i A1 X I B R.ARY OF THE UNIVERSITY or ILLINOIS 92.0 p4 1 AnZi IQ55 ■.If i f \ / Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/ladiesofcovenant00ande_0 I THE LADIES OF THE COYENAWT. MEMOIRS OF DISTINGUISHED SCOTTISH FEMALE CHARACTERS, EMBRACING THE PERIOD OF THE COVENANT AND THE PERSECUTION. BY REV. JAMES ANDERSON. R E D F I E L D 34 SEEK MAN STREET, NEW YORK 1855 . Fourth Edition.] q yL 0 > ^ PREFACE. N In collecting materials for “ The Martyrs of the Bass,” pub- ~ lished some time ago, in a volume entitled “ The Bass Rock,” it occurred to the author, from the various notices he met with of ladies who were distinguished for their patriotic interest or suf- ferings in the cause of nonconformity, during the period of the Covenant, and particularly, during the period of the persecution, that sketches of the most eminent or best known of these ladies would be neither uninteresting nor unedifying. In undertaking ^uch a work at this distance of time, he is aware of the disad- jVantage under which he labors, from the poverty of the materials ^at his disposal, compared with the more abundant store from ^ which a contemporary writer might have executed the same task. 5pHe, however, flatters himself that the materials which, with some ^ industry, he has collected, are not unworthy of being brought to light ; the more especially as the female biography of the days C of the Covenant, and of the persecution, is a field which has been , trodden by no preceding writer, and which may, therefore, be i presumed to^have something of the freshness of novelty. The facts in these lives have been gathered from a widely- j^scattered variety of authorities, both manuscript and printed. From the voluminous manuscript records of the privy council, 4 PREFACE. deposited in her majesty’s general register-house, Edinburgh, and from the Wodrow MSS., belonging to the library of the faculty of advocates, Edinburgh, the author has derived much assistance. The former of these documents he was obligingly permitted to consult by William Pitt Dundas, Esq., deputy-clerk of her maj- esty’s register-house. And to the Wodrow MSS., he has,, at all times, obtained the readiest access, through the liberality of the curators of the advocates’ library, and the kind attentions of the librarians. He has also had equally ready access to such books in that invaluable library, many of them rare and expensive, as served to illustrate his subject. In the course of the work, he has had occasion to acknowledge his obligations to several gen- tlemen, from whom he has obtained important information. As to some of the ladies of rank here noticed, there probably exist, in the form of letters, and other documents, materials for more fully illustrating their lives, among the family manuscripts of their descendants, to which the author has not had access. The publication of such papers, if they exist, or of selections from such other papers as relate to the civil and ecclesiastical trans- actions of Scotland in the olden time, which may be lying, moth- eaten and mouldering away, in the repositories of our noble families, would furnish valuable contributions to this department of the literature of our country ; and an example, in this respect, well, worthy of imitation, has been set by Lord Inndsay, in his very interesting work entitled, ‘‘ Lives of the Lindsays.” These Biographies it has been thought proper to precede by an Introduction, containing various miscellaneous observations bearing on the subject, but the chief object of which is to give a general view of the patriotic interest in the cause of religion taken by the ladies of Scotland, during the period which these inquiries embrace. The Appendix consists of a number of papers illus- trative of passages in the text ; some of which have been previ- PREFACE. 5 oiisly printed, and others of which are now printed fram the originals, or from copies, for the first time. In compiling these memoirs it has been the aim of the author throughout to -reduce within moderate limits his multifarious o materials, which might easily have been spread over •^a much larger surface. At the same time, he has endeavored to bring together the most important facts to be known from accessible sources respecting these excellent women, and has even intro- duced a variety nf minute particulars in their history, which he was at considerable, and, as some may think, unnecessary pains to discover. ^But he believes that careful research into minute particulars, in the lives of ladies so eminent, and who were closely connected with so important a period of the history of our church, as that of the struggles and sufferings of the Scottish Covenanters in the cause of religious and civil liberty, is not to be considered as altogether unnecessary labor. “ As to some departments of history and biography,” says Foster, ‘‘I never can bring myself to feel that it is worth while to undergo all this labor ; but,” speaking of the English Puritans, he adds, ‘‘ with respect to that noble race of saints, of which the world will not see the like again (for in the millennium good men will not be formed and sublimed amidst persecution), it is difficult to say what degree of minute investigation is too much — especially in an age in which it is the fashion to misrepresent and decry them.”* This remark is equally applicable to the Scottish cov- enantelrs. Their pre-eminent worth warrants and will reward the fullest investigation into their history, independent of the light which this will throw on the character and manners of their age. Of course, it is not meant to affirm that they were exalted above the errors and infirmities of humanity, or that we are im- plicitly to follow them in everything, whether in sentiment or in * Poster’s Life, vol. ii., p. 127. 1 * 6 PREFACE. action, as if we had not as good a right to act on the great prot- estant principle of judging for ourselves, as they had ; or as if they had been inspired like prophets and apostles. But it may be safely asserted that, though not entitled to be ranked as per- fect and inspired men, they had attained to an elevation and compass of Christian character, which would have rendered them no unmeet associates and coadjutors of prophets and apostles ; and even many of their measures, ecclesiastical and civil, bore the stamp of such maturity of wisdom, as showed them to be in advance, not only of their own age, but even of ours, and the de- feat of which measures, it may be said, without exaggeration, has thrown back the religious condition of Britain and Ireland for centuries. Edinburgh, September ^ 1850 . J. A. CONTENTS. Introduction page 9 Lady Anne Cunningham, Marchioness of Hamilton 27 Lady Boyd - 36 Elizabeth Melvill, Lady Culross 49 Lady Jane Campbell, Viscountess of Kenmure 62 Lady Margaret Douglas, Marchioness of Argyll 86 Mr&. James Guthrie Ill Mrs. James Durham 118 Mrs. John Carstairs 124 Lady Anne, Duchess of Hamilton 129 Mrs. William Veitch 159 Mrs. John Livingstone, &c 181 Lady Anne Lindsay, Duchess of Rothes 199 Lady Mary Johnston, Countess of Crawford 213 Barbara Cunningham, Lady Caldwell - 220 Lady Colvill 241 Catharine Rigg, Lady Cavers 253 Isabel Alison - 272 Marion Harvey 288 Helen Johnston, Lady Graden 300 Lilias Dunbar, Mrs. Campbell 313 Margaret M‘Lauchlan and Margaret Wilson 340 Lady Anne Mackenzie, Countess of Balcarres, afterward Countess of Argyll 356 Henrietta Lindsay, Lady Campbell of Auchinbreck 395 Grisell Hume, Lady Baillie of Jerviswood 428 Lady Catharine Hamilton, Duchess of Atholl 459 8 CONTENTS. APPENDIX. No. I. — Letter of Mr. Robert M‘Ward to Lady Ardross page 473 II. — The Marchioness of Argyll’s Interview with Middleton, after the Condemnation of her Husband 473 III. — Marchioness of Argyll, and her Son the Earl of Argyll. . 474 IV. — Letter of Mrs. John Carstairs to her Husband 474 V. — Suspected Corruption of Clarendon’s History 475 VI. — Indictment of Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey 476 VII. — Apprehension of Hume of Graden, and the Scuffle in which Thomas Ker of Heyhope was killed 479 VIII. — The Fiery Cross carried through the Shire of Moray in 1679 480 IX. — Desired Extension of the Indulgence to Morayshire 484 X. — Sense in which the Covenanters refused to say, “ God save the King!” 486 XI. — Countess of Argyll’s Sympathy with the Covenanters 487 XII. — A Letter of the Earl of Argyll to his Lady, in Ciphers. . 488 XIII. — Extracts from a Letter of the Countess of Argyll to her Son Colin, Earl of Balcarres 489 XIV. — Sufferings of Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck 493 INTRODUCTION. The period embraced in the following sketches is the reigns of James VL, his son, and two grandsons ; but more particularly the reigns of his two grandsons, Charles II. and James YIL, the materials for illustrating the lives of such of our female worthies as lived during their reigns, being most abundant. All the ladies here sketched, whether in humble life or in exalted stations, were distinguished, by their zeal or by their sufferings, in the cause of religious truth ; and it is by this zeal and these sufferings that the most of them are now best known to us. Our notices, then, it is obvious, will be chiefly historical, though not so exclusively his- torical as to forbid the introduction of such illustrations of the personal piety of these ladies as time has spared ; and of such portions of their domestic history as may seem to be invested with interest, and to furnish matter of instruction. It is first of all worthy of special notice, that the peculiar ec- clesiastical principles contended for, or sympathized with, by all these ladies, were substantially the same. This arose from the circumstance that all these monarchs sought to subvert substan- tially the same ecclesiastical principles. Bent on the acquisi- tion of absolute power, they avowedly and perseveringly labored .to overturn the presbyterian government of the Scottish church, which, from its favorable tendency to the cause of liberty, was an obstruction in their path ; and to impose, by force, upon the Scottish people, the prelatic hierarchy, which promised to be more subservient to their wishes. As to the means for attaining this object, all these monarchs were unprincipled and unscrupulous ; and each, more degenerate than his predecessor, became, to an increasing degree, reckless in the measures he adopted. James VI., who plumed himself on his king-craft, endeavored, by cor- rupting and overawing the general assemblies of the church, to get them to destroy their liberties; by introducing with their own 10 INTRODUCTION TO hands, prelacy, and the ceremonies of the Anglican church. Charles I. adopted- a more bold, direct, and expeditious course, attempting to impose a book of canons and a liturgy by his sole authority, without consulting any church judicatory whatever ; in which, however, he, failed of success, his tyranny issuing in the triumph of the cause he intended to destroy. Charles 11. , following in the steps of his father, proceeded, on his restoration, to establish prelacy on the ruins of presbytery in like manner by his sole authority ; and, having more in his power than his father, to enforce conformity by the exaction of fines, by imprisonment, banishment, torture, public executions, and massacres in the fidds. James YIL, who went even further than his brother, father, or grandfather, attempted to exercise absolute power in a more unmitigated form than they had ever done, and determined, what none of them had ventured to do, to make popery the es- tablished religion throughout his dominions. And in this infat- uated course he obstinately persevered, till he alienated from him the great body of his subjects of all ranks, and till, after a short reign of three years, he was driven from his throne. Thus, the same ecclesiastical principles being assailed by all these mon- archs, the testimony of our presbyterian ancestors, under all their reigns, was substantially the same. The great principles for which they contended may be reduced to these three^ from which all the rest flow as corollaries : First, that Christ is the alone king and head of his church, having the alone right to appoint her form of government ; secondly, that presbytery is the only form of church government which he has instituted in his word ; and thirdly, that the church is free in her government from every other jurisdiction, except that of Christ. These principles, all the ladies sketched in this volume either maintained or sympathized with ; and many of them suffered much in their behalf. During the whole extent of the period we have embraced, there is evi- dence of the existence of a public religious spirit among the women of Scotland, and as we advance downward, we find this spirit becoming more generally diffused. In the reign of James YL, ladies in every station of life warm- ly espoused the cause of the ministers who opposed the monarch in his attempts to establish prelacy. Some of them even wielded the pen in the cause with no small effect. The wives of Mr. James Lawson and Mr. Walter Balcanquil, ministers of Edin- burgh, wrote vigorously in defence of their husbands, who had been compelled to fly to England for having publicly condemned in their sermons black acts, as they were called, of the ser- THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 11 vile parliament of 1684, by which presbytery was overthrown, and the libeities of the church laid at the feet of the kin^. They boldly entered the lists with Patrick Adamson, archbishop of St. Andrews, who had written in condemnation of the conduct of their husbands, and answered him in a long paper, exposing with energy, acuteness, and success, the falsehood of his assertions and the imbecility or fallacy of his reasonings ; treating him at the time with little ceremony. As to the old and common re- proach, they say, against God’s servants — troublers of common- v/ealths, rebels against princes, irreverent speakers against those in authority, they may bear with it, since their Master was simi- larly reproached, yea, was even accused of speaking by Beel- zebub, the prince of the devils. “ We will say but this much shortly,” they add, “ as Elias said to Ahab, ‘ It is thou and thy fathers house that trouble Israel.’ It is thou and the remnant of you, Pharisaical prelates, because ye are not trained up in the place of popes that would mix heaven and earth, ere the pomp of your prelacies decay.”* The power of this defence may be estimated from the irritation which it caused the prelate, and from the manner in which he met it. So completely had the weaker vessel” pinned him, that though he ‘‘ had manie grait giftes, bot specialie excellit in the toung and pen,”t he shrunk from encoun- tering these spirited females with their own weapons, and, skulk- ing behind the throne, directed against them the thunderbolt of a royal proclamation, which charged them instantly, under pain of rebellion, to leave their manses. This they accordingly did, selling their household furniture, and delivering the keys of their manses to the magistrates. By the same proclamation, several other ladies of respectability, who are described as worse af- fected to the obedience of our late acts of parliament,” are com- manded, under the same pains, ‘‘ to remove from the capital, and retire beyond the water of Tay, till they give farther declaration of their disposition.”! The ardent and heroic attachment to the cause of presbytery displayed by Mrs. Welsh, the wife of Mr. John Welsh, minister of Ayr, and the wives of the other five ministers, who, with him, were tried at Linlithgow, in 1606, on a charge of high treason, for holding a general assembly at Aberdeen, in July the prece- ding year, is also worthy of special notice. When informed that a verdict of guilty was brought in by a corrupt jury — a verdict which inferred the penalty of death, “ instead of lamenting their ^ Calderwood’s History, vol. iv., p. 127. t James Melville’s Diary, p. 293. $ M‘Crie s Life of Melville, vol. i., p. 327. 12 INTRODUCTION TO fate, they praised God who had given their husbands courage to stand to the cause of their master, adding, that like him, they had been judged and condemned under covert of night.”* Of these ladies, Mrs. Welsh, who was the daughter of our illustrious re- former, John Knox,t is best known. The curious interview which took place between her and King James, when she peti- tioned him for permission to her husband to return to his native country for the benefit of his health, J must be too familiar to our readers to be here repeated. * M'Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. ii., p. 271. t Her name was Elizabeth. She was his third and youngest daughter by his second wife, Margaret Stewart, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a nobleman of amiable disposition, and his steady friend under all circumstances. A curious anecdote connected with Knox’s marriage to Lord Ochiltree’s daughter, is contained in a let- ter written by Mr. Robert Millar, minister of Paisley, to Wodrow, the historian of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, dated November 15, 1722 : and, as it has never before been printed, it may be here inserted : “ Mr. John Campbell, min- ister at Craigie,” says Mr. Millar, told me this story of Mr. Knox’s marriage, so far as 1 mind it. John Knox, before the light of the Reformation broke up, travelled among several honest families in the west of Scotland who were converts to the protestant religion ; particularly he visited oft Stewart, Lord Ochiltree’s family, preaching the gospel privately to those who were willing to receive it. The lady and some of the family were converts ; her ladyship had a chamber, table, stool, and candlestick, for the prophet, and one night about supper, says to him, ‘ Mr. Knox, I think you are at a loss by want of a wife to which he said, ‘ Madam. I think no- body will take such a wanderer as I ;’ to which she replied, ‘ Sir, if that be your objection, I’ll make inquiry to find an answer ’gainst our next meeting.’ The lady accordingly addressed herself to her eldest daughter, telling her she might be very happy if she could marry Mr. Knox, who would be a great reformer and a credit to the church ; but she despised the proposal, hoping her ladyship wished her better than to maiTy a poor wanderer. The lady addressed herself to her second daugh- ter, who answered as the eldest. Then the lady spoke to her third daughter, about nineteen years of age, who very frankly said, ‘ Madam, I ’ll be very willing to mar- ry him, but I fear he will not take me ;’ to which the lady replied, ‘ If that be all your objection. Til soon get you an answer.’ Next night, at supper, the lady said to Mr. Knox, ‘ Sir, I have been considering upon a wife to you, and find one very willing.* To which Knox said,-* Who is it, madam V She answered, ‘ My jmung daughter sitting by you at table.’ Then, addressing himself to the young lady, he said, ‘ My bird, are you willing feo*marry me V She answered, ‘ Yes, sir, only I fear you '11 not be willing to take me.’ He said, ‘ My bird, if you be willing to take me, you must take your venture of God’s providence, as I do. I go through the coun- try sometimes on my foot, with a wallet on my arm, a shjrt, a clean band, and a bi- ble in it ; you may put some things in it for yourself, an J if I bid jmu take the wal- let, you must do it, and go where I go, and lodge where I lodge.’ — ‘ Sir,’ says she, ‘I’ll do all this.’ — 'Will you be as good as your word?’ — ‘Yes, I will.’ Upon which, the marriage was concluded, and she lived happily with him, and had seve- ral children by him. She went with him to Geneva, and as he was ascending a hill, as there are many near that place, she got up to the top of it, before him, and took the wallet on her arm, and, sitting down, said, ‘ Now, goodman, am not I as good as my word?’ She afterward lived with him when he was minister at Edinburgh. I am told,” adds Mr. Millar, “ that one of that Lady Ochiltree's daughters, a sister of John Knoxes wife, was married to Thomas Millar, of Temple, one of my predeces- sor.?.” — Letters to Wodrow, vol. xix., 4to., No. 197. f W elsh and the other ministers had been banished the king’s dominions for life. THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 13 Among the ladies of rank who, in the reign of James VL, were distinguished for their piety and devotedness to the liber- ties of the church, were Lady Lilias Graham, countess of Wig- ton, to whom Mr. John Welsh, who intimately knew her, wrote that famous letter from Blackness castle, which has been repeat- edly printed and often admired ;* Lady Anne Livingstone, coun- tess of Eglington, who, although bred at court, yet proved a sub- dued and eminent Christian, and an encourager of piety and truth ;”t Lady Margaret Livingstone, countess of Wigton, the friend and patron of Mr. John Livingstone, and whom, together with the two preceding, he classes among* “ the professors in the church of Scotland of his acquaintance, who were eminent for grace and gifts and, omitting many others. Lady Margaret Cun- ningham (sister to the marchioness of Hamilton), who was mar- ried, first to Sir James Hamilton of Evandale, secondly to Sir James Maxwell of Calderwood ; a lady, whom Robert Boyd, in recording her death, which took place about September, 1623, describes as that virtuous lady, equal, if not beyond any I have known in Scotland,” “ a woman of an excellent spirit, and many crosses through her whole life,” ‘‘ diligent and active, and a fear- er of God.”J In the reign of Charles I, a public-spirited interest in the cause of religious and ecclesiastical freedom prevailed still more among women of all classes in our country. Those in the humbler ranks became famous for their resolute opposition to the reading of the “ black service-book,” which was to be read for the first time by the dean of Edinburgh, in the old church of St. Giles, on Sabbath, July 23, 1637. To witness the scene, an immense crowd of people had assembled, and among the audience were the lord- chancellor, the lords of the privy council, the judges and bishops. At the stated hour, the dean ascended the reading-desk, arrayed in his surplice, and opened the service-book. But no sooner did he begin to read, than the utmost confusion and uproar pre- vailed. The indignation of the people was roused ; “ false anti- Christian,” “ wolf,” “ beastly-bellied god,” “ crafty fox,” “ ill- hanged thief,” were some of the emphatic appellations whicl came pouring in upon him from a hundred tongues, and which told him that he occupied a perilous position. But the person whose fervent zeal was most conspicuous on that occasion, was an hum- ble female who kept a cabbage-stall at the Tron Kirk, and who * Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 18. t Ibid., vol. i., p 347. t Wodrow’s Life of Boyd, printed for the Maitland Club, p. 266. 2 14 INTRODUCTION TO was silting near the reading-desk. Greatly excited at the dean’s presumption, this female, whose name was Janet Geddes — a name familiar in Scotland as a household word, exclaimed, at the top of her voice, “ Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug ?” and suiting the action to the word, launched the cutty-stool on which she had been sitting at his head, “ intending,” as a contemporary writer re- marks, “ to have given him a ticket of remembrance, but jouking be- came his safeguard at that time.”* The same writer adds : ‘‘ The church was immediately emptied of the most part of the congre- gation, and the doors thereof barred at the commandment of the secular power. A good Christian woman, much desirous to remove, perceiving she could get no passage-patent, betook herself to her bible in a remote corner of the church. As she was there stop- ping her ears at the voice of the popish charmers, whom she re- marked to be very headstrong in the public practice of their anti- Christian rudiments, a young man sitting behind her began to sound forth, ‘ Amen.’ At the hearing thereof she quickly turned her about ; and, after she had warmed both his cheeks with the weight of her hands, she thus shot against him the thunderbolt of her zeal : ‘ False thief,’ said she, ‘ is there no other part of the kirk to sing mass in, but thou must sing it at my lug V The young man being dashed with such a hot, unexpected rencounter, gave place to silence in sign of his recantation. I can not here omit a worthy reproof given at the same time by a truly religious matron ; for, when she perceived one of Ishmael’s mocking daughters to deride her for her fervent expressions in behalf of her heavenly Master, she thus sharply rebuked her with an ele- vated voice, saying, ‘Wo be to those that laugh when Zion mourns.’ ”t At that period, the gentler sex were particularly unceremonious toward turn-coat or time-serving ministers. Baillie gives a very graphic account of the treatment Mr. William Annan, the pre- latic minister of Ayr, met with from the women of Glasgow : “ At the outgoing of the church, about thirty or forty of our hon- * “ The immortal Janet Geddes,” as she is styled in a pamphet of the period (Edinburgh’s Joy, &c., 1661), survived long after her heroic onslaught on the dean of Edinburgh. She kept a cabbage-stall at the Tron Kirk, as late as 1661. She is specially mentioned in the Mercurius Caledonius, a newspaper published imme- diately after the Restoration, as having taken a prominent share in the rejoicings on the coronation of Charles II., in 1661. See Wilson’s Memorials of Edinburgh in vol. i., pp. 92, 93, and vol. ii., p. 30. t ‘‘ Brief and True Relation of the Broil which fell out on the Lord’s day, the 23d of July, 1637, through the Occasion of a black, popish, and superstitious Service- Book, which was then illegally introduced and impudently vented within the Churches of Edinburgh published August thereafter. Printed in Rotlie’s Rela- tion, &;c., Appendix, pp. 198, 199. THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 15 estest women, in one voyce, before the bishope and magistrate, did fall in rayling, cursing, scolding, with clamours, on Mr. Wil- liam Annan; some two of the meanest were taken to the Tol- booth. All the day over, up and down the streets where he went, he got threats of sundry in words and looks ; but after supper, when needlesslie he will goe to visit the bishope, he is no sooner on the causey, at nine o’clock on a week night, with three or four ministers with him, but some hundreds of inraged women of all qualities are about him, with neaves, and staves, and peats, but no stones ; they beat him sore ; his cloak, ruff, hatt, were rent ; however, upon his cries, and candles set out from many windows, he escaped all bloody wounds ; yet he was in great danger even of kilUngy* In this, and in some other instances, the indignation of the ‘‘honest women” of those days at renegade or persecuting cler- gymen, may have carried them somewhat beyond the bounds of moderation. On other occasions, acting more decorously, they assembled peaceably together to petition the government for lib- erty to the nonconforming ministers to preach wherever they were called or had opportunity.! And, though precluded from bearing a part in public debates, they contemplated with the deepest interest those ecclesiastical movements, which, guided by men of great talents, firmne'^s, and spirit, issued in the glo- rious triumph of the church over the attempts of the court to en- slave her. Nor was this interest limited to women in the hum- bler and middle classes of society. The baronesses, the coun- tesses, the marchionesses, and the duchesses, of the day partook of it, and encouraged their husbands and their sons to stand by the church in her struggles for freedom, regardless of the frowns and the threats of power. The zeal with which the marchioness of Hamilton, Lady Boyd, and Lady Ctilross, maintained the good cause, appears from the brief notices of their lives which have been transmitted to our time, and to these might be added the names of other ladies in high life, many of whom would doubt- less have gladly subscribed the national covenant of 1638, had it been the practice for ladies to subscribe that document.^ * Baillie’s Letters and Journals, vol. i., p. 21. t See p. 185. t Many of the subscribed copies of the national covenant, as sworn at that period, have been carefully examined by David Laing-. Esq., Signet Library; and, from the absence of the names of ladies, it appears not to have been customary for ladies to swear and subscribe it. In describing some of the numerous copies of that cove- nant, signed in different parts of the country in 1638, he, however, took notice, some time ago, in a communication to the Society of Antiquaries, of one in the society’s museum, which seems to be quite peculiar in having the names of several ladies. From the notarial attestations on the back of a great many persons, in the parish of 16 INTRODUCTION TO In the reign of Charles II., the fidelity of the presbyterians was put to a more severe test than it had ever been before, Charles became a ruthless persecutor. Inclining at one time, in matters of religion, to popery, and at another to Hobbism, it was natural for him to persecute. Popery, the true antichrist, which puts enmity in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman, is essentially persecuting. Hobbism, which maintains that virtue and vice are created by the will of the civil magis- trate, and that the king’s conscience is the standard for all the consciences of his subjects, just as the great clock rules all the lesser clocks of the town, is no less essentially persecuting. Whether, then, Charles is considered as a papist or a Hobbist, he was prompted by his creed to persecute. In addition to this, it is to be observed that the presbyterian church of Scotland had excited his irreconcilable hatred, not only from its being un- friendly to despotism, but from its strict discipline, the experi- ence of which in early life had made a lasting impression on his mind. All these things being considered, the motives inducing his determination, a determination from which he never swerved, to destroy the Scottish presbyterian church, are easily explained. To assist him in this work, a set of men, both statesmen and churchmen , pre-eminently unprincipled, of whom Middleton, Lau- derdale, and Sharp, may be considered as the representatives, were at his service. Many of these had sworn the ‘‘ Solemn League and Covenant,” and had been zealous for it in the palmy days when its champions walked in silver slippers. But they were too worldly-wise to strive against wind and tide. They were, in fact, just such men as Bunyan describes in his “ Pil- grim’s Progress,” my Lord Turn-about, my Lord Time-server, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Anything, Mr. Two-tongues, Mr. Hold-the-world, Mr. Money-love, and Mr. Save-all. Such ser- vile agents, it is evident, were in no respect actuated, in persecu- ting the presbyterians, by motives of conscience, as some perse- Maybole, who adhered to the covenant, but were unable to write, he inferred that this copy had been signed in that district of Ayrshire. In the first line of the sig- natures toward the right-hand side, along with the names of Montrose, Lothian, Loudoun, and Cassillis, are those of Jeane Hamilton, evidently the sister of the marquis of Hamilton, and wife of the earl of Cassillis — and of Margaret Kennedy, their daughter, who afterward became the wife of Bishop Burnet. Lower down, toward the right hand of the parchment, are the names of other ladies, who can not now be so readily identified — Margaret Stewart, Jeane Stew^art, Grizil Blair, Isa- bill Gimil, Helene Kennedy, Elizabeth Hew^att, Anna Stewart, Elizabeth Stewart, Dame Helene Bennett, and Janet Fergusone. For the information contained in this note I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Laing, whose extensive acquaintance with Scottish history is so much at the service of others. THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 17 cutors have been, but solely by corrupted and interested views. Had the king changed his religion every half year, they would have changed theirs, and have been equally zealous in persecu- ting all who refused to make a similar change. But this fiery ordeal, the faith, the devotedness, and the hero- ism, of the pious women of Scotland stood. We find them, in every station of life, maintaining their fidelity to their conscien- tious convictions in the midst of severe sufferings. With the ejected ministers they deeply sympathized ; and their sympathy with them they testified in many ways ; nor did they feel, or show much respect to, the intruded curates. This was true even as to the more ignorant of women in the lower ranks. Many of this class signalized themselves by their opposition to the intrusion of the curates, as in Iron gray, where a body of them boldly as- sailed a party of the king’s guard, who came to that parish with the view of promoting the intrusion of a curate into the place of their favorite ejected minister, Mr. John Welsh. “ A party with some messengers,” says Mr. John Blackadder, “ was sent with a curate, to intimate that another curate was to enter the kirk for their ordinary. Some women of the parish hearing thereof be- fore, placed themselves in the kirkyard, and furnished themselves with their ordinary weapons of stones, whereof they gathered store, and thus, when the messengers and party of rascals with swords and pistols came, the women so maintained their ground, defending themselves under the kirk dike, that, after a hot skir- mish, the curate, messengers, and party without, not presuming to enter, did at length take themselves to retreat, with the honor- able blae marks they had got at that conflict.”* Nor was this by any means a singular case, for the same writer adds : “ Many such affronts did these prelates’ curates meet with in their essays to enter kirks after that manner, especially by women, which was a testimony of general dislike and aversion to submit to them as their ministers.” In a similar way does Kirkton speak. After stating that “ the first transgressors of this kind were (as I re- member) the poor people of Irongray,” and that “ the next offend- ers were in Kirkcudbright, where some ten women were first in- carcerate in Edinburgh, and thereafter set with papers on their heads,” he goes on to say : “ But these were followed by, I be- lieve, a hundred congregations up and down the country, though the punishment became banishment to America, cruel whipping, and heavy fines.” He, however, at the same time adds : “ These extravagant practices of the rabble were no way approven by the * Blackadder’s Memoirs, MS. copy in Advocates’ Library. 2 * 18 INTRODUCTION TO godly and judicious presbyterians ; yea, they were ordinarily the actions of the profane and ignorant ; but I think they were enough to demonstrate to the world what respect or affection the curates should find among their congregations.”* This favorable disposition to the suffering cause was not, how- ever, limited to ignorant women in the lower ranks. It was par- taken of more largely, and displayed more intelligently, by the great body of well-informed women, in the lower and middle ranks, and even by many of them in the higher, to some of whom the reader is introduced in this volume. At field-meetings they were often present. “ Not many gentlemen of estates,” says Kirkton, “ durst come, but many ladies, gentlewomen, and commons, came in great multitudes.”! The agents appointed by the government throughout the country, for putting in execution tho laws for sup- pressing conventicles and other “ ecclesiastical disorders,” had upon all occasions represented to the privy council that women were “ the chief fomenters of these disorders.”^ Besides sup- porting the persecuted cause of presbytery themselves, these ladies, by their intelligent piety and firmness of mind, had a pow- erful influence in infusing the principles of noncomfority into their husbands, and in sustaining on many occasions their waver- ing resolution. Archbishop Sharp complained heavily of this, and it gave peculiar energy and bitterness to his hatred of pres- byterian women, whom he was in the habit of branding with ev- ery term of opprobrium and contempt. In a letter to a lady, who acquired notoriety in her day by the vigorous suppression of con- venticles, and of whom we shall afterward speak more particu- larly, 1| he says : “I am glad to find your husband, a gentleman noted for his loyalty to the king, and affection to the church, is so happy as to have a consort of the same principles and inclina- tions for the public settlement, who has given proof of her aver- sion to join in society with separatists, and partaking of that sin, to which so many of that sex do tempt their husbands in this evil time, when schism, sedition, and rebellion, are gloried in, though Christianity does condemn them as the greatest crimes. ”§ * Kirkton's History, pp. 162, 163. t Ibid., pp. 352, 353. “A vast multitude,” says the editor of Kirkton, ”of the fe- male sex in Scotland, headed by women of high rank, such as the duchess of Ham- ilton, Ladies Rothes, Wigton, Loudon, Colvill, &c., privately encouraged or openly followed the field preachers.” X Register of Acts of Privy Council, January 23, 1684. i| This was Anne Keith, a daughter of Keith of Benholm (brother to Earl Mari- schall), and, by the courtesy of the time, styled Lady Methven, her husband being Patrick Smith of Methven. Sharp’s letter to her is dated St. Andrews, March 27, 1679. J Kirkton’s History, pp. 355-361. THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 19 The unyielding steadfastness displayed by so many of the wo- men of Scotland in the cause of nonconformity was a perplexing case to the government. Imprisonment they saw would not rem- edy the evil, for they could not find prisons to hold a tithe of those who were guilty. The method they adopted in making the husband responsible for the religious sentiments of his wife, and in punishing him, though a conformist himself, for her non- formity, if not more effectual, proved, as may easily be conceived, a prolific source of domestic contention and misery. “ Many hus- bands here,” says a writer of that period, in relating the sufferings of Galloway and Nithsdale in 1666 , who yield to the full length, are punished by fining, cess, and quarter, for their wives’ non- obedience, and ye know, sir, that it is hard. There are many wives who will not be commanded by their husbands in lesser things than this ; but I must tell you this hath occasioned much conten- tion, fire, and strife, in families, and brought it to this height, that some wives are forced to flee from their husbands, and forced to seek a shelter elsewhere, and so the poor good man is doubly punished for all his conformity.”* Another writer of that period also says : “ When these delating courtsf came through the coun- try, husbands were engaged to bring their wives to the courts, and to the kirk, or to put them away, and never to own them again, which many of them did. So after the women had wan- dered abroad, and when they came home again, their husbands and other relations took them by force to the kirk. Some of them fell a sound when they were taken off the horses’ backs ; others of them gave a testimony that enraged the curate. ”J Find- ing, after the persecution had continued for more than twenty years, that the zeal of the ladies against prelacy was by no means abated, and that the methods hitherto adopted in meeting the evil had proved singularly unsuccessful, the government came to the resolution of meeting it by severely fining the husbands of such ladies as withdrew from their parish churches. Such a punish- ment, they imagined, was better calculated than any other to strike terror, and to make husbands active in their endeavors to persuade their Avives to attend the church. Many husbands were thus fined in heavy sums for their wives’ irregularities. The case of Sir William Scot, of Harden, was very severe. His wife, ^ Wodrow MSS., vol. xxvii., 4to, No. 6. t These were circuit courts, held in various parts of the countiy, for discoveidng and punishing nonconformists. t An account of the sufferings in Tunnergirth and other parishes in Annan, Wod- row MSS., vol. xxxvii., 4to, No. 14. 20 INTRODUCTION TO Christian Boyd, sixth daughter of Lady Boyd, who is noticed in this volume, having declined to attend the curate, Sir William was on that account fined by the privy council in November, 1683 , in the sum of fifteen hundred pounds sterling,* and long imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh. He was forced to com- promise and pay the fine, which in those days was an enormous sum. He desired the privy council to relieve him of responsi- bility for his wife’s delinquencies in future, as she would on no consideration engage to hear the curates. But the council held that husbands were to be accounted masters of their wives de jure, whatever might be the case de facto. Lady Scot was under the necessity of leaving her husband, and she retired into England, and died at Newcastle.! But the making husbands responsible for the conformity of their wives, and thus throwing a bone of contention into families, was only a small part of the sufferings endured by many nonconform- ing women of that period, on account of their principles. The sufferings of a few and only a few of them are recorded in this volume. None of our female worthies were indeed subjected to the torture of the boot or of the thumbscrew, though some of them were threatened with the former punishment.^ But they were cruelly tortured in other ways. In the parish of Auchinleck, a young woman, for refusing the oath of abjuration, had her finger burned with fire-matches till the white bone appeared. In the same parish. Major White’s soldiers took a young woman in a house, and put a fiery coal into the palm of her hand, to make her tell what was asked her.|| Hundreds of women were fined in large sums of money. Hundreds of them were imprisoned. Hundreds of them were banished to his majesty’s plantations, and discharged from ever returning to this kingdom, under the pain of death, to be inflicted on them without mercy ; and before being shipped off, they were in many cases burned on the cheek, by * Fountainh all’s Decisions, vol. i., p. 243. t W odrow MSS., vol. xL, folio, No. 3. t Mrs. Crawford, Mrs. Kello, a rich widow, and Mrs. Duncan, a minister’s widow, were so threatened. After Mr. Mitchell’s attempt on the life of Archbishop Sharp, they were imprisoned, under suspicion of knowing who the intended assassin was; and, on being brought before the council, and strictly interrogated concerning houses that lodged whigs or kept conventicles, or if they knew the name of the assassin, they were, on refusing to answ’er, threatened with the boot; and the last of these ladies would one day have actually endured the torture, had it not been for the duke of Rothes, who told the council that it was not proper for gentlewomen to wear boots. — Kirkton’s History, pp. 283,284. Dalziel also threatened Marion Harvey with the boot. II Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxvii., 4to, No. 1. This paper was communicated to Wodrow by Mr. Alexander Shields. ^ THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. SI the hands of the hangman, with a red-hot iron ; while some of them, being too old to banish, after lying in prison till their per- secutors were weary of confining them, and grudged the expense of supporting them, were whipped, burned on the cheek, and dis- missed.* Hundreds of them, to escape imprisonment, banish- ment, and other hardships, were under the necessity of leav- ing their houses in the cold winter season, and of lodging in rocks and caves, amid frost and snow. And not to mention those women who were put to cruel deaths, hundreds more, even when the hostility of the government was not directed against them- selves personally, were greatly tried, from the sufferings to which their husbands, from their opposition to or noncompliance with the oppressive measures of the government, were subjected. In how many instances, while the husband was compelled to flee for safety, did the wife suffer the execrable barbarity of savage troopers, who, visiting her house, would abuse and threaten her in the very spirit and language of hell ; seize upon her corn and meal, and throw them into the dunghill, or otherwise destroy them ; plunder her of her poultry, butter, cheese, and bedclothes ; shoot or carry away her sheep and cattle, reducing her and her family to great distress ! If the husband was fined, intercom- muned, imprisoned, tortured, banished, forfeited in life and prop- erty, or put to death, the wife suffered ; and who can calculate the mental agony and temporal privations which many a wife with her children then experienced, in consequence of the injus- tice and cruelty perpetrated upon her husband ? Such were the sufferings endured for conscience’ sake during that dark period, by thousands of the tender sex in our unhappy country. Never, indeed, did a severer period of trial pass over the church of Scotland, than during the persecution. Previously she had fought, with various success, many a battle against kings and statesmen. But even when she had sustained defeat, she again mustered her forces, and by persevering effort recovered the ground she had lost. During the persecution it was different. It was all disaster. She was not indeed destroyed, which was what her enemies aimed at. But she was laid prostrate, a bleed- ing and a helpless victim. All she could do was to exercise constancy, patience, and fortitude, under thb fury of her enemies. Had the period of suffering been of short duration, these graces it would have been easier to exercise. But it lasted for nearly a whole generation. It was “ The Twenty-eight Years’ Conflict,” and a conflict of a very different sort from “ The Ten Years’ Con- Registry of Acts of Privy Council, July 14, 1685. 22 INTRODUCTION TO flict” of our own day. The latter was running with the footmen in the land of peace ; the former was contending with horses in the swelling of Jordan. ' It is extremely gratifying to find that our countrywomen, who submitted to such sufferings in the cause of presbytery, were gen- erally distinguished for sincere and enlightened piety. Apart from this, knowledge, zeal, courage, and self-sacrifice, even to the death, are of little estimation in the sight of God, and of little ad- vantage to the possessor. “ Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity (love), it profiteth me nothing.” But .this charity, this love in its most extensive sense, embracing both God and man, was the predominating element in the character of those of whom we now speak. Their piety was indeed the true rea- son, and not obstinacy or fanaticism, as their enemies calumni- ously afiirmed, why they submitted to suffer what they did for matters of religion. The fear of God, and respect to his authority, were their governing principles ; and so long as these principles held the sway in their understandings, cc^nsciences, and hearts, they could not, at the bidding of any man, renounce what they believed to be the truth of God, and profess as truth what they believed to be a lie, whatever it might cost them. Nor were the persecu- tors ignorant of the fact that the sufferers were generally distin- guished for godliness. They knew it well, it resembling in dis- positionThe first murderer Cain, who was of the wicked one, and slew his brother because his own works were evil and his broth- er’s righteous, it was chiefly this which prompted them to hate and murder their inoftensive victims. So well did they know it, that they regarded irreligion or profanity as sufficient to clear a man or woman of all suspicion of the taint of presbyterianism. As a proof of this, we may quote the following passage from Kirk- ton’s history, in reference to what took place in the parish of Wistoun, in Clydesdale : The church,” says he, “ being vacant, and a curate to enter, the people rose in a tumult, and with stones and batons chased the curate and his company out of the field. A lady in that parish was blamed as a ringleader in the tumult, and brought before the council ; she came to the bar, and after her libel was read, the chancellor asked if these accnsations Avere true or not. She answered briefly, ‘ The devil one word was true in them.’ The councillors looked one upon another ; and the chancellor replied, ‘Well, madam, I adjourn you for fifteen days’ — which never yet had an end, and there her persecution ended : such virtue there was in a short curse, fully to satisfy such governors ; and many thought it good policy to demonstrate . THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 23 themselves to be honest profane people, that they might vindi- cate themselves of the dangerous suspicion of being presbyte- rians.”* In our sketches we have included several ladies, who, though not sufferers during the persecution, either in their own persons or in their friends, sympathized with and relieved the sufferers. Nor was it only from such ladies as the duchess of Hamilton, the duchess* of Rothes, and others who favored the persecuted prin- ciples, that the evil-entreated covenanters met with sympathy and. relief, but even from many ladies who, though not attached to the presbyterian cause themselves, were enemies to intolerance and persecution. Many of the wanderers could bear the same testimony to the generosity and humanity of woman, which is borne by a celebrated traveller if “To a woman,” says he, “I never addressed myself, in the language of decency and friend- ship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. If I was hungry or thirsty, wet or sick, they did not hesitate, like men, to perform a generous action. In so free and kind a manner did they contribute to my relief, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweet- est draught ; and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish.” Of this, so numerous were the examples that were constantly occurring during the persecution, as to corrobo- rate the evidence upon which the poetj pronounces compassion as peculiarly characteristic of the female heart : — “ Wherever grief and want retreat, In woman they compassion find ; She makes the female breast her seat, And dictates mercy to the mind.” But true as this eulogium on the female character may be in the main, instances are to be met with in which even the heart of woman has. become steeled against every humane feeling ; and such instances, though happily of rare occurrence, were to be met with during the period of the persecution. The countess of Perth was one of these instances. Her treatment of the wife of Alexander Hume, portioner of Hume, in the close of the year 1682, was revoltingly atrocious. Mr. Hume was a nonconform- ist ; and, though nothing criminal was proved against him, he was condemned to die at the market-cross of Edinburgh upon the 29th of December. He was offered his life if he would take the test, which he refused to do. By the interest of his friends at court, a remission was, however, procured from the king, which Kirkton’s History, pp 354, 355, t Mr. Ledyard. t Crabbe. 24 INTRODUCTION TO came down to Edinburgh four or five days before his execution ; but it was kept up by the earl of Perth, a relentless persecutor, who was then chancellor. On the day of Hume’s execution, his wife went to the chancellor’s lady, and begged her, in such moving terms as might have softened even a cold and hard heart, to interpose for her husband’s life, urging that she had five small children. But the heart of the countess was harder than the nether millstone. She had no more feeling for the afflicted wife and her children than if they had been so many brute beasts. Not only did she refuse to comply with her prayer, but with in- fernal cruelty, barbed and venomed the refusal with language so coarsely savage as is hardly to be repeated. Her answer was, I have no more regard to you than to a bitch and five whelps !”* Lady Methven, formerly referred to, is another instance. To put down a large field conventicle on her husband’s ground, she boldly marched forth, armed with a gun and sword, at the head of her vassals, swearing by the God of heaven that she would sooner sacrifice her life than allow the rebellious whigs to hold their rebellious meeting on his ground. But this intrepid energy, for which the enemies of the covenanters have held her up as a heroine, was nothing more than animal courage, the mere effect of iron nerves. From her letters, it is evident, if we are to judge from the oaths with which they are interlarded, that she was a profane, godless woman ; and it is no less evident from them that inveterate malignity to the covenanters was her impelling princi- ple. In a letter to her husband, then at London with the marquis of Montrose, dated Methven V/ood, October 15, 1678, she thus describes her exploits : — “ My Precious Love : A multitude of men and women, from east, west, and south, came the 13th day of this October to hold a field conventicle, two bows’-draught above our church ; they had their tent set up before the sun upon your ground. I seeing them flocking to it, sent through your ground, and charged them to re- pair to your brother David, the bailie, and me, to the Castle hill, where we had but sixty armed men : your brother with drawn sword and bent pistol, I with the light horseman’s piece bent, on my left arm, and a drawn tuck in my right hand, all your ser- vants well armed, marched forward, and kept the one half of them fronting with the other, that were guarding their minister and their tent, which is their standard. That near party that we yoked with, most of them were St. Johnston’sf people ; many of * Her answer is not recorded in Wodrow’s History (vol. iii., p. -ll?), but it is given in his MSS., vol. x^xvii., 4to, No. 31 t Perth. THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 25 them had no will to be known, but rode off to see what we would do. They marched toward Busbie : we marched be-west them and gained ground, before they could gather in a body. They sent off a party of an hundred men to see what we meant, to hin- der them to meet. We told them, if they would not go from the parish of Methven presently, it should be a bluddie day ; for I protested, and your brother, before God, we would ware our lives upon them before they should preach in our regallitie or parish. They said they would preach. We charged them either to fight or fly. They drew to a council amongst themselves what to do : at last, about two hours in the afternoon, they would go away if w^e would let the body that was above the church, with the tent, march freely after them ; we were content, knowing they were ten times as many as we were, and our advantage was keeping the one half a mile from the other, by marching in order betwixt them. They seeing we were desperate, marched our the Pow, and so we went to the church, and heard a feared minister preach. They have sworn not to stand with such an affront, but resolve to come the next Lord’s day ; and I, in the Lord’s strength, intend to accost them with all that will come to assist us. 1 have caused your officer warn a solemn court of vassals, tenants, and all within our power, to meet on Thursday, where I intend, if God will, to be present, and there to order them, in God and our king’s name, to convene well armed to the kirkyard on sabbath morning by eight hours, where your brother and I, with all our servant-men, and others we can make, shall march to them, and, if the God of heaven will, they shall either fight or go out of our parish."^ .... My blessed love, comfort yourself in this, that, if the fanatics should chance to kill me, it shall not be for naught. I was wounded for our gracious king, and now, in the strength of the Lord God of heaven, I ’ll hazard my person with the men I may command, before these rebels rest where ye have power. Sore I miss you, but now more than ever This is the first oppo- sition that they have rencountered, so as to force them to flee out of a parish. God grant it be good hansell ! There would be no fear of it if we were all steel to the back. My precious, I am so transported with zeal to beat the whigs, that I almost for- got to tell you my lord marquis of Montrose hath two virtuous ladies to his sisters, and it is one of the loveliest sights in all Scotland, their nunnery.” This letter is dated “ Methven Wood, the 15th instant, 1678.”t ^ In another letter to her husband, she says : “ They are an ignorant, wicked pack ; the Lord God clear the nation of them !" t Kirkton's Hist., pp. 355-361. 3 26 INTRODUCTION. About a year after this, Lady Methven met with a melancholy death. She fell off her horse, and her brains were dashed out, upon the very spot where she opposed persons going to that meeting, namely, at the southwest end of Methven Wood.* Of a very different character were the ladies whose memoirs we have attempted. So far from hating, maligning, and adding to the hardships of the persecuted, they protected and relieved them, and in many cases shared in their sufferings. They were indeed distinguished by general excellence of character, and are entitled to both the grateful remembrance and imitation of pos- terity. They form a part of the great cloud of witnesses with which we are encompassed. Though belonging to past genera- tions, whose bodies are now sleeping in the dust, and whose spirits have gone to the eternal world, they yet speak. By their piety toward God, not less than their benevolence toward man ; by the exemplary part they acted in every relation of life — as daughters, as sisters, as mothers ; by their liberality in supporting the ordinances of the gospel, and in encouraging its faithful min- isters ; by the magnanimity with which they suffered either per- sonally or relatively in the cause of truth, often rivalling the most noble examples of Christian heroism to be found in the church’s history — they become instructors to the living generation in pas- sing through this scene of temptation and trial. They have es- pecially, by the magnanimity with which they suffered in the cause of truth, emphatically taught us the important principle that we are in all things and at all times to do what is right ; and as to the disapprobation, opposition, and persecution of men, in whatever way manifested, or to whatever extent, we are to let that take its chance — a principle, the importance of which it is difficult to over-estimate ; which lies at the foundation of all that is great and good in character ; which has enabled the greatest and the best of men, by the blessing of God, to achieve the great purposes they have formed for advancing the highest interests of mankind, and upon which it is necessary for the good soldier of Christ to act in every age — in an age in which the church enjoys tranquillity, as well as when she suffers persecution. * Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxiii., folio, No. 143. THE LADIES OE THE COVEIANT. LADY ANNE CUNNINGHAM, MARCHIONESS OF HAMILTON.^ Lady Anne Cunningham was the fourth daughter of James, seventh earl of Glencairn, by his first wife Margaret, second daughter of Sir Colin Campbell of Glenurchy.* Her ancestors on the father’s side were among the first of the Scottish peers who embraced the reformed doctrine. In 1640, her great-great- grandfather William, fourth earl of Glencairn, and her great- grandfather, then Lord Kilmaurs, afterward fifth earl of Glencairn, appear among the converts of the reformed faith. Her great- grandfather in particular, whose piety and benevolence procured him the honorable appellation of ‘‘ the good earl,”t was an ardent and steady promoter of the Reformation, for which he was emi- nently qualified by his superior learning and abilities, as well as by the influence of his high station ; and he carefully instructed his children in its principles. He regularly attended the ser- mons of John Knox, on the reformer’s returning to Scotland, in 1554; and in 1556, he invited him to administer the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper after the manner of the reformed church, in his baronial mansion of Finlayston, in the parish of Kilmal- colm, when he himself, his countess, and two of their sons, with a number of their friends, partook of that solemn ordinance. | * Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 636. t There is a portrait of this nobleman in Pinkerton’s Scottish Gallery of Portraits, vol. ii. t M'Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. i., p. 178. Knox’s History, Wodrow Society edi- tion, vol. i., p. 250. The silver cups which were used by Knox on this occasion are still carefully preserved ; and the use of them was given at the time of dis- pensing the sacrament in the parish church of Kilmalcolm, so long as the Glen- cairn family resided at Finlayston.” 28 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. He also assisted the reformers by his pen, being the author of a satirical poem upon the Roman catholic monks, entitled, “ An Epistle Direct from the Holy Hermit of Allarit* to his Brethren the Grey Friars.’’ Nor did he shrink from drawing the sword for their protection. In 1559, when the reformers took up arms at Perth to defend themselves from the queen-regent, who had collected an army and had advanced to Perth, to avenge the de- struction of the popish images by the populace of that town, he raised twelve hundred horse and thirteen hundred foot in the west, and the passes being occupied, conducted them through the mountains, travelling night and day till they reached Perth; which proved a seasonable aid to the reformers, and by the consternation with which it inspired the queen-regent, prevented the effusion of blood. This nobleman often visited Knox on his death-bed ; and he died in 1574. Lady Anne’s father, James, seventh earl of Glencairn, was also a friend to the liberties and religion of his country. He was one of those noblemen, who, when the duke of Lennox, an emissary of the court of France, had acquired a complete influ- ence over James VL, soon after his assuming the reins of gov- ernment, and had effected an entire change in the court, filling it with persons devoted to popery and arbitrary power, resolved to take possession of the king’s person, and removing Lennox, and another favorite, the earl of Arran, from him, to take upon them- selves the direction of public affairs. With this view, on meeting with the king returning from hunting in Athol, several of them invited him to Ruthven castle, where they effected their purpose ; and hence this enterprise was called the Raid of Ruthven. Of the early life of Lady Anne we possess no information. In the beginning of the year 1603, she was married to Lord James, the son and heir-presumptive of John, first marquis of Hamilton. By her marriage contract, dated 30th January, 1603, which re- ceived the consent of both their fathers, the marriage portion is forty thousand merks, and the yearly jointure fifty-six chalders of victual, and five hundred pounds of money-rent.f Lady Hamilton inherited from her father’s family an ardent zeal for presbytery. During the first part of her life an almost continued contest existed between James VL and the church of Scotland, in reference to that form of church government. As * Thomas Douchtie of Allarit or Loretto, near Musselburgh. This person was the founder of the Chapel of our Lady of Loretto, 1533. Knox’s History, Wod- row Society edition, vol. i., pp. 72, 75. t Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Mait- land Club, vol. iv., p. 201. MARCHIONESS OF HAMILTON. 29 has been said in the introduction, James commenced that strug- gle for absolute power, which was resolutely persevered in by his son and his two grandsons ; and to reach his purpose he deemed it necessary to undermine the presbyterian government of the church of Scotland. With his usual profanity, he asserted that monarchy and presbytery agreed as well as God and the devil. No assertion could be more unfounded. It can not indeed be denied that the republicanism of presbyterian church government is unfriendly to absolute or despotic monarchy. The fundamen- tal principle of presbytery — that spiritual power is lodged exclu- sively in the church courts, uncontrolled by the civil magistrate — greatly limits the power of monarchs, saying to them when they reach the borders of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, “ Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther,” and naturally leads men to con- clude that, by parity of reason, temporal power should be lodged in a parliament. But that presbytery is hostile to limited mon- archy, is disproved by the whole of its history in Scotland ; for no body of people was ever more devoted to the throne than the presbyterians ; and indeed they often carried their loyalty to a reprehensible and extravagant excess. It was not, however, a limited but an absolute monarchy on the erection of which James’s heart was set ; and seeing clearly enough that presbytery was the enemy of such a monarchy, he made every effort to overthrow it, and to introduce prelacy, which he well knew would be a more effectual instrument in advancing his design. These efforts he was not permitted to make without opposition. A body of ministers, respectable for number, and still more respectable for their talents, piety, and zeal, resolutely and perseveringly resisted him till the close of his life. They maintained, that by attempt- ing to impose upon the church the form of government and mode of worship which were most accordant with his inclinations, and by endeavoring to control her in her administration, he was in- vading the prerogative of Christ, the sole king and head of the church, who alone had the right to settle the form of her govern- ment, and by whose authority alone she was to be guided in her administration. By threats, bribes, imprisonment, and banish- ment, James labored hard to get them to yield to his wishes ; but animated by a high sense of duty, they were not to be overborne, and largely imbued with the spirit of martyrs, they preferred enduring the utmost effects of his royal wrath, rather than make the unhallowed surrender. So much importance did they attach to their principles, as to deem them worthy even of the sacrifice of their lives. “We have been even waiting with joyfulness,” 3 "^ 80 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. said one of them, “ to give the last testimony of our blood in con- firmation thereof, if it should please our God to be so favorable as to honor us with that dignity.”* It is the courage, zeal, and self- sacrifice, with which this party contended for the rights and lib- erties of the church, during the reigns of James VI. and Charles L, that imparts to this portion of our ecclesiastical history its prin- cipal charm. To this party the marchioness of Hamilton adhered with great zeal, actuated by sympathy with the principles contended for, as well as by sympathy with the character of the men themselves, who, besides being the most gifted, were the most pious, active, and faithful ministers of the church of Scotland, in their day. Her husband, the marquis of Hamilton, was not equally stead- fast with herself in maintaining the liberties of the church. Fa- cile and ambitious, he was induced, from a desire to please his sovereign, to become an advocate for conformity to the five arti- cles of Perth, and to exert his influence to obtain their ratifica- tion in the Scottish parliament of 1621, where he was his majes- ty’s high commissioner. This nobleman was cut off in the prime of life, having died at London on the 2d of March, 1625, in the thirty-sixth year of his age.f “ Small regret,” says Calderwood, “ was made for his death, for the service he made at the last par- liament.” The marchioness survived the marquis many years, during which time she was eminently useful as an encourager of the faithful ministers of the gospel, whom she was ever ready to shield from persecution, and to countenance in every way com- petent to her. When Mr. Robert Boyd, of Trochrig, had, a few months after his being admitted minister of Paisley, been driven out of that town by the mob, who showered upon him “ stones and dirt” — Paisley being then, as Row describes it, “ a nest of papists”! — earnestly desirous to take that great and good man under her protection, and invited him to accept of the charge of the parish of Cambuslang, which was at that time vacant. Mr. James Bruce, writing to him from Glasgow, in October, 1626, says : “ The parish of Cambuslang is now vacant, and the lady marchioness is earnestly desirous to have you there. Her joint- * These are the words of Mr. John Welsh, when a prisoner in Blackness castle, in reference to himself and his brethren who was proceeded against by the govern- ment for holding a general Assembly at Aberdeen in July, 1605, in opposition to the wishes of the monarch. Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 23. t Calderwood’s History, vol. vii., pp. 469, 489, 630. t Row’s History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 438. MARCHIONESS OF HAMILTON. 