lions or bears bereaved 
 of their whelps. The language of their preachers had 
 soared up into a wilder poetry, an austerer symphony, 
 than before. One is reminded of the days of Israel’s 
 prophets; of Moses, wandering at the foot of the mount 
 which he is yet to climb, in all the trembling pomp of 
 a lonely mission, to the feet of the fire-girt God ; of 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 81 
 
 Elijah, in the cave, listening to the mighty wind, the 
 earthquake, and the fire, which are gone before the 
 Lord ; of Ezekiel, astonished upon the banks of Chebar, 
 or gazing on the valley of dry bones; of John the 
 Baptist, feeding on his locusts and wild honey, in the 
 midst of that great and terrible wilderness, and clad in 
 his garment of camel’s hair; of Jesus himself, treading 
 in majestic solitude the mountain of the Temptation, or 
 wrestling with the adversary who encountered him there. 
 Inferior, indeed, the inspiration issuing from these 
 modern Eremites ; not to be named the plaids of those 
 latter wanderers with the sheep-skins and goat-skins of 
 the men of other days; but in sufferings in solitude, 
 and in deep-hearted earnestness, Cargill, Cameron, and 
 Renwick, may be ranked even with that list of con- 
 fessors who inhabited “ dens and caves of the earth, 
 being destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the 
 world was not worthy.” 
 
 Their worship was not unfrequently performed at 
 night, under the canopy of Scotland’s midnight heaven, 
 with Orion on the south, shining in meek yet mighty 
 rivalship with the Great Bear of the northern sky, with 
 the Pleiades passing overhead like a star dissolving into 
 its particles of glory — with meteors shooting across the 
 deep of the stars — with the wind wailing in its passage 
 over a thousand moors — with streams mingling their 
 many voices with its doleful melody — did these per- 
 secuted Christians meet, and their hoarse psalm, and 
 the loud deep voice of their preacher, did finely har- 
 monize, and make up the full complement of those 
 “ voices of the night.” And as the preacher warmed 
 with the theme, and alluded to that brief gleam of 
 victory which visited their cause at Drumclog, or 
 
82 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 bewailed the fatal bridge of Both well, fierce eyes became 
 fiercer in the darkness ; their Bibles were clasped with 
 greater earnestness to their bosoms ; their hands uncon- 
 sciously grasped their swords, and the whole congrega- 
 tion moved like the waves of a stormy sea, and swore 
 as it were, one deep silent oath to avenge their quarrel 
 and the quarrel of their desert-inhabiting God. Few 
 now comparatively the voices to sing their war-melody 
 — “ In Judah’s land;” but rougher and deeper were 
 their accents, and the psalm seemed now the cry of blood 
 going up to heaven from the silent wilderness below, 
 and through that starry desert above, which conducts, 
 by its long and burning stages, to the throne of God. 
 
 Such exercise amid such scenes was sure to be- 
 wilder many, to exasperate others, and to madden not 
 a few. Every one remembers how Scott has described 
 the education of Brian, the hermit, the demon-sprung 
 ■ — how 
 
 “ The deserts gave him visions wild 
 Such as might suit the spectre’s child ” — 
 
 how the mist was woven into mysterious faces — how 
 ghostly beings seemed to spring from the spray of the 
 waterfalls, and how at night the voices of wind and 
 stream became unearthly prophesyings, or weird lamen- 
 tations — how the sound 
 
 “ Of charging steeds careering fast 
 Along Benharrow’s shingly side, 
 
 Where mortal horsemen ne’er might ride.” 
 
 disturbed his slumber, and excited his frenzied imagi- 
 nation. And so, too, it was with the Cameronians. 
 Alone with nature in its most rugged forms, haunted 
 by those dreary hills which were at once their defence 
 and their terror — stung by memories of past cruelty on 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 83 
 
 the part of their enemies, and sometimes on their own 
 side — emaciated by hunger, and reading perpetually of 
 the marvels and miracles of a by-gone day — a gloomy 
 giant-shape of superstition took possession of their 
 souls. It was not in fairies “ dancing their ringlets to 
 the whistling wind,” nor in the ghosts of the departed 
 “ revisiting the glimpses of the moon,” that they so 
 much believed, as in forms of the worship of awe, 
 sterner and wilder and less indigenous to Scotland. 
 They believed in magic, and in Satanic agency. Their 
 enemies were all sold to Satan. Claverhouse was proof 
 against lead, and so was Dalziel. Sharp had been a 
 sorcerer, and fitly died on Magus Muir. It was magical 
 power which arrested their career at Glasgow, and 
 smote them with that ruinous panic at Bothwell. It 
 was customary they said for drunken prelates to meet 
 at midnight, and to drink the devil’s health. They 
 did not, however, ascribe everything to the devil. They 
 too often made God another devil, and attributed to 
 him every sudden or surprising death that befell their 
 persecutors. Sometimes, like Arius, their bowels gushed 
 out. Again, their tongues swelled in their mouths till 
 they could speak no more. Again, they were found 
 lying with mouths gaping wide, and tongues hanging 
 out, as if bit by the invisible ghost of a mad dog. A 
 comrade runs one of them through the body, at the 
 very spot where he had bound Mr Cargill, and with an 
 oath too terrible to be repeated by us he expires. 
 Sometimes, their bodies rotted away piecemeal, and 
 sometimes the wine they were about to drink was 
 turned into congealed blood. Such were the dreadful 
 myths which despair and solitude engendered between 
 them in the covenanting mind. To this class, too, pro 
 
84 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 bably, belong many of the prophecies they incessantly 
 ascribe to some of their more eminent ministers. Cam- 
 eron, Cargill, Renwick, were all in the habit of predict- 
 ing events which afterwards happened. Cargill, for 
 instance, when threatened by Rothes with a violent 
 death, said that, whatever his death might be, he should 
 never live to see it ; and on the very morning of the 
 execution of Cargill, Rothes is said to have died in 
 horror. Cameron, too, was endowed with the same 
 power. To the laird of Logan he said, that he should 
 be written childless, and to Horsecleugh, that he should 
 suffer by burning, both of which afterwards came to 
 pass ! But the principal of those clear- seers was the 
 famous Alexander Peden, a native of Ayrshire, 
 and who, after many wanderings and imprisonment 
 in the Bass Rock, and many hair-breadth escapes, 
 at last died in his brother’s bed. When forced 
 to leave his pulpit, he laid an arrest upon it, “ that none 
 should enter it, except one that, like himself, came in by 
 the door;” and accordingly it is said, that neither curate 
 nor indulged entered it till after the Revolution, when 
 one of the presbyterian persuasion was appointed its 
 minister. He prophecied, also, a great many cases of 
 sudden and supernatural death. He joined the Pent- 
 land rising; but foreseeing its destruction, very pru- 
 dently left it at the Clyde. On Both well’s fatal day, 
 he was forty miles off, and declined to preach, because 
 the Lord’s people were at that hour fleeing before their 
 enemies at Hamilton, and their blood running like 
 water. Such is a mere sample of the extraordinary 
 stories about this man. 
 
 The devil, sometimes, they thought, assumed bodily 
 form for the purpose of disturbing their assemblies, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 85 
 
 One story is curious. It is a tent-preaching, near a 
 river — the people are rapt in attention to the minister 
 — when lo ! a tall black man is seen crossing the stream 
 to join them. Suddenly his foot slips, he is carried 
 down the current — he uproars for a rescue — the people 
 rush in a body to the side of the stream — they throw 
 him a rope — he seizes it, but, instead of his being pulled 
 out, they are being pulled in, till the preacher cries out, 
 “ Let gae the rape — it’s the enemy come to disturb our 
 devotions — he may burn, but he winna drown — let gae 
 the rape, I charge you.” They obey him, and the de- 
 tected and discomfited adversary goes down the rivei 
 bellowing out his rage and disappointment. Many a 
 time has this wild tale recurred to us, in our boyhood, 
 when attending out-of-door preachings, in a field near 
 thy lovely environs, O, dear village of Comrie ! with 
 the dark-green summer Grampians looking on around, 
 with the sun of summer shining overhead, and with the 
 blue stream of the Earn rounding itself like an arm 
 around the sacred spot, and seeming to linger near, and 
 to warble out a low gurgling symphony with the spirit- 
 ualities of the solemn scene; often have we there 
 glanced an eye, half in fear, half in hope, around, in 
 case, peradventure, the tall black stranger should be 
 seen crossing the southern ford of the river. But he 
 came not. May we not say, modifying an expression of 
 Coleridge's, 
 
 “ The terrible has vanished and returns not ?” 
 
 The superstitions, whether lovely or fearful, of “ puir 
 auld Scotland," are, along with a great portion of its 
 religion, for ever fled; and what have we got in ex- 
 change ? 
 
86 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 That all the cases of fulfilled prophecy on the part of 
 the persecuted, and of sudden and disastrous death on 
 that of the persecutors, were false in fact, or exaggerated 
 in circumstances, we do not believe. We have a pro- 
 found belief in 'presentiment , as a peculiar and, as yet, 
 unanalyzed power in the human mind ; a power too, 
 susceptible of extraordinary stimulus and cultivation in 
 extraordinary circumstances; and such were those of 
 the Covenanters. 
 
 i( The glance of melancholy is a fearful gift.” 
 
 The eye of the enthusiast is often not that of an owl, 
 but of an eagle. And, like the eyes of clairvoyance, or 
 of certain men in broad day-light, it often sees furthest 
 when it seems most completely shut. These Cameronian 
 ministers were stung into an intense and almost insane 
 excitation and consciousness. They were, at the same 
 time, travelled and learned men; they were well ac- 
 quainted with the circumstances and characters of their 
 foes and of their friends ; and their sharpened knowledge 
 and high-strung enthusiasm combined to form between 
 them an insight, which though unequal and intermitting, 
 might rise at times to the borders of the prophetic and 
 the divine. It is impossible to trace all the strange co- 
 incidences and fearful works recounted by the historians 
 of the Covenanting times, either to fanaticism or to im- 
 posture. There is a residuum which such shallow theories 
 will not account for, and cannot contain — a truth within 
 all this exaggerated circumstance which we want a 
 name at present to characterise, and a gauge, as yet, to 
 try. But while granting this, we are none the less dis- 
 posed to admit that many of the stories told, if not the 
 majority, appear to our reason and our faith, as well 
 
87 
 
 OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT, 
 as to our logical understanding, palpable falsehoods— 
 serving no real end, teaching no real truth, tending to 
 damage even then, and having much more damaged the 
 real cause of the Covenant since, and separated from the 
 miracles and predictions of early Christianity by a great 
 gulf — namely, that, of inferior evidence, an inferior oc- 
 casion or nodus , and an inferior inspiration or afflatus , 
 on the part of those who are said to have wrought or 
 pronounced them. The occasion of the introduction or 
 the religion of the earth might have justified, and did 
 we believe, justify, the departure from ordinary laws ; 
 but not so the defence of this outpost, although impor- 
 tant, of the presbyterian cause in Scotland. 
 
 To suppose that all these recorded wonders actually 
 occurred involves many difficulties; — such as, why did 
 so many occur within such a short period? — why were 
 they not husbanded as is God’s wont, with severe* 
 economy? — why did they exceed in number all the 
 miracles of Jesus and his apostles put together? — why 
 were they almost entirely miracles of judgment? — and 
 why did their rumour (unlike that of the miracles of 
 Christ and the prophecies of John) not shake the world, 
 and not even the paltry throne of Charles II. ? But, 
 on the other hand, to deny altogether the truth of some 
 of those current traditions were to shatter the credit of 
 history — to stamp insincerity and falsehood upon the 
 character of those who had sacrificed their all for their 
 cause ; and to convert those mountain-altars, where a 
 race of true, though over- excited, men worshipped, 
 wrestled, fought, and died, into the stages of the 
 coarsest of all histrionic lies, or else into the cells of 
 the wildest of all maniacal delusions. Not for either of 
 such unfortunate ends had these noble, though un- 
 
88 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 balanced, men been led by God into the wilderness, or 
 been told, in bis unutterable voice, “ to resist unto 
 blood, striving against sin.” 
 
 The offences or errors we have been partially ex- 
 plaining, or in some measure defending, belonged, more 
 or less, to all the Covenanting party. But, apart from, 
 and in dubious altitude above, even tbe followers of 
 Richard Cameron, there arose a certain sect, called the 
 Sweet Singers, or Gibbites — deriving their name from 
 an insane sailor of Borrowstoness. This party made up 
 for their smallness by the united intensity and perfect 
 possession of their absurd idea. Hearing perpetually of 
 protests against all sorts of spiritual evils, they began 
 to protest against all kinds of carnal calamities and 
 resources too, nay, almost against life itself. They 
 abandoned the stimulants of our modern life, abjured 
 toll, custom, and tribute, nay, seated themselves on the 
 Pentland hills, expecting not the Saviour from heaven, 
 but simply that Edinburgh the hated city, should sink 
 into the flames, as their leader had predicted. By-and- 
 bye, they gave up Christianity too, burned their Bibles, 
 and became a species of mormonites. Their extrava- 
 gances, as is generally the case, injured others more than 
 their infatuated selves. They had nothing to lose, but 
 their errors and absurdities cost a great deal to the 
 general cause. Their folly and excesses were shorn off, 
 and gratuitously transferred to those who shunned and, 
 perhaps too much, despised them. 
 
 The doings of the persecuted began, however, apart 
 from this, to assume a certain fierce and troublous 
 aspect. The light of their testimony was turned into 
 blood. One Henry Hall, of Haughead, was apprehended 
 at Queensferry, and a paper found on him was deemed 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 89 
 
 treasonable in its expressions, and was, under the name 
 of the Queensferry paper, quoted and used against all 
 who were suspected of leaning to the Covenanting 
 cause. A little afterwards, Cameron and Cargill broke 
 off from their brethren, and published a declaration, 
 denouncing Charles as a tyrant and usurper, and de- 
 claring war against him. And, following out this bold 
 stroke with one bolder still, the same Donald Cargill, at 
 Torwood — a place famous in the history of Wallace — 
 after divine service was over, ventured to excommuni- 
 cate and “ deliver unto Satan ” King Charles, the Duke 
 of York, the Dukes of Monmouth, Lauderdale, and 
 Rothes, General Dalziel, and Advocate Mackenzie. It 
 was singular that Claverhouse was omitted, unless the 
 worthy minister thought it needless to give one over to 
 the devil who was so manifestly his already. Yet this 
 binding of so many distinguished men into “ a bundle 
 for the burning,” was itself a strangely significant sign 
 of the times. 
 
 And now came the darkest hour of the Covenanting 
 night. Statutes and proclamations were issued, com- 
 pared to which the severest laws of the past were milk 
 and honey. The government had now obtained a plau- 
 sible pretext for putting the country under martial law. 
 Letters of intercommuning were issued against those of 
 the Covenanters who had made themselves obnoxious to 
 government, prohibiting all, under the pain of death, 
 from intercourse or communion with the proscribed. 
 Whoever was suspected of such practices was dragged 
 to the courts and strictly examined. Terrible, too, were 
 those cross-questionings; since there were not only en- 
 snaring queries, but these were enforced by torture — 
 by the horrible boots — the thumbkins — the application 
 
90 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 of lighted matches between the fingers —and by other 
 devices, of a cruelty equally ingenious and infernal. 
 Victims were insulted in court, and beaten with canes 
 as they were mounting the scaffold. Children were 
 hustled, beaten, and kicked, to get them to betray the 
 wanderers. Women, guilty of nothing but absenting 
 themselves from the curates, were used with unmanly 
 brutality, and huddled up with female murderers, as 
 they went calm and prayerful to the scaffold. One 
 grand test, was, “ Will you say, ‘ God save the king V ” 
 Need we wonder, that many, smarting under their suf- 
 ferings, or the memory of what their friends had suffered 
 — remembering, that while their king was inhabiting a 
 harem, they were immured in an earthly hell — believing 
 him, moreover, to be a detestable deceiver — that they 
 could not say, “ Amen, 5 ’ when others said, “ God bless 
 him V 9 Near Wigton, water became an agent in theii 
 torturing hands, as fire had been long before. One 
 Margaret Wilson, along with an aged woman, were 
 bound to stakes planted in the sea within flood-mark. 
 The old woman speedily perished, but Margaret, while 
 panting in the pangs of death, was pulled up, was asked 
 if she would swear the adjuration oath, and, refusing, 
 was thrust again into the water and drowned. This 
 oath, which a woman of sixty -three, and another of 
 eighteen, refused to take, bound those who swore never 
 to take arms against the king ! 
 
 In 1684 another measure, still more cruel, was 
 adopted. The common soldiers were empowered, with- 
 out indictment or trial, to put to death suspicious per- 
 sons, if they refused to take the oaths, or to answer the 
 questions which they pressed upon them. Hence oc- 
 curred the never-to-be-forgotten murder of John Brown. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 91 
 
 the Ayrshire carrier. This man lived at a house (still 
 standing, we believe,) called Priesthill, in the parish of 
 Muirkirk. It occupied an eminence commanding a wide 
 and waste view of heath, mosses, and rocks. John 
 Brown was an amiable and blameless man. He had 
 taken no part in the risings or public testifyings of the 
 times. His only crimes were, his non-attendance on the 
 curate of the parish, and his occasionally retiring, with 
 some like-minded, to a favourite ravine among the moor^ 
 where they spent the Sabbath-day in praise and prayer. 
 His wife was a noble spirit: blythe, leal-hearted, 
 humorous even. He, on the other hand, was gravely 
 mild and sedate, and her smile shone on him like sun- 
 shine on a dun hill-side, and transfigured him into glad- 
 ness. His family was one of peace, although Isabel 
 Weir was his second wife, and there were children of 
 the first alive. All were wont to pour out, like blood 
 from one heart, to meet him, when he was seen ap- 
 proaching on his pack-horse from his distant excursions. 
 Latterly, as the persecution fell darker, and closed in 
 around those Ayrshire wolds, John could no longer ply 
 his trade; nay, was even compelled, occasionally, to 
 Leave his home, and spend days and nights in the re- 
 moter solitudes of the country. Nevertheless, his hour 
 at last arrived. It was the 30th of April, 1685. John 
 Brown had been at home, and unmolested for some time: 
 he had risen early, and had performed public worship. 
 The psalm sung was the twenty-seventh; and the 
 chapter read the sixteenth of John; which closes with 
 the remarkable words, “In the world ye shall have 
 tribulation : but be of good cheer, I have overcome the 
 world.” His prayer was, as usual powerful and fervent; 
 for, although he stuttered in common speech, he never 
 
92 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 stuttered in prayer : he could not but speak fluently in 
 the dialect of heaven ! He then went away alone to the 
 hill to prepare some peat-ground. Meanwhile Claver- 
 house had come in late at night to Lesmahagow, where 
 a garrison was posted; had heard of John; had risen 
 still earlier than his victim ; and by six on that grey 
 April morning had tracked him to the moss; had sur- 
 rounded him with three troops of dragoons, and led him 
 down to the door of his own house. With the dignity 
 of Cincinnatus, leaving his plough in mid-furrow, John 
 dropped his spade, and walked down, it is said, “ rather 
 like a leader than a captive.” His wife was warned of 
 their approach, and, with more than the heroism of an 
 ancient Eoman matron, with one boy in her arms, with 
 a girl in her hand, and alas ! with a child within her , 
 Isabel Weir came calmly out to play her part in this 
 frightful tragedy ! 
 
 Claverhouse was no trifler. Short and sharp was he 
 always in his brutal trade. He asked John at once why 
 he did not attend the curate, and if he would pray for 
 the king. John stated, in one distinct sentence, the 
 usual Covenanting reasons. On hearing it, Claverhouse 
 exclaimed, “Go to your knees, for you shall immediately 
 die!” John complied, without remonstrance, and pro- 
 ceeded to pray, in terms so melting, and with such 
 earnest supplication for his wife and their born and un- 
 born children, that Claverhouse saw the hard eyes of 
 his dragoons beginning to moisten, and their hands to 
 tremble, and thrice interrupted him with volleys of 
 blasphemy. When the prayer was ended, John turned 
 round to his wife, reminded her that this was the day 
 come of wfliich he had told her when he first proposed 
 marriage to her, and asked her if she was willing to 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 93 
 
 part with him. “ Heartily willing/’ was her reply. 
 “ This/’ he said, “ is all I desire. I have nothing more 
 now to do but to die.” He then kissed her, and the 
 children, and said, “May all purchased and promised 
 blessings be multiplied unto you !” “Ho more of this,” 
 roared out the savage, whose own iron heart this scene 
 was threatening to move. “ You six dragoons, there, 
 fire on the fanatic!” They stood motionless, the prayer 
 had quelled them. Fearing a mutiny, both among his 
 soldiers and in his own breast, he snatched a pistol from 
 his belt and shot the good man through the head. He 
 fell, his brains spurted out, and his brave wife caught 
 the shattered head in her lap. “ What do you think of 
 your husband, now ? ” howled the ruffian. “ I aye 
 thocht muckle o’ him, Sir, but never sae mucke as I do 
 this day.” “ I would think little to lay thee beside him,” 
 he answered. “ If you were permitted, I doubt not you 
 would; but how are ye to answer for this morning’s 
 work ? ” “ To men, I can be answerable; and as for 
 
 God I will take him in my own hands!” And, with 
 these desperate words, he struck spurs to his horse, and 
 led his dragoons away from the inglorious field. Meekly 
 and calmly did this heroic and Christian woman tie up 
 her husband’s head in a napkin, compose his body, 
 cover it with her plaid — and not till these duties were 
 discharged did she permit the pent-up current of her 
 mighty grief to burst out, as she sat down beside the 
 corpse and wept bitterly. 
 
 The tale has been told a hundred times; and in any 
 of its versions is nothing more than a simple story. But 
 though simple, it is pregnant with meaning. It casts 
 a light far around its blood-lit page, upon the character 
 of those times. It proves that the rage of the perse* 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 91 
 
 cutors had become insatiable, and sought, at last, not 
 even the pretext or shadow of crime to justify its out- 
 rages. It sheds a pleasing ray upon the domestic life 
 of the persecuted; and shews that their wrongs had 
 never been able to render them regardless of common 
 duties and household charities. John Brown and his 
 wife are made to stand out from the deepest privacy; 
 they are bathed, amid their moors, with the light that 
 never was on sea or shore, and have become characters 
 equally dear to the romantic imagination and to the 
 Christian heart. And it needed only this last instance 
 of cold-blooded depravity to add a conclusive hue of 
 blackness to the character of him whom some would 
 now exalt into a hero — the chivalrous, gallant, and 
 accomplished Claverhouse. 
 
 Sometime previous to this, Richard Cameron and 
 David Hackstoun had met their fate. Cameron was an 
 eloquent, brave, pious, although a gloomy and one-sided 
 man. He was born in Falkland, in Fife — he had spent some 
 time in Holland — he became an ardent defender of the 
 extreme measures adopted by some of the Covenanters ; 
 and after the battle of Bothwell Bridge was pursued 
 with peculiar inveteracy among the southern wilds. It 
 had been predicted, it is said, on the day of his ordina- 
 tion by the minister who laid his hand on his head, 
 that “ that head should be lost for Christ’s sake, and 
 set up before sun and moon in the sight of the 
 world.” It was previously often laid on the lap of the 
 heather, and often bared to the breeze, as he uttered his 
 fearless field-harangues. He was the most powerful of 
 the Covenanting preachers. His action was energetic, 
 his voice thunder — thunder, the reverberations of which 
 Btill linger in the west and south of Scotland ; for from 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 95 
 
 him proceeded tlie once numerous and still considerable 
 sect of the Cameronians. He, with Hackstoun, and 
 about sixty horse and foot, were abiding together in 
 the Highlands, between Nithsdale and Ayrshire, when 
 Bruce of Earshall came suddenly up and surprised them 
 at a lonely spot called Airsmoss, where they were so 
 hemmed in by bogs that their only chance lay in break- 
 ing through the ranks of the enemy, and dispersing 
 themselves among the desert paths. Ere battle was 
 joined, Cameron prayed aloud, commending the little 
 company to the God of Battles, and saying, twice or 
 thrice, with peculiar emphasis, “ Lord spare the green 
 and take the ripe.” Turning then to a brother who was 
 beside him, he said, “ This is the day I have longed for, 
 and the death I have prayed for; this is the day I shall 
 get the crown. Come, let us fight it out to the last.” 
 The party made a brave and brief resistance. The 
 royal troops amounted to more than a hundred well 
 armed and well horsed. After some manoeuvring and 
 skirmishing they fronted each other face to face. The 
 Cameronians, like the Clan of Camerons afterwards, 
 generally drew the first blood, and it was so at Airs- 
 moss. Their horse fired first, and killed and wounded 
 several. The enemy’s fire, however, was more effectual; 
 and Hackstoun finding the horse behind him broken, 
 determined, if possible, to clear a way for himself, and 
 for those of his party who durst follow. He dashed 
 into the midst of the dragoons, pierced the foremost 
 rank, and went out at the side, without the slightest 
 injury. But his friends were unable to follow his 
 example, and the foeman pursued him close. He rallied 
 once and again, drove several of them back at the 
 sword’s point, and might have effected his escape had 
 
96 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 not his horse fallen into the bog. In a moment, how- 
 ever, he leaped from the saddle, and encountered in 
 single fight his nearest enemy. While thus gallantly 
 engaged, three horsemen came behind him, and he fell 
 pierced with three hideous wounds in the back of the 
 head. He was searched and carried to the rear. 
 Although their leader was thus lost to them, the 
 remnant of the Covenanters continued to fight like 
 lions, till they could fight no more. None yielded, few 
 fled, most of them were killed, or else wounded and 
 taken prisoners. Noble Cameron met the death he had 
 expected, and, beside his brother, 
 
 “ With his back to the field and his face to the foe,” 
 
 restored to God a spirit that had long refused to bow to 
 aught inferior to Him. His triumphant enemies, 
 balked of the pleasure of taking him alive, and giving 
 him a public ignominious death, wreaked their vulgaf 
 vengeance on his corpse — cut off his head and his hands, 
 to accompany Hackstoun to Edinburgh, and buried his 
 mutilated body with those of the rest of the sufferers, 
 under the sods of the glen. And then the roar of 
 battle was hushed in the deep silence of the moss. The 
 lonely place so shortly and bloodily disturbed, was left 
 to the peasweep, the bee, and the fox; or shall we 
 rather say to the spirits of the brave dead hovering over 
 their corpses and over the ruins of their cause, till the 
 chariot should come to receive them up — that chariot 
 described long years afterwards by the poet: — 
 
 “ Its drivers were angels, on horses of whiteness, 
 
 And its burning wheels turned upon axles of brightness/* 
 
 And back rolled, meanwhile, the tide of the enemy’s 
 force, with Cameron’s head and Hackstoun’s bleeding 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 97 
 
 wounds, toward the capital of Scotland. A monument 
 has since been erected at Airsmoss to the memory of 
 Cameron. It was needless. The truest monument was 
 the quiet spot itself, and his noblest mourner has been 
 Alexander Peden, who once sat down on the grave, and 
 with his head bare, and his eyes turned up to heaven, 
 exclaimed, “ Oh ! to be vjith Ritchie /” 
 
 Hackstoun was not long in rejoining his friend. He 
 was first brought to Lanark before Dalziel, who threa- 
 tened to roast him; then bound barbarously in the 
 Tolbooth ; and, in a day or two, he entered Edinburgh, 
 sitting on a horse with his face backward, with three of 
 his friends bound on a goad of iron, and with Cameron’s 
 head (and fingers uplifted as in prayer) carried on a 
 halbert before him. He behaved then, as ever before 
 and afterwards, with the most indomitable courage; 
 and told the council, when he had been condemned, 
 that “ they were all murderers, and that oppression, 
 perjury, and bloodshed were to be found in their skirts.” 
 The particulars of his execution were even, beyond 
 usual, horrible. First his right arm and left were cut 
 off, next he was drawn up to the top of the gallows 
 with a pulley, and suffered to fall down again with his 
 whole weight, upon the lower scaffold, three times, and 
 then fixed at the top of the gallows. Next, ere he was 
 dead, his breast was opened with a large knife, and his 
 heart pulled out, stuck upon a knife, held up to the 
 crowd, while the executioner exclaimed, “ This is the 
 heart of a traitor,” and finally thrown into a fire and 
 consumed. His body, too, was quartered, and its four 
 parts, after his head had been affixed to the Netherbow 
 m Edinburgh, were distributed to St Andrews, to 
 Burntisland, to Leith, and to Glasgow. And thus there 
 
98 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 passed away a gallant man, who, from his courage, con- 
 stancy, and determined action in behalf of the cause he 
 xoved, has gained a nook of fame, and has soared up 
 from the retired Fifan valley where his fathers lived, 
 into the honours which attend a Christian confessor. 
 “ It is fitting,” says Burke, “ that those who are made 
 to suffer, should suffer well” and this was never more 
 true of any than of David Hackstoun and the kindred 
 spirits of his time. 
 
 The wide distribution of this heroic spirit of endur 
 ance has been sometimes made an argument against its 
 sincerity, or at least its value. It is spoken of as a 
 rage — an epidemic — but surely it was a noble rage, and 
 an epidemic which could only have affected earnest 
 natures. Coarser, no doubt, were the habits, and 
 harder the frames, of our fathers, but who can imagine 
 that they did not feel their tortures of body and of 
 mind with intense acuteness ? The fire produced pre- 
 cisely the same effects on their bodies as it would on 
 ours; the gibbet hung in the same sable terrors before 
 their eyes as it would to ours. Or, if they had greater 
 robustness and less sensibility than we, the horrors they 
 were called on to encounter were in Keate’s fine 
 thought, “ portioned to a giant nerve,” and were such, 
 the very expectation of which would make us now ex- 
 pire. Many deaths were then condensed into one; and, 
 to the essential bitterness of the cup of death, every 
 conceivable element of insult and agony was added. 
 Pride and wrath, indeed, could sustain the hand of the 
 sufferer, as he lifted the thrice-drugged cup to his lips, 
 or even drained the dregs; hut only sublime enthusiasm 
 and faith, could show him heaven and all its glories 
 glassed on it, as on a mirror and awaiting his coming 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 99 
 
 when the pang was past and the spirit had soared away. 
 There were abuses connected with martyrdom, and 
 there might be counterfeit or maniac martyrs, but on 
 the whole it was a glorious fact, darting a light down 
 into the deepest abysses of our nature, and up into the 
 Highest altitudes of our hope; and not till this age has 
 produced something second, or similar, let it dare to 
 sneer at or underrate those “ who came out of great 
 tribulation, and who washed their robes in the blood of 
 the Lamb.” 
 
 The Duke of York had declared that, “ there would 
 never be peace in Scotland till the whole of the country 
 south of the Forth was turned into a hunting field.” 
 There appeared, for a season, some likelihood that his 
 words were to be verified. In the years 1684 and 1685, 
 which were called emphatically hilling time , the military 
 scoured the country, in every direction, in search of the 
 fugitives. It was one great chase. Blood-hounds were 
 employed to discover the retreats of the wanderers, and 
 their deep-mouthed bellow, reverberated by the echoes 
 of the glens and gulleys, added another touch of the 
 fearfully romantic to this unexampled persecution. It 
 was as if a strange storm had enveloped all that chain 
 of mountains whence the Nith, the Dee, the Annan, and 
 the Clyde have their source, while the rest of Scotland 
 was gazing stupified at the gathered gloom, and hearing 
 the far-off echoes of its thunders. The ‘‘woman” was 
 dwelling in the wilderness — but not alone — and if 
 “ nourished ” there, it was with wormwood and with 
 blood. Trial had long been abandoned — accusation, 
 even, had now ceased. If a countryman was descried 
 running or walking quickly across the fields, or found 
 reading in the fields, it was enough, he must be a 
 
it 00 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 frightened rebel, a Bible-reading fanatic, and was shot. 
 Five wanderers were couching in a cave in the parish 
 of Glencairn : their retreat was discovered: the soldiers 
 came up, first fired into the cave, then rushing in 
 brought them forth to execution, and, without asking a 
 single question, put them to death. One man being 
 observed to be still alive was thrust through the body 
 as he lay. Raising himself up from his couch of blood, 
 he cried out, with his last breath, “ Though every hair of 
 my head were a man, I would die all those deaths for 
 Christ and his cause.” How poor to this, though ap- 
 parently imitated from it, the exclamation of Fergus 
 Maclvor, “ Were all the blood of my ancestors in my 
 veins, I were free to peril it in this quarrel.” 
 
 Thus environed on every side, many of the Cameron- 
 ians perished; but many also met with remarkable- 
 escapes. “ Wonderful,” says honest Wodrow, “ were 
 the preservations of the persecuted about this time. 
 The soldiers frequently got their clothes and cloaks, and 
 yet missed themselves. They would have gone by the 
 mouths of the caves and dens in which they were lurk- 
 ing, and the dogs would snook and smell about the 
 stones under which they were hid, and yet they re- 
 mained undiscovered.” Once only, after Bothwell, 
 besides Airsmoss, was there an actual skirmish, although 
 there must have been many individual encounters. 
 There is a steep pass in Dumfriesshire, called Enter- 
 kin, winding between green hills above and a sheer pro- 
 found precipice below. It is a misty morning, and 
 along the half-seen path a company of dragoons carrying 
 with them to Edinburgh nine prisoners, bound on 
 horses, are sounding on slowly their dim and perilous 
 way. Suddenly, a voice is heard from the hill above. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 101 
 
 The commanding officer exclaims, “ Who are ye — and 
 what do you want i ” In reply, twelve men step for- 
 ward through the mist, which seems to dispart like a 
 curtain, and, from a height surmounting the pass, their 
 leader cries, “ Sir, will ye deliver up our minister ? ” — 
 telling his men, at the same time, to make ready ! The 
 officer, with an oath, refuses. The countryman, with an- 
 other word, shoots him through the head, and his horse, 
 frightened at his fall, rears back over the precipice and is 
 dashed to pieces. Eleven more shots are about to be fired, 
 when the officer next in command seeks a parley, and 
 offers to release the minister, saying to him, however, 
 as he unbinds him from the chain, “ You owe your life, 
 
 Sir, to this d d mountain.” “ Rather,” replied he, 
 
 “ to the God who made the mountain.” The rest of 
 the prisoners are then demanded and obtained, and the 
 cowed and crestfallen troop is glad to pass on with 
 their own worthless lives. 
 
 From the confused cloud of blood, which for those 
 years enwraps the history of Scotland, we mark out 
 several prominent figures, distinguished at once in emi- 
 nence of character and’ in severity of fate. F our should 
 be particularly mentioned, who were involved in the 
 consequences of the Rye house plot; namely, Sir Hugh 
 Campbell, of Cesnock, Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwart, 
 and the Rev. William Carstairs, and Robert Baillie, of 
 J erviswoode. This last, in point of talents and accom- 
 plishments, as well as in gentleness of manners and 
 amiability of character, was, perhaps, the first man in 
 Scotland. Dr Owen himself, a theological giant, and 
 accustomed to the society of his kindred, was yet greatly 
 struck with Baillie, whom he met in London, and said 
 of him to a friend, “ You have truly men of great spirits 
 
102 THE martyrs and heroes 
 
 in Scotland : there is, for example, a gentleman, Mr 
 Baillie of Jerviswoode, a person of the greatest abilities 
 I almost ever met with.” His only counter-balancing 
 crime was, he was an ardent lover of liberty and pres- 
 byterianism. In June 1676, he had suffered from the 
 enmity of Sharp. Having interfered in behalf of one 
 Thirlston, who had been illegally arrested, he was sum- 
 moned to the council, fined four hundred pounds, and 
 kept four months in prison ere he was released. After- 
 wards he retired to England, and became involved in 
 the great whig plot. To this step, he must have been 
 urged by his experience of the evils of tory and popish 
 tyranny in his native country. He was seized about 
 the same time with Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, 
 but brought down to Scotland to undergo a more pro- 
 tracted punishment than they. He endured a long con- 
 finement, unrelieved by the presence of his wife, although 
 she offered to be put in irons, as a security against any 
 attempt on her part to promote his escape. He was 
 next submitted to an expedient common in those times, 
 that of a purgative oath. This, however, he refused to 
 swear, and was, in consequence, fined nearly six thou- 
 sand pounds. Although retained still in prison he, 
 doubtless, thought that the bitterness of death was past. 
 He was mistaken. After some months more of im- 
 prisonment in a loathsome dungeon, where his strength 
 was wasted, and everything save his soul decayed, he 
 was at last brought forth to trial, in his flannels, and 
 with his sister waiting beside him with cordials to sup- 
 port his sinking frame. The court met at midnight, 
 and, after sitting till nine in the morning, sentenced 
 Baillie to be executed the same afternoon. The reason 
 of this was — that very simple and Satanic one- -they 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 103 
 
 were afraid of being anticipated by a natural death 
 Like Lord Warriston, he had to be supported up the 
 steps of the scaffold, his noble sister clinging to him to 
 the last. The voice of this “ great spirit of Scotland ” 
 was drowned in drums, but his last words were generally 
 understood to be, “ I go with rejoicing to the God of 
 my life — to my portion and inheritance — to the husband 
 of my soul. Come Lord.” 
 