31 lire lies there : it is within three miles of Glasgow, has a reason- able stipend, besides the lady’s pension, which she will rather augment than diminish. You will live easier, and at more peace there, than at Paisley ; you will have the lady marchioness’s com- pany, which is very desirable. This I leave to your considera- tion, and the Lord’s direction.” An end, however, was put to this matter by the growing illness of Boyd, which took him to Edin- burgh, to consult with physicians ; and on reaching the capital his sickness increased, till it terminated in his death, on the 5th of January, 1627.* The name of the marchioness stands favorably connected with that memorable revival of religion which took place at the kirk of Shotts, on the 21st of June, 1630, the Monday after the cele- bration of the Lord’s Supper. Indeed, that revival may be said to be directly traceable to the piety of this lady, who was forward to embrace every opportunity of bringing within the reach of others the blessed gospel which she herself so highly prized ; and it originated in a circumstance apparently incidental — the breaking down of her carriage on the road, at Shotts. How im- portant the results, for either good or evil to mankind, which, un- der the government of Infinite Wisdom, have been produced by the most trivial events ! The sight of the spider’s web and the pigeon’s nest at the entrance of the cave in which Mohammed concealed himself diverted his pursuers from searching it, and, saving the life of the false prophet, contributed to entail for ages upon a large part of the world the curse of the Mohammedan su- perstition ; and in the Reformation throughout Europe, incidents equally insignificant have, on the other hand, been big with con- sequences the most beneficial to mankind. The circumstance of the breaking down of the marchioness’s carriage, seemingly casual as it was, resulted in some hundreds of immortal beings experiencing that blessed change of heart which unites the soul to God, and which issues in everlasting salvation. The particu- lars, in so far as she was concerned, were these : As the road to Edinburgh from the west lay by the kirk of Shotts, she frequently passed that way in travelling from the place of her residence to the capital, and on such occasions she received, in different in- stances, civilities from Mr. Home,! minister of the parish. At one time, in particular, when, on her passing through Shotts, ac- companied with some other ladies, the carriage in which they * Wodrow's Life of Robert Boyd, pp. 239, 240. t Gillies, ill bis Historical Collections, calls him Mr. Hance, but this is a mistake. Both Livingstone and Wodrow give his name as in the text. 33 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. were riding broke down, in tlie neighborhood of the manse. Mr. Home, on learning the accident, kindly invited them to alight and remain all night in his house, as they were at a considerable distance from any convenient place of entertainment. Having accepted his invitation, they observed during their stay that, be- sides its inconvenient situation, the manse stood much in need of being repaired ; and the marchioness, in return for his attentions, erected for him a new manse, in a more agreeable situation, and with superior accommodations. On receiving so substantial a favor, Mr. Home waited upon her to express his obligations, and desired to know if there was anything he could do by which to testify his gratitude. All she asked was that he would be kind enough to allow her to name the ministers he should have with him as his assistants at the celebration of the . Lord’s Supper. This request he cordially granted. She accordingly named some of the most distinguished ministers of the day, Mr. Robert Bruce, Mr. David Dickson, and some others, who had been remarkably successful as instruments in bringing many to the saving knowl- edge of the truth. The report that such celebrated men were to assist at the communion at that place soon circulated extensively through the country ; and a vast multitude, attracted by their fame, assembled from all quarters, many of them of eminent piety, among whom were the marchioness herself, and other ladies of rank, who attended at her invitation.* The solemnity to which she was the means of bringing these ministers, and of gathering together so great a crowd of people, was accompanied in a very signal manner with the Divine bles- sing. For several days before, much time was spent in social prayer. During all the days of the solemn occasion the minis- ters were remarkably assisted. The devout who attended were in a more than ordinary degree refreshed and edified ; and so largely was the spirit of grace and supplication poured out upon them, that, after being dismissed on the sabbath, they spent the whole night, in different companies, in prayer. On the Monday morning, the ministers, understanding how they had been en- gaged, and perceiving them, instead of returning to their homes, still lingering at the place, as if unwilling to depart from a spot which they had found in their experience to be as it were the gate of heaven, agreed to have sermon on that day, though it was not usual, at that time, to preach on the Monday after the dispen- sation of the Lord’s Supper. The minister whose turn it was to * Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. i., p. 271 ; Gillies’s Historical Collections, vol. i., pp. 309, 3]0. MARCHIONESS OF HAMILTON. 33 officiate having become unwell, the work of addressing the peo- ple was, at the suggestion of Lady Culross, laid upon Mr. John Livingstone, then a young man, and chaplain to the countess of Wigton. Livingstone had before preached at Shotts, and had found more liberty in preaching there than at other places ; but from the great multitude of all ranks assembled on that occasion, he becamB so diffident that, when alone in the fields in the morn- ing, he began to think of stealing away rather than address the people. “ But,” says he, “ I durst not so far distrust God, and so went to sermon and got good assistance. I had about an hour and a half upon the points I had meditated on, Ezekiel xxxvi. 25, 26 : ‘ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh and in end, offering to close with some words of exhortation, I was led on about an hour’s time in a strain of exhortation and warning with such liberty and melting of heart as I never had the like in pub- lic in all my life.”* And such was the effect, that, as Mr. Flem- ing observes, in his “Fulfilling of the Scriptures,” “near five hundred had at that time a discernible change wrought on them, of whom most proved lively Christians afterward. It was the sowing of a seed through Clydesdale, so as many of the most eminent Christians in that country could date either their conver- sion or some remarkable confirmation in their case from that day.”t After this the practice of preaching on the Monday fol- lowing the sacrament became general. * Life of Mr. John Livingstone, in Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 138. t It may not be uninteresting to quote some notices respecting this communion, given by Wodrow: — "‘April 24, 1710. This day being at the Shotts, and discoursing with Mr. Law, the minister, he tells me that the sermon was in the west end of the churchyard. He let me see the end of the Graigs to which, it is said, Mr. Livingstone went up to study, the morning before he preached, as the tradition is. Another should have preached on the Monday, but he fell indisposed. It was the lady Culross, who was there, and had special intimacy with Mr. Livingstone, that put the ministers upon employing him. The minister’s name, at that time, was Mr. Home, a man of an easy temper, and no persecutor.’’ And, after stating that the marchioness of Hamil- ton had conferred some particular favor on Mr. Home; that Mr. Home allowed her to name the ministers he should have with him at the communion (Mr. Dickson, Mr. Bruce, and others), who all came, with a great many Christians, at the lady’s invita- tion, who was herself an excellent woman — Wodrow adds that “ he (Mr. Law) hears the particular occasion of the first sensible motion among the people was this : In the time of Mr. Livingstone’s sermon there was a soft shower of rain, and when the people began to stickle about, he said to this purpose, ‘ What a mercy is it that the Lord sifts that rain through these heavens on us, and does not rain down fire and 34 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT, The marchioness of Hamilton was personally known to Mr. John Livingstone ; and in his Memorable Characteristics’’ he has given her a place among some of the professors in the church of Scotland of his acquaintance who were eminent for grace and gifts.”* From his “ Life” we also learn that whatever influence she had with the court at London, she was well inclined to use it for the protection of the persecuted nonconformists. He informs us that, after he himself, Mr. Robert Blair, and others of his brethren in Ireland, had been deposed, in May, 1632, by the bishop of Down, and when Mr. Blair went to London to repre- sent their cause to the government, he himself, who was to follow Mr. Blair, went previously to Scotland, with the design of procu- ring letters from the lady marchioness of Hamilton and other per- sons of rank, to some of their friends at court, vindicating him and his brethren from the charge of stirring up the people to ecsta- sies and enthusiasm, and requesting for them toleration to preach the gospel notwithstanding their nonconformity.f During the stirring period when the Scottish people renewed the national covenant, and successfully resisted the attempts of Charles I. to impose upon them a book of canons and a liturgy the marchioness warmly espoused the cause of the covenant. brimstone, as he did upon Sodom and Gomorrah !' He further adds : “ This night Mr. George Barclay tells me that he discoursed Mr. Livingstone himself in Holland upon this communion, and he told him that he was such a stranger to all the minis- ters there, that the lady Culross was the person that put the ministers upon him, the minister that should have preached having fallen sick; that it was somewhat that incidentally he spoke that gave occasion to the motion among the people, and Mr. Barclay repeated the words above; and Mr. Livingstone added: ‘ Brother, when you are strongly pressed to say anything you have not premeditated, do not offer to stop it — you know not what God has to do with it.' " — Analecta, vol. i., p. 271. There is one point in these two accounts as to which there seems to be some dis- crepancy. According to Mr. Law, Messrs. Dickson and Bruce were among the ministers present ; and, according to Mr. Barclay, Livingstone was ‘‘ a stranger to all the ministers there.” But Livingstone, before he was licensed to preach, knew at least Mr. Bruce, who, as he informs us in his Life, had been in the habit of assist- ing his father at Lanark at the celebration of the Lord's Supper. * Select Biographies printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 348. t Ibid., vol. i., p. 146. t The book of canons received the royal sanction and became law in 1635. The service-book, or liturgy, w^as enjoined to be used by act of privy council, 20th of December, 1636, and the act was the following day proclaimed at the Cross of Edin- burgh ; but the liturgy itself was not published till toward the end of May, 1637. These two books were extremely unpopular in Scotland, both because they were forced upon the church solely by royal authority, without the consent of the chufch herself, or without her having been even consulted, and because of the matter con- tained in them. The book of canons, among other things objected to, asserted the king's supremacy in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil ; enjoined various un- warranted and superstitious rites in the observance of baptism and the Lord’s Sup- per ; proscribed sessions and presbyteries ; and invested the bishops with uncontrol- lable power. The service-book was just the English liturgy with numerous altera- tions, by which it approached nearer the Roman missaL MARCHIONESS OF HAMILTON. 35 Possessed of a strong and masculine spirit, she displayed an un- daunted heroism in the cause, which neither the sight of personal danger nor the partiality of maternal affection could subdue. When her son James, marquis, afterward duke of Hamilton, who sided with Charles I. against the covenanters, conducted an Eng- lish fleet to the Forth, in 1639, to overawe them, she appeared on horseback, with two pistols by her side, at the head of a troop of horse, among the intrepid thousands who lined the shores of Leith on that occasion, to resist his landing ; and, drawing one of her pistols from her saddle-bow, declared she would be the first to shoot him should he presume to land and attack the troops of the covenant.* It is said that she had even loaded her pistols with balls of gold ; but this rests on very doubtful authority.! It is certain, however, that when the marquis cast anchor in the Forth, near Leith, loitering for the king, whose army was march- ing into Scotland to his assistance, she paid him a visit on board his vessel. The particulars of this interview have not been re- corded ; but the people anticipated from it the most favorable results. ‘‘ The son of such a mother,” they said, “ will do us no harm.”! they suffer any harm. The spirited con- duct and intercession of his mother, it is supposed, was one cause which prevented the marquis’s debarkation of his troops. Other causes, however, seem to have contributed to this. The number of his troops, which amounted only to about three or four thou- sand, was too small for the occasion. Besides, hearing that a part of the English army, being encountered by the Scots at Kelso, were defeated, with a loss of three hundred men, and put to flight, he was not in a disposition to engage with the cove- nanters, who gave such decided proofs of earnestness ; and soon after a pacification was concluded between them and the king, at the Birks of Berwick. Respecting this lady, we meet with no additional facts, except that her last will is dated the 4th of November, 1644, and that she died in 1647.|| It may be added that there is a portrait of the marchioness in Pinkerton’s “ Scottish Gallery of Portraits,” vol. ii. “ The por- * Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p. 704. t ‘‘ The stoiy about the ‘ balls of gold,’ rests on the authority of Gordon of Stra loch’s MSS. (none of the purest, to be sure) ; but the manly heroism of the old mar- chioness is noticed by Spang, Hist. Motuum^ p, 357.” — M'Crie’s Sketches of Scottish Church History, 2d edition, p. 255. t Whitelock’s Memorials, p. 29. Whitelock terms her “ a rigid covenanter.” II Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv., p. 207 ; Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p. 704. 36 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. trait,” says Pinkerton, “ corresponds with the masculine charac- ter of the marchioness.” He adds : “ Johnson, the ingenious limner, died before he had finished the drapery of this drawing, which is from a painting by Jameson, at Taymouth.” LADY BOYD. Lady Boyd, whose maiden name was Christian Hamilton, was the only child of Sir Thomas Hamilton of Priestfield, after- ward first earl of Haddington, by his first wife Margaret, daughter of James Borthwick of Newbyres. Her father, who studied law in France, was, on his returning to Scotland, admitted advocate, on the 1st of November, 1587 ; and, soon distinguishing himself at the bar by his talents and learning, he was, on the 2d of No- vember, 1592, appointed a lord of session, by the title of Lord Drumcairn. In February, 1596, he became king’s advocate ; and in May, 1612, lord clerk register of Scotland. He was next invested with the offices of secretary of state and president of the court of session, which he retained till the 5th of February, 1626, when he was constituted keeper of the privy seal ; and on the 27th of August, 1627, he was created earl of Haddington. He died on the 29th of May, 1637, injthe seventy-fourth year of his age. By means of the lucrative offices he held, he acquired one of the largest fortunes of his time.* The subject of this notice was first married to Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres, who died at Bath, on 9th of July, 1616. To him she had a son, John, tenth Lord Lindsay of Byres, after- ward earl of Crawford-Lindsay ; and a daughter, Helen, married to Sir William Scot of Ardross.f She did not long remain a widow, having married, for her second husband, in the year 1617, Robert, sixth Lord Boyd,j: an excellent man, who studied at * Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., pp. 678, 679. t Ibid, vol. i., pp. 386, 679. t The marriage contract between her and that nobleman bears the date of that year. Chalmers’ MS. Account of the Noble Families of Scotland, in advocates' library, volume i., p. 22. Lord Boyd was a widower, having been previously mar- ried to Lady Margaret Montgomery, daughter of Robert Montgomery of GifFen, and relict of Hugh, fifth earl of Eglinton. (Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., p. 35.) The marriage contract between him and this lady is dated October, 1614 ; and in refer- ence to this marriage, writing, June 22, 1614, from London to his cousin, Robert Boyd of Trochrig, then on the continent, he says, “ Sir George [Elphingstoun] and Sir Thomas have told me their commission, which is marriage with the earl of Eglinton his wife [widow] and has shown me many good reasons." — Wodrow’fl life of Robert Boyd of Trochrig, printed by the Maitland Club, p. 114. LADY BOYD. 37 Saumurj under his cousin, the famous Mr. Robert Boyd of Troch- rig, from whom he seems to have derived, in addition to secular learning, much religious advantage. Like the marchioness of Hamilton, Lady Boyd joined the ranks of the presbyterians who resisted the attempts of James VL, and Charles L, to impose prelacy upon the church of Scot- land. With many of the most eminent ministers of those times, as Mr. Robert Bruce, Mr. Robert Boyd, Mr. Robert Blair, Mr. Samuel Rutherford, and Mr. John Livingstone, she was on terms of intimate friendship ; and her many Christian virtues procured her a high place in their esteem, and, indeed, in the esteem of all ranks and classes of her countrymen. Experiencing in her own heart the saving influence of Divine truth, she was desirous that others, in like manner, might experience its saving power ; and with this view she encouraged the preaching of the gospel, exercising a generous hospitality and liberality toward its minis- ters, receiving them into her house, and supplying them with money. In his life, written by himself, Mr. John Livingstone speaks of residing for some time, during the course of his minis- try, in the house of Kilmarnock, with “ worthy Lady Boyd and mentions her as one of four ladies of rank* of whom he got at several times supply of money.” During the struggles of the presbyterians in behalf of the lib- erties of the church, for many years previous to the second Ref- ormation, it was the practice of the more zealous among them, both with the view of promoting their own personal piety and of commending to God the desolate condition of the church, to hold meetings in various parts of the country, for humiliation and prayer, on such stated days as were agreed upon by general cor- respondence. And such as could not conveniently attend at the particular place fixed upon in the part of the country where they resided, not unfrequently kept the diet either at their own house or at the house of a friend, where a few assembled ; and in these cases they endeavored, if possible, to obtain the presence of a minister. Of these private social meetings Lady Boyd was an encourager ; and when it was inconvenient or impossible for her to be present at the appointed place of meeting in her locality, she spent the day in humiliation and prayer in her own house. A letter which she wrote to Mr. Robert Boyd of Trochrig, then principal of the college of Glasgow, requesting him to favor her with his presence at her house on one of these occasions, has * The other ladies were the countess of Wigton, Lady Innerteel and the countess of Eglinton. — Select biographies printed for the Wodrow society, vol. i., p, 148. 4 38 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. been preserved, and may be given as illustrating the pious spirit by which she was distinguished. It is without date, but from the subject matter, it was probably written about 1620 or 1621, and is as follows : — “Right Honorable Sir : Seeing it hath pleased God, my husband, — my lord is content that I bring the bairns to the land- wart,* I thought good to advertise you of it, that you may do me that great pleasure as to come and bring your wife with you, on Thursday, for I would fain have good company that day, since I have great need of help, being of myself very unable to spend that day as I ought. Now seeing it hath pleased God to move your heart to take care of my soul, and to be very comfortable to me, being he to whom only I have opened my secret griefs, and of whom I must crave counsel in those things which my other friends can not and shall not know. It is common to God’s children and the wicked to be under crosses, but crosses chase God’s children to him. O that anything would chase me to God. But, alas ! that which chases others to God, by the strength of sin it holds me further from God ; for I am seeking for comfort in outward things, and the Lord will not let me find it there. When I should pray or read God’s word, or hear it preached or read, then my mind is possessed with thoughts how to eschew temporal grief, or how to get temporal contentment. But, alas ! this .doing is a building up of mountains betwixt my soul and the sense of God’s presence, which only ministers contentment to a soul ; and by thus doiug, I deserve to be plunged in infinite and endless grief. Now, Sir, I will not trouble you longer with this discourse. Hoping to see you shortly, “ I rest your loving sister in Christ, “ Badenheath.” “ Christian Hamilton.! These religious meetings, which contributed greatly to foster a spirit of opposition to the innovations then attempted to be im- posed upon the church of Scotland, the bishops regarded with great jealousy, and they endeavored, if possible, to put them down by forcible means. Mr. Robert Bruce having held two of them in his own house at Monkland, after his return to the south from Inverness, whither he had been banished for several years on account of his principles, he was delated to the king ; and though the meetings were private, the number present at them not ex- Landwart/’ Scottice for “country.” t Wodrow's Life of Robert Boyd, pp. 271, 272. Wodrow says that “ she writes in a very fair hand for that time.” LADY BOYD. 39 ceeding twenty, he was, in consequence, forced to retire from Monkland, and was ultimately again banished to Inverness. Mr. Robert Boyd, the correspondent of Lady Boyd, was also, for patronising such meetings, greatly harassed. After the passing of the Perth articles in the general assembly of 1618, Boyd, though opposed to these articles, had not, owing to the mildness and peaceableness of his disposition, interfered publicly with the controversies thereby occasioned ; from which the bishops con- cluded that, if not friendly to the innovations, he was at least neutral ; but his attendance at these meetings in Mr. Robert Bruce’s house,* and at similar meetings in other places, excited against him the hostility of the bishops and of the king, who in- ferring from this his nonconforming propensities, immediately began to contemplate the adoption of harsh measures against him.f In these circumstances. Lady Boyd addressed to him an encouraging letter. It is well written, and bears testimony to the high opinion she entertained of Boyd, as a man and a Chris- tian minister, as well as finely illustrates the heroic spirit by which she was animated, and shows how well qualified she was to cheer up the^hearts of such as were subjected to persecution for righteousness’ sake. It is dated December 17, but the year is omitted. Its contents, however, indicate that it was written in the year 1621 ; and it is as follows : — “ Right Honorable Sir : I hear there is some appearance of your trouble, by reason the king’s majesty is displeased with you for your being with Mr. Robert Bruce. Since I heard of ^these unpleasant news, I have had a great desire to see you, for whatsoever is a grief to you is also grievous to me, for, since it pleased God to bring me to acquaintance with you, your good advice and pious instructions have ofttimes refreshed my very soul ; and now, if I be separated from you, so as not to have oc- casion to pour out my griefs unto you, and receive counsel and comfort from you, truly I wot not what to do. And as I regret my own particular loss, much more may I regret the great loss our kirk sustains, and is threatened with. But as for you, if the Lord should honor you, and set you to suffer for his name, I trust in his mercy he shall strengthen you and make his power perfect in your weakness. The apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ, and the apostle says, Boyd .regarded Bruce with peculiar respect and veneration. Speaking of him, he says, ‘‘ whom one may call justly the Baeile or Bernard of our age." — Wodrow^s Life of Boyd, p. 10. tlbid., p. 151. 40 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. ‘ Unto you it is given, in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.' Now if ye be called to this honor, I pray God give you his grace, that ye may account it your honor, for if ye suffer with Christ, you shall also reign with him. I trust in the mercy of God that all things shall work together for the best to you. If it might please our God, who is merciful, to continue you in your ministry, I humbly crave it ; but if he will glorify himself in your suffering, his good will be done. Ye will lose nothing here, and what ye lose it will be recompensed a hundred-fold. The loss will be ours, who are left as sheep without a shepherd, ready to wander and be devour- ed by wolves. Now if I have a wandering soul, the Lord in mercy pity me ! for I am afraid of making defection, if the bread of life be not continued with me. In sincerity, it will not be philosophy nor eloquence will draw me from the broad way of perdition, unless a voice be lifted up like a trumpet to tell me my sin. The Lord give us the spirit of wisdom, even that wis- dom that will prove wise in the end, when the wise men of this world will be calling upon the hills and the mountains ! O Lord, give us grace to provide our oil here, that we may enter in with the bridegroom, and be made partakers of his riches and joy, when they that have embraced the world and denied Christ shall have their portion v/ith the devil ! Sir, I will not trouble you further at this time. If you have leisure I would be glad to see you, or at any other time, and to hear from you. So, remember- ing my duty to your wife, and commending you and her and the children to God, “ I rest your most affectionate sister at power, “ Badenheath, Dec. 17.” “ Christian Hamilton.* From this letter it appears that Lady Boyd sat under the min- istry of Mr. Boyd,t which she greatly valued, as she had good reason to do, if we may judge of his pastoral instructions from the specimens of his theological writings which have been pub- lished ; and Boyd, having become obnoxious to the bishops and the king, she was apprehensive of being deprived of his public ministrations, as well as of his society in private, by his being removed from his charge, and perhaps obliged to leave the coun- try. The result was, that demitting his situation as principal of the college of Glasgow, he retired to his estate of Trochrig, and afterward, to the day of his death, suffered, in various ways, on ^ Wodrow’s Life of Robert Boyd, pp. 272, 273. t At the time this letter was written, Boyd, besides being principal of the college of Glasgow, was minister of Govan. LADY BOYD. 41 account of his nonconformity. It is not easy,” says Wodrow, “ upon such a subject not to mix a little gall with my ink ; but I shall only say, it’s a remaining stain, and must be, in the eyes of all that fear God, and know what prayer is, upon the bishops of this period, and the government who were brought, by their importunity, to persecute such eminent persons as Mr. Bruce and Mr. Boyd, for joining in Such meetings for prayer, in such a time as this. Mr. Bruce was confined ; Mr. Boyd was informed against to the king ; and this, as the writer of his life notices, was one main spring of the violent opposition made against him. Such procedure, no doubt, is a reproach upon a protestant, yea, upon a country that bears the name of Christian,”* As another specimen of the pious spirit which breathed in Lady Boyd’s epistolary correspondence, we may quote another of her letters to Mj;. Boyd, which is without date, but which Wodrow supposes was written about harvest 1622. She thus writes : — “ My husband: has written for me to come to your feast, but in truth it were better for me to be called to a fast. I trowf the Lord of hosts is calling to weeping, and fasting, and sackcloth. I pray you, sir, remember me in your prayers to God, that he may supply to me the want of your counsels and comforts, and all other wants to me ; and that at this time, and at all other times, he vAOuld give me grace to set his majesty before me, that I may walk as in his sight, and study to approve myself to him. Now sir, I entreat you when you have leisure write to me, and adver- tise me how ye and yours are, and likewise stir me up to seek the Lord. Show me how I shall direct to you, for I must crave leave to trouble you at some times. Now I pray God to recom- pense ten thousand fold your kindness to me, with the daily increase of all saving grace here, and endless glory hereafter. Remember me to Mr. Zachary ; desire him to come, and bear my lord company awhile after ye are settled. I entreat, when you come back again to Glasgow, that you may come here, for I think I have not taken my leave of you yet. Till then and ever, “ I rest your loving sister in Christ to my power, “ Christian Hamilton.’’^: In 1628 Lady Boyd was left a widow a second time. Lord Boyd having died in August that year, at the early age of thirty- three. To this nobleman she had a son, Robert seventh Lord Wodrow’s Life of Robert Boyd, p. 151. t Trow,’' Scottice for believe." tibid, pp. 273, 274. 4 * 42 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Boyd, and six daughters : 1, Helen, who died unmarried ; 2, Ag- nes, married to Sir George Morison of Dairsie, in Fife ; 3, Jean, married to Sir Alexander Morison of Prestongrange, in the coun- ty of Haddington; 4, Marion, married to Sir James Dundas of Arnistoun ; 5, Isabel, married first to John Sinclair of Stevenston, secondly to John Grierson of Lagg ; and 6, Christian, married to Sir William Scot of Harden.* At the period of the attempted imposition of the book of canons and the service-book or liturgy upon the Scottish church, by royal authority, many, both ministers and laity, were subjected to per- secution for resisting these invasions on the liberties of the church ; and to such persons, as might be anticipated from the benevolence of her character and her ecclesiastical principles. Lady Boyd was at all times heartily disposed to extend her en- couragement and aid by letter, word, or deed. When Rutherford was confined to Aberdeen, she maintained epistolary intercourse with him ; and that worthy minister repeatedly expresses how much his soul was refreshed by her letters, as well as gratefully acknowledges that she “ ministered to him in his bonds.”! She also took a friendly interest in his brother, Mr. George, who was a teacher in Kirkcudbright, but who, for nonconformity, had been summoned in November, 1636, before the high commission, and condemned to resign his charge and to remove from Kirkcud- bright before the ensuing term of Whitsunday .J Rutherford frequently expresses his gratitude to her for her kindness to his brother, who, after his ejection, had taken refuge in Ayrshire. He thus writes to her from Aberdeen, on the 7th of March, 1637 : “ I think myself many ways obliged to your ladyship for your love to my afflicted brother, now embarked with me in that same cause. His Lord hath been pleased to put him on truth’s side. I hope that your ladyship will befriend him with your counsel and countenance in that country where he is a stranger ; and your ladyship needeth not fear but your kindness to his own will be put up into Christ’s accounts. ”|| In another letter to her from the same place, in September, that year, he says, “ All that your ladyship can expect for your good will to me and my brother (a wronged servant for Christ) is the prayers of a prisoner of Jesus, to whom I recommend your ladyship, and your house, and chil- dren.”^ And in a communication to her from St. Andrews, in 1640, a considerable time after he had returned from his confine- Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 35. t Rutherford’s Letters, pp. 205, 617, Whyte and Kennedy’s edition, 1848. t Murray’s Life of Rutherford, pp. 49, 93. II Rutherford’s Letters, p. 205. § Ibid, p. 494. LADY BOYD. 43 merit in Aberdeen, he thus expresses himself : “ I put all the favors which you have bestowed on my brother, upon Christ’s score, in whose books are many such counts, and who will re- quite them.”* Meanwhile she was not neglectful of the cultivation of personal piety. As she advanced in life she continued with increasing ardor to practise the Christian duties, to cultivate holiness of char- acter, to confide in the Savior, and to make sure of eternal life. That such were her Christian aspirations, endeavors, and attain- ments, is evident from her correspondence with the same excel- lent man ; from which we learn, that as the Father of lights had opened her eyes to discover that whoever would be a Christian in deed and in truth must exercise self-denial, she was resolved to practise that duty, — to pluck out the right eye, and to cut off the right hand, and keep fast hold of the Son of God ; that she had not changed in the thoughts she had entertained of Christ ; and that her purpose still was by all means to take the kingdom of heaven by violence.! It was indeed her personal piety which excited and enlivened her zeal in the public cause of God ; and her valued correspondent, satisfied that the more she improved in the former, she would be the more distinguished for the latter, expresses his desire in a letter to her, in 1640, that she might be builded more and more upon the stone laid in Zion, and then she would be the more fit to have a hand in rebuilding our Lord’s fallen tabernacle in this land, “ in which,” he adds, “ ye shall find great peace when ye come to grip with death, the king of terrors.”! As a means of promoting her spiritual improvement she was in the practice of keeping a diary, in which she recorded her religious exercises and experiences, her defects and attain- ments, her sins and mercies ; an expedient which Christians have sometimes found to be of great utility in promoting their vigilance, humility, gratitude, and dependence upon God. ‘‘ She used every night,” says Mr. Livingstone, “ to write what had been the state of her soul all the day, and what she had observed of the Lord’s dealing.” || Such memorandums she, however, appears to have intended solely for her own eye ; and no remains of them have been transmitted to posterity. In the autumn of the year 1640, Lady Boyd met with a pain- ful trial in the death of three of her brothers, and others of her relatives, in very distressing circumstances. Thomas, second earl of Haddington, and Robert Hamilton of West Binning, in * Rutherford’s Letters,, p. 606. t Ibid, pp. 205, 492. t Ibid, p. 606 II Livingstone’s Memorable Characteristics. 44 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. the county of Linlithgow, her brothers by her father’s second wife,* Patrick Hamilton, her natural brother, Sir John Hamilton of Redhouse, her cousin-german, and Sir Alexander Erskine, fourth son of the seventh earl of Mar, brother-in-law to her broth- er Thomas, all perished at Dunglass castle (in the county of Had- dington) when it was blown up on the 30th of August that year. They had attached themselves to the covenanters ; and ‘when General Leslie marched into England that same year against Charles L, they were left behind by the Scottish parliament, in order to resist the English incursions : and Thomas, second earl of Haddington, who had the command of the party thus left, fixed his quarters at Dunglass castle. While his lordship, about mid- day, on the 30th of August, was standing in a court of the castle, surrounded by his friends now named, and several other gentle- men, to whom he was reading a letter he had just received from General Leslie, a magazine of gunpowder contained in a vault in the castle blew up ; and one of the side walls instantly over- whelmed him and all his companions, with the exception of four, who were thrown by the force of the explosion to a considerable distance. The earl’s body was found among the rubbish, and buried at Tyninghame. Besides this nobleman, three or four score of gentlemen lost their lives. It was reported that the magazine was designedly blown up by the earl’s page, Edward Paris, an English boy, who Avas so enraged, on account of his master having jestingly told him that his countrymen were a pack of cowards, to suffer themselves to be beaten and to run away at Newburn, that he took a red-hot iron and thrust it into one of the powder-barrels, perishing himself with the rest.f One of the most beautiful of Rutherford’s letters was addressed to Lady Boyd on this melancholy occasion. “ I wish,” says he, “ that I could speak or write what might do good to your ladyship, especially now when I think we can not but have deep thoughts of the deep and bottomless ways of our Lord, in taking away with a sudden and wonderful stroke your brothers and friends. You may know that all who die for sin, die not in sin ; and that ‘ none can teach the Almighty knowledge.’ He answereth none of our courts, and no man can say, ‘ What doest thou V It is true that your brothers saw not many summers, but adore and fear the sovereignty of the great Potter who maketh and marreth his clay- Her father’s second wife was Margaret, daughter of James Foulis, of Colinton, in the county of Edinburgh. t Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 680 ; Scot's Staggering State of Scots Statesnoen. LADY BOYD. 45 vessels when and how it pleaseth him Oh what wisdom is it to believe, and not to dispute ; to subject the thoughts to his court, and not to repine at any act of his justice ! He hath done it : all flesh be silent ! It is impossible to be submissive and re- ligiously patient, if you stay your thoughts down among the con- fused rollings and wheels of second causes ; as, ‘ Oh, the place !’ — ‘ Oh, the time ‘ Oh, if this had been, this had not followed !’ — ‘ Oh, the linking of this accident with this time and place !’ Look up to the master motion and the first wheel. ... I believe, Christian lady, your faith leaveth that much charity to our Lord’s judgments as to believe, howbeit you be in blood sib to that cross, that yet you are exempted and freed from the gall and wrath that is in it. I dare not deny but ‘the King of Terrors dwelleth in the wicked man’s tabernacle : brimstone shall be scattered on his habitation’ (Job xviii. 15) ; yet, madam, it is safe for you to live upon the faith of his love, whose arms are over-watered and pointed with loA^e and mercy to his own, and who knoweth how to take you and yours out of the roll and book of the dead.”* In less than three months after this visitation. Lady Boyd lost her son Lord Boyd, who died of a fever on the 17th of Novem- ber, 1640, at the early age. of twenty-four. f But her sorrow un- der this bereavement was alleviated from the hope which, on good grounds, she was enabled to entertain that her son, who was deservedly dear to her, had exchanged the present for a better world. Trained up in the fear of God, he gave pleasing indica- tions of early piety, and, embracing the sentiments of the cove- nanters, entered with all the interest and ardor of youthful zeal into their contendings against the encroachments of the court on the rights of the church. To this, ample testimony is borne in Rutherford’s letters. Writing to him from Aberdeen, in 1637, Rutherford, hearing of his zeal for the “ borne-down and oppressed gospel,” affectionately stimulates him to continued exertion in the same cause ; and in a subsequent letter to him he says : “ I am glad to hear that you, in the morning of your short day, mind Christ, and that you love the honor of his crown and kingdom. .... Ye are one of Zion’s born sons ; your honorable and Chris- tian parents would venture you upon Christ’s errands. Addres- sing Lady Boyd from Aberdeen, May 1, 1637, Rutherford thus writes : “ I have reasoned with your son, at large ; I rejoice to see him set his face in the right airth, now when the nobles love the sunny side of the gospel best, and are afraid that Christ wants ^ Rutherford’s Letters, pp. 617, 618. t Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., pp. 635, 636. t Rutherford’s Letters, pp. 139, 469. 46 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. soldiers, and shall not be able to do for himself.”* And in an- other letter to her he expresses his gratitude to this generous and benevolent youth, “ who,” says he, “ was kind to me in my bonds, and was not ashamed to own me.”t Lord Boyd was one of those noblemen who, on the 22d of February, 1638, ascended the cross of Edinburgh, to protest against the proclamation which was that day made, containing his majesty’s approbation of the service- book, granting a dispensation to the noblemen and gentlemen who opposed it for their past meetings, and discharging all their meet- ings for the future under pain of treason.^: He subscribed the national covenant when renewed on the 1st of March that year, in the Greyfriars’ church ; and zealously co-operated with the covenanters in their proceedings in opposition to the measures of the court. In her other son, John, tenth Lord Lindsay, afterward earl of Crawford-Lindsay, Lady Boyd had also much comfort. His reli- gious sentiments coincided with her own, and his active zeal in defending the liberties of the church, was associated with sincere piety and a high character for moral worth, which he maintained unimpaired to the close of a long life. In a letter to him from Aberdeen, in September, 1637, Rutherford writes : “ Your noble ancestors have been enrolled among the worthies of this nation as the sure friends of the Bridegroom, and valiant for Christ : I hope that you will follow on to come to the streets for the same Lord.”|| Nor was the hope thus expressed disappointed. He was also one of the noblemen who, on the 22d of February, 1637, appeared at the cross of Edinburgh, to protest against his majes- ty’s proclamation already referred to. He likewise subscribed the national covenant when renewed at Edinburgh a few days after, and cordially supported the covenanters, attending their meetings, and giving them the benefit of his counsel and aid.§ He thus secured a high place in the confidence of his party. Writing of this nobleman, and of Lord Boyd, to their mother, Rutherford says : “ Your ladyship is blessed with children who are honored to build up Christ’s waste places. I believe that your ladyship will think them well bestowed in that work, and that Zion’s beauty is your joy.”*[[ Some of Lady Boyd’s daughters were also distinguished for personal piety, and for a resolute adherence to duty in the face * Rutherford’s Letters, p. 308. t Ibid., p. 548. t Rothes^s Relation, &c,, p. 67. II Rutherford’s Letters, p. 466. § Rothes’s Relation, &.C., passim, IF Rutherford’s Letters, p. 605. The letter is dated St Andrews, 1640. For a further account of Lord Lindsay, see Notice of Duchess of Rothes. LADY BOYD. 47 of persecution. The sufferings endured by her daughter Chris- tian, the wife of Sir William Scot, of Harden, in the reign of Charles II., for attending conventicles, have been already briefly stated in the introduction. We also know that another of her daughters, Helen, wife of Sir William Scot, of Ardross, was an excellent woman. Rutherford when in London, in 1640 and in 1644, corresponded with Lady Boyd, giving her accounts of the state of religious par- ties there, and informing her of the proceedings of the Westmin- ster assembly, of which he was a member.* During the latter part of the year 1644, when the marquis of Montrose came into Scotland, and during the greater part of the following year, our country suffered much from that ruthless ren- egade, who, with an army composed of Highlanders and Irish papists, perpetrated the most atrocious deeds of cruelty, lust, and rapine. But in September, 1645, he was completely defeated at Philiphaugh by Lieutenant-General David Leslie, who had come home with some regiments from England, where the regular troops of Scotland had been engaged. The joy which this vic- tory diffused among our countrymen was great. As an evidence of this, we may mention the following incident, which took place on a sabbath-day at the parish church of Elie, where Lady Boyd was present hearing sermon. About the close of the afternoon’s discourse by Mr. Robert Traill, the minister of the parish, David Lindsay, brother to Lord Balcarres, came into the church with a letter to her from her son, earl of Crawford-Lindsay, containing the tidings of Montrose’s defeat. Public worship being concluded, he delivered it to her in the church, and the people all staying to hear the news, the letter was read. On hearing its contents, they were so overjoyed, that they all returned into the church and solemnly gave thanks to God for the deliverance vouchsafed to the country by this signal victory gained over an enemy whose successes had made him formidable, and his barbarities very gen- erally detested.! Lady Boyd died in the house of her daughter Lady Ardross, in the parish of Elie, about the beginning of the year 1646. On her death-bed she was frequently visited by Mr. Robert Traill, minister of that parish, who informs us in his diary that she died very comfortably. j: Her funeral took place on the 6th of Febru- ary, and was attended by a large concourse of people of all ranks. ’’ Rutherford’s Letters, pp, 625, 632. t Extracts from Mr. Robert Traill’s Diary, in MS. Letters to WodroWi vol. xix., No. 68, in Advocates’ Library. X Ibid 48 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. All the members of parliament, which had been sitting in St. An- drews, were invited to it ; and though the parliament closed on the 4th of that month, all its members stayed in town, partly be- cause the next day was appointed to be kept as a day of solemn humiliation through the whole kingdom, and partly to testify their respect for this lady, by following her mortal remains to their last resting-place. Mr. Robert Blair, then minister of St. An- drews, who was well acquainted with her, and who highly appre- ciated the excellence of her Christian character, also paid to her this last tribute of friendship, and wrote two epitaphs in honor of her memory, the one in Latin and the other in English ;* neither of which, however, we have seen. Rutherford, who was at that time in London, attending the Westminster assembly, on hearing of the death of a friend and correspondent he so highly esteemed, addressed to her daughter. Lady Ardross, a consolatory letter : “ It hath seemed good, as I hear,” says he, “ to Him that hath appointed the bounds for the number of our months, to gather in a sheaf of ripe corn, in the death of your Christian mother, into his garner. It is the more evident that winter is near, when apples, without the violence of wind, fall of their own accord off the tree. She is now above the winter, with a little change of place, not of a Savior ; only she enjoy eth him now without mes- sages, and in his own immediate presence, from whom she heard by letters and messengers before.” He further says : “Ye may easily judge, madam, what a large recompense is made to all her service, her walking with God, and her sorrows, with the first cast of the soul’s eye upon the shining and admirably beautiful face of the Lamb that is in the midst of that fair and white army which is there, and with the first draught and taste of the fount- ain of life, fresh and new at the well-head ; to say nothing of the enjoying of that face, without date, far more than this term of life which we now enjoy. And it cost her no more to go thither than to suffer death to do her this piece of service ; for by Him who was dead and is alive, she was delivered from the second death. What, then, is the first death to the second ? Not a scratch of the skin of a finger to the endless second death. And now she sitteth for eternity mail-free, in a very considerable land, which hath more than four summers in the year. Oh, what spring-time is there ! Even the smelling of the odors of that great and eter- nally-blooming Rose of Sharon for ever and ever ! What a sing- ing life is there ! There is not a dumb bird in all that large field ; but all sing and breathe out heaven, joy, glory, dominion, to the * Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 180 . LADY CULROSS. 49 High Prince of that new-found land. And verily, the land is the sweeter, that Jesus Christ paid so dear a rent for it, and he is the glory of the land : all which,” he adds, for Lady Ardross, as has been said before, was a woman of like spirit with her mother, ‘‘ I hope, doth not so much mitigate and allay your grief for her part (though truly this should seem sufficient), as the unerring expectation of the dawning of that day upon yourself, and the hope you have of the fruition of that same king and kingdom to your own soul.”* ELIZABETH MELVILL. LADY CULROSS. Elizabeth Melvill, a contemporary of the two ladies previ- ously noticed, was the daughter of Sir James Melvill of Halhill in Fife. Her father, who was one of the most accomplished statesmen and courtiers of his age, was embassador from Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, and a privy counsellor to King James VI. He was also a man of sincere piety, and as Mr. John Liv- ingstone informs us, “ professed he had got assurance from the Lord that himself, wife, and all his children should meet in heav- en.”! After a long and active life he died on the 13h of Novem- ber, 1617. Her mother was Christian, seventh daughter of David Boswell of Balmuto.J Her husband, James Colvill, was the eldest son of Alexander Colvill, commendator of Culross. On the death of James, second Lord Colvill of Culross, in 1640, he became of right third Lord Colvill, but did not assume that title. At what period the subject of this notice experienced the re- newing grace of the Holy Spirit we are ignorant, but few women of her day became more eminent for exemplary piety and reli- gious intelligence, or more extensively known, and more highly esteemed among the ministers and professors of the church of Scotland. Taking her place among those who resisted the at- tempts made to wrest from the church her own free and inde- pendent jurisdiction, and to bring her in her worship and whole * Rutherford’s Letters, p. 655. See a letter of Mr. Robert M‘ Ward’s to Lady Ardross, in Appendix No. 1. t Livingstone’s Memorable Characteristics in Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p, 346. t Douglas’s Peerage, vol., ii. pp. 113, 310. 5 60 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. administration under the entire control of the crown, she interested herself greatly in their contendings. The fortitude displayed by the defenders of truth and freedom commanded her admiration : their sufferings excited her sympathy. To these sentiments and feelings she gave expression in the following sonnet of her - own composition, which she sent to Mr. John Welsh, when, for holding a general assembly at Aberdeen in July, 1605, he was imprisoned in the castle of Blackness, and so closely confined as to be secluded from all intercourse with his friends : — “My dear brother, with courage bear the cross, Joy shall be joined with all thy sorrow here, High is thy hope, disdain this earthly dross. Once shall you see the wished day appear. “ Now it is dark, the sky can not be clear, After the clouds it shall be calm anon ; W ait on his will whose blood hath brought thee dear — Extol his name, though outward joys be gone. “ Look to the Lord, thou art not left alone, Since he is thine, what pleasure canst thou take ? He is at hand, and hears thy every groan: End out thy fight, aud suffer for his sake. “ A sight most bright thy soul shall shortly see. When store of gloir* thy rich reward shall be.”t The pious and generous feeling breathed in these lines could not fail to gratify and encourage this great and good man under his sufferings. In a similar strain she wrote to Mr. William Rigg of Athernie, bailie of Edinburgh, who was imprisoned in Blackness castle,J in 1624, for refusing to communicate kneeling, after that practice had been introduced into the churches of the city, reminding him, among other things, by a pleasing and in- genious antithetic play upon the name and gloom of his prison, that “ the darkness of Blackness was not the blackness of dark- ness. ”|1 How much her heart v/ent along with the contendings of the presbyterians against the attempts of James YL, to establish prel- acy and its ceremonies, as well as how highly she was respected, is also evident from the following incidental allusion to her in Kirkton’s History. After stating that King James in his old age undertook a journey to Scotland, to establish the English cere- monies, the historian goes on to say : So in a corrupt assembly “ Gloir,” Scottice for “ glory.’' t Wodrow MSS., Advocates’ library, vol. xxix., 4to, No. 4. t For some account of this castle, see Life of Lady Caldwell. 11 Livingstone's Characteristics in Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 342. LADY CULROSS, 51 at Perth, he first got his five articles concluded, and thereafter enacted in parliament at Edinburgh, in the year 1621 . This parliament was always by common consent called ‘ The Black Parliament,’ not only because of the grievous acts made therein, but also because of a number of dismal ominous prodigies which attended it, the vote itself which accomplished the design of the meeting being accompanied with a horrible darkness, thunder- claps, fire, an unheard-of tempest, to the astonishment of both parliament and city, as was observed by all. The bishops had procured all the dissatisfied ministers to be discharged the town, so divers of them, upon the last day of the parliament, went out to Sheens, near Edinburgh, where in a friend’s house they spent the day in fasting and prayer, expecting the event, of which they were as then uncertain. After the aged ministers had prayed in the morning with great straitening, at length a messenger from the city, with many tears, assured them all was concluded con- trary to their request. This brought them all into a fit of heavi- ness, till a godly lady there present, desired Mr. David Dickson, being at that time present, might be employed to pray, and though he was at that time but a young man, and not very considerable for his character, yet was he so wonderfully assisted, and enlarged for the space of two hours, that he made bold to prophesy, that from that discouraging day and forward, the work of the gospel should both prosper and flourish in Scotland, notwithstanding all the laws made to the prejudice of it.”* Kirkton has not recorded the name of the lady who suggested that Dickson should be em- ployed in prayer ; but Livingstone, who narrates the same inci- dent in his Memorable Characteristics, informs us that Lady Cul- ross told him she was the person by whom the suggestion was made.f On the preaching of the gospel. Lady Culross attended with exemplary regularity. She was also much in the practice of frequenting sacramental solemnities. In those days the dispen- sation of the Lord’s supper in the parishes of ministers famed for preaching the gospel, was flocked to by vast multitudes from the surrounding districts, so that often many thousands were as- sembled together to partake of, or to witness, this feast of love. These were interesting occasions. They generally took place in the summer season ; and the sermons were preached in the open air. The solemnity of the public services powerfully en- gaged the attention as well as affected the heart ; and in the fer- ♦ Kirkton’s History, pp. 16, 17, 18. t Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 317. U. OF ILL LIB. 52 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. vent love which pervaded the private Christian fellowship of the people with one another, there was exhibited a spectacle on which angels might have looked with delight. The families of the parish, on whom their minister was careful to enforce the duty of entertaining strangers, from the consideration that there- by some have entertained angels unawares,” exemplified an open- hearted and openhanded hospitality. Many of them accommoda- ted so great a number that their domestic circle had the appear- ance of a small congregation, and it seemed as if the primitive days of Christianity had returned, when the disciples had all things in common. Thus Christians from different parts of the country became acquainted with one another, fraternal love was cultivated, and by their religious conversation and devotional ex- ercises, they strengthened the ardor of their mutual piety. It is no wonder that such seasons were looked forward to with eager expectation, and that they left behind them a refreshing and an ever-cherished remembrance. Few were more in the habit of waiting upon these observances than Lady Culross ; and when circumstances prevented her from being present, she frequently secured the services of a friend to take notes of the sermons for her use. She indeed appears not to have been without fears of exceeding in her attendance on sacraments the bounds of duty, and of thereby neglecting the concerns of her family at home. At one time meeting with Euphan M‘ Cullen, a poor but pious wo- man in the parish of Kilconquhar, who was well known among the devout of her day, and who is said to have seldom prayed with- out getting a positive answ^er. Lady Culross requested her to pray for her in regard to the outward condition of her family. On being inquired at what answer she had got, the good old woman replied that the answer was, ‘‘ He that provideth not for his own house, hath denied the faith.” At which Lady Culross said, ‘‘ Now you have killed me ; for I go to preachings and commu- nions here and there, neglecting the care of my own family.” Euphan replies, “ Mistress, if you be guilty in that respect, you have reason to be humbled for it ; but it was not said in that sense to me ; but the Lord said, ‘ I that have said, he that provi- deth not for his own is worse than an infidel, will not I provide for her and her house, seeing she is mine V ”* One of the principal places which Lady Culross frequented for enjoying the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, was Lanark, the minister of which parish, at that time, was Mr. William Liv- ingstone, the father of the celebrated Mr. John Livingstone, min- * Livingstone’s Characteristics in Select Biographies, vol. i., p. 339. LADY CULROSS. 53 ister of Ancrum. Residing in the family of the minister of the parish on these solemnities, and also occasionally at other times, she was struck with the promising piety, the love of learning, and the suavity of manners, which characterized young Living- stone, and seems to have early anticipated his future eminence as a minister of the gospel, as she did that of Mr. David Dick- son, when an obscure young man ; for among other gifts which distinguished her, she was an acute judge of both character and talents. Livingstone, on the other hand, formed a high estimate of her Christian excellence, as well as of her intellectual endow- ments ; and he records in his life the benefit he derived from her religious conversation and demeanor, during those occasions on which she was a guest in his father’s house.* An intimate Christian friendship thus came to be formed between her and Livingstone, which lasted till her death ; and an epistolary in- tercourse was maintained between them. After the grave had closed over her, Livingstone continued to retain a lively and grateful recollection of her talents and piety. In his Memorable Characteristics he has given her a place among the “ professors of the church of Scotland, of his acquaintance, who were emi- nent for grace and gifts and he thus describes her : “ Of all that ever I saw, she was most unwearied in religious exercises ; and the more she attained access to God therein, she hungered the more. At the communion in Shotts, in June, 1630, the night after the sabbath was spent in prayer by a great many Christians in a large room, where her bed was ; and in the morning all go- ing apart for their private devotion, she went into the bed, and drew the curtains, that she might set herself to prayer. William Rigg, of Athernie, coming into the room, and hearing her have great motion upon her, although she spoke not out, he desired her to speak out, saying that there was none in the room but him and her woman, as at that time there was no other. She did so, and the door being opened, the room filled full. She continued in prayer, with wonderful assistance for large three hours’ time.”t The account here given of Lady Culross’s ardent devotional feeling, as it appeared at the communion in Shotts, will perhaps excite the ridicule of some, who may be disposed to regard her as actuated more by ostentation and enthusiasm, than by modest, sincere, and enlightened piety. But a slight attention to the sim- plicity of the times in which she lived, will show how little ground there is for pronouncing so harsh a censure. More prim- Life of Mr. John Livingstone in Select Biographies, vol. i., p. 130. t Livingstone’s Memorable Characteristics in Select Biographies, vol. i., p. 346. 54 THE LADIES OF THE TOVENANT. itive in their manners and habits than in the present day, the peo- ple of those times are not to be judged of by modern customs, nor condemned for that which, though unfit for imitation in the altered state of society, conveyed to their minds nothing incon- sistent with true delicacy. And before we censure her unusual earnestness in prayer, and the uncommon length of time during which the exercise was continued, let us remember that in that age the influences of the Holy Spirit were poured out upon the good in no ordinary measure, imparting to them a high degree of spiritual vitality, and giving a peculiar depth and fervor to their piety. This consideration alone, not to mention other considera- tions, will serve to explain why public prayers and sermons, as well as social prayer, protracted to an extent to which the patience of few hearers would now be equal, so far from fatiguing, seemed only to refresh and invigorate our hardier and more devout an- cestors. Nor is it to be forgotten, should we feel a tendency to find fault with these simple annals of primitive piety, that on the very day on which this lady was engaged in the manner de- scribed, there took place such a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit at the kirk of Shotts, as has hardly been equalled since the days of the apostles ; and who can tell how- far this was vouch- safed in answer to the prayers of this devout woman — as well as in answer to the prayers of those who passed the night between the sabbath and Monday morning in this exercise — poured forth with great earnestness and importunity to Him, who has prom- ised the effusion of the Spirit upon the church as the fruit of be- lieving prayer ? It is also worthy of notice, that, as has been previously stated, it was at her suggestion that the ministers as- sisting in the celebration of the Lord’s supper, on that occasion, laid the work of addressing the people on the Monday, upon Mr. John Livingstone, whose discourse was the instrument, in the hand of the Spirit, of turning so many from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. These fruits of Mr. Livingstone’s ministry served to increase the high estimation in which Lady Culross held him, as an em- bassador of Christ ; and upon the death of Mr. Robert Colvill, minister of Culross, in 1630,* she was very desirous of having him settled minister of that parish. This appears from a letter she wrote to him, dated 25th March, 1631. “I confess,” says On December 5, 1640 [ 1630 ?], this minister's son, Mr. Robert Colvill, in Cul- ross, was restored heir to his father in the lands of Nether Kynnedder, in the regal ity of Dunfermline. Inquis. Retor. Abbrev. Fife, No. 601. LADY CULROSS. 55 she, ‘‘ it is no time for me to quarrel* now, when God is quarrel- ling with us, and has taken away our dear pastor, who has preached the word of God among ns almost forty years, plainly and powerfully : a sore stroke to this congregation, and chiefly to me, to whom he was not only a pastor and a brother, but, under God, a husband and a father to my children. Next his own fam- ily I have the greatest loss. Your sudden voyage has troubled me more since than ever, and many of this congregation, who would have preferred you to others, and would have used all means possible if you had been in this land ; but now I fear the charm is spilt : yet you can not go out of my mind, nor out of the mind of some others, who wish you here with our hearts to supply that place, and pray for it, if it be the Lord’s will, though by appearance there is no possibility of it, for I think they have agreed with another ; yet if God have a work, he can bring it about, and work contrary to all means, for there is nothing too hard for him.”t The wish expressed in this letter was not how- ever gratified. The parish of Culross was supplied with another minister, Mr. John Duncan, | and Livingstone remained in Ire- land, but was soon after, in consequence of his nonconformity, first suspended from the exercise of his ministry, then deposed, and next excommunicated by the bishop of Down, and ultimately forced to leave the country. It has been formerly said that Lady Culross and Livingstone maintained an epistolary correspondence. A number of her let- ters to him have been lately printed. Written in a homely and quaint phraseology peculiar to that age, they yet contain nothing at variance with genuine good taste or sobriety of feeling. Char- acterized throughout by the familiar, they occasionally indulge in the facetious, and their prevailing spirit is that of fervent piety, and an ardent attachment to the public cause, for which presby- terians were then contending, combined with a solid and enlight- ened judgment. As a specimen of her skill and ability in encouraging the ministers of the gospel under their sufferings for the sake of Christ, a part of her letter to Livingstone on the occasion of his being suspended from the ministry, dated ‘‘ Hal- hill, 10th December, 1631,” may be quoted. It is headed with the following text of Scripture, “ Surely the rage of man shall turn to thy praise ; the remnant of their rage wilt thou restrain ^ In the preceding- part of the letter she had been blaming Livingstone, who had gone to Irela.nd in the autumn of the year 1630, for his haste in leaving Scotland. t Letters from Lady Culross to Mr. John Livingstone, in Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 358. t Records of the Synod of Fife, p. 236. 66 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. and it begins as follows : ‘‘ My very worthy and dear brother, I received your letter, and have no time to answer you as I would. I thank the Lord who upholds you in all your trials and tempta- tions. It is good for you to be holden in exercise, otherwise I would suspect that all were not well with you. God is faithful, as you find by experience, and will not try you above your strength. Courage, dear brother, all is in love, all works together for the best. You must be hewn and hammered down, and dressed and prepared before you be a living stone fit for his build- ing. And if he be minded to make you meet to help to repair the ruins of his house, you must look for other manner of strokes than you have yet felt. You must feel your own weakness that you may be humbled and cast down before him, that so you may pity poor weak ones that are borne down with infirmities. And when you are laid low and vile in your own eyes, then will he raise you up, and refresh you with some blinks of his favorable countenance, that you may be able to comfort others with those consolations wherewith you have been comforted by him. This you know by some experience, blessed be God ! And as strength and grace increase, look for stronger trials, fightings without, and fears within, the devil and his instruments against you, and your Lord hiding his face. [You are] deeply, almost over- whelmed with troubles and terrors ; and yet out of all this misery, he is working some gracious work of mercy for the glory of his great name, the salvation and sanctification of your own soul, and for the comfort of his distressed children there or here, or both, as pleases him. Up your heart then, and prepare for the battle ! Put on the whole armor of God ; though you be weak, you have a strong Captain, whose power is made perfect in weakness, and whose grace is sufficient for you. What you want in yourself you have in him, who is given to you of God to be your wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, your treasure and treasurer, who keeps all in store. . . . Since he has put his work in your weak hands, look not for long ease here ; you must feel the weight of that worthy calling, and be holden under with the sense of your own weakness, that he may kythe * his strength in due time ; — a weak man and a strong God, who will not fail nor forsake you, but will furnish strength and gifts, and grace, according to that employment that he puts in your hands. The pain is but for a moment, the pleasure ever- lasting. The battle is but short, your Captain fights for you, therefore the victory is certain, and the reward glorious. A * “ Kythe,” Scotiice for “ show.” LADY CULROSS. 67 crown and a kingdom are worth fighting for. Blessed be his name who fights all our battles, and works all our works for us ! Since all is in Christ, and he ours, what would we have more but thankful hearts, and grace to honor him in life and death, who is our advantage in life and death, who guides with his counsel, and will bring us to his glory. To him be all honor, power, and praise, now and for ever. Amen.”* Lady Culross was also the friend and correspondent of Mr. Samuel Rutherford, some of whose letters to her in 1636 and 1637 are preserved in the published collection of his letters. She was then considerably advanced in years, but had seen no reason for changing the sentiments on ecclesiastical questions which she had embraced in early life ; nor had her zeal in adhering to them abated. When Rutherford was summoned to appear be- fore the court of high commission at Edinburgh in 1636, more than thirty years had passed over her head since she addressed Mr. John Welsh in the prison of Blackness ; but the sufferings of good men in the cause of religious freedom still made her heart swell with emotions of sympathy ; and hearing of the un- just proceedings instituted against the minister of Anwoth, she addressed to him a letter giving expression to her sentiments and feelings. Rutherford lost no time in replying, and his an- swer is written with all the confidence of Christian friendship.! The best of God’s people have sometimes been unequally yoked, and their children, instead of proving a comfort to them, have been the source of their most poignant grief. In these re- spects Lady Culross was severely tried. Writing to Livingstone from Halhill, 10th of December, 1631, she says : “ Guiltiness in me and mine is my greatest cross My great temptation now is, that I fear my prayers are turned into sin. I find and see the clean contrary in me and mine, at least some of them.^ Samuel is going to the college in St. Andrews to a worthy mas- ter there, but I fear him deadly. I depend not on creatures. Pray earnestly for a blessing. He whom you know is like to overturn all, and has broken all bands — Lord, pity him ! There was some beginning of order, but all is wrong again, for the death of his brother makes him take liberty, so I have a double loss.”|| Select Biographies, vol. i., pp. 361, 362. f Rutherford’s Letters, pp. 108, 109. t She had a daughter to whom this complaint did not apply. In a letter to her from Aberdeen, in 1637, Rutherford writes: “Your son-in-law, W G , is now truly honored for his Lord and Master’s cause. . . . He is strong in the Lord, as he hath written to me, and his wife is his encourager, which should make you rejoice.” — Rutherford’s Letters, p. 437. II Select Biographies, vol. i., pp. 362, 363. 58 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. It has been said that she “ here most probably refers to her son James, whose conduct often occasioned great anxiety to his moth- er.”* We are rather inclined to think that the reference is to her husband. t Five or six years after this, she complains, in a letter to Rutherford, of the heavy trial she met with from the misconduct of one of her sons, who, so far from proving “ a restorer of her life and a nourisher of her old age,” was to her a source of the bitterest sorrow. Rutherford, writing from Aber- deen in 1637, says in reply : “As for your son who is your grief, your Lord waited on you and me till we were ripe, and brought us in. It is your part to pray, and wait upon him. When he is ripe, he will be spoken for. Who can command our Lord’s wind to blow ? I know that it shall be your good in the latter end. That is one of your waters to Heaven ye could not go about : there are fewer behind. I remember you and him, and yours as I am able.”J Whether this letter refers to her third son Samuel, or to an- other of her sons, we are unable to determine. It is, however, certain that Samuel was far from embracing the principles or following the example of his mother. He was the author of the piece of Scottish “ Hudibras” entitled “ Mock Poem, or Whigs’ Supplication, in two parts,” printed at London in 1681 ; a pro- duction which could not have been written by a man of strong sympathies. Its evident object is to provoke the mirth of the reader, by setting forth, in a ludicrous light, the sufferings en- dured by the presbyterians under Charles IL, and their endeav- ors to obtain the redress of their grievances. This betrays both bad taste and want of feeling. If for men to make themselves merry, in any case, over scenes of oppression and wretchedness, is inconsistent with generous and humane feeling, it is evident that to make the barbarities exercised toward our presbyterian ancestors the means of ministering to our gayety, abstracting alto- gether from the consideration of their principles, can on no ground be vindicated. It is, in fact, nothing better than would be the spectacle of a man, who, while looking on a fellow-creature un- der the rack, amused himself by mimicking or by describing, in ludicrous phrase, the writhings and convulsions of the sufferer. Samuel Colvill was also the author of a work entitled “ The Grand Impostor discovered : or, an Historical Dispute of the Pa- pacy and Popish Religion; 1. Demonstrating the newness of both; 2. By what Artifices they are maintained; 3. The Con- ^ Select Biographies, vol. i., pp. 362, 363. t See p. 55. i Rutherford’s Letters, p. 437. LADY CULROSS. 59 tradictions of the Roman Doctors in defending them.” It was printed at Edinburgh in 1673, and is dedicated to the duke of Lauderdale. In the dedication the author states that he had the honor to be the duke’s con-disciple, adding, “ at which time it did not obscurely appear what your grace would prove afterward. Also having presented several trifles to your grace, at yoUr two times being in Scotland, you seemed to accept of them with a favorable countenance, which encouraged me to trouble your grace afresh.” As we have already seen. Lady Culross cultivated a taste for poetry. One of her poetical effusions, in particular, attracted the admiration of her friends, and was published at their request so early as 1603. It is a thin quarto, consisting of sixteen pages, and is printed in black letters, with the following title : “ Ane Godlie Dreame, compylit in Scottish Meter, be M. M. Gentle- woman in Culros, at the Requeist of her Freindes. Introite per angustam portam, nam lata est via quee ducit ad interitum.* Ed- inburgh : Printed be Robert Charteris, 1603.” In this poem, as in Runyan’s immortal work, “ The Pilgrim’s Progress,” the prog- ress and conclusion of the Christian’s life is described under the simnlitude of a journey. Written with much liveliness of fancy and description, and with a fluency of versification superior to most of the poetical compositions of that age, it gained her at the time considerable reputation ; and, in the opinion of competent judges, it establishes her claims to poetical powers of no mean order. As it is now rarely to be met with, a brief view of its subject-matter may be given, and a few passage^ may be quoted as a specimen of the poetry of that period. It is introduced with a description of the heaviness of heart which the writer felt, from her solitary musings on the depraved state of the world in her day, which she calls this false and iron age,” and on the bias of her own heart to sin. Troubled with a train of reflections on these and similar topics, she endeavored to pray ; but utterance failed her, and she could only sigh, until relieved by the effusion of tears, when she poured forth her lamentations. Thus tran- quillized, she retired to bed, and falling asleep, dreamed that her grief and lamentation were renewed, and that with tears she be- sought God for succor : — “ Lord Jesus come (said I) and end my grief, My sp'rit is vexed, the captive would be free ; All vice abounds, oh send us some relief! I loathe to live, I wish dissolved to be." * That is, Enter ye in at the strait gate, for broad is the way that leadeth to de- struction." 60 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. While with sighs and sobs she was pouring forth her com- plaint, she thought there appeared to her an angel of a shining countenance and loving looks, who entreated her to tell him the cause of her grief. Her reply is couched in these lines : — “ I sighed again, and said : ‘ Alas for me ! My grief is great, I can it not declare: Into this earth I wander to and fro, A pilgrim poor, consumed with sighing sair. My sin, alas ! increases mair and mair — I loathe my life, I irk to wander here : I long for heaven, my heritage is there ; I long to live with my Redeemer here.’ ” The angel, pleased with this account of her grief, bade her rise up immediately and follow him, promising to be her guide, and commanding her to refrain from her tears, and to trust in his word and strength. By his endearing accents, and at the sight of his fair countenance, her weary spirit revived, and she hum- bly desired him to tell her his name. To which he answered (for he was no other person than the Angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ) that he was her God, adding, in amplification of the gracious relation in which he stood to her, that he was ‘‘ the way, the truth, and life,” her “ spouse,” her “joy, rest, and peace ;” and then exhorting her thus : — “ ‘ Rise up anon, and follow after me : I shall lead thee into thy dwelling-place — The land of rest thou long’st so sore to see ; 1 am thy Lord, that soon shall end thy race.’ ” Thanking him for his encouraging words, she declared her readiness to follow him, and expressed an earnest desire speed- ily to see “ the land of rest” which he promised her. He an- swered that the way to it was strait, that she had yet far to go, and that before reaching it she behooved to pass through great and numerous dangers, which would try her “ feeble flesh.” She admitted that her flesh was weak, but hoped that her spirit was willing, and besought him to be her guide ; in which case she would not be discouraged. She next gives the history of her journey under his conduct : — “ Then up I rose and made no more delay — My feeble arm about his arm I cast : He went before and still guide the way; Though I was weak, my sp’rit did follow fast — Through moss and mires, through ditches deep we passed, Through pricking thorns, through water, and through fire « Through dreadful dens, which made my heart aghast, He tee me up when I began to tire.” LADY CULROSS. 61 After further describing herself and her guide as climbing high mountains, passing through vast deserts, wading through great waters, and wending their way through wild woods, in which, through the obstruction of briers, it would have been impossible for her, without his assistance, to have proceeded, she says : — “ Forward we passed on narrow brigs of tree, O’er waters great that hideously did roar; There lay below that fearful was to see — Most ugly beasts that gaped to devour ! My head grew light and troubled wondrous sore; My heart did fear, my feet began to slide; But when I cried, he heard me ever more, And held me up — O blessed be my guide !” • Escaping these dangers, and exhausted through fatigue, she at length thought of sitting down to rest ; but he told her that she must proceed on her journey ; and accordingly, though weak, she rose up at his command. For her encouragement, he pointed to that delightful place after which she aspired, apparently at hand ; and looking up, she beheld the celestial mansion, glistening like burnished gold and the brightest silver, with its stately towers rising full in her view. As she gazed, the splendor of the sight dazzled her eyes ; and in an ecstasy of joy she besought her guide to conduct her there at once, and by a direct course. But he told her that, though it was at no great distance, yet the way to it was extremely difficult, and, encouraging her not to faint, bade her cleave fast to him. Having described the difficulties and dangers she subsequently met with in the course of her journey, she concludes the poem with an explanation of the spiritual mean- ing of the dream. The following is one of the concluding stan- zas : — *•' Rejoice in God, let not your courage fail. Ye chosen saints that are afflicted here: Though Satan rage, he never shall -prevail — Fight to the end and stoutly persevere. Your God is true, your blood is to him dear. Fear not the way since Christ is your convoy: When clouds are past, the weather will grow clear ; Ye sow in tears, but ye shall reap in joy.” To the “ Godly Dream” there is added a short poem, entitled “A Comfortable Song, to the Tune of ‘Shall I let her go?’” which we here subjoin : — “Away, vain world, bewitcher of my heart ! My sorrow shows my sins make me to smart : Yet will I not despair, but to my God repair — He has mercy aye, therefore will I pray ; He has mercy aye, and loves me. Though by his troubling hand he proves me. 62 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Away ! away ! too long tliou hast me snared ; I will not tyne more time ; I am prepared Thy subtle slight to flee ; thou hast deceived me : Though they sw'eetly smile, smoothly they beguile; Though they sweetly smile, suspect them — The simple sort they syle,"^ reject them. “ Once more, away ! shows loath the world to leave; Bids oft away with her that holds me slave: Loath I am to forego that sweet, alluring foe. Since thy ways are vain, shall I them retain ? Since thy ways are vain, I quit thee — Thy pleasure shall no more delight me. “ A thousand times away ! Ah ! stay no more ; Sweet Christ, me save, lest subtle sin devour : Without thy helping hand, I have no strength to stand. Lest I turn aside, let thy grace me guide : Lest I turn aside, draw near me : And w'hen I call for help, Lord ! hear me. “ What shall Ido? are all my pleasures past ? Shall worldly lusts now take their leave at last ? Yea, Ciirist these eartlJy toys shall turn in heavenly joys Let the world be gone, I will love Christ alone, Let the world be gone, I care not : Christ is my love alone, I fear not.” LADY JANE CAMPBELL, VISCOUNTESS OF KENMURE. Lady Jane Campbell, Viscountess of Kenmure, was one of the most eminent of the religious ladies who lived during the seventeenth century, and her name is well known to the religious people of Scotland. No female name of that period has indeed been more familiar to them than hers for nearly two centuries. Nor is this owing to her having left behind her any autobiography or diary containing a record of the Christian graces which adorned her character, or of the remarkable events of the times in which she lived ; for nothing of this kind is known to have ever existed. It is the letters of the celebrated Mr. Samuel Rutherford — whose wonderful effusions of sanctified genius — which have immor- talized her memory, and made her name familiar to the pious peasantry of our land. Who is there that has read the beautiful letters addressed to her by that eminent man, who has not felt the attractions of her character ? although it is only indirectly ^ “ To sile” or ‘‘syle,” Scot, for “ to cover” or “ to blindfold.” LADY KENMURE. 63 that we can deduce from them the elements which rendered it so attractive.* Lady Jane Campbell was the third daughter of Archibald, sev- enth earl of Argyll, by his first wife, Anne, fifth daughter of Wil- liam, sixth earl of Morton, of the house of Lochlevin.f The precise date of her birth is uncertain, but her parents were mar- ried before October, 1594. Descended on both the father’s and the mother’s side from ancient and noble families of great dis- tinction, she was particularly honored in her paternal ancestors, who were renowned for the zeal with which they maintained the cause of the Reformation. Her great grandfather, Archibald, fourth earl of Argyll, who in extreme old age espoused, among the first of his rank, protestant principles, was one of the lords of the congregation who subscribed the ‘‘ Band,” dated Edinburgh, December 3, 1557, the first covenant or engagement of the Scot- tish reformers for their mutual defence and on his death -bed, || he left it as his dying charge to his son Archibald, Lord Lorn, afterward fifth earl of Argyll, “ that he should study to set for- ward the public and true preaching of the Evangell of Jesus Christ, and to suppress all superstition and idolatry to the utter- most of his power. This son who was the granduncle of the subject of this notice, had previously embraced the Reformation cause, which he promoted with all the ardor of youthful zeal, and he too was one of the lords of the congregation who subscribed the famous Band,” to which allusion has just now been made. Of her mother little is known. To her. Sir William Alexander, afterward earl of Stirling, inscribed his Aurora, in 1604, and he gallantly says of his amatory fancies, that “ as they were the fruit of beauty, so shall Aiey be sacrificed as oblations to beauty.” It may also be stated that Park, in his edition of Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors, has a portrait of her mother, taken from a painting in the collection of Lady Mary Coke.^ Of this parent she had the misfortune to be deprived in her tender years. Her father married for his second wife, on the 30th of November, 1610, in the parish church of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, London, Anne, daughter of Sir William Cornwallis of Brome, ancestor * Rutherford was singularly free from the vice of flattery ; and this greatly en- hances the value of the illustrations of character which maybe derived from his let- ters. ‘‘ I had rather commend grace than gracious persons/' says he, to Lady Ken- mure, in his Dedication of his “ Trial and Triumph of Faith*' to her; and on this principle he proceeded in writing his letters. t Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i , p. 94. In vol. ii., p. 274, her mother is called Agnes. t Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland, Wodrow Society edition, vol. i., pp. 273, 274. II He died toward the close of the year 1558. j Knox’s History, &c., vol. i., p. 290. ITVol. v., p. 64. 64 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. of Marquis Cornwallis, by Lucy, daughter of John (Nevill), Lord Latimer. About eight years after this marriage, he went to Spain, and having entered into the service of Philip III., distinguished himself in the wars of that monarch against the states of Hol- land. Through the influence of his second wife, who was a pa- pist, he embraced the popish religion, although he had, for the best part of his life, been a warm and zealous protestant. He returned to England in 1638, and died at London the same year, aged about sixty-two.* In her early years. Lady Jane was of a delicate constitution, and she suffered much from bodily affliction. It was no doubt hard to human nature to languish at a period of life when she might naturally have looked for health and enjoyment ; but as we may gather from Mr. Samuel Rutherford’s, and Mr. Robert M‘ Ward’s letters to her, this became, by the Divine blessing, the means of impressing upon her youthful mind a deep sense of the importance of religion, and of bringing her to the saving knowl- edge of Christ. Rutherford writing to her says : “ I am glad that ye have been acquainted from your youth with the wrestlings of God.” — ‘T think it great mercy that your Lord from your youth hath been hedging in your outstraying affections, that they may not go a-whoring from himself.” — “ I knew and saw him (Christ) with you in the furnace of affliction ; for there he wooed you to himself and chose you to be his.”t And M‘Ward in a letter to her, says : “ He made you bear the yoke in your youth, and was it not in the wilderness that he first allured you and spoke to your heart ? and when come to greater age ye wanted not your domestic fires and house furnace. ”J In youth, too, she imbibed that strong attachment to presbyterian principles, which distin- guished her during the whole of her future life. This lady was first married to Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar, afterward viscount of Kenmure. The exact date of this union we have not ascertained ; but we find her mentioned as his wife early in 1626. Mr. John Livingstone, who had visited Galloway in the beginning of the summer of that year upon the invitation of Sir John Gordon, informs us in his life, that during the short period of his sojourn in that district, he “ got acquaintance with Lord Kenmure and his religious lady.”|l Sir John was a man * Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p. 94 : and vol. ii., p., 274. Playfair’s British Fam- ily Antiquities, vol. iii., pp. 127, 247. t Letters of Mr. Samuel Rudierford, Whyte and Kennedy’s edition, Edinburgh, 1848, pp. 8, 45, 58. t Wodrow MSS. vol. Iviii., folio, No. 53. II Select Biographies, printed for the Wodrow Society, vol. i., p. 135. Douglas is LADY KENMURE. 66 of accomplishment and piety, and, like his lady, a warm friend to the presbyterian interest. As Rosco, the place of his resi- dence, was situated in the parish of Anwoth, he made no small exertions, and ultimately with success, to effect the disjunction of that parish from two other parishes’^ with which it was united, and to get it erected into a separate parish, having a minister ex- clusively to itself. He had first an eye to Mr. John Livingstone as its minister, whom with that view, as we have seen, he invi- ted to Galloway, but who, before the difficulties in the way of its erection into a separate parish were overcome, accepted a call from Torphichen. He, however, succeeded in obtaining for An- woth, Mr. Samuel Rutherford ; nor was his zeal limited to his endeavors to obtain an efficient gospel-minister to his own parish, the extension of the same blessing through the length and breadth of the land being an object in which he felt the deepest interest.! Lady Gordon and her husband were thus placed under the min- istry of Mr. Samuel Rutherford. This they accounted a high privilege, and they were in no small degree instrumental, both by the example of a Christian deportment, and by the influence of a high station, in promoting the interests of true religion among their fellow-parishioners. From the beginning. Lady Gordon formed a very high opinion of Rutherford’s talents and piety ; and, as the course of his min- istry advanced, she appreciated in an increasing degree his pas- toral diligence and faithfulness. Rutherford, on the other hand, highly esteemed her for the amiableness of her disposition, the humility of her demeanor, and the sanctity of her deportment, as well as for her enlightened and warm attachment to the presby- terian cause. An intimate Christian friendship was thus soon formed between them ; and they maintained frequent epistolary intercourse on religious subjects till the death of Rutherford, the last of whose letters to her, dated July 24, 1660, scarcely eight months before his own death, was written on hearing that her broth- er, the marquis of Argyll, was imprisoned by Charles IL, in the Tower of London. Many of his letters to her have been printed, and are well known. All of them evidently indicate his conviction that he was writing to one whose attainments in religion were of no ordinary kind, as well as the deep interest which he took in her spiritual welfare and comfort ; and they abound in grate- ful acknowledgments of the numerous tokens of kindness and therefore mistaken in saying in his Peerage, (vol. ii., p. 27), that their marriage took place in 1628. * These were Kirkdale and Kirkmabreck. t Rutherford’s Letters, p. 7. 6 =^ 66 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. generosity which he had received at her hands. None of her letters to him have been preserved ; but, from the allusions to them in his letters, we gather that they were characterized by a strain of sincere and humble piety, by the confidence of genuine friendship, the warmth of Christian sympathy, and a spirit of ac- tive benevolence. She complained that, notwithstanding all the methods adopted by her Savior to teach her, she was yet an ill scholar, lamented her deficiencies in the practice of holiness, and expressed her fears that she had little grace, but encouraged her- self from the consideration that God’s compassions failed not, although her service to him miscarried.* In all her difficulties, doubts, and trials, she applied to him for advice and comfort, in the happy art of communicating which he was equalled by few. And such was the confidence she reposed in -his piety, wisdom, and prudence, that she could communicate the state of her mind to him with more freedom than to almost any other individual with whom she was acquainted. Of all his friends, none took a deeper interest in his welfare than she took. Tender in her feelings, she warmly sympathized with him under his domestic afilictions, un- der the loss of his children and his wife.f Her influence she was ever ready to exert in his behalf when he w^as subjected to public suffering in the cause of truth ; and instances are not want- ing of persons in high places befriending him from a knowledge of the Christian intimacy which subsisted between him and this excellent lady. When he was summoned to appear before the court of high commission in 1630, Mr. Alexander Colville, one of the judges, for respect to your ladyship,” says Rutherford to her, was my great friend, and wrote a most kind letter to me. I entreat your ladyship to thank Mr. Alexander Colville with two lines of a letter. When he was before the same court in 1636, the Lord,” says he, writing to Marion M‘Naught, “ has brought me a friend from the highlands of Argyll, my lord of Lorn,|| who has done as much as v/as within the compass of his power an act of generosity which he doubtless owed to his friendship with Lady Gordon ; for he was ‘‘ a poor unknown stranger to his lord- ship.”^ And when her influence was insufficient to shield him from persecution, he could calculate upon being a sharer in her sympathies and prayers, as his numerous letters to her from Aber- deen, when confined a prisoner there by the high commission- court, fully testify. Writing to her from his place of confinement, "" Pcutlierford’s Letters, pp. 123, 183, 200, 203-205. t Ib , pp. 57, 65, 67. t Ib., p. 21. Ij Brother to Lady Kenmure, and afterward the marquis of Argyll, who suffered in 1661. § Rutherford’s Letters, p. 105. ^ Ibid., p. 107. LADY KENMURE. 67 June 17, 1637, lie says, ‘‘ I am somewhat encouraged in that your ladyship is not dry and cold to Christ’s prisoner, as some are.”* And in a letter to Lady Culross, from the same place and in the same year, he thus writes : “I know also that ye are kind to my worthy Lady Kenmure, a woman beloved of the Lord, who hath been very mindful of my bonds. The Lord give her and her child to find mercy in the day of Christ.”! Lady Gordon, who had suffered much from ill health in the previous part of her life, was, in July, 1628, visited with sick- ness. Under this affliction, Rutherford reminded her that He who “ knew the frame and constitution of her nature, and what was most healthful for her soul, held every cup of affliction to her head with his own gracious hand ;” and that her “ tender- hearted Savior, who knew the strength of her stomach, would not mix that cup with one dram weight of poison. ”| About the close of the same year, or the beginning of the year 1629, she was bereaved of an infant daughter. On this occasion Ruther- ford visited her, to administer Christian comfort, and afterward kindly addressed to her a consolatory letter. Among other things, he suggested to her these considerations, so finely ex- pressed, and so well fitted to sustain the afflicted spirit of a mother under such a trial : “Ye have lost a child ; nay, she is not lost to you who is found to Christ ; she is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, Avhich, going out of our sight, doth not die and evanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. Ye see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time, that she hath gotten of eternity ; and ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plen- ishing up in heaven. Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul.”|| In the autumn of the year 1629, she and her husband removed from Rosco to London, where they intended to reside for some time.§ The design of Sir John in going to London probably was to prosecute his views of worldly honor and ambition. By right of his mother, who was Lady Isabel Ruthven, daughter of Wil- liam, first earl of Gowrie, he expected that the honors of the Rutherford’s Letters, p. 409. t Ibid , p. 438. f Ibid., p. 5. |I Ibid., pp. 8-10. 5 Murray, in his ‘‘ Memoirs of Lord Kenmure,” prefixed to an edition of his “ Last and Heavenly Speeche.s,” says that they removed to Edinburgh, but this must be a mistake ; for Rutherford, bidding Lady Gordon farewell on that occasion, says that he “ had small assurance ever to see her face again till the last general assembly, where the whole church -universal shall meet”— language which he would not prob- ably have used had she only removed to Edinburgh ; and he further says: “Ye are going to a country where the Sun of Righteousness in the gospel shineth not so deafly as in this kingdom.” — Rutherford's Letters, p. 10. 68 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. house of Gowrie, attainted for high-treason in 1600, would be revived in his person. With the view of making this acquisi- tion, he is said to have sold the lands of Stitchill,* the ancient inheritance of the family, and to have given to the duke of Buck- ingham, the evening before his assassination by Felton, the pur- chase price, in a purse of gold, as a bribe to him to support his claims, t Lady Gordon’s change of residence, brought about by these circumstances, in less than two years after Rutherford’s induc- tion, was no small loss both to him and to his people ; and he lamented her departure as one of the heaviest trials he had met with since the Lord had called him to the ministry ; “ but,” says he, “ I perceive God will have us to be deprived of whatsoever we idolize, that he may have his own room.”J During her absence, she and Rutherford maintained a regular epistolary correspondence. He assured her how exceedingly he longed to hear of her spiritual welfare, and that it was his con- stant prayer at the throne of grace, that while “ deprived,” as she then was, ‘‘ of the comfort of a lively ministry,” God might be to her as a little sanctuary ; and that as she “ advanced in years and stealed forward insensibly toward eternity, her faith might grow and ripen for the Lord’s harvest.”|| In her communications to him, she complained of bodily infirmity and weakness ; but Ruth- erford reminds her that it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw by (aside) the curtains, and say, ‘ Courage, I am thy salvation,’ than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God.”^ He also regrets her absence, for the sake of the interests of religion in her native country. “We would think it a blessing,” says he, “to our kirk, to see you here.”Tf She and her husband appear to have remained in England till about the close of the year 1631, when they returned to Scotland, and settled at Kenmure castle, a place about twenty miles distant from Anwoth, and which has ever since been the residence of the family.** During her stay in England, notwithstanding reports to the contrary, she “ had not changed upon nor wearied of her sweet master Christ and his service and Rutherford still “ expected that whatever she could do by word or deed for the Lord’s friendless Zion, she would do it.”tt * He was served heir to his father 20th of March, 1629, his father having died in November, 1628. — Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., p. 27. t Ibid. |: Rutherford’s Letters, p. 11. || Ibid., pp. 17, 20, 37. 6 Ibid., pp. 19, 20. ^ Ibid , p. 17. Ibid., pp. 39, 40. ft Ibid., p. 44. LADY KENMURE. 69 Early in the year 1633, she was bereaved of another daughter, who died in infancy, as we learn from a letter written to her by Rutherford on the 1st of April that year. “I have heard also, madam, that your child is removed ; but to have or want is best as He pleaseth. Whether she be with you or in God’s keeping, think it all one ; nay, think it the better of the two by far that she is with him.”* By letters-patent, dated 8th of May, 1633, her husband was created viscount of Kenmure and lord of Lochinvar, the title descending to his heirs male whatever bearing the name and arms of Gordon ; and she was with him in Edinburgh when he attended King Charles I. at the parliament in June that year; but after staying only a few days, they returned home to their country-seat, the castle of Kenmure. The reason of their early departure was this : In that parliament Charles intended to pass two acts — the one, ratifying the acts of Perth assembly and other acts made for settling and advancing the estate of bishops ; and the other, asserting the king’s prerogative to impose the surplice and other popish apparel upon ministers.! For neither of these acts could Lord Kenmure, according to his convictions of duty, give his vote ; but instead of attending the parliament, and hon- estly opposing the passing of these acts, as others nobly did, at a juncture when the safety of the presbyterian cause demanded the most decided and energetic measures on the part of its friends, he pusillanimously deserted the parliament, under pretence of indisposition, for fear of incurring the displeasure of his prince, who had already elevated him to the peerage, and from whom he expected additional honors ; a dereliction of duty for which at the time, as he afterward declared, he felt “ fearful wrestlings of conscience,” and which caused him the most bitter remorse in his dying moments. When in Edinburgh, Lady Kenmure had an opportunity of witnessing the imposing splendor and gayety of a court ; but scenes which have so often dazzled and intoxicated others, only served the more deeply to impress upon her mind, what she had long before learned by the teaching of the Spirit of God, the empty and evanescent nature of all the glitter and pageantry of the world. “ I bless the Lord Jesus Christ,” says Rutherford to her on her return, “ who hath brought you home again to your country from that place where ye have seen with your eyes, that which our Lord’s truth taught you before, to wit, that worldly * Rutherford’s Letters, p. 56. t Scot’s Apologetical Narration, p. 340 ; Rutherford's Letters, p. 490. 70 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. glory is notliing but a vapor, a shadow, the foam of the water, or something less and lighter, even nothing ; and that our Lord hath not without cause said in his word, ‘ The countenance or fashion of this world passeth away.’ Worldly honor and splendor had, however, more attractions for her husband. So great an influence had they of late acquired over his mind, that though there is every reason to believe he was a converted man, yet he had fallen into a state of compara- tive indifference both as to personal religion and the public inter- ests of the church. Rutherford, it would seem, perceived this, and with his characteristic fidelity urges it upon Lady Kenmure as ‘‘ a part of the truth of her profession, to drop words in the ears of her noble husband continually of eternity, judgment, death, hell, heaven, the honorable profession, the sins of his father’s house.” “ I know,” says he, “ he looketh homeward and loveth the truth, but I pity him with my soul, because of his many temp- tations.”! With this counsel, from her eminently religious char- acter, we need not doubt that she would comply. In the spring of 1634, she lost another daughter, who had be- come dangerously ill toward the close of the preceding year, and who was only about a year old.J Writing to Marion M‘Naught, April 25, 1634, Rutherford says : ‘‘ Know that I have been vis- iting Lady Kenmure. Her child is with the Lord ; I entreat you visit her, and desire the goodwife of Barcapple to visit her, and Knockbreck,|| if you see him in the town. My lord her husband is absent, and I think she will be heavy.” And in a consolatory letter addressed to herself on that occasion he thus writes : ‘‘ I believe faith will teach you to kiss a striking Lord, and so acknowledge the sovereignty of God in the death of a child, to be above the power of us mortal men, who may pluck up a flower in the bud, and not be blamed for it. If our dear Lord pluck up one of his roses, and pull down sour and green fruit before harvest, who can challenge him In the autumn of 1634, she met with a still more severe trial in the death of Lord Kenmure. His lordship left Kenmure cas- tle for Edinburgh in the month of August that year, probably on business connected with the earldom of Gorwie, to which he was so desirous of being elevated. But it was the ordination of Prov- idence that his hopes of this preferment should never be realized. After staying some days in Edinburgh, he came home toward the end of August under much indisposition. It turned out to ♦ Rutherford’s Letters., p. 76. t Ibid., p. 59. f Ibid., pp. 59, 63. II Robert Gordon of Knockbreck. § Rutherford’s Letters, p. 65. LADY KENMURE. 71 be a fever, of which, after enduring much suffering, he died on the 12th of September, at the early age of thirty-five. Having, as we have just now said, been for some time past less careful in cultivating personal piety, and less zealous in promoting the public interests of the church than in former days, he was pain- fully conscious of his want of preparation for death ; and at first the most poignant remorse took possession of his conscience, causing many a pang of anguish and many a bitter tear to flow. Among the sins which at that solemn period came crowding into his memory, that which occasioned him the greatest agony was his deserting the parliament the preceding year. “ Since I did lie down on this bed,” said he to Mr. Andrew Lamb, the bishop of Galloway, who visited him, “ the sin that lay heaviest on my soul and hath burdened my conscience most, was my withdraw- ing of myself from the parliament,, and not giving my voice for the truth against those things which they call indifferent ; for in so doing I have denied the Lord my God.” But by the judicious counsels of Rutherford, who continued with him at the castle, almost from the commencement of his illness to his death, he was led to improve the peace-speaking blood of Christ ; and thus attaining to the full assurance that God in his abounding mercy had pardoned his sins, he enjoyed much comfort in passing through the dark valley of the shadow of death. A few minutes before its departure, Rutherford engaged in prayer, and ‘‘ in the time of that last prayer, his lordship was observed joyfully smi- ling, and looking up with glorious looks, as was observed by the beholders, and with a certain beauty his visage was beautified, as beautiful as ever he was in his life. And the expiry of his breath, the ceasing of the motion of his pulse (which the physi- cian was still holding), corresponded exactly with the Amen of the prayer, — and so he died sweetly and holily, and his end was peace.”* During the whole of his illness, Lady Kenmure watched over him with affectionate tenderness and care. Of her kind and unwearied attentions, as well as of her high Christian excellence, he was deeply sensible. “ He gave her, diverse times, and that openly, an honorable and ample testimony of holiness and good- ness, and of all respectful kindness to him, earnestly craved her forgiveness wherein he had offended her, desired her to make the Lord her comforter, and observed that he was gone before, and that it was but fifteen or sixteen years up or down.” She * The Last and Heavenly Speeches and Glorious Departure of John Viscount of Kenmure, by Samuel Rutherford. 72 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. felt, in a special manner, deeply anxious about the state of his soul. When, on the first night of Rutherford’s arrival at Ken- mure castle, his lordship expressed to him his fears of death, and desired him to stay with him and show him the marks of a child of God, for,” said he, “ you must be my second in this combat she judiciously observed, You must have Jesus Christ to be your second an observation in which he cordially concurred. At another time, when, from the hopes of recovery, inspired by the temporary abating of the fever, he became much less con- cerned about the salvation of his soul than before, it is particu- larly mentioned in his, “ Last and Heavenly Speeches,” that this was to her a source of no small distress. Under this painful bereavement. Lady Kenmure was enabled to exercise a pious resignation to the will of her heavenly Father, all whose dispensations toward her she believed to be in wisdom and love, a consideration which proved her chief support and surest consolation under all her afflictions. In attaining to this desirable state of mind, she was greatly aided by Rutherford, who, while he remained at the castle, allayed her sorrow by his prayers and counsels, and who, on his return home, still addres- sing himself to the task of soothing her grief, wrote her a very comforting letter two days after the fatal event. “And, albeit,” says he, “ I must, out of some experience, say the mourning for the husband of your youth be by God’s own mouth the heaviest worldly sorrow (Joel i. 8) ; and though this be the weightiest burden that ever lay upon your back, yet ye know (when the fields are emptied, and your husband now asleep in the Lord), if ye shall wait upon him who hideth his face for a while, that it lieth upon God’s honor and truth to fill the field, and to be a husband to the widow.” Speaking of Lord Kenmure, he says, “ Remem- ber, that star that shined in Galloway is now shining in another world.” And, in reference to the past trials of her life, as well as to the present, he observes : — “ I dare say that God’s hammer- ing of you from your youth, is only to make you a fair carved stone in the high upper temple of the New Jerusalem. Your Lord never thought this world’s vain painted glory a gift worthy of you ; and therefore would not bestow it on you, because he is to present you with a better portion. I am now expecting to see, and that with joy and comfort, that which I hoped of you since I knew you fully ; even that ye have laid such strength upon the Holy One of Israel that ye defy troubles, and that your soul is a castle that may be besieged, but can not be taken. What have you to do here ? This world never looked like a LADY KENMURE. 73 friend upon you. Ye owe it little love. It looked eversourlike upon you.”* * * § In another letter he thus writes, in reference to the same subject : — “ In this late visitation that hath befallen your ladyship, ye have seen God’s love and care in such a measure that I thought our Lord broke the sharp point off the cross, and made us and your ladyship see Christ take possession and infeft- ment upon earth of him who is now reigning and triumphing with the hundred forty and four thousand who stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion.”t Under this bereavement, she had the kind condolence of many honorable friends and worthy profes- sors.” f To this nobleman, besides the three daughters, who, as we have already seen, died in infancy, she had a son, John, second viscount of Kenmure, who was served heir to his father in his large estates in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, 17th of March, 1635, and whose testamentary tutors were Archibald, marquis of Argyll, and William, earl of Morton. 1| This son was born after his father’s death, about the close of the year 1634, or early in the year 1635 and died in infancy in August, 1639, at the age of four years and some months. He had long before been in so delicate health as to excite the apprehensions of his mother, whose maternal solicitudes were all concentrated in her tender watchfulness over her infant boy. His death therefore could not be said to have come unexpected, nor could she be altogether unprepared for the stroke. But still the removal of this much loved and caressed child inflicted a deep wound on the affection- ate mother’s heart. He was her only son and her only remain- ing child, the heir of his father’s wealth and honors, and by his death the honors and estates of the noble house of Kenmure would pass into another family. All these circumstances would naturally intwine her affections around him, and increase the pangs of maternal agony when he was taken from her and laid in the grave. “ I confess,” writes Rutherford to her, “ it seemed strange to me that your Lord should have done that which seemed to ding out the bottom of your worldly comforts ; but we * Rutherford’s Letters, pp. 68, 69. t Ibid., p. 72. f Ibid., p. 73. II Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., p 27. Besides these children, it is not unlikely she had some others who also died in infancy. Rutherford, writing to her in 1634, says that the Lord had taken away from her many children. — Rutherford’s Letters, p. 78. § In one of Rutherford’s letters to her, dated November 29, 1634, obvious allu- sions are made to her being near the time of her confinement, and die child bom was evidently tliis son; for Rutherford reminds her, after his death, that she had got a four-years’ loan of him. He would be some months more than four years of age. 7 74 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. see not the ground of the Almighty’s sovereignty ; ‘ he goeth by on our right hand, and on our left hand, and we see him not.’ We see but pieces of the broken links of the chains of his provi- dence ; and he coggeth the wheels of his own providence that we see not. Oh, let the Former wopk his own clay into what frame he pleaseth ! ‘ Shall any teach the Almighty knowledge V If he pursue the dry stubble, who dare say, ‘ What doest thou V Do not wonder to see the Judge of the world weave into one web your mercies and the judgments of the house of Kenmure. He can make one web of contraries.”* God, however, does nothing without wise and holy reasons, and the spiritual improvement of his people is an end of which he never loses sight in all the trials with which he visits them. ‘‘ But,” adds Rutherford, in the same letter, “ my weak advice, with reverence and correc- tion, were for you, dear and worthy lady, to see how far mortifi- cation goeth on, and what scum the Lord’s fire casteth out of you. ... I do not say that heavier afflictions prophesy heavier guilti- ness ; a cross is often but a false prophet in this kind ; but I am sure that our Lord would have the tin and the bastard metal in you removed ; lest the Lord say, ‘ The bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed in the fire, the Founder melteth in vain’” (Jer. vi. 29). And in the conclusion, he thus counsels her : “ It is a Christian art to comfort yourself in the Lord ; to say, ‘ I was obliged to render back again this child to the Giver ; and if I have had four years’ loan of him, and Christ eternity’s possession of him, the Lord hath kept condition with me.’ ” Lady Kejimure, on the 21st of September, 1640, nearly a year after the death of her son, married for her second husband the Honorable Sir Henry Montgomery of Giffen, second son of Al- exander, sixth earl of Eglinton. This new relation proved a source of happiness to both. Sir Henry was an excellent man ; his sentiments on religious and ecclesiastical questions corresponded with her own ; and he is described as an “ active and faithful friend of the Lord’s kirk.”t But the union, which was without issue, did not last long : she was soon left a widow a second time, in which state she lived till a very venerable age. The exact time of Sir Henry’s death we have not discovered. Ruth- erford addressed a letter to her on that occasion, from St. An- drews, but it wants the date of the year.J Though by this sec- ond marriage she became Lady Montgomery, we shall take the liberty still to designate her “ Lady Kenmure,” as this is the name by which she is most generally known. Rutherford’s Letters, p. 573, f Ibid., p. 623. t Ibid., p. 623. LADY KENMURE. 76 Subsequently to this, Rutherford’s letters to her furnish few additional facts respecting her history. They contain repeated allusions to her bodily infirmities ; and from their tone, it is mani- fest that she had attained to much maturity in grace, and that “ all the sad losses, trials, sicknesses, infirmities, griefs, heaviness, and inconstancy, of the creature,” had been ripening her for heaven. There is also evidence that she continued steadfast in the principles of the second reformation, and adhered in her judgment to the presbyterian party called the “ protesters,” re- garding the policy of the “ resolutioners,” what it really was, as inconsistent with the obligations of the “ Solemn League and Covenant,” of which, if she did not enter into it, she cordially approved. “ I am glad,” says Rutherford, writing to her from Glasgow, September 28, 1651, “that your breath serveth you to run to the end, in the same condition and way wherein ye have walked these twenty years past. The Lord, it is true, hath stained the pride of all our glory, and now, last of all, the sun hath gone down upon many of the prophets. ... I hear that your ladyship hath the same esteem of the despised cause and cove- nant of our Lord that ye had before. Madam, hold you there.”* Much would it have gratified both these eminent saints to have lived to see “ the despised cause and covenant of the Lord” hon- ored and prospering in the land ; but this neither of them was 'privileged to witness. Writing to her in the autumn of 1659, Rutherford tells her of the satisfaction it would afford him should God be pleased to lengthen out more time to her, that she might, before her eyes were shut, “ see more of the work of the right hand of the Lord in reviving a swooning and crushed land and church.”! More time was indeed lengthened out to her, but it was to see, not the work of God in reviving the church, but the work of man in laying it waste, and in persecuting even to the death its ministers and members. Her highly-esteemed correspondent was removed by death on the eve of these calamities, having died on the 20th of March, 1661, just in time to escape being put to an ignominious death for the testimony of Jesus. He was taken away from the evil to come. She survived him above eleven years, witnessing the desolations of the church, and though per- sonally preserved from the fury of persecution, she suffered bitterly in some of her nearest relations. After Rutherford was laid in the dust, she cherished his mem- ory with affectionate veneration, and in token of her remembrance, liberally extended her beneficence and kindness to his widow ^ Rutherford’s Letters, p. 679. t Ibid., p. 695. 76 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. and only surviving daughter. This we find adverted to in a let- ter addressed to her by Mr. Robert M^Ward, from Rotterdam, October 2d, but without the date of the year. “ Madam,” says he, “ Mrs. Rutherford gives me often an account of the singular testimonies which she meets with of your ladyship’s affection to her and her daughter. If I could (though I had never had those personal obligations to your ladyship which I have, and under which I must die undischarged), I wmuld look on myself as obliged upon this account to pray that God may remember and reward your labor of love shown to the dead and continued to the living.”* The letters Rutherford had written to her phe care- fully preserved ; and when, after his death, the publication of a collection of his letters was resolved upon, very desirous that those of them in her possession should be included in the vol- ume, she transmitted them to Holland, to Mr. M‘Ward, under whose superintendence the work was published at Rotterdam, in 1664. When it was published, M‘Ward sent to her a copy in common binding, and some time after a copy bound in morocco, which, however, never reached her ; on learning which, he sent her another copy in the same binding.! Soon after the restoration of Charles II., a deep wound was inflicted on the heart of Lady Kenmure by the cruel manner in which the government treated her brother, the marquis of Argyll,, who, immediately on his arrival at Whitehall, whither he had proceeded from Scotland to offer his respectful congratulations to his majesty, w^as by his order thrown into the Tower of London, and afterward brought to trial before the Scottish parliament, by which he was condemned to be beheaded.j: During the course of these proceedings, and subsequently to them, she received kind letters of condolence from several of her friends. Ruther- ford, on hearing of the imprisonment of her brother in the Tower, wrote to her from St. Andrews, July 24, 1660, saying, among other things, “ It is not my part to be unmindful of you. Be not * Wodrow, MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 52. t Ibid., folio, No. 56. t The circumstances connected with the apprehension, trial, and execution of the marquis are more fully detailed in the Sketch of the Marchioness of Argyll’s Life, which follows. In those days it would appear that, like astrologers, who professed to foretell the fortunes of men from the aspect of the heavens, and the influence of the stars, physiognomists, with equal absurdity, pretended to read men’s future des- tiny in their countenances. The following instance of this may be quoted as an il- lustration of the foolish superstition which, at that period, existed in the best edu- cated and most enlightened circles of society : “ Alexander Colville, justice depute, an old servant of the house, told me that my Lady Kenmure, a gracious lady, my lord’s (marquis of Argyll’s) sister, from some little skill of physiognomy, which Mr. Alexander had taught her, had told him some years ago that her brother would die in blood.” — Baillie’s Letters, quoted in Kirkton's History, p. 107. LADY KENMURE. 77 afflicted for your brother, the marquis of Argyll. As to the main, in my weak apprehension, the seed of God being in him, and love to the people of God and his cause, it shall be well.”* Af- ter the execution of this nobleman, Mr. Robert M‘Ward,t on his arrival in Holland, wrote to her a letter, in which, besides ex- pressing his cordial sympathy with her under this trial, he directs and encourages her, in reference to those dark times which had then come upon the church of Scotland, as well as in regard to those still darker days which seemed to be at hand. Alter ad- verting to the many personal and domestic afflictions she had suf- fered, he adds : “ And now, madam, it is apparent what the Lord hath been designing and doing about you in dealing so with you ; for, besides that he hath been thereby making your ladyship to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light ; besides this, I say, which is common to your ladyship with all saints, he seems to have had this peculiar aim, to fit you for a piece of hard service ; and so your ladyship, after these more private and per- sonal conflicts seemed to be over, or were forgotten, hath had the honor amongst the first to be brought upon the stage, though not in your own person, yet in your honorable and deservedly dear relations, there to act a part very unpleasant to flesh and blood, even to see those who were to your ladyship as yourself, ■slain (I may say it, and it is known to be true upofi the matter), for the word of God and their testimony which they held. Thus he hath not hid sorrow from your eyes, and yet there is such a sweet mixture in the bitter cup as no doubt gives it so delectable *RtJtherford’s Letters, p. 707. t Mr. Robert M‘W ard, whose name has frequently occurred before, became min- ister of the outer high church, Glasgow, upon the death of Mr. Andrew Gray, who died in February, 1656. He, and Mr. John Baird^who became minister of Paisley, when studying at the college of St. Andrews, were reckoned the two best scholars in all the college ; and he maintained, through life, his reputation as a man of talent as well as of piety. Distinguished for the highly oratorical style of his ■pulpit compositions, on which he bestowed much labor, he was very popular. Re- ferring to his ornate style, a friend observed that he was “ a brave busking preach- er and, on one occasion, Mr. James Rowat, minister of Kilmarnock, said to him, “ God forgive you, brother, that darkens the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by your oratory.” M‘W ard was a zealous presbyterian, and strongly opposed to the public resolutions. As might have been expected, he did not long escape persecution after the restoration of Charles IT. Incurring the resentment of the government, for the freedom and fidelity with which he expressed his sentiments, in a sermon preached at Glasgow, from Amos iii. 2, in. February, 1661, he was brought before the parlia- ment on the 6ih of June that year ; and, on the 5th or 6lh of July, they passed sen- tence of banishment upon him, but allowed him to remain six months in the nation. Removing to Holland, he became minister of the Scottish congregation in Rotter- dam, where, with sonae temporary interruptions, he continued to labor with dili- gence and success until his death, which took place about the year 1681 or 1682. He was married to the widow of Mr. John Graham, provost of Glasgow.— Wod- row’s Analecta, vol. iii., p. 55. 78 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. and pleasant a relish that it is sweet in the belly, though not pleasant to the taste. Yea, he hath left your ladyship still upon the stage (after that worthy hath been honorably dismissed and taken off with the approbation of ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ leaving his name for a blessing to the chosen of the Lord, and having given a noble example of suffering with joyful- ness, and of resisting unto blood, striving against sin ; a mercy which few are like to find in this generation, wherein there is so strong a propension amongst all sorts to wrong the cause and wound their conscience before they endanger their persons), I say, your ladyship is left still upon the stage, not only to act pa- tience, and let it have its perfect work as to what is past, and give the world a proof that the grace of God can make a person endure as one whom affliction can not make miserable, whereas one void of such a supporting principle, would in that case carry as if they thought they lived for no other purpose but to see them- selves miserable ; but that you may act the faith and patience of the saints as to what is present, and in regard to what is ap- proaching, arming yourself with Christian courage and resolu- tion how to carry when ye shall see grief added to your sorrow, while ye behold that beautiful house wherein our fathers and we worshipped, thrown down, and nothing left of all that goodly fabric but sonfe dark vestiges, to be wept over by them that take pleasure in the stones, and favor the dust of Zion. This calls your ladyship some way to forget the decay and (in the world’s account, wherein things get not their right names), disgrace of your ever honorable family and father’s house, but now more hon- orable than ever, that ye may remember to weep with Zion, and lament because the glory is departed. O the sad days that your ladyship is like to see if He do not shut your eyes in death, and receive you in amongst the company of them who have come out of great tribulation, and can weep no more because they see God ! As for your ladyship’s through-bearing in this backsliding time, trust him with that, who hath everlasting arms underneath you to bear you up when ye have no legs to walk. Hitherto hath he helped, and he will not lose the glory of what he hath done by leaving you now to faint and fall off. He will not give over guiding you by his counsel till he have brought you to glory, and put you beyond hazard of misguiding yourself.”* Another of her relatives who suffered from the iniquity of the times was Lord Lorn, the eldest son of her brother, the marquis of Argyll. Lorn, naturally indignant at the cruel treatment which ^ Wodrow MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 53. LADY KENMURE, 79 his father and family had received at the hands of the parliament, gave free expression to his sentiments in a confidential letter he sent to his friend, Lord Duffus. This letter being intercepted and carried to Middleton, that unprincipled statesman resolved to make it the foundation of a capital charge against him. Disappointed in his hope of obtaining the estate of the marquis of Argyll, w^hich through the intercession of Lauderdale was gifted to Lord Lorn, who had married Lauderdale’s lady’s niece, Middleton thought he had now found a favorable opportunity of getting into his rapacious grasp the spoils of the Argyll family. According- ly, he laid the letter before the estates of parliament, which voted it treasonable, and sent information to his majesty, with a desire that Lorn, who was then in London, should be secured and sent down to Scotland to stand trial before the parliament. Lorn was ordered to return to Scotland, though, at the intercession of Lau- derdale, who personally became bail for his appearance, he was not sent down as a prisoner ; and arriving in Edinburgh on the 17th of July, 1662, he was immediately charged to appear at the bar of the house on the afternoon of that day ; which he did. That same night he was committed prisoner to the castle, and on the 26th of August was sentenced to be beheaded, and his lands, goods, and estate forfeited, for treasonable speeches and writings against the parliament ; the time of the execution of the sentence being remitted to the king. He lay in prison in the castle till Middle- ton’s fall, when he was liberated, in June, 1663, and was soon after restored to his grandfather’s estate, with the title of earl of Argyll.* During the time of Lorn’s imprisonment, M^Ward wrote to Lady Kenmure a letter, in which, among other things, he particularly animadverts upon this additional instance of the injustice and cruelty exercised toward the noble house of Argyll. The portion of it relating to Lorn’s imprisonment, may be quoted, as, besides containing a vindication of the prisoner’s father, the marquis of Argyll, and describing the true character of the pro- ceedings of that unprincipled government, it illustrates the pious and patriotic spirit of this noble lady. “ The men,” says he, “ who have sold themselves to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, have stretched forth their hand against your ladyship’s honorable and truly noble family. They made that worthy whose name is savory among his people, the butt of their malice, and as if that had not been enough, they persecute with deadly malice his honorable and hopeful posterity, that their name may be no * Wodrow’s History, vol. i., pp. 297,388; Aikman’s History, vol. iv., p. 500; Row's Life of Robert Blair, p. 469. 80 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. more in remembrance. But have they slain and also taken pos- session ? and will he not bring evil upon them and their posterity for this, and for the provocation wherewith they have provoked him to anger and made Israel to sin ? But what wonder that they have stretched forth their hand against his worthies, who have been honored to be singularly useful and instrumental in his work, when it is come to this, that in a land solemnly sworn away to God, the Son of Man hath not so much left him, even by law, as whereupon to lay his head, except it be upon a cold stone in a prison ! We have laws now framed by the throne of iniquity and in force, and by these laws he must die or be driven away. The men who have taken first the life and then the lands of him whom God hath taken' off the stage with so much true honor ; they have spoiled Christ also of his prerogative, and say, by what they do, ‘ This man shall not reign over us, we have no king but Caesar and his people of their privilege, saying to them, ‘ Bow down that we may go over you.’ I believe, while your ladyship remembers these last, ye forget the first : how- ever, your ladyship, and all the rest of his honorable relations, may be confident and comforted in the hope of it, when he comes to count with these men and cause them answer for that laese- majesty whereof they are guilty against God, he will make in- quisition for blood, yea, that blood, and make them sensible how sadly he resents the injuries done to that house, and will, if ever he build up Zion and appear in his glory in the land (as I desire to believe he will), restore the honor of that family with such a considerable overplus of splendor, as shall make them who see it say, ‘ Verily, there is a reward for the righteous ; verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth.” But, madam, I know, since God hath learned to prefer Jerusalem to your chief joy (a rare mercy amid a generation who are crying, ‘ Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation’), that ye forget to sorrow for your fathers house, and weep when ye remember Zion ; it no doubt makes your sigh- ing come before ye eat to see the ruins of that so lately beauti- ful fabric wherein ye, with the rest of his people, worshipped. Who can be but sad that hath the heart of a child to consider how the songs of the sanctuary are turned into howling ?”* From the allusion in the last sentence quoted, the reader will perceive that, at the time when this letter was written, the pres- byterian church of Scotland had been overthrown. Charles II., had got it into his head that presbytery was not a religion for a gentleman, — an opinion of which the foundation no doubt was, Wodrow, MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 59. LADY KENMURE. 81 what a young monarch of licentious morals could not easily brook, the strict surveillance which the presbyterian church exercised over the manners of all her members without respect of persons ; and no sooner was he restored to his throne than he and the base men selected by him for his counsellors, were determined not to suffer the offence and reproach of such an ill-bred religion to re- main in the land, no, not even in the form of a dissenting body. Nor was it by gradual encroachments that they resolved to sap the foundations of the Scottish presbyterian church. Too im- patient to wait the operation of slow and insidious measures, they proceeded openly, summarily, and by violence. Such min- isters as did not conform against a certain day were to be uncer- emoniously ejected. No soft words were to be employed, no gentle acts of persuasion were to be resorted to with the view of bringing them to submission. The law, with its severe pen- alties, which were deemed a sufficient argument, was promulgated, and, stern and unbending, it was to take its course on all the disobedient. The majority of the ministers conformed, though they had sworn against prelacy ; but a noble army of nearly four hundred of them refused compliance, preferring to suffer rather than to part with their integrity. They were in consequence driven from their people, who were thus deprived of the ordin- ances of the gospel, and who mourned the loss of their faithful pastors as a family bereavement. To this calamitous state of things M‘Ward, in the same letter, proceeds to advert more particularly. He dwells upon the sor- row which he knew Lady Kenmure felt because her ear did not hear the joyful sound, nor her eyes see her teachers, and that she was not now made glad in the sanctuary, as in former days, when she had been abundantly satisfied with the fatness of God’s house, and made to drink with delight of the rivers of his pleas- ure, his banner over her being love. ‘You have now known of a long time,” says he, “ what it is to live and almost languish in a dry and thirsty land v^^here no water is, where all the streams of creature contentments have been dried up, and diverted by the scorching heat of fiery trials. But this, I know, is the hardest and heaviest of all, that the streams of the sanctuary which did refresh the city of God are dried up, and that these ordinances of life in the use whereof God doth ordinarily set forth and impart much of his loving kindness, which is better than life, are taken away from you.” And he concludes by observing that, “ though he knew it to be grieving to her to see the faithful feeders put from their work, and God’s house of prayer turned into a den of 82 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. thieves, who come not in by the door, and how the valley of vision was become a dungeon of Egyptian darkness,” yet that it would comfort her in a great measure, notwithstanding all that had happened, if she saw “ the ministers of the Lord zealous and carrying like men of understanding who knew the times and what Israel ought to do, and not as asses crouching between the burdens.”