 Sir Patrick Hume, afterwards less creditably known 
 from his connection with Argyle’s expedition, escaped 
 from prison, and found refuge in the vault of his own 
 family burying-ground, where his wife spread him a bed, 
 and where the only light came from the presence of his 
 daughter, who stumbling over grave-stones, harassed by 
 barking dogs, and obliged often to secrete food from the 
 table — (dropping, on one occasion, a sheep’s head into 
 her lap, and astounding the children by its unaccount- 
 able disappearance) — nightly fed her father, not, indeed, 
 like the Roman daughter, with her own milk, but cer- 
 tainly at the hazard of her own blood. It were a curious 
 task, could it be fully accomplished, to describe or even 
 enumerate all the places of refuge which the children of 
 the Covenant found. What a panorama of linns — moss- 
 haggs — caves where foxes and badgers were wont to 
 abide — hollows of old immemorial trees — the northern 
 sides of lofty precipices — the margins of lonely lakes, 
 where thick woods overhung the waters — church-yards, 
 and other haunted spots, where the fear of the dead 
 repelled those who were thirsting for the blood of the 
 living — coalpits — hay-stacks — corn and clover-fields — 
 garrets — ale-barrels — meal-chests — and beds, would 
 pass before us, and could all, not only be realised to the 
 
 eye of fancy, but attested by the evidence of unques- 
 
 H 
 
104 : THE MARTYRS AND HER0E3 
 
 tionable facts ! For evasive as electricity, subtle as the 
 presence of flame, unquenchable as light itself, is a 
 chased principle, a true enthusiasm, when hooted at and 
 hunted like a partridge on the mountains. Many 
 waters cannot quench it; neither can the floods drown 
 it. And thus, too, does a country receive a new mean- 
 ing, and a nobler consecration. What has Scotland to 
 show better than the places hallowed by the memory of 
 these her determined and disinterested sons ? She has, 
 it is true, fairy nooks of beauty, desolate tracts of mag- 
 nificence, bold black mountains, long-spreading straths, 
 and lakes of surpassing calm; but “ eaith has a thou- 
 sand such elsewhere, as worthy of our wonder.’ 1 Mexico, 
 California, Australia, Norway, Iceland, Siberia, the 
 regions of Himalayeh, possess many mightier and richer 
 attractions to the mere lover of scenery. But where 
 the Wallace of Iceland ? Where the Bruce of Mexico 1 
 Where the Hackstoun, the Balfour, the Cameron, and 
 the Baillie of the great colonies of the southern hemis- 
 phere ? Wliere the consecration and the poet’s dream? 
 Where the moral charm, such as, in the eye of 
 Johnson, shed a softer colouring on the ruins of Iona 
 than ever gleamed on the vale of Tempe, or on the 
 palaces of Ind ? We need not borrow the idea of 
 Akenside, that mind gives the charm to scenery, but 
 we do say that spirit — the spirit of patriotism, courage, 
 intellect, and religion combined — gives new beauty to 
 nature — a beauty which can never wither — and stamps 
 poetry and meaning and immortality on what otherwise 
 were often a cold and dead and barren page. And this 
 charm, we boldly assert, belongs to every spot where 
 these true-hearted Covenanters wrestled, or prayed, or 
 suffered, or wandered, or died. Their very crimes have 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 105 
 
 shed a strange lustre upon the scenes where they were 
 committed, and Magus Muir is as interesting to many 
 as the meek graves of the martyred in dim glen or dis- 
 tant shaw, — 
 
 “ Where Cameron’s sword and his Bible are seen 
 Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green.” 
 
 There is one spot, very remarkable in itself, to which 
 the touch of the feet of these men has added a deep 
 supplemental interest; we mean the Bass Kock. Who 
 that has ever sailed up the superb Frith of Forth, or 
 looked abroad from the Calton Hill or Arthur’s Seat, 
 has failed to notice that mountain sunk in water, like a 
 half-drowned hill of the deluge, bearing aloft so proudly 
 its head, as of a veteran who has buffeted the wars of 
 many stormy years, rising precipitously to its foul 
 hundred feet elevation above the sea, with the grey 
 ocean murmuring out the subdued and hopeless rage of 
 centuries against its inexpugnable foundations, with its 
 one entrance on the south-west, its bare herbage, its 
 ruined castle, the cave which cuts it through, like a deep 
 wound, or a breach which the sea has been able to make 
 but not to force, and the solan geese and innumerable 
 other sea-fowl which clang continually around it in con- 
 cert with the everlasting wail of the discomfited deep ? 
 Amid all the striking points of that magnificent land- 
 scape, — the couchant lion of Arthur’s Seat, the huge 
 spine of old Edinburgh “ throned on crags,” and rising 
 in irregular terraces toward the Castle, the finely-sloping 
 Calton Hill, Salisbury Crags — the Giant’s Causeway of 
 Scotland — the blue Pentlands to the south, the green 
 Ochils to the north, the Frith flowing between, as if 
 to smooth the ancient wound which made the ridges 
 two ; North Berwick Law rising to the east, and in the 
 
106 THE martyrs and heroes 
 
 north-west the peaks of “ Rob Roy’s country,” watching 
 as if with jealousy, their younger brethren, and carry- 
 ing off the view and the fancy into the far Highlands 
 — amid all this, there is no one object which more arrests 
 the senses, stirs the imagination, and so stands out in- 
 sulated and alone from the rest, as that deserted and 
 ancestral stone of ocean, called the Bass Rock. This 
 rock was purchased by the crown, through the inter- 
 vention of Lauderdale, from Sir Andrew Ramsay, of 
 Abbotshall, then Provost of Edinburgh, at the price of 
 L.4000, with the avowed object of turning it into a 
 prison for nonconforming presbyterians. It is almost 
 the only prison which has seldom if ever enclosed guilt. 
 The cries of innocence alone ever awakened its echoes. 
 By a sublime alchemy of God, this rock, which might 
 have become an abode of misery and of shame, has 
 been changed into a hallowed spot, contesting the claims 
 even of Iona, as one of the eyes of our Scottish isle ; 
 less venerable, indeed, in antiquity and in breadth of 
 interest than it, but quite as exciting to the heart of the 
 patriot and the Christian. A great many of the Cove- 
 nanters were confined at various times in the dungeons 
 of the Bass. These were very unwholesome, full of 
 stifling smoke, so that the prisoners had often to thrust 
 out their heads at the windows for air. The rock, too, 
 from its elevated exposure, was cold and damp. Hence 
 the health of the prisoners suffered; many contracted 
 diseases which lasted for life, and it was with consider- 
 able difficulty that some of them procured, on applica- 
 tion, freedom to walk abroad through the island. There, 
 however, by-and-bye, were a few seen wandering along 
 the cliffs, looking around to the “ melancholy main,” or 
 over to the Pentland ridge, where they or their friends 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 107 
 
 had spent one dark winter-day in resisting unto death. 
 Haggard the faces of these men, withered and wild 
 their attire, unshorn their beards; but the fire of ear- 
 nestness was in their eyes, stern determination lay on 
 their foreheads and lips, and as they paced the cliffs 
 and listened to the everlasting surge below, noble 
 thoughts and feelings crossed their souls, or burst out, 
 ever and anon, in words of solemn converse, or in 
 snatches of more solemn psalmody and praise. Thus 
 they spent the day, and when the sun had dipped his 
 orb behind the Lomonds of Fife, and the evening cast 
 its shade over the landscape, and the ocean was deepen- 
 ing his voice into those cadences which he sings to the 
 stars, they, without a murmur, returned to their dens, 
 and lay down to dream of heaven and the martyr’s 
 crown. Had there been a Bunyan among them, what 
 a yet nobler parable, what a diviner dream, than even 
 the Pilgrim’s Progress, might have dawned upon that 
 soul, as it slept to the rocking of the waves of the 
 many-sounding sea ! 
 
 There was no Bunyan, but there were some true and 
 high hearts confined in the Bass Bock. There Bobert 
 Gillespie, noted for his field-preaching powers, spent 
 several sad months. There Peden was confined for four 
 years, and had leisure to contrast the free moors of Ayr- 
 shire with the restraints of this house of bondage, and, 
 as he himself says, in a letter dated from the Bass, to 
 “ envy the very birds their freedom.” Truly there is 
 nothing more torturing to the heart of the imprisoned 
 than to see others enjoying perfect liberty. It is as 
 though the dungeons of hell were placed in sight of 
 heaven. Thither Boss and Macgillan were brought 
 from Cromarty and Boss-shire in the far north of Scot- 
 
108 THE martyrs and heroes 
 
 land. There sojourned for a short time Robert Trail, 
 an able theologian and author, who lived long after to 
 enjoy happier times. There was Alexander Shields, 
 author of that once well-known book, The Hind let 
 Loose, destined afterwards to die amid the groves and 
 arbours of the West Indies. There the brave Black- 
 adder was immured in his old age, and emerged only 
 to die. And there, apart from the rest, denied all in- 
 dulgence, never suffered to see the sea or the sun, James 
 Mitchell, who had attempted the assassination of Sharp, 
 spent a portion of his restless and half insane existence. 
 
 Such was the Bass — most romantic of prison-houses; 
 and such was the tyrannous rage of the predominant 
 party, which wrested a stronghold from the ocean, and 
 converted it into an instrument in the hand of their 
 compact and all-crushing oppression.* 
 
 That oppression was now, however, about to undergo 
 considerable modification. It was indeed high time. 
 The persecution had now raged, with more or less in- 
 tensity, for more than twenty years. It had, during 
 that time, done wonders of evil. It had imprisoned 
 thousands — it had banished thousands — it had killed 
 thousands — it had turned the greater part of the 
 south-west of Scotland into a field of human 
 chase, and it seemed to be aiming at the utter 
 extermination of the Covenanting race, as the one 
 last thing that could secure the establishment of episco- 
 pacy in the land. But now an event occurred which, 
 while threatening at first to deepen the gloom, turned 
 out to be the first ray of returning light. This was the 
 
 * The reader will also find interesting details of the Bass Bock 
 in “The Footsteps of our Forefathers,” by J. GL Miall. (London: 
 A. Cockshaw.) 
 
OP THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 109 
 
 death of Charles II. In February 1685, this merry 
 monarch became for the first time in his life serious, as 
 he felt death — the proverbial terror of kings — not 
 slowly stealing, but rapidly rushing, upon him. He 
 tried to hide the great and terrible fact from his eyes 
 behind the shield of a wafer. He died a member of 
 the “ Holy Koman Catholic Church ” — and much re- 
 gretted by his mistresses. A sentence of his own will 
 best express the relation in which he lived and died to 
 Scotland. " I perceive,” he said, “ that Lauderdale has 
 done a great many bad things against the people of 
 Scotland; but I cannot find that he has acted in any- 
 thing contrary to my interest.” There is something in 
 the cool nonchalant selfishness of this speech, that 
 reaches the sublime. He died; and the heart of many 
 a wanderer among the mosses and moors would have 
 beat with thankfulness and with joy at the tidings, 
 were it not that his successor was more hated and 
 dreaded than himself, and that now, for the first time 
 since the bloody Mary, an avowed papist had mounted 
 the throne of the three kingdoms. But the wheel had 
 reached the lowest point, and was about to revolve up- 
 wards. Scotland had “ turned the low corner of the 
 shortest day and was going up to summer ? ho ! ” 
 
110 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 CLOSE OF THE PERSECUTION. 
 
 The country was all but entirely mastered. Most of 
 the clergy were quietly chewing the cud of the indul- 
 gence. The Cameronians had lost their leaders. Cam- 
 eron was sleeping in Airsmoss. Hackstoun’s head was 
 frowning from the Netherbow. Burley was in Holland. 
 Peden was dying at Som, and “ soon to be with 
 Ritchie.” Nisbethad been arrested in Fenwick, and was 
 on his sure and rapid way to the Grassmarket. Cargill* 
 years before had been taken in Ayrshire, had had his 
 feet bound under a horse’s belly so tightly that the 
 blood sprang, and had been executed in Edinburgh, 
 while in the act of prayer. Renwick alone still lingered, 
 like a ghost, among the wilds, pursued by bloodhounds 
 — a high price upon his head — and meeting with hair- 
 breadth escapes almost every day. The Scottish parlia- 
 ment proved itself, the while, more subservient than 
 even the English to the purposes of James II., whom 
 it accepted as king without even requiring him to take 
 the coronation oath. 
 
 At this time, there shone a false anticipation of the 
 real morning that was at hand. We allude to the un- 
 fortunate expedition of the Earl of Argyle. This gallant 
 
 * He it was who, when pursued, leaped the linn of Ericht, near 
 Blairgowrie — a linn never, from that side, leaped before nor since 
 — and who said, when reminded of his “good loup ! ” “ Aye, but 
 I took a long run to it — I ran a’ the way frae Perth !” — fifteen 
 miles 1 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. Ill 
 
 nobleman — the son of the marquis who was executed in 
 1661 — had been required as a councillor to take the 
 Test : an oath, enacted in 1681, binding the swearer to 
 acknowledge the supremacy of the king in all civil and 
 ecclesiastical matters, to renounce the Covenants, and 
 on no account whatever to attempt any change in the 
 government in church or state, and yet containing in it 
 an acknowledgment of the true protestant religion as 
 exhibited in the old Scots confession of 1567. This 
 long, clumsy, self -contradictory oath was swallowed, for 
 the most part, very quietly. Argyle, however, took it 
 with a reservation ; and for so doing he was prosecuted 
 by the Duke of York for high treason! After a trial, 
 which was from beginning to end one malignant mockery, 
 he was found guilty and committed to the castle of 
 Edinburgh. Having too good reason to believe that 
 York was seeking his life, and having been urged to 
 this step by his friends, he made his escape in his 
 “ lacquey’s livery clothes,” carrying the train of his own 
 step-daughter, Lady Sophia Lindsay. In his haste and 
 confusion he dropt the train when passing the sentinel; 
 but she, with admirable presence of mind, threw it in 
 his face, with many reproaches of his carelessness, and 
 so besmeared him with mud that he was not recognized. 
 Her carriage was in waiting; he mounted behind as a 
 footman, and in passing through the streets dropt off, 
 dived into a lane, and was lost to pursuit. He reached 
 London, after many singular escapes and adventures, 
 and thence passed over to Holland. 
 
 The tale of his expedition has been told so lately and 
 so fully by Macaulay, that we need only mention its 
 main incidents. On the 1st of May, 1685, Argyle (who 
 was acting in conjunction with Monmouth) left Holland 
 
1 12 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 with three ships and a considerable number of men, and 
 in three days reached the Orkneys. From Orkney he 
 steered westward to the Hebrides, first to Islay, then to 
 Tobermory, in Mull, and next to Cantyre, where he 
 issued a proclamation which did little service to his 
 cause. On the 11th of June parliament passed an act 
 of virtual attainder against “ that arch-traitor, Archibald 
 Campbell, sometime Earl of Argyle.” At Tarbat he 
 published an address to his clan, and was there joined 
 by one thousand men under Sir Duncan Campbell. 
 Here he modelled his little army into three regiments, 
 and was for attacking Ballachen, his nearest foe, who 
 had only six hundred, but was prevented by Sir John 
 Cochrane and Sir Patrick Hume, who were destined to 
 be the drags and ruin of this unhappy rising. They 
 decided that the Lowlands should be invaded, and 
 every one knows how luckless the attempt was. At 
 length, at Inchinan, the earl, attempting to escape in 
 disguise, was made prisoner. He was brought to Glas- 
 gow, and thence under a strong guard, to Edinburgh, and 
 on the 20th of June was carried up the street, bound 
 and bareheaded — the hangman before him and the 
 horse-guards around and behind. He was considered 
 condemned already; the farce of a trial was thus saved 
 him, and an order from the king commanded instant 
 death. He behaved with admirable courage and com- 
 posure. He said, on the day he was to be led forth to 
 die, that it was a happier day than that on which he 
 had made his escape from the castle. He dined, took 
 a short sweet siesta, as was his wont after it, went out 
 calmly to the scaffold, kissed the maiden — the instru- 
 ment of death — and said it was the sweetest maiden he 
 ever kissed, and died with his hand uplifted, and the 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 113 
 
 words, “ Lord Jesus receive me into thy glory,” tremb- 
 ling on his lips. This was on the 30th of June. On 
 the 6th of July, Monmouth’s army was destroyed, and 
 thus the little gleam of apparent morning died away 
 from both lands almost simultaneously, and a thicker 
 darkness than ever threatened to succeed. 
 
 And so for a season it was. The gaols in Edinburgh 
 were already full to overflowing with prisoners. It was 
 determined, therefore, even before the issue of Argyle’s 
 invasion was known, in preparation for the superfluity 
 of captives, on which they confidently reckoned, to send 
 many to Dunottar castle, in Kincardineshire. Here, as 
 in the case of the wildernesses into which they chased 
 the Covenanters, and the Bass Bock to which they 
 elevated others, it would seem as if the persecutors had 
 been predestined to give that cause a romantic hue, 
 and to identify it with the most striking features of 
 Scotland’s scenery. The earth had again and again 
 helped the woman, but now the ocean must take its 
 turn in encircling her with its ancient glory. Emerson 
 speaks beautifully of nature coming in and environing 
 great moral transactions with a portion of its own love- 
 liness; so that Thermopylae’s scenery seems sternly to 
 reflect Thermopylae's deed ; and the Alps to become 
 the natural frontispiece to the heroic actions of William 
 Tell. And, on the same principle, we claim the wild 
 hills and seas of Scotland as a portion of the Covenant- 
 ing glory. Insincere and ignoble men were not likely 
 to have had such a back-ground; or, if they had, it 
 would have been a terrible rebuke behind them — have 
 Bunk them into insignificance or overwhelmed them with 
 contempt. It is the correspondence between the prin- 
 ciples maintained, the character of the men maintaining 
 
114 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 them, and the scenery which begirt them with its rugged 
 smile, and received them as favourite children into its 
 barren but true bosom, which has completed the diadem 
 of beauty and of glory over the heads of our Covenant- 
 ing heroes. 
 
 Dunottar Castle lies near the pleasant town of Stone- 
 haven, on the east coast of Scotland — a town about 
 fifteen miles south of Aberdeen, commanding a rare 
 combination of beauties, with rich wooded glens on the 
 westward, and bold bare cliffs overhanging the ocean on 
 the other side. On one of these cliffs are still to be 
 seen the ruins of this celebrated castle. The cliff is 
 like many others upon that bluff and rocky coast, which, 
 all along from Arbroath to Slain e’s Castle, seems, as 
 from the bosses of a mighty buckler, to repel the 
 assaults of the sea. The ruins stand out strongly, 
 ocean-ward; they are of great extent, resembling a 
 ruined town rather than a castle, and covering what is 
 almost a mountain. In a storm, the effect of the sea 
 breaking against their base must be sublime : as in all 
 cases where unity and calmness meet and resist blind 
 power and multitudinous fury. The writer once spent 
 a night or two a few miles to the south of Dunottar, in 
 a house situated on the margin of that same sea; and 
 will not soon forget how, for many hours in a stormy 
 November night, he lay awake in bed, listening to the 
 surges which were dashing their large volumes upon the 
 shore, and whose growl, as they receded, seemed that 
 of a wilderness of lions in full retreat. 
 
 As if to lay in the German ocean the spirit of the 
 Covenant, one hundred and sixty-seven prisoners were, 
 after they had refused to take the oath of supremacy, 
 bound; driven like cattle across Fife; landed at the 
 
OP THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. H5 
 
 ferry at Dundee; forced to continue their ignominious 
 march down the sands of the Angus coast; and, at last, 
 thrust promiscuously into a dark vault, now called the 
 “ Whig’s vault,” in Dunottar castle. There they found 
 their feet fast in the mire. There was only one window 
 opening to the sea. The mire was soon supplanted and 
 displaced — horrible to relate — by their own excrements. 
 In this situation they were pent up the whole summer. 
 Many died of disease. The keepers behaved most bar- 
 barously. Twenty-five of the prisoners made their 
 escape down the rocks ; but of these fifteen were be- 
 trayed by the people of the neighbourhood, were again 
 apprehended, and subjected to cruel tortures. They 
 were bound on a form, and a fiery match was placed be- 
 tween every finger — six soldiers waiting to renew the 
 matches. Some of them died, and the fingers of others 
 were reduced to ashes. This is altogether a gloomier 
 tale than that of the Bass rock. The one is a tale of 
 dignified and modified endurance ; the other, of un- 
 mitigated and disgusting horror. Fancy almost loves to 
 see the pious prisoners pacing their ocean-pinnacle ; but 
 imagination shivers as she conceives this mass of bruised 
 mortality, writhing, shrieking, twisting itself within its 
 narrow and loathsome limits, and the sea without seems 
 uttering a hoarser and fiercer protest around the northern 
 dungeon. It was reserved for our days, and for the en- 
 lightened government of the late king of Naples, to 
 supply a full parallel, in the treatment of its patriot- 
 prisoners, to the most minute and disgusting particulars 
 of the horrid imprisonment at Dunottar. Can we wonder 
 that even still, the sailor, storm-driven along the cliffs of 
 the Kincardineshire coast, and the peasant returning late 
 in autumn-eve from his labour, and hearing the night- 
 
116 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 boom of the sea, rising like the swell of some great ac- 
 cusing orator’s breast and voice when he is growing up 
 to the measure and the stature of his theme, should re- 
 gard with awe the shattered ruins of this castle — should 
 see divine judgment sitting, like a seated eagle, upon its 
 darkening towers, and should mutter a prayer as they 
 are hurrying past the dismantled den of legal murder 
 and oppression ? 
 
 Soon after this a change took place, which for a little 
 opened up another flattering prospect to the presbyter- 
 ians of Scotland. James, feeling already the insecurity 
 of his tenure of power and the strength of the jealousy 
 which his infatuated measures had provoked, deter- 
 mined at all hazards to conciliate the dissenters. In 
 1687 he published various acts of “indulgence/’ pro- 
 fessedly with the view of giving “ liberty of conscience,” 
 and “allaying the heats and animosities among the 
 several professors of the Christian religion; ” but which 
 were generally and justly suspected of being entirely 
 dictated by regard for the interests of popery and of 
 papists. These indulgences increased and liberalised as 
 they went on. First of all, they were extended only to 
 “ moderate presbyterians,” and those who accepted 
 them were strictly prohibited from attending barns, 
 meeting-houses, or the fields, although permitted to as- 
 semble in their own private dwellings. In this form, 
 none of the presbyterians accepted the boon. By-and- 
 bye, however, larger concessions were made; till at last, 
 in the July of that year, all penal laws for nonconfor- 
 mity were abolished, with the single exception of the 
 acts prohibiting field-meetings. This had, to some ex- 
 tent, the effect of soothing the minds of a large portion 
 of the Covenanters. The Indulgence, in its first shape, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. H7 
 
 had been little else than an insult to the presbyterians. 
 For, while the catholics were permitted to build chapels 
 and to carry the host in procession, and the quakers to 
 assemble in public edifices, they were confined to private 
 houses, and their ministers were not permitted to preach 
 without special license. But, in its ultimate form, the 
 bait was widely swallowed. The Cameronians alone 
 continued to stand out — saying, each one, in effect, 
 Timeo Banaos , et dona fermtes ! — rejecting the stream 
 which had flowed from such a polluted source, and cling- 
 ing to their own mountain-worship. This fact brings 
 our conception of their rugged heroism to a point. 
 Here, at the close of a long day of defeat and carnage, 
 we find them refusing quarter, and as determined as in 
 the morning to conquer or to die. Here, too, we find 
 another proof of that strange sagacity which distin- 
 guished them, no less than courage. From the height 
 of their hills, these lonely birds of the wilderness were 
 already smelling the great revolution that was approach- 
 ing. Again and again had Nisbet and others, in their 
 own wild way, predicted that the “ God of the Covenant 
 was soon to cut off the house of Stuart, and that none 
 of that idolatrous house was to tyrannise in Britain any 
 more.” Many “ burdens,” in imitation of the ancient 
 prophets, had these men flung against that dynasty — 
 nor did the “curse come causeless,” or fail of a speedy 
 fulfilment. 
 
 “ It is a curious fact,” says M‘Crie the younger, when 
 speaking of this particular time, “ ‘ when it was neither 
 darkness nor light/ that the form of worship differed 
 very little from that practised by the presbyterians. The 
 prelatic clergy had no liturgy, no ceremonies, no sur- 
 plices, no altar, no crossing in baptism. What is more 
 
118 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 remarkable, they had no confession of faith, no standard 
 of doctrine or discipline, no rule to guide their practice, 
 except the will of the bishops, which again was regu- 
 lated by the will of the king. A more singular church, 
 perhaps, never appeared on earth — it was neither 
 popery, prelacy, nor presbytery, but a strange jumble of 
 the three — the king being pope ; the council the cardi- 
 nals ; the bishops moderators ; and the dragoons of 
 Dalziel and Claverhouse, as Mackenzie once called them, 
 ruling elders.’” 
 
 We come now to the last of the Covenanting martyrs. 
 James Guthrie had been the first minister who had 
 suffered in the cause — James Renwick was the last. He 
 may be called the Malachi among those modern minor 
 prophets. He is described as a little fair-haired man, 
 with a comely countenance, and great unction and sweet- 
 ness of address. His letters, which are published, give 
 evidence of learning, ardent piety, and something which 
 verges on genius. In one of them, for instance, he 
 speaks of the muirs and mosses of Scotland being 
 flowered with martyrs. He speaks repeatedly of Luther 
 in the loftiest terms, and seems quite familiar with his 
 writings. His last letter closes thus, “ I go to youf 
 God and my God. Death to me is as a bed to the 
 weary.” He has left, too, a remarkable volume of 
 sermons, now scarce, but still precious. He had a 
 singular history. When a child of two years old, he of 
 his own accord tried to pray. Some years later he was 
 tortured with doubts as to the being of a God. Once, 
 looking at the mountains surrounding Glencairn, in 
 Nithsdale, the parish of his birth, he cried out, “ If 
 these were all devouring furnaces of burning brimstone, 
 I would be content to go through them all to be assured 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. H9 
 
 that there was a God.” These doubts passed away, 
 and, like Chalmers at one period of his life, he seems to 
 have passed some entire years in devout solitary con- 
 templation of the works and being of a God. He was 
 sent to the university, where he supported himself by 
 teaching gentlemen’s sons. In July 1681, when only 
 nineteen years of age, he saw David Cargill executed in 
 Edinburgh : an event which sent him home a “ sadder 
 and a wiser man.” His mind was forthwith made up to 
 connect himself with the extreme section of the Cove- 
 nanters. After visiting Holland, and receiving license 
 there to preach, he returned and added the weight of his 
 youthful scholarship, ardour, and eloquence, to the 
 Cameronian cause. His preaching gave a new impulse 
 to the fading energies of the party. His beautiful 
 boyish appearance — the fire which shone on his eyes and 
 cheeks — his “ pleasant melting voice” — the “seraphic 
 enlargement” of his speech, served to unite in him 
 the charms of a bridegroom and the energies of an 
 apostle. Peden and he were close friends. He spent 
 two memorable nights with John Brown, the Ayrshire 
 carrier. One chill dark November night, a thin, travel- 
 worn stranger entered John Brown’s hut at Priesthill. 
 His shoes were worn off his feet — his plaid hung drip- 
 ping around him — John Brown himself was absent — the 
 good wife looked at him with a certain suspicion, and 
 it was left to her little daughter Janet to do, as well as 
 she could, the offices of hospitality to the uninvited and 
 unexpected guest; yet so carefully did the child take off 
 his plaid, and so tenderly place him in the corner next 
 the fire, that the stranger burst into tears, and into a 
 blessing on the “ bairn.” At this juncture Brown him- 
 self returned; he recognised Ren wick, and a night of 
 
 i 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 120 
 
 plaintive, yet joyous, talk and reminiscences succeeded 
 After a day and another night of the same mutual in- 
 tercourse, refreshed and strengthened, he parted from 
 John Brown to meet no more on earth, and went on 
 his way. For years he led a wandering life, preaching 
 whenever he could find an opportunity to the “ puir 
 hill folk.” After the Sanquhar declaration against the 
 authority of James, which he penned, he became the 
 object of unmitigated persecution; a reward of one 
 hundred pounds was offered for his head, and fifteen 
 distinct searches were made for him. Once he escaped 
 by throwing himself into a hole on the side of a hill 
 which was protected from view by a heap of stones. 
 His activity at this time was amazing. With all the 
 rapidity of enthusiasm did he pass from parish to parish, 
 baptizing, catechizing, preaching, protesting against 
 King James and his July Indulgence. Like that 
 glorious monk in the “ Roman,” he became “ a polyglot 
 of prophets” — a “ manifold infection ” of earnest and 
 solitary protest. At length his health began to fail, he 
 could no longer mount or ride on horseback, and had to 
 be carried to the place where he was to preach. Yet, 
 once there, recognizing an audience of the right kind, and 
 feeling the fresh breeze of the mountain on his fevered 
 forehead, he revived he strengthened, he was enlarged, he 
 poured out the emotions of his heart and the wrongs of 
 his party in a very sea of eloquence, and the dying 
 “ boy,” Ken wick, was felt to be inspired. In him soul 
 triumphed over body, and seemed when it reached its 
 climax, to lift up the frail frame in scorn, and to say, 
 “ What proportion between this instrument and that 
 effect t” “ Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
 saith the Lord.” 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 121 
 
 At length, in February 1688, having come to Edin- 
 burgh, he was discovered in the Castlehill by a tide- 
 waiter who was searching for smuggled goods, and who 
 stumbled on a nobler sort of contraband. He tried to 
 escape at a back-door and fired a pistol which drove 
 back his enemies, but in running down a street lost his 
 hat, was recognised, and secured. He was treated on 
 the whole with marvellous lenity. The blood-suckers 
 seemed weary of their work. They were, besides, deeply 
 impressed by his youth and his appearance. A grim 
 Burley, a dark Hackstoun, or a grey-haired Blackadder, 
 would have found no favour in their eyes. But this 
 delicate, beautiful, and brave youth they were very 
 much inclined to spare. They would, had he made the 
 slightest concession. But his mind was made up. He 
 seemed, also, weary of life, and speaks of beinga “broken- 
 hearted man.” He was dying, too, at any rate, and 
 perhaps wished to die with a public testimony upon hia 
 lips, and with Edinburgh and Scotland looking on. 
 Perhaps, indeed, long wandering, and anxiety and sick- 
 ness and solitude, had somewhat affected his fine mind. 
 Nevertheless, at the justiciary, he behaved with un« 
 common courage and calmness; and his answers to his 
 judges were sharp and ready in the extreme. When 
 asked, for instance, if he had taught it to be unlawful 
 to pay cess to his present majesty, he owned he had; 
 and added, “Would it havebeen thought lawful for the 
 Jews, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, to have brought 
 every one a coal to augment the flame of the furnace to 
 devour the three children, if so they had been required 
 by the tyrant V 9 He was found guilty, and condemned 
 to execution on the following Friday. He was asked if 
 he would like longer time, but seemed rather anxious 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 122 
 
 than otherwise to be at the end of his journey. He was, 
 however, reprieved for a few days, during which time he 
 was visited both by episcopalians and papists, who 
 used every effort to move his resolution, and to induce 
 him to petition for life, but in vain. Bishop Paterson 
 was very kind, and left at last in grief that “ such a 
 pretty lad should be of such principles.” An impudent 
 popish priest who had intruded on him, was repulsed 
 with manly indignation, so that it became a proverb in 
 the Tolbooth, “ Begone I as Renwick said to the priests.” 
 With his mother and sisters, who were in the town, he 
 held many and most affecting interviews. The fatal 
 morning at last came, and Renwick bravely girded up 
 his loins to meet it. When he heard the drums beating 
 for the guard, he fell into an ecstasy and said, “ ’Tis the 
 welcome warning to my marriage — the bridegroom is 
 coming — I am ready — I am ready.” He was asked 
 whether he would like a minister with him at the last, 
 but declined, saying, “ I want none with me but this one 
 man,” pointing to one of his friends. He went forth to 
 the scaffold as he would have gone to a bridal — “ as one 
 in a transport of joy.” 
 
 There seemed a presentiment in Edinburgh that this 
 was to be the last of the martyrdoms, and that Renwick 
 was to be the last of his noble kindred. His fame, too, 
 had of late years been peculiarly blazed abroad, as one 
 who was keeping alive the embers of Cameronianism by 
 his single breath, and evading the keenest pursuit. 
 Never, accordingly, had there been such a crowd assem- 
 bled in the Grassmarket as on that day. We can easily 
 realize the scene. Faces, doubtless, were there, clad in 
 the ghastly smiles of a triumph which was felt to be 
 short — others looking on with stern, silent disapproba- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 123 
 
 tion and concentrated rage — some openly weeping, and 
 protesting against the deed — and here and there flitting 
 among the throng, the cloaked figures and disguised 
 countenances of men, who though in danger of the same 
 doom, could not help venturing out from their hiding- 
 places to see their comrade or spiritual father die. But, 
 whatever were the feelings or the words of the multitude, 
 all was reduced to dumb show by the stormy music of the 
 drums, which extinguished, so far as the people were con- 
 cerned, the last words of the martyr. Unappalled, he 
 mounted the scaffold. He first sang Psalm cm, and then 
 Revelations xix. — a chapter describing the avatar of 
 the avenger of Christian blood, whose name is Faithful 
 and True, and whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and which 
 might well seem prophetic of the deliverance of the 
 Scottish church which was at hand. He then prayed, 
 and thousands who could not hear his words must have 
 been deeply moved at the expression of his upturned 
 countenance, which had become “like the face of an 
 angel.” It was the 18th of February, and clouds were 
 darkening the sun as he said, “ I shall soon be above 
 these clouds; then shall I enjoy Thee, and glorify Thee 
 without interruption or intermission for ever.” He next 
 addressed the people, renewing his testimony against 
 the various corruptions of the period At the top of 
 the ladder he prayed again, and at length expired 
 with the words in his mouth, “ Lord, into thy 
 hands I commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed 
 me, Lord God of truth.” He was just twenty-six years 
 of age. 
 
 And thus had martyrdom borne its last pale flower, 
 and the deep sigh of the multitude said, “It is done!” 
 An era had passed away with that intrepid spirit, and 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 124 
 
 a new time, less glorious indeed, but marked by less 
 troubled and conflicting elements, was about to succeed. 
 Twenty-eight years of persecution bad now revolved, 
 and past all accurate calculation were the multitude 
 who had suffered. Wodrow, with all his minuteness, 
 is unable to tell the number. Defoe, in a stroke worthy 
 and characteristic of himself, refers us to “ the roll of 
 their number kept under the altar and before the 
 throne;” he might have added, “ where white robes 
 are given unto every one of them.” Nearly twenty 
 thousand, on a rough guess, seem to have perished by 
 fire, or sword, or water, or the scaffold, or to have been 
 banished abroad or to the northern islands. Besides 
 these, numbers without number expired of cold or 
 hunger among the morasses of the country. It was as 
 if some pestilence or “ black death” had crossed the land, 
 so great was the sacrifice of life, so intense had been the 
 excitement and terror, and so deep the desolation which 
 was left behind. Excepting that of the Waldenses some 
 time before, who had dyed the mountain-snows with 
 their blood, there had been no such persecution in 
 Europe ; none so inveterate, so fierce, and so long con- 
 tinued, and had Milton been alive, he might have varied 
 his sonnet and applied it to the heroic children of the 
 famous Covenant. 
 
 “ Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; 
 
 Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old, 
 
 When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stoned. 
 
 Forget not; in thy book record their groans, 
 
 Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold, 
 
 Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that roll’d 
 Mother with infant down the rocks. The moans 
 The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 125 
 
 To heaven. Their martyred blood and asbes sow 
 O’er all tbe Italian fields, where still doth sway 
 The triple tyrant, that from these may grow 
 A hundred-fold, who, having learned Thy way 
 Early may fly the Babylonian woe.” 
 
 The time was now fully come for the deliverance of 
 these tormented realms. It was decreed, as in the case 
 of Napoleon, that the evil king should become his own 
 destroyer. Bothwell Bridge, Sedgemoor, and other 
 battles, had only been heavings and rearings of the steed 
 from which the rider must cast himself by act upon act 
 of infatuated folly. These acts it is not our province 
 to recount. Suffice it, that, after the Prince of Orange 
 had reached our shores, and even before the news of 
 James’ final flight from Rochester to St Germains had 
 reached Scotland, Edinburgh had risen against its 
 tyrants; all the regular troops had been withdrawn from 
 the country to support the king against the Dutch, 
 except one small force which, under the Duke of 
 Gordon, occupied the castle of Edinburgh. Great riots 
 and disturbances arose in tbe city. From assembling at 
 night, the crowds ventured to meet in the broad light of 
 day; they burned the pope in effigy; they clamoured 
 for a free parliament ; they issued placards setting a 
 price on the heads of the leading ministers of state; and 
 they so terrified poor Lord Perth, that he had to be pro- 
 tected by a strong body-guard to his own castle, 
 Castle Drummond, in Strathearn, which now looks down 
 peacefully to its quiet lake, rich garden, and richer 
 woodlands, but was then a strong fort towering amid 
 desolation, and lifting its bristling front in defiance to 
 the gloomy Grampians on the north. No sooner had 
 he reached this place of refuge than Edinburgh rose. 
 
126 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 The first object of assault was the palace of Holy rood. 
 This had been turned into a Roman Catholic school and 
 printing-house; it was now stormed, sacked, and well- 
 nigh burned. Burley is introduced by Scott, in Old 
 Mortality, as the leader of this rising, and as having 
 there gained the third “notch” in his sword, when he 
 clave the captain through steel and bone. But in fact, 
 Burley was dead some time before. The work was well 
 done without him. The palace was disembowelled of its 
 papal contents; popish books, crucifixes, and pictures, 
 were dragged out from the chapel, and were burned in 
 the High Street. In the midst of this tumult the news 
 arrived that James had fled. The members of council, 
 with all the haste of cowardice (how different from the 
 spirit of Cameron and of Renwick ?), proceeded to pro- 
 claim that all papists should be disarmed, and that pro- 
 testants should be invited to assemble for the defence of 
 their religion. Even before this proclamation appeared, 
 Scotland was up from north to south in behalf of the 
 Prince of Orange. It rose at one bound, like a palm-tree 
 springing from pressure. Some Roman Catholic re- 
 action took place in Nithsdale and Clydesdale, into 
 which accordingly large troops of armed presbyterians 
 were poured. The insurgents in these counties consisted 
 partly of papists and partly of the fiercest of the Camero- 
 nians, whom circumstances had infuriated, and who, 
 finding nothing said about the Covenant in William’s 
 declaration, concluded that he was little better than 
 James. Formed of such motley materials, it need not 
 be wondered at that the insurrection was easily suppres- 
 sed. Lord Perth found himself in danger even in his 
 own frowning castle, and had to fly through the snow- 
 covered Ochils to Burntisland, where he entered a ship 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 127 
 
 but was pursued, seized, and removed, amid tlie execra- 
 tions and screams of the populace, to the castle of Stir- 
 ling. Meanwhile, in London, William had had a meet- 
 ing with the Scottish Lords, who, after a consulation of 
 several days, requested him to call a convention of the 
 estates of Scotland, and, till then, to take on him the 
 civil and military administration of the country. 
 
 The wicked and heartless men who had so long lorded 
 it over Scotland, were startled as from a drunken dream. 
 Their power had dissolved in a moment, and they fell 
 helpless from their seats. Had they been less submis- 
 sive to the new government, there can be little doubt 
 that they would have been torn in pieces by the in- 
 dignant populace; but in their cowardice they found their 
 safety. On March the 2nd, 1689, the convention met, 
 and, after some slight opposition, decided that King 
 James, by his abuse of power, had forfeited the crown, 
 and declared the Prince and Princess of Orange to be 
 King and Queen of Scotland. Presbytery was restored, 
 episcopacy abolished, and, in the emphatic language of 
 scripture, the “ land rested from war.” 
 
 There was now for a season something of a Sabbath 
 feeling pervading Scotland. The storms of a long night 
 had passed, and 
 
 “The morn was up again; the dewy mom, 
 
 With breath all incensed and with cheek all bloom, 
 
 Chasing the clouds away with playful scorn, 
 
 And living as if earth contained no tomb. ” 
 
 Scotland’s reign of terror was over. People resumed 
 their ordinary habits of industry. The moors became 
 once more deserted and silent, save for a few hero-wor- 
 shippers, who visited them for the purpose of erecting 
 monuments to the dead who slumbered there Th« 
 
128 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 churdhes were again crowded with congregations. The 
 hateful curates had fled, and many of the ejected pastors, 
 who had once expected when a better day should come, 
 to be able simply to say with old Simeon, “ Lord, now 
 let thy servants depart in peace,” and so to die, were re- 
 instated in their parishes, and permitted to spend their 
 closing years quietly among their original flocks. No 
 summary revenge had been executed upon the persecu- 
 tors. This, if the passions of some of the fiercer of the 
 Presbyterians demanded, the policy of William’s govern- 
 ment resolutely refused. To the general peace and 
 contentment there were at that time only two opposing 
 forces. The one was the unsatisfied spirit which ex- 
 isted among the Cameronians. That sect refused to 
 conform to the revolution church, because the authority 
 of the Covenants was not sufficiently recognised. In 
 this they were doubtless honest; but some fell into the 
 error of seeking on that account to form a junction with 
 the remnant of the persecutors. Out of this projected 
 alliance, however, nothing issued. One fortunate shot 
 in the gorge of Killiecrankie put an end to it at once and 
 for ever. 
 
 The other opposition was of greater consequence. 
 Claverhouse, who had been long ere this created Vis- 
 count Dundee by King James, refused to own the 
 authority of the new government : a fact which, we 
 think, itself cuts off one plea commonly made on behalf 
 of his character, namely, that he was the mere agent of 
 others in his cruelties to the children of the Covenant. 
 If so, bow came it that he now alone stood out, and 
 seemed determined to carry on a hopeless and barbar- 
 ous struggle? The fact is, he had been a “ master-fiend” 
 in the bloody work — and he felt now not only that his 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 129 
 
 occupation was gone, but that be was a marked man, 
 and must either surrender himself to the rage of the 
 lowlands, or return amid the mountains and organize a 
 new opposition to the government. He decided on the 
 latter step, and carried his dragoons, reeking with the 
 blood of the west, and clothed with the curses of tens 
 of thousands in all parts of Scotland, to startle with 
 their ribald songs and horrible blasphemies the echoes 
 of the Grampians. There he was joined by a portion 
 of the clans, and his object undoubtedly was to re-enact 
 the part of his relative, Montrose, by pouring down his 
 troops into the low country, forming, if possible, a 
 junction with the papists, the prelatists, and the exas- 
 perated few of the Cameronians in the south, and pro- 
 ducing thus a formidable diversion in behalf of King 
 James. Every one knows the result. He was met by 
 General Mackay in the pass of Killiecrankie — that ro- 
 mantic glen where a lonely mountain land seems to have 
 thrown up entrenchments to secure itself against all 
 invasion, and where the spirit of beauty, following after, 
 has wreathed those rugged bastions with green love< 
 liness, peopled them with the music of streams, and 
 surprised them into involuntary smiles. The troops of 
 Dundee charged, as they had done at Bothwell Bridge, 
 and ever before and after, with prodigious impetuosity; 
 Mackay’s men were broken, and the rout would have 
 been total, had not Dundee himself, at the third fire, 
 reeled in his saddle and fallen. The hand which gave 
 him his death-blow is to this hour unknown, and various 
 fabulous rumours have floated about in consequence. 
 Some say that he was shot by his own servant with a 
 silver button — others that one of his old Covenanting 
 friends who had wrongs to avenge, had followed him to 
 
130 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 the braes of Killiecrankie and gained his object. But 
 we find similar rumours whenever a cause is identified 
 with one man, and when that man falls suddenly. It 
 was so with Gustavus Adolphus — with Charles XII. 
 — and many others ; and had Napoleon dropped at 
 Waterloo, there would have been afterwards cries of 
 “ Treachery — treachery ! ” Claverhouse, like Napoleon, 
 while hated by many, seems always to have secured the 
 attachment of his soldiers, and it is not likely that he 
 owed his death to one of them. His time, in fact, had 
 come — his fearful works were all accomplished — his 
 war-saddle, long the throne of cruelty over the western 
 and southern shires, must now become vacant ; and, 
 thank God ! in Scotland, at least, he has had no suc- 
 cessor. He was a brave bad man, and it was perhaps, 
 fitting that he should die in that pass of peril — that 
 Thermopylae of the domain of northern darkness, and 
 that 
 
 “ His mourners were the plaided Q-ael; 
 
 His dirge the clamorous pibroch sung.” 
 
 The Jacobite cause, for the time, died with him. He 
 had been the soul and the body of this movement. His 
 army melted away after his death, and the highlands 
 and lowlands both submitted, with scarcely an exception, 
 to the government of William. 
 
 It were exceeding our province to enter into either 
 the civil or ecclesiastical history of the age succeeding 
 this. The persecution might be said to close with 
 Claverhouse, who seemed flung on the funeral pyre he 
 had kindled, and the flames of which expired with 
 him. But the reputation of the whig dynasty was 
 early tarnished by an act of barbarity, eclipsing even 
 the cruelties of the past persecution, and dwindling 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 131 
 
 Dunottar Castle itself in its flagrant circumstances. We 
 refer to the massacre of Glencoe: an act which admits 
 of no palliation, which, from its complicated and cold- 
 blooded iniquity, ranks with those wicked deeds which 
 may be called continental in their breadth and atrocity, 
 and which, had it not been an exception to the general 
 policy of William, might have been said to outweigh 
 all the glories of his reign. 
 
 The Earl of Breadalbane had received from govern- 
 ment a large sum of money to bribe the rebellious 
 clans to submission to King William’s authority. Some 
 dispute or difference of opinion had arisen as to the 
 distribution of the bribes. Breadalbane began to 
 suspect that the chieftains meant to deceive and hood- 
 wink him. Whether right or wrong in this belief, he 
 betrayed his suspicions to government. They on the 
 month of August 1691, issued a proclamation, enjoining 
 all and each of them to take the oaths to the government 
 of William and Mary, previous to the 1st day of January 
 1692. In this proclamation, too, it was threatened 
 that all who did not submit to these terms should be 
 punished by the utmost rigours of fire and sword. 
 
 This proclamation was drawn up by Sir John 
 Dalrymple, or the Master of Stair, in conjunction with 
 Breadalbane. He had wished to form a highland army in 
 favour of government, and to get, if possible, all the high- 
 land chiefs to transfer their allegiance from King James 
 to the new dynasty. This he found, however, very diffi- 
 cult. The chiefs were fond enough of the money, but 
 fonder, at heart, of the Stuarts. Many of them, includ * 
 ing the MacDonalds, stood out for more favourable 
 terms — the negotiation was broken off, and the fatal 
 proclamation was issued. 
 
132 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 We believe it is certain that Stair began now to 
 entertain the private hope that the chiefs would not 
 submit at all, or, at least, that they would hold out 
 beyond the prescribed term, and, in the “ gloomy recesses 
 of a mind capacious of such things,” had determined to 
 make the broad highlands a monument of his vengeance. 
 He had collected troops at Inverlochy — he had resolved 
 to take the advantage of the winter, when the passes 
 would be stopped, when the highlanders would not be 
 expecting an attack, and would become an easy prey. 
 Thus, like a tiger on the edge of his jungle, did this 
 inhuman lawyer lie eagerly waiting for his hour. 
 
 The chiefs, however, were on their guard. Within 
 the prescribed time, they, one by one, submitted to the 
 terms of the proclamation. It has been said that this 
 was at the secret suggestion of King James, who had 
 penetrated Lord Stair’s purpose, and had directed his 
 friends rather to forswear their consciences than to lose 
 their lives. 
 
 As chief after chief took the oath of allegiance, Stair 
 became more and more chagrined, and increasingly 
 anxious that some one of the clans should refuse and 
 become the victim of his revenge. And one such tribe 
 at last did fall into his vindictive and quivering jaws. 
 This was the tribe of the MacDonalds, inhabiting, as a 
 “ munition of rocks,” the valley of Glencoe. 
 
 Glencoe is a softened Sinai — Sinai unscorched and 
 uncrowned with all the leading features of that “ great 
 and terrible mountain ” transferred to Scotland. Many 
 bf our readers may have seen the dissolving view of 
 that mount which was crowned with a diadem of fire, 
 and where the Ancient One came down to utter the ten 
 precepts of the law. Then they have also, it may be 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 133 
 
 said, seen the ridges of Glencoe. There are, indeed, 
 many diversities. Through the valley of Glencoe winds 
 a stream called the Cona — a name of perfect music, soft 
 as softest Italian, and which seems the very echo of the 
 tender and everlasting wail of a lonely river. No such 
 stream laves the foot of Sinai’s savage hill. Then there 
 lies below one of the boldest hills of the pass a lovely 
 lake, looking up with child-like, trustful, untrembling 
 eye to the lowering summits above; and a fine verdure 
 here and there creeps up the precipices, and green pas- 
 tures and still waters encompass hills on which Aaron 
 might have waited for death, or Moses ascended to 
 meet God — features all unlike those of the Syrian 
 wilderness. But the mural aspect of many of the 
 precipices, the rounded shape of some of the mountains, 
 contrasted with the sharp razor-like ridges of others — 
 the deep and horrid clefts and ravines which yawn here 
 and there — the extent, dreariness, solitude, and grandeur 
 of the whole mountain-range above — the summits you 
 see, but scarcely see, behind their nearer brethren, as 
 though retiring, like proud and lonely spirits, into their 
 own inaccessible hermitages — the appearance of con- 
 vulsion, and tearing in pieces, and rending in twain, and 
 fierce unreconciliation, which rests, like a black jagged 
 wing, over the whole region — were all those of Horeb, 
 as it might be seen in picture and in dreams; and we 
 become, for a season, silent and awe-struck, as if waiting 
 for another avatar of the deity, upon those thunder- 
 split and shaggy peaks. Another image which suggests 
 itself, is that of two ranges of tempest-tossed mountain- 
 waves of ocean, with a wide interspace of comparative 
 calm between them, suddenly arrested and stiffened into 
 eternal granite. One mountain itself excites peculiar 
 
134 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 emotion. It is round-headed — knotted too, with round 
 rocks — it comes nearer the valley than the rest, although 
 without impending over it — it is extremely steep, and 
 has a large fissure glaring eastward over the glen, “ like 
 a gash on warrior’s breast.” This is called, popularly, 
 Ossian’s cave, and perhaps the hill is also called 
 Ossian’s hill. It might be named Mount Moses; for it 
 seems an exact similitude of the precipitous and one- 
 pathed mountain, up which that lonely man panted and 
 quaked to meet with a thunder-shrouded and lightning- 
 guarded God. 
 
 Further down, the valley becomes softer in its char^ 
 acter; the mountains retire still further from it; the Cona 
 murmurs gentler measures as it glides onwards to Loch 
 Leven, where it is to be lost; and at a bend of the 
 stream, on a green level meadow, about two miles from 
 the Loch, at a place where, according to Talfourd, “ the 
 wild myrtle grows in great profusion,” stood the cottage 
 of the leader of the clan, MacDonald, and was tran- 
 sacted that massacre which all ages shall arise and call 
 accursed. 
 
 “ As tbe clime is, so the heart of man.” The Mac- 
 Donalds were worthy of their savage scenery, and more 
 savage weather. True “ children of the mist ” were they 
 — strong, hardy, fearless — at feud with the adjacent 
 Campbells — the clan to which Breadalbane belonged — 
 and, although their number never amounted to more 
 than two hundred armed men, their name was a terror 
 throughout all that country, and repeatedly had the 
 blood of the race of Dermid smoked upon their swords. 
 Their leader bore the patronymic title of Maclan. He 
 is described as a man of distinguished courage and 
 sagacity, venerable in aspect, stately in bearing, and 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 135 
 
 moved among his neighbouring chieftians like a demi- 
 god. He had followed Claverhouse to Killiecrankie; 
 he had had, along with the other chiefs, a meeting to 
 adjust differences with Breadalbane, and had come there 
 to open rupture and recrimination with the earl. He 
 knew, and said afterwards, that Breadalbane was his 
 foe, and would yet try to do him injury And still, 
 with a strange inconsistency, amounting almost to in- 
 fatuation, he deferred taking the oath, and thereby 
 securing his safety, till the appointed time had nearly 
 expired. 
 
 This was a mode of conduct entirely after Stair’s own 
 heart, who, in a letter dated the 3d of December,— a 
 month before the limits of the indemnity were reached 
 — had expressed an ardent hope, that some of the clans, 
 and especially the MacDonalds of Glencoe, would “fall 
 into the net,” — i.e. afford the government some tolerable 
 pretext for their destruction. 
 
 A few days, however, before the 1st of January 
 (1692,) Colonel Hill is sitting in his room, in Fort 
 William, when some strangers claim an audience. There 
 enter several highlandmen clad in the Macdonald tartan, 
 with its intense centre of blue lying amid variegated 
 squares of green, and occasional cross-lines of white — 
 one towering in stature and dignity of bearing above 
 the rest — all armed, but all in an attitude of submission. 
 They are Maclan and the leaders of his tribe, who have 
 come at the eleventh hour, to swear the oath of alle- 
 giance to King William. The colonel, a soldier and a 
 gentlemen, is glad and yet grieved to see them. For 
 alas! being a military and not a civil officer, he has nc 
 power to receive their oath. He tells them so — and the 
 old chieftain first remonstrates, and at last in Ms agony 
 
 K 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 136 
 
 weeps ; perhaps his first tears since childhood — like the 
 waters of the Cona breaking over the stony channels of 
 Glencoe ! The tears of a brave old man are the most 
 affecting of all tears, and the colonel, moved to the 
 heart, writes out a letter to Sir Colin Campbell, sheriff 
 of Argyleshire, requesting him, although legally too late* 
 to receive the submission of the chief ; and with this 
 letter in his sporran mouloch , away in haste hies the 
 belated Maclan from Fort William to Inverary. 
 
 The road to Inverary led to within a mile of Maclan’s 
 house, but such was his haste that he did not even turn 
 aside to enter it. He pushed on through horrible paths, 
 rendered worse by a heavy fall of snow — for the very 
 elements seemed to combine in the conspiracy against 
 the doomed MacDonalds. In consequence, notwith- 
 standing all the speed he could exert, he reached Inver- 
 ary too late — the 1st of January was past. 
 
 He told, however, his story, and the sheriff — who 
 seems to have been a humane and sensible man — on 
 considering all the circumstances, did not hesitate to ad- 
 minister the oath, and sent off a message to the Privy 
 Council announcing the fact, and explaining all the 
 reasons of his conduct. He also wrote to Colonel Hill, 
 requesting him to take care that his soldiers should not 
 molest the MacDonalds till the pleasure of the Privy 
 Council on the matter was known. 
 
 Meanwhile, Stair had procured and issued two pro- 
 clamations. The first, that of the 11th of January, 
 contained peremptory orders for military measures of 
 fire and sword against all that had not taken the oath 
 within the term prescribed, providing, however, that, 
 were they promptly to submit, they might even yet ob- 
 tain mercy. The second, which appeared on the 16th, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 137 
 
 while still holding out the hope of indulgence to the 
 other clans, expressly excepted the inhabitants of Glencoe, 
 in the following words: — “ As for Maclan of Glencoe, 
 and that tribe, if they can well be distinguished 
 from the rest of the highlanders, it will be proper, for 
 the vindication of public justice, to extirpate that set 
 of thieves.” 
 
 In order to procure from the king such savage and 
 wholly needless proclamations (for be it observed all 
 the highlanders, without exception, had now submitted) 
 very extraordinary measures had been used. The letter 
 of the sheriff had been suppressed — the certificate of 
 Maclan’s having taken the oath had been blotted out 
 from the books of council — and, there can be little 
 doubt, private communications had represented the 
 MacDonalds as obstinate rebels. At all events, King 
 William, with his own hand, and not that of his secre- 
 tary, subscribed and superscribed orders for the de- 
 struction of the entire tribe. 
 
 Stair lost no time in executing the bloody commission. 
 He wrote to Colonel Hill enjoining them to be “slaugh- 
 tered, and that the manner of execution must be sure , 
 secret , and effectual” Hill shrank in grief and horror 
 from the task; and, after trying for some time to evade 
 it, at last transferred the orders to Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Hamilton, and directed him to take four hundred men 
 of a highland regiment belonging to the Duke of Argyle, 
 and consisting, consequently, of Campbells — the neigh- 
 bours and acquaintances — some of them friends of, and 
 more of them at feud with, the MacDonalds. This 
 seemed necessary, to bring the matter to its blackest 
 point. 
 
 Towards the close of January, a company of armed 
 
138 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 highlanders are seen wending their way up the banks 
 of Loch-Leven to the opening of the valley. The 
 MacDonalds, on hearing of this, are, at first, apprehen- 
 sive that they have come to seize their arms, and they 
 send them away accordingly to a distant and secure 
 spot. This done, they go forth to meet them. They 
 find it a party of Argyle’s soldiers, commanded by 
 Captain Campbell, of Glenlyon, whose niece is married 
 to Alaster MacDonald, one of Maclan’s sons. They ask 
 whether they have come as friends or as foes. The 
 reply is that they have come as friends — that as the 
 garrison at Fort William is overcrowded, they have 
 been sent to quarter themselves for a short period in 
 Glencoe. They are received with all the warmth of 
 highland hospitality. Feuds, political grudges, are all 
 forgotten, and a fortnight passes away in the mutual 
 exchange of every kindly office. Well, indeed, says 
 Shakspere — “ A man may smile, and smile, and be a 
 villain.” Thus they had continued till, at last, there 
 arrived orders from Major Duncanson, commanding 
 Campbell to put all the MacDonalds below seventy to 
 the sword, at four in the morning precisely, and to take 
 especial care that the old fox and his cubs do not escape, 
 threatening him at the same time that, if he do not 
 fulfil the orders he shall be treated as not true to 
 the king and government. Duncanson had been in- 
 structed to this by Hamilton, who in his despatch used 
 the remarkable words — “ The Government are not to be 
 troubled with prisoners.” 
 
 This order is dated 12th February, and reached Glen* 
 lyon’s hands a few hours after. He speedily put it into 
 execution. Well did he, meanwhile, play the hypocritical 
 part. He had every day taken his “ morning ” as it 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 139 
 
 was called — i.e. y a draught of raw usquebaugh, drunk 
 on rising — in the house of his connection, Alaster 
 MacDonald. Nor had he omitted it on the morning 
 before the massacre. He and two of his officers, more- 
 over, accepted an invitation next day to dine with old 
 Maclan, whom they had destined to dine that day with 
 death. And on the night of the 12th we see John and 
 Alaster MacDonald playing at cards with their mur- 
 derer, in his own quarters. 
 
 The MacDonalds had all retired to rest with the ex- 
 ception of the two sons of Maclan. Their suspicions 
 had been, in some measure, aroused in reference to 
 Campbell. They had noticed that, when evening came 
 on, the main-guard was strengthened, and the sentinels 
 increased. They had heard, too, (as in that immortal 
 description of Pollok, of the signs preceding the Judg- 
 ment) — 
 
 * 1 Earnest whispers ran along the hills 
 At dead of night, 
 
 And all the words they heard were spoke of them.” 
 
 They had overheard the sotto voce talk of the soldiers, 
 complaining that they were compelled to such an 
 infernal service, while, very naturally, laying the chief 
 blame of it upon their officers. Stung to a sudden 
 consciousness of danger which was prophetic, and which, 
 perhaps, secured their safety, the sons of Maclan 
 rushed from their apartment to the military quarters, 
 and found Glenlyon and his men getting ready their 
 arms. They asked him, what was the meaning of all 
 this; and if aught was intended against them. He re- 
 plied, with dauntless effrontery, that he and his men 
 were thinking of an expedition against Glengarry’s 
 people, and added, " If anything evil had been intended 
 
140 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 would 1 not have told Alaster and my niece V 9 Grumb- 
 ling, yet in some measure satisfied, the two young men 
 return to their own dwellings. 
 
 All now is silent over that devoted valley. A heavy 
 snow storm has indeed begun to fall, but as yet is re- 
 serving its full fury for a later hour in the morning, 
 when there shall be fugitives partly to sink, but prin- 
 cipally to shelter, under its drifts. The voice of the 
 Cona is choked in ice. The great heights that tower 
 behind have no thunders or voices to proclaim the ap- 
 proaching doom. Maclan himself is sleeping the sound, 
 deep sleep of innocence and security: the fatigues and 
 mortifications of his journeys to Fort William and 
 Inverary all forgotten. Suddenly, at four precisely, a 
 knock is heard at his door. It is opened immediately, 
 and the old man bustles up to dress himself, and to 
 order refreshments for those early visitors. Without a 
 moment’s warning — without a preliminary word — he is 
 shot dead, and falls back on the bed, into the arms of 
 his aged wife! She is next assailed — stripped — the 
 gold rings on her fingers torn off by the teeth of the 
 soldiers, and so maltreated that in a day she shall die ! 
 All the servants and clansmen in the same house are 
 massacred. 
 
 All, save one. He, an aged domestic, somehow 
 escapes, and, running to the abode of the two brothers, 
 cries out “ Is it time for you to be sleeping when your 
 father is murdered on his own hearth ? ” They arise in 
 haste — they hurry out, and hear all around them, from 
 every house and habitation, shrieks, shots, shouts, groans, 
 the roar of muskets, and cries of men, women, and 
 children, combined into one harmony of Hell. One 
 wonders how they were not assailed as soon as their 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 141 
 
 father, and is tempted to suspect that Glenlyon, after 
 all, had some pity for his niece’s husband. As it was, 
 they made for the mountains, and, by their knowledge 
 of dark and devious paths through that howling wil- 
 derness, were enabled to escape. 
 
 What a glen did they leave behind them, and what 
 a morning ! The snow is falling thick, and is thicken- 
 ing every moment. In the valley there is not a house 
 but there is one, or more than one, dead. Led through 
 the darkness, as by the light of unearthly eyes, the 
 soldiers pass from house to house, from hamlet to 
 hamlet, rush, unbind their victims, lead them out, and 
 shoot them dead. In Glenlyon’s own quarters, nine 
 men, including his own landlord, are bound and shot — 
 one of them with General Hill’s passport in his pocket 
 A lad of twenty had, in some strange fit of compassion, 
 been spared by the soldiers, till a demon in soldier- 
 shape, called Captain Drummond, came up, and ordered 
 him instantly to be put to death. A boy of five is 
 clinging to Glenlyon’s knees, asking for mercy, and 
 offering to be his servant for life, when Drummond (it 
 was a deed worthy of Claverhouse) stabbed the child 
 with his dirk, as he was in the act and agony of a 
 prayer, by which even Campbell was moved. 
 
 Up the glen, a group of MacDonalds — some ten in 
 number — are assembled on that cold morning around 
 the fire of their hut. The men of the massacre, includ- 
 ing one Barber, a sergeant, who it seems had been 
 quartered in the house, fire in upon the party, and kill 
 four of them. The owner of the house escaped unhurt, 
 and expressed a desire to be put to death in the open 
 air. “For your bread which I have ate,” says Barber, 
 u I will grant the request.” He was taken out accord - 
 
1 42 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 ingly; but, while the soldiers were presenting their 
 muskets, he threw his plaid over their faces, broke away, 
 and made his escape up the valley. 
 
 And now the blaze of burning cottages begins to 
 illuminate that gloomy glen. The murderers, after 
 massacring the inmates, set their dwellings on fire. Many, 
 however, taking the alarm, escape, half-naked, into the 
 storm; and through profound wreaths of snow, and over 
 savage rocks and ravines, find their way to safety. 
 Some, indeed, are lost in the drifts, others stumble over 
 precipices to rise no more. But the snow avails to save 
 more than it destroys. Duncanson, in his letter to 
 Glenlyon, had promised to be at Glencoe at four in the 
 morning. Had he fulfilled his promise, and been able 
 then to occupy the eastern passes, he would have inter- 
 cepted and destroyed all the fugitives. Owing to the 
 storm, however, he did not arrive till eleven in the 
 forenoon, and by this time there was not a MacDonald 
 alive in the glen, save an old man of eighty. Him they 
 slew. The rest of the cottages they burned to ashes. 
 They then collected the property of the tribe, consisting 
 of twelve hundred heads of cattle and horses, besides 
 goats and sheep, and drove them off to the garrison of 
 Fort William. In all thirty-eight were killed, and one 
 hundred and fifty made their escape — having to flee 
 more than twelve miles, through rocks and deserts, ere 
 they reached a place of security. 
 
 Such was the massacre of Glencoe ! Of all those com- 
 plications of blood and treachery which then abounded 
 it wa3 the worst and has become the most notorious ! 
 Yet, let it be remembered, that it was the act 
 not of the persecuted, or the persecuted church, but 
 of the soldiers of the government, many of whom, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 143 
 
 besides, were actuated by the hatred belonging to clan- 
 ship. 
 
 As to the ecclesiastical state of the country, a decided 
 improvement had taken place. The majority of the 
 Scottish protestants had now got their will — their church 
 was settled on the basis of presbyterian parity — their 
 worship was restored to that elemental simplicity which 
 still exists; but there were remaining many of the real 
 roots of the evils which had been luxuriating for more 
 than half a century in Scotland. We mention only two 
 — the perplexed state of the law of patronage, and the 
 grand fundamental error which underlies all the thought 
 and all the effort of all parties of that period, namely 
 this, that there is any possible plan of reconciling the 
 claims of church and state, except by identification — 
 a thing at present impossible — or by subjection, which 
 is resisted by both, or by compromise and bargain, a 
 game at which both have played for centuries, without 
 coming to any satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 We cannot close this rapid view of the sufferings of 
 the church of Scotland, without asserting that nowhere 
 do we find in history a nobler specimen of the resistance 
 of principle ta power than here. There was a great 
 disproportion between the efforts made to suppress the 
 Covenanting principle and that principle itself. It, in 
 our view, was not sufficiently large ; but from the sin- 
 cerity and tenacity with which it was held, from the 
 severity with which it was persecuted, and from the 
 resolution with which the sufferings were borne, it 
 gathers around it both the air and the reality of 
 grandeur. It sufficed to arouse the depths of the Scot- 
 tish spirit. In no part of the history of that country, do 
 we find a more marked, strenuous, and long- continued ex- 
 
THE HEROES AND MARTYRS 
 
 144 
 
 pression of tlie perfervidum ingenium of the land. The 
 Scottish Covenanters were not great in prosperity — few 
 parties are; but the power of suffering brought out the 
 rich qualities of self-denial, stubborn endurance, un- 
 limited trust in divine aid, an unearthly eloquence, an 
 insight scarcely inferior, a courage which never quailed, 
 and an integrity which was never shaken. In the re- 
 collection of these distinguishing excellencies posterity 
 may well forget the faults which, unquestionably, they 
 committed. Let us blend with admirafion for their 
 energy and zeal, sorrow that they effected not still more, 
 and that their better spirit has in so great a measure 
 departed. 
 
 “ Men are we; and must grieve, when even the shade 
 Of that which once was great has passed away. ’ 
 
OF TEE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHARACTER, LITERATURE, AIMS, 
 AND ATTAINED OBJECTS, OF THE COVENANTERS. 
 
 To pass from a living story to an analysis may seem a 
 cold and deep descent: still it is necessary to make it, 
 and perhaps it may be so managed that whatever true 
 sympathy has been excited by the memorial of the 
 Covenanting deeds and sufferings, shall not be lost in 
 an attempt to seek more minutely to contemplate the 
 moral and intellectual qualities of the men. 
 
 The first and most prominent feature in their charac- 
 ter was earnestness. That they possessed this is beyond 
 all question. Earnestness is not, as some seem to 
 imagine, a quality recently discovered, like Californian 
 or Australian gold; it is as old as the heart of man, 
 or the purposes and plans of Almighty God; and in the 
 heroes of the Covenant we find it in all its strength, if 
 not in all its purity. They were terribly in earnest. 
 The passion which was in them, like all great passions, 
 refused to be divided. Their idea possessed them with 
 a force and a fulness to which we find few parallels in 
 history. It haunted their sleep, it awoke with them in 
 the morning — it walked, like their shadow, with them 
 to business or to pleasure— -it became the breath of their 
 nostrils and the soul of their soul. Ever does such 
 possession give consistency to character, elevation to 
 
I 4:6 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 feeling, nobility to endurance — shall we say — sanctity 
 to error ? At least, the errors of earnest ecstasy are not 
 to be weighed in the balance with the deliberate mis- 
 takes and voluntary madness of a false system. What 
 a contrast between the Covenanters in their rugged 
 devotedness, their almost insane sincerity, and the 
 occasional excesses into which they were hurried, and 
 the society of the Jesuits, with their cold colossal faults, 
 their systematic falsehood, the low arts which mingled 
 with all their stupendous exertions, the dark veil which 
 has hung around them in all their manifold and tortuous 
 movements. The history of the Covenanters was a 
 current of rapid volcanic fire: that of the Jesuits has 
 been the course of a glacier, cold, creeping and carrying 
 destruction with it wherever it has gone. The earnest- 
 ness of our fathers was that of a deep attachment to a 
 cause: that of the Jesuits, of devotion to a defeated 
 and exposed sham. As they have sown, they have 
 reaped. The Covenanters have passed away, but the 
 liberties and religion of Scotland form their everlasting 
 monument. The Jesuits remain ; but they walk in 
 darkness ; they are tracked by suspicion, hatred, and 
 terror, and now for a long time “ their judgment 
 lingereth not, and their damnation,” as a party, “ doth 
 not slumber.” 
 
 Much of the Covenanting spirit of devout earnestness 
 is gone from the Scottish character; but it is not yet 
 too late to behold at least the skirts of its departing 
 glory. The practice of tent-preaching, which till lately 
 prevailed, was one of the most striking of these remains. 
 That this was sometimes abused we know from Burns 1 
 Holy Fair, as well as from other sources, to be an un- 
 questionable fact; but the abuse was almost entirely 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 147 
 
 confined to the neighbourhood of great cities. At all 
 events, amid the peaceful solitudes of Perthshire Wq 
 never witnessed aught but what was reverent, interest- 
 ing, and even imposing. The use of the tent was latterly 
 confined to the summer sacrament. 
 
 It is a bright Sabbath morning in the end of June, or 
 the beginning of July. A little before eleven, crowds 
 are seen approaching from all directions to a tent made 
 of wood, painted blue, and set in a field hard by the 
 murmuring Earn, which a little below is joined by 
 another mountain-stream. The scene around is magni- 
 ficent. To the west, stand up a chain of bold precipi- 
 tous mountains, black in winter, but now in this summer- 
 day clothed with the freshest green which ferns and 
 Alpine grasses can supply. On the south, beyond the 
 river, a fertile plain expands till bounded at the distance 
 of two miles by a lower ridge of hills, which close the 
 valley and confine the prospect. Eastward, the river 
 pursues its course towards some low wooded fells, 
 through which it finds a narrow passage into that 
 broader strath which extends to the Tay. On the north 
 is the village, and behind it a fine glen covered with 
 woods and surmounted by a monumental pillar, which 
 stands on a bare rock above them. The sun is warm 
 but a tree or two are near, under which some of the 
 multitude find a shelter, and a cool breeze from the 
 stream passes ever and anon across their countenances, 
 and bedews them with delicious refreshment. The 
 crowd is scarcely less interesting than the scenery. It 
 is composed partly of the villagers and partly of farmers 
 and country-folks. You see here the keen, hard 
 featured faces of weavers and shoemakers, and there 
 the bluff and ruddy countenances of ploughmen. Not 
 
148 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 a few aged men are there, wearing broad blue bonnets 
 over their silvery hairs. Some shepherd’s plaids are to 
 be seen; and, here and there, you see a mountaineer 
 wearing the kilt of his fathers. Old women are there, 
 with round linen-caps instead of bonnets. Blooming 
 virgins, too, abound, with modesty and beauty meeting 
 together under the shadow of their simple head-gear. 
 Children people the outskirts of the assembly, or sit on 
 the dyke dividing the field from the river; and lo ! 
 there is one boy who is sitting apart from all the rest, 
 and is musing with half-shut dreamy eye — with the 
 shadow of a whole tree screening him from the summer- 
 heat. Many of the multitude have come from distant 
 parts of the country, over “ muirs and mosses many,” 
 to join in the solemnities of the day; that little com- 
 pany of men and women have risen early from the 
 banks of Loch Earn, have been first at the tent, and 
 shall remain till the stars appear trembling over the 
 Abruchill Hills. 
 