* In the welfare and happiness of the ministers ejected from their charges for nonconformity. Lady Kenmure took a deep interest, being warmly attached to the cause in which they suffered. Their integrity and conscientiousness in renouncing their livings rather than do violence to their conscience, excited both her ap- proval and admiration ; and if she could not restore them to the places from which they were extruded, she was willing, accord- ing to her ability, to mitigate the privations and hardships of their lot. After the death of her son, Lord Viscount Kenmure, and of her second husband, the Honorable Sir Henry Montgom- ery of Giffen, her pecuniary means were indeed much reduced, but having devoted herself and her all to the Savior who redeemed her, she was liberal in communicating even beyond her ability to the necessities of the suffering presbyterian ministers ; and these acts of benevolence and generosity, which she felt to be sacred duties, she performed with a readiness and an alacrity corresponding to the deep sense she had of a Savior’s love. Mr. Robert M‘Ward, among others, was a sharer of her bounty. She frequently sent remittances to him in his straits when he was in Holland, of which he makes grateful mention in most of his let- ters to her, as well as refers to her profuse beneficence toward others who suffered for righteousness’ sake, and who were in needy circumstances. In one of his letters to her, without date, but which, as appears from internal evidence, was written sub- sequently to the martyrdom of the marquis of Argyll, and from Holland, after apologizing for taking the liberty of writing to her, he says, “ It flows from an affectionate respect which your lady- ship’s undeserved kindness and bounty toward me in my strait (whereof I hope to cease to be sensible, and cease to be, together), hath made a debt which I can never forbear to acknowledge (though I am not in case to requite it) without the imputation of baseness and ingratitude.’*! In another letter to her from Rot- terdam, in 1668, he writes, “Your ladyship hath put me oft to seek what to say, but never more than by your last. I am truly at a loss for words to express myself about it ; and I can assure * Wodrow MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 59, t Ibid., No. 53. LADY KENMURE. 83 you, madam, that it was a trouble to me to think how prodigal ye have been toward me at such a time. When I know well what the riches of your liberality are to others, and how much they who should give you what God hath made your own pinch you in withholding what they onght to give, what shall I say ? but I see I must be among the rest, and with the first of them, who bear record of your doing even beyond power ; and to make it appear that ye have, in the first place, given your ownself unto the Lord, ye give, in the second place, yourself and whatever ,God hath given you, to those whom ye suppose to have given themselves to God. Madam, when I can neither requite these high favors nor deserve them, I desire to have a complacency in the thoughts of what a rich reward abides you from him who is faithful and will never forget your work and labor of love showed toward his name. If he will not forget a cup of cold water, which is given by the hand of him who boiled it before he gave it, in the fire of love to God which burns in his bosom, how much more must these great givings be an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, and well-pleasing unto God !”* Mr. John Carstairs, minister of the high church of Glasgow at the Resto- ration, had also received tokens of her good will. In a letter to his wife. May 27, 1664, from Ireland, whither he had fled to es- cape persecution, he says : “ Present my humble service and tenderest respects to my noble lady Kenmure. The Lord re- member and graciously reward all her labor of love !”t Mr. M‘Ward having come to London about the year 1669, resolved to visit some of his friends in Scotland, and among others Lady Kenmure. In a letter to her, without date,:}; but which was probably written from Edinburgh about the close of the year 1669, or the beginning of the year 1670, after informing her that in the beginning of winter he was advised by friends to withdraw from London, which he did after he had kept himself * Wodrow MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 54. t Letters of Mr John Carstairs, &c., edited by the Rev. William Ferrie, Anstra- ther Easter, p. 120. t The following extract from a letter of M‘ Ward’s to Mr. John Carstairs, but without date, may assist us in determining the time when this letter was written to Lady Kenmure. Speaking of Mr. John Dickson, M'Ward says, “ I have neither seen nor written to him since the time I went first down with you to Scotland (if I be not mistaken), when that wretched indulgence had its birth (when will we see its burial!)” — (Wodrow MSS., vol. Ivii., folio. No. 15). The only difficulty here is whether M‘Ward refers to the first indulgence, granted in July, 1669, or to the sec- ond, granted in September, 1672. But from an allusion to his visiting Lady Ken- mure, apparently when he visited Scotland, contained in a letter to her, dated March 5, 1672, more than six months before the second indulgence had an existence (see p . 84), it is highly probable that be refers to the first. 84 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. almost a prisoner for some time, and that thereafter he had stayed in another place in England longer than he intended, he says : “ The condition, the sad condition of this poor remnant, together with the desire I had once more to see some few friends, among whom I particularly intended to wait upon your ladyship at con- veniency, made me adventure to come to this place. I have desired the bearer* (who is the only minister, save one other, residing in this city to whom I have yet made myself known) to inquire at your ladyship when, without being a trouble or dis- turbance to you, I may wait upon you.” He adds : “ Madam, I have had some account from him of your condition, and though I know that the things which ye see and hear and daily find are enough to make your ladyship long for a pass, that after all your inward trouble and outward tossings, your tried and weary soul may rest in his everlasting embraces, after whom ye have been made to pant, and for whose coming ye are now looking ; yet I can not deny but that 1 am so cruel as to be content that your ladyship is yet with us to weep and sigh over the dust of Zion ; yea, I am confident you will be content to suspend your everlast- ing satisfaction, which is made sure to you, for some years or days, if you may be but helped, now when the strength of the bearers of burdens is gone, to lift up a prayer for a fallen church, and to grieve over our departed glory. ”t On receiving this communication. Lady Kenmure lost no time in intimating to her old friend and valued correspondent when he might wait upon her, and in giving him to understand how wel- come would be the sight and converse of one who had suffered for his Master, and by whose letters she had been instructed and comforted. Their meeting was agreeable and refreshing to them both. In M^Ward she found one who had the tongue of the learned, and who could speak a word in season to them that were weary. In her he found a Christian who, trained in the school of affliction, had attained to no ordinary degree of emi- nence in the Christian graces, and who seemed to feel more deeply the distressed state of the church than the bodily infirmi- ties which were pressing her down to the dust. To this visit he seems to refer in a letter which he addressed to her from Rotterdam, March 5, 1672, in which he mentions it as one thing “ which did often refresh and comfort him concerning the reality and greenness of the grace of God in her, when he had occasion to see her upon her bed of languishing, namely, his finding that notwithstanding of all these weights and pressures of bodily infirm- * Probably Mr. John Carstaire. t Wodrow MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 57. LADY KENMUDE. 85 ities under which her outward man was wasting, yet Zion and the concerns of our Lord Jesus Christ had a chief place in her thoughts, she resolving to prefer his interests to her chief joy and greatest sorrows.”^ Lady Kenmure was now far advanced in years, and during her lengthened life she had seen many changes in the beloved church of her native land. She had beheld the triumph of its liberties after a protracted struggle of many years, over the arbi- trary power of princes, and had seen the banner of the covenant unfurled and floating throughout the length and breadth of Scot- land. She had again witnessed these liberties prostrated and trampled in the dust by a monarch who was sworn to maintain them, and a grinding persecution carried on against such as, faithful to their covenant engagement, scorned to surrender them. But time, with its many changes, so far from altering, had only served to confirm her original sentiments on ecclesiastical ques- tions. The good old cause was still the good old cause for her. ‘‘Madam,” says M‘Ward in the letter last quoted, “as it hath been observed by many of your intimate Christian acquaintance that this hath been a piece of his gracious kindness to you to keep you still upon his side in an evil tim.e, and to warm your soul into a good degree of holy heat and jealousy for God, his concerns, crown, and kingdom ; so he continues to be gracious to you in this matter still, and to make you a comfort to such who take pleasure in the dust of Zion. How great a mercy is this when the breath of most men, the breath of most professors, nay, alas, the breath of most ministers, who by their fervor should warm the souls of others, is so cold that it doth plainly discover a falling from first love, and a want of divine zeal for him, and fervent desire for the coming of his kingdom in the world ! This which he hath given you is a pearl of great price, a jewel of more value than the whole universe, nay, this is something above the reality of grace, and beyond every exercise of real grace. This is to carry like your father’s child, when the coming of his kingdom is the inward echo of your soul.”t The precise date of Lady Kenmure’s death we have not been able to ascertain. She was alive in August, 1672, for when Mr. John Livingstone, who died on the 19th of August that year, was giving some of his friends an account of God’s goodness to him during the course of his earthly pilgrimage the day before his death, and recounting it as one of the divine mercies conferred upon him that he had been acquainted with many eminent Chris- * Wodrow MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 62 . t Ibid., folio, Iviii., No. 62 . 8 86 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. tians in his youth, he named two, the tutor of Bonnington, and Lady Kenmure, “ who is,” said he, “ the oldest Christian ac- quaintance I have now alive.” But she was at that time in so very weak and infirm a state of health that M‘Ward, in a letter to her dated August 30, 1672, expresses his fears that it might possibly be his last letter to her, and whether it might come to her or find her in the land of the living.* It would no doubt be interesting to know the circumstances connected with the last sickness and death of a lady so eminent for piety ; but these have not been transmitted to posterity. We have, however, traced her from early life to advanced age, and we have seen throughout that whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report, on these things she thought, and these things she practised. Although, then, we lose sight of her at the closing scene, we may be sure that the light of heaven rested upon it, dispelling the darkness of death and the grave ; and whether she gave utterance to the triumphant excla- mation of the apostle Paul, in the prospect of his departure, or no, that exclamation from her dying lips would have been an appropriate close to a life which so eminently exemplified the Christian graces — faith, purity, humility, charity — “ I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” LADY MARGARET DOUGLAS, MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. Lady Margaret Douglas was descended from a noble family, of no inconsiderable antiquity and renown. Her great-grandfa- ther, William Douglas, sixth earl of Morton, was “ a nobleman who inherited the magnanimity of the Douglases, tempered by the milder virtues of his illustrious relative, the regent Murray. His public conduct was marked by independence. While he maintained all the hospitality and even magnificence of the an- cient barons, his domestic arrangements were conducted, and his fine family reared up, in accordance with the purity of his mor- ^ Wodrow MSS., vol Iviii., folio, No. 63. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 87 als, and the strict regard which he uniformly showed to the du- ties of religion. He was a warm and steady friend to the pres- byterian church The sickness, which soon put an end to his days, prevented him from attending in his place at Perth ;* but he expressed his strong disapprobation of the act restoring episcopacy, and with his dying breath predicted the evils which it would entail on the country.”! Her father, William, seventh earl of Morton, who was born in 1582, and served heir to his father on the 3d of July, 1605, was a nobleman of good natural talents, which were highly improved by a liberal education, and travels in foreign parts. Previous to the breaking out of the civil wars, occasioned by the disputes between Charles I. and his parliament, the earl of Morton was one of the richest and greatest subjects in the kingdom , and such was the zeal with which he espoused the royal cause, that, to enable him to ad- vance money for its support, he disposed of the noble property of Dalkeith, and other estates, to the value of not less than one hundred thousand pounds Scots of annual rent. He died at Ork- ney, on the 7th August, 1648, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.J By his wife. Lady Anne Keith, eldest daughter of George, fifth earl Marischall, he had a numerous offspring. Margaret, the subject of this sketch, who was the second daughter, was born about the year 1610. Of her youthful years no memorials are known to exist ; but at an early age she was married to Archibald, Lord Lorn, afterward eighth earl and first marquis of Argyll, a nobleman of eminent piety, and a warm friend of the presbyterian interest, to which he adhered with un- wavering constancy, and for which he at last was honored to die a martyr. She also was distinguished for piety, and held senti- ments on ecclesiastical and religious questions similar to his. We are not exactly informed as to the time and circumstances in which either of them became the subject of serious religious impressions, but in both cases it appears to have been early. True religion shed its hallowed and ennobling influence over their domestic life, sweetening its enjoyments as well as light- ening its trials, and rendered their whole deportment a living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men. It was the custom of the marquis to rise at five o’clock in the morning, and to con- ^ The reference is to the parliament which met at Perth, in August, 1606, by which the bishops were restored to all their ancient dignities and prerogatives. t M'Crie’s Life of Melville, vol. ii., p. 220. James Melville designates him “the guid auld earle of Mortoune.’’ — Melville’s Diary, p. 560. See also Calderwood's History, vol. vi., p. 263. t Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., pp. 193, 274, 275 ; Row’s History, p. 470. 88 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. tinue in private till eight oxlock ; and, besides family worship and private prayer in the morning and evening, he usually prayed with his lady at the same seasons, his valet and her maid-servant being present.* How beautiful an example of domestic piety ! and how excellent a means of training that pious pair for acting a Christian and a noble part amid those tragic scenes through which they had afterward to pass, and in which they acquitted themselves so well ! Both of them, too, highly valued the preach- ing of the gospel, and the society of the eminent ministers of their day. As an instance of this, it may be mentioned that the well-known Mr. David Dickson, with his wife and children, re- sided two years in their family at Inverary ; during which time Dickson and Mr. Gordon, the minister of the parish, divided the services of the sabbath between them, the former preaching in the forenoon, and the latter in the afternoon, while Mr. Patrick Simpson preached on the Thursdays.! The first family incident we meet with in the history of the marchioness of Argyll is a dangerous illness with which she was attacked at the time of her first confinement. The physicians who attended her, when consulted, gave it as their opinion that her life could not be preserved without destroying that of the child. But from this proposal the heart of the mother recoiled, and on no consideration would she give her consent. In the good providence of God, however, the life both of the mother and of the infant was saved. This child was afterward the earl of Argyll, who suffered in I685.;|: During the subsequent part of her life, no important facts are known, till we come to the severe domestic trials which she was doomed to suffer. These we shall now proceed to relate. It has been said that every pathetic tale, in order to interest, must have a villain to boast of — a principle well understood by the masters of tragedy, who, while they excite our sympathies by * Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. i , p. 22. Wodrow received this information, May 9, 1702, from Mr. Alexander Gordon, who was minister of Inverary many years be- fore the restoration of Charles IL, and who had therefore the best means of knowing. Mr. Gordon also informed him that when the marquis went abroad, though but for one night, it was his practice to take with him his note-book and inkstand, with the English Notes Bible and Newman’s Concordance. In another part of the Ana- lecta, we find the following interesting notice relating to Argyll’s conversion : “ Mr. James Stirling tells me that from good hands he had it, that during the assembly at Glasgow, Mr. Henderson and other ministers spent many nights in prayer with the marquis of Argyll, and that he dated either his conversion, or the knowledge of it, from these times.” t Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. i., p. 22. Mr. Gordon, to whom Wodrow was in- debted for tins fact, also told him that Argyll always took notes of the sermon. t Ibid., vol. ii., p. 138. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 69 the great and varied distresses of the personages they introduce upon the stage, almost never fail to bring prominently forward some character of deep depravity as the cause of these distres- ses ; thus enhancing the interest of the scene, 'by stirring from their depths other emotions of our nature, such as horror and in- dignation at hypocrisy, treachery, cruelty, and other forms of vice, which may be elicited in the drama. Of this element of interest the life of this lady is not destitute ; and Charles II. was the evil genius who broke in upon its peace and happiness. The first of her domestic trials which we shall mention is the affecting case of her eldest daughter. Lady Anne. When Charles II. arrived in Scotland in the year 1650, Argyll, though during the second reformation, and down to that year, he had acted a conspicuous part in the defence of the presbyterian cause, and had been almost dictator of Scotland, yet welcomed him with the most devoted loyalty. He, however, at the same time, told him that he could not serve him as he desired unless he gave some decided evidence of his fixed determination to support the pres- byterian party, and that he thought this would be best done by marrying into some family of rank known to be entirely devoted to that interest, hinting that this would, in a great measure, re- move the prejudices entertained by both Scotland and England against him on account of his mother, who was a papist, and suggesting his own daughter as the most proper match for him.* How strangely does the ambition of worldly honor and power sometimes gain the ascendency over the better judgment of even wise and good men ! Argyll must have known enough, and more than enough, of the profligate character of Charles, to convince him that in projecting such a matrimonial alliance, he was ex- posing to the highest peril the happiness of his daughter for the prospect of gaining her the glitter of a few short years in a cor- rupt court. But views of ambition, and not the happiness of his daughter, were the motives which appear to have guided him in this matter. Another influence bearing on his mind was the principle of self-preservation. Perceiving that should those men, whom he had unavoidably made his enemies when almost dicta- tor of Scotland, be raised to places of power upon the accession of Charles, he would be in great danger of falling a sacrifice to their malice, he hoped in this way effectually to secure himself from all such peril. But his hopes of aggrandizement or safety from this source were castles l3uilt in the air, and they were destined to suffer a *■ Douglas's Peerage, vol. i., p. 97. 8 * 90 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. severe disappointment. To the proposal Charles indeed con- sented, and promised all fidelity. But he was too much of the cavalier ; he had too strong a liking for the malignant party, ever to think seriously of wedding with a presbyterian’s daughter. His promise he never fulfilled, and he never intended to fulfil it. The consequences to the accomplished young lady were very dis- tressing. With the simple and unsuspecting confidence of in- experienced youth, she relied upon his honor and sincerity. Her parents had not taught her to doubt or mistrust him ; at least her father had not done so ; and, if her mother had warned her of her danger, she heeded it not : and when Charles disappointed her — when he appeared to her in the stern reality of his true char- acter, a heartless deceiver, faithless to her as he proved to the religion he had sworn to maintain — her mental agitation and dis- tress became great ; all her enchanting and fondly-cherished prospects of becoming the wife of Charles and queen of Britain, which had been the dream of her young imagination, were dissi- pated ; her tenderest affections were cruelly lacerated by the object around which they were entwined ; her earthly hopes and happiness seemed extinguished for ever ; her spirits sunk, and her health became impaired ; yea, under the extreme mental agi- tation she daily and hourly experienced, her reason itself began to reel, and she at last became quite insane, fit only “ to point a moral or adorn a tale.” In the calamity which befell his daughter, Argyll had too much reason for self-reproach. His worldly policy, which true wisdom condemned, while it accomplished the ruin of his daughter, was defeated in its every object. Kirkton, after stating that the mar- quis was moved to strike up this match from the hope of securing himself from his enemies, and that all the poor family had by the bargain was a disappointment so grievous to the poor young lady, that of a gallant young gentlewoman, she lost her spirit and turned absolutely distracted,” quaintly, but justly adds, “ so un- fortunately do the back wheels of private designs work in the puppet plays of the public revolutions in the world.”* This was a severe and a continued living trial to the mar- chioness. Whether she was favorably disposed toward the match we are not informed, although there is reason to believe she was not, and that she entertained fears that it might be far from issu- ing in the happy consequences which the marquis anticipated. We know, at least, that plausible and insinuating as the manners of Charles were, she formed a very low opinion of his character Kirkton’s History, p. 50. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 91 at an early period, indeed long before its dark features were fully developed or discovered, regarding him as at once unprincipled, hypocritical, and revengeful. This will appear from the follow- ing anecdote, which rests on good authority. Charles, after he came to Scotland and was crowned, in 1650, became so flagrantly lewd in his conduct, spent so large a part of his time in drinking, and favored malignants so much, notwithstanding his having sworn the Solemn League and Covenant, that the religious peo- ple about the court urgently requested Argyll to take the liberty of freely remonstrating with him. Argyll, who had waited long for such an opportunity, did so one sabbath night at Stirling. Af- ter supper, he went in with his majesty to his closet, and there, with much freedom, but, at the same time, with much humility, laid before him the sinfulness of his conduct. Charles, so far from appearing to be offended, seemed serious, and even shed tears ; and so earnest did the matter to all appearance become, that they prayed and mourned together till two or three o’clock in the morning. The marquis, charitably entertaining the most favorable opinion of the character and professions of Charles, was disposed to congratulate himself upon his success ; and when he came home to his lady, who was surprised at his absence, and told him she never knew him stop from home till so late an hour, he said that he had never passed so pleasant a night in the world, and informed her of all that took place. But she put a very different construction upon the adventure, and drew very different conclusions from it. She believed that Charles was both insin- cere and vindictive ; that it was not safe to remonstrate with him, and that her husband had committed an offence which the mon- arch would never forgive. Such was her belief, and she freely expressed it. No sooner did she hear of Charles’s professions of sorrow, and of the tears he shed, than she said that they were “ crocodile tears,” and that what the marquis had done that night would cost him his head. Nor was she mistaken. When of- fended at liberties taken to reprove him for his conduct, Charles possessed, in no small degree, the power of suppressing the manifestation of his feelings, and of seeming even grateful to his monitor ; but freedoms of this sort he was not accustomed to for- give, and only waited his opportunity to take revenge. From that moment he bore an irreconcilable hatred to the marquis, though the royal hypocrite, in addressing him, still continued to call him “ father and so deeply did he cherish a vindictive spirit for this honest admonition that, after his restoration, he ex- pressed his resentment of it to some, and resolved to make his 92 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. reprover the first victim of his mortal vengeance.* Upon what grounds the marchioness came to such a conclusion respecting the character of Charles, we do not know ; but from the accuracy of the judgment she pronounced upon it, she must have discov- ered facts concerning him, which, painful as it might be to her to entertain such suspicions and feelings concerning him, con- firmed all that she had said. After this she was visited with a severe illness, which threat- ened her life, as appears from the following quotation : — “ When the king resolved to march into England, in June, 1651, the res- olution was opposed by Argyll, with reasons of no inconsiderable strength. But, notwithstanding this disapprobation of the meas- ure, he would have gone along with the king, had not his lady been lying at the point of death. This induced him to ask per- mission to remain behind, which was graciously accorded, and he took leave of the king at Stirling.”! From this illness, how- ever, the marchioness recovered. No additional particulars of importance occur in her history till the restoration of Charles II. That event, which was hailed with unbounded joy by almost all Scotland, she could hardly contemplate with any other feelings than those of alarm. While others were giving way to the most extravagant rejoicings, she must have felt, from what she knew of Charles, that she^ at least, had rather cause to mourn than to rejoice. Aware that her hus- band was the object of his mortal hatred, for the reason stated before, as well as on other accounts, she appears to have enter- tained some degree of anxiety about his safety ; to have felt some forebodings that the restoration might be, what it actually turned out to be, the cause of the most poignant affliction of her life. When many noblemen and gentlemen from Scotland went up to London in 1660, to congratulate his majesty upon his happy and safe return to his hereditary throne, the marquis sent up his eldest son. Lord Lorn, but did not proceed to London himself till he got information of the favorable reception of his son, when he was encouraged to repair to the capital. From this it is evident that the family had the impression that the marquis had incurred the displeasure of the monarch, and entertained some apprehen- sion that he was in danger. Nor were these apprehensions un- ^ Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i., p. 67. Wodrow introduces this and another anec- dote given (p. 36), thus: — ** November 11, 1705. — My brother tells me that he has the accounts of the marquis of Argyll from Mr. Hastie, who had them from Mr. Neil Gillies, who was in the family of Argyll, and had them both from the mar* chioness.” See also Analecta, vol. ii., p. 145. t Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p. 98. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 93 founded.* No sooner did Argyll arrive at Whitehall, which was on the 8th of July, than, with an angry stamp of the foot,” Charles gave orders for his imprisonment. He was instantly hurried to the Tower, where he was kept close prisoner till toward the close of the year, when he was sent down from Lon- don, by sea, to Edinburgh, to be committed prisoner to the castle, and tried before the Scottish parliament for high treason. His trial commenced on the 13th of February, 1661, when his indict- ment, consisting of fourteen different articles, was read, in which he is charged with calling, or causing to be called, the conven- tion of estates, in 1643, and entering into the Solemn League and Covenant with England ; with protesting in parliament against the engagement of 1648, for relieving his majesty Charles 1. ; with raising an army to oppose the engagers ; with corresponding with Cromwell, and submitting to the common- wealth ; together with other crimes, which were either a perver- sion or misrepresentation of facts, or direct calumnies, as, for instance, that he had been accessory to, or acquainted with, the design of the murder of Charles I. These were the ostensible grounds of the proceedings against him ; but it was private and personal reasons, not avowed, which impelled the actors in this tragedy. Charles IL, as we have seen, hated him for the free- dom of his admonitions, as well as because he was opposed to the malignants, and the main support of the presbyterian interest, of which he proved himself the uncompromising champion ; and this hatred was deepened from the wrong which Charles was conscious of having done to him and his family in violating his promise of marrying Lady Anne, for unprincipled men uniformly hate those whom they have injured. This throws a flood of light upon the conduct of Charles toward him ; it explains “ the angry stamp of the foot and warrants the assertion that he “ died a sacrifice to royal jealousy and revenge.”! Middleton, too, who was his majesty’s commissioner at the parliament, being at once poor and avaricious, expected to obtain a grant of the estates of the martyr, and hence his anxiety, in order to get them forfeited, and thus wrested from the lawful heirs, that the marquis should suffer as a regicide. It is also to be added, that * As a curious instance of llie superstitious regard paid to omens at that time, we maj’ quote the following passage from Baillie’s Letters. Speaking of Argyll, he says: “My good-son, Mr. Robert Watson, was with his lady in Roseneath, the night the king landed in England. He told me all the dogs that day did take a strange howling and staring up to my lady’s chamber windows for some hours together.” — duoted in Kirkton’s History, in a note by the Editor, p. 107. t Kirkton’s Histoiy, pp. 69, 70. 94 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Middleton’s associates in the Scottish government desired to divide the estates among themselves.* Thus it was determined on all hands to make this nobleman a sacrifice. When the marquis was lying a prisoner in the castle, the marchioness entertained the worst apprehensions as to the inten- tions of his enemies. She was persuaded that .-they would be satisfied with nothing less than his life, and she, therefore, with a number of spirited gentlemen, entered into a plan for effecting his escape. In the execution of this plan she herself was to act the principal part. On visiting him she was to put on his clothes and remain in prison, while he was to put on hers and, thus disguised, make his escape, which could be the more easily effected, as they were of the same stature. In order the more effectually to remove suspicion, he kept bed for some days, as if he had been unwell, and one day when she came in a chair to visit him, they resolved to make the attempt. Being left alone, they proceeded to undress and exchange each other’s clothes. This done, she was ready to remain in his place, whatever she might suffer from the resentment of the government. But her purpose was defeated by the marquis himself, who, when about to be taken out in the chair, on a sudden changing his mind, said he would not flee from the cause he so publicly owned, and throwing aside his disguise, put on his own clothes, resolving to suffer the uttermost. f Thus she left the prison without having effected the object which lay so near her heart. What she dreaded was soon realized. On Saturday, the 25th of May, he was sentenced to be beheaded at the cross of Edinburgh for high treason on Monday, the 27th, and his head to be fixed on the west end of the tolbooth, where the head of the marquis of Mon- trose had formerly been exhibited as a spectacle. He was then sent to the tolbooth among the ordinary prisoners for the two short days allowed him to prepare for death.;]; The distress of the marchioness on hearing of this sentence is not to be described. On learning where he was to be confined during the brief period he had to live, she hurried to the prison in order to meet him. She was there before he reached it, and on his entrance a most affecting interview took place between ^ Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p 99. Wodrow’s History, vol. i , p. 131. t Kirkton’s History, p 103 Wodrow’s History, vol, i . p. 152 Burnet’s His- tory, vol. i., p. 124. Burnet says, that when the marquis was going into the v/hair, he apprehended he should be discovered, and his execution hastened, and so his heart failed him.” X Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 150. Sir George M'Kenzie’s Memoirs of the Afers of Scotland, p. 40. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 95 tliem. “They have given me till Monday,” said he, on seeing her, “to be with you, my dear, therefore let us make for it.” The afflicted wife, in the agony of grief, burst into ,a flood of tears, and, embracing him, exclaimed, “ The Lord will require it, the Lord will require it.” On her uttering this appeal to the justice of Heaven, which we conceive was nothing but the simple, unpremeditated, and instinctive outburst of nature, under a sense of such unmerited and grievous wrong, and which neither Chris- tian principle nor Christian feeling condemned, a minister pres- ent, doubtless with the best intentions, gently reminded her that we should not be revengeful, to whom she replied: “We need not be so,” alluding to the words of Paul, “ Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves but rather give place to wrath ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”* Her distress, in these painful circumstances, was so deeply affecting, that even the bailie who accompanied the marquis to the prison, though no great friend to him, was softened into tears, and none in the room could refrain from giving vent in a similar way to their feelings. Meanwhile the marquis, though at first he wept him- self, soon became perfectly composed, and endeavored to comfort his beloved and sobbing wife. “ Forbear, forbear,” said he affec- tionately to her ; “ truly I pity them ; they know not what they are doing : they may shut me in where they please, but they can not shut out God from me : for my part I am as content to be here as in the castle, and as content in the castle as in the Tower of London, and as content there as when at liberty; and I hope to be as content upon the scaffold as any of them all.” He added, that “ he remembered a scripture cited to him by an honest minister lately in the castle, and endeavored to put it in practice. When Ziklag was taken and burnt, and the people spake of stoning David, he encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”t After this interview, on the same day, the marchioness went down to the abbey, to Middleton, his majesty’s commissioner, to endeavor to obtain a reprieve. The object in asking this reprieve, no doubt, was to get time to apply to the king for a pardon. But when it is considered that the parliament, of which Middleton was the moving spring, refused to accede to the request which the marquis made when at the bar and about to receive his sentence, that the sentence should not be executed till ten days after it was pronounced, there was little ground to ^ Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 153. Wodrow MSS., vol. xxvii., folio, No. 53. t Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 152. 96 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. hope that his lady would succeed in obtaining for him what she sought. But where his life was involved she determined to make an appeal to Middleton’s pity, if not to his sense of justice. She accordingly went down with a heavy heart to Holyrood house, and was admitted to see him. He had been drinking hard, but was in the full possession of his reason, and received her with extreme courtesy and kindness, which was far from his usual manner of receiving supplicants, and it seemed as if there was no favor which he would be unwilling to grant at her request. Her courteous and respectful reception might perhaps awaken in her for a moment hopes that he would commiserate her case ; but she had a man to deal with whose heart was never softened by compassion, and who was not accustomed to show mercy. When she proceeded to tell him her errand, pathetic as was the appeal she made in behalf of her condemned husband, he told her that he could not serve her in that particular ; that to do so would be as much as his life was worth ; and that though he should grant her what she so earnestly desired it would be fruitless, for he had received three instructions from the king which he was imperatively required to carry into effect : first, to rescind the covenants ; secondly, to behead the marquis of Argyll ; and, thirdly, to sheath every man’s sword in his brother’s breast. The proverb is. Post vinum veritas. Middleton had thus impru- dently betrayed the intentions of his master to the marchioness ; and the following day, remembering after having slept off his night’s debauch, what he had said to her, he became so dejected that for several days he was not to be spoken with, and told some of his friends that he had discovered a part of his secret instruc- tions to the lady of Argyll which would ruin him. But she took no advantage of him, having told this only to Mr. Gillies, who, as Wodrow thinks, was waiting on her at that time ; and accord- ingly it went no farther.* From what Middleton said to her all her hopes of the life of the marquis were lost. She perceived that his death had been resolved upon, and that nothing was to be expected either from the justice or the compassion of the men who were now at the head of affairs, and who were carrying things with such a high hand. Hastening to the prison, she communicated to him the unsuccessful result of her visit to the palace. But painful as was this death-blow to her hopes of his life, it was in some degree consoling to her that he was prepared for the fate awaiting him. She found him not agitated with fear, nor sinking beneath the Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i, pp. 67, 68. See Appendix, No. II. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 97 abject influence of conscious guilt, but, though surrounded by- prison walls, and soon to undergo an ignominious execution, yet enjoying that serenity and joy of mind which conscious inno- cence and the peace of God never fail to impart ; and this was the more remarkable from his being naturally of a timorous dis- position. She continued with him, it would appear, till sabbath night, when, at his own desire, she took a last farewell.* In this season of deep distress, the marchioness, like a genu- ine child of God, betook herself to the throne of grace ; and it is an interesting trait in her character to find her there imploring from Him, who “ is a present help in the time of trouble,” sup- port and comfort, not so much for herself, as for her beloved hus- band, who, though guilty of no crime, was so soon to suffer a traitor’s death. On the forenoon of the day on which he was to be executed, she and Mr. John Carstairs were employed in wrest- ling with God in his behalf, in a chamber in the Canonsgate, earnestly pleading that the Lord would now seal his charter by saying to him, “ Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee !” It is a striking circumstance that, at the very time of their being thus employed, the marquis, while engaged in set- tling some worldly affairs, a number of persons of quality being present with him, was visited in his soul with such a sense of the Divine favor, as almost overpowered him ; and, after in vain attempting to conceal his emotions by going to the fire and be- ginning to stir it with the tongs, he turned about, and melting into tears, exclaimed, “ I see this will not do ; I must now declare what the Lord has done for my soul ! He has just now, at this very instant of time, sealed my charter in these words, ‘ Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee !’ ” This comfortable state of mind he retained to the last, and to this scene he allu- ded in his dying speech on the scaftbld. Can it be doubted that the bestowment of the very blessing, prayed for by this devout lady and that godly minister to the dying martyr, at the very in- stant in which it was sought, was a signal answer to their believ- ing prayers ?t Surviving friends have naturally a concern that due honor be paid to the dead in the form of a decent and respectable funeral ; and after the execution of this noble martyr, the marchioness was anxious that due homage should be paid to his mortal re- mains. After he was beheaded his headless corpse was delivered to those friends, noblemen, and others, who, at his desire, were permitted to accompany him to the scaffold and be present with ** Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 153. t Wodrow's Analecta, vol. ii., p. 148. 9 98 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. him on it ; and they carried it to the Magdalene chapel, where it was prepared for interment. From the chapel it was attended by a numerous company of friends, in funeral procession, to Kil- patrick, thence transported by water to Dunoon, and finally de- posited in its last resting-place, in the family burying-vault at Kilmun.* But it was distressing to the marchioness to think, that the head of the marquis was exposed as a public spectacle, and she was extremely desirous that it should be removed, and in- terred with the rest of the body. With this view, her daughter, Lady Mary, countess of Caithness, went to Middleton, to suppli- cate that this favor might be granted to her mother and the fam- ily. But he received her in a different manner from that in which he had received her mother. When she was on her knees before him, begging, with all the tenderness of filial piety, her dead father’s head to be buried, he brutally threatened to kick her with his foot if she did not rise and depart from his presence.! What a picture of a man (if we may call him a man), who could thus treat with cruel and wanton insult a lady, in cir- cumstances which, one might think, would have excited compas- sion in the breast of a monster ! Argyll’s head continued fixed on the west end of the tolbooth till 1664, when a letter came from the king to the privy council, commanding them to take it down, that it might be buried with his body. It was accordingly taken down quietly in the night-time.^ Under this heavy trial the marchioness was very generally and sincerely sympathized with throughout the country ;|| and her case was well calculated to excite sympathy. What must she have suffered in her mind from the time that the marquis was thrown into the Tower of London, to the time when he was beheaded as a traitor, at the cross of Edinburgh ? Can it be doubted that she was made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the protracted agony which these proceedings indicted on her soul ? The tragic scene of his execution could not fail often to present itself to her imagination, piercing the heart with the bitterest anguish ; and when she turned from that scene to reflect on her own condition, she must have found herself “ a widow indeed.” But severe though the trial was, she rebelled not against the Supreme Disposer of events, but acquiesced in his determinations, from a persuasion that though these, in some Sir George M‘Keiizie’s Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, p. 47. Aikman’s History of Scotland, vol. iv., p. 187. t Kirkton’s History, p. 156. | Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 169. II “ All did compassionate his religious lady and children.” — Row’s Life of Rob- ert Blair, p. 385. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 99 respects, miglit be mysterious and incomprehensible to her, they were yet the determinations of her heavenly Father, Avho doeth all things well. The exemplary resignation she displayed, and which everybody admired, is fully attested by contemporary wri- ters. Law, for example, in his Memorials, when recording the death of the marquis, says : “ His lady, Margaret Douglas, a lady of singular piety and virtue, bore this sad stroke with other both personal and domestic afflictions, with great patience, and incredible fortitude, giving herself always to prayer and fasting, and ministering to the necessity of the saints.”* Various cir- cumstances connected with the death of the marquis would, no doubt, contribute to produce this desirable state of mind. It was comforting to her to reflect that no evil deed of his had merited such cruel treatment ; that he died, not as a traitor to his country or his king, but in reality as a martyr in the cause of Christ. It was comforting to her also to know that he met death with a heroism which has never been surpassed in the annals of mar- tyrdom ; a heroism not inspired by a passion for earthly renown, like that of the patriots of Sparta, Rome, and Athens, but by the peace of God which dwelt in his soul, and the hope of eternal glory, with which he was animated.! Her pious friends, both ministers and others, would also contribute much, by presenting to her mind the various sources of consolation opened up in the gospel, to allay the bitterness of her grief, and to produce sub- mission to the Divine will. Among those who were thus useful to her, we must not omit to mention Mr. John Carstairs, a man of strong sympathies, to whom it was always a pleasing duty to condole with, and comfort the suffering, the sorrowful, and the bereaved. Writing to her in reference to this dispensation, he says, “ He [God] hath given the highest security ‘ that all things’ (having a special look at all their afflictions, as the context, in the confession of most, if not all, judicious commentators putteth beyond debate) ‘ shall work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to his purpose where he hath, to speak so with reverence to his majesty, condescended some way to abridge his own sovereignty and absolute dominion, en- * Law's Memorials, p. 10. t Sir George M'Kenzie, one of his counsel, having told him, a little before his death, that it was believed he was a coward, and would die timorously, he replied that he would not die as a Roman braving death, but that he would die as a Chris- tian, without being affrighted. In proof of his mental tranquillity on the scaffold, it may be stated that he addressed the spectators without the least apparent agita- tion, using his ordinary gestures ; and that his physician, who touched his pulse, found it beating at the usual rate, calm and strong. — Sir George M‘Kenzie’s Mem- oirs of the Affairs of Scotland, p. 47. Burnet's Own Times, vol. i., p. 179. 100 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. gaging himself by covenant, that though he may do what he will, yet he shall will to do nothing but what shall be for his people’s good ; so that in all his dispensations toward them, his absolute dominion and his good will shall be commensurable and of equal extent, the one of them never to be stretched one hair’s breadth beyond the other. And even in the most dark, involved, intri- cate, abstruse, and mysterious providences wherein they can read and take up least of his mind, and wherein he (seeming to walk either in the greatest absoluteness of his dominion, or in the sharp- est severity of his justice) refuseth to give a particular account of his matters and motions, he hath wonderfully stooped and con- descended to give this general, sweetly satisfactory account, that they shall work for good, even their spiritual good and profit, to the purging of sin, and their further participation of his holiness.”* The same writer further says to her, “ What possible loss or want is it that can not be made up in Him, who is God all-suffi- cient, and in whom, whatever is desirable and excellent among the creatures, is to be found in an eminently transcendant and infinitely more excellent way ; and from whom, as the inexhaust- ibly full fountain, and incomprehensibly vast, immense, storeless, boundless, and bottomless ocean of all delightful, desirable, im- aginable, and possible perfections, the small drops, and little riv- ulets of seeming and painted perfections, scattered among the creatures, issue forth. ”t Not much longer than a year after the execution of the mar- quis, she met with another trial in her eldest son. Lord Lorn, who, like his father, was tried before the Scottish parliament, and condemned to be beheaded, but the sentence was not exe- cuted.:|: * Carstair’s Dedication of Mr. James Durham’s Posthumous Treatise on the Ten Commandments “ to the right honorable, truly noble, and renownedly religious lady, my lady marchioness of Argyll.” In this dedication, Carstairs also says, “ Madam, being fully persuaded that this savory, sound, solid, soul-searching, and soul-settling treatise will be acceptable to and improved by your ladyship, for furtherance of this your spiritual good and advantage, beyond what it will be to and by most others, I find no need of any long consultation with myself to whom to address its dedica- tion, you having, in my poor esteem, on many accounts, the deserved preference of many (to say no more) ladies of honor now living ; and since, withal, I nothing doubt, had the precious and now perfected author been alive, and minded the pub- lication of it with a dedication to any noble lady, yourself would have been the per- son ; of whom, I know, he had'a high esteem, having himself, before his death, sig- nilied his purpose of dedicating his piece on the Canticles to your ladyship’s noble, and much noted sister-in-law, my lady viscountess of Kenmure. It needs no epis- tles of commendation to you, who was so thoroughly acquainted with its author ; the readingof it will abundantly commend itself, and as a piece, though posthumous, of his work, commend him in the gates.” t Carstair’s Dedication of Mr. James Durham’s Posthumous Treatise on the Ten Commandments. t See Appendix, No. III. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 101 It may be proper here to say something concerning the worldly circumstances of the marchioness on her becoming a widow. A little before going out to the place of execution, the marquis wrote and subscribed a letter to the king, in which he casts the deso- late condition of his poor wife and family upon his majesty’s royal favor ; “ for,” says he, “ whatever may be your majesty’s displeasure against myself, these, I hope, have not done anything to procure your majesty’s indignation. And since that family have had the honor to be faithful subjects and serviceable to your royal progenitors, I humbly beg my faults may not extinguish the last- ing merit and memory of those who have given so many signal proofs of constant loyalty for many generations. Orphans and widows, by special prerogative and command from God, are put under your protection and defence, that you suffer them not to be wronged,”* But notwithstanding this letter, there is reason to believe that had it been left entirely to Charles himself, who cared nothing about orphans and widows, the marchioness and her fatherless children would have remained in poverty, and de- pendent upon the bounty of others ; while Middleton would have been revelling on the rental of their estates. Lauderdale, how- ever, whose lady’s niece, as has been observed before,! was the wife of Lord Lorn, the eldest son of Argyll, succeeded in obtaining for the noble widow and her family their rightful property. A writer on that period, speaking of the condemnation, forfeiture, and execution, of the marquis, says : “Nor could all the great power and interest which the duke of Lauderdale had at court ward off this terrible blow, though he procured a gift of the forfeiture from his majesty to the earl of Argyll and his creditors, to be applied in the following manner: 1. Fifteen thousand pounds of ftee yearly rent was granted to the earl himself. 2. Allowance was made for payment of mortgages or proper v/ad- setts. 3. For such debts as were owing by the earl himself, or for which he was bound jointly with his father. 4. For my lady marchioness’s provision by her marriage settlement, and for the portions of the younger children of the family ; and the remain- der of the estate w^s appointed to be equally divided among the late marquis’s children.”! The marchioness of Argyll was thus placed in such circum- stances as rendered her independent, and put it in her power to exercise liberality to others to a considerable extent. * Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 154. t See p. 79. t Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheill, by Mr. John Drummond, pp. 167 170, 195. 9 * 102 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT, She survived the marquis nearly seventeen years, preserving during that period both the form and spirit of widowhood. Ta- king up her residence at Roseneath, and living for the most part in retirement, she spent the remainder of her days in devotion and good works, conducting her family on the strictest princi- ples of religion, attending the public and private means of grace with great regularity, ministering to the necessities of the dis- eased, the poor, and the persecuted, with affectionate liberality, bearing all the afflictions which befell her with exemplary pa- tience, and giving evidence by her whole deportment that she was under the influence of pure and undefiled religion. We are furnished with an account of the manner in which her widowhood was spent, by Mr. Neil Gillies, indulged minister of the parish in which she resided,* in a letter to a friend after her death. The chief design of the letter is to give some account of the circumstances connected with her last illness ; but it is pre- ceded by the statement of a few facts relating to her life. After observing that his purpose was not to give any large account of the Lord’s dealing with this lady, whom he designates the “ truly noble and worthy, now glorified lady marchioness of Argyll,” in * Mr. Neil Gillies had become indulged minister of Roseneath previous to the year 1679. He was afterward removed to Cardross, upon a petition of the heritors and inhabitants of that parish to the privy council. — (Wod row's History, vol. hi., pp. 24, 156.) He continued in Cardross till 1690, when he was translated to the inner high church of Glasgow. In their reasons for his translation, the people of Glasgow urge his peculiar fitness on these grounds : “ 1. The acceptableness of his ministerial gifts to the people here, who have often heard him. 2. His converse since he left the college, these thirty years past, has been not only with the best but also the great- est, and those in most public employments, in both this kingdom and England, and so he must be more fit for such a public place as this. 3. His prudence, patience, meekness, and healing temper, which the animosities and difficulties of this place call so loud for." They add, that “ upon the foresaid accounts, the late faithful, now glorified Mr. Rogers, who knew both him and this place so well, did move vigor- ously for him, while he lived ; and on his death-bed, and very near his end, being consulted by the eldership about his successor, did seriously recommend him as the fittest he could think upon." — (Wodrow MSS., vol. xxviii., 4to, No. 32.) Mr. Gil- lies died in 1701. He was a very serious and impressive preacher, as may be gath- ered from the two following anecdotes which Wodrow has preserved : “ One time Mrs. Luke heard him either preaching on these words, ‘ Good will to men,' or he cited them, and enlarged on them in a holy rapture; and was running out upon the infinite love and condescension in good will to men, and repeated it once or twice — ‘ Good will to men, and good will to me ! O how sweet is this !’ A woman long under distress, but serious, cried out. ‘ And to me also !' — and this was the beginning of her gracious outgate" (her deliverance from despondency). — Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. iv., p. 45. At another time, “ when he heard, betwixt sermons on a sabbath day, that Mr. Robert Langlands, about a year previous transported from the barony to Elgin of Moray, was dead ; after singing, when he began prayer, he said to this purpose : ‘ Lord, what wilt thou do with us ? It seems dhou art resolved to flit from among us, when thou art packing up some of thy best plenishing !' And tlie tears dropped down from his cheeks on Mr. Simon Kelly, minister at , then precentor, who relates this. It was in 1697 or 1698." — Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. ii. p. '336. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 103 lier last sickness, but only some brief hints, the writer goes on to say : “ Neither shall I stay to tell you before this what is so well known to all who knew or heard tell of her, how much the Lord had enabled her to bear many a heavy cross, through a long tract of time during her widowhood, besides what had passed the rest of her life, which seldom wanted some remarkable cross. Of her it might well be said that she had endured a sore, a tedious, and constant fight of afflictions (old ones continued and new ones fre- quently superadded), yet was she enabled to bear through with that faith, patience, submission, and Christian magnanimity, that were very visible, commendable, and exemplary, and (which I can not forget, being a thing that I often admired) such diligence and assiduity in following the duties of praying, reading, hearing, praise, all the acts of worship, a constant waiting upon all ordi- nances and duties, public and private, and even upon the weekly catechizing, at which she delighted to be present, and by which she confessed that she had ever profited much : all these she so attended that it was a rare thing to find her in an omission as to any of them. And as if a child under the inspection of a teacher, or one put to task (and indeed she did task herself), so did she follow and keep close to these duties, being conscious that she had One who stood over her head always, that was witness to all her ways, to whom she must ere long give an account of herself. “ The rest of her time she did spend in overseeing her chil- dren or grandchildren (of which there were still a number about her), and Christian entertainment of such as came to visit her, with such exemplary gravity and sobriety, and other good enter- tainment, as was much observed and commended ; and moreover, her cheerfully welcoming and helping such as came for help or advice for their bodily diseases. For this she was so famous, that they came frequently and in great numbers. Of such she never wearied, nor was dissatisfied with their coming, except in so far as they did disappoint themselves (as she in her humility deniedly expressed it) by putting such confidence in her skill, which she said was no skill ; yet the experience that so many had, of the Lord’s blessing, with good success, the advices and helps she gave brought so many to her, who seldom missed of the intent of their coming, and divers of them would have within some time returned to show what the Lord had done to them by her means, and to give her thanks, for which she was very thank- ful to Him who had so blessed what she did. And that she might be the more useful this way, she had always good store of medi- 104 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. caments beside her — many of them brought from the apotheca- ries, but most of them she caused make herself, never adventur- ing to give anything but what she knew was safe, and could do no hurt. “ Neither was she behind any in the generation for charity to the poor distressed, especially to such as were of the household of faith. Great numbers of poor people did flock to her ; nor could the coldest weather and most dangerous storms hinder them to come to her from afar, although they knew they were to pass over ferries (the place of her residence being surrounded with waters), and it was the observation of neighbors about that her being there brought multitudes on them ; but to these she was so liberal, as I need only say that I am persuaded she gave with as much Christian compassion as any, ‘ drawing out the soul to the hungry,’* &c., and that the receivers themselves were ofttimes astonished when they got so largely, as that in many miles they got not so much from all as from her alone, and it was the admi- ration of many how this could hold out with her ; but God blessed all. And when sometimes it was told her that many of those she gave to were but cheats and rogues (as indeed many of them were), she would freely answer : ‘ While we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, but especially to the household of faith,’ and that she gave what she gave to them, not as to cheats, but as to needy persons ; and that if she gave with a single eye she would be accepted, whatever they were, and whateA^er use they made of what she gave ;t yet did she little regard profane, randy beggars, though even these still got something by her order ; and when she met with any whom she had ground to believe were of the household of faith, to these she was most liberal, and gave them with such compassion and kindness as did show what a living member of Christ’s body she was. “ While she was daily exercised for most part as I have now hinted, she did not trouble herself with household aflairs (except in causing provide things necessary for housekeeping), having * Isaiah Iviii. 10. t It is obvious that this does not mean that she intended by her liberality to en- courage the idle, who, if willing, might have supported themselves, or to furnish the vicious with the means of dissipation ; but simply, that when she saw men in mis- ery, she felt herself bound to relieve them, although she could not in every case pre- vent them from making a bad use of what she gave. Liberality ought, no doubt, to be exercised with discretion as well as with kindness — an important principle to be observed in this department of well-doing : for to give without reflection, or capri- ciously, may do more harm than good — may make the idle still more indolent, and the vicious still more depraved, and may thus increase ijvretchedness in the attempt to relieve it. But still, even the profligate and abandoned, when in misery, must not be left to perish. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 105 laid over these matters entirely on some whom she trusted, of whose skill and fidelity she had long experience ; and her being exonered of this care and burden she often acknowledged as a great ease to her, and a great help to her, being taken up with things of another nature, which was her main work and de- light.”* Such is the description given of the ornamental character of this lady, by a contemporary who knew her well. Baptized into the spirit of Jesus Christ, who went about doing good, she was not only attentive to the duties of personal piety, but unwearied in the performance of the great duties of charity and benevolence. “ When the ear heard her, then it blessed her ; and when the eye saw her, it gave witness to her ; because she delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon her ; and she caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.” Imita- ting Him who ‘‘ maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain, on the just and on the unjust,” she made it her business to minister to the welfare of even the undeserv- ing. Such was the temper and conduct inspired by the religion which she professed, and such was the spirit of the religion which Charles and his government misrepresented as fanaticism, sedition, rebellion, and labored, by the violence of persecution, to crush and extinguish. It thus appeared how eminently instrumental all the afflictive events which had befallen this noble widow had been in promo- ting her spiritual improvement. Accompanied by the Divine blessing, they were in her case productive of those happy fruits, which, left to themselves, they will never naturally produce. Another minister, Mr. John Carstairs, who was also personally acquainted with her, addressing her only four years previous to her death, bears testimony in like manner to the distinguished progress she had made in Christian excellence, through the in- fluence of adverse dispensations. In the document from which we have before quoted, f after observing that the King of Saints has imposed upon every cross that his people meet with, not excepting (to say so) vessels of the greatest burden of affliction that sail up and down the sands, as it were, of the troublesome sea of this world, the toll and custom of some spiritual good to * W odrow MSS., vol. xxvii., 4to, No. 27. This document is in the handwriting of Mr. Gillies, as appears from comparing it with another paper, which Wodrow marks as in the handwriting of that minister. t Carstairs’ Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to Durham’s Posthumous Exposition of the Ten Commandments. 