 The service at last begins. The preacher mounts the 
 tent. He is a man of sixty-four, his hair is a sable, thickly 
 silvered — his brow is lofty, his face has once been aL 
 most handsome, and is still manly and bold; in stature 
 he approaches six feet, and stands erect and stately 
 still. His eye is quick, eager, and restless; earnest 
 simplicity pervades his whole aspect. He gives out the 
 psalm in a clear strong voice, which rings afar “ like a 
 trumpet with a silver sound.” The voice of the multi- 
 tude then arises, swells, sinks, dies away; but how 
 melodiously has it peopled the solitude and awakened 
 the echoes of the hills ! He prays, and his prayer is 
 fervid and powerful. He announces as his text, “They 
 spake of the decease that he was to accomplish at Jeru- 
 
OF THE gCOTTISH COVENANT. 1 49 
 
 salem;” and straightway the minds of the large throng 
 are transported to the top of Tabor — a loftier hill than 
 any in sight — and their hearts begin to burn within 
 them as they see their Lord talking to the Celestial 
 Messengers on that memorable transfiguration morn, 
 
 “When in the sad days of his flesh, o’er Christ a glory came, 
 
 And light o’erflowed him like a sea, and raised his shining brow, 
 And the voice came forth which hade all worlds the Son of God avow,” 
 
 and talking not of heaven’s splendours but of Calvary’s 
 death ! The preacher is not imaginative in thought 
 or refined in language; but he is in earnest: he is pos- 
 sessed, moreover, of true natural eloquence; and as his 
 voice rises with his subject, and his eye kindles, every 
 heart in the audience is hushed, and not a few tears are 
 seen stealing down the cheeks of both young and old. 
 Now he quotes a few lines of poetry; and now he tells 
 some interesting or plaintive anecdote, and their atten- 
 tion is still faster rivetted. By-and-bye his earnestness 
 becomes overwhelming in its intensity — he has seized 
 the two-edged sword of appeal, and is wielding it with 
 a giant’s arm. He alludes to their privileges: he con- 
 trasts that peaceful field-meeting with those of their 
 forefathers in the days of the Covenant. “ You have 
 no arms in your hands — there are no watchmen posted 
 on these silent hills. How great should be your grati- 
 tude !” Ere finishing, as if from an irresistible im- 
 pulse, he takes occasion to enumerate the years of his 
 own ministry; to allude to the tent-preachings of the 
 past on that same spot; to speak of those who once wor- 
 shipped there, but who were now in a better world; and 
 to talk of death as impending over his auditors and 
 himself. He closes, and a thousand loosened breasts 
 
150 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 return him the truest applause. His word has been 
 prophetic. Never more shall he preach at that tent. 
 Never more shall he there see the June sun, hear the 
 murmur of that silver Earn, on the sacramental sabbath- 
 day, or behold the thick daisies of that green-sward 
 where — 
 
 “ You scarce ran see the grass for flowers.” 
 
 Long ere summer has revolved, his manly form is to be 
 consigned to yonder grave-yard on the west, which 
 surrounds the parish church with its spire. The sun- 
 shine of October is to look in upon his death-bed — 
 his dying eye is to rest upon the autumn stubble — the 
 fallen leaves are to play upon his grave — and that 
 dreamy-eyed boy under the tree, is to awake one awful 
 morning, and to encounter almost the bitterness of 
 death as he feels himself Fatherless ! * 
 
 The services of the day go on. Part of the multi* 
 tude now repair to the church where the communion is 
 being celebrated, others remain at the tent, where a suc- 
 cession of ministers appear, and, with various degrees of 
 power, unction, and eloquence, perpetuate the impres- 
 sion made by the opening sermon. We notice with pe- 
 culiar interest one remarkable man, preaching to the 
 smallest audience that had been collected on that green 
 to-day. “ Fit though few ” is his audience. Yet, note 
 well his aspect. His stature is tall — his brow not broad 
 but lofty — anxiety and suffering have anticipated the 
 work of age, in stamping premature wrinkles on his 
 forehead, and shedding premature specks of snow upon 
 
 * This refers to the Rev. Samuel Gilfillan of Comrie, Author of 
 
 The Sabbath,” &c. He died in 1826. 
 
CONVENTICLE. 
 
Tat m utt 
 Of THt 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 151 
 
 his head. His eye is small, sunk, self -involved — his 
 face has retired into a dream; but, on his lips there is 
 carved a perpetual smile. He reads for his text, “ Thy 
 righteousness, also, O Lord, is very high.” His manner, 
 at first, is slow and embarrassed — his gesture is uncouth, 
 and at times furious — his voice sometimes sinks into an 
 inarticulate murmur, and is at times exaggerated to a 
 yell. But, as he continues to preach, a strange fascina- 
 tion seems to exhale out of him — a fine train of 
 thought is found to underlie the woof of his words, and 
 you cry, “ Is not this genius ? ” And when he speaks of 
 the lofty righteousness of the Lord, and compares it to 
 the inaccessible grandeur of the blue summer heaven, 
 and points his finger up toward that “terrible crystal,” 
 in which the afternoon sun is now glowing, the climax 
 is perfect — and you bow down melted and thrilled 
 beneath the sublimity of his thought.* 
 
 The evening service is the most solemn of all. But 
 here let us shift the scene six miles to the east, and look 
 at another tent-service there. It is taking place in a field, 
 near the town of Crieff, and commands a more striking 
 distant amphitheatre of view than even the “green” of 
 Comrie. The dark mountains on the west are seen 
 relieved and softened in outline against the far-off sky 
 Another chain, invisible from the banks of the Earn, 
 appear in the north-west, resting against the horizon, 
 like leaning Titans. Two of the loftiest of Scotland’s 
 mountains are here also seen — Benvoirlich and Stuick- 
 nachroan — looking in, as from another world, over the 
 tops of the inferior hills, and with sprinklings of snow 
 on their brows, unmelted amid the blaze of June-* 
 
 * Referring to the Rev. John Jamieson of Methven, a man of 
 fine genius. He died in 1837. 
 
 L 
 
152 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Evening is casting its divine hues over this noble ex* 
 pause of prospect. A large star or two has come out, 
 and, like a quiet, thoughtful, happy eye, is watching the 
 scene. The broad, pale, spectral moon 
 
 “ Has climbed the blue steep of the eastern sky, 
 
 And sits and tarries for the coming night. ” 
 
 The sun, meanwhile, is dying, like a king on a couch 
 of gold, supported by the blue ethereal mountains, and 
 with curtains of purple and crimson waving around his 
 gorgeous bed. In such a scene the last preacher of the 
 sacramental day begins its closing service, not uncon- 
 scious of the interest of the circumstances and the 
 romance of the scene. Perhaps he selects the subject of 
 the judgment-day — and, to a silent and awe-struck 
 throng, describes the gathering of the clouds of doom — 
 the tolling of the funereal bell of the universe — the 
 going out of “ that moon, that sun, and those stars ” — * 
 the appearance of the Saviour in the sky — the rising of 
 the dead — the commencement of the great trial — the 
 judgment-seat — the books opened — the heavens and 
 the earth fleeing away — and that final rolling in sunder 
 from each other of the two streams of moral being — 
 those of the evil and of the good — which, at this tre- 
 mendous point, are to dispart and to meet no more 
 for ever. Words would fail in describing the impression 
 made by such a subject, treated amid such a scene. 
 There was no outbreak of emotion, few tears, and no cries; 
 but the soul of the whole assembly was touched to the 
 quick; the faces of all, as they left the meeting, carried a 
 soft deep shadow upon them; and as we wound our way 
 under the night canopy toward our home, our hearts 
 were softened and solemnized, and often our minds and 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 1 53 
 
 language exalted to a pitch which now” we can hardly 
 believe could ever have been ours. 
 
 Such scenes enable one to realize the Covenanting 
 period — to believe implicitly in the existence of an 
 earnestness of which this, which was daily witnessed, was 
 only a faint, though true, relic; and to feel, moreover, 
 how much the presence of natural beauty and grandeur 
 can serve to increase the power of spiritual truth. Not 
 that these plain masses of men were all fully aware of 
 the impression made by external scenery on their minds. 
 Indeed one of them was somewhat scandalized when 
 spoken to of the fine view from the tent of Crieff. But 
 it told on them not the less really that they were not 
 conscious of the cause — 
 
 “ Like some sweet beguiling melody — 
 
 So sweet we know not we are listening to it.” 
 
 Thus did the natural beauties of the scene incarnate 
 the profounder religious emotion so softly and thoroughly 
 that they were not felt in the process. Perhaps, even 
 some of the hearers thought the glances which they 
 could not but cast around at Nature’s loveliness, and 
 the emotions which sprung from them, rather “ carnal ,r 
 than otherwise. But no matter; they had combined 
 with the sublimer “ powers of the world to come ” to 
 produce a complex emotion of love and fear, of delight 
 and of solemnity, never on earth or in eternity to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 This serves to suggest, in the next general remark 
 that, along with this pervading earnestness in the Cove- 
 nanters, there were mingled many elements of blindness 
 and bigotry. These stern justice forbids us to overlook. 
 Every allowance should, indeed, be made for the age in 
 
154 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 which they lived, and for the popish scales which still 
 hovered before their eyes. But, after all these deduc- 
 tions are made, there remain about them a form and 
 shape of character, as well as modes of feeling and of 
 thought, which constitute most undesirable models, and 
 which indicate a sad declension from the days of primi« 
 tive Christianity. It were an easy task to “ rake up the 
 ashes of our fathers,” and to prove them guilty, not 
 merely of occasional outrages which humanity condemns, 
 but of extreme narrowness and illiberality of view; of 
 profound misconceptions, in many respects, alike of 
 God’s character and Christ’s faith — of ignorance of natu- 
 ral laws, and of greater ignorance still of much that is 
 implied in the important word so often in their mouths, 
 God-speil, or Gospel. But why throw out a current of 
 invective against the noble dead who were cut off in the 
 morning-twilight, when we find, even in the comparative 
 noon-day of our time, most of their mistakes not only 
 extant but far more offensively protruded ? The hard 
 dogmatic edge given to the flexible and ever-flowing 
 form of Christianity — the clinging to creeds and con- 
 fessions, as if they were the essence, and not the poor 
 abridgment of divine truth — the bibliolatry — the trust 
 in external schemes of propagation — the belief in a 
 modified civil tyranny as the grand method of spread- 
 ing the gospel — the crushing contempt for differences 
 of opinion and varieties of spiritual insight — the dream 
 of uniformity as possible, without a theocracy , on earth 
 — the sidelong and suspicious attitude held toward 
 science, philosophy, and even nature, as if the God of 
 the dead and of the living were not the same — all these, 
 and more than these, we might pardon and pass by in 
 the Polyphemi of the past, but not in their unhappy 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 155 
 
 imitators in many churches and lands of the present, 
 who, like owls half-awakened at noon, have come out, 
 screaming their midnight inspiration into the ears of a 
 new age — and whose voice is only able to recall the 
 darkness, to re-suggest the horrors and falsehoods, but 
 not to bring round the worship, or the love, or the zeal, 
 or the faith, of a bygone day. 
 
 There is, indeed, in every day’s experience much to 
 demonstrate that, in the worst sense, 
 
 “The ancient spirit is not dead; 
 
 Old times, methinks, are breathing still.” 
 
 Honour to the men of the past ! but none to their dregs, 
 their mimics, their caricatures. None to those who 
 would, in the earnest or affected pursuit of their steps, 
 reproduce most of their errors without the vantage- 
 ground of their darkness, and commit many of their 
 mistakes without that fine enthusiasm which alone can 
 atone for them. A sincere and somewhat bigoted en- 
 thusiast in the seventeenth century may be compared to 
 one of the vast creatures of the bygone chaos — the 
 magnificent miscreations of geology, interesting and 
 most instructive as a fossil remain; but should some 
 stray relic of the mastodon or ichthyosaurus come out 
 now from a distant desert, would not man unanimously 
 hoot him back or hunt him down, and say, “ Your day 
 is over; your race has served its purpose and cannot be 
 perpetuated. Besides you are but a degenerate speci- 
 men. Begone !” Lingering, nevertheless, with interest 
 and admiration around these heroes of another age, we 
 notice the deep, disinterested piety of their natures. 
 Would, indeed, this quality were to return — -and un- 
 doubtedly it will, although in a more liberal guise 1 
 
156 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Their “ life was hid with Christ in God.” They 
 habitually “saw him who is invisible.” They fed on 
 the “ hidden manna ” — a heavenly and immortal food. 
 Like the steeds of Achilles, no pabulum less than 
 celestial touched their spiritual palates. It was this 
 which supported them in the moors, and gave them in 
 solitudes and on scaffolds meat to eat of which their 
 enemies knew not. In a manner we can hardly even 
 now conceive, they seemed to have realised God in all 
 their ways and wanderings. “ His word was nigh 
 them.” His awe was a second shadow along their 
 path. His love was felt like another mantle around 
 their chilled and cowering frames. They renewed, in 
 many points, the Hebrew’s feeling of his Maker. Nc 
 need of demonstrating a God to them, or of demonstra- 
 ting him to others. This process — a process in itself 
 impossible — they never even attempted to perform. 
 They lived, moved, and had their being in God. Every 
 shadow or sunbeam which fell on them was that of the 
 Great Whole. He watched over their slumber; He was 
 the real guard upon their mountain-tops; He delivered 
 them out of the hand of their enemies, and sometimes 
 he delivered their enemies into their hands. It is 
 curious how the religion of the J ews has rooted itself 
 more deeply in Scotland than in any other quarter of 
 the globe; how this fiery exotic of a torrid clime has 
 flourished best in the land of mist and snow. Many 
 reasons may be assigned for this. Both countries, 
 amid their diversities of climate, are mountain-lands, 
 full of bold rocky scenery, of ravines and of rivers, with 
 lakes reposing in the midst of barren mountains, and 
 with rich vales alternating with gloomy desolations. 
 Owing partly to their scenery, and partly to their 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 157 
 
 poverty and insulation, both, the Hebrews and the 
 Scotch have been a thoughtful people, inclined to 
 religion, awe-struck by the visible phenomena of the 
 universe, and fond of looking at things in their great 
 masses. More of the analytic element has gradually, 
 indeed, been developed in the Scottish mind; but the 
 fragments of Celtic and border poetry which are 
 extant, serve to prove a striking original resemblance 
 between the genius of the two nations, which in both 
 was bold, figurative, lyrical, and fonder of the rude sub- 
 lime than of the delicate and the beautiful. Hence one 
 reason of the ready and warm reception with which 
 Christianity was welcomed in Scotland, the tenacity 
 with which it has been retained, and the deep and 
 solemn colouring with which it has tinged the popular 
 mind. Hence, too, the reason why the spirit of the 
 Old Testament has met with a profounder response than 
 that of the New; the cosmopolitan aspect, the loving 
 spirit, the gentle and childlike tone of which were less con- 
 genial than the severer purpose, the sterner fire, the 
 more condensed and darker zeal, and the poetic ardour^ 
 of the prophets, and have been less diligently and suc- 
 cessfully transplanted into the Scottish soil. The 
 apostles of the Lamb are less suggested to us by the 
 Camerons, Eenwicks, and Eutherfurds, than are the 
 Elijahs, Ezekiels, and Malachis of the old dispensation, 
 in their “ deep-furrowed garments of trembling,” their 
 metaphorical speech, the hurrying movement of their 
 thought and style, which seems to fling itself, like an 
 impatient eagle, from crag to crag, and the anger which 
 surrounds them as with flames of devouring fire, and 
 renders the place where they stand dreadful and 
 insulated, like the top of Sinai on that morning when it 
 
158 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 was "all of a smoke,” as the feet of Jehovah burned 
 upon it. 
 
 The piety of the Covenanters has often been charged 
 with cant; nor are we disposed altogether to deny the 
 charge. We find much in their spoken and written 
 language calculated to offend our modern taste. We 
 find undue familiarity with divine things, extravagant 
 and absurd expressions of religious feeling, a profusion 
 of such epithets as “ Sweet Jesus,” “ Dear Jesus,” and 
 “ To sleep in the arms of Christ my Lord,” &c., and a 
 use of scripture language in circumstances which render 
 it little less than disgusting. We could easily cull 
 whole pages from Samuel Rutherfurd, Andrew Well- 
 wood, and others of their time, which would excite 
 risible emotions as certainly as the ravings of Mause, or 
 the sermons of Habakkuk Mucklewrath, in Old Morta* 
 lity. But this, while it might make sport to the pro- 
 fane, could not fail to make the judicious and the pious 
 grieve. The laughter produced would be poor and 
 cheap; the sting left behind would be sharp and deadly 
 ’Twas often a barbarous patois which these men spoke, 
 being that of their age and country; but their spirit 
 being that of earnestness, faith, and Christian principle, 
 would have redeemed ten thousand greater faults than 
 slips of taste and errors in language. Piety, like charity 
 and genius, should cover a multitude of sins, and will 
 do so to all manly and ingenuous minds. Great excite- 
 ment seldom picks its words; it deals in blunt and 
 powerful language; and he were a wretched critic who, 
 in hearing a Burke, a Chalmers, or a Wilson, in their 
 hours of “ torrent rapture,” should pause to mark, with 
 malignant accuracy, the harsher tones in their voices, 
 the slight blunders in their syntax, or the petty provm- 
 
OP THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 159 
 
 cialisms in their accent. But sucli views may be more 
 appropriately developed in the course of our examina- 
 tion of the literature of the Covenanters, which has met 
 with great injustice. 
 
 We mark, next, with no little admiration, the courage 
 and constancy of this remarkable people. What courage 
 was theirs, let the records already given of the fights of 
 Pentland, Drumclog, and Airsmoss, not to speak of in- 
 numerable smaller skirmishes, attest. Even the battle 
 of Bothwell was lost less from the want of courage 
 than from untoward circumstances and the evil effects 
 of party spirit. The covenanting warriors were often im- 
 perfectly armed — many had only scythes or bludgeons 
 or pitchforks; they were for the most part untrained 
 to the use of arms; they were almost always forced 
 to fight at odds, and yet even their enemies have neve? 
 denied their bravery. How great the daring required 
 in those little parties who ventured, at Rutherglen and 
 Sanquhar, to burn the acts against the covenanting 
 reformation, and to issue declarations against the ruling 
 powers — in Cargill and Cameron publicly excommuni- 
 cating the king — in the manner in which imprisonments, 
 or confinements in damp caves, were borne — in the un- 
 murmuring silence or holy triumph with which the martyrs 
 mounted their scaffolds, and found themselves “face 
 to face with death;” and in the patience with which 
 they bore the exquisite tortures, or, worse still, the 
 cruel scoffing which attended their trials. Even the 
 flight to which they were often obliged to betake them- 
 selves becomes a new element in our estimate of their 
 courage. There is a difference between even the back 
 of a brave man and the back of a coward. The 
 Covenanter had often to run, but it was before a 
 
160 THE martyrs and heroes 
 
 superior force — often he turned round upon his pursuers 
 — he retired, as well advanced, like a lion — skill, 
 sagacity, self-possession, distinguished and secured his 
 retreat, and in the last extremity he was more ready 
 to fight and die than to yield. Sometimes hearing that 
 the dragoons were approaching, he, like Thomas Brown, 
 the cousin of John of Priesthill, went out calmly to 
 cross their track, passed himself off for a stranger, 
 and when asked if “ the fanatic Brown ” was at home, 
 truly answered that he was not , and was permitted 
 to pass on his way. Sometimes, like John MacClement, 
 pressed hard by his pursuers, when he turned the 
 corner of a hill, seeing a sheep lying dead on the 
 heath, he took off his coat, lifted the sheep on his back, 
 met his enemies, who mistook him for a shepherd, — 
 entered into conversation with them, and succeeded in 
 sending them on a false scent in pursuit of himself. 
 Sometimes, like John Dempster, when pursued so 
 hotly that the horse of the nearest dragoon was pressing 
 on his shoulder, he turned round, plunged a large pair 
 of scissors, his only weapon, into the horse’s forehead, 
 which made him rear, throw his rider, and enabled John 
 to escape into the shadow of an adjacent wood. Some- 
 times, like John Fergusson, when chased to the brink 
 of a dark, deep pool, in a river surrounded by thick 
 willows, he first threw his bonnet and a rake with which 
 he had been working in a hayfield, down the stream, 
 and then plunged under the water, screened by the 
 shade of the willows, and keeping his head above the 
 waves — his pursuers imagining, from the bonnet and 
 fake, that he had drowned himself and been swept 
 down by the current.* The whole annals of romance, 
 * See Simpson’s excellent " Traditions of tbe Covenanters.” 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 161 
 
 in short, including the marvellous escapes described by 
 Le Sage, Godwin, Radcliffe, Scott, and Bulwer, contain 
 no adventures more striking, no incidents more intensely 
 interesting, no such “ hairbreadth” escapes, as those 
 which abound in the history of the Covenant, and which 
 corroborate the well-known statement, 
 
 “ Truth is strange — stranger than fiction . 0 
 
 The courage, too, of the women of the Covenant, 
 must not be forgotten. Truly, from Lady Hamilton 
 standing on Leith shore, with her pistol and gold 
 bullets, ready to shoot her son if he landed — to Isabel 
 Weir, sitting silent and with covered face beside her 
 husband’s corpse — they were high-hearted women those 
 of the Covenanting times ! — true; full of a noble 
 simplicity, blended with yet a nobler guile; most dis- 
 interested in their attachment, most devoted to their 
 principles, and equally brave and sagacious in the usa 
 of means in their husbands’ or lovers’ rescue or defence. 
 Their ornaments were not of gold, or pearls, or costly 
 array — the simple snood, the coif, the plaid, were their 
 dress — but there was that within which passed show, 
 and the enthusiasm which pervaded Scotland nowhere 
 beat more powerfully than in the hearts of her daughters. 
 Now, they concealed their husbands under beds, or in 
 lumber-rooms, and then went out and firmly met the 
 pursuers, and answered their questions. Now, when 
 their husbands were away with their babes to be baptized 
 at conventicles, and when the dragoons came in search, 
 they filled the empty cradles with rags, and continued 
 to rock them, lest the absence of the infants should 
 awaken suspicion as to the errand of the parents. Now, 
 like the immortal Bessie Maclure, in Scott, they sate at 
 
162 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 the turning of two ways, at the eventide, and warned 
 the lonely fugitive that there was a lion in the path. 
 Now, they assisted their husbands in scooping out 
 hollow spots of refuge among the hills. Many 
 a time and oft did they keep the midnight fire burning 
 in their cots, and have a midnight morsel ready, that 
 their husbands — cold, and w r et, and hungry — might 
 steal in and spend an hour or two, in trembling joy, at 
 their own hearth-side. Often, when this was impos- 
 sible, whenever the darkness fell, and the darker the 
 better — and better still if the wind was loud, and the 
 rain falling thick — did these gallant matrons lift up 
 their small bundles of provisions, draw their plaids 
 closely around them, and set out to visit the dark 
 caverns, or pits, or the sides of precipices, where their 
 husbands were lurking, and feed and comfort them 
 there. When tried by horrid tortures to reveal the spots 
 of their retreat, they refused. When led out, as was 
 often the case to die beside them, they took it right 
 joyfully. And many a drink of whey and piece of oat 
 cake did they, standing at the door of their dwellings, 
 give, at the hazard of their own safety, to haggard way- 
 faring-men, who were pursued by the voice of the blood 
 of Magus Muir, or fleeing from the echo of the rout of 
 Bothwell. 
 
 Honour to the memory of such noble daughters of 
 Almighty God ! No theatrical airs or meretricious 
 graces were there about them. Never does any of them, 
 like Charlotte Corday, step out of woman’s sphere and 
 become a sublime assassin; nor, like Madame Boland, 
 mingle a certain affectation and grimace with the 
 grandeurs of a heroic death. They were as simple as 
 they were great. Their characters seem modelled upon 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 163 
 
 that of Scotland’s scenery — their hearts were as soft as 
 its vales, while their principles were like its hills, high, 
 firm, and unmoveable. And Scotland can boast of a 
 similar class of women still, who are worthy of having 
 sprung from the daughters of the Covenant, and in 
 whom superior knowledge and refinement have not 
 deadened the sense of right, damped the glow of piety, 
 or degraded the fine instincts of virtuous and disin- 
 terested womanhood. 
 
 Not inferior to the courage was the constancy of this 
 people. The word applied to them by Scott in Red- 
 gauntlet, describes them in this point admirably. “ The 
 Whigs,” says Wandering Willie, “were as dour as the 
 cavaliers were fierce.” Yes, doure (from the Latin 
 “ durus ,”) is the word for their perseverance and in 
 tensity of resistance. It was an assault of lightning — 
 flash after flash — bolt after bolt ; here they had to en- 
 counter the forked fire of a Claverhouse, and there the 
 dull thunderbolts of a Turner or a Dalziel. But grim 
 was the array of rocks which met and repelled it ; and 
 while the lightning exhausted itself and passed, the 
 rocks were found split, scorched, but remaining. 
 This constancy was partly created by the depth with 
 which religion had ploughed itself into the southern 
 Scottish heart. — partly by the activity and energy of 
 the ministers — partly by a certain stubbornness which 
 adheres to the national character, and partly by the 
 recoil and reaction generally produced by the very 
 severity of a persecution. The Scotchman driven des- 
 perate, may be likened, not so much to the stag at bay 
 as to the wolf, in the Lays of Ancient Rome, v T hich 
 “ Dies in silence, biting hard , 
 
 Amidst the dying hounds/' 
 
164 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 This “ doureness” may be partly, also, owing, at once iri 
 its spirit and its success, to our scenery. “ Deep calleth 
 unto deep.’" The contemplation of fixed features in 
 nature — of changeless moors and granite mountains — 
 of rocks on whose faces each wrinkle is the work of a 
 century — of the monotonous surface of the ocean and 
 the unalterable splendours of the stars, is calculated to 
 create a certain rugged determination in the minds of 
 the inhabitants. They become fierce as the tiger, yet 
 patient as the camel when passing over his interminable 
 deserts. The motto of such men is, “ I bide my time.” 
 Hence the revenge, the love, the fear, the loyalty, the 
 superstition, the manners and religion of North Britain, 
 have all been distinguished by a slow fire, a long deep 
 fervour, and are well described in one of their ballads, 
 referring to the attachment of the Highlanders to 
 Charles Edward — 
 
 u And sure that love must be sincere, 
 
 Which still proves true whate’er betide, 
 
 And for his sake leaves a’ beside. 
 
 In fact, it is only in the sturdy devotion of the clans to 
 the Stuart family, that we find a complete counterpart 
 in later ages to the determined attachment of the Cove- 
 nanters to their banner. And it is remarkable that 
 both these enthusiasms were sheltered, strengthened 
 and conserved, by the fact, that they divided between 
 them the two great mountain-tracts of the country — the 
 northern and southern Highlands. From these, as from 
 two peaks, flared up in contradiction and reply to each 
 other, for a century and more, the two fierce and 
 tremulous, yet fixed flame-pillars of Jacobite and prcs- 
 byterian zeal. 
 
 There are some remarks of William Howitt which 
 
OP THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 165 
 
 bear eloquently on this topic — “Thanks be to God foi 
 mountains ! When I turn my eyes upon the map of 
 the world, and behold how wonderfully the countries 
 where our faith was nurtured, where our liberties were 
 generated, where our philosophy and literature, the 
 fountains of our intellectual grace and beauty, sprang 
 up, were as distinctly walled out by God’s hand with 
 mountain-ramparts, as if at the especial prayer of the 
 early fathers of man’s destinies, I am lost in an exulting 
 admiration. Look at the bold barriers of Palestine ! 
 see how the infant liberties of Greece was sheltered 
 from the vast tribes of the uncivilised north by the 
 heights of Haemus and Rhodope ! behold how the Alps 
 describe their magnificent crescent, inclining their op- 
 posite extremities to the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas, 
 locking up Italy from the Gallic and Teutonic hordes 
 till the power and spirit of Rome had reached their 
 maturity, and she had opened the wide forest of Europe 
 to the light, spread far her laws and language, and 
 planted the seeds of many mighty nations !” 
 
 “ Thanks be to God for mountains ! Their colossal 
 firmness seems almost to break the current of time 
 itself. While a multitude of changes has remoulded 
 the people of Europe, while languages and laws and 
 dynasties and creeds have passed over it, like shadows 
 over the landscape, the children of the Celt and of the 
 Goth, who fled to the mountains a thousand years ago, 
 are found there now, and shew us in face and figure, in 
 language and garb, what their fathers were; shew us a 
 fine contrast with the modern tribes dwelling below 
 and around therq; and shew us, moreover, how adverse 
 is the spirit of the mountain to mutability, and that 
 there the fiery heart of freedom is found for ever.” 
 
166 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Public spirit, and the presence of impersonal enthu 
 siasm, are qualities often connected with such earnest- 
 ness and piety as we have already attributed to the 
 Scottish Covenanters. But there have been times, in 
 which piety and earnestness have flowed more in 
 personal and less in public channels, in which the ques- 
 tion has been more, “ What shall I do to be saved V' 
 than “ What shall I do to save the church at large ?” In 
 the era of methodism, the former was the question 
 which ran through the land and created the excitement. 
 In the days of the Covenant, although personal piety 
 flourished, the great point was the best mode of pro- 
 moting the extension, the liberty, and the power of the 
 general church. There was then in Scotland little 
 purely theological controversy. The shadow of scepti- 
 cism upon individual minds, although not unknown, 
 did not lie so heavily as often now ; doubt was lost in 
 action; and every noble mind and heart, instead of 
 tormenting itself and others with unanswerable ques- 
 tions, rushed eagerly into public work “ as the horse 
 rusheth into the battle.” With this devotedness to a 
 public “ testimony-bearing,” there were indeed con- 
 nected many formidable evils. In the first place, it to 
 a great extent foreclosed the exercise of free thought 
 and inquiry. It added a dogmatic stamp to opinion, 
 and hurried it to an untrue test, that of the sword. It 
 hindered progress, and often stereotyped error. But it 
 also had important advantages. It prevented all half- 
 measures, all halting between two opinions, all useless 
 scruples; and secured unity, consistency, and energy in 
 the prosecution of their views. They felt that their 
 duty was not to think, but to do. In the language of 
 a deceased Scotch divina qI great eminence in his 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 167 
 
 day:* “Our fathers have often told us how much, in 
 their earlier years, they were embarked in the cause of 
 religion, as an object of great public concern; and have 
 complained that the good fame which well belonged to 
 it as a public cause, is now abandoned by a generation 
 who feel, or pretend to feel, that their religious concern 
 is only and properly directed about their own individual 
 interests or personal salvation. In contemplating the 
 history of the church of Scotland in its earlier days, 
 and comparing it with the appearance of the religious 
 world in our country at present, we cannot help being 
 deeply struck with the difference of regard then and 
 now paid to the public cause, or the welfare of the 
 church of Christ; with the far deeper concern they took 
 in it, compared with the little interest which we feel 
 in the great sacrifices which they made for its support, 
 in comparison of the scorn which in many instances 
 we attach to its name. It was a remarkable feature of 
 the second reformation, in the year 1638, that the fine 
 spirit of concern about the public cause, which the enemy 
 during the preceding apostacy had attempted by every 
 means to eradicate or repress, once more sprung elate, 
 and recovering all its former buoyancy, spread its reno- 
 vated and unabated influence over the church of Scotland. 
 The church proceeded in reformation, and everywhere the 
 word of God grew and multiplied. In that auspicious 
 period, one of the most sublime enterprises which 
 the conception of man ever has at any time grasped, 
 began to be put in progress — the church of Christ, exert- 
 ing her moral and religious power on the world, and 
 bringing a whole nation under the practical influence of 
 the word of God. It might have been expected that 
 
 * The late John Jameson, of Methven, mentioned above. 
 
 M 
 
268 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 the public spirit, which in 1638 resumed its elasticity 
 would, at the revolution, when it made its escape from 
 a more fiery trial, have burst forth with a purer fire and 
 blazed with a brighter flame. What shall we say ? The 
 storm, indeed, was laid, the clouds had been dispelled, 
 and the sun again had broken forth; but it was a sun 
 shorn of his beams. That fine spirit which could not, 
 or would not, temporize, which in matters of God, 
 between truth and error, light and darkness, duty and 
 sin, the rights of God and the pleasure, or the vanity, or 
 the folly of man, could admit of no compromise — that 
 spirit was sadly dissipated. The church of Scotland 
 came to the revolution a goodly vine withered in the 
 blast. Abashed at the sight, the genius of the refor- 
 mation hung her head, and wept over her wasted and 
 departing spirit.’ , 
 
 We do not entirely coincide with these eloquent re- 
 marks ; and continue to believe that, whatever may be 
 said of the design of the second reformation, the means 
 employed to promote it were unchristian, and therefore 
 abortive; but it may be granted that the prevalence of 
 public spirit in the Covenanting age led to noble results 
 on character. These men of the Covenant were in the 
 last degree unselfish. They were swallowed up in 
 their cause. They never thought about themselves. 
 Their language was, in effect, that of Danton, “ Let my 
 name be blighted — what am I ] — the cause alone is 
 great ! ” Hence, we find little egotism in their words, 
 and none in their actions. Never is the most gifted of 
 them found asking the question, “ What shall I do to 
 be for ever Rnown ! ” but “ What shall I do to make 
 known God’s great name, and to bind his Covenant for 
 ever around the loins and heart of my country.” Base 
 
OP THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 169 
 
 and self-seeking men there were, doubtless, among 
 them, but nations are never hypocrites en masse , and in 
 general, the Covenanting people were as disinterested 
 as they were brave. It is not necessary to decry the 
 love of reputation. There is equal truth and spirit in 
 the words of Milton : 
 
 i * Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise, 
 
 The last infirmity of noble minds. ” 
 
 And the love of reputation, even to the degree which 
 made Johnson value the “praise of every human being,” 
 is a natural and noble principle. But there is some- 
 thing higher than both. Echoes are found at the foot 
 of rocks, but above them there is a lofty region whence 
 no response can be returned, because the canopy is the 
 sky ; so are there those who speak at once to heaven, 
 and who, as they do not expect, are not astonished to 
 receive no audible answer. On the eminence, where 
 the future verdict of God is alone appealed to, and 
 where is immediate human applause, and even the calm 
 decision of posterity, are not regarded, stood the better 
 and braver of the children of the Covenant. 
 
 The eloquence of such men was precisely what might 
 have been expected from their character, their excita- 
 tion, and their circumstances. Polish or elaboration, 
 lucidus ordo or concinnitas, were hardly to be expected 
 in the oratory of those who mounted the pulpit at the 
 hazard of their lives, and whose sermons were apt to be 
 interrupted by the shots of the foe. But the elements 
 of astonishing eloquence were found in their extempore 
 harangues. MacBriar’s supposed sermon in Old Mor- 
 tality, at the close of the battle of Drumclog, is pro- 
 bably a very fair specimen of the discourses which 
 acted with such trumpet-like effect upon the peopled 
 
170 THE martyrs and heroes 
 
 moor-sides of Fife and Galloway. In sucli sermons, a 
 profusion of Scripture was used ; every resemblance 
 that could be found between their circumstances and 
 those of the old Jews and Christians was carefully 
 brought forward; there was little didactic matter, but 
 there was much stirring, practical appeal; the meta- 
 phors were massive and bold; the allusions to the 
 natural objects around them were not so numerous as 
 they would be in similar circumstances now; but they 
 always told, and the general effect was to create in every 
 breast the irresistible cry, “ Lead us to battle !” The 
 manner of their preachers was far from graceful : they 
 almost invariably sang a gamut of their own; their 
 voices were more sonorous than sweet, and their gesture 
 was uncouth and uncultured. But some can testify 
 from recollection how powerful singing , as it was called, 
 became, particularly on sacramental occasions, and in 
 the serving of communion-tables. We have heard at 
 such times wild strains of oratorical melody, no doubt 
 handed down from the days of the Covenant, and which, 
 if at first they rather tended to excite a smile in the 
 young, rarely failed, ere they closed, to melt both young 
 and old, both speaker and audience, into tears. Powel 
 there certainly was, however rudely disguised, in those 
 mountain preachings, which drew and detained thousands 
 in the wilderness — which nerved men for the most un- 
 equal and bloody contests — which soothed agony, 
 awakened faith, relieved the pangs of hunger, covered 
 the shame of nakedness, and kept hope burning, like 
 a “ torch in the wind,” for twenty- eight terrible years. 
 
 The literature of the covenanting age, like its oratory 
 must not be tried by a severe aesthetic standard. Dur- 
 ing the persecution, indeed it was confined chiefly to 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 171 
 
 protests, declarations, and dying testimonies. In these 
 last, as collected in Napthali and elsewhere, there is a 
 certain severe, purged simplicity, a pathos and grandeur 
 which move you to your depths. There are not many 
 individual expressions that will bear quotation; the 
 power is in the whole; and you cannot help admiring 
 the manly sense, spirit, calmness, dignity, and piety which 
 distinguish the sufferers to a degree so equal that you 
 fancy them a band of brothers. You see, undoubtedly, 
 much of the narrowness of the times, but not a particle 
 of the indiscreet and insane fanaticism usually ascribed 
 to the party. One Thomas Brown, who with four 
 others was executed on Magus Muir, in lerrorem , al- 
 though neither he nor any of his fellows was concerned 
 in the death of Sharp, speaks out with great boldness. 
 He prays God to remove the “ deluge of wrath which 
 is hanging over the head of these lands for the breach 
 of Covenant in them.” He says, “ I die, in the faith 
 that the seeds sown at Bothwell Bridge shall have a 
 glorious spring and harvest, which shall be renowned in 
 the eyes of all the beholders of it.” Elsewhere, he 
 identifies, the cause of the Covenant with Christ him- 
 self, and says that “ He is forced to go to the mountains 
 and dens and caves of the earth.” He expects soon to 
 be “a sharer of the heavenly mansions, and of the 
 peaceable fruits of righteousness, which the Lord the 
 righteous Judge shall give me.” The rest of his testi- 
 mony is distinct, weighty, and vigorous. And yet this 
 man was only a shoemaker ! 
 
 How far more imposing those fine stammerings of 
 sincerity, those gasps of great dying hearts, than the 
 most elaborate efforts of cultivated talent ! They rev 
 mind one of the dumb son of Crassus bursting silence 
 
172 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 and speaking out. Or it is “as though the rocks of the 
 sea should speak, and tells us what they have been 
 thinking of from immemorial time.” We contrast 
 them favourably with the scaffold-speeches of the 
 French revolutionists. If wanting their lurid sublimity, 
 as of dying thunder, they have a softness and holy 
 calm, like the lapse of an autumn sun. Danton cries 
 out, “ My dwelling shall soon be with annihilation !” 
 John King says, “Welcome everlasting life, everlasting 
 glory, everlasting love, and everlasting praise.” Verg- 
 niaud and his doomed Girondists sing, on the last 
 night of their life, tumultuous songs, and weave ghastly 
 dialogues with Satan about their enemy, Robespierre. 
 The five at Magus Muir pass away to glory singing 
 Psalm xxxiv, with these, among other of its words of 
 celestial cheer : — 
 
 * The angel of the Lord encamps 
 And round encompasseth 
 
 All those about that do him fear. 
 
 And them delivereth. 
 
 The lion’s young may hungry be, 
 
 And they may lack their food; 
 
 But they who truly seek the Lord 
 Shall not lack any good.” 
 
 But the Covenant, before the persecution, had. pro- 
 duced a peculiar and very interesting literature. It is 
 not indeed so well known as the contemporaneous 
 works of the Puritan writers. Nor can the writings of 
 either the early or the later Covenanters be placed upon 
 anything like an equality with those of the English 
 divines of the same periods. It is vain to seek among 
 the Scotch for a John Howe, that gentlest and most 
 symmetrical of the sons of Anak — strong as an earth- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 173 
 
 born Titan, and yet beautiful as a woman, and with 
 the fiery air of a seraph breathing around his vast form 
 — a Plato added to the eastern sages, and with them 
 bending at the manger, and spreading out treasure of 
 myrrh, frankincense, and gold, before the divine child; 
 for a John Owen, the weighty, the minute, the learned 
 — with all the solidity, the wide compass, and the 
 gnarled knots of the broad old oak; for the “ incompar- 
 able Culverwell,” as one enthusiastically calls him; for 
 Bates, the “ silver-tongued;” for the massive Manton; 
 for the ingenious Charnock; for the richly practical 
 Flavel; for Bunyan, the inspired dreamer, to whom in 
 sleep, as in that isle of enchantment, the “ clouds 
 opened and showed riches,” and who when he awoke 
 “ cried to dream again;” and if we may class him with 
 any cluster in any firmament — for a Milton — 
 
 “ Whose soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.” 
 
 Still we find among our rugged lowland men some 
 writers worthy of long memory, and who in sincerity 
 and, perhaps, in native force, if not in art and culture, 
 are inferior only to the highest of those English authors 
 just named. Among these, Hugh Binning’s works, 
 which fill a thick quarto volume, are distinguished by 
 clear arrangement, evangelical richness of matter, and, 
 for that age, correctness and elegance of style. This 
 author died in his twenty-sixth year, but not till he had, 
 besides writing much, acquired great fame as a pulpit 
 orator. One bad but characteristic pun of CromwelTs 
 is recorded in connection with his name. He had once, 
 it is said, held a dispute with the general’s divines on 
 the points in contest between the independents and 
 presbyterians, and had succeeded in silencing them. 
 
174 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Cromwell asked what bold and learned youth this was. 
 He was told it was one Binning (the Scotch for “ bind- 
 ing/’) and answered, “ He hath bound well indeed, but,” 
 laying his hand on his sword, “ This will loose all 
 again !” William Guthrie, of Fenwick, in Ayrshire, 
 cousin of James Guthrie, the martyr, and reputed the 
 u greatest preacher in Scotland/’ has left one little 
 treatise : “ The Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ,” 
 which deserves perusal as a most searching and vigorous 
 tractate, and which, if it does not captivate the heart or 
 the fancy by its beauty, casts very strong grappling-irons 
 upon the conscience of its reader. Durham’s Treatises 
 on Isaiah, on the Song of Solomon, and on the Revela- 
 tion, were once very popular, although they have out- 
 lived their day. He was undoubtedly a man of great 
 industry and attainments, and of eminent talents. He 
 was born in the neighbourhood of Dundee, became a 
 minister in Glasgow, wrote at least ten volumes and, 
 like many of the Covenanting worthies, died young — 
 ere he had completed his thirty-sixth year. Robert 
 Blair, Alexander Henderson, and George Gillespie, who 
 were all reputed men of first-rate abilities, have left 
 little to substantiate their reputation, and with that little 
 few are acquainted. Robert Traill’s works were 
 written after the Revolution, and, although dry and 
 systematic, are able, and their Calvinism is somewhat 
 ultra. The names of Brown of Wamphray, of Calder- 
 wood, and of Wodrow, are familiar. But by far the 
 most remarkable specimens, both of the power and the 
 weakness, the faults and the merits, of the Covenanting 
 school, are to be found in the works, and particularly 
 the letters, of Samuel Rutherfurd, and in a little book 
 breathing a similar spirit, entitled “A Glimpse of 
 Glory,” by Andrew Well wood. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 175 
 
 Samuel Rutherfurd was the son of a gentleman in 
 Edinburgh. He attended its university, and at an early 
 age was made professor of philosophy ; predecessor thus 
 of the many illustrious men who have taught philosophy 
 in that chair — of Stewart, of Brown, and last and 
 greatest far, of Wilson, now, alas! in the sere and 
 yellow leaf of one of the most glorious minds which 
 ever emanated from the Creator. From the chair of 
 philosophy Rutherfurd passed to be minister in Anwoth, 
 Galloway, without being required to bend before the 
 golden calf of the bishops. Here he published his 
 j Exercitationes de Gratid , a learned and powerful tractate 
 against Arminianism, for which he narrowly escaped 
 punishment at the bar of the High Court of Com- 
 misssion. Nevertheless, he persisted in his nonconfor- 
 mity to the prevailing powers, and was on the 27th of 
 July 1636, deprived of his ministerial functions, and 
 confined in the city of Aberdeen during the king’s 
 pleasure. At the end of a year and a half he returned 
 to his flock, and renewed his labours with greater zeal 
 and energy than ever. He appeared at the famous 
 Glasgow Assembly, where he gave an account of 
 his proceedings, his confinement and its causes, and 
 was by it appointed divinity professor at St Andrews, 
 where he created an excitement only second to that 
 produced by Chalmers two centuries afterwards in 
 the same place. St Andrews had the fortune to be 
 twice revived from the deepest lethargy by two extra- 
 ordinary men; from the lethargy of the prelates, by 
 Samuel Rutherfurd, and from the lethargy of the pro- 
 fessors, by Thomas Chalmers. Its grass-grown streets 
 owned in each the presence of a Man, and the echoes of 
 its halls and churches awoke in both cases to the voice 
 
176 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 of a Christian orator. In the year 1643, Eutherfurd, 
 as we have seen, went up with three others to the 
 Westminster Assembly, and played his part there man- 
 fully and ably. Shortly after he published his u Lex 
 Rex” an elaborate volume, in which he wields a two- 
 edged sword against what he thought the extremes of 
 independency, on the one hand, and of erastianism, on 
 the other. This book — now totally unread, except by 
 antiquarians or history- writers, and the very name of 
 which is unknown to many who devour daily his Letters 
 — had the honour to be answered at the cross of Edin- 
 burgh, in letters of fire, and by the hand of the common 
 hangman. This was in 1661. What a pity that tliia 
 same swift and summary method of disposing of 
 unanswerable and “ untoward ” books does not still 
 exist ! Then we might witness, although not assist at, 
 the burning obsequies of many modern works, to which 
 fire, as a type of unreasoning and unsatisfied fury, were 
 the only possible reply. While Eutherfurd’s book was 
 thus consuming, his noble body and mind were environed 
 in another furnace — that of death. The Parliament, 
 after burning his treatise, were about to indict him at 
 their bar, while he was lying quiet and joyful, waiting 
 for a higher summons. His book was burned, indeed, 
 at the very gates of the college wherein he lay dying — 
 the scent of its conflagration might have reached him 
 on his death-bed — but he cared for none of these things; 
 his soul had soared already far above Rex and Lex , far 
 beyond the loftiest reaches of even his Letters, far 
 beyond Beulah and the black Eiver of Death. He had 
 said, “ Mine eyes shall see my Eedeemer — I know he 
 shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and I shall 
 be caught up to the clouds to meet him in the air, and 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 17V 
 
 so shall I be ever with him.” “ This night shall close 
 the door, and put my anchor within the vail; and I 
 shall go away in a sleep by five o’clock in the morning.” 
 And so it was: at that hour he gave up the ghost, and, 
 in the striking language of one of his biographers, “ the 
 renowned eagle took his flight to the mountains of 
 spices.” 
 
 Samuel Ilutherfurd had his faults, which have been 
 blazoned and exaggerated by one or two late writers, 
 who are not worthy of unloosing his shoe-latchets. Let 
 them speak as they please of his “ spiritual sensualism,” 
 and throw out dark hints that there was another 
 sensualism of a less pardonable kind behind it. But 
 surely every man who has ever candidly studied either 
 his character or his writings, must be persuaded that he 
 was not only essentially a holy man, but an earnest and a 
 “ burning one.” He breathed and lived and had his 
 being in celestial love ! He would undoubtedly have 
 been greater had he been more calm — had in other 
 words, the insight and the affection, which were both in 
 him, been more thoroughly reconciled and attempered 
 to each other — had the cherub looked through the 
 seraph’s eyes, and had the seraph added his fiery edge 
 to the cherub’s wings; but, as it was, he has in 
 his Letters attained rare heights of a sublime and 
 rapturous devotion. 
 
 There are books which seem to have been written, 
 and which should be read, in summer. At other 
 seasons they may appear somewhat over-coloured and 
 exaggerated; but let 
 
 “ Summer be tbe tide, and sweet the hour” — 
 let the old deluge of day be pouring from its old source 
 
178 THE HEROES AND MARTYRS 
 
 — let every heart and eye be drinking in the unmeasured 
 radiance — let each soul feel that in accepting the sunshine 
 he is receiving it as God’s gift, and as the type and 
 emblem of the higher light of the Sun of Righteousness 
 — and then, in the intensity of the commingled emotions 
 of sense free from sensuality, and of faith free from form 
 — let us sit down with our minds thus in sympathy with 
 his subject, to read carefully and admiringly Rutherfurd’s 
 Letters. Whatever master-pieces of mere genius we may 
 have been for months before engaged in perusing, with 
 an interest however intense, and a sympathy however 
 deep, when we come to read those wild, beautiful, 
 and holy lyrics of Rutherfurd, penned from prisons, 
 and huts, and ocean-sides, we become conscious of a 
 higher something — a far grander sincerity of soul — a 
 nicer and truer melody of tenderness — more, in short, of 
 heaven labouring and striving to reproduce itself on earth 
 — (like the sun shooting up in wheat and daisies and 
 roses and golden corn) than, save in a very few authors 
 we had ever witnessed ^efore. We may see, but will 
 not feel, the extravagances of his style and manner 
 These will be lost in the earnestness of his purpose, and 
 the holy beauties of his thought and language. Some- 
 times, indeed, the mark is overshot — the boundary of 
 good taste is overleaped — but this is never through 
 affectation or weakness, or even the wantonness of power, 
 but from the excess of ecstasy and of high emotion. His 
 soul is a river of God, not only lip-full, but running 
 over. And to think of all this as issuing from dungeons 
 and darkness — written in proscription and in the pros- 
 pect of death! As with all true Christians, Rutherfurd’s 
 heart was deeply smitten with a passion for Christ. It 
 was not a cold, systematic Christianity he believed in, but 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT 179 
 
 a living Saviour. It has been said of Eobert Hall, that 
 when engaged in prayer he seemed actually to see Christ 
 — so personal and absorbing and ardent, did his devo* 
 tion become. Just so was it with Eutherfurd. No 
 need for his ascending to heaven or diving into the 
 depths in search of Christ — “the Word is nigh him, in 
 his mouth, and in his heart,” and in his eye: hence the 
 passionate peculiarity of his language. It is that of a 
 lover, not writing to his betrothed, but clasping her in 
 a pure and warm embrace. Take one out of a thousand 
 expressions of this passion for J esus — “ I avouch, before 
 God, angels, and men, that I have not seen nor can 
 imagine a lover comparable to Jesus. I would not 
 exchange or barter him for ten heavens; if heaven 
 could be without him what could we do there !” Hear 
 him again on a cognate subject — “ My Lord now hath 
 given me experience (howbeit weak and small) that 
 our best fare is hunger ; we are but at God’s by-board 
 in this lower house; we have cause to long for supper- 
 time, and the high table up in the high palace: the world 
 deserveth nothing but the outer court of our soul. If 
 ye take the storm with borne-down Christ your sky will 
 quickly clear and your morning dawn.” To a widow 
 he says, “ What missing can there be of a dying man 
 when God jilleth the chair ? ” Again — “ The 'parings 
 and crumbs of glory that fall under Christ’s table in 
 heaven — a shower, like a thin May-mist, of his love 
 would make me green and joyful, till the summer sun 
 of eternal glory break up.” What a sentence is the 
 following ! — “ Oh, sweet for evermore, to see a rose of 
 heaven growing in so ill a ground as hell ; and to see 
 Christ’s love, his peace, faith, goodness, long-suffering 
 and patience, growing and springing, like the flowers of 
 
180 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 God’s garden, out of such stony and cursed ground as 
 the hatred of the prelates and the malice of their high 
 commission ; and antichrist’s bloody hand and heart is 
 not here art and wisdom — is not here heaven indented in 
 hell (if I may say so) like a jewel set with skill in a ring 
 with the enamel of Christ’s cross.” Speaking of a dead 
 lady, he says, “ I grant death is to her a very new thing, 
 but heaven was prepared of old; and Christ exalted in 
 his highest throne, loaded with glory , incomparably 
 exalted above men and angels, having such a circle of 
 glorified harpers and musicians above, compassing the 
 the throne with songs, is to her a new thing — but new 
 as the first summer rose, or as a new paradise to a 
 traveller broken and worn, out of breath with the sad 
 occurrences of a long and dreary way.” Or take, in fine, 
 some extracts from his letter to that noble youth, George 
 Gillespie, written a little before Gillespie’s death. It is 
 difficult to imagine that any one can ever read them 
 without a sense of mournful sublimity, melting at last into 
 tears. 
 
 “ Reverend and dear Brother, 
 
 “I cannot speak to you. The way ye know, the 
 passage is free and not stopped, the print of the foot- 
 steps of the Forerunner is clear and manifest. Many 
 have gone before you: ye will not sleep long in the 
 dust before the day break; it is a far shorter piece of 
 the end of the night to you than to Abraham and Moses; 
 beside all the time of their bodies’ resting under corrup- 
 tion, it is as long yet to their day as to your morning- 
 light of awaking to glory; though their spirits, having 
 the advantage of yours, have had now the start of the 
 shore before you. I dare say nothing against his dis- 
 pensation. I hope to follow quickly. I fear the clay 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 181 
 
 house is taking down and undermining, but it is nigh the 
 dawning; look to the east, the dawning of glory is near; 
 the nearer the morning the darker. Some traveller 
 seeth the city twenty miles off, and yet within the eighth 
 part of a mile he cannot see it. Some see the goal at 
 once, and never again till the races end — it is coming 
 all in a sum together, when ye are in a more gracious 
 capacity to tell it than now. 4 Ye are not come to the 
 mount that might be touched; nor unto blackness, and 
 darkness, and tempest; but ye are come to Mount Zion, 
 unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general 
 assembly and church of the firstborn, and to God the 
 judge of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, 
 and to Jesus the mediator of the New Testament, and 
 to the blood of sprinkling.’ Ye must leave the wife to 
 a more choice husband, and the children to a better 
 father. If ye leave any testimony to the Lord’s work 
 and covenant against both malignants and sectaries let 
 it be under your hand, and subscribed before faithful 
 witnesses. 
 
 “ Your loving and afflicted brother, 
 
 “ Samuel Rutherfurd.” 
 
 St Andrews , Sept. Zlth, 1648. 
 
 Thus, two hundred years ago, wrote one saintly 
 sufferer to another, and there is something still vital in 
 his simple yet noble and touching words. What he 
 says in this letter is not equal to what he says not . He 
 seems curbing the boundless consolation he might have 
 poured into the soul of his gifted and prematurely- 
 expiring friend. We think that even Macintosh’s letter 
 to Hall, on his coming down from the “ thunder- hill 
 
182 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 of frenzy, is not superior to this last pressure of Samuel 
 Rutherfurd’s hand upon that of his friend Gillespie, ere 
 he went away alone into the valley and the shadow of 
 death. 
 
 And yet these letters gave no idea of Rutherfurd in 
 his whole capacity. They shew his genius, his piety, and 
 his heart; but the man who could weep like a babe and 
 love like a woman, could also, as some of his other works 
 prove, act and reason like a man. It is so with all the 
 really gifted. They are great all round; and only 
 blindness or malignity can deny it. We never hope to 
 see his genius fully recognised: his subjects and his 
 peculiar treatment of them, render that impossible; but 
 we are certain that he possessed genius of a high order, 
 and that some at least, of his fine rhapsodies of thought 
 and feeling shall long survive. He has been compared 
 to Bunyan; and there was a resemblance in the lofty 
 reach, the imagination, the devotion, and the semi- 
 sensuous tone of their minds; but the difference is on 
 the whole, to Bunyan ’s advantage. He had less learning 
 and less fancy, but he had much more creative, dramatic, 
 and imaginative power, and has framed what life is — 
 a story — and a story so true, that every heart on earth 
 with whom it has ever come into contact has accepted 
 and rejoiced over it, as if it had been its own work. 
 
 Andrew Wellwood was the son of a minister in 
 Annandale, and was himself designed for the church, 
 but died in his youth of consumption. This event took 
 place in London, where he had probably fled to escape 
 the heat of the persecution. This is all his brief history. 
 But he has left behind him a little volume, “ A Glimpse 
 of Glory,” which may, with a certain class of readers 
 preserve for a time his name. It rather palls, as a 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 183 
 
 whole, from the unflagging nature of the writer, but 
 contains striking passages and thoughts. We open the 
 book almost at random, and find the following passage: 
 — “ How oft have I thought, if the wilderness is so 
 sweet and pleasant, what must the inland be! Is there 
 such ravishing variety of beauty, glory, and sweetness, 
 all along in my pilgrimage — what can I imagine to be- 
 hold in my native country ? Is the habitation where 
 devils, wicked men, and beasts inhabit, so excellent and 
 glorious — what can I think of the place where Jesus, 
 the Emmanuel, with his fair company of saints and 
 angels, everlastingly abides ? Is my God’s footstool so 
 glorious — what must his throne be? — Is the under- 
 vault of this base dungeon so majestic — oh the higher 
 hall of glory, where the glorious King and his magnifi- 
 cent court remain ! No veil there drawn between the 
 lower and the higher habitation — no smoky fumes be- 
 twixt heaven and earth — >no winds nor storms, pinching 
 cold or piercing heat — no vicissitudes of summer and 
 winter — nothing but an eternal spring-tide and endless 
 summer — a constant harvest — all are in their blooming 
 estate and fullest perfection ! What wonder ! Is it not 
 the centre of infinite influences ? The sweet influences 
 of Pleiades are never bound up — the bands of Orion 
 are ever loosed ?” And, in the same style, for two 
 hundred and fifty pages, does this dying youth describe 
 the little of the glory of the place which the dim glass 
 and his own trembling hand enable him to descry from 
 the summit of Mount Clear; and when the long soliloquy 
 is over, his soul has taken its bound upwards, and his 
 weary body drops down, dust to dust, in the " sure and 
 certain hope of a blessed resurrection.” 
 
 Poor, after all, it may be said, is all this literary spray 
 
184 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 you have been able to collect from the ocean of the 
 Scottish persecution. But let us remember that it is 
 not during persecutions or revolutions that literature is 
 either read or written. Then the “ nations are angry;” 
 and it is not amid the hot passions of angry nations 
 that the richest dews of genius descend. The true 
 literature of such periods must be sought for after- 
 wards; and a subsequent chapter will describe the 
 influences which the Covenanting day has exerted on 
 some of the best recent writers. The impression made 
 on the heart and the imagination of Scotland was too 
 profound either to be easily or early expressed, or to be 
 Boon exhausted. 
 
 Much has been said of the persecuting spirit of the 
 Covenanters. “ Why should they complain of persecu- 
 tion, when all they desiderated for being fierce persecu- 
 tors was power ? The other party had the sword; they 
 had dropped it — that is all,” Some truth, of course, 
 there is in this statement. Almost all the errors of the 
 Covenanters sprung from their ignorance of the spirit- 
 uality of Christ’s present kingdom, and their absurd 
 notion that the magistrate’s sword was a necessary 
 weapon in the Christian armoury. But we have no 
 reason to believe that they ever would have organised 
 such a systematic and bloody persecution as that which 
 they suffered. During the time they were in power, 
 they did indeed commit some unjustifiable acts — such 
 as the massacre of the prisoners after the battle of 
 Philiphaugh ; but their general administration was 
 mildness itself compared to the subsequent conduct of 
 their adversaries. They made, as we have seen, no 
 reprisals upon their enemies after the revolution. The 
 acts of violence committed by them were chiefly in self* 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 185 
 
 defence, or extorted from them by despair. Above all, 
 they were, with all their faults, Christians. They did 
 not, like their enemies, stimulate themselves to outrage, 
 or harden themselves against its remorse, by habitual 
 drunkenness. What they inflicted was done in dignity, 
 and with that measured gravity which attends judi- 
 cial acts. The cruel deeds of the cavaliers might be 
 compared to those of beasts of prey or of cannibals, 
 " torturing, mangling, devouring, drinking the blood of 
 their victims.” Those of the Covenanters were the 
 solemn sacrifices of mistaken religious men in honour 
 of an imperfect but profoundly-believed idea. 
 
 That idea was unquestionably a bold, if not a satis- 
 factory one. So far as it consisted in aversion to 
 episcopacy, or in the maintenance of the rights of pres- 
 byterian parity, or in dislike to the “ ill-mumbled mass” 
 in its weary monotony and vain repetitions, or in its 
 resistance to the insolent aggressions of the civil power, 
 or in its determined animosity to popery — in all its 
 phases and under all its disguises — multitudes in the 
 present day will fully justify it. Had it confined itself 
 to these, it had been, in every respect, a cause worthy 
 of more than all the blood and suffering expended in its 
 defence. In this case, we could more freely have classed 
 the Covenanters with the Waldenses, or the early 
 Christian martyrs, as objects of unmingled sympathy and 
 respect. But they went further than this. They held 
 not only that the making of public covenants was a 
 part of Christian dutv — although there is not the 
 slightest evidence for this in the New Testament — but 
 that the covenant of one age is binding upon all suc- 
 cessive ages — a most untenable proposition ; as if 
 thought could thus be chained, or opinion stereotyped; 
 
186 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 as if each age had not a right to its own idea; as if the 
 present should not be painted with face looking for- 
 ward, and not slavishly reverting for ever to the past. 
 This Covenant of theirs, again, as we have seen, sought 
 an impossible object — that of uniformity of doctrine and 
 of discipline throughout the three kingdoms. That 
 there shall yet be a substantial uniformity of religious 
 sentiment and worship throughout the world maybe 
 devoutly believed. But probably this never can or will 
 arrive, save in the train of that “ new and most mighty 
 dispensation,” without which, as Foster declared his 
 conviction, “ Christianity can never reform the world.” 
 Least of all could such a clumsy solvent as a solemn 
 league be expected to melt down all differences of 
 opinion. The method, too, followed was not that of 
 the gospel. That had no banner and no sword when it 
 first began its immortal journey, but went forth shielded 
 only by its own divinity and simplicity, and by “ mani- 
 festation of the truth, commending itself to every man’s 
 conscience in the sight of God.” 
 
 But the Covenant must have its arms, and its blazonry, 
 and its banner, and its warlike lords, and its covenanted 
 king, and its 
 
 “ Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.” 
 
 From that moment its fate was sealed. It left the 
 regions of the spiritual and the ideal, and became 
 inextricably mixed up with the troublous politics of a 
 troublous time. We do not find fault with the per- 
 secuted employing defensive weapons in the cloudy and 
 dark day which befel them ; but we do deplore the 
 offensive attitude they took from the beginning, and 
 the occasion they thus gave their adversaries to echo 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 187 
 
 the words, “ They that take the sword shall perish with 
 the sword.” 
 
 No men ever saw more clearly than the Covenanters 
 the objective evils springing from the interference of the 
 state with the church. But they were absolutely blind to 
 the subjective cause, the impossible problem, of properly 
 or profitably connecting the two powers in any formal 
 alliance. They thought that the state was bound to feed 
 them, but denied it the power of arranging the meals or 
 fixing the form of the platters. They found the yoke 
 of the state intolerable, and they threw it off for a 
 season; but it never occurred to them that it was and 
 ever must be a yoke, restraining their liberty, and liable 
 at any time to be tightened to strangulation. The 
 ministers did not sufficiently feel how dignified was 
 their position when they were out among the moors, 
 living on the voluntary principle, though it was on 
 bread and salt, and water and goatVwhey, with clear 
 consciences, and joys fresh from heaven visiting their 
 hearts every night and morning, compared to even 
 their return to their manses and glebes, when again 
 they became subject to a government which could, at 
 any hour, begin a new persecution. They abhorred 
 formality and absolutism, but they did not see that these 
 were just the putrid result of that very system which 
 was supporting them, and that in all church establish- 
 ments there is a strong tendency toward them, which, 
 sooner or later, must conduct thitherward, as certainly 
 as a corpse hung up before the summer sun will rot/ 
 They hated bishops, but saw not that, as long as 
 establishments existed, the compact slavery of episco- 
 palianism will be preferred by governments to the re- 
 publican gerius of presbytery or independency. They 
 
188 THE MARTYRS J*ND HEROES 
 
 disliked patronage, but did not foresee bow determinedly 
 tbeir paymasters would cling to it, as a strong curb at 
 once to the popular element and to tbe priestly influence 
 in tbe cburcb, and bow it was certain at a future day 
 to break up and shatter tbeir entire ecclesiastical 
 system. 
 
 Tbe grand aim of tbe Covenanters was certainly not 
 gained. Tbe moment tbe persecution ceased tbe 
 memory of tbe Covenant seemed silently to drop out of 
 tbe minds of men. Loudly, indeed, did the Cameronians 
 continue to bellow words of menace and to wail out 
 notes of woe over “ covenants, burned, broken, and 
 buried. ,, But tbeir voice met with no response, save 
 in tbe echoes of tbe bills, which seemed to return it 
 now rather in derision than in sympathy. Covenanting 
 continued occasionally, indeed, to be practised by 
 various sects down to a late period. But long ere its 
 occasional use came to an end, it bad lost much of its 
 meaning and interest, and seemed rather a caricature 
 of tbe past than a living expression of faith of tbe 
 present. There was no more signing of tbe Covenant 
 with blood. Tbe people who signed it were in no 
 danger, and it was at last felt to be a belated and un- 
 meaning rite. Tbe Free Cburcb of Scotland, too, has 
 set its face against renewing tbe Covenants. Still, very 
 important ends appear to us to have been served by tbe 
 Covenanting struggle, and }he statement of these shall 
 close tbe present chapter. 
 
 First, tbe Covenant has added a rose to Scotland’s 
 chaplet, being tbe truest moral crown that has yet been 
 bound round tbe forehead of tbe land, just as tbe 
 Puritan struggle is tbe greatest in which England has 
 ever been engaged. Before it there bad been, indeed, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 189 
 
 the war of independence, and the reformation; but the 
 first involved no religious element, and the second was 
 very speedily and on the whole, easily determined: few 
 battles were fought, and very few martyrs suffered. 
 But the struggle of the Covenant not only stirred all 
 the religious heart of the country, but it was waged 
 with most determined courage for a quarter of a century 
 and more. Besides, at the reformation, a large section 
 of the nobles early connected themselves with the 
 movement; whereas the cause of the Covenant was 
 pleaded principally by the peasantry and small pro- 
 prietors. Hence, to no passage in their history do 
 genuine Scotchmen look back with such pride. You 
 can see the eye of the shepherd sparkle and his cheek 
 flush as you talk to him on his hill of these covenanting 
 days. There is, perhaps, no one name among its heroes 
 of whom you can say, as Burns of Wallace, — 
 
 “ At Wallace* name what Scottish blood 
 But boils up in a spring- tide flood !” 
 
 the interest and the enthusiasm are diffused among 
 many; but never are Cameron, Renwick, Peden, and 
 Hackstoun, forgotten. 
 
 “ And far and near, o’er dale and bill, 
 
 Are faces which attest the same, 
 
 And kindle, like a fire new-stirred, 
 
 At mention of their name.” 
 
 No enthusiasm has followed equal to that, or which 
 has had the power of eclipsing it in public regard. The 
 Scottish people flung themselves into even the Reform 
 Bill and chartist agitations with greater spirit, because 
 the field-meetings then held, and the peculiar kind of 
 popular excitement, and the prayer which was in the 
 
190 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 last of these often mixed up with politics and political 
 assemblies, reminded them of Covenanting days. Many 
 political meetings were held in and near Edinburgh in 
 the years 1831, 1832, and 1834; and some of them 
 which we witnessed were very furnaces of glowing and 
 seething feeling. They were generally held in a park 
 under the shadow of Salisbury Crags, and with Arthur’s 
 Seat watching grimly in his green shaggy coat behind. 
 Many of the scenes interesting in Covenanting story 
 were in sight: the Castle-rock, the Pentland-ridge, the 
 hills of Fife, the ocean linking Dunottar Castle to the 
 Bass; the Grassmarket, too, where the martyrs suffered, 
 was not far off. Very different, in many points, the 
 objects sought by these fierce and heated throngs from 
 those of their fathers; very different their own character 
 and bearing, for at that desperate crisis, oaths and 
 curses, both deep and loud, pervaded every multitude; 
 very different the speakers, for they made no preten- 
 sions, in general, to even the appearance of piety. Yet 
 still there was much that reminded us of the open-air 
 meetings of the seventeenth century. The earnestness 
 and terrible animation and daring language of the 
 orators; the fixed brows, the compressed lips, and the 
 flashing eyes of the hearers, none of whom bore arms, 
 but each of those hands seemed grasping an invisible 
 sword; the wild, wave-like, tempestuous motion of the 
 crowd; their thick cheers awakening the echoes of the 
 rocks; the glories of nature adding their inestimable 
 background, from the green pastures around up to the 
 immeasureable calm of the May heaven above: all 
 carried the mind two centuries back. Then there was 
 the purpose visible and audible throughout, and the 
 shadow of prospective rising and blood which lay over 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 191 
 
 the assembly. And when one gifted man (since well 
 known as the author of Nimrod) alluded, both in that 
 King’s park and again at a meeting held in the Grass- 
 market itself, to the days of the Covenant, and' spoke 
 of the coming of new Drumclogs and of more fortunate 
 Bothwells, and pointed to the Pentlands and the Bass, 
 the living furnace became heated seven times — now 
 cheers rent the sky, and now a deep silence dissolved 
 in a more terrible murmur, and the sun and the moun- 
 tain-scenery seemed drawing in around the impassioned 
 multitude, to witness the oath or to hear the amen of 
 their resolute souls; and it was felt that the manes of 
 the murdered in the cause of liberty would soon be 
 propitiated, and that the injured genius of a former 
 age was already smiling down well pleased. 
 
 The success of the great covenanting struggle secured 
 civil and religious liberty to Scotland. The apparent 
 narrowness of the point to which the controversy seemed 
 at last reduced, contributed to this result. Suppose, 
 as episcopalians maintain, and as M‘Crie the younger 
 almost admits, in a passage already quoted, that it 
 came, through the various indulgences granted, to little 
 else than this question, “ Surplice or no surplice ? 
 Liturgy or none V 9 Still the Covenanters could reply, 
 “ If this be a trifle, why urge it on us at such tremen- 
 dous expenditure of blood and treasure h although it may 
 be a trifle in itself it represents great questions — the 
 surplice or liturgy is the contraction and symbols of 
 evils; if we admit these, not only other evils of a more 
 formidable kind may be afterwards introduced, but the 
 authority of the magistrates over our consciences is con- 
 ceded; and if he once be permitted to be our tyrant in 
 religious matters, what is to hinder him from becoming 
 
192 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 in civil affairs equally absolute? Therefore, on this 
 point we take our stand, and find here the narrow 
 Thermopylae of a wide cause ! Whether this reasoning 
 was perfectly sound or not, mark the consequence that 
 followed. On this little and, if it be so, vexatious, 
 point a great victory was gained. The government 
 having failed in such a small matter, felt it for ever 
 impossible, by persecution, to obtain greater. The 
 empire of brute force received its final blow. From 
 that day forward, the current sent in, slowly but deci- 
 dedly, toward larger and larger concessions to the rights 
 of conscience. Therefore, if the question be asked, 
 Who broke in twain the yoke of the despotism in Scot- 
 land — Who secured the inviolability of conscience in 
 that realm — Who paved the way for the abolition of 
 patronage; aye, and for the establishment of voluntary 
 associations ? the answer must be, “ These noble hair- 
 splitting men of the Covenant; although verily they 
 knew not what they did.” They aroused the land to a 
 spiritual consciousness— to a feeling of the supremacy 
 of Scripture and of the moral sense; to an attention to 
 the minutiae of Christianity — to the very fringes of the 
 tabernacle, which has never since been permitted to die 
 away, and which, while it has been productive of much 
 small and captious evil, has been productive, on the 
 whole, of a vast superabundance of good. 
 
 To that strong, unconquerable struggle we owe, also, 
 many of those recent movements in the church, which, 
 although troubling the waters, have made them vitalizing. 
 It was in the remaining might of the Covenanting spirit 
 that the fathers of the Secession came out, like Abra- 
 ham from Haran, not knowing whither they went ; four 
 in number, strong in the firm negative of their position, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 193 
 
 full of faith, and hate and zeal, doing well to be angry, 
 and destined to create a sensation in Scotland which 
 has not yet entirely subsided, and to found a sect which 
 has acted and prospered for more than a hundred years. 
 From a similar source sprang the Relief body, which 
 has since, like a vigorous tributary, augmented the 
 current of the Secession. To this, too, the Free Church 
 will be proud to acknowledge its filial claims. What- 
 ever may be thought of some of the actions of that 
 body, and especially of its equivocal position in reference 
 to the voluntary question — living on its fruits and yet 
 ignoring its principle — holding, like legalists, works 
 without faith — none can fail to see in its movements, 
 its energy and zeal, the after-growth of the rich field 
 which the Covenanters cultivated. 
 
 The late amiable “ Delta,” in a note to a poem of his, 
 entitled “ The Covenanter’s Night Hymn,” while con- 
 demning the prejudices, errors, and occasional crimes oi 
 this peculiar people, takes true and strong ground in 
 their defence. He says, that, in the first place, they 
 fought and gained the battle of an entire century ; and, 
 secondly, that their victory was the victory of the pro- 
 testant cause in Scotland. Both these statements are 
 correct. The Covenanters’ struggle must not be judged 
 from the duration of its darkest point, any more than 
 the duration of an eclipse from the moment of its 
 deepest obscuration. From the Reformation downwards 
 to the settlement at the revolution, the conflict, in its 
 merits and its blunders, its superabundant good and 
 evil, was strictly one ; and if the result has not been so 
 absolutely unique, yet, unquestionably, it has been 
 intimately intertwined with the success of the protestant 
 religion. It was the extreme — at least the only extreme 
 
194 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 then possible in Scotland — of protestantism, which the 
 Covenanters defended. For this they suffered and 
 died; and although they gained not the full amount of 
 their reiterated and blood-bought demand, the instal- 
 ment they did obtain, like the sybil’s books, was more 
 valuable than the whole, and has become the germ of 
 all the after protestantism of Scotland. It fared with 
 them as with most Reformers. They wittingly or 
 unwittingly sought for more than they were able or 
 entitled to receive : they urged their question too far : 
 they exaggerated the evils under which they were 
 really suffering, and thus they secured a less complete, 
 but a final, victory for the general cause. 
 