106 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. be paid to them,” and after giving expression to a wish ‘‘ that all the graciously sincere lovers of God, and the effectually called according to his purpose, might be persuaded and prevailed with, to set themselves down at the receipt of these customs from the many crosses and afflictions that come in their way, with a fixed reso- lution to suffer none of them to pass without paying the custom imposed by the King,” Carstairs goes on to say : “ It is now, no- ble madam, a long time, not far from toward thirty years (what- ever was before), since your ladyship was known by some to be helped, through grace, seriously to sit down at the receipt of these customs from the cross and afflicting dispensations which then occurred to you, whereby ye did observably improve, better and increase your spiritual stock and state, some way to the ad- miration of standers-by ; and since that time, for most part of it, you have been, in the holy providence of God, tried with a tract of tribulations, each of them more trying than another, and some of them that, I think (as once the blest author of this treatise, on occasion of a sad and surprising stroke, the removal of the desire of his eyes, his gracious and faithful wife, after a whiles silence, with much gravity and great composure of spirit, said, ‘ Who could persuade me to believe that this is good if God had not said it r) if all the world had said and sworn it, they could very hardly, if at all, have persuaded you to believe that they were good. But since God, that can not lie, hath said it, there is no room left to debate or doubt of it : let be to deny it. And if your ladyship (as I hope you have) hath been all this while gathering up the customs of spiritual good and gain upon these many, va- rious, and great tribulations, wherewith the Lord, no doubt in a blessed design of singular good to you, hath thought fit to exer- cise you beyond most persons living, at least of your noble sta- tion and extraction, oh, what a vast stock and treasure of rich and soul-enriching precious experiences of the good and profit of all these afflictions and tribulations, must you needs have lying by you !” He further says : “ I could, from my own particular, certain knowledge and observation, long ago and of late (having had the honor and happiness to be often in your company, and at some of the lowest ebbs of your outward prosperity), and from the knowledge of others more knowing and observing than I, say more of your rich incomes of gain and advantage, of your im- provements, of the countervailings of your damage, and of the upmakings of all your losses this way, than either my fear of incurring the construction of a flatterer with such as do not know you as I do, will permit ; or your Christian modesty, sobriety, MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 107 and self-denial, will admit. And to undertake to say all that might truly, and without complimenting, be said to this purpose, would be thought by your ladyship as far below you to crave or expect, as it would be above me suitably to perform.” In private intercourse, the conversation of the marchioness was both edifying and interesting. Her acquaintance with the Sacred Writings, and with the subordinate standards of the church of Scotland, enabled her to speak intelligently on ques- tions of theology, and she was able to give a pleasing account of events which had befallen her family, as well as of those which had befallen the church and nation, during the stirring period in which she had lived. ‘‘ I must not,” says Mr. Gillies, “ forget to tell that her acquaintance with the Scriptures, and with our Confession of Faith (the book which, next to the Bible, she was most versed in), did sufficiently witness how well she was stored with the knowledge of Divine mysteries ; and although she was no great reader of polemic divinity, yet when any head of con- troversy fell to be spoken of in her presence, she would, upon the sudden, from the Bible and Confession, adduce such allega- tions and testimonies as were apposite to the things then spoken of, so that the most judicious that were about her were often and much edified by her. She was also well able* to give a good ac- count of things that had passed during the late troubles, and many remarkable passages of Providence that fell out in these times, toward the church and kingdom, and toward her own family, to the great satisfaction of those that conversed with her.” It is to be regretted that neither she herself, nor Mr. Gillies, has chron- icled these “ remarkable passages.” The marchioness lived to a considerably advanced age. In her last illness she exhibited the same pious spirit with which she was animated during her past life, and her latter end was peace. Only a few facts, however, relating to her death-bed scene, and the protracted sickness preceding it, have been pre- served, and these we shall give in the words of Mr. Gillies, by whom they have been recorded. “ Her disease,” says he, “ of which she died, commenced in April, 1677 , and continued du- ring the period of eleven months, till her departure. Yet from April till November she kept her feet, always waiting on duties in public and private, as she was wont to do, bearing the burden of her disease so patiently that none but those that were nearest her and most intimate with her could almost know that anything ailed her. She, however, had death still in view, and her strength was still diminishing gradually till November, at which time 108 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. there was the accession of a great cold to her former disease, which forced her to take bed, November 11th. After some days she got up again, having recovered from the effects of that cold ; but her old disease still continued and increased, so that from that time forth she never went out of her chamber to the gallery, where she used to appear in public. She therefore appointed the daily worship to be performed in her chamber, where also was performed the sabbath-day’s work and week-day’s sermon, admit- ting there all that pleased to come, as she had done in the gal- lery, never shutting her gates or doors upon any all these times, whatever might be the hazard. During this time she contracted a great cold in the left side of her head, which was caused by the leaving a window open to help the chimney that does not vent well when the wind is at east. This cold brought that side of her head to such a distemper as never left her, and did not a little molest her, while her main sickness did still increase, yet with- out impairing her judgment, memory, or sense (which were fresh and entire almost unto the last), and without pain or heart sick- ness, which was a great wonder to herself, and oft acknowledged as God’s great mercy to her in his loosing the pins of her taber- nacle so gently, that she was yet able to attend and go about any ordinary duty ; fox' all this while she waited on every duty, most part sitting up (and but seldom lying) on her couch in the cham- ber, going to bed and rising almost at the ordinary times as when in health, continuing to join in all acts of worship, and holding out, in the sabbath-day’s work, without wearying, to the admira- tion of all who saw her weakness, and to her own admiration. And although a heavy disease,” * Here Mr. Gillies’s account of her last sickness and death ab- ruptly stops. We, however, gather a few facts respecting the subsequent stages of her trouble, from a long poetical tribute to her memory, of his composition, embodying the particulars con- tained in his prose account of her, the most of which we have extracted, and carrying the narrative down to the moment in which she expired. From this poem we learn, that after this she was afflicted with severe and tedious bodily distress, which she bore with a patience and meekness that beautifully harmonized with the bright exemplifications she had given of these graces under the multiplied afflictions of her life. We also learn from it, that after this she suffered severe mental distress. Satan has often been permitted to disturb the peace of the most eminent of God’s people on their death-beds, and by setting their sins, as it * Wodrow MSS., vol. xxvii., 4to., No. 27. MARCHIONESS OF ARGYLL. 109 were, in array before them, he has tempted them to yield to the despairing imagination, that it is presumptuous for them to expect forgiveness and salvation from a God of infinite purity and jus- tice. Such was the temptation with which this pious lady was assailed in the prospect of eternity. But looking away from ev- erything about herself, and trusting to the righteousness of Christ as the only foundation of her hope of eternal life, she was at last relieved ; and becoming victorious over temptation and fear, she said, “ O my ease is great ; great, great is my ease.” After this she again endured severe and protracted inward bodily agony. These agonies, says Mr. Gillies, can hardly be “ set forth” but as they “ expressed her worth, and how much her Savior had trusted to the grace which he had strongly planted in her noble heart.” Bystanders were astonished to see one who had suffered so much during life, tried so severely by her heavenly Father to the last. But the days of her mourning were now near an end. Her strength gradually sunk, and on the 13th of March, 1678, after a long experience of the trials and vicissitudes of human life, she breathed out her spirit into the hands of her God and Savior, with the greatest peace and tranquillity, in the sixty- eighth year of her age, bearing testimony with her dying breath to the goodness of the Lord.* The Wodrow MSS., besides Mr. Gillies’s poem from which these particulars are drawn, contain another by a different hand, but it is too long to be here inserted, nor has it any claim to poetical merit. It commemorates her as distinguished by a “ strong heart, a sound judgment, an active liberal hand,” and ‘‘ a mind most noble.” It celebrates the attrac- tions of her person, as well as her “ parts, virtues, graces,” and her rare exemplary character as ‘‘ a friend, sister, consort, and mother ;” and pronounces her “ a public blessing, a universal good.” The following lines may be quoted as a specimen : — “ And let us never lose the memory Of that rich pattern thou wast seen to be To great and small, he who thy life should view Saw clear it did the Bible transcript shew, And who thy steps will follow hard behind The way to endless bliss is sure to find. “ You must acknowledge here a light, A shining star quite carried from our sight, Never again t’ adorn our sphere, whose rays, While here it shone with us, made gladsome days, Glad were our hearts ; how many warmed by thee, Esteemed thy presence a felicity. But thou wilt yet once more return again, As one of the Redeemer's glorious train.” f * Wodrow MSS., vol. xxvii., folio, No. 80 . 10 t Ibid. no THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. These notices of the marchioness of Argyll’s character we can not conclude more appropriately than in the words of Mr. Gil- lies, who has summed it up in. a sentence or two. “ Her life,” says he, “ is well known to have been filled with godliness, righ- teousness, sobriety, charity, and all Christian virtues, with a con- stant adherence to the truths and ways of God, without any fall or stain upon any part of her life. Yea, which is admirable, she lived to the age of sixty-eight, without ever being slurred through her whole life with any scandal or crime ; which the most blame- less saints are liable to, and have been sorely afflicted with ; yet did none of the worst of her enemies ever adventure to asperse her with any shameful thing, nor did they ever tax her with any- thing but her principles and avowed profession and practice, her constant open adherence to which was her glory.” How few the number over whose graves such a high encomium can with truth be pronounced ! How few, through their whole life, from youth to advanced age, have so conspicuously displayed the Christian virtues, and kept themselves so unspotted from the defilements of the world, as that their greatest enemies could find nothing against them except in the matter of their God ! Besides her eldest daughter, Lady Anne, and her eldest son, Archibald, ninth earl of Argyll, formerly noticed, the marchioness had issue to the marquis : 1. Lord Neil Campbell of Armaddie, who, on his brother’s invasion, was committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh. 2. Lady Jean, who was married to Rob- ert Kerr, first marquis of Lothian, to whom she had ten children. 3. Lady Mary, who was married, first at Roseneath, on the 22d of September, 1657, to George, sixth earl of Caithness, by whom she had no issue ; and who, after his death, was married on the 7th of April, 1678, to Sir John Campbell, first earl of Breadal- bane,* to whom she had one son. These are all her children by the marquis enumerated in Douglas’s Peerage ;t but besides these, she had to him a daughter named Lady Isabella, who resided with her sister, the countess of Caithness, and who is some- times mentioned in the epistolary correspondence of that lady.:j: * Douglas's Peerage, vol. i., p. 298. t Vol. i., p. 100. t Law’s Memorials, note by the Editor, p. 10. MRS. JAMES GUTHRIE. Ill MRS. JAMES GUTHRIE, MRS. JAMES DURHAM, AND MRS. JOHN CARSTAIRS. We shall here cluster together some notices of three excellent women, ministers’ wives, who lived during the persecution — Jane Ramsay, the widow of Mr. James Guthrie, who suffered martyrdom in 1661 ; Margaret Mure, the widow of Mr. James Durham, one of the ministers of the high church, Glasgow ; and Janet Mure, wife of Mr. John Carstairs, also minister of the high church, Glasgow. Many facts or incidents of their lives have not indeed been spared by the mouldering hand of time ; but even the few which remain are not without interest, particularly when we consider the relation in which these ladies stood to three of the most eminent men who adorned the church of Scotland dur- ing the seventeenth century, by the lustre of their talents, the fervor of their piety, and their unswerving faithfulness to the cause of God. These women were in every respect suitable compan- ions for the eminent men to whom they were united. Distin- guished for enlightened and ardent piety, they proved main-springs of encouragement and strength to them in the work of the Lord, by their conversation, their demeanor and counsel ; and having taken up the cross, instead of tempting them to unfaithfulness to conscience, when trials and difficulties in doing the will of God arose, they encouraged them to steadfastness and resolution, exhibiting that humility, patience, and self-sacrifice, which con- stitute the genuine spirit of the cross. All of them suffered more or less in the cause of presbytery, and they thanked God that “ unto them it was given in the behalf of Christ, not only to be- lieve on him, but also to suffer for his sake.” Mrs. James Guthrie was more severely tried than the other two. She was the second lady, whom the prelatic persecution made a widow,* Mr. Guthrie having been condemned by the parliament, to be hanged at the cross of Edinburgh as a traitor, on the 1st of June, 1661, and his head thereafter to be struck off and affixed on the Nether Bow; which sentence was executed in all its parts. The grounds on which he was condemned, were his owning the “ Western Remonstrance,” “ The Causes of God’s Wrath,” &;c. ; but Middleton, who had the chief hand in urging on the proceedings, was actuated by personal malice The marchioness of Argyll was the first. 112 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT toward Guthrie, who, in 1650, had carried, in the commission of the church, a motion for his excommunication, and who, by ap- pointment of the commission, had publicly pronounced the sen- tence in his own church at Sterling. Oh that occasion Mrs. Guthrie exhibited, what was the prevalent governing principle of her life, that strict conscientiousness, which, laying conse- quences out of view, looks only to the call of duty. When on the morning of the sabbath, on which Mr. Guthrie was to pro- nounce the sentence against Middleton, a messenger from the king, or, according to some, from a nobleman, arrived at his house, just as he was about to go to church, desiring him to delay pro- nouncing it, she said to him, on observing him perplexed, “ My heart, what the Lord gives you light and clearness to do, that do, without giving a positive answer to the messenger.” The high Christian character of this lady is attested in the farewell letter which Mr. Guthrie addressed to her from his prison, on the day on which he was executed. This letter is interesting, both as a relict of a dying martyr, and as a memorial of the lowly piety and supreme devotion to duty, which characterized the person to whom it is affectionately written. It also indicates the sources of comfort suggested to her mind, in her trying cir- cumstances. It is as follows : — “ My Heart : Being within a few hours to lay down my life for the testimony of Jesus Christ, I do send these few lines as the last obedience of unfeigned and spotless affection which I bear unto you, not only as one flesh, but as a member with me of that blessed mystical body of the Lord ; for I trust you are, and that God who hath begun his good work in you, will also perfect it and bring it to an end, and give you life and salvation. Whatever may be your infirmities and weakness, yet the grace of God shall be sufficient for you, and his strength shall be per- fected in your weakness. To me you have been a very kind and faithful yoke-fellow, and not a hinderer but a helper in the work of the Lord. I do bear you this testimony as all the rec- ompense I can now leave you with ; — In all the trials I have met with in the work of the ministry these twenty years past, which have not been few, and that from aggressors of many sorts, upon the right hand and upon the left, you were never a tempter of me to depart away from the living God, and from the way of my duty to comply with an evil course, or to hearken to the counsels of flesh and blood, for avoiding the cross, and for gaining the profit and preferment of a present world. You have MRS. JAMES GUTHRIE. 113 wrought much with your hands for furnishing bread to me and to my children, and was always willing that 1 should show hos- pitality, especially to those that bore the image of God. These things I mention not to puff you up, but to encourage you under your present affliction and distress, being persuaded that God will have regard unto you and unto the children of my body, which I leave unto your care, that they may be bred up in the knowledge of the Lord. Let not your wants and weaknesses discourage you : there is power, riches, and abundance with God, both as to the things of the body and things of the soul ; and he will supply all your wants and carry you through. It is like to be a most trying time, but cleave you to God and keep his way, without casting away your confidence ; fear not to be drowned in the depths of the troubles that may attend this land ; God will hide you under his shadow, and keep you in the hollow of his hand. Be sober and of a meek spirit ; strive not with Providence, but be subject to him who is the Father of spirits. Decline not the cross, but embrace it as your own. Love all that love the Lord, and delight in their fellowship. Give yourself unto prayer, and be diligent in reading the Holy Scriptures. Wait on the ordinances, and have them in great esteem as the appointed means of God for your salvation. Join the exercise of piety and repentance together, and manifest your faith in the fruits of sin- cere obedience, and of a gospel conversation. Value your con- science above your skin. Be not solicitous, although you know not wherewith to clothe you and your children, or wherewith to dine ; God’s providences and promises are a true, rich, and nev- er-failing portion. Jesus Christ be all your salvation and all your desire! You, I recommend unto him, and him unto you. My Heart ! I recommend you to the eternal love of Jesus Christ. I am helped of God, and hope I shall be helped to the end. Pray for me while I am here, and praise with me hereafter. God be with you ! I am yours, “ James Guthrie. “ Edinburgh Tolbooth, June 1, 1661.” This letter was calculated to arm Mrs. Guthrie’s mind with fortitude and submission under the cruel and ignominious death of her husband. Other considerations would conspire in bring- ing into exercise the same Christian graces. Though con- demned as a traitor, he had committed nothing worthy of death, but fell a martyr for keeping the commandment of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. He encountered death with an unshrinking courage, which ranks with that of the most 10 ^ 114 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. heroic of prophets and apostles. It was an alleviating circum- stance, too, to reflect that his self-devotion in the cause of Christ procured for him, as it deserved, the affection, honor, and admi- ration of the wise and good, who regarded his death as a judicial murder. Nor were the religious ladies of that time wanting in paying to him the tribute of their respectful and admiring hom- age.* Though these considerations were fitted to mitigate her sorrow, yet the tragedy of his death, in all its appalling circum- stances, would tend at first to overpower the mind, and to exclude from it reflection on such alleviating topics. Mrs. Guthrie and her children were left in poor circumstances. But God, who in his providence exercises a special care over the fatherless children and widows of his martyred servants, raised up for them kind friends. Among others. Sir George Maxwell, of Pollock, took a particular interest in their temporal welfare. The following anecdote is highly honorable to the liberality of that benevolent gentleman, and interesting as illus- trating the unexpected and remarkable way in which God has sometimes supplied the wants of the widows and orphans of his departed saints in their distress. “ I am assured,” says Wodrow, “ by a good hand that had it from Mr. George Lang, who was employed, that Sir George Maxwell of Pollock, a little after Mr. Guthrie’s execution, hearing his relict was in want, called for Mr. George Lang, his chaplain, and told him that he was mighty * In proof of this, the following instance may be given. After Guthrie had been executed, his headless corpse was put into a coffin and carried to the old kirk aisle, to be prepared for interment, by several devout ladies of quality who had tendered their friendly services. The dressing of the dead is always solemn, but the per- formance of this duty to the mortal remains of an honored martyr who has sealed the truths of God with his blood, is associated with feelings of profound veneration. It was so on the present occasion — some of the ladies who were so engaged, dipped their napkins in the blood that flowed from Guthrie’s mangled body. Sir Archibald Primrose, lord register, observing what they did, asked them their reason for so doing, and charged them with imitating the superstition of the papists, who collect and worship the relicts of saints. No,” said one of them, “ we are not actuated by superstitious motives ; we do not intend to worship the martyr s blood, but when we go to the throne of grace we will hold up that blood to God, that it may cry for vengeance on those who have most cruelly shed it.” During the performance of their solemn offices, a respectable young gentleman, unknown at the time to any of them, but afterward discovered to be Mr. George Stirling, who became an eminent surgeon in Edinburgh, came in with a vial of fragrant ointment, and, without utter- ing a word, poured upon the corpse the ointment, which diffused through the whole building a most delightful odor. God bless you, sir,” exclaimed one of the ladies, “ for this labor of love which you have shown to the slain body of a servant of Jesus Christ” Bowing respectfully to the ladies, he silently retired. “Janet Bruce,” says Wodrow, “ who was Dr. Sir Thomas Burnet’s lady, if I have not forgotten, was one of these gentlewomen that put their napkins in Mr. Guthrie’s blood.” — W odrow’s Analecta, vol. iii., p. 103. M‘Crie's Sketches of Scottish Church History, 2d edition, p. 396. MRS. JAMES GUTHRIE. 115 uneasy since lie had heard Mrs. Guthrie was in straits, and he had little money by him, but took out a purse of gold, most of it old Scots coins, of which he was very curious, and told him he would rather have sent, if he had had it by him, twice the value of it in ordinary money, but he could not and would not delay, and gave it him, and sent him in to Edinburgh express with it and a letter to Mrs. Guthrie. It was to the value of five hundred or six hundred merks.* Mr. Lang went in by Glasgow and borrowed five or six hundred merks, and left the gold in pledge, carried in and delivered the money to Mrs. Guthrie.”! In the beginning of the year 1666, Mrs. Guthrie was put to trouble on account of a book entitled “ An Apologetical Relation of the Particular Sufferings of the Faithful Ministers and Profes- sors of the Church of Scotland since August, 1660,” which was written by Mr. John Brown, minister of Wamphray at the Resto- ration, and who, on being banished his majesty’s dominions for faithfully adhering to his principles, took refuge in Holland. This able work was printed in Holland, in 1665, and a number of copies were sent over to this country. The government being informed of the character of the book, and of its being circulated in various parts of the kingdom, and having, upon perusing it themselves, found it, to use their own language, “ to be full of seditious, treasonable, and rebellious principles, contrived of purpose, to traduce the king’s authority and government, the pro - ceedings of the late parliament, and the king’s privy council,” they resolved to put it down. As it vindicates at length the marquis of Argyll and Mr. James Guthrie, the first victims who^ after the Restoration, were immolated at the shrine of the Moloch of personal revenge and arbitrary power, and exposes the illegal- ity, injustice and cruelty of the proceedings of the government against them, it was natural that Mrs. Guthrie should procure a copy of the book. The copy she had got being found in her house, probably when it was searched for some of the covenant- ers — such persons, from her relation to Mr. Guthrie, and from her known character, being suspected of resorting to or taking shelter under her roof — she and her daughter, Sophia Guthrie, were brought before the privy council on the 8th of February, 1666. On appearing before them they were required to declare upon oath, what they knew as to the author of the book, and to discover from whom they had received it. This they refused to * That is, between X28, and X33 sterling. t Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. i., p. 305. Mr. Lang had no authority to pledge the gold coins, but knowing the value which Sir George Maxwell set upon them, he did so that they might be recovered when Sir George got a supply of money. 116 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. do, upon which the council sentenced them both to be sent to Shetland, there to be confined during the council’s pleasure, and to be kept close prisoners till they should be transported to the place of their banishment. These proceedings were not only harsh, but illegal. No law had as yet been published against the “ Apologetical Relation.” It was only on the day on w;hich this sentence was passed upon Mrs. Guthrie and her daughter that the council emitted their proclamation against it, ordaining that, upon the 14th of February instant, it should be publicly burned on the Fligh street of Edinburgh, near to the market cross, by the hand of the hangman, and that all possessing it resident on the south of the Tay, should deliver the same to the sheriffs of the respective shires or their deputies, to be by them transmitted to the clerk of the privy council not later than the last day of February instant, and those on the north of the Tay not later than the 21st of March next, under the penalty of two thousand pounds Scots money. It is obvious, then, that as at the time when the ‘‘ Apologetical Relation was discovered in Mrs. Guthrie’s house, there was no law in existence forbidding any to have it, its being found in her possession was no crime against any existing stat- ute, and that consequently the sentence pronounced against her and her daughter was arbitrary and illegal. “ Where no law is, there is no transgression.” They lay in prison till the next meeting of the council, which was on the 2d of March. To that meeting they presented a petition praying that their confinement might be altered to some place upon the Continent, probably intending, should they be allowed, to remove to Holland, which, from the number of their expatriated countrymen resident there, as well as from the char- acter of the country itself, though it is not one of the best of climates, they would have felt a more eligible place of banishment than so remote, solitary, cold, and unhealthy a part of the world as Shetland. The council referred their petition to his majesty’s commissioner, with power to do in the matter as he should find cause.* What punishment the commissioner inflicted upon them we are not directly informed. Mrs. Guthrie, however, was banished for some years from Edinburgh. This appears from a petition which she presented to the privy council about the beginning of January, 1669, “ showing that her only son was in Edinburgh under a sad distemper, to the hazard of his life, and therefore supplicating that, notwithstanding her confinement, she might be ** Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 7. MRS. JAMES GUTHRIE. 117 licensed for some time to come to Edinburgh and wait upon her son.” The council, at their meeting of the 15th of January, upon consideration of this petition, and of a testimonial sub- scribed by Dr. Burnet, which was at the same time presented, allow the petitioner to come to Edinburgh, and to reside therein until the fifteenth day of February next, to the effect above men- tioned.”’^ Here we lose sight of Mrs. Guthrie in the history of the per- secution ; nor have we discovered how long she lived subse- quently to this period. We shall therefore close this sketch with a brief notice of her only son referred to above, whose name was William. At the time of his father’s death he was a child not more than four or five years old. Yearning over him with all the affection of a parent’s heart, Guthrie, in a last interview, took him upon his knee, and gave him such religious advices as were suited to his infant mind. “ Willie,” said he, among other things, “ though your comrades should tell you, and cast it up to you, that your father was hanged, think not shame of it, for it is upon a good cause.” But William was so young as not to be aware of the tragic fate of his father, and as scarcely to be restrained from playing in the streets on the very day of his father’s execution. When, however, he grew up to boyhood, he became thoughtful and serious. While other boys were enjoying their youthful sports, William was to be seen at the Nether Bow Port, where the head of his dear father was fixed on a spike, a monument of the martyr’s heroism and of the government’s injustice ; and there looking up with riveted gaze to the manly countenance, the trage- dy of his father’s execution was presented to his imagination as if in all its living reality. Often would he return to the spot and gaze upon the spectacle, as if he could never become weary of gazing upon it ; and, on returning home to his mother, when she inquired where he had been, his usual reply was, “ I have been seeing my father’s head.” He remembered or was told his fa- ther’s last advices to him ; he read his father’s last speech from the scaffold, a copy of which the martyr subscribed and sealed, and gave to his friends, to be kept for his son until he became older ; and the mantle of his father seemed to have fallen upon him. As he grew up, his habits of seriousness increased — he was much employed in meditation, study, and prayer. f Having * Register of Acts of Privy Council. t Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. iii., p. 103. Life of Guthrie, in Free Church Publica- 118 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. devoted himself to the work of the ministry, he prosecuted the preparatory studies with success, and gave indications of much future usefulness ; but, being always of a delicate constitution, he was cut off when about to receive license as a preacher of the gospel. By his early death his mother’s hopes of seeing him useful in the church below were disappointed. It was not, how- ever, the will of God that he should be employed in his service on earth, and she doubtless bowed with submission to the sover- eign and wise determination of the Supreme Ruler of all things, finding in this a new influence to attract her to heaven, and a new motive to quicken her diligence in making preparation for it. Mrs. James Durham, whose maiden name was Margaret Mure, was the fourth daughter of William Mure, Esq., of Glan- derston, by his first wife Jean Blair, daughter of a gentleman of that name in the west.* She was born August 26, 1618. En- joying the inestimable blessing of religious parents, who both set before her a good example, and trained her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, she became at an early period of life the subject of the saving work of the Holy Spirit. Educated too in the strictest principles of presbytery, of which her father was a warm supporter, she continued through life to maintain, them, in honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report. She v/as married first to the famous Mr. Zachary Boyd, minister of the Barony church of Glasgow, and next to the still more cele- brated Mr. James Durham, as his second wife. But she became a widow a second time in 1658, Durham having died on the 25th of June that year, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. She sur- vived him more than thirty years, living during that long period in a state of widowhood. Some time after his death, she appears to have changed the place of her residence to Edinburgh. At * Besides Mrs. Darham and a daughter, Jean, who died in infancy, Mr. Mure of Glanderston had, by his first wife, other two daughters — Ursula, who was married to William Ralston of that ilk, and Jean, who was married to Mr. James Hamilton of Hallcraigs, a nephew of Lord Claneboy : and by his second wife, Jean Hamilton, sister to Lord Viscount Claneboy, he had Janet, to be next noticed, who was mar- ried to Mr. .John Carstairs; Elizabeth, who was married to Alexander Dunlop, min- ister of Paisley ; and Agnes, who was married to William Porterfield of Quarrelton. All these ladies were eminent for piety in their day. For some notices of Mrs. Ralston, see Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. hi., pp. 18, 20; and Mr. John Carstairs' Let- ters, pp. 159-161. In Rutherfoi-d’s Letters, White and Kennedy’s edition, published 1848, there is a letter of Rutherford’s to this lady, printed for the first time (p. 716). Elizabeth, the wife of Mr. Dunlop, for being present at a house conventicle in Ed inburgh, in November, 1676, was imprisoned by order of the privy council, till she found caution, under a thousand merks, to remove from the town of Edinburgh, and six miles around it. — Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 335. MRS. JAMES DURHAM. 119 least she was residing there in 1666,* and subsequently during the period of the persecution. After Mr. Durham’s death, she carefully preserved his manu- script lectures and sermons, with a view to their being published for general usefulness, and many of them were actually published. Among these may be mentioned his “ Exposition of the Song of Solomon,” to which she has prefixed an epistle dedicatory, signed and apparently written by herself, to the viscountess of Kenmure ; and his “Treatise on the Ten Commandments.” This latter work, from its very nature, would be regarded with jealousy by a persecuting government, whose whole policy was in direct op- position to the law of God, and some difficulty was experienced when it was first printed, in obtaining permission to its being circulated in Scotland, there being then no such thing as the freedom of the press in our land. Having got it printed in Lon- don, Mrs. Durham presented a petition to the lords of the privy council, praying them to allow it to be imported from England and sold in Scotland. The council’s answer to her petition is embodied in the following act : “ Edinburgh, 4th of November, 1675. The lords of his majesty’s privy council having consid- ered a petition presented by Margaret Mure, relict of Mr. James Durham, late minister at Glasgow, do recommend to the bishop of Edinburgh to revise a book written by the petitioner’s hus- band, entitled ‘A Practical Exposition of the Ten Command- ments,’ which is already printed at London, and to report his opinion thereanent to the council, that thereafter they may give such order in favor of the petitioner concerning the said book as they shall think fit, and in the meantime discharge and prohibit all printers, stationers, and others, to reprint or import any copies of the said book, under the pain of confiscation of the same, and such other penalties as the council shall think fit to inflict, and appoint intimation to be made hereof to the stationers, printers, and others, to the effect foresaid.”t As might have been expected, Mrs. Durham adhered to the faithful ministers who, for nonconformity, had been ejected from their charges to make way for the establishment of prelacy ; and, maintaining the freedom of Christ’s embassadors to dispense the ordinances of the gospel, not only without licenses from the civil magistrate, but even when the civil magistrate has peremptorily ^ Mr. William Veitch, in his Memoirs (p. 38), states that when sent on a perilous mission to Edinburgh by the covenanters, previous to the battle of Pentland Hills, he intended to reside all night in the house of Mrs. Durham, which was in Bristo street. t Register of Acts of Privy Council. 120 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. discharged them to preach, baptize, or perform any of the duties of the ministerial office, she had too much principle and spirit not to act upon these sentiments. She was accordingly not only a frequenter of conventicles, but an encourager of these inter- dicted meetings, so far as to allow them to be held in her own house. For a considerable time this was not known to the au- thorities of Edinburgh, or it was overlooked by the town-major, who was in the habit of accepting money as a bribe, not to inter- fere with the private worshipping assemblies of the nonconform- ists in the city. When, however, the news of the tragical death of Archbishop Sharp, which took place May 3, 1679, had reached Edinburgh, the government becoming greatly alarmed and irri- tated, such as kept conventicles in their own houses, or frequented them, were exposed in an increased degree to danger and hard- ship. On the 4th of May, the day after the archbishop’s death, a meeting for sermon was held at night in Mrs. Durham’s house. The number present was about thirty, and the most of them were her near relations, their children and servants. The preacher was Mr. William Hamilton, a young gentleman of eminent piety, and the brother of Mr. James Hamilton, of Hallcraig, who was married to Mrs. Durham’s full sistQr Jean. When engaged in religious services, this peaceful meeting was furiously broke in upon by the town-major with a party of soldiers, who, seizing all present, committed them to prison. Mrs. Durham and her sis- ter, Mrs. John Carstairs, who was one of the hearers, were, with the rest, imprisoned in the tolbooth for some nine or ten days, when on their petitioning the privy council, an order was granted for their being set at liberty. The act of the council is as fol- lows : “ Edinburgh, 13th of May, 1679. The lords of his maj- esty’s privy council, having considered a petition of Margaret Mure, relict of Mr. James Durham, and Janet Mure, spouse to Mr. John Carstairs, for themselves and their children and ser- vants, and divers other persons, prisoners in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, for being present at a conventicle kept in the house of the said Margaret Mure, upon the 4th instant, supplicating, that in regard of their miserable and poor condition, the council would give order for their liberty, the said lords do declare the petitioners free of any restraint or imprisonment by their warrant, and remit to the magistrates of Edinburgh to take such course with them as they shall think fit.”* Wodrow observes that it was with difficulty that some of their friends got the council to pass this act in their favor.f ^ Decreets of Privy Council. t Wodrow’s History, vol. iii., p. 10. MRS. JAMES DURHAM. 121 For this conventicle the magistrates of Edinburgh were fined by the privy council in the sum of fifty pounds sterling, accord- ing to the fifth act of the second session of the second parliament of Charles II., by which act it is expressly provided and declared that “ magistrates of burghs are liable, for every conventicle kept in their burghs, to such fines as the lords of privy council shall think fit to impose.”* But the preacher, Mr. Hamilton, was most severely dealt with. His close imprisonment and harsh treatment so affected his health, that after some weeks he became dangerously ill of cholera, and though his friends presented a petition to the privy council, pray- ing that he might be allowed to go to the country for the recovery of his health, and offered to give bond under whatever penalty they chose for his compearing, if his life should be spared, yet this petition, notwithstanding its being accompanied with the at- testations of two physicians as to his extreme danger, was not only rejected, but the council assured his friends that they in- tended to prosecute him for house conventicles at their next meet- ing. Before, however, the day of that meeting arrived, this ex- cellent young man died in prison ; and thus he may be said to have fallen a martyr to the free preaching of the gospel ; for the only charge they could bring against him was his delivering a sermon to a few friends in the house of a relative, without being licensed or authorized by a bishop ; and his death being caused by the inhuman manner in which he was treated, the guilt of it may be as justly laid upon the government as if they had sen- tenced him to be hanged at the Grassmarket.f The following anecdotes concerning Mrs. Durham, may not be deemed unworthy of a place in this brief sketch, as they serve to illustrate both her character and principles. She was in the habit, it would appear, of visiting such of her friends and others as were imprisoned for their steadfast adherence to presbytery. Nor were her visits always confined to those of whose sentiments on religious and ecclesiastical questions she could altogether ap- prove. On one occasion she went to prison to see some females who belonged to the fanatical sect called “ The Sweet-Singers,” not because she approved of their opinions and practices, but be- cause she felt for them as deluded persons, who had been driven to frenzy by the violence of persecution. In this instance, how- ever, she was far from meeting with a cordial reception. Law, when recording the imprisonment of five men and ten women of this sect, who were taken about Gather Moor of Borrowstounness, ** Decreets of Privy Council, May 15, 1679. t Wodrow's Hist., vol. iii., p. 54. 11 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. 122 says : “ These people were so deluded of Satan, as that they did not work, contrary to that, 1 Thes. iv. 11 ; nor would they eat any meat given them by the council, nor drink anything that paid excise ; and when honest women, ministers’ wives, came to see them, they began to rail upon them and upbraid them with the name of Jezebel, and called them reprobates. Mr. Durham’s wife, and Mr. William Guthrie’s wife, were so upbfaided.”* On visiting Mr. Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, in prison, she met with a very different character, and was both refreshed and instructed by his heavenly spirit and Christian conversation. ‘‘ When Mrs. Durham came to him that morning before he got his sentence, he said he was never better, and within a very little time he would be well beyond conception. He said they are going to send me in pieces and quarters through all the country ; but let them hagg and hew all my body in as many pieces as they please, I am not much concerned about that ; for I know assuredly there shall be nothing of me lost, but all these members shall be won- derfully gathered, and shall all be made like his glorious body, the body of his glory.”t Mrs. Durham was accustomed to attend not only house-con- venticles, but also field-meetings, which, as the persecution ad- vanced, became necessary, from the vast multitudes who assem- bled to hear the gospel. The acts of parliament, and manifold proclamations of the privy council, by which these meetings were prohibited, did not frighten her from being present at them ; nor did the opprobrious names of unlawful conventicles,” “ semina- ries of separation,” and rendezvouses of rebellion,” applied to them by the government, convince her that it was criminal to assemble in the open air to hear the glacTtidings of salvation, when she remembered that her Savior, in the fields and on the mountain’s brow, taught the multitudes who crowded around him to receive the lessons of wisdom from his lips. The following anecdote, relating to her opinion of some of the field-preachers, has been preserved by Wodrow : “ Mr. Patrick Simson,” says he, “told me that Mrs. Durham, when reading some sermons of the high-fliers, and when hearing some of the more violent of the field-preachers, said that she observed just such a difference be- tween the field-preachings and those she was used to, as she did between the Apocrypha and the Bible when she read them.”| Mrs. Durham seemed to refer to such of the field-preachers as, more zealous than wise, broke forth in their sermons into bitter * Law’s Memorials, pp. 185, 186. t Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. iii., p. 79. t Ibid., vol. i., p. 324. MRS. JAMES DURHAM. 123 invectives and uncharitable censures against the indulged minis- ters. She also, apparently, had an eye to the indigested and su- perficial theology of their discourses. The former was provoked, though it could not be vindicated, from the pretext which the ac- ceptance of the indulgence, by their more compromising breth- ren, gave to the government to persecute the non-indulged with aggravated severity. The latter is best apologized for from the little leisure they had for reading and study, in consequence of their being constantly driven about from place to place. It is not, however, alleged that she pronounced an unfavorable judg- ment on all the field-preachers — a sweeping sentence, which could not have been supported by facts — the most of them being far from inclining to extremes, while many of them, as Welsh, Blackadder, Riddell, and others, preached the gospel with much acceptance, as well as with remarkable success, including among their hearers and converts not a few of the best educated in the country. Another anecdote, recorded by the same industrious collector, concerning this lady and two ministers, illustrates how galling and oppressive was the yoke of arbitrary and prelatic domina- tion to the presbyterians, and how ardently they longed for deliv- erance. Writing, in 1731, Wodrow says : “In the year 1685 or 1686, Mr. Samuel Arnot died at Edinburgh, after all the persecutions and sufferings he had gone through since Pentland, in much peace and joy. There was, generally, much company that came and saw him on his death-bed. Among others, Mr. James Rowat, minister at Kilmarnock before the Restoration, came to see him, and, among other things, he asked Mr. Arnot if he had any hopes the church of Scotland would get out from under this dark cloud she had been under for twenty-five years or thereby. The other answered he had, and he was assured she would. ‘Yea,’ added he, ‘I know more, and that is, that you shall live to see and partake of the church’s delivery.’ And so it came to pass. Mr. Rowat lived till 1690, or a year or two later, it may be, and saw that great work of God at the revolu- tion. Among others present when this was spoken, that good woman, Mrs. Durham, relict of Mr. Zachary Boyd and Mr. James Durham, was there, and she got up and said to Mr. Rowat, ‘ Mr. James, I am younger than you, I hope I shall see the day of de- livery as well as you,’ and she danced and skipped for joy ; and so it came about. I was at her burial, at Glasgow, about the year 1692 or 1693.”'' * W odrow’s Analecta, vol. iv., p. 285. 124 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Mrs. John Carstairs, sister of the preceding, was the eldest daughter of William Mure, Esq., of Glanderston, by his second wife, Jean Hamilton, ^a daughter of Hans Hamilton, vicar of Dun- lop, and sister to Lord Viscount Claneboy. She was born Feb- ruary 25, 1625. Enjoying, like Mrs. Durham, the blessing of pious parents, she early devoted herself to God ; and, like her, she also inherited from them a zealous attachment to presbyterian principles. She was married to Mr. John Carstairs in 1647 or 1648, when he had been just settled, or when he was about to be settled minister of Cathcart, where, however, he did not long re- main, having been translated to the high church of Glasgow, in 1650. To her eminent Christian character Mr. Carstairs fre- quently bears testimony, many years after they were united in marriage. In a letter to her, dated November 25, 1662, he thus writes : “ I desire to bless Him that ever he was pleased to cast our lot to be together, and that he found you out a help meet for me : you were never a temptation to me, nor an obstruction to me either in my ministerial or Christian course, though you have been little furthered and much obstructed by me ; but he can make up out of the riches of his grace to you what you have been now these fifteen years at a loss in by me.”* And in another letter to her, dated August 12, 1664, he pronounces upon her a still higher encomium : “ I desire to bless the Lord for you ; you have been to me indeed a meet and faithful help, and if I had more improved your fellowship and counsel, your discreet and wise counsel, I am not ashamed to say it to you, I might have thriven better as a man, as a Christian, and as a minister. He might very justly, for my sins, deprive me of such a wife, such a moth- er, such a friend, such a counsellor, yea, of all relations, sweetly centred in such a one.”t In the correspondence between Mrs. Carstairs and her hus- band, after the persecution had commenced, we have a fine illus- tration of resolute adherence to duty amid great temptations and dangers. Several of the letters which passed between them have come down to our day, and while from these it is manifest that Mr. Carstairs was a man of fortitude and magnanimity in the cause of Christ, it is equally apparent from them that Mrs. Car- stairs was not inferior to her husband in these virtues. When he began to be molested for his presbyterian principles, Mr. Carstairs applied himself to the task of fortifying her mind for those hardships and sufferings which, without a direlection of duty^ they could not escape. On receiving a summons, on the ** Letters of Mr. John Carstairs, &c., pp. 91, 92. t Ibid., p. 133. MRS. JOHN CARSTAIRS. 125 15tli of November, 1662, to appear before the privy comicil, wri- ting to her from Hallcraig, on the very day on which he received it, he thus speaks : “ I hope, my dear, you can bear, through the grace that hath often strengthened you in difficulties that have occurred about me since we came together, to hear without vex- ation of mind, that I have this day got a charge to compear before the council this same day fourteen days, a double whereof I have sent you. It may be He will pity me and help me. The cause is good, and nothing at all disgraceful. Oh, to have a suitable frame every way ! pray for it, and for sinless and inoffensive through-bearing. . . . Now, my heart, let me beseech you to take courage in the Lord, who hath given you a room in his heart, and will in due time give you a room among them that stand by the throne. Resolve to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We may see this storm blow over, if kept faith- ful, and meet with higher and holier things.”* In like manner, when on his being summoned to appear in April, 1664, before the high commission-court, for having been a witness to the dying testimony in favor of presbytery, which his brother-in-law, Mr. James Wood, professor of divinity in the col- lege of St. Andrews, left behind him, he fled, to escape the fury of Archbishop Sharp, which he had thus provoked, and hid him- self for some time in Ireland and the west of Scotland, he thus encourages her, in a letter written from the place of his retreat, dated May 27, 1664: “If at this next meeting [of the privy council]! some men shall be cruel, and others shall disappoint us and prove vanity and a lie, think it not strange, neither let it trouble you. It’s like we will have trouble in the world ; but if we shall have peace in Him that hath overcome the world, we have reason to be of good cheer. Let us quietly and patiently wait for our sentence in these courts from God, which though as from men it should be unjust and cruel, yet as from God it will be just, holy, and I hope, good.”! The high Christian sentiments expressed in these extracts were not now for the first time presented to the attention of Mrs. Carstairs. They had long been familiar to her mind, and amid the trials of the past she had practically exemplified them. “ It does not a little satisfy and refresh me,” says Mr. Carstairs in a letter to her, July 3, 1664, “that the Lord is graciously pleased to keep your own mind calm and quiet ; and indeed it hath been * Letters of Mr. John Carstairs, &c., pp. 91, 92. t Mr. Carstairs, about the end of April, or the beginning of May, had also been summoned to appear before the privy council. — Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 412, t Letters of Mr. John Carstairs, &c., p. 120. 11 * 126 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. his manner, to the commendation of his grace be it spoken, to bless you with somewhat of that mercy in most of the difficulties you have been in Providence trysted with since our being to- gether — a mercy, indeed, and highly valuable, without which the least of difficulties will easily embitter a very well accommoda- ted lot ; nay, even the very apprehension of a difficulty.”! But having counted the cost of self-sacrifice, as well as estimated the rich reward of present peace and future glory, in becoming an humble follower of Christ, she was prepared for the endurance of severer trials than had hitherto been measured out to her ; and when they befell her she encountered them with a high and holy heroism. On this subject let us hear her speak for herself. In a letter she addressed to Mr. Carstairs, without date, but evident- ly written when he was forced to flee for his connection with Mr. Wood’s dying testimony for presbytery, we have a fine'illus- tration of the strength and fearlessness of mind which true reli- gion and a good cause are so well fitted to impart. She would not have him unnecessarily to expose himself to danger, but trusts that should he fall into the hands of his persecutors, grace would be given him to witness a good confession. She encour- ages him to bear with magnanimity the inconveniences of his wanderings from place to place — to quit himself like a man and be strong ; and she thanks God for having united to her a hus- band whom he counted worthy to suffer for his name’s sake. The following is the letter in which these noble sentiments are expressed : — “ My Dearest and Most Kind Friend : It was refreshing to me to have a line from you, but it troubled me to find you so heavy. He doeth well who hath found it meet to put us in heavi- ness for a season, finding that there was need of it. It did wound me when I read that in yours — your not being adverse to come here, which is thought by your friends very unmeet and unreasonable ; for though you be very clear as to the cause, yet to cast yourself in such eminent hazard is a wrong, and I am persuaded you are not called to it, nay, you are called to the contrary ; so hide as well as you can, and if it please the Lord so to order you be found out, which I wish may not be, I hope he shall glorify himself in you and carry you honorably through. Put not yourself to it while [until] the Lord bring you to it. I hope my request, which is so reasonable, shall prevail with you. My dear, weary not in wandering ; it hath been the lot of many Letters of Mr, John Cai'stairs, &c., p. 126 , MRS. JOHN CARSTAIRS. 127 of liis worthies to wander in caves and dens of the earth ; and although your accommodation should be very bad, so that you can not go about duties as you would, he counts your wandering better service to him than your preaching. My dear, a little while will put an end to all our troubles ; as for myself, I had reason always to bless the Lord that ever I knew you, and this day I desire to bless him more than ever, that ever I was so nearly related to you, and that I have a husband wandering and suffering for the truth. Let us both bless him together for this. He might have given me one that was persecuting the truth. The Lord strengthen and confirm yod! That commodity you desired can not be gotten for the present, though they be most willing to give it. I hope the Lord shall provide another way ; the bearer will show you all other things. The Lord’s blessing and protection be with you ! and may he be near your soul with the consolation of his Spirit! — Farewell, my dear, I am your ov/n, “J. As a further illustration of the heroic spirit which animated this lady, we may give another of her letters to Mr. Carstairs, which is without date, but which, as may be inferred from the allusion in the commencement, was written in the autumn of the year 1667, after he had been denounced a rebel, and outlawed. It is as follows : — My Dearest Friend : The bearer will show you how all matters here go. The west country gentlemen and ministers, who were declared rebels, are now forfaulted.f I bless the Lord it nothing troubles me. A smile from God, and the lifting up the light of his countenance, can make up, and even doth * Letters of Mr. John Carstairs, &c , p., 157. t The reference here is to a few country gentlemen in Renfrewshire, who had raised a small body of horse, to the number of about fifty, with the design of joining the covenanters under Colonel Wallace, previous to their defeat at Pentland hills; but who, on learning that Dalziel was between them and their friends, dispersed. Among these gentlemen were two of Mrs Carstairs’ sisters’ husbands, the laird of Ralston, and Porterfield of Quarrelton. The ministers in this company, besides Mr. Carstairs, were Mr. Gabriel Maxwell, minister at Dundonald, and Mr. George Ramsay, minister at Kilmaurs. The greater number of these gentlemen, as well as many other individuals, and all these ministers, except Mr. Ramsay, together with several other ministers, were, by proclamation, declared rebels, on the 4th of December, 1666. On their being afterward pursued by Sir John Nisbit, his majesty’s advocate before the justiciary court, for treason, that court, on the 15th of August, 1667, upon their not compearing, decerned them “ to be denounced rebels, and their lands to fall to his majesty’s use, as outlaws and fugitives from his majesty’s laws and some of the gentlemen, though none of the ministers, were, on the 16th of that month, forfeited, in their absence, in life and fortune. — Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., pp. 28, 36, 66, 67, 73-75. 129 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. make up, all the injuries man can do, so that ‘ the lines are fallen to me in a most pleasant place, and I have a goodly heritage/ I think my lot very far above the lot of my adversaries ! Blessed be God who made the difference ; there being no cause, but even so because it pleased him. My dear, let us willingly cleave to him, and suffer for him. We owe him much. How much are we in his debt, who hath added this mercy to all the former mercies, that he hath counted us worthy to suffer [for] his name’s sake ? O for grace to be steadfast to the end, and that he would graciously pardon our unfaithfulness to him and to his cause and people ! Alas ! Zion’s condition lieth not near my heart as it should. “J. C.”* Mrs. Carstairs had issue by her husband, three sons and four daughters. Her son William, who became principal of the uni- versity of Edinburgh after the Revolution, was one of the most remarkable men of his day, and from his great influence with King William, whom he had attended in all his campaigns, was called at court Cardinal Carstairs. None of her children had offspring with the exception of her daughters Jean and Sarah, who have numerous descendants. Jean married Principal Drew of St. Leonard’s College, St. Andrews, and from her Principals McCormick and Hill derived descent. Sarah, the fourth daughter, and the youngest of the family, married her cousin-german, William Dunlop, f principal of Glasgow College ; and from her, besides other eminent men, are descended the present Alexander Dunlop, Esq., advocate, and the Right Honorable David Boyle, lord president of the court of session. “ It is somewhat singu- lar how completely the descendants of Carstairs are mixed, so far as the distinctions of church politics are concerned ; and it can not but draw forth a smile from any one versant in these matters in the present day, to observe, on the same genealogical table, and in very close juxtaposition, the names of Dr. George Cook, professor of moral philosophy, St. Andrews, and Mr. Alex- ander Dunlop, advocate, Edinburgh. Surely none would have thought, at least from their proceedings in church courts, that these two distinguished and opposite leaders of the church were pears of the same tree.”J Letters of Mr. John Carstairs, &c., p. 160. See another of Mrs. Carstairs' Let- ters in Appendix, No. IV. t Her aunt, Elizabeth Mure, her mother's sister, was, as we have said before, married to Mr. Alexander Dunlop, minister of Paisley, who was the principars father. t Life of Mr. John Carstairs, prefixed to his Letters, by the Rev. William Ferrie, page 9. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 129 LADY ANNE, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. Lady Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, was descended from an ancient and honorable family which originally came from Nor- mandy,* and which at one time was for fifty years together pre- sumptive heir to the crown of Scotland. From the year 1543, when King James V. died, leaving his only daughter, Queen Mary but a few days old, till the year 1593, when Prince Henry was born, there were only Queen Mary and her son King James, of the royal blood ; and, in the event of their death, the crown would have fallen by right to the then representative of the house of Hamilton, who was their nearest kinsman.! Lady Anne was born in the year 1630. Pier father, James, third marquis, and first duke of Hamilton, J a distinguished man in his day, espoused with ardent zeal the cause of Charles I., in which, however, he was actuated more by personal attachment to Charles than by a sincere desire to establish prelacy, or to ele- vate the royal prerogative. He was his majesty’s high commis- sioner to the famous general assembly, which met at Glasgow in 1638, and he dissolved it abruptly; but the dissolution was disregarded, and the assembly continued to sit until they abol- ished prelacy. In the subsequent year he was sent down, by the king’s orders, to Scotland, with a fleet and three regiments, to subdue the covenanters, and appeared in the firth of Forth. It was on this occasion that his mother, the marchioness dowager of Hamilton, headed a troop of horse on the shores of Leith to oppose his landing.^ In 1648, an army being raised in Scotland with the design of rescuing Charles from the English parliament, and restoring him to liberty and power, without his being required to make any concessions to his subjects, the duke was appointed by the parliament commander-in-chief, and entered England in July, 1648. But the enterprise, which is usually called ‘‘The ^ Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol i., p. 689. t Burnet’s Preface to bis Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton. t He was created duke of Hamilton, marquis of Clydesdale, earl of Arran and Cambridge, Lord Avon and Tnnerdale, by patent, dated at Oxford, 12th April, 1643, to him and the heirs male of his body, which failing, to his brother and the heirs male of his body, which failing, to the eldest heir female of the marquis’s body, without division, and the heirs male of the body of such heir female, they bearing the name and arms of Hamilton, which all failing, to the nearest legitimate heir whatsoever of the marquis. — Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 704. } See p. 35. 130 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Engagement,” proving unsuccessful, ultimately brought him to the block.* The mother of the subject of this sketch was Lady Mary Fielding, daughter of William, earl of Denbigh, and Lady Susan- na Villiers, sister to the duke of Buckingham. This lady was married to her father when he was only in the fourteenth year of his age. “ Her person,” says Burnet, was noble and graceful, like the handsome race of the Villiers ; but, to such as knew her well, the virtues of her mind were far more shining. She was educated, from a child, in the court, and esteemed and hon- ored by all in it She was lady of the queen’s bed-cham- ber, and admitted by her majesty into an entire confidence and friendship ; and not only was her honor unstained, but even her fame continued untouched with calumny, she being so strict to the severest rules as never to admit of those follies which pass in that style for gallantry.” But her crowning excellence was her genuine piety. Though living in a court, she allowed no day to pass over her in which she did not spend large portions of her time in devotional exercises in her closet. She had to the marquis first three daughters, Mary, Anne, and Susanna ; and then three sons, Charles, James, and William; but all her sons and her eldest daughter died young. A year before her death she was in a languishing condition, and at last fell into a con- sumption, which, after a few months’ sickness, carried her off. About a month previous to the great change, calling for her chil- dren, she gave them her last blessing and embraces, and ordered that they might not be brought near her again, lest the sight of them should kindle too much tenderness in her mind, which she was then studying to raise above all created objects, and to fix upon the things of eternity. She died on the tenth of May, 1638.t Thus Lady Anne, in the eighth year of her age, was bereaved of a valuable mother, from whose instructions and example, her opening mind, as may reasonably be supposed, might have derived the greatest advantage. Her religious education does not, how- ever, appear to have been neglected. Her father, who had been trained up by a pious mother, and who, there is reason to hope, notwithstanding the errors of his public life, into which he was betrayed by his warm loyalty and ardent ambition, had not ceased to make religion a matter of personal concern, always recom- mended to her the fear and love of God, as that in which he * Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 704, 705. t Burnet’s Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 407. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 131 himself had found his only joy and repose. The following words are a part of one of his letters to her and her sister, Lady Su- sanna, which he wrote a little before^ his going to England on the fatal enterprise of the Engagement : In all crosses even of the highest nature, there is no other remedy but patience, and with alacrity to submit to the good will and pleasure of our glo- rious Creator, ^d be contented therewith, which I advise you to learn in your tender age, having enjoyed that blessing myself, and found great comfort in it while involved in the midst of infin- ite dangers.’'* When only a child, she was promised in marriage to Lord Lorn, eldest son of the marquis of Argyll, who suffered in 1661. About the eleventh year of her age, in 1641 or 1642, a contract of marriage was agreed to betwixt her father on her part, and the marquis of Argyll on the part of his son. Lord Lorn, to be cele- brated when the two children should be of age. The marriage portion is a hundred thousand merks, the yearly jointure fifteen thousand merks, and the penalty to him who resiled thirty-six thousand merks, all remedy of law excluded.! These two noble- men were then, and had been for a considerable time before, on terms of very intimate friendship, but shortly after this contract was signed, their sweetest wine became their sourest vinegar for they fell out and assumed positions of mutual hostility. Ham- ^ ilton supported Charles : Argyll, changing his opinions, became the uncompromising champion of the covenanters. Two great parties thus came to be formed in the nation, of which these two noblemen were the respective heads ; the one called the Hamil- tonsj the other, the Campbells ; and the Engagement was the great point upon which they were divided. In consequence of these differences, the contemplated marriage between Lady Anne and Lord Lorn never took place. 