 Hence, to a great extent, the profound and practical 
 hatred felt in Scotland against popery. There are no 
 Smithfield fires in the Scotch annals, but they record the 
 Covenanting persecutions carried on, not indeed in the 
 first place by popery, but by its disguise — its alias — a dis- 
 guise and an alias which our fathers in a larger degree 
 were able to penetrate. They regarded it as the devil’s 
 creed and caricature of Christianity ; and its history as 
 briefly this: that the infernal spirit saw that Christianity 
 had come into the world, and was threatening to destroy 
 his empire; that he said, “ I must destroy it;” that lie 
 tried it first in fire, but in vain — the fire fell on it like 
 rain; it grew the faster for the fire — the blood of the 
 martyrs became the seed of the church; that he then 
 concocted a deeper and a darker scheme, and said, “ I’ll 
 become a Christian myself — I’ll get myself baptized — 
 I’ll form and circulate a creed of my own;” and that 
 thus popery arose as the devil’s creed, and spread over 
 the face of the church. To their minds popery pre- 
 sented itself as a monkey making mouths behind the 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 19£ 
 
 back of a man, and they shrank in disgust and horror 
 from the lame and blasphemous imitation. They saw 
 in it a system at once diametrically opposite to, and 
 ludicrously like, Christianity, which has fastened its 
 polluting grasp upon all the rites and the doctrines of 
 the true religion; which for the real unity of the church 
 in Christ had substituted the false centre of the pope; 
 which had yoked dead works to living faith in the im- 
 portant matter of justification; which had, for the 
 spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper sub- 
 stituted the revolting fiction of transubstantiation ; 
 which had degraded that mysterious spot “ under the 
 altar,” where the souls of the righteous wait for the re- 
 demption of their bodies, into a vulgar vault of fire 
 called purgatory; which had created for its own sen- 
 suous ends a female god, in the abused form of the 
 Virgin Mary; which had snatched the cup from the 
 lips, and the Bible from the hands, of the laity, and 
 given them a half-supper and no book of God at all; 
 which had corrupted manly chastity into monachism, 
 and temperance into austerity and abstinence; which 
 had given to the clergy unlimited power over ears and 
 hearts and consciences, at the same time that it bound 
 them to their cause by the unnatural bands of celibacy, 
 and which in every form had set itself to cement des- 
 potism — to oppose human progress, to dwarf the 
 intellect of man, to inculcate persecution and breach of 
 faith, and to deluge the earth with blood. What name, 
 in their view, could describe at once the broad malig- 
 nant antagonism, and the strange and impudent likeness 
 which this system bore to Christianity, except the name, 
 Antichrist, the often-predicted power who was to hinder 
 the advance of the faith, to defer even the day of the 
 
196 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Lord, who was to sit in the temple of God, showing 
 himself that he was God, and for the destruction of 
 whom the Lord had reserved the breath of his own 
 mouth, and the brightness of Lis own coming ? And 
 not only did the Covenanters succeed in rebutting the 
 advances, whether open or concealed, of this anti- 
 christian power, but they did more; they instilled into 
 the minds of their children a hatred and scorn of it 
 — a determination to do battle against it to the death, 
 which are burning unmingled in most Scottish hearts 
 still, and which ever and anon burst forth and make the 
 crest of the old red dragon to tremble. In other 
 countries, popery has been trifled with, opposed, 
 ridiculed, or hated, according to the peculiarities of the 
 national mind ; but in Scotland the repugnance to it 
 has assumed the form of a universal and unconquerable 
 loathing. 
 
 Another effect springing from the Covenant, was to 
 produce a deep respect and warm attachment on the 
 side of the people to their ministers. That this had 
 its evils there can be no doubt. It did engender a 
 certain superstitious reverence for the persons, the pro- 
 fession, the characters, and the preachings of ministers. 
 Certain lingering traces of this feeling may still be re- 
 membered, as, for example, that the parish minister 
 used to be regarded by many as a kind of ghost in 
 black — children fled from him as he walked through 
 the village — a certain fearful stillness pervaded the 
 streets — unspeakable were the depths and angles of 
 declension with which men bowed to him. On sabbath, 
 his veriest platitudes, and his iteration of sermons for 
 the twentieth time, were received with profound re- 
 spect; and his faults, if faults he was admitted to have, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 197 
 
 were treated with wondrous lenity, if they did not, as 
 was often the case, become models of conduct. It was 
 with him as with Hotspur — 
 
 i( Speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, 
 
 Became the accents of the valiant. ” 
 
 This was true of ordinary ministers. But if the 
 ministers possessed superior powers, or eloquence, or 
 diligence, and piety, he became a god to his parishioners, 
 and was regarded now with the warmest love, and now 
 with the most undissembled terror. His word was law, 
 and his very silence assumed an imperative mood. And 
 yet this, although an evil, sprang from a good principle 
 deeper still; it was the last instalment of the debt which 
 had been accumulated in the days of the Covenant. 
 Then the clergy, by the sacrifices they made, the suffer- 
 ings they endured, the purity of their lives, the energy 
 of their preaching, and their thorough identification 
 with their flocks, impressed themselves on the affections 
 of Scotland, and gained a glory for their order, the last 
 ray of which has not yet wholly ceased to shine. How 
 much people will forgive to and bear from those who 
 really love them, live among them, and labour for them ! 
 In such a case, faults are regarded with the partial eyes 
 of the brother, the friend, or the lover. Endurance, too, 
 adds a dignity to the sufferer. It was a gleam, accord- 
 ingly, from the “ auld Scottish glory” of the Covenan- 
 ting day, which shed more than common lustre on the 
 grey head of the aged minister as he mounted the pulpit 
 or the tent, which secured attention for the trembling 
 speech of the young orator addressing audiences, some 
 of whose veterans might remember Renwick, and trace 
 a likeness between them, in the flushed cheek and 
 
198 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 ardent gesture ; which surrounded the steps of the 
 minister wherever he went with a peculiar halo of 
 sacredness, and gave a certain grandeur even to his ex- 
 travagances of language, his undue exercise of authority, 
 or his bursts of passion. This is now to some extent 
 over in all parts of Scotland; but it did, doubtless, while 
 it lasted, much good. The respect for the clergy 
 secured for the peasantry precisely that kind of stimulus 
 to the intellect, and that information for the memory, 
 which, at the time, they required. In some measure 
 barbarians, they required a rather barbarous exertion of 
 authority to reduce them to spiritual discipline. Thus, 
 too, were religious principles roughly but profoundly 
 rivetted upon the minds of the people; and through this 
 it- was, that a system of education, very imperfect, 
 indeed, pregnant with many evils, and which is now 
 far behind the wants of the country and the age, was 
 established and worked out with such success, that 
 Scotland for a time was the best-instructed country in 
 the world. 
 
 It were beside the purpose to dwell on the causes 
 which have led to “ the contempt of the protestant 
 clergy,” as old Eachard called it; — to the comparatively 
 low degree in public estimation, to which, as a class, 
 they have sunk — such causes as the prevalence of the 
 infidel spirit — the spread of extreme political opinions 
 among the lower orders, and of attachment to popery, 
 or to a protestantism that stimulates it in the upper — 
 the class-feelings which have distinguished the clergy — 
 their outrageous esprit- de-corps — their obstinate clinging 
 to exploded forms of speech and thought and worship — 
 their frequent hauteur and bigotry — their no less 
 frequent suppleness and subservience, now to a king, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 19S 
 
 now to a mob, now to a bishop, and now to a congrega- 
 tion — the opposition they have so frequently given to 
 the onward movements of society — the fact, in one 
 word, that they have, unlike their brethren in the 
 seventeenth century, not taken the lead and directed 
 the genius of the age, but have rather hung as drags 
 upon it. But granting all this, it may yet be maintained, 
 in the first place, that the clergy are exerting more 
 power, and that of a more legitimate kind, in Scotland, 
 than in any other country under heaven — except, 
 perhaps, America, where, however, their influence in the 
 matter of slavery was long the curse of the land; and 
 that secondly, this is in a great degree owing to the 
 memory of, and to the deep impression made by, the 
 ministers of the Covenant, as well as to the remains of 
 their spirit and conduct, which are still found extant 
 among their successors. Here our ministers practise all 
 die pastoral and many of the public duties which their 
 fathers voluntarily imposed on themselves. They preach 
 perpetually, they visit the sick, they call on their flocks, 
 they teach the young, they superintend public and 
 private schools, they engage, on all proper occasions, in 
 public, political, civic, and professional movements, they 
 take a part in the proceedings of church courts, they 
 read much, they write much, and, like their fathers, too 
 they have often much to suffer from misappreciation, 
 from calumny, from rudeness and ignorance, from the 
 complication of labours we have described, and from 
 the res angusta domi — an evil which is now almost 
 equally divided among all the different denominations 
 of Christians in the north. But these labours and 
 difficulties form, in part, the chains which bind the 
 office of the ministers in the present, even as heavier 
 
 o 
 
200 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 difficulties did still more strongly bind it in the past, to 
 the respect, affection, and sympathy of a large portion of 
 the Scottish people. 
 
 The Covenanting struggle, again, was a grand testi- 
 mony to the truth of the Christian religion. More than 
 al 1 stereotyped evidences — more than the writings of all 
 the apologists, from Tertullian down to the most recent 
 defender of the Christian faith, as a proof of the reality 
 of Christianity, was this living, blood-stained moorland 
 page. The chief evidences of Christianity are to be 
 found in the effects which it has produced, is producing, 
 and promises to produce; and, whenever we see a mass 
 of people moving to the power of religion, as the 
 “ trees of the wood to the wind,” we see an evidence, 
 not easily to be gainsaid, of the influence of Christianity 
 upon the heart, the conscience, and the character of 
 mankind — to which elements, indeed, and to which 
 alone it has ever appealed — the only fields in which it 
 has sown, or expected, or reaped a true crop. It is 
 this kind of proof which has made the deepest impres- 
 sion, both upon the popular and upon the thoughtful 
 mind. Eeligion, as an idea, rather tends to stupify 
 and overwhelm us — we cannot understand it — it seems 
 at once far from us and near, like the telescopic moon; 
 but let it once be realized — let our own hearts feel it, 
 or even hear of others who have really felt it, and it 
 ceases to be a mystery and becomes a living fact. Even 
 a single heart feeling and acting on Christian principle, 
 is a distinct evidence in favour of the Christian religion. 
 But how that evidence grows at more than an arith- 
 metical ratio, when an age, a century, embraces and to a 
 certain extent incarnates it in life, action, and suffering t 
 That psalm at Drumclog— that short, terrible struggle 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 201 
 
 at Airsmoss — those death-scenes at the Grassmarket, 
 intended at first as evidences of sincere protestantism 
 — have now sublimated into proofs of the common 
 66 faith as it is in Jesus,” and their records are or should 
 be admitted among the general archives of the Chris- 
 tian religion. 
 
 That the covenanting contest, in fine, served to pro- 
 mote what is well called vital religion in Scotland, 
 appears undoubted. That principle, previously feeble, 
 drowned in formalisms, and too often held in deceit and 
 unrighteousness, was, by a long persecution, driven into 
 the heart of the nation, and has never yet been entirely 
 expelled. We grant, again, most distinctly, that there 
 is a vast difference between the godliness of the seven- 
 teenth and that of the nineteenth centuries in our land. 
 That in the first found but one channel — the prosecu- 
 tion of the cause of Covenanted reformation; the other 
 has diverged into manifold and sometimes contradictory 
 courses. It would not be well for any enthusiast in the 
 cause of the Covenant, whether from England or from 
 abroad, to repair now to one of our rural districts, even 
 on sacramental occasions, in order to judge of the calibre, 
 or the sincerity, or the intelligence of Scotland’s piety. 
 Truly it is a winter sun that he must be prepared to 
 see. The services of the “ preliminary ” days, as they 
 are called, of the Communion, as well as of all the rest, 
 are now conducted entirely in the church. The tent — 
 once a remaining rag of the Covenanting banner — - 
 latterly, a mere signal of distress, is extinct. The people 
 flock to the church with perfect punctuality, but with 
 listless looks. They sit before the preacher not as 
 hearers, not as partaking of the same burning enthu- 
 siasm, for there is little on either side, but either as 
 
202 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 formal worshippers or as meagre and captious critics . 
 Some listen, some look, some sleep, some yawn, some 
 note down objectionable and others favourite passages; 
 the question with some is, at the end, “How long 
 has he been?” and with others, “Has he not said 
 something against the standards of our faith?” In the 
 Covenanting days, one watchman on the hills kept the 
 congregation, now a half of the congregation becomes a 
 company of watchmen, to keep itself from imaginary and 
 ridiculous danger. The old rote and routine of senti- 
 ment and of language still prevail. It is as if the earth 
 had stood, and opinion been frozen up, for two hundred 
 years. Not a word that recognizes the new earth now 
 below our feet, and the new heavens which now expand 
 above, is ever heard or would be suffered were it heard. 
 When you look, you see faces like those of the dead 
 staring at you; and when you listen, you hear tones of 
 the sepulchre reverberating on your ears. The worst 
 of it is, that the men are often clever and conceited 
 persons, imagining that their view of religion is the only 
 one possible among the good at present — that all who 
 do not preach it are heretics, and that all who come 
 not up to the very letter of its requirements are in 
 imminent “ danger of hell fire.” At the close of the 
 day, and as the multitudes return to their homes, it is 
 with deep sadness that you follow them in their progress 
 over hills and through morasses — some talking of “bul- 
 locks,” others of the weather, others of politics — many 
 comparing preachers with preachers, and giving almost 
 uniformly the preference to the w r orst ; and others in- 
 dulging in a saturnalia of thought and language, which 
 grieves you the more that you know that it has been 
 purchased at the expense of much “ tear and wear ” of 
 conscience, habitude and heart. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 203 
 
 Subtracting, however, all this, we see a certain thing 
 called True Eeligion subsisting amongst us, and which, 
 on the whole, may be traced rather to the influence of 
 Covenanting days then to aught later in our land. 
 There are still noble hearts among the peasantry, in 
 spite of narrowness and vulgarity of views and feelings, 
 and among the artizans, although infidelity has laid its 
 withering grasp upon many of them. In the middle 
 ranks, again, there is a great amount of manly and en- 
 lightened piety. A sober evening light of devotion 
 pervades many portions of the country — the relict 
 radiance of that fervid Covenanting noon, and it is 
 remarkable that it is found precisely in those districts 
 which were most zealous in the Covenanting cause — in 
 the south and west. 
 
204 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE TREATMENT THE COVENANTERS HAVE RECEIVED IN 
 AFTER TIMES. 
 
 All that great men, or great causes, demand from their 
 own age or from posterity is not favour nor flattery hut 
 simple justice. And yet it is singular, but inevitable, 
 to notice that justice is precisely that which they receive 
 at the latest period, if ever they receive it at all. Abuse 
 is surely and rapidly theirs, partisan attachment, 
 amounting to idolatry, seldom fails to track their steps; 
 but to the cry of their souls from under the altar for 
 “ justice,” there is often only a late and a partial reply, 
 Deep is the truth in the strong line of Shakspeare, — 
 
 “The great soul of the world is just . 0 
 
 But it is not a rule without exceptions. And, like 
 certain chancellors, that same “ great soul,” although a 
 just judge, is wondrously slow in passing his final 
 decisions. 
 
 The Covenant was unfortunate, on the whole, in its 
 first historians, such as Calderwood, Shields, and 
 Wodrow. Honest and faithful scribes these were; but 
 they wanted every element of the historian, except bare 
 literal truth. They had no imagination, no style, little 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 205 
 
 pictorial power, and of philosophic generalisation they 
 were entirely destitute. It fared otherwise with the 
 great English rebellion. The history of the Cavaliers, 
 at least, had more than full justice done to it in that 
 exquisite and seductive book of pictures, called 
 Clarendon’s History. On the other side, too, there were 
 Mrs Hutchison’s Memoirs, and many other interesting 
 tractates, containing fractions of the puritanic story. 
 And, indeed, it seems a strong argument in favour of 
 the general righteousness of the Covenanting cause, 
 that the mere rugged outline of its history in Wodrow’s 
 page, unadorned with one flower of fancy, unanimated 
 by one spark of eloquence, has excited such interest, and 
 is still wielding considerable power. Defoe also has 
 written a history of these disastrous times, full of his 
 inimitable touches, but the popularity of which has not 
 been equal to its merit, or to the renown of his other 
 works. The books called “ Naphtali” and “ The Cloud of 
 Witnesses,” while possessing essential grandeur, were cast 
 in a form and clothed in language not at all calculated 
 to attract the generality of readers. But the most 
 popular record of the Covenanting day has been the 
 “ Scottish Worthies” written by Howie, of Loch-goin. It 
 is a curious medley, full of interesting facts, indicating 
 a pious spirit and great zeal for the cause, but abounding 
 in misstatements and exaggerations, which discover the 
 most amiable and ample credulity, and disfigured by 
 one hideous chapter, entitled “ God’s Judgment against 
 Persecutors,” in which all the bile and bitterness 
 engendered by twenty-eight years of persecution are 
 collected into one black draught, and where the elements 
 of charity and of truth are alike, to a great degree, 
 wanting. 
 
206 THE MAETYES AND HEEOES 
 
 Many causes, in the course of the eighteenth century, 
 combined to render the Covenanters and their memory 
 unpopular. There had been a great deal about their 
 manners and habits that was repulsive. They had lived, 
 spoken, and acted, as those that were “ strangers and 
 pilgrims on earth.” Their successors retained these 
 repulsive and solitary habitudes (as it appeared to 
 others,) without any real occasion, and certainly without 
 the energy and sublimation of the Covenanting spirit. 
 What was not only pardonable, but venerable, in those 
 great originals became, in the eyes of many, ludicrous 
 and contemptible in their imitators. The severity of 
 morals, too, and the strictness of discipline which the 
 presbyterian ministers observed, roused many enemies 
 against them. After the Union the comparative laxity 
 of English manners and modes of thought began slowly, 
 but surely, to sap the foundations on which reverence 
 for the Covenanters had rested. More lately, the un- 
 popularity of the first kings of the house of Brunswick 
 deepened the growing dislike to the “ whigs,” and led 
 to a violent reaction in behalf of the Stuarts — a reaction 
 expressed in two rebellions. Meanwhile, a strong party 
 was rising in the Scottish church, whose views on the 
 subject of church-polity were in direct opposition to 
 those of the Covenanters; whose religious creed, although 
 their formula was the same, was shrewdly suspected to 
 be toto ccelo distant from theirs, and who insensibly 
 began to instil a contempt for their fathers into the 
 crude intelligence of the land. Above all, the young 
 art, genius, and culture of onr country, poisoned by 
 English or French influences, recoiled alike from the 
 inner spirit and the outer form of the presbyterian 
 cause, failed to see the elements of sublimity which lay 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 207 
 
 in both, and were too prone to catch and dwell on the 
 merely ridiculous aspects, which both presented when 
 viewed at a certain angle, and through a certain 
 lens. 
 
 The poetry and the poets of Scotland, during the 
 eighteenth century, were, on the whole, anything but 
 religious. To this, Robert Blair, the author of “ The 
 Grave,” and Beattie, are splendid exceptions. But the 
 three most popular of the Scottish poets of that age 
 were Allan Ramsay, Robert Ferguson, and Robert 
 Burns. The one was a maker and seller of wigs, who 
 had poetry, as he had other articles and essences in his 
 perfumery shop; who possessed an eye for observing 
 with minute accuracy, and a style for expressing with 
 admirable vraisemblance many of the aspects of Scottish 
 scenery and manners, but to whom all true elevation and 
 enthusiasm of nature were denied. What could he do 
 to celebrate the deeds of the Covenanting heroes ? The 
 rows and riots of the Grassmarket were far dearer to 
 him than its historical reminiscences. “ His Gentle 
 Shepherd” is an exquisite picture of the Scotch pastoral 
 character, minus its religion; while his smaller poems 
 are often full of indecency. Robert Ferguson was a 
 fine-hearted, ill-fated “ writer-chiel,” who knew no 
 medium between severe labour and deep drinking, and 
 like indulgences, and who died young. He had, un- 
 questionably, a natural vein, especially of homely 
 picture-writing, and light, sharp-glancing wit. But 
 neither his powers, nor his temperament, nor his habits, 
 fitted him to undertake the great subject of the Cove- 
 nanting struggle, and his allusions to religious topics are 
 few, and show either absolute ignorance or powerless 
 hatred. He learned* ere he died, to think otherwise, in 
 
208 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 tie sclool of an asylum ! Peace and forgiveness to his 
 
 memory ! 
 
 Eobert Burns was a man of altogether a different 
 order. With more than Eamsay’s power of minute and 
 literal description, with an ineffably stronger and richer 
 satiric vein than Ferguson, he possessed what they had 
 not — an intellect of vast perspicacity, and an imagina- 
 tion, in compass, vividness, and exuberance, only in- 
 ferior to that of the Dantes, Shaksperes, and Miltons. 
 He had been brought up, too, in Ayrshire, with a 
 thousand traditions of the Covenant still ringing about 
 him. He had been educated in a religious atmosphere. 
 One might have imagined from this, and from the wild 
 “ idiot piety,” to use his own words, which beat in his 
 young heart, that he was the man to have done poetic 
 justice to the Covenanters. This, however, various 
 causes prevented. His father, although a good man, 
 was attached to the moderate or Arminian side of the 
 church, and probably influenced the mind of his son. 
 Burns having fallen early into an error, felt and never 
 forgave, “ the strong hand of the purity ” of Scotland’s 
 ecclesiastical discipline. There was much too in the 
 conduct, manners, and language of the westland saints, 
 which tended to provoke laughter when it did not excite 
 disgust. Hence the enthusiasm of the young bard 
 evaded the Covenanting days, and reverted to an earlier 
 period of our history- — to the memorable struggle of Sir 
 William Wallace, and hence he became early committed 
 to a witty warfare with calvinists and the stricter 
 presbyterians. We should remember, too, that his 
 father had come from the north, and had transmitted to 
 his son Jacobite tendencies, as well as strong prejudices 
 against the opposite party. There is not, accordingly, so 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 209 
 
 far as we remember, one allusion in all Burns’ poetry to 
 the battles of the Covenant. He has sung, as no one 
 else could, Bannockburn, Drummossie Moor (Culloden), 
 and the heroes who pressed on “ redwat shod ” at the 
 side of Wallace; but not a word of the dark muirlands 
 of his own county, where the mighty men of God fought 
 and fell. What a loss has this been ! Had our greatest 
 national poet possessed in but a small degree the reli- 
 gious spirit of his country, in what poems might he 
 have expressed and immortalized it ! What justice, 
 “ heaped up, pressed down, shaken together, and running 
 over,” had he done to the memory of our fathers ! What 
 spirit-stirring songs or lyrics had he written on these 
 then virgin themes! Conceive his paean over Drumclog, 
 his lament for Bothwell, or his elegy over Cameron’s 
 grave ! But he had fallen, alas ! on a low and evil age. 
 He found the cant of the Covenant remaining, but much 
 of its real enthusiasm and depth of feeling withdrawn. 
 He drank the dregs of the cup, found them foul and 
 bitter, and never dreamed that it had once overflowed 
 with a genuine and godlike draught. In proportion, 
 too, as his own vices confirmed their grasp upon him, 
 his hatred of hypocrisy and of religion grew equally, 
 and both were confounded together in his unsparing 
 satire. His treatment of such themes as “ The Holy 
 Fair,” “ The Ordination,” “ The Unco’ Guid,” &c., shows 
 a bitter determination to root out the very last vestiges 
 of the old presbyterian spirit. It is a war contracted 
 and exasperated by various causes into a personal 
 quarrel. And there can be no doubt that he has, in 
 these poems, grossly exaggerated the absurd aspects of 
 the scenes. He has done so by omitting all that was 
 solemn, and preserving all that was ludicrous and incom 
 
210 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 sistent, in them. He has in these become, with most 
 satirists, a one-sided painter, and his pictures are rather 
 distinguished for their boldness and force than for their 
 accuracy. In “ Holy Willie’s Prayer,” and some of his 
 other smaller poems, there burns a yet more inveterate 
 and coarser hostility. But let him have praise for “ The 
 Cottar’s Saturday Night ” — a poem not only interesting, 
 as a perfect picture of an old custom of Scotland, handed 
 down from Covenanting days, and which still widely 
 prevails, but as casting a pleasing light on the interior 
 of the poet’s heart, and suggesting what, in happier 
 circumstances and under another star, he might have 
 become. Let us grant his original nobility of nature, 
 admit part, at least, of the plea usually put in on 
 account of his temperament, his circumstances, and his 
 sore temptations, be thankful for the mass of pure and 
 noble poetry he has left behind him, and never forget 
 that, in one of the last scenes of his life, while pacing 
 the beach of the Solway Firth — a poor, pallid, broken- 
 hearted, dying man — the Bible was his constant com- 
 panion, commanding, we trust, his belief, and soothing 
 the accumulated sorrows and painful wounds of his 
 unhappy spirit. 
 
 Contemporaneous with Burns, there existed, in Edin- 
 burgh a school of philosophers, who had not, nor pre- 
 tended to have, any respect or sympathy with our 
 heroic fathers. This was, perhaps, the coldest-blooded 
 school which ever speculated on earth. All were men 
 of eminent ability; but heart, enthusiasm, religion, or 
 sympathy with it, a true or deep feeling of the poetical, 
 whatever their intellectual perception of it might be, 
 were entirely wanting. Such were Hume, Adam 
 Smith, Hugh Blair, Lord Kaimes, Robertson, Dugald 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 211 
 
 Stewart, and the rest — men among whom Burns moved 
 like a fiery panther among polar bears, dripping with 
 the cold slush of the Arctic sea. Hume was a pyrr- 
 honist — he swam in a circle of everlasting doubt. 
 Smith seems never to have thought earnestly on the 
 subject of religion at all. Blair rose to a certain half- 
 heathen morality, and was arrested and frozen up there. 
 Lord Kaimes was still more thoroughly a pagan. 
 Robertson could lead a church, but seemed to know 
 little of the Christian religion; and his histories, though 
 elegant, display no sympathies with the higher prin- 
 ciples of humanity: like the Russian ice-palace they 
 “ smile and they are cold.” Dugald Stewart had taste 
 without genius, and, although his disposition was 
 amiable, and his accomplishments great, the power he 
 wielded was rather pernicious than otherwise to the 
 cause of Christianity; he kept it, and taught his 
 students to keep it, at arm’s length. It was impossible 
 that the memory of a period of earnest belief should be 
 cherished by men like these; and although none of 
 them approved of the conduct of the persecutors, nor 
 cared openly to attack the Covenanters, yet when they 
 alluded to them it was with cool contempt, and their 
 general influence served to damp and extinguish the 
 spirit from which alone true appreciation of their merits 
 could spring. Great as the talents of these men were, 
 and valuable as are some of the written results of their 
 speculation, such as the “ Wealth of Nations,” and the 
 Histories of England and America, it may be truly 
 said that not more certainly did the irruption of the 
 northern tribes, at the end of the Roman Empire, arrest 
 the civilization of Europe than did the deluge of snow 
 sent abroad by these Frenchified Scotchmen retard the 
 moral and spiritual advancement of our country 
 
212 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 No poet hitherto had set the deeds of these “ fan- 
 atics, as they were usually called, to music. Robert 
 Blair had instead sung the ghastly glories of the grave; 
 Beattie had traced the progress of a poet’s soul in his 
 beautiful Minstrel; Thomson had swept the circle of 
 the Seasons and returned to lounge on the enchanted 
 beds of the Castle of Indolence. It was reserved for 
 James Grahame, the author of " The Sabbath,” to sound 
 the first key-note of those many melodies of praise 
 which have since saluted their memories. 
 
 James Grahame, as the first laureate of the Covenant, 
 demands more than a mere hurrying word. He was a 
 native of Glasgow, and studied at the university there. 
 He then removed to Edinburgh, and became an advo- 
 cate. From early life, however, he had entertained a 
 dislike to the profession of the law, and aspired to that 
 of a clergyman. In the year 1809, when he had al- 
 ready reached his forty-fifth year, he gained the desire 
 of his heart, by entering holy orders as a clergyman of 
 the Church of England. He went south, and occupied 
 various curacies in that church. His health, however, 
 failed; his hopes of happiness and of promotion in his 
 profession were grievously disappointed, and, within 
 two years of his ordination, he came back to his be- 
 loved Scotland, “ a withered flower,” and returned to 
 die. In his native city, on the 14th of September 1811, 
 he breathed his last. 
 
 James Grahame was himself a remarkable man, and 
 was fortunate, besides, in his circle of friends. Campbell 
 the poet knew him intimately; as did Jeffrey, and both 
 in their memoirs speak of him with great affection and 
 esteem. Professor Wilson has poured out a most 
 beautiful and melting monody over his grave. Ho is 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 213 
 
 described as a man of magnificent presence, of mild 
 manners, of amiable temper, of sensitive disposition, and 
 of a piety the most ardent and sincere. Campbell 
 mentions Grahame as returning with him (after having 
 sat up all night) from an excursion to Arthur’s Seat to 
 see the sun rise, and ere going to bed, pouring out the 
 devotion of his heart in an extempore hymn, to which 
 the bard of Hope “ never heard anything equal.” His 
 genius was of a mildly-pensive and elegantly-descriptive 
 kind. He had little constructive or dramatic faculty, 
 his powers of reflection were rather feeble, nor does he 
 ever mount into the seventh heaven of invention. His 
 qualities were warm-hearted enthusiasm, deep-toned 
 piety, and a rare truth and beauty of description. In 
 touches, equally forceful and felicitous, of natural 
 painting, he is not surpassed by Cowper or Thomson. 
 As if in mere absence of mind he drops the brush upon 
 the canvass, and thus produces exquisite effects. His 
 poetry is on the whole rough and bare — a Scottish 
 moorland — but has bright pools like eyes sprinkled on 
 it, and little clumps of golden gorse, making the solitary 
 place glad. It is unnecessary to criticise his “ Birds of 
 Scotland,” or his “ British Georgies,” though there are 
 some beautiful passages in both. One is exceedingly 
 characteristic of the author, and of his passionate love 
 for his native land. 
 
 “ How pleasant comes thy rushing, silver Tweed, 
 
 Upon mine ear, when, after roaming long 
 In southern plains, I reach’d thy lovely banks ! 
 
 How bright, renowned Stark, thy little stream, 
 
 Like ray of column' d light chasing a shower , 
 
 Would cross my homeward path ! How sweet the sounds 
 When /, to hear the Doric tongue's reply , 
 
 Would ask thy well-known name / 
 
214 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 But the poem which secures his fame, as well as 
 justifies the introduction of his name into this volume, 
 is unquestionably “ The Sabbath.” This, like his other 
 poems, is unequal, has little art, skill, or unity, and 
 abounds in prosaic passages. All this, however, is not 
 sufficient to counterbalance its pleasing and various 
 merit. It is a poem which has moved Scotland to its 
 depths. The title so suggestive to every Christian 
 heart; the sweetness of the opening lines, beginning 
 
 “How still the morning of the hallowed day 1” 
 
 the fervour of the piety, unmingled with a particle of 
 cant; the fine catholicity of the spirit; the beauty of the 
 natural descriptions, and the nice individual strokes of 
 picturesque power, have combined to render it a first 
 favourite with the religious classes. But even more has 
 its popularity been owing to its pictures of the Cove* 
 nanting days. Grahame found in this an untouched 
 field, and he has ploughed it with great vigour and 
 effect. The haunts of the persecuted, among hills 
 
 “ Where rivers, there but brooks, 
 
 Dispart to different seas;” 
 
 the field-preachings, where the Word was 
 
 “ By Cameron thundered, or by Ren wick poured 
 In gentle stream;” 
 
 the darker times, when the people dared no longer to 
 meet in face of day, but had to shelter under the mid- 
 night canopy, are described in the most plaintive and 
 powerful manner. It was the first, and remains the 
 most beautiful, libation poured upon the tomb of the 
 martyrs. What added to its gracefulness and power 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 215 
 
 was that Grahame when he wrote it was a member, and 
 soon after became a minister, in the episcopalian com- 
 munion. True genius never did, never can, and never 
 shall, in reality , belong to any party. Grahame died in 
 the prime of life, with a broken constitution and, pro- 
 bably, a broken heart. But even on his premature 
 deathbed, it must have ministered deep consolation to 
 his spirit, that he had linked together, by the tie of an 
 imperishable poem, two subjects of paramount interest 
 and peculiar charm to every Christian Scotchman and 
 to many in other lands — the Sabbath and the great 
 struggle of the Covenant. 
 
 For fifteen years — from 1802 to 1817 — the subject 
 lay “ unattempted in prose or rhyme,” in fiction or in 
 history. M‘Crie, in the meantime, had written his 
 masterly life of Knox — a book which not only redeemed 
 the reformer’s character from much unmerited obloquy, 
 but formed the preface of a great apology for the 
 presbyterian cause in general, and came like a blow on 
 the face of that semi-infidel moderatism which prevailed 
 in the philosophy and theology of the time. The tone, in- 
 deed, was partial, and the defence overdone; but even 
 this seemed necessary for the accomplishment of the 
 result at which he aimed. Chalmers, too, had awoke 
 from his preliminary slumbers and vague scientific 
 dreams; had, amidst the hills of Fife, aroused the 
 ancient spirit of the Covenanting era, and was making 
 bearded men weep and thrill and tremble, as if to the 
 trumpet of a mightier Cameron, or to the wizard lyre of 
 a more enthralling Gillespie. At this period, the sub- 
 ject flashed before the eye of the almost only man then 
 living in Scotland qualified to do it complete artistic 
 justice: we mean Sir Walter Scott. 
 
216 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 It would fall without the scope of this volume, to 
 attempt an elaborate disquisition on the character and 
 genius of Scott. Indeed it would be on other accounts 
 a superfluous task. Who sits down and paints portraits 
 of the sun ? Yet it may not be amiss to acknowledge 
 the “ debt immense of endless gratitude ” due to this 
 surpassing writer. It is not so much as a teacher that 
 he is to be regarded, and not at all as a prophet. He 
 has not been a guide to the feet of many; but he has 
 been to millions the most genial, delightful, and joy- 
 giving companion, save Shakspere, they have ever en- 
 countered in the wilderness of this world. He has not 
 strode on before and haughtily told men to follow — he 
 had not spurned them away — he has not wrapt himself 
 up in mystical clouds, and only now and then broken 
 out like an apparition. He has walked side by side, 
 and kept up a constant stream of interesting and in- 
 structive conversation. His works have peopled many 
 a solitude, increased the sweetness of society, blended 
 delightfully with severer studies, and at each perusal 
 have rendered men more in love with nature, with 
 humanity, and with the broad-minded and kind-hearted 
 author. Not a year passes in which we do not read 
 the principal of them over again, with a conviction that 
 we shall never tire of them till our dying day. The 
 hearts of those men are not particularly holy, they are 
 simply extinct, which can contemplate without wonder, 
 love, and gratitude, the contributions of Scott to the 
 great literary stock of the world, in their manhood — 
 their health — their infinite variety — their sweet-blooded 
 tone — their spirit of charity and friendship for all 
 classes and ranks of man — their respect for the great 
 general laws of morality and religion, for the primal 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 217 
 
 principles and feelings of human nature — their characters 
 so numerous, so new, so stamped with individuality, 
 and bursting at every pore with life — the representation 
 they give of past ages, so perfect that you find truth in 
 the garb of fiction, instead of, as often with historians, 
 fiction masquerading under the trappings of truth — the 
 inimitable descriptions of nature which abound, so 
 chaste and rich and cool, and fluttering like green 
 leaves around the most torrid passages and passions of 
 the story — and those higher and subtler touches, less 
 frequent, but which discover in Scott a depth never 
 fully dug, but only surpassed among mortal men by 
 Shakspere himself. Nor is this estimate affected by 
 the declaration of Carlyle, that Scott has only amused 
 the public, and produced a mere series of studies for 
 after-dinner loungers. Does the bagpipe heard from 
 afar among the highland-hills, or does the trumpet 
 blowing its war-blast minister nothing but amusement \ 
 Who has not been stirred and strengthened, braced and 
 cheered, made a better and a wiser man, by the perusal 
 of the works of Scott ? No, unquestionably, it is not 
 for purposes of mere delectation to loungers that such 
 piles of head and heart as Sir Walter’s are accumulated 
 in this world — that such gifts are conferred, that such 
 industry is excited to work them out, and that the race 
 with but few exceptions has welcomed their precious 
 results. And, with all admiration for the genius of the 
 detractor, it is safe to predict, that after his barbarous 
 beauties, truculent sarcasms, and fierce assaults on men 
 and systems, are remembered only by retired scholars, 
 and after the large icy sun of his idol, Goethe, has 
 dwindled into a telescopic star, Scott’s popularity will 
 remain undiminished, nay extended; and that, not only 
 
218 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 in Europe, but in every land where literature continues 
 to exist — in the vast Australian realms — in Japan and 
 China, then opened to the full power of civilization — 
 amid the isles of the Pacific, and among the iron-ribbed 
 rocks of Iceland, his name will be ranked with those of 
 Homer and Shakspere, as one of the first three of the 
 family of human genius. 
 
 It was natural that one so intimately acquainted 
 with the history of Scotland should be attracted to a 
 period and to characters so peculiarly interesting as 
 those of the Covenant. Indeed, there is reason to be- 
 lieve, from a jotting in Byron’s life of an interrupted 
 conversation with Scott, that he had intended the 
 Covenanters as the subject of his first novel. We may 
 speculate what would have been the reception of that, 
 if it had been “ Old Mortality” instead of “ Waverley.” 
 Probably the odium, although not more intense, yet not 
 being diverted by the previous reputation of the anony- 
 mous author, might have fallen with greater momentum , 
 and perhaps for a time crushed the book and stopped 
 the series. Even in “ Waverley” the author seems medi- 
 tating an assault upon the presbyterian party. Witness 
 his picture of Ebenezer Cruickshanks — the host of the 
 candlestick — and especially his treatment of another 
 character, “ the gifted Gilfillan.” Of this last person, 
 indeed, we have only a head and shoulders, instead of 
 a full-length portrait. The butt-end of Donald Bean’s 
 gun has turned him into a Torso; but had the sketch 
 been extended, we should have found a character some- 
 what similar to Burley, with vainer, weaker, and more 
 ludicrous points, but equally brave, bigoted, self- 
 centred, and self-seeking. “ He was a thin, dark, 
 rigid -looking man, about sixty years of age. The 
 
OP THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 219 
 
 spiritual pride which in mine host of the candlestick 
 mantled in a sort of supercilious hypocrisy, was in thi3 
 man’s face elevated and yet darkened by genuine and 
 undoubting fanaticism. It was impossible to behold 
 him without imagination placing him in some strange 
 crisis where religious zeal was the ruling principle. A 
 martyr at the stake, a soldier in the field, a lonely and 
 banished wanderer, consoled by the intensity and sup- 
 posed purity of his faith under every earthly privation; 
 perhaps a persecuting inquisitor, as terrific in power as 
 unyielding in adversity; any of these seemed congenial 
 characters to this personage. With these high traits of 
 energy there was something in the affected precision 
 and solemnity of his deportment and discourse that 
 bordered upon the ludicrous; so that, according to the 
 mood of the spectator’s mind, and the light in which 
 he presents himself, one might have feared, admired, 
 or laughed at him.” With this description, his conver- 
 sation on the road, his treatment of the prisoner, and 
 his intrepid defence -when suddenly assailed, entirely 
 correspond. It seems, indeed, in brief, the expression 
 of Scott’s idea of the covenanting character, the rude 
 germ which he afterwards developed, the first sitting 
 to the elaborate portrait which he afterwards drew. 
 
 In “Old Mortality,” he spread a broader canvass, and 
 brought to the task all his marvellous powers. It is, 
 unquestionably, one of the highest of his efforts. With 
 no passages equal to some in “Waverley” and “The Anti- 
 quary” — infinitely less delightful than“ Guy Mannering” 
 —not a unique and magnificent dream, like “ Ivanhoe” 
 — and with no such profound soundings of the human 
 heart as are to be found in the story of Jeanie Deans, 
 “ Ravenswood,” and “ Kenilworth,” it is unrivalled in 
 
220 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 breadth, brilliance, the contrast of character, in martial 
 spirit, in striking adventure, and in the compact unity 
 and terrible projection of the figure of Burley. Lock- 
 hart calls it the “ Marmion” of his novels: an epithet 
 which does not fully express its character; since the 
 power of “ Marmion” is condensed in two or three trans- 
 cendent passages, while that of “ Old Mortality” beats 
 with a strong pulse throughout the whole. 
 
 And what must be said of the treatment the Cove- 
 nanters have received at Scott’s hand ? Here it seems 
 right to steer an intermediate course — to avoid the 
 Charybdis of the “ Quarterly Beview ” on the one hand, 
 and the Scilla of Dr M‘Crie on the other. It is not 
 probable, then, in the first place, that Scott was ani- 
 mated by such an intense and virulent animosity against 
 the Covenanters as has been supposed. Many speak as 
 if all Claverhouse had been slumbering in his breast, 
 and insinuate that he chose the subject of “ Old Mor- 
 tality ” solely for the purpose of basing on it a laboured 
 and wilfully false attack on the memory of our fathers. 
 This is not credible. Scott was a “ good hater,” but 
 incapable of deliberate and long-drawn malice. He had 
 strong prejudices and passions, but neither against indi- 
 viduals nor parties can we conceive him cherishing slow, 
 burning, vindictive resentments. It is more probable 
 that his attractions to the subject were simply its his- 
 toric interest, and the opportunity it afforded him of 
 exercising his favourite powers; and that he sat down 
 to “ Old Mortality,” as to his other novels, with little 
 definite plan or purpose at all; and least of all with the 
 intention of systematically and with pains blackening 
 the memory of any party. But, again, it may be 
 granted, that Scott had imbibed strong prejudices against 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVExVANT, 22 1 
 
 the Covenanters, which, finding this channel open, ran 
 too readily and recklessly along it. His father, indeed, 
 was a rather rigid religionist ; but the son had been 
 brought up in the atmosphere, partly of Edinburgh per- 
 siflage and scepticism, and partly of Border enthusiasm: 
 the mixture of something of the Jeffrey and something 
 of the Leyden element in Scott, with a dash besides of 
 highland superstition and Jacobite prejudice, rendered 
 himself a singular compound, and accounts for his un- 
 fitness fully to sympathise with the narrow, intense 
 current of genuine earnestness which ran in the presby- 
 terian veins. Yet his enthusiasm, although very diffe- 
 rent from that of the Covenanters (being that rather of 
 class and country than of cause) prevented him frbm 
 treating them as mere subjects of scorn. His Edinburgh 
 training might have suggested unmitigated ridicule, but 
 his Border blood and poetic fire interposed, and com- 
 pelled him to blend with it a certain respect and admir- 
 ation. Hence, thirdly, his novel unquestionably “ halts 
 between two opinions.” Like Balaam, he comes to 
 curse and he remains to bless. He is, like many men 
 of genius, overruled by the o’ermastering power behind 
 him. He awakens a demon to which he is compelled 
 to be obedient. The fine instinct in him works out of 
 its original atmosphere, casts it off as the sun a ring 
 of clouds, and pours involuntary and, therefore, more 
 precious glory upon his subject. Moreover, most of the 
 people of Scotland were not fair judges. Taught and 
 trained in unbounded reverence for their forefathers, 
 they were prepared to fasten on every word and syllable 
 that told against them, to find the blame outrageous, 
 and the praise null. They judged of the work from its 
 particular scenes from its apparent purpose, and not 
 
222 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 from the general result it produced. It was otherwise, 
 on the whole, with the men of the south. Take one in- 
 tellectual man as a specimen — Hazlitt. This celebrated 
 critic always speaks of “ Old Mortality ” as Scott’s 
 noblest work; and, in verifying this criticism, uniformly 
 appeals, not to the passages in which it caricatures, but 
 to those which it honours, the Covenanters — not to 
 Mause Headrigg, or to Habakkuk Muckle wrath, but to 
 MacBriar, preaching on the evening of Drumclog, or to 
 Bessie MacLure, in her disinterested heroism, now 
 sitting at the way-side to warn a friend, and now expos- 
 ing her life to danger to save a foe, of the cause. The 
 book, in fact, had produced on his mind, which on that 
 subject was on the whole unprejudiced, an impression 
 most favourable to the Covenanters — and he, without 
 doubt, is the type of southland thousands. 
 
 It remains, fourthly, to balance the matter, and bring 
 both sides of it before the reader. Scott, then, has 
 caricatured Covenanting manners. His picture of the 
 coarseness and vulgarity of their lowest rank, of the cant 
 of their ministers, of the fierceness, the rancour, and the 
 bigotry of the Cameronians — of the selfishness, revenge, 
 and cruelty, which blend with nobler elements in 
 Burley, is undoubtedly overdrawn. Such a being as 
 Mucklewrath never existed. Wild as some of the hill- 
 men were, the wildest of them was sobriety personified, 
 compared to that monstrous mixture of monomania, 
 fanaticism, and fury. Old Mause is a more credible 
 character, and is drawn with exquisite humour, but is 
 also highly caricatured. MacBriar’s conduct to Morton 
 in the farm-house, where they are about to put him to 
 death, totally belies all the finer traits the novelist had 
 given him before, and jars on the memory as we witness 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 22 3 
 
 his heroic and sublime appearance in the trial scene. It 
 is gratifying to see Poundtext made ridiculous, as one 
 of the indulged parsons of the period — those “dumb 
 dogs that could not bark,” keeping by their comfortable 
 cribs, and munching their bones, while their brave 
 brethren were chased like wolves upon the mountains. 
 But Kettledrummle is a clumsy caricature of the more 
 rigid minister. All the wit connected with him, indeed, 
 lies in his name. To Burley we have just alluded. 
 His whole conduct in reference to Basil Olifant, to Edith 
 Bellenden, and to Lord Evandale, is a libel alike on the 
 Covenanters and on human nature. His killing of the 
 old archbishop on Magus Muir rises to an act of virtue, 
 when compared to the mean, cold-blooded, and long- 
 winded atrocities which are gratuitously transferred to 
 his character. But Sir Walter has, certainly^ sinned 
 more deeply when he seeks to whitewash the perse- 
 cutors, than when he blackens their victims. A good 
 character aspersed soon rights itself; the dirt dries and 
 disappears by a sure and swift process, — a bad character 
 defended and deified is often allowed, without opposi- 
 tion, to slip into the Pantheon. Men, and it is in part 
 a compliment to them, are more interested, somehow, 
 in defending the unjustly assailed, than in pulling down 
 the graven images of the guilty. Scott was haunted 
 with the idea of a cavalier. It seemed to him the last 
 representative of a knight of chivalry. He liked no 
 music so well as the prancing of chargers, the striking 
 of spurs, and the fierce war-shouts of the riders. Hence, 
 in his picture of the persecutors, their every dragoon is 
 half a hero, Sergeant Bothwell a whole one ; and Lord 
 Evandale is something higher — a sort of link between 
 the soldier and the seraph. It is pleasing to see a 
 
224 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 great artist finding the “ soul of goodness ” which is in 
 things evil, but not to see him infusing a double portion 
 of it into characters who possess only a minimum of the 
 article. Claverhouse is certainly one of the most bril- 
 liant of his characters, but is marred by gross incon- 
 sistency of conception, and is much more melodramatic 
 than natural. He is not represented as a mere brutal 
 butcher, nor yet as a perfect model of chivalry, but as 
 an awkward compound of the fierce, careless warrior 
 and the refined and gallant knight. The author, pro- 
 bably, at first, meant him for a model of all that is 
 courtly and noble, but is compelled, partly by fact, and 
 partly by the overruling power of his demon, to supply 
 some very rough and damaging traits. Our notion 
 certainly is, that Scott has quite failed in conciliating 
 regard for Claverhouse, and that few readers can lay 
 down “ Old Mortality” without a deeper detestation foil 
 the dancing bear, the educated tiger, the handsome and 
 accomplished murderer, which is all in reality that the 
 author makes him out to be. Better have shown the 
 rough bellowing, cursing, bloody captain, “ the towsy 
 tyke, black, grim, and large,” that he actually was. 
 
 Yet, after all, there is another side to this question. 
 If in some parts of his book no one has caricatured the 
 Covenanters more severely, none has brought out some 
 of their picturesque aspects with such felicity and force. 
 Who but Scott could have described that scene in the 
 inn where Burley overthrows Bothwell ; or that pro- 
 founder scene in the barn, where on the old sleeping 
 homicide’s brow the sweat-drops of a great agony are 
 standing, like “ bubbles on the late disturbed stream,” 
 as the tragedy of Magus Muir is being re-enacted in 
 his soul; or the skirmish of Drumclog, or the tent 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 2 25 
 
 preaching which followed it, or the rout of Bothwell, or 
 the torture scene, or the shaggy mountain solitude, where 
 Burley found his last desperate retreat, and fought with 
 “ more devils than vast hell could hold T 7 It sometimes 
 happens that a caricature is more forceful, more life-like, 
 more characteristic, than a picture, especially if the 
 countenance be strongly marked. And so probably 
 Scott has to many given an impression of the rough 
 energy, the honesty, the daring, and the zeal of the 
 Covenanters, which a tamer and more friendly portraiture 
 could never have produced. The concessions of an enemy 
 are, confessedly, more valuable than the ex parte state- 
 ments of a friend. And still more when an enemy is 
 transcendently powerful may his reluctant testimony, 
 and the rude grandeur of his touch, be more effectual 
 than all the pleadings and reclamations of weaker 
 advocates on the other side. 
 
 On the whole, the proper course is to pronounce a 
 modified sentence in this matter. Few can think “ Old 
 Mortality ” a strictly accurate or fair account of its age; 
 and few would, on the other hand, be disposed to erase 
 it as a blot from the list of Scott’s works. It is a 
 great partizan-production, like the histories of Clarendon 
 and Hume. Like them it must always be read; but 
 like them, too, it should be read with great caution, and 
 with the addition of not a few grains of salt. Nor do 
 we think that, had it appeared now, it would have pro- 
 duced one tithe of the excitement, the ire, and the keen 
 controversy which it awakened thirty-five years ago, 
 “ when George III. was king.” 
 
 In his other works, numerous allusions to covenanting 
 and puritanic times occur, all breathing a milder degree 
 of the same spirit of mingled prejudice and admiration. 
 
226 THE MARTYRS AND HER0E8 
 
 David Deans is a genuine Covenanter, and is touched 
 with a tender hand. In Jeanie Deans, he paints, con 
 amove , a character which only Scotland and the remain 
 ing influence of the Covenanting day could have pro- 
 duced — so guileless, yet so prudent; so modest and so 
 courageous; so pious, yet so humble and disinterested; 
 she is just Isabel Weir handed down to the next 
 century. In the “ Bride of Lammermoor,” he introduces 
 a Covenanting minister who had been “ out in the per- 
 secution, Mr Bide-the-Bent, who makes on the whole 
 an amiable figure. And equal to anything in all his 
 writings is that weird story in “ Redgauntlet ” — 
 Wandering Willie’s Tale, where he shows us the princi- 
 pal persecutors in hell, in a manner which would have 
 delighted the inmost soul of the author of the “ Scottish 
 Worthies ” himself, and which is, perhaps, the most 
 powerful flight of imagination the wizard’s genius ever 
 took. 
 
 Many who read these pages will probably remember 
 that the sensation produced by the first appearance of 
 “ Old Mortality” was intense, and in Scotland very un- 
 favourable. The reviews and pamphlets it provoked 
 were numerous; but they have all perished, except one 
 by Dr M‘Crie, which still circulates in the shape of a 
 small volume. It was felt at the time to be a most 
 powerful attack. Of all men in Scotland, M‘Crie was 
 perhaps best fitted, from sympathy and knowledge of 
 the subject, for meeting Scott on the battle-field of the 
 Covenant, He had also obtained a solid, colossal, 
 repute from his “ Life of Knox,” and was really a man 
 of powerful intellect and extensive attainments. These 
 were the sources of his strength ; his weakness lay in a 
 prepossession on the one side quite as strong as was 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT 227 
 
 Scott’s on the other. He would scarcely admit that the 
 Covenanters committed an error, or if he did yield an 
 inch of ground, it was after a struggle. He answered a 
 partisan attack by a partizan defence. He weakened 
 the effect, too, by commencing with an under-estimate 
 of the genius and works of his opponent — in this case a 
 signal error. For instance, he speaks with contempt of 
 the “ Antiquary,” rather coldly of “ Guy Mannering,” 
 and admits little literary merit in the book he was 
 criticising. With all these drawbacks, his reply was a 
 vigorous production, discovered a manly independence 
 of sentiment, and rose, here and there, into robust 
 eloquence, and an invective reminding you of the 
 anathemas of Cargill and Cameron. He carried, too, 
 with triumphant success, the warfare into the enemy’s 
 camp, and, by way of counterpoise to Scott’s caricatures 
 of presbyterian preaching, quoted from episcopalian 
 divines of the same period specimens of bathos pro- 
 founder still, of a more adventurous nonsense, of silli- 
 ness and stupidity more unique, and of prejudice, 
 bigotry, and blindness, far more total and hopeless. 
 
 This review, pamphlet, or book — for it has assumed, 
 in the course of its existence, the character of all three 
 — told with tremendous effect. So much was this the 
 case, that Scott was urged by his friends, who were in 
 the secret of the authorship, to reply. He did so, 
 accordingly, by the somewhat singular method of a re- 
 view of his own book in the “ Quarterly,” which did 
 not materially alter the state of the question. “ Old 
 Mortality ” was, and yet was not, answered. Where it 
 grossly offended against truth and fact, its errors were 
 now exposed ; but its powerful pictures of an enthusiasm 
 which sometimes erred, and of a zeal and energy which 
 
228 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 often, mistook or missed their mark, remained intact, 
 and are as immortal as the memory of the Covenant 
 itself. The collision of two such minds on such a 
 subject did, however, much good. It attracted atten- 
 tion to a topic and a time which had been allowed, in 
 a great measure, to drop from the minds of men; it 
 poured a flood of light upon a field over which thick 
 mists were beginning to gather, and which yet had been 
 one of the noblest in the history of Scotland or of the 
 church. 
 
 Scott had in this book, like one of his own knights, 
 blown a trumpet of defiance, and challenged all comers. 
 And now, besides M‘Crie, many sprang forth, upon his 
 own terms and at his own weapons, to accept the 
 challenge. In other words, fiction and poetry were now 
 extensively used as a medium of reply to his attack on 
 the Covenanters, while many, besides, chose the subject 
 as fashionable, and as furnishing a good opportunity of 
 displaying their own powers to advantage. We remem- 
 ber yet with pleasure reading Ringan Gilhaize, from the 
 pen of the indefatigable J ohn Galt which was generally 
 understood to be designed as a rejoinder to Scott. 
 With much of the rambling inartistic character of all 
 Galt’s works, it has passages of beauty and interest, 
 and does full justice to the amiable qualities of its 
 heroes. But it was only a ‘ secondary Scottish novel,” 
 and seemed but a feeble reply to the accusing voice 
 which had come from the cloudy tabernacle in which 
 the magician was then dwelling. “ William Douglas, or 
 the Scottish Exiles,” is the name of another novel on 
 the same subject, rather popular in its day, but which 
 seems now almost entirely forgotten. It was written 
 by Dr Duncan of Ruth well— a respectable and popular 
 
OF THE 3COTTISH COVENANT. 229 
 
 writer, but a staunch tory — who actually in this work, 
 while writing in favour of the Covenanters, advocated 
 the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance \ 
 It was amusing for us to read this book about the same 
 time with the writings of some of the patriarchs of the 
 Covenant; and to imagine the indignation with which 
 they would have regarded this degenerate scion of the 
 church of Scotland, and scorned his finical and childish 
 theories. 
 
 Rather earlier than this appeared a little poem, by 
 one Hislop, in Ayrshire, called “ The Cameronian’s 
 Dream,” which went immediately to the heart of the 
 country. It was first published in a number of the 
 “ Scots’ Magazine,” and attracted the notice and warm 
 approval of Lord Jeffrey. With his characteristic kind- 
 ness, he sought out the author, who was a shepherd, 
 and got him promoted to be a private tutor — in an 
 English noble family. Thence he went abroad, and 
 died, but without having written anything else of much 
 value. It is a dream of the battle of Airsmoss, and is 
 distinguished by fine enthusiasm and a rich musical 
 flow of versification. Thirty years ago it was unboun- 
 dedly popular, was recited in every school room and set 
 to music and sung. It still appears in many collections 
 of verse, and, from its own merits and the interest of 
 its theme, is secure, certainly, of a long reputation, if 
 not of universal and imperishable fame. 
 
 James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, must also be 
 named among the defenders of the children of the Cove- 
 nant against Scott; for although his “ Brownie of Bods- 
 beck ” was begun before “ Old Mortality,” it was not 
 published till after it. He conducted his defence in 
 this, and in some of his after tales, in his own rough 
 
230 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 fashion, resembling rather a Dandie Dinmont at the 
 close of a market-day, laying about him with a thorn 
 cudgel, than a well-armed champion. With the religious 
 spirit of that peculiar people he had little real sympathy, 
 but he had been brought up in mountain scenery, and 
 near some of their old haunts; he had been taught reve- 
 rence for them at his mother’s knee; he had imbibed 
 new respect for them from the general feeling of the 
 southland peasantry; he had much of their supersti- 
 tion, if little of their piety, and became thus well 
 qualified to write on their moorland retreats, their hair- 
 breadth escapes, their miraculous adventures, and, above 
 all, about the strange stories they told concerning the 
 deaths or other terrible dooms of their enemies. No 
 one — not even Scott — has surpassed Hogg in his occa- 
 sional management of the superstitions of Scotland — 
 witness the fearful tale entitled “ Geordie Dobson’s Ex- 
 pedition to Hell ” — and he found ample scope for the 
 exercise of this weird gift in his notices of the Cove- 
 nanters. 
 
 The man best qualified for meeting Sir Walter upon 
 his own ground, and weaving a just estimate of our 
 fathers into a noble and life-like fiction, was, unques- 
 tionably, Professor Wilson. Had this extraordinary 
 man but condensed his powers, subdued somewhat the 
 motion of his mighty genius, urged it into one great 
 channel, and added the “ Consecration ” to the “ Poet’s 
 Dream,” there was no eminence, in any direction, which 
 he might not have reached. In poetry, in philosophy, in 
 oratory, in preaching, in the drama, in fiction, in the army, 
 in parliament, as a traveller — in every department except 
 that of the severer sciences — all who know him know 
 that he could have taken the foremost place. Not more 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 231 
 
 certainly has he sometimes run up a lofty hill without 
 drawing breath (like Malcolm, in the “ Lady of the 
 Lake,” 
 
 “ Right up Benlomond would he press, 
 
 And not a sob his toil confess,”) 
 
 than could he have crowned any summit in the wide 
 chain of human capabilities — so gifted was he, in the 
 prodigality of heaven, with faculties of wondrous breadth 
 and variety, and of no less wondrous depth and intensity, 
 with an intellect not inferior to his imagination, with 
 wit and humour and fancy almost Shaksperian, and with 
 a solemn organ-like inspired tone of mind, which needed 
 only systematic spiritual culture to round off all his 
 powers with an epical completeness, and to elevate 
 them to a religious dignity. He was brought up, too, 
 within sight of the dark moors where the Covenanters 
 suffered; his mother mixed the religious prejudices and 
 feelings of Scotland with his life’s blood, and in youth 
 he often visited the glens and hills which tradition had 
 consecrated to their name. And who that has ever 
 heard him in his class-room, speaking to his students 
 on some transporting theme, such as beauty, or the im- 
 mortality of the soul, or the sufferings of the Indian 
 prisoners, in that divine sing-song, those wild and wail- 
 ing cadences, “ like the lingering, long-drawn out, slow- 
 expiring notes of a cathedral organ,” could not fancy 
 aim a hill-preacher, addressing the assembled multitude 
 on the field of battle, or soothing their chafed souls 
 when, after defeat, they had assembled themselves in 
 their dens and caves, like those Gadites of old with 
 David in the hold of the wilderness, “ who could handle 
 shield and buckler, whose faces were as the faces of lions, 
 
 and they were swift as the roes upon the mountains ? ” 
 
 Q 
 
232 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 What might not such a man have done, not merely 
 for the memory of the Covenanters, but for the advance- 
 ment of moral and religious truth in Scotland and in 
 the world ? It were invidious, and is needless, to ex- 
 amine the causes why the life of that magnificent being 
 has been in some points a failure. Suffice it that his 
 tone in reference to our heroes has always been enthu- 
 siastic, and that in his “ Lights and Shadows ” there 
 occur several tales beautifully representing his sympathy 
 with their cause, their sincerity, and their sufferings. 
 Indeed, throughout all his writings and prelections, we 
 find a deeper appreciation than in Scott, or in any 
 other writer not avowedly theological, of the devotion of 
 Scotland, and particularly of that which long burned, 
 and to some extent burns still, like the fire upon 
 their low-lying hearths, in the souls of the Scottish 
 peasantry. 
 
 Eobert Pollok, the celebrated author of “ The Course 
 of Time,” began his literary career with two or three 
 little tales about the persecuted. He came from the 
 borders of the country into which they had been driven, 
 and was, like Wilson, familiar from boyhood with the 
 scenes of their sufferings. From that spot which he 
 commemorates, where from behind his father’s house 
 he saw the distant peak of the highland mountains — * 
 that great battlement stretching from the Atlantic to 
 the German Ocean, and set, as with huge watch-towers 
 with the peaks of Benlomond, Benvenue, Benvo-irlich, 
 Sckiehallion, and a hundred more of Nature’s u sturdiest 
 bairns,” and which became his “ standard still of rural 
 imagery,” he had only to look round, and to see to the 
 south the moors of Ayrshire and Clydesdale : a scene 
 less romantic, but teeming with the profounder associa- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 233 
 
 tions. In the intervals of his elaborate preparation of 
 u The Course of Time,” he wrote three little stories, 
 entitled “ Helen of the Glen,” “ The Persecuted Family,” 
 and “ Kalph Gemmell,” all treating of subjects connected 
 with the persecution. They were not first-rate in 
 artistic execution, but were pleasingly written, and con- 
 tained much beautiful description of scenery. #< Helen 
 of the Glen ” he wrote when a student, and carried, it 
 is said, to a Glasgow bookseller, and offered it him at 
 ten guineas. The bookseller demurred, the author being 
 but a youth, having no name, and the book being a 
 little one. Pollok, however, with his usual determina- 
 tion, persevered, and at last obtained his price, which 
 was no doubt of much consequence to him at that diffi- 
 cult period of his life. These little books did not reach 
 popularity till after “The Course of Time” became 
 famous, which was not, it will be remembered, till its 
 author’s death. They were reprinted and rather widely 
 circulated. They can never, however, be expected, even 
 in the deep wake of “ The Course of Time,” to sail on to 
 immortality. 
 
 That heroic man of Annandale, Edward Irving — a 
 man of whom, with all his faults and errors, the world 
 was not worthy — delighted to honour the memory of 
 the Covenanters on every occasion, and to all audiences. 
 Sometimes he appeared amid their ancient haunts, and 
 as he preached to thousands on the mountain-side, it 
 seemed as if one of the old ministers had risen from the 
 dead. Now amid the hills of Galloway, and now beside 
 the glories of the Frith of Forth, there “ rolled the rich 
 thunder of his awful voice,” and men saw a wild inspira- 
 tion — a something not of the earth — speaking in his deep 
 cavernous tones, in the devious fire of his vision, in that 
 
234 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 gesture and those attitudes which seemed immediately 
 given him from within, and in his words of spirit and 
 life and poetry. It was an impersonation of the old 
 Covenanting minister — so perfect, so unconscious, and 
 so sincere, that not a few felt their minds carried back 
 to the seventeenth century, and, for a moment or two, 
 imagined that Charles was still on the throne, and the 
 church still in the wilderness. When he entered the 
 metropolis, like a storm he carried tidings of these old 
 days upon his wings. Often he painted the field-preach- 
 ings, and praised the worthies of other times; and when 
 he changed his mood, and opened his vials of wrath 
 upon principalities and powers, upon the wicked poets 
 and the godless philosophers and statesmen of the day 
 men were reminded of the anathemas of the Galloway 
 wildernesses, the excommunications of kings and generals 
 which took place there — if they did not rather think of 
 the burden-bowed prophets of Israel — or if they did 
 not, rather still, see in thought one of the girt, sandalled, 
 and white-robed angels coming forth from the “ smoke 
 of the glory of God,” and emptying out upon the earth 
 the wine of the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty. 
 In his writings he does frequent justice to thei* 
 memory, and there is extant, in one of the annuals, a 
 tale from his pen illustrating their character with 
 beautiful simplicity. In his errors, too, and in his fall, 
 he bore them a striking resemblance. Like them, his 
 notions of the spirituality of the church were imperfect. 
 Like them, he became consumed in a fire of his own 
 kindling; or rather, he came too near the bush -burning 
 — his eyes were dazzled — he raised a power he could 
 neither manage nor lay, his religion became tainted with 
 superstition, his zeal with fanaticism, his genius with 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 235 
 
 insanity — and we may apply to both the words originally 
 applied to one mightier than them all 
 
 “He passed the flaming bounds of space and time, 
 
 The living throne — the sapphire blaze, 
 
 Where angels tremble as they gaze, 
 
 He saw; — but, blasted with excess of light, 
 
 Closed his eyes in endless night l” 
 
 He was ultimus Romanorum — the last giant product 
 of the Covenanting energy — and his failure partly lay 
 in trying, unsuccessfully, to unite its spirit with our 
 present progress : a task which will yet be accomplished, 
 but for which no single man seems competent. 
 
 Several men of genius have yet to be named, as 
 having sung, in verse or poetic prose, of the heroes of 
 this volume. Wordsworth alludes to them unfrequently, 
 but with warmth, as men with whose fame 
 
 “ All Scotland rings from side to side.” 
 
 Thomas Aird has a fine vision introducing them, 
 entitled “ The Mount of Communion,” and the whole 
 genius of his poetry and his prose is evidently that of 
 one who has often pored over their history, read their 
 books, and seen their blue banner fluttering over his 
 head in the hall of dreams. Thomas Carlyle admires 
 the earnestness of their character, and speaks of this as 
 the differentia between the peasantry of Scotland then, 
 and that of England at any age. “ Delta ” has a poem 
 entitled “The Covenanter’s Night Hymn,” breathing 
 much of that peculiar rich and plaintive sweetness, which 
 was the characteristic of his elegant and holy poetry. 
 
 Besides these, a number of books of a historic or 
 anecdotical kind have, more or less recently, teemed from 
 
236 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 the press. Such are the younger M'Crie’s “ Historical 
 Sketches,” “The Bass Bock,” “The Ladies of the 
 Covenant,” “ Biographia Presbyteriana,” “ Traditions of 
 the Covenanters,” (by Bev. B. Simson, Sanquhar,) Mac- 
 Gavin’s “ Scottish Worthies,” Dr Hetherington’s 
 “ History of the Church of Scotland,” Dodd’s able 
 lectures on the subject, and many others with which the 
 public are less acquainted. All these which have been 
 named possess considerable merit; and some of them, 
 such as the work of Simpson and “ The Bass Bock,” are 
 exceedingly instructive and entertaining. 
 
 The only late production on the other side which has 
 attracted much notice or wielded any power, has been 
 tc Aytoun’s Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers.” This is 
 doubtless a clever volume, although imitative in struc 
 ture, style, and spirit. It is a book bred between 
 Scott’s poems and Macaulay’s ‘ Lays of Ancient 
 Borne.” It has not, however, the Homeric fire, or the 
 nervous condensation, or the glorious gallop, of either. 
 Its author, in his war -poems, writes in general like 
 one of the awkward squad; to this his “ Montrose” is an 
 exception, being really a noble ballad so far as execu- 
 tion is concerned. So, too, is his “ Burial March of 
 Dundee,” the rush of whose verse is right martial. All 
 this were very well; but Mr Aytoun has added some 
 notes defending the persecutors, and pointing the in- 
 sinuations of the text more distinctly against our suf- 
 fering fathers. In his note to the “ Ballad of Montrose,” 
 he has the baseness to allude to the death of Lord 
 Warristoun with coarse and savage exultation; although, 
 according to Sir George Mackenzie himself, whom he 
 quotes, “ it moved all the spectators with a deep 
 melancholy; and the chancellor reflecting upon the 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 237 
 
 man’s great parts, former esteem, and tlie great share 
 he had in all the late revolutions, could not deny some 
 tears to the frailty of silly mankind.’’ Yet in this 
 frailty, manifested by asking his judges for mercy in 
 piteous tones, Professor Aytoun chooses to luxuriate. 
 
 That the treatment of Montrose at his execution was 
 savage we admit, but not more so than was customarj 
 in those times, and it was positive mildness compared 
 to the barbarities afterwards inflicted on David Hack- 
 stoun in Scotland, and Algernon Sidney in England. 
 Argyle was treated in precisely the same way as his 
 rival. Aytoun admits that Montrose’s death was the 
 natural, nay, the inevitable, consequence of his capture; 
 but so, doubtless, in that age was the “ treatment ” 
 which he underwent — treatment provoked by treachery, 
 bloodshed, and implacable animosity to the Covenant- 
 ing cause. Yet let us not, in our detestation of the 
 animus of the note, forget the merit of the poetry, 
 The following stanza is very noble : — 
 
 “ But when he came, though pale and wan, 
 
 He looked so great and high; 
 
 So noble was his manly front, 
 
 So calm his steadfast eye; 
 
 The rabble rout forgot to shout, 
 
 And each man held his breath; 
 
 For well they knew the hero’s soul 
 Was face to face with death. 
 
 And then a mournful shudder 
 Through all the people crept; 
 
 And some that came to scoff at him 
 Now turned aside and wept.” 
 
 In his prefix to the “ Burial March of Dundee,” 
 Aytoun, in order to gain a hearing for a ballad of con- 
 siderable length, takes rather extraordinary liberties 
 
238 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 with facts, and gives an ingenious travesty of the history 
 of the Covenanting period. According to him the per- 
 secuted began the persecution; or rather it was a mere 
 " retaliation” for murders committed by the country 
 people on the soldiery, officers and gentlemen of loyal 
 principles. This is a mere falsehood. That the 
 country people, stung to despair, did occasionally shed 
 blood, is admitted; but it is denied that they ever did 
 so without provocation. He says, the “ country was 
 then under military law;” but why ? Because the in- 
 fatuated government had sought to thrust the prelates 
 on the people, and the people had resisted. He says, 
 “the necessity of such orders will become apparent, 
 when we reflect that, besides the open actions of Airs- 
 moss and Drumclog, the city of Glasgow was attacked, 
 and the royal forces were compelled for a time to fall 
 back upon Stirling.” Now both these open actions 
 were nothing more than little skirmishes, provoked by 
 the assaults of the military upon men who were dwel- 
 ling alone and harmless, although not unarmed, in the 
 wilderness — like the simoom of the poet. 
 
 “ Which seeketh not, so that it be not sought; 
 
 But being met is deadly.” 
 
 Besides, the attack on Glasgow was not, as Aytoun 
 insinuates, a separate enterprise, but grew naturally out 
 of that rising which Claverhouse created by his attack 
 on the field-meeting at Loudon-hill. The laureate of 
 Clavers, “the cursed of Scotland,” proceeds to say, 
 “ Innocent blood may no doubt have been shed, and in 
 some cases even wantonly; for when rebellion has grown 
 into civil war, and the ordinary course of the law is put 
 in abeyance, it is always impossible to restrain military 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 239 
 
 license.” Was John Brown, of Priesthill, a warrior, or 
 even a rebel 1 Except for one short month was there 
 any thing approaching civil war in Scotland ? That 
 Claverhouse himself “ shot every rebel with his own 
 hand,” was never believed by anybody; but it is noto- 
 rious that he not only stimulated his soldiers to cruelty, 
 but often took the work into his own hands, and ia 
 said to have “ shot one hundred in cold blood ” in the 
 course of ten years — pretty well for a soldier so “ devoted, 
 so stainless in honour, pure in faith, wise in council, 
 resolute in action, free from selfishness, and, above all, 
 with such calm, melancholy, and beautiful features ! ” 
 ft is, according to Hazlitt, a bad proof of a man’s 
 character to refer to his face, and shews an infirmity of 
 conviction on the part of the appraiser. That Claver- 
 house’s features were “ melancholy ” is not to be 
 wondered at; the same is probably true of the features 
 of all murderers. That they were calm, is less likely ; 
 and even if beautiful, we need not be astonished that 
 his victims were unable to perceive it any more than 
 the hunted hare the symmetry of the greyhound, or to 
 accept it as a compensation for the confiscation of their 
 goods, the torture of their bodies, the oppression of 
 their consciences, or the anguish of their bleeding 
 hearts. 
 