1| In times of civil commotion like those which then passed over Scotland and England, the leaders of the contending parties are peculiarly exposed to the risk of falling a sacrifice to the fury of one another ; and Lady Anne was doomed to undergo the trial of seeing her father, upon the disastrous issue of the Engagement, condemned to suffer a violent death. His forces being routed by the English at Preston, on the 20th of August, he surrendered * Burnet’s Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 404. t Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv., p. 202. t Scot of Scotstarvet’s Staggering State of Scots Statesmen. II Row’s Life of Robert Blair, pp. 178, 192, 198. Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 204. 132 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. himself to Lambert, at Uttoxeter, on the 25th of that month, and was imprisoned at Windsor. He succeeded in making his es- cape, but was retaken at Southwark, and committed to prison at St. James’s. While he lay there, urgent applications were made to the marquis of Argyll, who had then the chief power in Scot- land, that the committee of estates would, as a means of saving at least his life, own that what he did was by the authority of that kingdom ; but Argyll declined to interfere. Lady Anne herself left no means untried to prevail with him to interpose for the life of her father ; but her exertions were without effect ; for, he said, that since the English had murdered their king, not- withstanding the protest of the Scottish commissioners against the deed, it was not to be expected that the interposition of the most influential in Scotland in other things would be of any weight ; nor was it fit they should any more address the murder- ers of their sovereign. On the 6th of February, 1649, her father was brought to trial before the same court which had condemned Charles to the block, and on the 6th of March he was sentenced to be beheaded on Friday, the 9th of that month. In terms of the sentence, he was executed in palace-yard, Westminster, in the forty-third year of his age. He died in a very pious manner, and with much forti- tude. Flaving delivered his last speech on the scaffold, he uttered a most fervent prayer, concluding with these words, “ O glorious God ! O blessed Father ! O holy Redeemer ! O gracious Comforter ! O holy and blessed Trinity ! I do render up my soul into thy hands, and commit it to the mediation of my Redeemer, praising thee for all thy dispensations, that it hath pleased thee to confer upon me, and even for this. Praise and honor, and thanks be to thee from this time forth, and for evermore !” After some religious discourse with Dr. Sibbald, whom he chose as his chaplain, on the scaffold, and who exhorted him to look to the fountain of the blood of Christ as his only hope, he embraced his servants who were present, commending their fidelity to him, and praying the Lord to bless them. He then turned to the ex- ecutioner and told him he was to engage shortly in prayer while he lay with his head on the block, after which he should give him a sign, by stretching out his right hand, telling him, at the same time, that he freely forgave him, as he did all the world. Upon the giving of the sign, the executioner at one blow severed the head of the unfortunate nobleman from his body, which was received in a crimson taffety scarf, by two of his servants kneel- ing by him, and was, together with his body, immediately put in DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 133 a coffin, which was ready on the scaffold, and, according to his orders, sent down by sea to Scotland, and interred in his family burial place at Hamilton.* To Lady Anne, who was now in the nineteenth year of her age, and to her sister, Susanna, who was somewhat younger, this was a great affliction. The loss of a father who loved them with an almost unequalled parental tenderness, and to whom they reciprocated the tenderest filial affection, was calculated, consid- ered in all its distressing circumstances, to lacerate their feelings in the most painful manner ; and the more especially at their green age, wfflen the feelings were most tender, and when, con- sequently, the bereavement would pierce the heart with the intensest agony. It was happy for them that in their uncle, Duke William,! who was distinguished for his personal piety, as well as for his accurate views of divine truth, they found a relative both affectionately disposed, and well qualified to administer to them the religious comfort they needed, and to take the place of their father in caring for them. Lady Anne, Avho had already given evidence of the pious temper of her mind, sought under this dispensation consolation in religion ; and, by Divine grace, she was enabled to exercise that Christian resignation and sub- mission to the will of God, which is our bounden duty under the greatest trials of life. The last memorial she and her sister received of their father s affection for them, was a letter which he wrote to them on the day of his execution, but which would not come to their hands till he had passed from time into eternity. It is as follows : — “ My most Dear Children : It hath pleased God to dispose of me, as I am immediately to part with this miserable life for a better ; so that I can not take that care of you which I both ought and would, if it had pleased my gracious Creator to have given me longer days : but his will be done, and I with alacrity submit to it, desiring you to do so, and that above all things you apply your hearts to seek him, to fear, serve, and love him ; and, then, doubt not but he will be a loving father to you while you are on earth, and thereafter crown you with eternal happiness. Time will permit me to say no more, so the Lord bless, guide, and pre- serve you, which is the prayer of your most loving father, “ St. James’s, 9th March, 1649. “ Hamilton. * Burnet’s Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, pp. 401-405. t Their father was succeeded in his titles and estates, in terms of the patent, by his brother William. 12 134 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. ‘‘Let this remember me to my dear sisters, brothers, and other friends, for it is all I write.”*' On the day preceding his execution, he had written a letter to his brother William, requesting him to be a father to his two daughters, that they might not be forced to marry against their wills. Nor did Duke William fail in the duty he owed to these orphans. “He entailed his friendship for him [his brother],” says Burnet, “ on his daughters, who have desired me to acknowl- edge to the world that in him they met with the tenderness of a father, the kindness of a friend, and everything that was gener- ously noble and obliging.” So high was the opinion he formed of Lady Anne that, at his going to England, he professed he was glad he had no sons to lie in her way to the enjoyment of her father’s estates and honors, adding, that if he had forty sons, he rather wished it to her them he could do to any of them. On his part, nothing was wanting to promote her happiness : what- ever his estates could procure was at her command, and the au- thority with which he invested her at so early an age, indicates the confidence he placed in her judgment and discretion. Writing to her from Campheer, 10th June, 1649, he says, “ Dear Niece : Amongst all my just afflictions, there is none lies so heavy upon me as that I am still made incapable of paying that duty to you which I owe you. It is the greatest debt I owe on earth, and which would most joy me to pay, as well from inclination as from nature and obligations ; but all happiness being denied me, I can not hope for that which would be the greatest. Before this I hope you are settled in Hamilton, where you have, as is most just, the same power your father had, and I beseech you to dispose as absolutely upon everything that is there. All I have interest in, so long as they will acknowledge me, will obey you ; and I shall earnestly beg, that, if there be any failings, (either from persons, or in providing what you shall think fit to call for, which the fortune can procure, you advertise me thereof, and if it be not helped, (so my fortune can do it), let me be as infamous as I am unfortunate. I will trouble you no longer, but pray the Lord to bless you with comfort and health. — Dear niece, your real servant, “ Hamilton.”! As a farther proof of his esteem and affection for her, he nom- inated and appointed her (failing heirs male of his own body) his sole executrix, in his last will, written by himself, at the Hague, in Holland, on the 28th day of May, 1650, and freely Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 397. t Ibid. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 135 bequeathed to her all his jewels, silver plate, hangings, picture- broads, and whatsoever goods were his to be disposed of. ” And after nominating and appointing, in the event of her removal by- death before himself, her sister, Susanna, his sole executrix, and freely bequeathing to her the foresaid articles, he recommends the care of his five daughters to such of his nieces as should succeed to his dignity and estate, expressing his confidence that they would be careful of their education and faithful in paying them what had been provided for them.* We shall quote at length another of the letters of this amiable man to Lady Anne, both because it affords a pleasing illustration of his own Christian character, and because, from its tone, it is evident that she had then been brought, in good earnest, to attend to the things of God and eternity. The letter was written only eight days after the terrible defeat and slaughter which the Scot- tish royalists sustained, on sabbath, July 20, 1651, at Inverkeith- ing, in Fife, from the English parliamentary army under Crom- well, f This disaster greatly discouraged the royalists ; and what rendered their condition still more desperate was, that Cromwell was now between the king and the northern counties of Scotland, which were most devoted to the king’s interest, and from which he expected provisions and supplies of men. It being thus im- possible to maintain the war longer in Scotland, his majesty re- solved to march into England, where he hoped for large addi- tional forces. But many of his soldiers, and some of his officers, broken in spirit by their late defeat, and despairing of future suc- cess, deserted the army. It was in these circumstances, and when about to-march into England, that Duke William wrote the following letter J : — “ Dear Niece : Indeed I know not what to say to you ; T Mmuld fain say something more encouraging than my last was, but I can not lie ; our condition is no better, and since that time we have a thousand men (I fear twice that number) run from our army. Since the enemy shuns fighting with us, except upon advantage, we must either starve, disband, or go with a handful of men into England. This last seems to be the least ill, yet it appears very desperate to me for more reasons than I would Commissariot of Edinburgh, 28th of September, 1652, MS. in her majesty’s register house, Edinburgh. In that record, the will of the duke is recorded at length. It is a very interesting document, from the remarkably pious spirit which it breathes throughout. t So prodigious was the slaughter, that a rill at the scene of action, called Pinker- ton Bum, is said to have run red with blood for three days. t Burnet’s Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 427. 136 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. trouble you with ; I fear your own reason will afford you too many. Dear niece, it is not your courage I will desire you to make use of in. this extremity ; look for strength to bear it from a higher power ; all your natural virtues will not resist it ; there- fore, look to Him who hath in former times assisted you to resist a great affliction, and can do it again, if you seek to him aright ; you have already lost so much, that all other worldly losses were drowned in that. Those you meet with now are Christian exer- cises, wherewith, ofttimes, the Lord visits his own, to wean their af- fections from things here below, that we may place them upon him- self, in whom we have all things ; and if we could, as we ought, set our hearts upon him, we should find ourselves very little con- cerned in most things which bring us greatest trouble here on earth, where we are but for a minute in our way to eternity. O ! consider that word eternity, and you will find that we struggle here for that, that’s even less than nothing ; why trouble we our- selves for earthly losses ? for when we have lost all we have, there are thousands as dear to God as we, as poor as we. We are rich though we lose the whole world if we gain him : let us set before our eyes the example of those, who, to give testimony to the truth, rejoiced to lay down their lives ; nay, let us, with humble presumption, follow the pattern of our blessed Savior, who for our sakes suffered more than man can think on, the bur- den of all our sins, and the wrath of his Father: and shall we then repine to lay down our lives for him when he calls for it from us, to give us a nearer admittance to him than we can hope for while we are clogged with our clay tenements. Dear niece, I should never be weary to talk with you, though this be a sub- ject, I confess, I can not speak of well ; but even that happi- ness is bereft me, by the importunity of a crowd of persons that are now in the room with me, grudging the time I take in telling you that while I am, I am yours, &c. “ [Hamilton.] “ Stirling, 28th July, 1651.”* Duke William, having proceeded to England and engaged in battle with Cromwell’s forces at Worcester, was mortally wound- ed. After receiving the wound, and feeling that his end was approaching, he wrote to his lady a letter, which contains the fol- lowing reference to Lady Anne and her sister : I will not so much as in a letter divide my dear nieces and you. The Lord grant you may be constant comforts to one another in this life, and give you all eternal happiness with your Savior in the life * Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 426. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 137 to come ! To both of your cares I recommend my poor children. Let your great work be to make them early acquainted with God, and their duties to him ; and though they may suffer many wants here before removal from hence, yet they will find an inexhaust- ible treasure in the love of Christ.’’ This nobleman died on the 12th of the month on which the above letter is dated, nine days after he had received the wound, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, and was interred in the cathe- dral church of Worcester.* After her uncle’s death. Lady Anne, who succeeded him in his titles and estates, experienced the vicissitudes of fortune to which many of the Scottish nobility were subjected for their opposi- tion to Cromwell, who had now laid Scotland prostrate at his feet. Her father was excepted from the benefit of Cromwell’s act of grace and pardon, in 1654, and his estates were forfeited, four hundred pounds a year being reserved out of them to Lady Anne, and two hundred pounds a year to her sister. f This was no doubt sufficient to secure them from privation ; but for a fam- ily to be thus reduced which once possessed ample revenues, and was at one time presumptive heir to the Scottish throne, afforded a striking instance of the mutability of worldly wealth and great- ness. Whether even this sum was regularly paid we do not know ; but it is affirmed by tradition that, for a series of years, she was in so impoverished a condition as to have been dependent upon a faithful female servant — the only one that remained with her — who employed herself incessantly in spinning to procure the means of subsistence for her grace .:j: It is pleasing, on the same authority, to record that, when the Restoration put an end to the misfortunes of the duchess by reinvesting her with her estates, she “ expressed her gratitude to her affectionate domestic by the substantial gift of a piece of land, near Lesmahago, sufficient to maintain her in ease and comfort all the rest of her life.”|| During Cromwell’s administration she resided alternately at Brodwich castle in Arran, and Strathaven castle, which was from an early period one of the seats of the Hamilton family. § The castle of Strathaven, or Avondale, stands upon a rocky eminence at the town of Strathaven, on the banks of a small rivulet called * Anderson’s Memoirs of the House of Hamilton, p. 145. t Don^las’s Peerage of Scotland, vol. i., p. 706. t Tradition, in this instance, has probably to some extent exaggerated the facts of the case. S Chambers’s Picture of Scotland, vol. i., pp. 349, 350. It is said to have been built by Andrew Stewart, grandson of Murdoch, duke of Albany. — New Statistical Account of Scotland, Lanarkshire, Avondale^ 12 * 138 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Pomilion, which winds round the greater part of it, and falls into the Avon about a mile below. Though now in a very dilapida- ted state, it was then in good condition and a place of consider- ble strength, being surrounded by a strong wall, with turrets at certain distances, and having the entrance secured by a draw- bridge. A tradition is still current at Clydesdale respecting the duchess, while she resided in this castle in the time of Crom- well, which places her fortitude in adversity in a very interest- ing light, and reminds us of the fearless spirit of her grandmother. To the hero of the commonwealth, whose vengeance was directed against her family on account of that determined opposition to him which had issued fatally both as to her father and uncle, she had, as might be anticipated, no friendly feelings ; and it is said that when one of his generals passed the castle with some military going from Hamilton to Ayrshire, she gave orders to fire upon him as he approached the town of Strathaven. The general in- quired who lived there, and being told it was a lady, he replied, “ She must be a bold woman, indeed.”* In the days of her ad- versity, her tenants and vassals in that neighborhood showed to her ardent friendship and attachment. This she never forgot, when favored with more prosperous days ; and she made an an- nual visit to Strathaven at the celebration of the Lord’s supper, till she was prevented by the infirmities of old age.f In the year 1656, she was married to Lord William Douglas, eldest son of William, first marquis of Douglas. He was born 24th December, 1634, and created earl of Selkirk, Lord Daer and Shortcleuch, by patent, dated 4th August, 1646, to him and his males heir whatsoever. He was fined one thousand pounds by Cromwell’s act of grace and pardon, 1654. The minutes of a contract of marriage between the duchess and this nobleman, with consent of his father, the marquis of Douglas, dated 1656, are still preserved among the Hamilton Papers.^ After the Res- toration, in consequence of a petition from the duchess, he had, by letters-patent, on the 20th of September, 1660, superadded to his own honors the title and precedency of the duke of Hamil- * Anderson’s Memoirs of the House of Hamilton, p. 150. After the death of the duchess, in 1716, the castle of Strathaven was allowed to fall into disrepair ; and, as Chambers says, it now overhangs the town of Strathaven with its shattered and haggard walls, like the spirit of Fingal represented by Ossian, as looking down from the clouds upon his living descendants.” — Picture of Scotland, vol. i., p. 349. Though, now in ruins, the castle is still a beautiful feature in our landscape.” — New Statistical Account of Scotland, Lanarkshire, Avondale. t Anderson’s Memoirs of the House of Hamilton, p. 150. J Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv-, p. 202. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 139 ton, and other titles, in right of his wife, on whom these honors had devolved.* As might naturally be expected, the duchess hailed the resto- ration of Charles II. with satisfaction and joy ; for it put her in possession of her father’s estates and honors, of which she had been deprived by Cromwell. But the policy of the government of Charles in overthrowing the presbyterian church of Scotland, and in ejecting the non-conforming ministers from their churches, she contemplated with different feelings. This measure she perceived to be at once unwise in principle, and destructive in tendency. The duke, her husband, at a meeting of the Scottish council, held at London, after the Restoration, to determine as to the ecclesiastical government to be established in Scotland, rea- soned against the setting up of bishops. f He also opposed in the privy council, the act which they passed at Glasgow, October 1, 1662, requiring all ministers who had not conformed to prelacy, to desist from preaching, and to withdraw im.mediately from their parishes. He told the council that the numerous ministers liable to ejectment were highly esteemed and beloved by their people ; and that it would be impossible to find a competent number of well qualified men to fill their places. j; The duchess was pre- cisely of the same sentiments. She may not have studied, and Bishop Burnet informs us that she told him she had not studied the subject of church government, and arrived at the same enlightened and thorough conviction of the jus dimnum of presbytery, to which she had arrived on other points. But she saw that the ministers to be visited by ejectment were men of distinguished piety, of great diligence in the discharge of their ministerial duties, and of extensive usefulness in promoting religion and good order among the people. Not to speak, then, of her leaning to the side of the presbyterian faith, which is manifest from her ad- hering to, and favoring it during her whole life, through evil report as well as good report ; as a woman of piety, and a friend of public order, she regretted the ejectment of such men, as the infliction of a great calamity on the country. § The duchess, who had much influence upon the duke, greatly contributed, there is little doubt, to infuse into his mind favorable feelings toward the covenanters, and to dispose him to make ex- ertions for mitigating the oppressions under which they groaned. ^ Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol iv., p. 172. t Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 390. t Burnet’s History of His Own Times, vol. i, p. 261. § Ibid., p. 480. 140 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Such feelings he entertained, and such exertions he made. After the Restoration, he opposed, as we have seen, the setting up of bishops, and the act of Glasgow, by which some hundreds of ministers were ejected from their charges. During the per- secution he often acted as a drag chain upon the more violent of the members of the privy council, advocating a moderate and pacific policy, and opposing the terrible measures which were madly adopted against religion and liberty by the ruling party. In the parliament of 1673, he distinguished himself by his oppo- sition to Lauderdale, whose rapacity, tyranny, and oppression, were become intolerable, demanding that the state of the nation should be examined, and its grievances Represented to the king, before the supplies were granted. On repairing to court, toward the end of November, 1675, he earnestly dealt with the king for a more ample indulgence to the nonconforming ministers, by which he greatly displeased his majesty, who told him he had been informed of his too great kindness to, and compliance with, the non-conformists of Scotland.* In 1676, he was removed from his place in the privy council for his manly and spirited opposition to the oppressive sentence of the council against the pious and patriotic Baillie of Jerviswood, who, for simply rescu- ing his brother-in-law, Mr. James Kirkton, from Captain Car- stairs, was fined £500 sterling, and ordained to lie in prison till the fine was paid.f He was also prohibited to leave Scotland, but, notwithstanding this prohibition, he and thirteen others went up to court in March, 1678, to complain of the arbitrary and op- pressive administration of Lauderdale in regard to the Highland host, the imposition of the bond, the charging them with law- borrows, and other grievances under which the country labored. On the breaking out of the insurrection in Scotland in May, 1679, he and the other Scottish lords, of his party, then in Lon- don, offered — an offer which was rejected — to restore peace to the country without having recourse to force or the effusion of blood, provided the sufferings of the people were alleviated.^ To these notices other facts of a similar kind, equally favorable to the patriotism and humanity of the duke might be added. But we shall only further state, that when some were tortured in 1684, in reference to the earl of Argyll’s conspiracy, he opposed such cruel proceedings, alleging that, at this rate, they might, without accusers or witnesses, take any person off the street and * Burnet'S History of His Own Times, vol. i., p. 565. Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv., p. 178. t Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., 327. | Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p, 708. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 141 torture him ; and he immediately retired, refusing to be present, on the ground, that if the party should die in the torture, the judges were liable for murder, or at least severely culpable. * * * § Nor was the duchess of Hamilton alone, among the ladies of high life, in moderating the persecution by the influence they exerted over those most nearly related to them. The ladies and other female relatives of several others of the members of his majesty’s government were friendly to the persecuted cause ; and by their influence, as well as by the deference shown to their predilections, individuals were often exempted from the hard- ships into which they would otherwise have been brought, while the violence of the persecution was sometimes considerably mit- igated. Of this class were the first wife of the duke of Lauder- dale,! the duchess of Rothes,^ both the first and the second wives of the earl of Argyll,^ the countess of Dundonald,|| and others. After the Restoration, Hamilton palace, which is situated in a valley between the town of Hamilton and the Clyde, was the chief place of the residence of the duchess. Since the time she dwelt in that princely mansion, its aspect has very much changed. Great additions, in the best architectural style, were made to it in the year 1826 , and, as a whole, it is now considered the most magnificent residence in Scotland, being extremely splendid in its interior, aud having a picture gallery peculiarly rich in paint- ings, by the greatest Italian masters. In the time of the duchess, it was a large building of moderate external elegance. The town of Hamilton being in the vicinity of her place of residence, she at all times made the welfare, both temporal and spiritual, of the inhabitants of that town and parish, the object of her special concern. As an instance of her desire to promote * Fountainhall’s Notes, p. 103. See also Macaulay’s History of England, vol. ii. , pp. 118, 119, 121, 122. t Lady Anne Home, second daughter of Alexander, first earl of Home. She was a great means of softening the spirit of Lauderdale, who during her lifetime was more moderate than after her death. From Sir George Mackenzie’s Memoirs of Affairs in Scotland, we learn that she promised to procure indulgences for W elsh and other Presbyterian ministers. — Wodrow’s History, vol. ih, p. 244. She died at Paris, about 1671. t Lady Anne Lindsay, daughter of the earl of Crawford and Lindsay. A notice of this lady is given afterward. § His first wife. was Lady Mary Stuart, eldest daughter of James, fifth earl of Moray. She died in. May, 1668. His second wife was Lady Anne M'Kenzie, second daughter of Colin, first eaid o.f Seaforth, and relict of Alexander, first earl of Belcarres. A sketch of this lady is also given afterward. II This lady was Euphemia, daughter of Sir William Scot, of Ardross. She at- tended field conventicles, and entertained the field preachers at her palace at Paisley. — Blackadder's Memoirs MS. copy in Adv. Library. 142 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. their spiritual good, as well as of her pious care for the sanctity of the sabbath, it may be mentioned that, in co-operation with the duke, her husband, and the bailies of Hamilton, she obtained, in 1661, an act of parliament changing the fairs of Hamilton from Saturday to Thursday, and its weekly markets from Satur- day to Friday. The reason inducing the parties to apply for this act, was, as is stated in the act itself, their ‘‘ observing the daily inconveniences arising through the weekly market being upon the Saturday, whereby the people resorting to it were much occasioned in their return homeward to be late in the night, and sometime to encroach upon the Lord’s day next ensuing, and so scandalous to God’s worship therein.”* To her zeal for the temporal good of the town of Hamilton, ample testimony is borne by the town council records. In 1668, Charles 11. granted a charter to her, and in 1670 the magistrates then in office accepted a charter from her, with consent of her husband, by which Hamilton was constituted the chief burgh of the regality and dukedom of Hamilton.! And “ during the course of her long life she was a benefactor to the town of Hamilton, as she endeavored to ameliorate the condition of the inhabitants, and always acted strictly in conformity to the charter. Hence the bailies and town council seem at all times to have looked up to her with a kind of filial respect, and were always ready to comply with her requests, which indeed were never incompatible with the interests of the community.”! During the persecution applications were often made'to her to employ her interest in behalf of the persecuted. To such appli- cations she always listened with Christian sympathy, and was ever ready to do all in her power to afford assistance and relief to the oppressed. The trials she had passed through in early life, had exerted the most beneficial influence in the formation of her character. The loss of an affectionate and beloved father, in circumstances so deeply distressing, and the death of an endeared uncle, also in painful circumstances, had chastened her spirit and strengthened that compassion for the suffering, and that benevo- lent interest in the welfare and happiness of others which she exemplified throughout life. ^ Acts of Scottish parliament. t By this cbartei\the family of Hamilton has the right of appointing the town clerk, and of electing two bailies annually, from a list of six names chosen by the council (but including the bailies o^the former year) from their own number. The duke and duchess elected the first council, but the right of electing a new council annually in future, was vested for ever in the council of the preceding year. In the old deeds, the duchess is styled ‘‘high and mighty princess." J Anderson’s Memoirs of the House of Hamilton, pp. 488, 489. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 143 In the fate of the youthful Hugh M‘Kail, who suffered martyr- dom in 1666, she took a particular interest. His youth, his amiable- dispositions, his eminent piety, and his promising useful- ness as a minister of the gospel, as well as the excellent charac- ter of his father, excited her compassion, and after he had been tortured and indicted to stand trial for treason before the court of justiciary, she sent with his brother, Mr. Matthew, ten days before his trial commenced, a letter to the duke of Rothes, his majesty’s high commissioner, earnestly beseeching him to do what he could to save the life of this excellent young man. With this letter, and another to the commissioner, from the lady marchioness of Douglas, her mother-in-law, his brother went, on the 8th of December, from Edinburgh to Glasgow, where the commissioner was at that time on a visit. What effect the inter- cessions of these ladies had upon the duke, or whether they moved him to write to the king on the subject, we have not as- certained. His majesty, however, not long after this, and pre- vious to the execution of M‘Kail, sent down a pardon to the prisoners concerned in the Pen-tland rising, who were not exe- cuted, and ordered them to be sent to Barbadoes. But the par- don failed of taking effect, through the baseness of Archibald Sharp, who, besides feeling toward the Presbyterians that invet- erate malignity which has, in every age, been characteristic of apostates, never forgot the terms in which he fancied M‘Kail had spoken concerning him in a sermon.* The prelate who had been biding his time had now full opportunity given him of gratifying his mortal hatred and revenge, and determined that, whoever was spared, M‘Kail should not escape, he concealed the king’s pardon till M‘Kail and four others with him were exe- cuted.! M‘Kail’s sermon referred to was preached from the Song of Solomon, chapter i., verse 7. The passage which proved so offensive 'was an elegant apostrophe, in which the preacher appealed to persecutors of past ages, whether God had not proved faithful to his threatenings against persecutors, as well as to his promise of deliverance to his church and people. “Let Pharaoh,’’ said he, “ let Haman, let Judas, let Herod, let each of them speak from experience of God’s faithfulness ! Let all, then, have ears to hear, and hearing, acknowledge that those w'ho have made themselves remarkable for persecution, God has stigmatized by his judgments.” The malicious gloss which the party then in power put upon these words was, that the preacher had publicly marked out and threatened or stigmatized the king. Commis- sioner Middleton, Archbishop Sharp, and the duke of York, the king’s brother, under the characters of Pharaoh, Haman, Judas, and Herod. — Coltness Collections, p. 47. Sharp was peculiarly sensitive to the slightest allusion, real or supposed, to the sub- ject of his perfidy and apostasy ; nor did he fail, when he found opportunity, to re- venge himself on such as offended him on this score. t Naphtali, p. 363. M‘Crie’s Memoirs of Veitch, &c., p. 36. Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 506. 144 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT, Another sufferer on whose side the sympathies of the duchess were enlisted, was Mr. James Mitchell, who had attempted the assassination of Archbishop Sharp. It can not be supposed that Mitchell’s attempt, which was condemned by the great body of the presbyterians, was approved of by a lady so well informed, and so opposed to all extreme courses, as was the duchess. Still the severity with which he was treated excited commiseration in many who condemned his rash and criminal act ; and after he was laid in prison, some of this class of the presbyteris^ns were very active in endeavoring to obtain his liberation, and the more especially as they entertained apprehensions which, as was afterward proved, were too well founded, that he would be brought to the scaffold, a punishment for his offence, in their estimation, unduly severe. Among other means, one of them, a lady, applied to the duchess, when she passed through Edinburgh, in November, 1675, on her way to London, requesting her to exert her influence at court to procure his liberty, or secure his personal safety. She received the application with much cour- tesy, and expressed her readiness to do everything in her power in behalf of Mitchell, who had then been imprisoned for nearly two years. Mr. John Carstairs, in a letter to Mr. Robert M‘Ward, dated November 29, 1675, speaking on this subject, says : “ D. H. [Duke Hamilton] passed here [Edinburgh] with his lady and eldest daughter, for London, Monday last My friend* spoke to her [the duchess] about our friend [Mitchell]. She was very civil, and told her there needed no interposing, if there should be any access to deal for that person.”! But though Charles had considerable respect for the duchess, and, ungrateful though he was, sometimes expressed to her, and probably in some measure felt the obligations under which he lay to her father and her uncle, who had sacrificed their lives in his cause, yet, at this time, her patronage of the presbyterians had lowered her in the scale of the royal favor ; and her intercessions were besides resisted, and again rendered ineffectual by Archbishop Sharp, whose vengeance would be appeased with nothing less than the blood of the man who had made an attempt on his life. In 1670, when Archbishop Leighton proposed his scheme of accommodation between the episcopalians and the presbyterians, of which, among all his party. Dr. Burnet was the most zealous supporter, it was considered highly desirable to secure the me- * Might not this be Mrs. James Durham ? t Wodrow MSS., vol. lix., folio, No. 38. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 145 dialing influence of the duchess of Hamilton, in consequence of the high esteem in which she was held by the presbyterians^ and the great weight she had among them. Leighton sent to the western counties six of the most popular prelatic ministers he could engage, to go round the country to preach in vacant churches, and to argue in support of the accommodation with such as should come to hear them. Burnet, the most eminent of them, on his services being secured, went, as if on a visit to the duke of Hamilton, but in reality with the view of gaining over the duchess to the plan, and of prevailing with her to use her influence in inducing the presbyterian ministers to embrace it. ‘‘ I was desired,” says he, to go into the western parts, and to give a true account of matters, as I found them there. So I went as on a visit to the duke of Hamilton, whose duchess was a woman of great piety and great parts. She had much credit among them [the presbyterians] ; for she passed for a zealous presbyterian, though,” he adds, “ she protested to me she never entered into the points of controversy, and had no settled opinion about forms of government ; only she thought their ministers were good men, who kept the country in great quiet and order ; they were, she said, blameless in their lives, devout in their way, and diligent in their labors.”* The duchess cordially approved of the plan proposed in the accommodation of admitting the presbyterian ministers to the vacant churches. “ The people were all in a frenzy,” says Burnet, “ and were in no disposition to any treaty. The furious- est men among them were busy in conventicles, inflaming them * Burnet's History of His Own Times, vol. i., pp. 480, 481, 508. In this, .and in the subsequent accounts given by Burnet of what the duchess said in reference to the presbyterian ministers, there may, without questioning his veracity, be room for thinking that, unintentionally, no doubt, he gives to her speeches a coloring de- rived from his own peculiar leanings and sentiments, just as we every day see the narration of facts derive a coloring from the same cause. For.example, we have some doubt whether the duchess, in speaking of the presbyterian ministers, would say, in these precise terras, that they were “ devout in their way^'^ as if her own personal piety was of a different type from theirs ; the fact being that it was similar in character to that of the strictest of the covenanters — to that of such men as Dur- ham. Binning, and the Guthries— and that her views of doctrine, like theirs, were strictly Calvinislic. Such were the piety and religious sentiments of her uncle, Duke William, from whom she derived much religious instruction and spiritual profit, and such were the piety and religious sentiments of her daughter, Catherine, duchess of Athpll, who was educated under her own eye. Indeed it appears that it was her personal piety and her Calvinistic views of doctrine, more than any set- tled opinion she had as to church government, which caused her decided preference of the preaching of the ejected ministers. The probability then is, that she simply said that they were devout, and that Burnet, influenced in his ideas of personal piety by his Arminian sentiments, unconsciously represented her as saying that they were “ devout in their way,'' 13 146 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. against all agreements : so she thought that if the more moderate presbyterians were put in vacant churches, the people would grow tamer, and be taken out of the hands of the mad preachers that were then most in vogue : this,” she added, “ would likewise create confidence in them in the government ; for they were now so possessed with prejudice as to believe that all that was pro- posed was only an artifice, to make them fall out among them- selves, and deceive them at last.”* She got many of the more moderate of the presbyterian ministers to come to Burnet, and they all talked in a similar strain. From the manner in which the terms of the accommodation were represented to her by Burnet, and from her not having closely turned her attention to the study of church government, she did not, however, perceive that the scheme, being at variance with presbyterian principles, would have ultimately secured the triumph of prelacy, and could not, therefore, be conscientiously accepted by the presbyterians. Even after the presbyterian ministers had held meetings on the subject, and had rejected the proposed measure as inconsistent with their principles, she en- deavored to prevail with them to embrace it. She “ sent for some of them, [and for] Hutchinson in particular. She said she did not pretend to understand nice distinctions, and the terms of dispute : here was plain sense : the country might be again at quiet, and the rest of those that were outed admitted to churches on terms that seemed to all reasonable men very easy ; their rejecting this would give a very bad character of them, and would have very bad effects, of which they might see cause to repent when it would be too late.”t But, fortunately, the advice of the duchess, which was, in fact, though she might not perceive it, to advise them to give up without a struggle the cause for which they had all suffered, and for which not a few of their country- men had already sacrificed their lives, was not complied with, and thus the presbyterian ministers proved true to their own consistency, and to the cause which they had vowed to defend. After conversing with Hutchinson, and urging upon his attention the considerations already mentioned, she found that there was no chance of the scheme being accepted, and told Burnet that all she could draw from him was, that he saw the generality of his brethren were resolved not to enter into it ; that it would prove a bone of contention, and instead of healing old breaches, would create new ones.J Thus the whole negotiation about the accom- Burnet’s History of His Own Times, vol. i., p. 481. t Ibid., p. 511. t Ibid. THE DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 147 modation ended in nothing. There is, however, no doubt that the great anxiety of the duchess to get the presbyterians to em- brace the accommodation, proceeded from her sincere desire to see them delivered from the tyranny and oppression under which they had so long groaned. In testimony of the same amiable features of her character, the following passage from a letter written by Mr. John Carstairs to Mr. Robert M‘VVard, November 29, 1675, may be quoted : ‘‘ Things,” says he, “ have still a sad aspect on us, and that dis- appointing parliament being prorogued, it’s like we shall tyran- nize it here at the old rate. D. H. [Duke Hamilton] went here, with his lady and eldest daughter, for London, Monday last, not sent for by the king, but it’s like to see what he could do for the advocates. His lady told a person of honor, as I heard, that it should be seen that they went upon no account of their own, but for the good of the country, and of religion, though without all hope of coming speed as to anything, and desired that friends might remember them.”* The duke, on this visit to the court, urged upon the king, as we have seen before, the granting of a larger indulgence as the most effectual means of quieting the country ; a proposal with which his majesty, guided by his infa- mous adviser, Lauderdale, refused to comply, taunting the duke as a favorer of nonconformists. One thing which recommended Burnet to the duchess, besides his talents, was his tolerant sentiments in regard to matters of religion ;t for although connected with the prelatic church, and from principle a supporter of prelacy, his temper was moderate, * Wodrow MSS., vol. lix., folio, No. 38. t So high was the opinion she formed of the talents and moderation of Burnet, that she engaged him to undertake the task of compiling memoirs of her father and uncle, from the many papers in her possession relating both to their public conduct, and to their personal character. These papers she had carefully preserved, her un- cle William having charged her to keep them with the same care as she kept the writings of her estate, as they w'ould be found to contain a full justification of her fathers as well as his own public actings ; and desirous to vindicate the memory of these beloved relatives, who, notwithstanding the errors of their political lives, possessed many e.stimable qualities, she put all these documents into Burnet’s hands. “ This,” says he, was a very great trust, and 1 made no ill use of it. I found there materials for a very large history. I wrote it with great sincerity, and concealed none of their errors. 1 did, indeed, conceal several things that related to the king. I left out .some passages that were in his letters, in some of which was too much weakness, and in others too much craft and anger.” (Burnet’s History of his Own Times, vol. i., p. 516.) The work was printed at London, in 1677, and the Epistle Dedicatory, which is addressed to the king, is dated London, 21st October, 1673. It brings out the character of the duchess’s father in a much more favorable light than Clarendon brings it out in his History of the Rebellion, but that history, which was not published for many years after iis author’s death, has, not without ground, been suspected of having been corrupted by the Oxford gentlemen who pub- lished it. See Appendix, No. V. 148 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. and, like Leighton, he was an enemy to persecution. In the family of Hamilton the suiferings of the presbyferians, for adhe- ring to their covenant, were not imfrequently the subject of con- versation ; and, when present on such occasions, Burnet was accustomed to speak in terms of high respect of several of the ejected ministers and sufferers, as well as of commiseration for them, and even expressed so high an opinion of the national cov- enant which abjured popery, as to affirm it to be his conviction, that it would never be well with Scotland until it was renewed. This spirit, so very different from that which animated the great body of the prelatic clergy, was highly gratifying to her grace, with whose feelings and sentiments it so closely harmonized.* Though the duchess may not have desisted from hearing the curates of Hamilton, the parish in which she usually resided — for on the subject of hearing the curates the presbyterians were divided in sentiment, and she confessedly belonged to the less rigid portion of the body — yet she frequented the ministrations of the ejected ministers, taking her children along with her ; and she was in the habit of attending the sacrament of the Lord’s supper as administered by them, in various parts of the country. When Mr. William Violant became indulged minister at Cambus- nethan, the Lord’s supper was frequently administered in that place, and was resorted to by people from all quarters. Among others, the duchess regularly went over to observe the ordi- nance, and, on such occasions, it was her practice to reside at Coltness, in the family of Sir Thomas Stewart, who was himself a man of sincere piety, and whose lady was distinguished, in no ordinary degree, for her Christian virtues and graces. f In attending the indulged ministers, she was keeping within the strict limits of law ; but, breaking through the fences of the law, she sometimes also countenanced conventicles with her presence. This was one main reason of the strong opposition which her husband, the duke, made to the bond, which, by an act of privy council, August 2, 1677, all heritors, wood-setters, and life-renters, were required to subscribe, engaging that neither they themselves, their wives, their children, their servants, nor their tenants, should assemble at conventicles, or afford encour- agement and protection to those who frequented them, or employ any outed minister in baptizing their children, and that under the highest penalties appointed by former laws, which are repeated in the proclamation. After recording the alarm which this bond * Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. ii., p. 282 : and his History, vol. iv., p. 271. t Coltness Collections, p. 68. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 149 created in the west, and giving an account of a meeting of noble- men, gentlemen, and heritors, in the shire of Ayr, against it, pre- sided over by the earl of Loudon, Kirkton adds : “ The bond found no better reception in Clydesdale, where there was a great meeting of heritors at Hamilton ; and the duke of Hamilton being at this time highly displeased with the proceedings of the coun- cil, and a great enemy to the bond, knowing well that he could not answer for his own family, the bond was rejected even by those who were of no principle, but to save their estate.”* This opposition, however, proved unavailing. It raised Lau- derdale’s fury to such a pitch that, at the council table, he made made bare his arm above his elbow, and swore by Jehovah he would make the refractory landholders enter into it. For the purpose of coercing them he brought down upon the west of Scot- land, in 1678, a host of rapacious highlanders, to the number of not less than ten thousand.! Another species of oppression to which the gentlemen who refused to subscribe the bond were subjected, was the serving upon them a writ of lawborrows. The term lawborrows is from burgh or borrow ^ an old Scotch word for caution or surety^ and means security given to do nothing con- trary to law. The import of a lawborrows in Scotland is, that when two neighbors are at such variance that the one dreads bod- ily harm from the other, he procures from the justiciary (former- ly from the council), or any other judges competent, letters char- ging the other to find caution or security that the complainer, his wife, bairns, &;c., shall be scatheless from the person complained of, his wife, bairns, &c., in their body, lands, heritages, &c. ; but before such letters can be granted, the complainer must give his oath that he dreads bodily harm, trouble, or molestation from the person against whom he complains. The propriety of magistrates issuing such a writ in the case of private individuals may be ad- mitted ; but its being issued at the suit of the sovereign against his subjects, simply on account of their refusing an unreasonable bond, was the height of oppression. J Yet, under the operation of this writ, the duchess of Hamilton was threatened to be brought ; and had Lauderdale succeeded in his wishes, she would have been subjected to its restraints and penalties ; for the duke of Hamilton had intimation sent him that it was designed to serve it upon him;|l in other words, that he Ki'kton’s History, pp. 377, 378. t Burnet, in his “ Own Times," says eight thousand (vol. ii,, p. 134). Crook- shank, in his History, more correctly makes them ten thousand (vol. ii., p. 428). t Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., pp. 401, 403. Crookshank’s History, vol. i., p. 434. II Burnet’s Histoiy of his Own Times, vol. ii., p. 135. 13* 150 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. was to be obliged, according to the tenor of the act for serving lawborrows on the refusers of the bond, to enact himself in the books of the privy council, that he himself, the duchess, their children and their tenants, should keep his majesty’s peace, and particularly that they should not go to field conventicles, nor harbor, nor commune with rebels or persons intercommuned, and that under the penalty of the double of his yearly valued rent, or such other penalties as should be thought convenient by the lords of the privy council or their committee.* Lauderdale, however, was compelled to abandon his intentions. The ravages of the highland host, and the enactment in reference to lawbor- rows, ‘‘ which looked like French or rather like Turkish govern- ment,” created universal indignation. The duke of Hamilton, and ten or twelve of the nobility, with about fifty gentlemen of quality, went up to London to complain, and the storm of oppo- sition became so violent that Lauderdale was glad to recall the highland host, and suspend the execution of writs of lawborrows. j Residing almost constantly at the palace of Hamilton, the duchess had full opportunity of learning the state of affairs in the district ; and she entered much into the feelings of the people in the distressing and turbulent times in which she lived. She es- peciall)y;ook a great interest in the welfare and comfort of her tenantry, and when, like others, they were exposed to persecution and lawless violence, she was always prepared, according to her ability, to throw the shield of protection over them. In proof of this, we may refer to the manner in which she acted when, in 1678, the highland host, now adverted to, was let loose, like an army of locusts, to lay waste the western parts of the country. The injury done by the host to her tenantry was considerable, though perhaps less than that suffered by many others. In the parish of Strathaven, of which she was chief proprietor, by an account taken up a considerable number of years after the revo- lution, from such sufferers as were then alive, there was lost, by free quarters and other extortions, the sum of jC 1700 12^. ; and” as Wodrow remarks, “ we may, without any stretch, double it, considering that many were dead in thirty years and more, after the highland host were among them.” In the small parish of Cambuslang, one tenant had fifty highlanders of Atholl’s men, with a lieutenant and quartermaster, quartered on him for eight days ; another had sixteen quartered on him, also for eight days ; and other three had each twenty- two quartered on him during * Wodrow ’s History, vol. ii,. p. 401. t Buroet’s History of his Own Times, vol. ii, p. 135. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 151 the same period. In the return of the host from the more west- ern parts, one Lieutenant Stewart, and Quartermaster Leckie, came to that parish with eighteen men, continuing five weeks in it during seed-time ; and they told the parish that they had orders to quarter eighty men, though they never showed their order. No more than eighteen of their men ever came, but they exacted from the parish money equivalent to free quarters for eighty, which amounted to jC861, and whoever refused to pay had their houses rifled, and were forced to buy back their goods at a much larger sum than the sum for quarters would have amounted to. The tenantry in Hamilton parish were also sufferers from the same cause. Indignant at these oppressions and hardships to which her tenants were subjected, the duchess instantly complained, and adopted measures for obtaining redress. Upon the 5th of April, she took an instrument against the earl of Strathmore, insisting for the restoration of what had been illegally exacted from her tenants, in the parish of Hamilton, by his soldiers. This instru- ment bears, that on the 5th of April, in presence of a public notary and witnesses, John Baillie, her chamberlain, went to Patrick, earl of Strathmore, who was for the time in the dwelling-house of William Hamilton, maltman, burgess of Hamilton, and there, in her name and behalf, showed the earl that neither she nor William duke of Hamilton, her husband, had ever seen any orders allowing any officers or soldiers in any troops or regiments for the time within the shire Lanark, to have free quarters upon any person or persons of whatever class : and that, notwithstanding thereof, a considerable part of the regiment of foot, under the command of the earl, sometimes more and sometimes fewer, had quartered upon her lands and property, within the parish of Hamilton, from the 16th day of March last bypast to this present day inclusive, without payment of any sums of money : as also, that the said soldiers had exacted diverse sums of money, or dry quarters (as they termed these exactions), from several of her tenants, and that over and above the entertainment of meat, drink, and bedding, they had in the places where they were quartered. For this reason, and in respect no order had been shown for free quarters, or levying of money, over and above the same, Mr. Baillie, in name and behalf, and at command of the duchess, desired the earl either to pay, or cause payment to be made, to her respective tenants, for the quarters his soldiers had upon her said tenants during the period of time above written ; and also that the said tenants might be reimbursed of all exactions made 152 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. by his soldiers from them. To this it was answered by the earl, that the bringing such of his regiment into Hamilton parish was at the command of his majesty’s privy council, founded upon his majesty’s warrant ; that the way in which he had quartered them was conformably to orders from the major-general ; that he had never commanded or allowed any exactions of any kind besides their quarters ; and that such other exactions (if any were made), were expressly contrary to his orders. Upon which, this answer being judged unsatisfactory, Mr. Baillie, in name and at command of the duchess, as also the earl of Strathmore, took instruments in the hands of a notary.^ Whether these tenants were reim- bursed for their losses does not appear. The probability is that they were not, but the representations made by the duchess, the duke and others in reference to the proceedings of the highland host so far succeeded, that these savages, after having ravaged the country for two months, were recalled. The duchess was residing at Hamilton palace when the cove- nanters, and the king’s troops, under the command of the duke of Monmouth, fought at Bothwell bridge, on sabbath the 22d of June, 1679. The result of this unfortunate engagement is well known. The covenanters were defeated and put to flight. Few of them were slain in the encounter, but some hundreds were slaughtered in the most barbarous manner in the neighboring fields, whither they had fled. A great number of them sought for concealment in the wooded parks around Hamilton palace ; and here they found effectual shelter ; for the humane duchess, on being informed that many of the insurgents who had been defeated were lurking in her policies, and that the royal army was pursuing them, sent a message to the duke of Monmouth, desiring that he would prevent his soldiers from trespassing upon her grounds. With this request Monmouth, whose humanity in restraining the soldiers is deserving of commendation, instantly complied by giving orders to that effect ; and thus none of the fugitives who had taken refuge in her plantations were farther molested.! In addition to her humanity, the duchess possessed a nice sense of the honorable and just in spirit and in conduct. And as by such principles she herself was uniformly regulated, it afforded her much satisfaction to meet with them in others. Of this we have a fine illustration in an interesting correspondence which * Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 430. t Chambers’s Picture of Scotland, vol. i., p. 357. New Statistical Account of Scot- land, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, p. 266. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 153 took place in 1687, between her and Thomas Rokeby, son of Major Rokeby, for whose use part of the estate of Hamilton had been sold in Cromwell’s time. This gentleman writes to her, informing her that he was the ninth son of Major Rokeby ; that after much reflection with himself, he had come to the conclu- sion that Cromwell had no power to give away what was not his own ; that by his father’s death, a tenth part of the price (two hun- dred and twenty-flve pounds sterling) had come to him when a boy, which was the only part he had in the injury ; and that, hav- ing suffered many hard conflicts with himself on that account, he had resolved to make restitution, as the first step to forgiveness, first from God, and then from her grace. He wrote to her five letters on the subject. With these communications the duchess was much gratified, not indeed because she attached any impor- tance to the amount of his share of her spoils which he was so anxious to restore, but because of the indication they gave of a high sense of honor and a scrupulous regard to justice, which, in such matters, is not very common, and of which she probably never met, during her long life, with a similar instance. In her answers to his letters, she says little about the money, telling him that the duke took care of that ; but she expresses her admiration at his conduct, “ falling almost before him as a votary,” and ear- nestly desires an interest in the prayers of a person endowed in her estimation with such superior excellence of character. These letters are preserved among the state papers and other documents in the palace of Hamilton ; and Mr. George Chalmers, the well- known author of Caledonia,” who had read them, says, “ The beautiful simplicity that runs through this correspondence can not be seen but in the letters themselves.’’* Of the revolution which took place in 1688, the duchess was a warm friend, both because it delivered these nations from tyr- anny and popery, and restored the presbyterian church of Scot- land to her rights and liberties. Lockhart styles her a stanch presbyterian, and hearty revolutioner.”! Her zeal in the cause of the church was well known to King William, who delicately jested her on the subject; as we learn from the following anec- dote, recorded by Wodrow. Writing, October 3, 1710, he says : I hear that a little after the revolution, when this present duch- ess of Hamilton was coming down from court, and had taken her leave of the queen, and took leave of King William, he, smiling, * Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv , pp. 183, 184. t Lockhart’s Papers, vol. i., p. 602. 154 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. said, ‘ You are going down to take care of the kirk.’ — ‘ Yes, sir,’ she replied, ‘ I own myself a presbyterian,’ and offered to kneel to kiss his hand. The king presently supported her, and, as I think, did not suffer her to kneel, but said, ‘ Madam, I am like- wise a presbyterian.’ This I have from one that was witness to it, and another good hand that had it from the duchess.”* The duke, her husband, was also a zealous supporter of the revolution government ; but her son, the earl of Arran, devotedly adhered to James VII. He had been much courted by that mon- arch, who had conferred upon him various lucrative and honora- ble situations, such as the office of his majesty’s lieutenant and sheriff in the shires of West Lothian, Lanark, Renfrew, and Dumbarton ; the office of groom of the stole, and first gentleman of the bedchamber ; the office of colonel of a royal regiment of horse, and of brigadier-general of all the horse ; as well as the honor of a knight of the thistle.f Gained by these marks of royal favor, he supported James in opposition to the government of William ; and, having been engaged in a plot for the restora- tion of James, he was twice committed prisoner to the Tower o London, where he remained for many months, but was at length discharged without prosecution. While he lay in prison, the duchess, though disapproving of his conduct, naturally felt for her son, and wrote to the earl of Melville, interceding in his be- half, as she had often before interceded with men in high places, in behalf of those who had suffered in a better cause. The let- ter is as follows : — “ My Lord : The receipt of yours of the 4th was a great sur- prise to me, to find, after so long a delay of that affair I com- mended so earnestly to your lordship, that there is so little done in it. I doubt not, but as you write, and as I am otherwise in- formed, the stop has not lain at your door, though there are who say it has, but I wish it were made evident who have been the ob- structors. I hope my son’s peaceable behavior all this time will render his circumstances something more favorable than [those of] some others ; and, when his majesty considers the service his father has done, will move him to renew the same favor he granted before to my son, his liberty on bail, which will be re- ceived as a great favor to all concerned ; and if the ill condition of his health were known, it would plead compassion for him. Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. i., p. 304. t Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv., p. 183. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 155 But I have not time to add more, but my lord’s humble service to you, and that I am, my lord, your lordship’s most humble servant, “ Hamilton. “ Holyrood house, 19th December, 1690.”* In the year 1706, when the question of the union of the king- doms of Scotland and England was so keenly agitated, the duch- ess was a very zealous opponent of the measure. The union was indeed in the highest degree unpopular among all parties. The cavaliers or Jacobites, perceiving that it would destroy all hopes of the restoration of the pretender, violently obstructed it in every stage of its progress. The presbyterians, too, whose opposition v/as much more formidable, opposed it, though from very different views, dreading that the consequence would be the supplanting of their favorite presbyterian church government, by the prelatic* form established in England ; and so strong was this apprehension, that it could not be removed by all the offers made of security to the established presbyterian church. Burnet, who was then bishop of Salisbury, and a great courtier, says that these fears were “ infused in them chiefly by the old duchess of Hamilton, who had great credit with them.”t But this is per- haps ascribing to her grace a larger amount of weight in the church of Scotland than (notwithstanding the great respect en- tertained for her) she actually possessed. Altogether indepen- dent of her opinion or influence, the intrinsic importance of the question itself roused the attention of the presbyterians ; and they considered that good affection and zeal for the just rights and liberties, both of the nation and of the presbyterian government of the church of Scotland, as then by law established, bound them to oppose the union. The duchess, however, did all in her power to prevail on her friends to set themselves against it. Among the “ Hamilton Papers” there are still preserved several letters she wrote to her son the duke, inciting him to oppose it as ruin- ous to his country, and steadfastly to concur with the duke of Atholl and those in the opposition.^ Burnet states that it was suggested that she and her son had particular views, as hoping that, if Scotland should continue a separate kingdom, the crown might come into their family, they being the next in blood after King James’s posterity. ”|| But such an insinuation is altogether The Level! and Melville Papers, p. 587. t Burnet’s Histoiy of his Own Times, vol. vi., p. 277. }: Descriptive Catalogae of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv., p. 201. II Burnet’s History of his Own Times, vol. vi., p. 277. 156 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. gratuitous. The love of country, and attachment to the doctrine and government of the church of Scotland, were the avowed rea- sons of her hostility to the union. That her motives were family considerations was the surmise of her enemies, which they could not support by a single word she had ever uttered or written, or by a single action she had ever performed. Upon the preaching of the gospel and the public ordinances of religion, the duchess set a high value. She attended with exemplary regularity public worship on the Lord’s day ; and after the revolution, when the church was settled in a manner more consonant to her inclinations than before, she took a Chris- tian interest in the efficiency and success of the gospel ministry. To secure to the parishes where her influence extended, such probationers as, upon the best inquiry, were found to be accep- table to all ranks in the parish, was her great object. To the external comfort of the ministers of these as well as other par- ishes, she was ever ready to minister, and in other ways to encourage them in the faithful discharge of their pastoral duties. To provide more extensively the means of grace to the inhabi- tants of the district where she lived, and to the tenantry on her es- tate, was also her anxious desire. In testimony of this, she endowed a second minister in Hamilton, and another in Lesmahago.* She endowed a catechist, or preacher of the gospel, for Strathaven, who is always a licentiate of the church of Scotland, and assists the parish minister by visiting the sick, catechizing the parish, and preaching one half of the year. By her deed of mortifica- tion, dated 1st April, 1710, the annual income secured to him is five hundred merks, and his appointment is vested in the noble family of Hamilton.! To the stipend of the parish minister of Strathaven she added by mortification, the annual sum of five pounds, which is regularly paid by the duke of Hamilton.^ She mortified, 15th August, 1715, a piece of ground and a barn, for the use of the minister of Borrowstounness and his successors * Scots Magazine for 1773, pp. 5, 6. Chalmer’s Caledonia, vol. iii., p. 723. The parish of Lesmahago was served by two ministers long before this period. The second minister was established a considerable time before the Restoration, but from what source his stipend was then paid does not appear. The writer in the Scots magazine, in recording the liberality of the duchess in endowing the second minis- ter in the parish of Lesmahago, adds : “ This is but one instance I have mentioned of her piety and generosity. It would be impossible to enumerate them all. On this account her memory will be revered not only in Lesmahago, where she was so well known, but by all acquainted with her character, as long as a sense of virtue and religion remain in the world.” t Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Mait- land Club, vol. iv., p. 206. t New Statistical Account of Scotland, Lanarkshire, Avondale. DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. 157 for ever.* She also mortified, 13th October, 1694, to the univer- sity of Glasgow, the sum of eighteen thousand merks for the use of three theologues, from time to time, to be presented by the family of Hamilton.! Besides these deeds of liberality, “ she founded and endowed several schools, built bridges, and per- formed many acts of benevolence, which make her name to be revered in Clydesdale to this day.”! We shall only advert to two other features of this lady’s Chris- tian character. The one is, the sentiments of humility which pervaded her spirit in the house of God. In other places, and at other times, she was not unwilling to receive the honor due to her rank ; but there, seated in the presence of the Divine Majesty, to whom ail the temporary distinctions of life are nothing, she wished to appear on the same footing with the poorest, feeling that she labored under the same necessities as a rational and an immortal being ; that she had equally merited God’s wrath, and equally stood in need of his mercy. An instance of this pious humility which she cherished in the place of public worship is still preserved. At the stated times for the celebration of the Lord’s supper, in the parish of Hamilton, she was a regular com- municant ; and on one of these occasions, when she was coming forward to the table of the Lord, a plain, decent, aged woman, who was just taking her seat at the table, on observing her, was about to step aside to give her the precedency ; but the duchess, unwilling to receive in that place such marks of attention and re- spect, prevented her, saying, “ Step forward, honest woman, there is no distinction of ranks here.”il The other feature of her character worthy of special notice, is her pains-taking endeavors to train up her children in the nur- ture and admonition of the Lord. “ There is nothing,” as has been justly observed, “ which presents the duchess’s character in a more favorable light, and recommends her more for imitation, than the decided interest she took in the religious education of her own family. To overlook all concern about having religious * Descriptive Catalogue of the Hamilton Papers in the Miscellany of the Maitland Club, vol. iv., p. 206. t Ibid. t Anderson’s Memoirs of the House of Hamilton, p. 150. II This anecdote is taken from a MS. volume, entitled “ Memoirs of Catharine, Duchess of Atholl, in form of a Diary, Originally written by Herself. To which are prefixed Biographical Notices of the Duchess’s Parents, William Third Duke, and Anne, Duchess of Hamilton ; Of her Husband, John, First Duke of Atholl, and of Duchess Catharine herself.” By the late Rev. Mr. Moncrieff, minister of the united secession church in Hamilton. The notice of the duchess Anne is short, but interesting. I can not here omit expressing my obligations to the Rev. W. O. Moncrieff, Musselburgh, who in the kindest manner favored me with a perusal of that work by his father, with full permission to make full use of its contents. 14 ]58 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. principles instilled into the minds of their children, has been often too common with those in conspicuous ranks, and their principal care has been to provide for them every facility of acquiring fashionable and polite accomplishments. A suitable care that her family might not be without the accomplishments becoming their high rank in society, was not overlooked by her grace. But she also considered that it was a matter of the first, and of vital importance, that true religion should be understood, esteemed, and diligently practised in her family. Her children were much under her eye, and had a great respect and affection for her, es- pecially her daughter. Lady Catharine,* who became the wife of the duke of Atholl. There is every evidence, from the diary of Lady Catharine, that, besides other means of information and improvement to which she had access, the instructions and ex- ample of her esteemed mother were of great use, by the blessing of God, in disposing her mind to that love of charity and reli- gion which took deep root in her heart, and to that faithful dis- charge of her duties as a wife, a parent, and a Christian, for which she was so distinguished.”! The duchess lived to a very advanced age, retaining the pos- session of her mental faculties to the last ; and exhibiting the most exemplary Christian patience under the infirmities of decli- ning years. Mr. Robert Wylie, minister of Hamilton, in a letter to Bishop Burnet, her old friend, dated October 29, 1714, says : The good old duchess is still alive, entire in her judgment and senses, and laboring with a most exemplary patience and resig- nation under the infirmities of old age and frequent conflicts with the gout.”J This was very nearly two years before her death ; which took place at the palace of Hamilton, on Wednesday, Oc- tober 17, 1716, at six o’clock at night. The Scots Courant of that year, in recording her death, states that she was then in the eighty-sixth year of her age, adding that she was a pious and virtuous lady, and is much lamented.” Her mortal remains were deposited beside those of her husband, father, and ancestors, in the family burying-vault at Hamilton. The particulars of her last illness have not been recorded ; but the manner in which she had spent a long life, had been such as to form the best preparation for another world, and it can not be doubted that her latter end was peace. She came to the grave in a good old age, like as a shock of corn cometh in its season Men of different and opposite political and religious creeds, have * A notice of this lady is given in the close of this volume. t Mr. Moncrieff’s MS. f Wodrow’s Correspondence, vol. i., p. 604. MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 159 ■united in paying homage to her virtue, piety, and mental endow- ments. Bishop Burnet’s testimony to these has already been quoted. Crawford describes her as ‘‘ a lady who for constancy of mind, evenness of temper, solidity of judgment, and an unaf- fected piety, will leave a shining character, as well as example, to posterity, for her conduct as a wife, a mother, a mistress, and in all other conditions of life.”* Lockhart, a violent Jacobite, char- acterizes her as “ a lady of great honor and singular piety.”! And so high was the reputation for Christian excellence which she left behind her, that her memory was cherished with affec- tionate veneration long after her death, and even down to the present day, the “ good duchess Anne” is the name by which she is familiarly known in the district where she commonly re- sided, and where her piety and benevolence were best known. MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH.j: Marion Fairlie, the subject of this sketch, “ who,” as the editor of her diary well observes, endured an amount of domes- tic affliction and vexatious persecution, in many cases more try- ing than martyrdom itself,” was born in 1638, a year famous in the annals of the presbyterian church of Scotland. Her father was descended from the ancient family of the Fairlies, of the house of Braid, near Edinburgh, and was related to Lord Lee’s first lady, who was of that house and name. Both her parents being eminent for piety were careful to instruct her in her tender years in the principles of divine truth, and to impress upon her mind the importance of the one thing needful. By the Divine blessing on these labors of parental love, together with the pas- toral instructions of an evangelical and faithful minister, Mr. Robert Birnie, of Lanark, she early acquired that deep sense of the things of God which she exemplified to the close of a ]ong life. “ It pleased God,” says she, “ of his great goodness, early to incline my heart to seek him, and bless him that I was born in a land where the gospel was at that time purely and power- fully preached ; as also, that I was born of godly parents and well educated. But above all things, I bless him that he made Crawford’s Peerage of Scotland, p. 212. f Lockhart’s Papers, vol. i., p. 597. X This notice of Mrs. Veitch is drawn up chiefly from her own diary, and from the memoirs of Mr. V eitch, written by himself. 160 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. me see that nothing but the righteousness of Christ could save me from the wrath of God.” She adds, “ one day having been at prayer, and coming into the room where one was reading a letter of Mr. Rutherford’s (then only in manuscript), directed to one John Gordon, of Rosco, giving an account how far one might go, and yet prove a hypocrite and miss heaven, it occasioned great exercise to me.* Misbelief said I should go to hell ; but one day at prayer, the Lord was graciously pleased to set home upon my heart that w^ord, ‘ To whom. Lord, shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life’ (John, vi. 68). And at another time, that word, ‘ Those that seek me early shall find me,’ Prov. viii. 17.” On the 23d of November, 1664, she was united in marriage to Mr. William Yeitch, son of Mr. John Veitch, the nonconforming, ejected minister of Roberton. Mr. Veitch had been for some time previous, chaplain to Sir Hugh Campbell, of Calder, in Mo- rayshire, but was forced to leave that family about September that year ; for on the restoration of prelacy, none, according to an act of parliament, were permitted to be chaplains in families, to teach any public school, or to be tutors to the children of per- sons of quality, without the license of the bishop of the diocese ;t and Mr. Murdoch McKenzie, bishop of Moray, having, upon making inquiry, found Mr. Veitch’s opinions hostile to prelacy, would not suffer him to remain in that situation. He accordingly came south, and staying some time with his father, who, since his ejection, had taken up his residence at Lanark, became ac- quainted with the godly families of that place, among which was the family of the young lady whom he married. Several of her friends endeavored, but without effect, to dissuade her from the mar- riage, urging, among other reasons, the worldly straits to which, from the discouraging aspect of the times, she might be reduced. This at first occasioned her no inconsiderable anxiety of mind ; but she resolved to trust in God’s promises for all needful tempo- ral good things, as well as for spiritual blessings. “ And,” says she, “these promises were remarkably made good to me in all the various places of my sojourning in diverse kingdoms, which I here mention to the commendation of his faithfulness. His word in this has been a tried word to me, worthy to be recorded, to encourage me to trust him for the future ; w^ho heretofore has not only provided well for me and mine, but made me in the places where my lot was cast useful to others, and made that * See Rutherford’s Letters, p. 552. Whyte and Kennedy’s edition. t Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 267. MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 161 word good, ‘ As having nothing, and yet possessing all things,’ 2 Cor. vi., 10.” Scarcely two years after her marriage, the storm of persecu- tion burst upon her and Mr. Veitch, separating them from each other, and ultimately forcing them to seek refuge in England. Mr. Veitch, who was a bold and daring man, was prevailed upon by Mr. John Welsh, minister of Iron gray, and others who came to his house at the Westhills of Dunsyre, where he farmed a piece of land, to join with, that party of the covenanters, who, provoked by the brutal cruelties and robberies of Sir James Tur- ner, rose in arms, and were defeated by the king’s forces at Pentland hills.* This was the origin of the multiplied dangers and troubles to which he and Mrs. Veitch were subjected, by the government and its agents, during a series of many years. She seems to have had no scruples of conscience as to the propriety of the appeal which the covenanters, in this instance, made to arms : she at least wished them all success. On the night of the defeat, she was entertaining several of the officers who had fled to her house for shelter, and weeping lest her husband, of whose fate they could not inform her, should have been killed. On that same night* Mr. Veitch made his escape, and came to a herdsman’s house in Dunsyre common, within a mile of his own house, giving the herdsman his horse to take home to his own stable, and desiring him to inform Mrs. Veitch of his safety. He lurked several nights thereabout, and at last retired into England. Two days after the battle, Mrs. Veitch was thrown into alarm by a party of Dalziel’s troop, which that general, on learning where Mr. Veitch resided, had sent to the house to search for him ; but to her great comfort, he was not at home, and though in the immediate neighborhood escaped falling into their hands. It was also gratifying both to him and her, that the troopers did not get his fine horse, the man-servant having led him out to the moor ; for as it belonged to Lord Loudon, from whom the insur- gent covenanters had taken it, on account of his sending his offi- cer to warn all his tenants not to rise to their assistance, they were anxious to restore it to its rightful owner. On the following day, which was Saturday, Mr. Veitch having sent a man-servant down to Tweeddale, to •see whether it might be safe to travel through that part of the country, Mrs. Veitch rode behind the man-servant, upon Lord Loudon’s horse, to the house of Mr. Pat- rick Fleming, minister of Stobo, a nonconformist, and sent Mr. * The battle was fought on Wednesday, the 28 th of November, 1666 . 14 * 162 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Veitch word, according to his desire, by the man-servant, who was to return, that he might, to all appearance, with perfect safety, join her at the house of their friend, as she had observed no parties searching in that direction. On Mr. Veitch’s arrival at Mr. Fleming’s house, which was about midnight, it was judged safest for him immediately to leave it, and seek shelter else- where ; and Mrs. Veitch accompanied him on his journey, it being now the sabbath morning, riding behind him on the same horse. They reached Glenvetches before day, and at night came to Torwoodle, the residence of Mr. George Pringle, who, with his lady, a daughter of Brodie, of Lethin, in the north of Scotland, were ardently attached to the religion and liberty of their country, and whose house was a sanctuary to many of the persecuted in those e^dl times. Leaving this hospitable man- sion, they next proceeded to the house of Mr. Yeitch’s brother, Mr. John, minister of Werstruther, in the shire of Berwick. Here having seen the printed proclamation for the apprehension of the leading whigs, in which his own name appeared, Mr. Veitch deemed it prudent to secure his safety by fleeing into England, leaving behind him his wife and Lord Loudon’s horse She rode on the horse to Edinburgh, where she delivered it to one of his lordship’s friends, and then returned to her own family at the Westhills of Dunsyre. Meanwhile Mr. Veitch went to Newcastle. After her return home, Mrs. Veitch was greatly molested with parties of troopers, who came to her house to search for her hus- band. On such occasions it was usual for a party of them to surround the house to prevent him, should he be within, from making his escape by the windows, or any concealed or back door, while another party went into the house and searched through every room and corner. Judging that there was more likelihood of his being at home during the night than during the day, they ordinarily paid their unwelcome visits in the night, when Mrs. Veitch and her children were in bed; and at what- ever hour they came, they rudely commanded her to rise and open the doors, threatening, that unless she did so quickly, they would force an entrance by breaking them up. But though often engaged in making these searches, and so intent upon their ob- ject as to secure the aid of a malignant laird and lady in the neighborhood, who promised to inform them when he came home, they never succeeded in finding him. Hearing of the harassing annoyances to which his wife was subjected, Mr. Veitch, dan- gerous as it was, came from Newcastle to see her and the chil- MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 163 dren, and advised her to give up the farm and take up her resi- dence in Edinburgh, where he hoped she might be suffered to remain in quiet. Removing to Edinburgh, in compliance with his desire, she continued to live with her children in the capital for several years, during which time she was free from the trouble- some visiters who had rendered her so uncomfortable at the West- hills of Dunsyre. At length, about the year 1672, she and the children went to England to live with Mr. Yeitch, who, after travelling from place to place, preaching the gospel to the English nonconformists, who had been deprived of their ministers by the act of uniformity, and by subsequent proceedings on the part of government, had been prevailed with by the people of Reedsdale, in Northumber- land, to give them the benefit of his stated ministry, and to bring his family thither. Before leaving Scotland she had given birth to four children. There two of them, a daughter and a son, had 'died and were buried. The other two, who were sons, William and Samuel, she took with her to England. In those days, when neither railways nor stagecoaches existed, it was the custom to convey children to a distance in creels upon horseback, and by this slow and inconvenient mode of travelling she brought her two boys by different stages from Edinburgh to the new place of their residence, which was a village called Falalies, within the parish of Rothbury, in Northumberland. Here Mr. Veitch, for the better support of his family, farmed a piece of ground, the salary he received as minister from the people, who were poor, being altogether inadequate for the maintenance of his family, and all that he had having been taken from him upon his forfeit- ure in life and fortune after the battle of Pentland hills, except a little which was unknown to his persecutors. After recording in her diary her removal from Scotland to England, Mrs. Veitch says : “ Being deprived of what once I had in Scotland, I re- newed my suit to God for me and mine, and that was, that he would give us the tribe of Levi’s inheritance, ‘ For the Lord God was their inheritance,’ Josh. xiii. 33. When I entered into a strange land, I besought the Lord that he would give me food to eat and raiment to put on, and bring me back to set his glory in Scotland. This promise was exactly made out to me.” She did not remain long in that place, having gone with Mr. Veitch to reside five miles farther in the country, where, besides preaching in a hall at Harnam, he farmed a piece of ground, and got as a residence for his family Harnamhall, the mansion of Major Babington, the representative of the Babingtons, a family 164 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. whose antiquity in Britain is traced as far back as the Conquest, After continuing here four years, being again under the neces- sity of removing, the house and ground having fallen into the hands of a new proprietor, who refused to continue Mr. Veitch as his tenant, she accompanied him to Stantonhall, in the parish of Longhorsly, in May, 1676 or 1677. That district, abounding with papists, and the incumbent of the parish, Mr. Thomas Bell, a Scotsman, being a violent persecutor, it was far from being a desirable place of residence for the family of a nonconforming presbyterian minister. Here Mrs. Yeitch experienced no small trouble from the repeated attempts made to apprehend Mr. Yeitch. At one time, on the second sabbath of August, 1678, about three o’clock in the afternoon, two justices of the peace, on the simple information of a single individual, seconded by the threatenings and persuasion of Mr. Bell, came with some men to apprehend him at a meeting in his own house. One of the justices, with his party, came to the front gates, while the other, with his party,' appeared at the back gate. They rudely broke into the house, and searched through it with pistols in their hands. Baffled in their attempts to find Mr. Yeitch, who concealed himself within the lining of a large window, which had been made for that pur- pose, they at last went away, after having advised Mrs. Yeitch to allow her husband to preach only to herself and her children in which case they assured her she should not be troubled. Another attempt, made some time after, to apprehend him, proving successful, became to her a source of greater trouble. On sabbath, the 19th of January, 1679, Major Oglethorp, with a party of his dragoons from Morpeth, arrived at her house, which was three or four miles distant from Morpeth, about five o’clock in the morning, while the family were fast asleep. One Cleugh, a sheriff-bailiff, whom Oglethorp (who was a stranger in the country) had hired as his guide, on reaching the house, went to the window of the parlor where Mr. and Mrs. Yeitch were sleep- ing, and rapping on the glass of the window, repeatedly called out the name of Mr. Yeitch, who, awaking, asked who was there. On hearing him speak, Cleugh said to the major, who was stand- ing beside him, “ Now, yonder he is : I have no more to do.” Oglethorp, thus understanding that the object of his search was in the house, instantly broke in pieces the glass window, in or- der to get in ; but finding iron bars in his way, he demanded that the door should be immediately opened ; and, impatient of delay, he and his dragoons broke in at the hall-windows, and getting their candles lighted before the servant-maid opened the inneif MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 165 doors, they apprehended Mr, Veitch, and carried him to Morpeth jail, where he continued prisoner twelve days. During the time that this scene was enacting, Mrs. Veitch, though not free from alarm, yet persuaded that men could do nothing against her and her husband but what God permitted, conducted herself with a degree of composure which even sur- prised the rude and heartless military. In relating the scene, she says : “It bred some trouble and new fear to my spirit ; but He was graciously pleased to set home that word, ‘ He does all things well,’ Mark vii. 37 ; ‘ Trust in the Lord, and fear not what man can do,’ Ps. Ivi. 11 ; which brought peace to me in such a measure, that I was made often to wonder ; for all the time the officers were in the house He supported me, so that I was not in the least discouraged before them, which made Major Oglethorp say he wondered to see me. I told him I looked to a higher hand than his in this, and I knew he could not go one hair breadth beyond God’s permission. He answered that He per- mits his enemies to go a great length sometimes. They took him to prison, where he lay about twelve days.” During that period of Mr. Yeitch’s imprisonment Mrs. Veitch was deeply afflicted in spirit, for which she had indeed too much reason, her prospects being very dark and distressing. She had no ground to hope that he would be soon released. She had, on the contrary, much cause to fear that he would share the fate of those who had been put to death for the Pentland insurrection ; for he was regarded by the government as a traitor of the deepest dye : sentence of death had been pronounced against him in his absence for high-treason,* and he was excluded by name from the king’s pardon and indemnityf — all which augured ill for his future safety. Besides, she had now six helpless children, en- tirely dependent upon herself, with no apparent means of provi- ding for their temporal necessities. But though sunk in sorrow in such trying circumstances, she was not overwhelmed with despair. Betaking herself to the throne of grace, where the afflicted have so often found relief, and reposing in the gracious promises of God’s word, she was enabled to acquiesce in the Divine will, even though her husband should fall a sacrifice to the fury of persecution, and though she herself, with her father- less children, should be cast destitute upon the world. “ All the twelve days of his imprisonment,” she says, “ I was under much exercise of spirit, which made me go to God many times on his behalf. He made that word often sweet to me, ‘ He perforraeth * On the 16tli of August, 1667. t Dated October 1, 1667. 163 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. the things appointed for me,’ Job xxiii. 14 ; and that, ‘ He is of one mind, and who can turn him V verse 13. Much means were used for his liberty, but all to no effect, which bred new errands to God for him and me. But misbelief coming in and telling many ill tales of God, was like to discourage me ; to wit, that I was a stranger in a strange land, and had six small children, and little in the world to look to. But He comforted me with these words : — ‘ O why art thon cast down, my soul — What should discourage thee ? And why with vexing thoughts art thou Disquieted in me ? Still trast in God ; for him to praise Good cause I yet shall have : He of my count’nance is the health, My God that doth me save.’ — Ps. xliii. 5. “ At length He helped me to give him freely to Him, to do with him as He pleased ; and if his blood should fill up the cup of the enemy, and bring about deliverance to His church, I would betake myself to His care and providence for me and my chil- dren.” She adds, as if her faith had stayed the fury of the per- secutor, and arrested his cruel purpose : And while I was yet speaking to God in prayer, that word was wonderfully brought into my mind, ‘ Abraham, hold thy hand, for I have provided a sacrifice’ (Gen. xxii. 11, 12), which comforted me concerning my husband ; and that word, ^ The meal in the barrel shall not waste, nor the oil in the cruise, until the Lord send rain on the earth’ (1 Kings xvii. 14), which brought much peace to my troubled spirit concerning my troubled family. I thought I had now ground to believe he should not die ; but misbelief soon got the upper hand, and told me it was not the language of faith, which put me to go to God, and pour out my spirit before him. And He answered me with that word, ‘ They that walk in dark- ness and have no light, let them trust in the Lord, and stay tl\pm- selves on their God!’ (Isaiah 1. 10), which refreshed me much, and gave me more ground to believe my husband should not die.” While Mr. Yeitch was lying in Morpeth jail, she received a letter from him, written on the evening of the eleventh day of his imprisonment, informing her that an order having been despatched from the king and English council to transport him to Scotland, there to suffer for alleged misdemeanors, he was to be removed from Morpeth for Scotland on the morrow, and requesting her immediately to come and see him. “ When I opened the letter,” she says, “ he had that expression, ‘ Deep calleth unto deep,’ &c. MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 167 But He [God] was pleased to send home that word, ‘ Good is the word of the Lord,’ which silenced much my misbelief.” On receivino' the letter, she proceeded without delay to Morpeth, riding, along with a man-servant, through a deep storm of snow, and arrived at an inn in Morpeth after midnight. Not being allowed access to her husband till the morning, she sat, during the remainder of the night, at the fireside ; and when admitted to him, she could not speak to him but in the presence of a guard of soldiers, who were that night placed in the room to watch him, lest he should make his escape. Nor had she been long with him, when, the kettle-drums beating the troops presently to arms, he was separated from her, and being carried out to the streets, was set on horseback, in the midst of the soldiers (the town’s people, from curiosity, running to gaze), and brought to Alnwick, thence to Belford, thence to Berwick, and after being kept there for some time, was carried to Edinburgh, where he was thrown into prison. “ All these things,” says she, “were against me, and conspired to frighten me ; but that word, being set home, wonderfully supported me, ‘ Fear thou not the fear of man, but let the Lord be your fear and your dread’ (Isaiah viii. 12, 13). I went after to a friend’s house in the town, and wept my fill, and some friends with me. He desired that a day might be kept [for offering up prayers in his behalf], which was done in several places of the country. I went home to my children, having one upon the breast. I was under much exercise about him, and it was my suit to Him who, I can say, is a present help in the time of trouble, that he might be kept from the evil of sin ; which He was graciously pleased to answer.” The concluding sentence of this quotation, though very humbly and unostentatiously ex- pressed, breathes a spirit of noble Christian fortitude — the holy heroism of the martyr. So strong was her sense of the para- mount claims of duty, that to witness her husband undergoing his present hardships, and even crueller treatment, however painful to natural affection, was less painful to her than would have been the sight of his doing, from motives of worldly ease, aught which God and conscience would condemn. As a farther aggravation of the distressing circumstances into which she and her children were at this time reduced, it may be added that, being conducted to Edinburgh jail at his own expense, Mr. Veitch was under the necessity of selling his stock for money to bear his charges, and, “ by so doing, to lay his farm lea, rendering it presently useless to his family, yea, so disabled, as the way-going crop was lost, in which sad posture he left them : ]68 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. the children young, insensible of the matter, and unfit to do for themselves, so that the whole burden was laid on the mother.” To the extracts made from Mrs. Veitch’s diary during this pe- riod of trial, we may add the interesting record left by Mr. Veitch, of her distressful feelings and her faith in God under it, which proves that she was, as he expresses it, “ a meet helper for him indeed, in this very case.” “ Trouble and anguish,” says he, ‘‘ did now compass her about in this darkest hour of her twelve years’ night of affliction. Her soul melteth for heaviness and grief ; she is now in deep waters in a foreign land, far from her relations, friends, and acquaintances ; distress and desolation at home, and destruction and death abroad ; the sad report whereof, with trembling, she expects every day, because of the fury of the oppressor. This puts her on a most serious exercise, and firm resolution to take God for all. He should be the husband, and he should be the farm ; he should be the stock and the crop ; he should be the provider, the food, and the raiment, the master of the family, and the father of the children ; yea, she resolved to cleave faster unto this relation than Ruth did to Naomi, for that which parted them should bring her to the greatest nearness, most inseparable and comfortable communion with her God. Thus, while deep called unto deep, she held by her compass, and followed the precedents of the word. Her prayer was in this night to the God of her life, and Jacob-like, she gave it not over till she got a new lease of her husband’s life granted her ; which, when she obtained, she wrote an encouraging letter to him at Berwick (the weaning of her child Sarah not suff’ering her yet to visit him), telling him that he should be like Isaac, with the knife at his throat, near to death ; but the Lord would find a sac- rifice, and the enemy should be restrained. She wished him also not to be anxious about his family, for the meal and the oil, little as it was, should not fail ; not only till he returned, but also the kingdom to Israel. These instances, so clearly and convin- cingly borne in upon her, gave her good ground to say with the psalmist, ‘ Thy word is my comfort in all my afflictions her prayers and pleadings were turned to praises, and his statutes were her ‘ songs in the house of her pilgrimage,’ and she was persuaded that her night would yet have a day succeeding it, wherein he would, as a special favor to her and her family, command his loving kindness.” Under all her sufferings, Mrs. Veitch uniformly speaks in a chastened and subdued tone of those by whom they were inflict- ed ; nor did she yield to that bitterness and exultation of spirit MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 169 whicli the human heart is so naturally inclined to cherish, at wit- nessing or hearing of the calamities or judgments which may light on an enemy. Within five days after Mr. Veitch’s trans- portation from Morpeth to Edinburgh, one of the most virulent of his persecutors, Mr. Bell, formerly referred to,* met with his death in very appalling circumstances. On returning home from Newcastle, he stopped at Ponlilland, and continued drinking there with the curate till about ten o’clock at night, when he de- termined to go home. The curate urged him, as the night was dark and stormy, and the river Pont, which he had to cross, was much swollen, to remain till to-morrow ; and, to detain him, took his watch from him, and locked up his horse in the stable. But, as if impelled by some unseen power to his fate, he would not be persuaded, and, getting his horse, proceeded on his journey. Two days after he was found standing dead up to the arm-pits in the river Pont, near the side, the violence of the frost having fro- zen him in. His hat and gloves were on, and his boots and gloves were much worn from his struggles among the ice to get out. Mrs. Yeitch’s reflections on this awful visitation are Chris- tian and becoming : “ The whole country about was astonished at that dispensation, and often said to me there would none trou- ble my husband again, for they all knew that he was an enemy to my husband. I told them they that would not take warning from the word of God, would never take warning from that. That scripture was often borne in upon my spirit, ‘ Rejoice not at the fall of thine enemy, lest He see it, and be displeased.’ ” She adds, “ I bless the Lord I was not in the least lifted up with it ; for his word was my counsellor ; in all my doubts and fears it was as refreshing to me as ever meat and drink were. There are none that study to make the work of God the rule of their walk, and when grace is master of the house, but they will say, as David said when Shimei railed on him, ‘ Let him alone, God hath bidden him, who knows but he will requite blessings for cursings V But when corrupt nature is master, it will say, ‘ Cut off the head of the dog ;’ but I am much in grace’s debt ; that kept me back from being of Shimei’s frame,” In reference to another case of ill treatment received, she makes similar re- marks, “ I bless the Lord who kept me from being of a revenge- ful spirit. Whatever I met with from the creature, he helped me always to look to God. That was often upon my spirit which * When Mr. Veitcb was removed from Morpeth for Edinburgh, Bell said, “ This night he will be at Edinburgh, and hanged to-morrow, according to his demerits; and how could such a rebel as he, who did so and so, expect to escape the just judg- ment of God 15 170 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. David said, ‘ Let him alone, God hath bidden him,’ and that word in the Psalms, ‘ Fret not thyself, because of evil-doers.’ ” About the close of February, or the beginning of March, 1679, a month after Mr. Yeitch was carried from Morpeth to Scotland, and when he was lying a prisoner in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, she set out, with a heavy heart, for Edinburgh, through a great storm of snow, in compliance with a letter she received from him, leaving her children behind her. On reaching the capital, she was much relieved on finding that there was every prospect of his being set at liberty. But within a few days he was put in close prison, and an order came from the king to hand him over to the justiciary court, that intimation might be made to him of the sentence of death for high treason, which had been pro- nounced against him in his absence nearly twelve years before. This threw her into a state of great agitation of mind. Provi- dence now seemed to contradict the assurance she thouo^ht she had received from God, that Mr. Veitch’s life would be preserved. But by faith and prayer, her usual refuge in the hour of trial, her fears were gradually allayed, and she became settled in her pre- viously cherished hope, that matters would be so ordered as to secure his personal safety. Nor were her hopes disappointed. About the close of July, Mr. Veitch was liberated, by ^irtue of the king’s pardon, indulgence, and indemnity. “ When the news came to my ears,” says she, ‘‘ that word came in my mind, ‘ He hath both spoken it, and himself hath done it ; I will walk softly in the bitterness of my spirit all my days,’ Isa, xxxviii. 15.” She adds, “We came both home in peace to our children, where we lived at Stantonhall, three miles from Morpeth, in Northumber- land, August, 1679.”* This sore trial had now come to an end, but it did not leave them in outward circumstances equally favor- able with those in which it found them, having involved them in a heavy debt. Owing to the forfeiture of Mr. Yeitch, and to their repeated removals from one place to another, occasioned by the prelates and their emissaries, they were unable to defray the expenses incurred in this business without borrowing considera- ble sums of money from their friends. In addition to her other virtues, Mrs. Yeitch was distinguished for kind-hearted hospitality. In those distressing times, when oppression compelled our presbyterian ancestors to “ wander in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth,” her house, both during the period of her residence in Scotland and in England, “ was a resting and refreshing place for the wan- * Memoirs of Mrs. Veitcb, p. 6. She says 1680, by mistake. MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 171 dering and weather-beaten flock of Christ.” The same woman- ly and Christian kindness, which prompted her cordially to re- ceive into her house the officers of the covenanters after their defeat at Pentland hills, and to set meat and drink before them, led her cordially to welcome, and kindly to entertain those friends and acquaintances who, when hunted like wild beasts by tbeir persecutors, sought refreshment and a hiding-place under her roof ; and it was her observation “ that things never came in so plentifully, nor went so far, as when they had most strangers.” Among those who betook themselves for shelter to her hospi- table dwelling was the earl of Argyll, who suffered in 1685. At the close of December, 1681, that nobleman, having, on the 20th of that month, escaped from the castle of Edinburgh, where he lay imprisoned under sentence of death, directed his course to Stantonhall, with the view of being conducted on his way to Lon- don by Mr. Veitch, whose intrepidity, shrewdness, and fidelity, particularly recommended him for such a service. On Argyll’s arrival, Mr. Veitch being from home, Mrs. Veitch sent some of her servants or friends about the country for two days in search of him ; and on his return, she consented to allow him to do his best in conducting their respected noble friend in safety to London. Some weeks after Mr. Veitch’s arrival in the English capital, she received a letter from him, informing her that he had some thoughts of emigrating to Carolina, a scheme of planting a Scot- tish colony there having been formed by Sir John Cochrane and several others ; that he had the prospect of good encouragement in a temporal respect, as well as of enioying without disturb- ance that civil and religious freedom which was denied them in their native land ; and that she might be making prepara- tions for leaving Scotland. To this proposal she at first felt a strong disinclination. Driven though she was from place to place, and exposed to many annoyances and hardships, yet to leave the land of her fathers at her advanced period of life — for she was now in the forty-fourth year of her age — and more es- pecially to leave a land which, like Judea to the Jews, was en- deared to her by the most sacred associations — wffiich God had honored by taking into covenant with himself, and to encounter the perils of the ocean, and all the dangers aud difficulties attend- ing a new settlement in the forests of America, was a step to which she was averse from sentiments of patriotism as well as from natural feeling. But, submitting her will to the will of God, she at last became less disinclined, and stood prepared to go wherever he in his providence might call her. “ I thought,” 372 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. says she, “ in my old days I could have no heart for such a voyage, and leave these covenanted lands ; but at length I got submis- sion to my God and was content, if he had more service for me and mine in another land ; for I had opened my mouth and given me and mine to him and his service when and where, and what way he pleased, and I could not go back ; but if I went there, I would hang my harp upon the willows when I remembered Scot- land.” Obstacles were however, thrown in the way of this plan- tation, so that it was never formed ; and she had the pleasure of seeing Mr. V eitch return home, after an absence of about half a year. But her troubles were not yet brought to a termination. A discovery of the Ryehouse plot, in which Mr. Veitch had been concerned when in London, having been made,* a justice of the peace came to the house to apprehend him. He narrowly es- caped, and, after hiding himself for some weeks, succeeded in getting over to Holland. At this time Mrs. Veitch fell sick, but was not long in recovering. To complete the education of her two eldest sons, she sent them over to their father in Holland. While at sea they encountered a severe storm, by which many lives were lost, but they got safely to land, though with much difficulty. Meanwhile she was deprived, by death, of her third son, a boy of twelve years of age. Her sorrow under this be- reavement, though aggravated by the absence of his father, was mitigated from the striking evidence afforded by the dying child, that he died in the Lord. Previously thoughtless, and without any appearance of religion, he seemed to her, even sometime after his illness commenced, not to be duly impressed with the awful importance of death and eternity. Anxious and trembling for the safety of his soul, she was earnest in prayer that God would wean his young and tender heart from the world, open his eyes to see the glories of heaven, and discover to him his inter- est in the Savior. Her prayers were heard. One day, calling her to his bedside, he told her that the world to him had lost its attractions, and that he was resigned to die. She asked the rea- son of this, since he had formerly felt a desire to live. He an- swered that he had been praying and giving himself to Christ ; that Christ had assured him of the delight he took in his soul ; and that this had comforted him. Afterward he said, “ Is it not a wonder that Jesus Christ should have died for sinners ? Oh, this is a good tale, and we should think often on it !” He fre- quently repeated these words, “ Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon the earth that I desire beside thee !” * It was discovered in June, 1683. MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 173 “ which,” says Mrs. Veitch, ‘‘ refreshed me more than if he had been made heir of a great estate.” When engaged in prayer a little before he died, he prayed for his absent father and brothers, pleaded that his brothers and sisters might be animated to serve God in their generation, and used these words, ‘‘ Though we be far separated now, I hope we shall meet in glory.” Also calling for his brother who was at home, and his sisters, he blessed them all, and bade them farewell. On becoming unable to speak, he held up his hand while his mother spoke to him of death and heaven. At last he put up his own hand and closed his own eyes, “ and so,” says she, “ we parted in hope of a glorious meeting.” The deep anxiety which Mrs. Veitch felt for the spiritual wel- fare of her children, is an interesting and instructive feature of her character. Nor was this anxiety limited to those seasons when sickness entered her dwelling, and threatened to remove by death the objects of her tenderest aflection. As became a Christian mother, the spiritual interests of her children were to her a source of constant solicitude. Before they were born she devoted them to God, and she renewed the dedication at their baptism. She early instructed them in the things of God, and often recommended them to him by prayer. It was her highest ambition to see them living the life of the righteous, and to engage them to such a life, she plied them with arguments addressed both to their hopes and their fears, to their understandings and their hearts. “ When I was pouring out my spirit before Him in prayer,” she says, in one part of her diary, ‘‘ He brought that word wonderfully to my mind, where the angel appeared to Cornelius (Acts x.) and bade him send for Peter, who would tell him words by which he and all his house should be saved. He opened mine eyes and let me see that which I had never seen before so clearly — that Christ’s death and blood cor^d reach a whole family This gave me new ground to plead the promise for me and mine, and that the sign I sought from him might be accomplished, that they might evidence by their practice they were his, and my eyes might see it.” In another part of the same document, she further says, “ I charge all mine, as they shall answer to God at the great day, and as they would not have me to be a witness against them in that day, that ye covenant yourselves away to God and his service, and plead the good of this promise* in particular, ^ "I'he promise she refers to is, “ I will be your God, and the God of your seed,’’ which she had been pleading with Gk)d, and which, by his grace, he had enabled her to embrace. 15 * 174 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. every one of yon for yourselves ; ^or all I can do for you can not merit heaven for you : for with the heart man believes, and every man is saved by his own faith. All my desire is, that he w^ould glorify himself by redeeming me and mine from hell and wrath, and make us useful in our generation for his glory. I thought fit to write this for my own use and the good of mine ; and, if the Lord should take me from them by death, I hope the words of a dying mother shall have some weight upon their spirits.” During the time of Mr. Yeitch’s stay in Holland, the entries in Mrs. Veitch’s diary relate chiefly to her anxiety about him, and to her distress of mind on account of the condition of the church in Scotland, whose sufferings seem to have more deeply affected her heart than even her own personal afflictions. After relating some news she heard from Scotland, and her exercise thereupon, she adds : “ Within, a little misbelief got the mastery of me, and it told me that I need not expect to see good days. This was occasioned by the apostasy of some, and the persecutors being permitted to run all down before them, as it were. I could sleep little or none for several nights.” When recording the death of Charles II., she writes as follows : “ When I heard it, I thought Pharaoh was dead, and I would go to God and beg of him that he would spirit a Moses to lead forth the church from under her hard bondage ;” and, after referring to some passages of scripture which were impressed upon her mind, she observes that she was thereby made to hope that God would not leave these covenanted lands, especially Scotland.” Meanwhile, a considerable number of English and Scottish refugees in Holland, encouraged by friends both in England and Scotland, were forming a scheme for overthrowing by force the government of James VIL, who was resolutely bent on establish- ing absolute power in the state and popery in the church. The duke of Monmouth was to invade England, and the earl of Argyll, Scotland. The scheme being matured, Mr. Veitch, who was one of the party, was sent from Holland to Northumberland and the Scottish borders, to give their friends information of their intentions ; in doing which, the matter, through his activity in travelling from place to place, and through the zeal of numbers in many quarters to rise, was in danger of being divulged, so that he he was forced to retire to the mountains, in the borders near Reeds- dale-head, and hide himself, nor did he deem it safe to go to New- castle, whither his wife had removed in 1684, till some time after the execution of the earl of Argyll and the duke of Monmouth.* * The earl of Argyll was taken on the 17th of Jane, 1685, and executed on the MRS, WILLIAM VEITCH. 175 On the arrival of Argyll in Scotland, and of Monmouth in Eng- land, Mrs. Yeitch hoped that, perhaps, the time had now como for the deliverance of the church, and that these noblemen might be the appointed and honored instruments of effecting it ; but, that ill-conducted undertaking proving unsuccessful, these agreeable expectations were not realized, and she felt in some measure dispirited. “ It was my desire,” she says, “ that He would make good his word, on which he had caused me to hope in behalf of the church ; for I thought possibly this might be the time of build- ing his house. But his thoughts are not like mine ; for it pleased Him who gives no account of his matters, to let both these great persons fall before the enemy, which put me to pour out my spirit l3efore Him, and often to charge my soul to be silent, for my ill heart and misbelief were like to quarrel with him.” The ten- dency to quarrel with God, which she expresses herself as feeling at the disastrous issue of this attempt, need occasion little sur- prise ; for although the enlightened friend of freedom will not now regret that such was its issue, providence having, not long after, without struggle or bloodshed, brought about a more eflec- tual and permanent deliverance than could have been expected by its success ; yet, at that time, the defeat of the enterprise was in no small degree discouraging to many of the covenanters, as it seemed to demonstrate the hopelessness of any efforts to throw off that oppressive yoke, under which their powers of endurance were well nigh exhausted, and even threatened to rivet the chains of slavery and popery more firmly on Britain than ever. Still she never despaired of the deliverance of the church and nation, and even cherished the hope of' living to see it accom- plished. On one occasion after the fatal result of this insurrec- tion, at a social meeting for prayer and conference held in her house at Newcastle, where, besides her husband, there were present some of his pious Scottish relations, and also some other good people of the town of Newcastle, after several had spoken in an almost despairing tone of the state of matters, she expressed her confident hope that good days were still awaiting Scotland. She said that the night was indeed dark, and that all things wore a dismal aspect, but that she was, notwithstanding, persuaded that God would not leave his own work, but from an unexpected quarter would raise up instruments to build his house, to restore the ark and the glory, and bring home his captives. She added, moreover, that she felt assured she would see presbytery estab- 30th of that moiitli. The duke of Monmouth was taken on the 8th of July, 1685i and executed on the 15tli of that month. 176 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. lished, and her husband a settled minister in the church of Scot- land, before she died. Though they loved the thing,” says Mr. Veitch, “ yet they little believed it in the time ; but when it came to pass, they both thought and talked much of it.” From the danger he was in of being apprehended, Mr. Veitch only visited her occasionally from the time he came from Holland, early in 1685, till his settlement as a minister at Beverley, near one hun- dred miles south from Newcastle, after King James’s declaration for liberty of conscience in England, when, with her family, she removed to that part of the country. When Mr. Veitch was called to Beverley, she felt some re- luctance to settle in that place, from the strong desire she had to see the restoration of the church to prosperity in the land of her birth, and that her husband might in some degree be instrumental in promoting it there ; though, at last, she submitted her inclina- tions to the determinations of Providence, if he could be more useful in that place than in another. But when, after having preached for six or seven months in Beverley, with much suc- cess, he received pressing invitations to return to Scotland, where King James’s toleration had been accepted, she was ex- tremely desirous that he should comply with these invitations, though the people of Beverley had sent for her, given her good offers, and used many arguments to persuade her and him to stay with them. Her heart,” says Mr. Veitch, “ was for her native country, and she longed to see that in the performance which she had promised herself formerly in her duties and wrest- ling with God, and had expressed her assurance thereof.” She, however, apprehended that the design in view, in the toleration extended to Scotland, as well as in that granted to England, was under the disguise of benefiting dissenters, to afford relief to papists, and ultimately to pave the way for the establishment of popery. ‘‘ Considering it came from a popish king,” she writes, “ made me fear what the issue might be.” On the compliance of Mr. Veitch with a call he received from the united parishes of Oxnam, Crailing, Eckford, Linton, More- battle, and Hownam, to preach to them, under King James’s third indulgence, at Whittonhall, which was almost the centre of these parishes,* she returned with great joy to her native land. “ But,” says she, “ His promise to me for His church in Scotland, was not yet altogether performed. I was like Haman (Esther v. 13), all availed me little so long as I saw popery owned by authority. I thought that then the ark was still in the house of Obededom ; * He entered on this charge in April, 1688 . MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 177 it was my desire He would spirit some to bring it to Jerusalem.” She had not, however, been much more than half a year in Scot- land, when James YIL, was driven from his throne, and William, prince of Orange, was called to fill it, a revolution which, by more narrowly circumscribing and more exactly defining the preroga- tives of the crown than had been done in any former period of the history of our country, conferred on the subjects a degree of liberty they never before had enjoyed, defeated the design of restoring popery, overthrew prelacy in Scotland, and brought to a termination the sufferings of the presbyterians for conscience’ sake. After the revolution she resided first in Peebles, and next in Dumfries, in which places Mr. Veitch was successively minister. In the last of these towns she died in May, 1722, at the advanced age of eighty -four. Mr. Veitch died on the day after her death, having completed his eighty-second year. Mr. James Guthrie, minister of Irongray, in a letter to Mr. James Stirling, minister of Barony, Glasgow, dated May 9, 1722, says, “ Your honest old friend, Mr. Veitch, is now gone to heaven, for he died yesterday morning, and his good wife departed this life on Friday last, so that they who lived long together on earth are now goi)^ to glory, I may say, together also Mr. Veitch, for some months be- fore his death, wanted the use of his tongue, right arm and leg, and so lay almost as one dead long before he gave up the ghost.”t This venerable pair had been married fifty-eight years, and they were both interred on the same day, in the old church of Dumfries. We shall conclude this sketch with a few particulars relative to Mr?. Veitch’s children. She had five sons and five daugh- ters. Of these, four died young. Mary, her first child, was born on the 23d of September, 1665, at the Westhills of Dunsyre, died March 9, 1666, and was buried at Dunsyre kirk. William, her second child, was born on the 2d of April, 1667, at the Westhills of Dunsyre. Samuel, her third child, was born on the 9th of December, 1668, at Edinburgh, and baptized on the 13th by Mr. John Blackadder. These two sons she had devoted to the Christian ministry, and sent to Holland to prosecute their studies at the university of Utrecht ; but the young men expressed their decided preference for the military profession, and, when the prince of Orange came over to England, in 1688, they held commissions under him. Both of them served in Flanders during the war with France, which broke out after the Revolu- t Letters to Wodrow, vol. x., 4to, no. 172, MSS. in Advocates’ Library. 178 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. tion. vWilliam was a lieutenant in Angus’s, or the Cameronian regiment, and was wounded, in 1699, at the battle of Steinkirk. He was shot through the left cheek, an inch below the eye, and the ball falling into his mouth, he spat it out. The two brothers afterward went out as captains of the forces of the Scottish colo- ny, which it was intended to settle at the isthmus of Darien. But the settlement came to a disastrous termination. Captain William died at sea on returning home after the evacuation. Cap- tain Samuel ultimately settled at New York, where he married a granddaughter of Mr. John Livingstone, minister of Ancrum, by whom he had a daughter called Aleda, who married an American gentleman of the name of Pinkrie, near Philadelphia. James, her fourth child, was born at Edinburgh on the 9th of March, 1671, died at Arnistoum, on the 10th of April, 1672, and was buried in the church-yard of Temple, on the 12th of that month. John, her fifth child, was born at Falalies, in the parish of Pothbury, in Northumberland, on the 19th of July, 1672 ; died at Stantonhall about Martinmas, 1684, and was buried at Nether Wilton, four miles from Morpeth. This is the boy of whose death an account has previously been given.* Elizabeth, her sixth child, was born at Harnam, in the parish of Bolam, in Northumberland, on the 20th of May, 1674. She was married to David McCulloch, of Ardwell, on the 7th of June, 1710, at Dumfries. Ebenezer, her seventh child, was born at Harnam, on the 16th of March, 1676. Devoting himself to the Christian ministry, he studied divinity under the learned Mr. George Campbell, profes- sor of theology in the college of Edinburgh. After being licensed, he was appointed sabbath morning lecturer in the Tron church, upon Mr. M‘ Alla’s mortification. This situation he left in May, 1703, having received a call to be minister at Ayr, to which charge he was ordained on the 12th of that month. He soon after married Margaret, daughter of the venerable Mr. Patrick Warner, minister of Irvine, a young lady of great personal attrac- tions. But he did not long survive. When at Edinburgh attend- ing the commission, in December, 1706, he was seized with a dangerous sickness, and died on the 13th of that month. He was a young man of uncommon piety, and his death was tri- umphant. Calling his wife to his bedside, he told her he would give her his parting kiss, and recommended her to his God, “ who,” he said, “ has been all in all to me and when she asked ^ See page 173. MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH. 179 him whether he would not desire to live with her, and serve God some time longer in the church below, he answered in the nega- tive. Then calling out to some of the ministers who were in the room with him, he said, “Ye passengers for glory, how near, think you, am I to the New Jerusalem?” One of them answer- ed, “ Not far, sir !” He rejoined, “ I’ll wait and climb until I be up among that innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect.” They removed his wife out of the room ; but when he was just expiring, she rushed in to the bed- side. Waving with his hand, he said, “ No more converse with the creature, I never, never will look back again ;” and immedi- ately breathed out his spirit into the hands of his redeeming God. His mother, who gives this account in her diary, adds, “ It need not be a surprisal to me, for near a year before his death, he preached upon these words, ‘ Remember, Lord, how short my time is and when he was at home in his family in Ayr, in prayer he would be so transported with the joys of heaven, as if he would have flown away ; and his young wife* would often say to him, it was a terror to her to hear him so much upon death ; but he said it was none to him ; so he lived desired, and died lamented.” Sarah, her eighth child, and third daughter, was born at Stan- tonhall, in the parish of Longhorsly, in Northumberland, on the 7th of November, 1677. She became the wife of James Young, of Guiliehill, from whom, says Dr. M^Crie, writing ' in 1825, Samuel Denholm Young, Esq., of Guiliehill, is descended. Agnes, her ninth child, and fourth daughter, was born at Stan- tonhall, on the 20th of January, 1680. She married Mr. John Somerville, minister of Caerlaverock ; to whom she had six chil- ” This lady was afterward maiTied to Mr. Robert Wodrow, minister of East- wood, the indefatigable historian of the sufferings of the church of Scotland. The marriage ring presented to her by both her first and second husband are still pre- served as family relics. “ How it has so happened/’ says a writer in the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, for December, 1825, “ we shall not at present tell ; but so it is, that we have, while writing this article, actually on our forefinger, the identical ring which Mr. Ebenezer Veitch presented to his wife, previous to marriage. It is a plain gold one, with small ivory beads around its outer edge, and within is this Latin inscription, which we have some difficulty in translating intelligibly^ We give it verbatim et literatim as we see it, and leave our readers to make out what they can of it, ‘ Ebenezer, et Jehovah, FeitchJ The sense which we conjecture is not very luminously conveyed, but it seems to savor of the eminent piety of its au- thor. The ring presented to the same lady by Mr. Wodrow, her second husband, is also now before us, a.nd its moral is more intelligible. The device is a jlaming heait in the centre, with a hand on the one side giving, and another on the other side re- ceiving; and this plain English motto: give you mine, and grasp at yours The writer adds, " From these specimens, we see that the clerical gentlemen of our olden times, while they were not destitute of learning, were not devoid of the tender affections.” 180 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. dren, one son and daughters. Mr. Charles Sheriff, the dumb miniature painter, was her grandson. She died of her seventh child, not brought to bed, on the 14th of August, 1712 ; and when medical assistance failed to do her any good, she said, “ Now I see that God calls me to die and leave this world, and all my relations, w^hich I am most willing to do.” Then taking fare- well, with the greatest composure and deliberation, of her pa- rents, children, servants, and husband, leaving her blessing to every one present, and to all her friends who were absent, with her eyes lifted up to heaven, she cried, “ O my beloved ! be thou as a roe and as a young hart upon the mountains of divisions.” Then she begged that her friends present would unite in praying that God would mitigate her sufferings in passing through the dark valley, and land her in her wished-for port. Before prayer was ended, her pain was abated, and closing her eyes, a little after, with her own hand, she died with great tranquillity. Janet, her tenth child, and fifth daughter, was born on the 30th of January, 1682, at Stantonhall, her father being then at Lon- don. She died on sabbath, the 26th of March, 1693, near eight o’clock at night, at Peebles. Before her death, her father hav- ing been engaged in prayer, she said, “ Now I am content to leave you all,” and inquired at her mother whether they should know one another in heaven ? Her mother told her she thought they w^ould, and asked her whether she thought she would win there ; to which she answered, “ I hope I shall.” She died without any pain ; and with as much composure as if she had been going to see a friend, kissing her father, mother, and sis- ters, and bidding them all farewell. MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 181 MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. Mrs. Livingstone, whose maiden name was Janet Fleming, was the eldest daughter of Bartholomew Fleming, merchant in Edinburgh, by his wife Marion Hamilton. She was married, June 23, 1635, to the famous Mr. John Livingstone, afterward minister of Ancruin, by his father, in the West church of Edin- burgh.