 Professor Aytoun proceeds to give an account of his 
 hero’s story, his education, his serving in France and 
 Holland, his saving the life of the Prince of Orange, and 
 so forth. But, with all the characteristic caution of an 
 Auld Reekie lawyer, when he comes to speak of his 
 military command in Scotland, he says, “ It would be 
 beyond the scope of this paper to enter minutely into 
 the details of his service during the stormy period when 
 
240 
 
 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Scotland was certainly misgoverned.’’ Surely this is 
 “ Hamlet ” with the character of Hamlet omitted ! What 
 does the world care for Claverhouse, except as the 
 president of the persecution ? Would his name ever 
 have been heard of but as a wholesale and retail 
 murderer? What care we for his “leaps at Rhodes,” 
 his gallant deeds on the Continent, or even his fortunate 
 fall at KilliScrankie ? What was he, what did he, how 
 seemed he in Scotland from 1679 to 1689 ? Did he or 
 did he not shoot the sainted Brown ? Did he or did 
 he not, along with his party, ravish a woman in Galloway 
 before her husband’s eyes ? Did he or did he not tie 
 up a boy with a cord by his two thumbs to the roof of 
 the house ? Did he or did he not commit a thousand 
 other acts of cruelty which might be called infernal, 
 save for the detestable meanness and littleness which 
 mingled with them, and proved him an ape rather than 
 a fiend ? And how did he gain that epithet which 
 clings to his corse, “ the bloody Clavers ? ” How 
 trifling to set off against all this his services in Holland, 
 his loyalty to King James — and, save the mark ! his 
 countenance ! 
 
 According to this writer it was a mercy for William ol 
 Orange that King James did not accept the offer of Claver- 
 house to be allowed to march against him, else “ William 
 would have found more than a match in his old officer.” 
 Clavers, whom John Burley beat so effectually at Drum- 
 clog, was sure to have annihilated William — one of the 
 first captains in Europe — a soldier in whom even defeat 
 uniformly revealed new greatness. But this is nothing 
 to the information given us in the close of the sentence, 
 that “ the great bulk of the population of England were 
 clearly and enthusiastically in King James’s favour.” 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 241 
 
 Cowed, certainly, many of them in the west of England 
 were, by the memory of Monmouth’s hapless fate, and 
 not willing to rise in support of William; but through- 
 out the mass of the people there was neither “ clear 
 ness of purpose nor enthusiasm” of spirit. Many were 
 struck stupid, many more were halting between two 
 opinions, many were enthusiastic on the side of the 
 Prince of Orange; and if the other party had felt them- 
 selves so powerful as he pretends, a sudden display of 
 their feelings might have ended the infatuation, and 
 confirmed the faltering resolution of the monarch. It 
 seems that “one of the most gifted of our modern 
 poets,” the Honourable George Sydney Smythe, has 
 beautifully illustrated the noble anxiety of Claverhouse 
 to fight against his old commander in behalf of a super- 
 stitious and incurable imbecile. Shade of the author 
 of “Johnnie Armstrong,” or thou disembodied spirit 
 of Blind Harry, listen to this from “ one of the most 
 gifted of our modern poets,” and be dumb in eternal 
 envy ! 
 
 “ 0 never yet was captain so dauntless as Dundee, 
 
 He has sworn to chase the Hollander hack to the Zuyder Zee.” 
 
 The professor then proceeds to depict Dundee march 
 northward; remarking, inter alia , that he stayed a short 
 time at the “ house of Dudhope” near Dundee — a house 
 which we can seldom pass without a suppressed exe- 
 cration on the bloody villain who once lived there, 
 whose crimes all the waters of the Tay flowing past, or 
 of the ocean into which it empties itself, could not wash 
 away; and whose memory is, in this region of his birth, 
 as in all other parts of Scotland, most devoutly detested. 
 It was easy for the Highlanders to admire “ Dark J ohn 
 of the Battles.” He never wasted their country with 
 
242 THE HEROES AND MARTYRS 
 
 fire and sword — never ravished their women, tortured 
 their children, or killed their patriarchs in cold blood. 
 He was, however, at best a ruffian on their side , and 
 probably the epithet “ dark” expressed as much terror 
 as admiration. 
 
 A dialogue between Lochiel and Claverhouse is next 
 given, which, by internal evidence, seems quite as 
 apocryphal as that between him and Lady Margaret at 
 Tillietudlem. The incidents of the battle follow, which 
 are well depicted, but of course with a strong leaning to 
 the cause and character of Clavers. The consternation 
 of his enemies at the news of his victory, ere they were 
 counterbalanced by the tidings of his death, is recorded 
 in a grossly one-sided and exaggerated form. And then 
 this prefix of little truth and much falsehood closes with 
 a Latin epitaph by Dr Pitcairn, which is just a lie 
 eight lines long. This sapient personage chooses to 
 call Claverhouse ultime Scotorum , describes him as the 
 only man equal to the task of securing the liberty of 
 his country, and says that Scotland from the date of 
 his death received “ new citizens and new gods.” Most 
 true, although not in the sense of the foolish pedant 
 With Claverhouse died a race of human savages ; and 
 the gods of clanship, — murder, exaction, and legalized 
 oppression — might well wail over his grave. 
 
 He lies in the church of Blair Athole, but we do 
 not think that Aytoun’s “ Burial March” has consecrated 
 his tomb, or drawn many pilgrims to weep over it. 
 Ci The memory of the wicked shall rot,” and over the 
 grave of Clavers, as over tJiose of all hard-hearted men, 
 the crown of crime seems to sit shadowy on the turf, 
 and the feet of devils may be fancied to dance above the 
 sod that covers him. Shall we substitute for the empty 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 24.5 
 
 grandiloquence of Pitcairn’s epitaph, the following true 
 and simple words, which a thousand ghosts might rise 
 from the moors to attest 'l “ Here lies one who believed 
 not in God, but in his sword — not in man, but in his 
 banner — who, as it was said of Caesar, that he went 
 with sobriety to the ruin of his country, shed the blood 
 of his fellow-men as coolly as if he had been shedding 
 water — who never trembled nor blushed when alive, 
 but who would have blushed had he foreseen what 
 fooleries of admiration were to be perpetrated by his 
 partizans — that Pitcairn was to compose his epitaph, 
 and Aytoun to chant his funeral ode.” 
 
 There is much, besides, in the professor’s volume on 
 which we might have commented. The spirit of the 
 whole is not that of a generous and noble partizan, like 
 Walter Scott; it is that of a vulgar volunteer in the 
 bad cause. Scott’s prejudices were the natural result of 
 his education and reading ; Aytoun’s are but Scott’s 
 cast-off clothes. Of Scott’s sincerity there can be no 
 doubt — of Aytoun’s there may be much; Scott’s occa- 
 sionally gibing and insulting tone, when he speaks of 
 the Covenanters, you excuse on account of his trans- 
 cendent merits, just as you allow Michael Angelo to use 
 liberties with his angels or devils, which no inferior 
 genius durst attempt at his peril. Aytoun’s is the 
 small spite of a school-boy who confounds impudence 
 with cleverness, and thinks that, because connected with 
 Christopher North, he may indulge in similar freaks of 
 fancy, and present the distaff without the Hercules — 
 the contortions without the inspiration — the buffooneries 
 or profanities of Falstaff without his wit, his bonhommie , 
 or his rich originality. 
 
 That a subordinate sort of genius Mr Aytoun has, 
 
THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 244 
 
 besides brilliant powers of humour, we are not 
 disposed to deny, but his power is not equal to the 
 task of pulling down the children of the Covenant, or 
 canonizing Clavers. Let any one who wishes to see 
 how he fails in understanding or expressing anything 
 morally great, turn to a poem in the volume entitled the 
 “ Blind Old Milton ” — a poor, weak, maudlin imitation 
 of the “ Lament of Tasso.” 
 
 Hear the following lines for instance : — 
 
 * i And I have walked with Hampden and with Vane — 
 
 Names once so gracious to an English ear; 
 
 In days that never may return again 
 
 My voice, though not the loudest, hath been heard, 
 
 Whenever Freedom raised her cry of pain, 
 
 And the faint effort of the humble bard 
 Hath roused up thousands from their lethargy, 
 
 To speak in words of thunder. 
 
 Milton a humble bard! He talk, as if he were a 
 miserable, cringing author in a bookseller’s front-shop, 
 of his “ faint effort !” Professor Aytoun should shun 
 henceforth two subjects — Milton and the Scottish 
 Covenanters. His treatment of the former only lessened 
 men’s notions of his genius; but that of the latter has 
 roused the rough, deep, holy heart of his native country 
 against him. 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DEDUCTIONS FROM THE HISTORY AND CHARACTER OF 
 THE COVENANTERS. 
 
 We have already, in the course of our little journey, 
 interposed, here and there, remarks, like moral mile- 
 stones, showing the direction to which we have been 
 travelling, and the goal at which we wished our readers 
 as well ourselves to arrive. But it may be well before 
 closing, to arrange the reflections which have suggested 
 themselves while pursuing the narrative and the estimate, 
 somewhat more systematically, and to converge them, 
 though at the hazard of a little repetition, into a more 
 distinct focus. 
 
 These, then, are First, the folly of persecution for 
 conscience’ sake. Second, the indomitable power of a 
 sincere religious belief. Third, the influence of adver- 
 sity and persecution in developing character, strength- 
 ening enthusiasm, and discovering latent springs of 
 strength and of virtue. Fourth, the irresistible attrac- 
 tion leading a dominant church downwards to tyranny 
 and bloodshed, and reacting afterwards in revolt and 
 revolution. Fifth, the deep folly and guilt of seeking 
 to impose either religion or religious creeds upon a re- 
 cusant nation. Sixth, the evils of Erastianism. Seventh, 
 the no less glaring and disastrous evils of priestly domi- 
 nation. Eighth, the failure produced by trying to secure 
 a good object through evil or doubtful means. 
 
246 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 We infer, first, the folly of persecution for conscience* 
 sake. It is marvellous to think how much time and 
 suffering and reasoning it has taken to expose this 
 primal mistake. One sentence you imagine might have 
 blasted it in its cradle, and that one sentence might 
 have been the golden rule — “ Do to others as you would 
 have others to do unto you.” Who regards not as sacred 
 that conscience which forms the separating barrier be- 
 tween him and the lower animals, and the connecting 
 link between him and the Unseen Lawgiver, and con- 
 siders it not, so far as himself is concerned, invaluable 
 and indefeasible as his existence? And who ought not 
 to draw the conclusion from this primary intuition of 
 his soul, that it is the same with all other men; that 
 they, too, possess each one his inviolable moral sense, 
 and that for him to interfere with its rights in others, 
 is to sanction every outrage which may be perpetrated 
 by others on its rights in him. To this rule of equity, 
 squared and settled by the hand of God himself, Com- 
 mon-sense has added its testimony, and old Experience, 
 in the slow utterance of centuries, has stammered out 
 “Amen.” Bloody page after page of persecution has gone 
 to prove it. Age after age has the cry of conscience, 
 aggrieved, down-trodden, half-choked in blood, gone up 
 to heaven; and from heaven in reply the truth has been 
 gradually, like a Jacob’s ladder, descending, that man is 
 answerable not to man but to God alone for his belief. 
 And as second to none of the demonstrations this great 
 principle has received do we count the war of the Cove- 
 nant. The Covenanters did not, indeed, fight the battle 
 of conscience upon that rule of Christ’s, as on a “ field of 
 cloth of gold they fought it upon the ground of an iron 
 necessity: it was rather liberty for their own consciences, 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 247 
 
 than liberty for conscience that they strove after. But 
 their instruction was bettered — their aim was overshot 
 — they got, or we at least got, something better than 
 they asked; and in their success the triumph of the 
 particular has become that of the general conscience of 
 our country. There has been no great persecution in 
 Britain since. Harrassing of conscience, skirmishes, 
 efforts at re-establishing the old arbitrary system, have 
 been common; but the memory of twenty-eight years 
 blood had too thoroughly sickened the land to permit a 
 renewal of the same, or of any similar complex and 
 continuous tragedy. Had these stubborn Covenanters 
 yielded, the consequences had been disastrous. Scotland 
 would have been crushed under the heel of arbitrary 
 power, or would have been degraded into a powerful 
 prop to the throne of the Stuarts; popery might have 
 become supreme; or even if King James had been ex- 
 pelled from his throne, his cause would have found 
 refuge not in Ireland but in Scotland. It, under the 
 circumstances supposed, might have become a far more 
 formidable centre of resistance, and the war might have 
 been determined in another way than it was by the 
 battle of the Boyne. By this time we might have been 
 all contented slaves like the catholics of Spain, or dis- 
 contented and half-risen slaves like those of Italy. But 
 it was otherwise determined; and through the kindness 
 of Providence, and through the obstinacy, as it was 
 called, of the Covenanters, the Beast of persecution, 
 although not dead, has had his nails pared, his limbs 
 paralyzed, and must now, like old Giant Pope, in this 
 country at least, grin out his malice from the mouth of 
 his cave; or, if he venture forth, must submit rather to 
 be ridiculed for the idiot smiles of his dotage and the 
 
248 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 contortions of his despair, than feared for the energies 
 of renewed youth, and recovered insolence and power. 
 
 We infer, secondly, the indomitable power of a 
 sincere religious belief. We have alluded to this 
 already, but cannot forbear speaking of it again. This 
 becomes the more necessary, when we remember the 
 peculiar circumstances of the present time. This age is 
 not, it must be admitted, eminently distinguished for 
 the depth or definitude of its belief. Here there are, 
 indeed two extremes to be avoided in our estimate. We 
 err, if we think this an age either of determined 
 unbelief or of ardent settled faith. It is distinguished, 
 on the part of a large class, by absolute indifference on 
 the subject of religion; on the part of another, by deep 
 uncertainty; and only on the part of fractions of the 
 community, either by a powerful and proselytizing in- 
 fidelity, or by a bigotted and one-sided belief. And 
 just as a recent writer has maintained, that the poetry of 
 our age is leaving its poems, and is flowing out into 
 general literature, and finding a thousand new channels, 
 instead of the banks of verse which once straitly con- 
 fined it : so, in some degree, is it w T ith belief. If not so 
 intense, it is now much broader. If not so enthusiastic, 
 it is more liberal and more genial. What is wanted is, 
 the infusion of more earnestness into its elasticity — the 
 union of greater depth with its breadth. And one 
 method of securing this end, or at least of urging it as 
 an attainable end upon public attention, is by frequently 
 recurring to the contemplation of the earnest periods of 
 the past. It is vain, indeed, to seek to restore these in 
 their entireness. It is vain to attempt to confine the 
 wheels of this age’s tendencies — wheels instinct with 
 spirit, burning with fervid fury and full of eyes, to any 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 249 
 
 point fixed in any period of the past. Our ancestors 
 were good men — giants after their kind — but they were 
 one-eyed giants at the best, and there was much of the 
 religion of Jesus of which they knew no more than they 
 did of the laws by which the heavenly bodies are 
 sustained on their silent pivots and propelled on their 
 everlasting way. We must say to them, in the spirit of 
 a noble independence, “ We are thankful to you — you 
 had your part to play, and you played it nobly — you 
 had your work to do, and you did it w r ell — you told us 
 much truth, and you told us it rudely but powerfully: 
 but now, we, too, have dawned out of the eternal east 
 — we, too, have our truth to tell — we, too, live and 
 move not as the echoes of your errors, nor as the 
 garnishers of your sepulchres, but as the free-minded 
 men of quite another era.” 
 
 But if the men of the present day may not own their 
 plenary inspiration, and accept as oracular every letter in 
 their creed, let them seek to 
 
 “ Roll their raptures, and to catch their fire.” 
 
 Let them imitate them in all in which they can now be 
 imitated by men of sense, in the strength of their 
 general belief of Christianity, and in the effort they 
 made to express that belief in earnest action and suffer- 
 ing. We advocate a pilgrimage to the martyr’s tombs, 
 not because the whole truth slumbers with them, nor, 
 on the other side, because they simply evinced an 
 earnest spirit; but because it would be glorious to see 
 that New Protestantism, that generalization of Scripture 
 truth, adapted to this age — which is rapidly rising 
 around us, energized and inspired by their zeal and 
 burning sincerity. 
 
250 THE MAETYKS AND HEEOES 
 
 Thomas Carlyle has sent us to the grave of Crom- 
 well and of the puritanic age to learn a lesson of 
 earnestness, and of nothing more. He evidently 
 despises the belief of his heroes, not only in its circum- 
 stantials, but in its essentials; in all but the tenacity 
 and truth of its hold upon their minds. He might in- 
 stead (as he has elsewhere) have sent us on a pilgrimage 
 to Mecca, or even to Pandemonium, where the fiends 
 are all in error, indeed, but all in red-hot, terrible 
 earnest. But, on the contrary, while the Puritans and 
 the Covenanters were mistaken in many minor matters, 
 and in some points of importance, too, they were right 
 in their main principles. Faith cannot change its roots 
 with each revolving age, nor Christianity be dependent 
 upon its forms. Men sat at the feet of Moses till Christ 
 came, and they are right in resolving to cling to Christ’s 
 word till a greater arrive — which is not likely to be soon. 
 Carlyle and Emerson do away with Christ, and they 
 present no substitute, nor hold out the hope of one, in 
 scecula sceculorum. Earnestness or enthusiasm without 
 solid truth is but “ foam cut off from the water” — bril- 
 liant, useless, short-lived, and on the whole false. 
 
 We see next the power of suffering and adversity in 
 developing character, strengthening enthusiasm, and 
 discovering latent virtues. “ Call no man happy till he 
 be dead.” Call no man little till he be dead, and no 
 cause little till it has become fully developed and tried. 
 Had the Covenanters submitted quietly to the exactions 
 which followed the restoration, or accepted the sops 
 which were given them from time to time by the 
 government, the memory of their triumphs would ere 
 this have well-nigh perished. In this case, their recol- 
 lection had been that of a torrent rapidly waxing, gain- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 251 
 
 ing an easy and a short triumph, and then as speedily 
 subsiding. But the Covenant is now a feeble sound, 
 when compared to the words, “ the Persecution for the 
 Covenant, and what it did and developed.” Not till 
 the word was taken down from the triumphant banner, 
 and written in blood upon the moorlands of Scotland, 
 did it become a magic sound. The Covenanters had 
 fought well, indeed, but not so well as the Cavaliers 
 under Montrose, or the Independents under Cromwell. 
 But when the dark hour of their party arrived, it dis- 
 covered a wealth of courage and constancy, of energy 
 and zeal, which had lain as unsuspected as till lately 
 were the Californian or Australian mines. We may 
 apply to them the words of Cowper — 
 
 il Persecution dragged them into fame, 
 
 And chased them up to heaven.” 
 
 Their sun in prosperity was rather sultry than bright, 
 but in its evening decadence and decline it assumed 
 hues of deep and melancholy grandeur. Never can the 
 age arrive when men shall not sympathise with that 
 “ people of the rocks, dwelling alone, and not reckoned 
 among the nations,” with their rugged virtues, their 
 severe sufferings, and the late but decisive success which 
 shone upon their struggle. 
 
 We infer again, the irresistible attraction leading a 
 dominant church downwards to cruelty and bloodshed, 
 and reacting afterwards into revolt and revolution. The 
 times of the Covenant supply us with two striking illus- 
 trations of this. In the first instance the Covenanters 
 were successful, and, had their power continued at the 
 zenith much longer, it would have led, as it was leading, 
 them to acts of despotism. But just as this tendency 
 began to manifest itself, Cromwell seized the reins, and 
 
252 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 from his hand they passed into those of the episcopalian 
 church, which was permitted to complete the cycle of 
 necessary degradation the presbyterians had begun. 
 Soon instead of a blessing it became a curse; instead of 
 a soft shower-cloud it became an incubus over the land. 
 It has been so, and must be so always with dominant 
 ecclesiastical incorporations. Representing necessarily 
 only the opinions of one section of Christians — com- 
 pelled to assert dogmatically what after all is not dog- 
 matically certain, and to exaggerate alike the points in 
 which they differ from, and those in which they agree 
 with, others — they are sure to create virulent opposition 
 in the subordinate sects, and are driven, in the self-de- 
 fence of their false position, to cruel civil or military 
 measures, which in their turn provoke further resistance, 
 and this again leads to renewed extravagances and ex- 
 actions, and so the wretched chase goes on till it ends 
 for a time in some gulf of anarchy, or some conclusive 
 revolution. It is vain to say that the evil lies in the 
 quantity of enactment, or in the angle at which the 
 imposition is laid; it lies in the very effort made to 
 impose, and in the evil implied in the fact of enacting, 
 what ought never, and can never, be really established. 
 Almost every sect which has risen to power has risen 
 accidentally and often by false means — has surpassed 
 its competitors by a hair’s-breadth, and, in order to keep 
 up its diminutive distance, and to confirm its ill-gotten 
 superiority, has resorted to fire or faggot or sword, or 
 other methods meaner and not more Christian. Still the 
 worst of the matter is that, even from the gulf of 
 revolution or anarchy, after a period, there has 
 hitherto been sure to rise again the same old fallacy of 
 the necessity of a predominant church, and that pro- 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 253 
 
 Burned necessity has become pregnant, and some new 
 form of an establishment has come forth, destined to 
 run the old, although modified, career of presumption, 
 pride, error, resistance, and ultimate destruction. And 
 so must it continue to be, till nations become aware of 
 the truth that the grand secret in reference to the 
 Christian religion, is to let all its different sects alone 
 — to give them, as states, no encouragement or dis- 
 couragement whatever, neither to persecute nor to pam- 
 per them — to mark only those which, by establishing 
 imperium in imperio , render sedition a religious duty, 
 and interfere with the internal government of kingdoms 
 — and in recognising the general principles of morality, 
 to remember that these preceded both Moses and 
 Christ, and that they are sufficient still to secure the 
 obedience of all but atheists. Surely it is a poor and 
 miserable thing to seek, by the artificial heat of state- 
 patronage, to accelerate the motions of that mighty 
 leaven thrown into the world by a divine hand, which 
 is “ leavening the whole lump,” and which, if hastened 
 in its movements at all, must be by the same power 
 which at first mingled it with the meal. 
 
 Next, we may draw the inference that it involves 
 deep guilt and folly to attempt to impose a religion, ol 
 even religious formularies, upon a recusant nation. Sir 
 Walter Scott himself, in his review of his own “ Tales 
 of My Landlord,” admits that at first the conduct 
 of the government to the presbyterians was insuffer- 
 ably severe and unjust, but contends that in 1669 — the 
 period of the Indulgence — “ a gleam of common sense 
 and justice seems to have beamed upon the Scottish 
 councils of Charles.” That is, he or his councillors, 
 finding that the whole of the hated thing would not go 
 
25 4 the martyrs and heroes 
 
 easily down the Covenanting throats, tried by fire and 
 sword to compel them to swallow a fragment of it ! 
 And this “ Indulgence,” according to his own concession 
 in the next sentence, “ was clogged with harsh condi- 
 tions, and frequently renewed or capriciously recalled.” 
 Besides, accepting it compromised the whole question 
 at issue, whether government, and especially a govern- 
 ment fast becoming papistical, had a right either to per- 
 secute or to protect, either to crush or to indulge their 
 religion. The sterner presbyterians saw farther than 
 their “ pawky” brethren of the Indulgence. They saw 
 that popery and arbitrary power were fast approaching 
 — that the Indulgence was one of their advanced flags, 
 and that Charles and his brother were alike tyrants and 
 papists, and unworthy, therefore, of having their “ au- 
 thority acknowledged.” With manly heart, at the loss 
 of their comforts and at the peril of their lives, they pro- 
 ceeded to spurn the condescension, to reject the miser- 
 able crumb from their despot’s table ; and let them have 
 honour both for the sagacity and the self-denial which 
 dictated their course. 
 
 How often have religious persecutions and religious 
 wars turned upon what now seem trifles ! But we 
 must always make allowance for the angle at which, and 
 for the light in which, these minute points are seen. 
 An infinitesimal has sometimes more than the conse- 
 quence and the magnitude of an integer. Nay, the fly 
 sometimes, as in the astronomer’s telescope in the fable, 
 swallows up the sun. Besides, it is perhaps fitting, as 
 all religious wars and persecutions are contemptible, 
 that they should be about contemptible objects. So, 
 however, it did not, and perhaps could not, appear to 
 the half-cultured minds of our fathers. The question 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 255 
 
 about an extempore or a read prayer was equivalent to 
 il Under which king do you serve — King Charles or 
 King Jesus'?” It became the small algebraic symbol 
 of a mighty principle. Such a trifle, too, seemed to 
 them the embryo of antichrist peeping out, and they 
 thought to crush it accordingly. Those at least, in our 
 day, who have discovered such edifying horror at the 
 recent innovations in the Anglican church, need not 
 despise the Covenanters for their squeamishness. It is 
 important also, to distinguish between the imposing and 
 the resisting of a small ceremonial observance. The 
 folly and the crime begin with, and ultimately lie at the 
 door of, those who seek to impose; only imprudence and 
 obstinacy can be laid to the charge of those who resist. 
 Illegal power has no right to snatch even a pebble from 
 our mantel-piece, or a cane from our lobby, although it 
 may not always be wise to resent or resist such tiny 
 aggressions. Sometimes, however, as in the case of 
 Hampden with his ship-money, and the Americans with 
 their tea-tax — it is wise, nay necessary to resist; and at 
 all events experience teaches us the gross folly and 
 blindness of those governments which have staked, and 
 often lost, their existence on petty exactions — which, in 
 search of little additions to their power, have braved 
 great dangers, and have in general been vanquished or 
 annhilated in the struggle. 
 
 The evil of Erastianism is another lesson which this 
 subject cannot fail to teach us. The root of this error 
 lies, indeed, deeper than our fathers dreamed of, namely, 
 in the inevitable influence which the state must exercise 
 over every church which condescends to take its pay — 
 an influence which in its exaggerated form is just Eras- 
 tianism. It is only, therefore, on our principles that 
 
256 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES 
 
 Erastianism can be consistently or thoroughly opposed. 
 Erastianism we look upon as the full result — the 
 reductio ad absurdum, of the endowment or establish- 
 ment idea: both are embarked in the same boat, and 
 whatever tends to show the evil of the one tends to 
 show that of the other, and vice versd. In reference to this 
 Covenanting struggle, as well as to all similar passages 
 in history, it is on the one hand ridiculous to think of 
 a state resigning all power over the internal affairs of a 
 church which was in form, though not in substance, its 
 creature. But it is more pitiable, on the other hand, to 
 think of the religious creed of a nation tampered with, 
 cut and carved upon; touched and retouched like a 
 half-finished picture; adjusted and re-adjusted, like a 
 new garment to the shape of the wearer — by any king, 
 or council, or parliament on earth. And, perhaps, 
 most absurd of ail is it to conceive of the counter- 
 claims of powers so diverse, being ever so well recon- 
 ciled as to form a satisfactory and permanent whole. 
 Would that our modern enemies of Erastianism were 
 but to open their eyes and see this grape of Sodom 
 springing from a root planted beside the Dead Sea of 
 secularized Christianity ! That the Covenanters did 
 not see this was not wonderful; but that many now 
 should, after the sad experience of two additional cen- 
 turies, wink hard at the palpable connection of the two, 
 and should prate of Erastianism as one of the original 
 curses of the church, while in fact it is, to change the 
 figure, a mere wart or pimple on the bloated face of 
 ecclesiastical incorporations, seems to us inexplicable. 
 Thanks to the Covenanters for the noble stand which 
 they made against Erastianism ! but less thanks to 
 those who would now a cut off the branches, and even 
 
OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT. 257 
 
 hew down the tree/’ but would leave the “ stump of the 
 roots thereof in the earth, with a band of iron and brass.” 
 
 Perhaps the same period may teach us a brief but 
 pregnant lesson as to the evils of priestly domination. 
 The Erastian state was deeply to blame, but so also 
 was the semi-papal Church. So were the mongrel 
 bishops; so were the miserable curates; so were the 
 indulged clergy of the kirk; and so, at Botliwell, and 
 often besides, were the stricter presbyterian ministers 
 too. Both the state and the church had then far too 
 much power. The power of the secular press, the 
 power of popular opinion, and the strong and silent 
 barriers which they throw up against the undue exer- 
 cise either of our civil or ecclesiastical authority, were 
 in a great measure unknown. Priestly influence backed 
 the wildest claims of Erastianism — priestly influence 
 resisted them, and threatened at times to erect a gal- 
 ling tyranny of its own. It is pleasing to know that 
 this influence was in that age counteracted by so many 
 causes, and principally by the persecution which carried 
 off most of the evils and enhanced most of the benefits 
 of the class-power of clergymen; but less pleasing to 
 remember that the power, when it exists now, exists we 
 fear for more evil than good, and that where it does not, 
 it has been replaced by influences more pestiferous still. 
 
 We are taught, in fine, the failure certain to be incurred 
 in seeking to promote a good object by false or dubious 
 methods. We deny that the Covenanters, like the So- 
 ciety of Jesus, ever acted on the principle — “Do evil 
 that good may come.” Nor do we say that all or any 
 of them were aware of the full disproportion between 
 their ends and their methods. But it now seems that 
 there was a disparity as monstrous as the famous con- 
 
258 THE MARTYRS AND HEROES, ETC. 
 
 junction described by Horace of a beautiful woman 
 and an ugly fish. The staff of the glorious star- 
 spangled banner of the Covenant terminated in a blood- 
 reeking sword. Their purpose was as high as heaven 
 — their means were “ dunned with the smoke of hell.” 
 That these means seemed to them false , we are far from 
 asserting. But surely it must have flashed on some of 
 their minds, at moments of peculiar insight, that they 
 were at best doubtful ; and it was perhaps this very 
 doubt which at times paralyzed and at times precipi- 
 tated their movements. Men are often wiser than their 
 creeds — that is, than the mere expression they can give 
 to their inward convictions, and so it was sometimes 
 with the Covenanters. They now and then felt, as in 
 fits, how unequal their mechanism to the grandeur of 
 their design, and this either agitated or infuriated 
 them. They were like children surprised at times by 
 God into the language, the thoughts, and the attitudes 
 of grown-up men and women. To unite a land into a 
 band of Christian brothers, and pledge them by a cove- 
 nant ordered and sure to Christian duty, was a noble if 
 not then a practicable thought. But to seek this, not by 
 the power of truth, or the influence of conviction, but 
 by the sheer stress of penal enactment or civil war, was 
 a folly which neither deserved to be nor could be suc- 
 cessful. Their scheme of uniformity, accordingly, 
 sank, as all such schemes will do; and it was owing 
 rather to passive perseverance than to force of arms 
 that they regained their own freedom, and thus too 
 secured for us the present noble and inviolate Palla- 
 dium of Civil and Religious Liberty ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accommodation, 57 
 Airsmoss or Airdsmoss, 95 
 Archbishop Sharp, 39, 41, 54, 
 60-64 
 
 Argyle (Duke of), 40, 110, 111 
 
 Baillie of Jerviswood, 101 
 Balfour of Burley, 61, 69, 76-78 
 Bass Rock, 105 
 Black Acts, 7 
 Blackadder, 108 
 Black Indulgence, 73 
 Bothwell Bridge, Battle of, 75 
 Boyd (Zachary), 38 
 Breadalbane (Earl of), 131 
 Brown of Priesthill, 91 
 Bruce of Earlshall, 95 
 Bruce (Robert), 10 
 Burnet (Gilbert), 56 
 
 Cameron (Richard), 84, 89, 94, 96 
 Cameronians, 95, 100, 117, 128 
 Campbell of Glenlyon, 138 
 Campbell (Sir Colin), 136 
 Campbell (Sir Duncan), 112 
 Cargill (Donald), 73, 84, 89, 110 
 Carmichael, 61 
 Catechism, 29 
 Cess, 66 
 
 Charles I., 15; executed, 34 
 Charles II., 35, 36, 37, 40, 109 
 Claverhouse, 66, 69, 74, 92, 128 
 Cleland (Colonel), 69 
 Cochrane (Sir John), 112 
 Court of High Commission, 47 
 Covenant, 1 
 Covenant Burned, 42 
 Covenant, Kings, 5 
 Cromwell, 32-39 
 “ Curates,” 43 
 
 Dairy, 48 
 
 Dalziel (General), 49, 50, 52, 74 
 Douglas, 70-73 
 Drumclog, 69 
 Drummond (Captain), 141 
 Dunbar, Battle of, 36 
 Dundee (Viscount), see Claver- 
 house 
 
 Duncanson (Major), 138 
 Dunottar Castle, 113-114 
 Dunse Law, 21 
 
 Enterkin Pass, 100 
 Episcopacy Reinstated, 41 
 
 Field Meetings, 46, 58 
 Five Articles of Perth, 12 
 
 Geddes (Jenny), 17 
 Gillespie (Robert), 107 
 Glencoe, Massacre of, 132 
 Gowrie Conspiracy, 9 
 Graham of Claverhouse, 66, 69, 
 74, 92, 128 
 
 Grey friars’ Churchyard, 18 
 Guthrie of Stirling, 41 
 
 Hackstoun of Rathillet, 61, 
 69, 94, 97 
 
 Hamilton (Duke of), Battle of 
 Preston, 34 
 
 Hamilton (Marquis of), 21 
 Hamilton (Sir Robert), 69, 75 
 Henderson (Alexander), 20, 33 
 Hill (Colonel), 135 
 Honeyman (Bishop), 54 
 Hume (Sir Patrick), 103, 112 
 
 INCHINAN, 112 
 Indulgence, The, 56 
 
260 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Interdicts, 6 
 Inverlochy, 132 
 
 James VI., 5, 6,, 7, 8, 10, 12, 
 15, 116 
 
 Kidd, 79 
 
 Killiecrankie, Battle of, 129 
 “Killing Time,” 99 
 King, 79 
 
 King’s Covenant, 5 
 Knox (John), 2 
 
 Lanark, 49 
 
 Laud (Archbishop), 17, 23 
 Lauderdale, 53 
 Leighton (Bishop), 41, 54 
 Leslie (General), 20 
 Liturgy Imposed, 17 
 Livingstone (Lord), 74, 77 
 Loudon Hill, 68 
 Loudoun (Lord), 16, 23 
 
 Macdonalds of Glencoe, 132- 
 162 
 
 Macgillan, 107 
 Mackail (Hugh), 51 
 Mackay (General), 121 
 Mackenzie, 65 
 Magus Muir, 60-64 
 Maitland (Chancellor), 7 
 Melville (Andrew), 4, 7, 8, 10 
 Middleton, 40, 42, 53 
 Mitchell (James), 54, 60, 108 
 Monmouth, 74, 78, 113 
 Montgomery, 6 
 Montrose (Marquis of), 31 
 Morton (Regent), 3-6 
 
 National Covenant, 5, 9, 18, 
 24, 26 
 
 Newburn, Battle at, 23 
 Nisbet (John), of Hardkill, 71, 
 110 
 
 Patronage, 7 
 
 Peden (Alexander), 84, 107, 110 
 Pentland Rising, 47, 50 
 Perth (Lord), 125 
 Philiphaugh, Battle of, 31 
 Presbyterianism Abolished, 41 
 Priestliill, 91 
 
 Queensferry Paper, 89 
 
 Raid of Ruthven, 6 
 Renwick, 84, 110, 118-123 
 Ross, 107 
 
 Rothes (Earl of), 53, 84 
 Rullion Green, 50 
 Rutherford (Samuel), 175 
 
 Sanquhar Declaration, 89, 
 120 
 
 Sharp (Archbishop), 39, 41, 54, 
 60, 62-64 
 
 Shields (Alexander), 108 
 Signing the Covenant, 18 
 Solemn League and Covenant, 
 27 
 
 Stair (Master of), 131, 132, 136 
 
 Trail (Robert), 108 
 Tulclian Bishops, 3 
 Turner (Sir James), 46, 49 
 
 Wallace (Colonel), 49 
 Warris ton (Lord), 45 
 Westminster Assembly, 27 
 Wigtown Martyrs, 90 
 William of Orange, 125 
 Wilson (Margaret), 90 
 Women of the Covenant, 161 
 
Literature on the Covenanters. 
 
 TRADITIONS OF THE COVENANTERS: 
 
 OR 
 
 ©leanings among tbe Mountains, 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. ROBERT SIMPSON, D.D. (Of Sanquhar). 
 
 WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The sources from which these traditions are drawn are 
 chiefly the descendants of the persons themselves, to whom 
 the incidents refer. The locality is chiefly that in the 
 midst of which Sanquhar is situated, and stretching out in 
 a radius of twenty or thirty miles on all sides. It was to this 
 locality that great numbers of the wanderers resorted, on 
 account of the sparsely populated nature of the country, and 
 also the comparative ease with which hiding places could be 
 found in the moss hags. 
 
 It is the design in this collection to preserve the memory 
 of some of these good men in the inferior ranks of society, 
 whose sufferings have not hitherto been recorded. 
 
 Large handsome volume, with Glossary, &c., 3s. 6d. 
 
 FOR CONSCIENCE’ SAKE. 
 
 A number of the stories from “Traditions of the Covenanters ,, 
 relating the hairbreadth escapes and incidents that happened 
 during that eventful period are published in a cheap volume 
 under the above title. Illustrated. Price Is. 
 
 GALL & INGLIS , 20 Bernard Terrace, EDINBURGH 
 
 And LONDON 
 

 3 0112 062754244 
 
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