* In the following notices respecting this lady, it is not our intention to trace the whole of her history, but merely to select a single, chapter from her life, relating to matters which fell out in the year 1674, when she was considerably advanced in years. Previous to this period, she had experienced many vicissitudes and trials,, having shared in the hardships endured by Mr. Livingstone, in the cause of nonconformity, both in Ireland and in Scotland ; and wdien, on his being banished his majesty’s dominions, by the privy council, for his fidelity to the same cause, he had embarked for Hplland in the beginning of April, 1663, she followed him in December that year, taking with her two of her children, and leaving the other five in Scotland. She remained in Holland till the death of Mr. Livingstone, which took place in August, 1672, when she returned to Scotland. Mr. Robert M^Ward, writing from Rotterdam to Lady Kenmure, says : “ Madam, it’s like you will look for some account of the death of that great man of God, non-such Mr. Livingstone, which I would have given you,, but your ladyship will have it more per- fectly from his worthy relict, by whom you will be waited upon.”t On her return to Scotland, she took up her residence in Edin- burgh, where two of her sons were resident. It was within less than two years after her return, that she and several other pres- byterian ladies were concerned in those transactions which we now purpose to rehearse. Our narrative relates to a petition which she and these ladies drew up and presented to the lords of his majesty’s privy council, praying for liberty to enjoy undisturbed the preaching of the gospel by the nonconforming ministers ; and to the proceedings of the privy council against these ladies on that account. This will furnish a good illustration of the patri- otic interest taken by the ladies of that period in the cause of suffering nonconformity, as well as of the determination of tho government to ride rough-shod over every attempt to obtain a mitigation or redress of grievances. ’*■ Livingstone's Life written by Himself, t Wodrow MSS., vol. Iviii., fob, No. ^5 16 1S2 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. The state of matters ia which this petition originated may be briefly described. For about three months in the early part of the year 1674, an almost entire cessation from persecution took place. During this respite, which was called “ the Blink,” the pro- scribed ministers fearing that it would be of short duration, preached both in private houses and in the flelds with unremitting and ardent zeal. In the west, field-meetings Avere not of very fre- quent occurrence, the indulgence of 1672, which extended chiefly to that part of the country, rendering such meetings unnecessary ; but in Fifeshire, Perthshire, Stirlingshire, Dumbartonshire, Lo- thian, Merse, Teviotdale, Annandale, Nithsdale, and other places, to which the indulgence did not extend, or where it was more limited in its operation, they were very frequently held in mount- ains, mosses, and moors, and attended by immense multitudes. This liberty was owing, not to any change in the -spirit or policy of the government, but solely to political causes, among which the chief cause was the animosities then existing between the different parties of statesmen. Lauderdale, Avho had now for a considerable time been a privy counsellor in England, and the chief manager of affairs in Scotland, had, by his intolerable arro- gance, and more especially by his violent and tyrannical admin- istration, created a powerful opposition against him, both in Eng- land and in Scotland. So strong was the faction against him in Scotland, which was headed by the duke of Hamilton, that when he came down as his majesty’s commissioner to hold the Scottish parliament, Avhich was to meet in March, 1674, finding it would be difficult or impossible for him to maintain his ground in it, he adjourned it to October, but never after ventured upon another Scottish parliament. To this state of political parties in Scotland we are mainly to trace the tranquillity enjoyed durin'g “ the Blink.” Lauderdale secretly encouraged conventicles, promising the persecuted min- isters ample and unrestrained liberty, that he might blame his opponents to the king, as encouragers of these “ seminaries of rebellion ;” and on the other hand his opponents connived at such meetings, that they might impute the prevalence of them to him. But matters changed upon a sudden : the tempest of persecution again rose into fury. On his return to London, after the adjourn- ment of the Scottish parliament, Lauderdale, who, notwithstand- ing the opposition made to him both in England and in Scotland, retained the royal favor, laid the blame of the conventicles held in Scotland upon his opponents. The Scottish privy council was remodelled according to his wishes, the most of his enemies MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 183 being kept out, and others friendly to him put in their places ; and by his advice, letters from the king to the council followed each other in succession, requiring them to adopt every means for suppressing conventicles. On the 4th of June, 1674, when the new council met for the first time, a letter from his majesty, dated May 19th, was read, complaining that not only private but also field conventicles were held, and that the pulpits of the reg- ular ministers were invaded in some places ; and requiring the council to use their utmost endeavors for apprehending and trying field-preachers, invaders of pulpits, and such heritors as were ringleaders at field conventicles and in pulpit invasions, calling in the standing forces and militia to their aid. Such were the circumstances which gave rise to this petition. Mrs. Livingstone and a considerable number of other presbyte- rian ladies in Edinburgh, especially the wives and widows of ejected nonconforming ministers, and some ladies of rank, were in no small degree distressed at the threatened prospect of re- newed and aggravated persecution. Little could they do to prevent the impending calamity. Prayer to God was almost their only re- maining resource. But necessity is prolific in suggesting expedi- ents, and it occurred to some of them that, as it was dangerous for ministers to petition the privy council for the redress of their grievances, imprisonment being the only answer likely to be made, they themselves might petition the council for the undis- turbed enjoyment of the gospel preached by the nonconforming ministers. Mrs. Livingstone, it is not improbable, was the per- son by whom this expedient was suggested. Precedents for such a course, of which she was not ignorant, were not wanting in the history of the church of Scotland in former days. She well knew that such a method had been adopted in similar circum- stances, and with perfect success, by a worthy relative of her own, her aunt Barbara Hamilton,* and other religious matrons of Edinburgh. When Robert Blair and other nonconforming ministers, who had been deposed by the bishops of Ireland for nonconformity, had come over to Scotland in 1637, and when Mr. Blair was threatened with still harsher treatment from the Scottish prelates, these ladies presented to the privy council a petition, praying that he and other ministers similarly situated * Barbara Hamilton was Mrs. Livingstone’s motlier’s sister, and the wife of Mr. John Mein, merchant-burgess, Edinburgh. Two of Samuel Rutherford’s letters are addressed to this lady. She died in September, 1654 ; and her husband, Mr. Mein, on the .30th of July 'that same year. Among the debts owing to them at their de- cease is, “ By my Lady Lome, xxii lb. By my Lady Kenmure, xii lb. 2 shillings.'' — Register of Confirmed Testaments in her Majesty's Register House, Edinburgh, 184 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. might have liberty to preach the gospel publicly wherever they were called or had opportunity to do so ; and they at once ob- tained their request.* Guided by such a laudable example, she and the rest of these ladies made up their mind to make the attempt, whatever might be its success ; and accordingly, without the aid of any of their ministers, or of any man, they themselves drew up a petition to be presented to the privy council. The manner in which they were to transmit it was somewhat similar to the manner in which Barbara Hamilton and her associates presented their petition to the privy council in behalf of Robert Blair and the other nonconforming ministers of their time. On the morning of the 4th of June, the day on which the first meeting of the new council was to be held, all the ladies friendly to the petition were to assemble in the parliament close, some time before the members of the council came up to the meeting, Mrs. Livingstone, in consideration either of her advanced years, or of her superior address, or of both, was appointed to present the petition to the lord-chancellor, the earl of Rothes, and to re- quest him to transmit it to the council; while fourteen other la- dies, mostly ministers’ widows, were engaged each to present a copy to some one of the principal counsellors, as they came up ^ “ That worthy wife B. H. [Barbara Hajnilton] brings to Mr. Blair paper, pen, and ink, saying, ‘ Wnte a supplication to the secret council, and humbly petition them in your own name, and in the name and behalf of others in your condition, for liberty to preach the gospel publicly, wherever ye get a call from honest ministers or people, and we that are -wives shall put it in the treasurer’s hand as he goes in to the council.’ W hereunto Mr. Blair condescended, and delivers his supplication, written with his own hand, to her. The first council-day immediately following, there convenes a great number of the religious matrons in Edinburgh, drawn up as a guard, from die council-house door to the street. They agreed to put the suppli- cation in the haiid of the oldest matron, Alison Cockbuim, relict of Mr. Archibald Row'. When the treasurer, Traquair, perceived the old woman presenting to him a paper, suspecting that it w^as sometliing that would not relish with the council, he did put her by, and goes quickly from her toward the council-house door which being perceived by Barbara Hamilton, she appeal's and pulls the paper out of the old weak woman’s hand, and coming up to Traquair, did with her strong arm arid big hand fast grip his gardie [that is, arm], saying, ‘ Stand, my lord, in Christ’s name, I charge you, till I speak to you.’ He, looking back, replies, ‘ Good woman, wdiat would you say to me V — ‘ There is,’ said she, ‘ a humble supplication of Mr. Blair’.s. All that he petitions for is, that he may have liberty to preach the gospel, &c. I charge you to befriend the matter, as you would expect God to befriend you in your distress, and at your death !’ He replied, ‘ I shall do my endeavor, and what I can in it.’ Mr. Blair’s supplication was gi’anted by the secret council; and so he had liberty, not only to stay in Scotland, but to preach the gospel to any congrega- tion where he got an orderly call.” — (Row’s Life of Robert Blair, pp. 153, 154.) Row adds : By this nairation you may perceive how the Lord, in this time, stirred up and animated the spiidts, not only of men, especially of the nobles, who were mag- nates et primores regni, and of the ministers of the gospel, but even of holy and reli- gious w'omen, who, as they first opposed the reading of that black service-book, July 23, 1637, so the Lord made them instrumental in many good affairs for the promoting of the blessed Reformation.” MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 185 to the council-house. According to this arrangement, a large number of ladies* convened in the parliament close on the morn- ing of the 4th of June, waiting the arrival of the counsellors. At length the chancellor’s coach comes up first ; and v/hen he and Archbishop Sharp, who had been riding with him in the coach, alighted, Mrs. Livingstone was ready to accost him, and the crowd, eager to witness the scene, gathered to the spot. Sharp, who seems to have known nothing of the matter before- hand, seized with a guilty terror, kept close to the chancellor’s back,! imagining, as was not unnatural for a man to do who had now spent many years in persecuting his old friends, the presby- terians, and who had incurred very general odium, that the ob- ject of these ladies, whom he had often maligned as fanatics, and even by still worse names,j: was to murder him. But his alarm was groundless ; for though some of them, becoming ex- cited at the very sight of the man with whom was associated, in their minds, all the infamy of the traitor and the persecutor, called him Judas and traitor ; and one of them still bolder than the rest, laid her hand upon his neck, and told him that ere all was done that neck would pay for it ; there was no intention or attempt to do him any bodily harm.|| While these things are going on, Mrs. Livingstone addressed herself to the chancellor, informing him of the object of so many females in assembling together, and presenting to him the petition, which she entreated him to lay before the honorable members of his majesty’s privy council. The chancellor, respectfully taking off his hat, graciously re- ceived the petition from Mrs. Livingstone, and read it on the spot. After he had read it, and had talked a short time with some of the other ladies, jesting with them according to his fa- The number, according to Row, was one hundred and nine (Life of Robert Blair, p. 539) ; but, as according to Kirkton, they “ filled the whole parliament close,” the number must have been much greater. — History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 345. t “ When the counsellors came out of their coaches, Sharp (who was asflyed as a fox) clave close to the chancellor’s back.” — Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 539. + Female preebyterians were the objects of Sharp’s peculiar hatred. When, in 1664, the privy council confined William Gordon of Earlston, to the town of Edin- burgh, for keeping conventicles and not attending his own parish church, Sharp, who had been at St. Andrews, on hearing of this on his arrival in Edinburgh, “ did chal- lenge the chancellor for remissness, and not executing the laws against delinquents, and, in particular, for confining of Earlston to Edinburgh, alleging it had been bet- ter to send him to his own house in Galloway, than to detain him among the fanatical wives of Edinburgh.” The consequence was that Earlston was banished out of Scotland. (Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 464.) Even in his public sermons, Sharp could not refrain from giving expression to his malignant hatred of presbyterian women. In his opening discourse, at one of his diocesan synods at St. Andrews, he indulged in a strain of vehement invective “against the unconform honest people, especially against women, whom he called ‘ she zealots,’ ‘ Satanesses.’ ” — Ibid., p, 523. • 11 Kirkton’s Histoiy, pp. 344-346. 16 * 18G THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. cetious fhanner, and apparently pleased with the fright into which Sharp was thrown, Mrs. Livingstone proceeded to address him in support of the petition, “ and took hold of his sleeve. He bowed down his head, and listened to her (because she spoke well), even till he came to the council-chamber door.”* The petition is as follows : — “ Unto the Right Honorable the Lords of his Majesty’s Privy Coun- cil — The Humble Supplication of several Women of the City of Edinburgh, in their own name, and in the name of many who adhere thereto. Humbly Showeth : — ‘‘ That whereas your petitioners being long deprived of the blessing of a faithful public ministry, and of the purity of wor- ship and ordinances that God hath commanded, and after much sad suffering for attendance thereupon in private ; yet for some short while bygone, and in the time when his majesty’s commis- sioner was among us, your lordship’s petitioners have, without molestation, enjoyed some small liberty by his majesty’s gracious connivance ; yet now we are sadly alarmed, that through the malicious and false information given in by some of those who side with and serve the bishops, your lordships may be induced, to the grief of the hearts of many thousands in this land, to trouble the quiet meetings of the Lord’s people at his worship. “ May it therefore please your lordships to grant such liberty to our honest ministers, that are through the land and in this city, that they may lawfully, and without molestation, exercise their holy function, as the people shall in an orderly way call them ; that we may, to the comfort of our souls, enjoy the rich blessing of faithful pastors, and that our pastors may be delivered from any sinful compliance with what is contrary to the known judg- ment of honest presbyterians. In doing whereof, your lordships will do good service to God and the king’s majesty, and deeply oblige all honest people in the land. And your petitioners shall ever pray,” &c.t The other fourteen ladies, in like manner, presented copies of the petition to other members of the privy council, as they passed to the council-chamber. The lady who presented her copy to ^ Kirkton’s History, pp. 344-34G. See also Wodrow’s History, vol. ii,. p. 269. Row, in bis Life of Robert Blair, gives a different account of the chancellor's recep- tion of the ladies petition. He says that “ a grave matron,” namely Mrs. Living- stone, “presented their supplication” to the chancellor, “ entreating that he would present it to the council, but the chancellor slighting her, and refusing the supplica- tion, was forced to take it from some others who thrust themselves in betwixt him and the trembling prelate, promising it should be read and considered.” — Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 539. t Wodrow's History, vol. ii., p. 269. MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 187 Lord Stairs, one of the senators of the college of justice — a man who was formerly a zealous covenanter, but who became in the end a bitter persecutor — found no such kind reception as Mrs. Livingstone met with from the chancellor ; for he rudely threw it on the ground, which made one remind him of his having be- longed at one time to the remonstrators, the strictest sect of the presbyterians during the commonwealth, and of his having penned the Western Remonstrance, a paper, for adherence to which, Mr. James Guthrie and others suffered to the death.* In the proceedings of Mrs. Livingstone and her female asso- ciates, which we have now narrated, a liberal government would have found little to blame, and no cause whatever for adopting against these ladies legal proceedings. Their intentions were perfectly loyal ; their petition in its object was highly reasonable, and though containing a plain declaration of their principles, was couched in very moderate and respectful language. They assem- bled in the parliament close in the most peaceable manner ; and to none of the members of the council, with the exception of Archbishop Sharp, did they offer the slightest disrespect. But their lordships, resolute on putting down all petitioning and rep- resentation of grievances, which they well knew to be one of the most effectual safeguards against misgovernment and oppression, arbitrarily pronounced both the meeting and the petition sedi- tious, and proceeded against those concerned in them as guilty of sedition. The counsellors having got into the council-house through the crowd, the petition was read. Meanwhile the women were wait- ing in the parliament close for an answer. But there was no in- tention to grant them their request ; and the lord-provost, with two bailies, were sent out to entreat them peaceably to disperse and retire to their homes ; which if they did, he promised to be- friend them and their cause, and that their supplication should receive an answer to-morrow. They did as the provost, who spoke to them very discreetly, desired them ; the parliament close was quickly cleared, and all was again quiet, as if no crowd had assembled. At that meeting of council, all the members v/ere desired to name such ladies as they knew to be among the crowd. A few were named, and they were summoned to compear before the council at their next meeting, which was to be held on the 11th of June. A committee was also appointed, to make inquiry into all the circumstances connected with the petition, by whom Kirkton’s History, pp. 344-346. Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 269. Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 469. 188 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. it was drawn up, and who had presented the different copies to the members of council.* On the 11th of June, the ladies summoned, who were about a dozen, made their appearance at the bar of the council. They were desired, previous to their examination, to take the oath usually administered ; but this they all refused to do, not judging that they were bound to “ tell the whole truth,” in reference to the petition. They, however, declared in answer to questions put to them, that no man had any hand in suggesting it or drawing it up, and that they were moved to the course they had taken by a sense of their starving and perishing condition, through the want of the gospel, having none to preach to them but ignorant and profane men, whom they could not conscientiously hear. After being examined, they were required to subscribe to their depositions ; but this, also, the most of them refused to do. They were then dismissed, and required again to compear before the council in the afternoon ; which they did, attended in the parliament close by a great multitude, consisting not only of women, but also of men, all resolved to stand by them, and to prevent their being imprisoned. Having been again examined, they were put together in a room^; and the provost of Edinburgh was sent out to disperse the crowd. But the crowd peremptorily refused to withdraw till their friends were dismissed, and declared their willingness to share with them in whatever they might suffer. On learning the bold resolution of the multitude without, the council dismissed the ladies who had been at their bar ; entreating them to repair peaceably to their homes. f But, as if determined by all means, fair or foul, to be avenged on these ladies, who had presumed to arraign the policy of the government, the council dismissed them, not honestly, but with the fraudulent intention of surprising them that night, and carry- ing them from their beds to prison. This intention, however, being whispered by some counsellors, the honest women left their own houses ; so that they all escaped being made prisoners * We have here followed Row, in his Life of Robert Blair, p. 539. Wodrow, whose account is different from that of Row, mistakes the proceedings of the privy council on the 11th of June, when a second crowd assembled in the parliament close, for their proceedings on the 4th of June, the day on which the first crow’d assem- bled. His narrative relates not, as he supposed, to their proceedings on the 4th of that month, but to their proceedings on the 11th ; and we have so introduced it in the following paragraph. (Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 269.) Wodrow says that the petition was subscribed ; but this seems to be incorrect. The privy council, as we shall afterward see, affirmed that no signatures were appended to it ; and there is no reason to call in question the truth of their statement. t Row’s Life of Rofet Blair, p. 539. Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 269. MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 189 at this time, with the exception of one poor woman, who appre- hended no danger.* * * § This second crowd in the parliament close had the effect of still more irritating the privy council, and in their proceedings against the ladies, it formed an additional article in the libel charging them with sedition. It strengthened their previous purpose, to inflict some exemplary punishment on these female petitioners ; a purpose formed with the desigA of frightening any, whether male or female, from in future making any similar at- tempt to lay their grievances before government, and to seek re- dress. To have granted the prayer of the petition, as they rea- soned, would have been to open the sluice to an inundation, which would have overflowed every barrier, putting it beyond their power to hem it in, or to say, “ Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther.” The proceedings of the privy council against these ladies continued till near the close of the year ; and their case formed an article in most of the letters which came from the king to the council during the summer. From the register of the proceed- ings of the council we learn that, on the 25th of June, several ladies who had refused to depone before the council, or commit- tee of council, respecting the meeting of the 4th of June, and the petition, were lying in prison ; for, at their meeting of that day, “ The lords of his majesty’s privy council do recommend to the earls Marischall, Linlithgow, Caithness, Wigton, and the lord- register, to meet to-morrow, and to consider any address which shall be made to them by Margaret Johnston,! Lilias Campbell, or any others, who are prisoners in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, for not deponing before the council, or committee of council ;J as also to consider any address which shall be made for any persons against whom certification is granted upon that account, with power to them to set the said persons at liberty, or to continue further execution of the certification against them, upon their giving their oaths ; and appoint any two of them to be a quo- rum.”^ * Row’s Life of Robert Biair, p. 539. t Margaret Johnston was a daughter of the celebrated Archibald Johnston, Lord W arris ton. t That is, for refusing to make their depositions upon oath. In a letter to the .duke of Lauderdale on the 2d of July, the council say, “ Inquiry has also been made concerning'the petition oftered in a tumultuary way by some women, of whom di- verse being cited, these appearing, and refusing to give their oaths as to the points interrogated upon, are imprisoned, and certification is granted against such as were absent.” — Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 241. § Register of Acts of Privy Council. 190 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. The privy council, who were sufficiently disposed of them- selves to deal harshly with, the female petitioners, were urged on by the court at London, which was still guided, in the manage- ment of Scottish affairs, almost exclusively by the counsel of Lauderdale, the Ahithophel of the court of Charles 11. , as he was designated by some of the Scottish martyrs. On the 30th of June the council received a letter from his majesty, dated the 23d of that month* stating that he had received information of “ that seditious petition of many women, and of their tumultuous carriage at the delivering of it and requiring the council to use their “ utmost rigor in finding out and bringing to just judgment the ringleaders of such seditious and insolent practices, and for quelling that mad spirit.”* To the prosecution against these women, which was severe enough before, this letter gave a new impulse. Their houses Avere searched night and day ; the magistrates of Edinburgh had recourse to every means in order to discover such as were present in the parliament close ; and some of those who had been present, on being brought before the privy council, and refusing to depone upon oath, were at length denounced.! The case of these ladies again came under the consideration of the council, at their meeting on the 16th of July, when the council “ nominate and appoint the earls Marischall, Caithness, Linlithgow, Wigton, and the lord-register, to meet upon Saturday next, at 3 o’clock, and to consider the condition of these persons imprisoned for being at the tumultuary meeting in the parliament close, and to report their opinion concerning them to the council ; as, also, to examine such of the women as were called and com- peared, and were not dismissed by the council, and such others as shall appear before the committee, with poAver to the commit- tee to imprison such persons as they shall find cause, and to re- port.” At the same meeting, the ‘‘ council having considered the petition of Margaret Johnston, prisoner in the tolbooth of Edin- burgh, do ordain the magistrates of Edinburgh to set her at lib- erty, she first finding sufficient caution to confine herself to a chamber in the town of Edinburgh, and not to remove forth thereof, until the council shall give order anent her, under the pain of five hundred merks.”j: Again taking up this case, at their meeting on the 21st of July, the council “ ordain and command the committee formerly ap- pointed to examine that tumult of the women in the parliament ^ Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 238. t Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 545. t Register of Acts of Privy Council. MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 191 close, “ to call before them all such persons as have been given up in list already, or against whom they shall have information, or who have been already summoned, as accessory to that tumult, except such as appeared and were dismissed by the council, and to examine them upon their own accession and guiltiness; as also, to examine them upon oath, whom they knew to have ac- cession to the contriving, drawing, or writing of that seditious petition they had among them, what persons they saw and knew to be in the parliament close upon that account with them, who had the petition in their hands, or offered copies to any of the council — and if they refuse to depone thereupon, that they forth- with commit the refusers to prison, until the council shall give further order, and Margaret Johnston to be begun with to-morrow ; and to report to the council from time to time.”* From this act it appears that the council had not yet discov- ered that Mrs. Livingstone was the person who presented the petition to the chancellor. But by zealous and unremitting inqui- ries, they at length succeeded in discovering the names of a con- siderable number of ladies, who had been present at the “ tumul- tuous convocation and no time was lost in acting upon this discovery. Letters were raised against them, at the instance of Sir John Nisbet of Dirleton, his majesty’s advocate, charging them with “ seditious and unlawful practices,” for which they “ ought to be exemplarily punished, to the terror and example of others to commit and do the like in time coming,” and summoning them to appear before the council personally, on the 30th of July, and answer to the complaint contained in the letters, and hear and see such order taken thereanent, as appertained under the pain of rebellion. The ladies against whom these letters were raised, were the following: Mrs. Elizabeth Rutherford; Rachel Aird, spouse to William Lorimer, merchant, and Sarah Lorimer her daughter ; Catherine Montgomery, relict of Mr. Robert Blair ; Barbara Home, spouse to Mr. Robert Lockhart ; Isabel Kennedy, spouse to James Clelland ; Elizabeth Dalziel, spouse to David Gray ; Agnes Henderson, spouse to Robert Simpson ; Margaret Dury, spouse to George Dundas, brother to the laird of Dundas ; t sister to Lord Melville ; Grissel Durham relict of Captain Drummond ; Mr. George Johnston’s wife ; Mrs. Arnot ; t rolict of Mr. John Nevay ; Sarah Brand, spouse to Alexander Gurshone, merchant in Edinburgh ; . . . f Kerr, La- dy Mersington, younger ; and Rachel Johnston ; Lady Cramond. It may be interesting to quote at some length, from the letters ^ Register of Acts of Privy Council. t Blanks in MS. 192 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. raised against these ladies, both because they contain the privy council’s account of the meeting in the parliament close, and their version of the petition, as well as a statement of the grounds upon which they found both to be seditious. The letters commence with an enumeration of the acts of parliament, of which the meeting and petition are said to be a violation : “ Making men- tion that by the laws and acts of this kingdom, it is prohibit and statute, that no man come to any court but in quiet and sober manner, and all tumultuary convocations, commotions, uproars, and gatherings, especially within royal burghs, are prohibit under great and high pains ; and by diverse laws and acts of parliament, it is statute, that if any person or persons presume, or take upon hand, privately or publicly to utter by word or write any slan- derous speeches to the contempt and reproach of his majesty’s proceedings, or to meddle with the affairs of his highness, and his estate and proceedings, they are to be repute as seditious and wicked persons, enemies to his majesty, and the common weal of the realm, and shall be punished with the pains therein contained ; and by the second act of the second session of his majesty’s first parliament, it is declared and statute, that if any person or persons shall by writing, libelling, or remonstrating, express, publish, or declare, any words or sentences lo stir up the people to hatred or dislike of his majesty’s royal prerogative, or of the government of the church by archbishops and bishops, as it is now settled by law, that every such person or persons so offending, shall be punished in manner and with the pains therein contained, and shall be liable to such farther pains as are due by the law in such ; and by the first act of the first session of his majesty’s first parliament, entitled, ‘ Anent Separation and Diso- bedience to Ecclesiastic Authority,’ his majesty did declare, that he expected from all his good and dutiful subjects, a due acknowl- edgment of, and hearty compliance with, his highness’s govern- ment ecclesiastical and civil, as it is now established by law, within this kingdom, and that, in order thereunto, they will give their cheerful concurrence and assistance to such ministers as by public authority are admitted in their several parishes, and that his majesty will and doth account a withdrawing from, and not keeping and joining in, the ordinary meetings for divine worship in the ordinary parishes, to be seditious and of danger- ous consequence, and by the said act, the same is punishable with the pains therein contained, and such other corporal punish- ment as the lords of privy council shall think fit ; as also by di- verse acts against conventicles, it is statute, that no outed minister MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 193 not licensed by the council, and no other person not authorized by the bishop of the diocese, shall preach, expound scripture or pray, in any meeting, except in their own houses, and to those of their own family, and that none be present at such meetings, which by the said act are declared to be the ordinary seminaries of rebellion, under the pains therein expressed.”* The letters next proceed to give an account of the meeting, and of the petition presented by the ladies. After naming the persons against whom they were raised,! they go on to say, that these persons “ have, in manifest contempt of his majesty’s au- thority, presumed to contravene the foresaid laws, and to commit and do the deeds, crimes, and seditious practices above mentioned, in so far as the said persons and their associates and complices, upon the [4th] day of June last, did in a most insolent, seditious, and tumultuary manner gather, convocate, and convene together in the court of his majesty’s parliament house, in such a number and multitude of persons, that the said whole court was filled with women and a disorderly rabble, and the said convocation, commotion, and uproar was not only within the town of Edin- burgh, the chief and capital city of the kingdom, and ordinary seat and place of judicature, and specially his highness’s council sitting there for doing of justice and preserving the quiet and peace of the kingdom, and punishing and preventing of tumults ; but the said tumultuous convocation was of purpose and of de- sign, because the council was to sit, upon the council day, and immediately before, ^and at the time of the sitting of.his majesty’s said council, and in court and at the very doors of the house where the council did sit, and upon pretence that they came to the council to present a petition. And shaking off all respect to his majesty’s authority, and to the council’s and counsellors’, the said persons and their complices did proceed to so great a height of insolence, that many of the said women did go into, and place themselves on the stair of the council house, and others did stand in the court the way to the said council house ; and when the lords of council were coming to the said court, the multitude did so crowd and throng in upon them, that with great difficulty they could go up to the council house ; and while they were going through the close and up the stairs of the council house, some of the said women did take hold of some of them, and did give them the double of the petition, which they said they had given in to be presented to the council, and others, amidst the great noise and uproar, did revile and utter injurious * Decreets of Privy Council, July 30, 1674. tSee their names above. 17 194 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. speeches against some of his majesty’s counsellors. And as tile said pretended petitioning, remonstrating, and application to his highness’s privy council was most disorderly and seditious, and of dangerous example and consequence, as to the manner thereof, so it was also most seditious and scandalous as to the matter, and does contain and import reproaches and reflections upon his majesty’s government, and meddling in the affairs of Ins majesty and his estate, and depraving his highness’s laws and misconstructing his proceedings, and libelling and remon- strating seditious words and sentences, to stir up the people to the hatred and dislike of the government of the church by arch- bishops and bishops as it is now settled by law, in so far as the said petition is in name of several women without naming them, and without their subscriptions, and it is in their own name and in the name of all who will adhere to them, inviting others, and insinuating that they expect they will join with them ; and the said petition bears most falsely and most scandalously, that the petitioners had been long deprived of the inestimable blessing of the public worship and ordinances of God, whereas it is notbr that his majesty’s subjects do enjoy the blessing of the public worship and ordinances of God in great purity and peace, and that there is an orderly ministry, authorized and countenanced and established by law ; and the said persons by the petition foresaid do not only acknowledge their unlawful withdrawing from, and not joining with, the ordinary public meetings for di- vine worship, and their keeping of conventicles, and attendance upon worship in private, contrary to so many laws, but do pre- sume to desire liberty to keep the said private meetings and conventicles prohibited by so many l^ws, and that outed ministers, Avhom they call their ‘ honest ministers,’ may be allowed to ex- ercise their function, as the people shall call them thereto, so that they might enjoy the rich blessing of faithful pastors, and that their pastors may be delivered from the sinful compliance of those who are contrary to the known judgnient of honest pres- byterians ; by all which desires, expressions, and others, in the said petition, the petitioners do scandalously asperse and reflect upon his majesty’s government, and in special upon the church, by archbishops and bishops, as it is settled by law, as if outed and disorderly ministers were the only honest ministers, and the people were deprived of the blessing of faithful pastors, because the said outed ministers are not allowed to preach, and as if obedience to the laws and compliance of ministers with his maj-; esty’s government ecclesiastical established by law were sinful.” MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 195 The letters next adduce their assembling a second time, on the 11th of June, as a high aggravation of their alleged seditious conduct : “ And the said persons, not content to have made the said seditious convocation, tumult, and uproar, at the time and in the manner above related, did again relapse and adventure upon the said seditious practices ; and upon the [11th] day of [June], being the next council day thereafter, when the council was about to sit, and the time of the sitting thereof, they did again convene, in the said place, and did make a disorderly convocation, commo- tion, and uproar, in manner, and with the same, if not worse cir- cumstances than is above libelled, and had the boldness and confi- dence to pretend that they came for an answer to the said petition.’' The letters next charge several of these ladies, as Catherine Montgomery and Isabel Kennedy, with having, when convened before the privy council -(although they confessed their being present at the said tumults), altogether and obstinately refused “ to declare upon oath their knowledge concerning the persons present and accessory to the said tumult, and other circumstances relating to the same whereby it is declared they had incurred the penalties contained in the second act of the second session of his majesty’s second parliament, entitled ‘ Act against delin- quents who should refuse to depone,’ ” by which “ it is statute that all and every subject of this kingdom, of v/hat degree, sex, or quality soever, who shall be called by his majesty’s privy council, or any others having authority from his majesty, to de- clare upon oath their knowledge of any crimes against his majes- ty’s laws, and the peace of the kingdom, and particularly of any conventicles or other unlawful meetings, and shall refuse or delay to declare or depone thereanent, they shall be punished in manner therein contained.” Such is the amount of the charges brought against these female petitioners, and to answer to which they were summoned to ap- pear at the bar of the privy council. But none of them made their appearance, believing that had they appeared, and refused to make any acknowledgments, which, having committed no crime, they were not prepared to make, they would probably have been thrown into prison. Accordingly, after “ being oft- times called and not compearing, the lords of his majesty’s privy council, July 30, do ordain letters to be directed to messengers- at-arms to pass to the market-cross of Edinburgh . . .* and thereat, in his majesty’s name and authority, duly, lawfully, and orderly, to denounce the said Mrs, Elizabeth Rutherford, &c.,t his maj- * Blank in MS. t See the other names at p. 191. 196 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. esty’s rebels, and put them to the horn, and escheit and imbring all their moveable goods and gear to his highness’s use for their contempt and disobedience.”* On the 29th of September, the privy council again convened, but little was done. “ Only they were very hot upon the chase against the women that offered their petition.”! As the name of Mrs. Livingstone does not occur among the ladies who were summoned to appear before the privy council on the 30th of July, and who, not appearing, were declared his majesty’s rebels and put to the horn, it may be concluded that the council had not yet discovered that she was at the head of the movement, and was the person who presented the petition to the chancellor. But by subsequent inquiries they appear to have made this discovery, or to have found, at least, that at the ‘‘ tu- multuous convocation” she had presented a copy of the petition to some one or other of the councillors. Accordingly, she and sev- eral Other ladies! were summoned to appear before the council on the 12th of November that year, “ as being guilty of a tumult- uary convocation, commotion, and uproar, within the parliament close, in the month of June last, the time of the meeting and sit- ting of the council, and of presenting a most insolent and sedi- tious petition to some of the council.” Mrs. Livingstone and the others who were summoned, compeared before the council on the 12th of November, and, on being examined, confessed that they were “ present in the said tumult.” The result was, that the lords of council banished them from the city of Edinburgh, Leith, and suburbs thereof, and ordained them against the 1st of December next to depart from the said bounds, discharging them to return thereto in future, as they would be answerable at their highest peril. II Mrs. Livingstone, and all the rest, with two exceptions, were obliged immediately to act in conformity with this sentence. The two exceptions were Margaret Johnston and Lilias Camp- * Decreets of Privy Council, July 30, 1674. t Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 552. I The names of the ladies, as given in the act of council, 12th of November, are Mrs. Elizabeth Rutherford; Margaret Johnston; Lilias Campbell; Lady Mersing- ton, elder; Bethia Murray, spouse to Hugh Mossman, couppar in Leith; Janet Fleming, relict of Mr. John Livingstone ; Catherine Montgomery, relict of Mr. Rob- ert Blair; Margaret Lundy, spouse to John Hamilton, merchant at the foot of the West Bow ; Margaret Drury, spouse to George Dundas, brother to the laird of Dun- das ; Isabel Kennedy, spouse to James Clelland, chirurgeon; Rachel Aird, spouse to William Lorimer, merchant ; Sarah Lorimer, his daughter ; Barbara Home, spouse to Mr. Robert Lockhart; Elizabeth Dalziel, spouse to David Gray, hat-maker; Grissel Durham, relict of Captain Drummond; and Agnes Henderson, spouse to Robert Simpson in Edinburgh. U Register of Acts of Privy Council. MRS. JOHN LIVINGSTONE, &c. 197 bell, the execution of whose sentence was delayed for fourteen days by the council, at their meeting on the 3d of December, in answer to a petition presented by these ladies. After a short absence, some of the banished women privately returned to their own houses in Edinburgh. Receiving informa- tion of this, the authorities of the city caused search to be made for them.* But the storm appears gradually to have blown over, though the nutnber of nonconforming ladies, and especially of nonconforming ministers’ wives and widows, in Edinburgh, con- tinued to be a source of offence and uneasiness to the govern- ment.! Thus terminated the proceedings against Mrs. Livingstone and her fellow-petitioners, simply for their exercising a right of which no power on earth could justly deprive them. Their treat- ment by the council was, throughout, tyrannical and oppressive. Had they, like a regiment of amazons, assembled with pikes and muskets to do personal violence to their great enemy. Archbishop Sharp, as he at first dreaded, guilt would have lain upon them, great as his demerits were, and some pretext would have been afforded for the severity wdth which they were proceeded against. But they came together in no such warlike attitude, nor with any such intention. One writer of that period. Sir George Macken- zie, commonly called “ the bloody Mackenzie,” would indeed, either with the view of covering the tyranny of the government, or of stigmatizing these religious women, have it to be believed that they had meditated Sharp’s destruction. “ Petitions for able ministers,” says he, “ were given in to the council by many hun- dreds of women, who, filling the parliament close, threatened the archbishop of St. Andrews, who passed along with the chancel- lor, for whose coming he had waited in his own chamber ; and some of them had conspired to set upon him, when a woman,! whom I shun to name, should raise her hand on high as a signal — to prevent which, the chancellor entertained the woman with insinuating speeches all the time as he passed to the Qouncil, and so did divert that bloody design. ”|| A more gratuitous assertion it is impossible to make. Neither Kirkton nor Row, both con- temporary writers, nor Wodrow, who all narrate the history of this affair, give the smallest countenance to such a statement. * Row's Life of Robert Blair, p. 255. t On the 12th of March, 1679, “the council emitted sundry proclamations, and commanded all nonconformed ministers' relicts, or wives, to void the town." — Foun* tainhall’s Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs, vol. i., p. 225. X He no doubt means Mrs. Livingstone. 11 Sir George Mackenzie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, &c., p. 273. 17 * 198 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. And should their evidence be suspected of partiality, we may appeal to the ‘‘ Records of the Proceedings of the Privy Council,” in which is registered the result of the long and patient inquiries of the committee of council into all the circumstances connected with the supplication, but in which a profound silence is preserved as to any such murderous intention ; a circumstance not likely to have occurred had there been any ground whatever for such a charge. It is indeed manifest, beyond controversy, from all these authorities compared, that the sole object of these ladies was the one ostensibly avowed in their petition. And yet Mackenzie’s calumny has been taken up and given forth as historical truth by a writer of the present day. These viragoes,” says the editor of Law’s Memorials, “ headed by the Rev. Mr. Livingstone’s widow, and a daughter of Lord Warriston, had laid a plan of murdering Archbishop Sharp, it being agreed that Mrs. Livings- tone was to hold up her hand as a signal for the pious sisterhood to rend the prelate in pieces ; but Lord Rothes contrived to en- gage her in conversation till the opportunity was lost.”* Mrs. Livingstone subsequently went over to Holland. Re- peated allusions are made to her as residing there in the letters of Mr. John Carstairs to Mr. Robert M‘Ward, Rotterdam, in the years 1677, 1678, and 1679; and whenever her name is men- tioned, it is always with some epithet expressive of the high esteem in which she was held by the writer. In a letter to M^Ward, dated July 26, 1677, Carstairs says, “ Lsalute much in the Lord that mother in Israel, choice Mrs. Livingstone, and her sweet daughter.”! In another letter to him, dated February 8, 1678, he sends his salutations to her.J In a third letter to him, dated December 3, 1678, he says, I am troubled for our loss of worthy Wallace, and am glad that that mother in Israel, Mrs. Livingstone, is spared a while, that we might not have sorrow upon sorrow. ”11 In a fourth letter to him, dated February 17, 1679, he says, “ I dearly salute your worthy wife, worthy Mr. Gordon, my kind and obliging friend, choice Mrs. Livingstone, a mother indeed in Israel.”^ And in a fifth letter to him, dated Edinburgh, October, 1679, he again sends his salutations to her.”^ This is the last notice we have met with concerning her. How long she lived after this is uncertain, nor is it known whether she again returned to Scotland. The probability is, that she * Editor’s foot-note in Law’s Memorials, p. 67. The editor refers to Kiiktou and Wodrow as his authorities- But neither of these writers gives liiin the slightest support. Mackenzie, though not referred to, is his sole authority'. t Wodrow MSS., vol. lix., folio, No. 6.5. t Ibid., No. 77. 11 Ibid., No. 95. § Ibid., No. 109. % Ibid., No. 122. DUCHESS OF ROTHES. 199 spent the remainder of her days in Holland, and that her ashes, like those of her distinguished husband, repose in that hospitable retreat of our persecuted forefathers.* Some of Mrs. Livingstone’s children emigrated from Scotland to America, to the state of New York, where their descendants have, in the course of time, become people of the first distinction and weight in society. The late Dr. John H. Livingstone, min- ister of the Reformed Dutch church in New York, professor of divinity to that body, and president of Queen’s College, New Jersey — one of the first men of his age and country, and whose memoirs have been written by Mr. Alexander Gunn, was the great-great-grandson of the subject of this memoir. f LADY ANNE LINDSAY, DUCHESS OF ROTHES. Lady AnxYE Lindsay was the eldest daughter of John, first earl of Lindsay, and fifteenth earl of Crawford, lord high treasu- rer of Scotland, by his wife. Lady Margaret Hamilton, second daughter of James, second marquis of Hamilton.^ Her paternal grandmother was the excellent Lady Boyd, already noticed ; and her maternal grandmother was Lady Arme Cunningham, mar- chioness of Hamilton, of whom some account has also been given. Her father, who was the son of Lady Boyd, by her first hus- band, Robert, ninth Lord Lindsay of Byres, was, as we have seen before, § a man of sound religious principle, and a steadfast sup- porter of the second reformation cause. He warmly opposed, though without success, the passing of the act rescissory in the first parliament of Charles IL, by which all the parliaments, since 1633, were annulled, and all the proceedings for reformation be- tween 1638 and 1650 were denounced rebellious and treasona- ble ; and he declared himself against the establishment of prelacy, assuring his majesty that a measure so opposed to the feelings of the Scottish people would be followed by the worst effects. * There is a portrait of Mrs. Livingstone in Gosford house, belonging to the earl of W emyss, as we-learn from a foot-note in Kirkton's History, by the editor, p. 345. t Chambers’ Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, art, John Livingstone, i Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p. 387. § See p. 36. 200 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. A strenuous defender of the lawfulness and obligation of the na- tional covenants, he refused to take the declaration abjuring them as unlawful oaths ;* for which Charles II., though he much re- spected him, incited by Archbishop Sharp, deprived him of his office of lord high treasurer of Scotland. His answer, when Charles asked him whether he would take the declaration, is worthy of being recorded : “ As I have suffered much,” he said, “ for your majesty, even nine years’ imprisonment, forfeiture, and the ruin of my fortune, so I am resolved to continue your majes- ty’s loyal and faithful subject, and to serve you in whatever I can with a good conscience ; but as for renouncing the covenant and taking the declaration, that I can not do with a safe and good conscience.” And when Lauderdale — afraid lest his enemy Middleton should obtain the office of treasurer — urged him to take the declaration, by the argument that he would thus, by re- taining his place, be in a better capacity for promoting the inter- ests of the nonconformists than he could be in a private station, he replied, like a man of principle, that he was taught not to do evil that good might come.f Resigning his situation as lord high treasurer, he retired to his house at Struthers, and spent the re- mainder of his days in privacy. “He was a man,” says Doug- las, “ of great virtue, of good abilities, and of an exemplary life in all respects. He died at Tyninghame in 1676, aged about eighty.”! Lady Anne’s mother was also eminent for virtue and piety. Row speaks of her as “ the earl of Crawford’s most religious lady, who was deservedly praised of all who knew her and he informs us that, “ when all about her, and all Crawford’s friends in Scotland were lamenting the loss of his place, she heartily rejoiced and blessed God that he had kept a good conscience, and himself free of perjury and covenant breaking, &c., trusting in God that he would provide for him and his.”|| Robert Blair, who knew her personally, speaking of her on his death-bed, said, “ My Lady Crawford, set her alone, set her alone among women.”^ Lady Anne, thus descended from godly parents, enjoyed the inestimable benefit of a religious education ; and her parents had the satisfaction of witnessing the fruits of their instructions and example in the eminence of her piety, which she exemplified By the fifth act of the second session of parliament, 1662, the declaration was ordained to be taken by all admitted to any public trust or office under his majesty's government in Scotland, and those already in office were also required to subscribe it, t Row's Life of Robert Blair, p. 441. {: Douglas’s Peerage vol. i., p. 386. y Ibid., p. 442. § Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 495. DUCHESS OF ROTHES. #^201 thronghout life by a conversation becoming tlie gospel. The fervor of her devotion, the benevolence of her disposition, the humility of her demeanor, and the sanctity of her deportment, are all honorably mentioned by her cotemporaries. Law de- scribes her as “ a discreet, wise, virtuous, and good lady.”* And others who knew her, speak in the highest terms of her Chris- tian excellence. In her youth, which was cotemporaneous with the best days of the covenant, she was strictly educated in the presbyterian faith, to which she continued to adhere in its every variety of fortune, in its adversity, as well as in its prosperity. After the restoration of Charles II., she was exposed, by the cir- cumstances in which she was placed, to great temptations to become indifferent or hostile to the principles of presbytery. Her husband, John, sixth earl of Rothes, to whoni^she had been previously married, was a member of the persecuting government of Charles, and she was under the necessity of mingling, to a considerable extent, with the unprincipled and persecuting states- men of that period. But her convictions and feelings remained unaltered, and the ejected ministers, on whose side her sympa- thies were enlisted, she was ever ready, to the utmost of her ability, to befriend. Some of them she succeeded in continuing in their charges after their persecutors had marked them out for ejectment. Mr. Black, minister of Leslie, for example, a man whom she highly esteemed, and under whose ministry she sat when residing at Leslie house, was, though a nonconformist, through her intercession with the bishop of Dunkeld, continued in the exercise of his ministry in his own parish, when that pre- late, in 1664, summarily deposed all the other nonconforming ministers in his diocese. f The friendly interest she took in the persecuted ministers, she evinced in many other ways. “ Rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate,” she often ministered to their temporal necessities, and entertained them with hospitality and kindness when they visited her at Les- lie house. On these occasions they endeavored to keep out of the eye of the duke, for, though not naturally inclined to cruelty, yet, from political considerations, he put on the appearance of severity. He was not, however, ignorant that they were harbored and reset by the duchess, but he connived at them on her ac- count ; and on happening, as he sometimes did happen, to see any of them about the house, being a man of humor, he was in the habit of saying to her, “ My lady, I would advise you to keep * Law's Memorials, p. 202. t Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 473. 202 THE LADIES OF THE OVENANT. your chickens in about, else I may pick up some of them.”* Other anecdotes of a similar kind are still current, and have been recorded by Miss Strickland, in her very interesting work, en- titled ‘‘ Lives of the Queens of England.” After noticing that the duchess “ favored the doctrines of the covenanters, and, as far as she could, protected their preachers, who were frequently concealed in the neighborhood of Leslie house,” she adds, “ The duke never sent out his officers to apprehend any of these persons without previously endeavoring to provide for their escape, by giving a significant hint to his compassionate duchess in these words, ‘ My hawks will be out to-night, my lady — so you had better take care of your blackbirds !’ The local tradi- tions of Leslie add, that the signal by which her grace warned her spiritual proteges of their danger, was a white sheet sus- pended from one of the trees on the brow of the hill behind the house, which could be seen from a considerable distance. Other telegraphic signs the good lady had, no doubt, to intimate the absence of her spouse, when they might safely come forth and preach to their hill-side congregation.”! Nor was she backward to intercede with the duke and the other members of the government for the persecuted ministers. Well assured of her friendly disposition, they confidently applied to her to exert in their behalf the influence which, from her situa- tion, she had with the duke and the other members of the privy council. An instance of this in the case of Mr. Robert Wylie, when he was indulged minister of Fenwick, is preserved among his MSS., which form a part of Wodrow’s Collections. All the indulged ministers having, on the 3d of September, 1675, got a charge of horning to pay their respective proportions of the ordi- nary fees due for the parishes where they resided, to the clerk and bursar of the diocesan synod of Glasgow, Mr. Robert Wylie, with several others, refused, from scruples of conscience, to make payment.^ He accordingly applied for a suspension, and sent a petition to the privy council, praying for relief from that imposi- tion ; and, at the same time, he transmitted a copy of the petition to the duchess, to give her an idea of the case, accompanied with a letter, requesting her friendly intercessions with the lords of * M‘Crie’s Memoirs ofVeitch and Brysson, p. 295. Among other instances of the persecuted finding shelter in similar situations, it may be mentioned that, pre- vious to the civil wars, while Dr. Scott, dean of York, was employed at cards, or other games, to which he was much addicted, Mrs. Scott was attending a conven- ticle in another room ; the dean’s house being reckoned the safest place for holding such assemblies. — Brooke’s Lives of the Puritans, vol. iii., p. 528. t Vol. ix., p. 117, t Wodrow'fl History, vol. ii., 297. DUCHESS OF ROTHES. 203 his majesty’s privy council in furtherance of his petition. The letter, which is written in a tone that bespeaks the confidence he reposed in her sympathy and friendship, is as follows : — ‘‘ Fenwick, 2d December, 1675. Madam : I humbly crave pardon that I presume to trouble your ladyship with any petty business that concerns me ; but be- ing desirous to live quietly and with bosom-peace, to close my days in the work of the gospel, I hope it will not offend your ladyship that I entreat for your honor’s help to hold off the incon- veniences that may apparently fall upon me, if not prevented. Madam, the matter is this : I am charged with letters of horning to pay fees to the clerk of the bishop’s synod, and dues to a bur- sar of prelatic choice ; which, considering the presbyterian prin- ciples grounded on the Scriptures, and the standing obligation of the oath of God upon the conscience, I have no freedom to do ; and therefore sent for a suspension of the charges, which I hear was granted, but the clerks are loath to give it out until they would know the council’s mind.* Being desirous to leave no means unessayed to hold weights off my conscience and troubles off my person, I have sent a petition, to be presented to the most honorable lords of his majesty’s privy council, holding forth the grounds of my refusal, and supplicating that their lordships would grant me the free exercise of my ministry, with reservation of my principles and liberty of my judgment, and that their lordships would be pleased to discharge all legal procedure against me, as the petition does more fully purport ; a copy whereof, for your ladyship’s information, I have herewith enclosed, knowing that the draught will be kept as a secret with your honor, and made use of only for your private information, that your ladyship may the better know the affair, and how to speak to it as occasion of- fers. And now, madam, my humble request to your ladyship is, that you would be pleased to speak to such members of the coun- cil as your honor thinks convenient, in order to the inclining of them to give a favorable answer unto my petition, that now, in my old days, when I am laboring under manifold infirmities, I may have liberty to close the latter part of my time in the peace- able preachings of the gospel, without pressing me with imposi- tions grating upon my conscience, and putting a crazy person to unnecessary tossings. Madam, I do again beg pardon for this presumption ; and wishing all abounding of grace, all the bles- * The difficulty of obtaining a suspension arose from the fact that the payment of the clerk's and bursar’s fees was required by the council’s act of indulgence, Sep- tember, 2, 1672. 204 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. sings of the everlasting covenant to be plentifully poured out upon your ladyship and all yours, I rest, madam, your ladyship’s, ‘‘ [Thomas Wylie.]”* That the friendly endeavors of this lady would not be wanting to promote the success of Mr. Wylie’s petition there can be little doubt, from what we know of her character ; and her interces- sions, judging from the result, were not without success. The relief which Mr. Wylie so earnestly solicited was at length granted by the government ; for in a new proclamation issued on the 1st of March next year, two of the rules, according to which the indulged ministers, by the indulgence 1672, were required to act, are omitted, the one regarding their waiting on diocesan meetings, and the other respecting their paying dues to the clerk and bursar of the diocesan synod. Mr. Wylie, however, contin- ued to feel uneasy under the other restrictions of the indulgence. f On the introduction of field-preaching into Fife, the duchess used to attend these much maligned and proscribed meetings. One of the places which, in those troublous times, she frequented to hear the sermons of the field-preachers, was Glenvale, a beau- tiful sequestered spot in the parish of Strathmiglo, Fifeshire, “ lying between West Lomond and Bishop Hill. About the mid- dle of the valley it expands into a fine amphitheatre on the south, capable of containing many thousand persons ; on the north side is a large projecting rock, which is said to have been occupied by the ejected ministers as a pulpit.”]; In this favorite place of resort, which, in point of romantic scenery, may bear compari- son with the wild recess in Cartland craigs, where the cov- enanters of the west met for the same purpose, immense mul- titudes from all the surrounding districts often assembled for the worship of God. “In the year 1678,” to quote from a well-attested Account of the Sufferings of the Presbyterians in Kinross-shire,” the field-meetings were kept very frequently through the whole shire, but oftener in Glenvale, because it was the centre of that large congregation, which extended to Cupar of Fife on the east, to Kirkaldy on the south, to Salin and Dollar on the west, and to Perth on the north. There were five or six par- ishes engaged together to keep up the preaching of the gospel among themselves ; and by turns each parish sent to Edinburgh Mr. Wylie’s MSS. among the Wodrow MSS., vol. xxx., 4to, No. 16. There is no signatnre to the letter. It is addressed on the back, “ For the Countess of Rothes.” ^ t Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 336. t M‘Crie’s Memoirs of Veitch, &c., p. 295. M'Ciie’s Sketches of Scottish Church History, 2d edition, p. 420. DUCHESS OF ROTHES. 205 and brought a minister, so that they seldom wanted a sermon on the Lord’s day.”* In attending these “ seditious meetings” and “ rendezvouses of rebellion,” as they were stigmatized by the privy council, the duchess incurred the heavy penalties under which they were interdicted ; but, like others of the ladies of the members of the government, who were led by curiosity or piety to field-conventicles, she was overlooked, the council not deem- ing it prudent to carry the persecution into the bosom of their own families. The leniency which the duke of Rothes exer- cised toward these field-meetings in Fife, it is believed, was ow- ing in no small degree, to their being favored and countenanced by the duchess. On one occasion when forty individuals, who had been apprehended for a conventicle in Glenvale, were brought before him in Leslie, and he was asked what was to be done with them : “ Put them,” said he, “ in Bailie Walker’s back room, the place they all like so well.” The bailie was a religious man, and meetings for social prayer and conference were often held in his back room. When asked what further orders he had to give respecting them, the duke answered, “ Give them plenty of meat and drink, and set them about their business in the morning.”! He knew that Glenvale was a favorite place of resort for his own lady, and that these poor individuals brought before him had done nothing to merit punishment, were guilty in fact of holding no principles, and following no practices, for which she might not have been equally impeached. An evidence of the tender-hearted sympathy of the duchess with the persecuted covenanters is furnished in the following anecdote : Archbishop Sharp, having on one occasion come to dine with the duke, complained to him at dinner that two of his tenants, David and James Walker, were keepers of conventicles. This complaint the archbishop strongly and vehemently urged, though the duchess, of whose attachment to the presbyterian in- terest he could not be ignorant, was present ; for deference to her feelings was overborne by his inveterate malignity against these worthy men. The duke, who expressed his surprise at this in- formation, said, that “ he should take an effectual course with them, and see them both stringed.”! The archbishop insisted that he should not forget them, for they were incendiaries through all Fife ; upon which the duke gave orders to his man-servant, who was standing at his back, to send immediately to the town of Leslie, in the neighborhood of which they lived, and bring * Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxiii., folio, No. 143. t M'Crie's Memoirs of Veitch, &c., p. 295. 18 t That is, hanged. 206 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. them down to him after dinner, promising to the archbishop that they should give the government no further trouble. To this dis- course, the duchess, though it appears she made no remarks, lis- tened with great pain — the two men,, who were eminent for piety, being her Christian friends, for whom she entertained a high es- teem ; nor had she much respect for Sha^, who besides being first a traitor to the church of Scotland, and then its persecutor, had injured her father for being a more honest man than himself. It may therefore be easily believed, as Wodrow observes, that “ this spoiled my lady duchess’s dinner.” She was aware that the duke, who was ambitious of place and power, had, to secure the favor of Sharp, whose influence at court was great, and to keep the prelatic clergy at his devotion, done acts of violence which he was not naturally inclined to commit ; and was therefore afraid that in the present instance, to gratify the prelate, he would subject these good men to persecution. Her fears were, however, happily disappointed. The two nonconformists immediately came down to the palace at Leslie. After dinner, the duke accom- panied Sharp to his coach ; and, on being again reminded by the prelate not to spare the two delinquents, he told him they were come, and assured him he should not fail to handle them severely. But on his coming up stairs and calling for them, he simply asked them, in a friendly way, the prices of the markets, what grain it was best for him to sow in such and such parts of his lands about Leslie, and similar questions, after which he dis- missed them without any mark of displeasure or asking them a single question in reference to the subject as to which he had professedly brought them to his house. “ The duchess,” says Wodrow, “ retired from dinner in deep concern for the men, and gave orders to a servant to bring them in to her, when the duke parted with them, by a back gallery. Accordingly they came. The duchess was all in tears, and almost trembling, asked what had passed. They told her, ‘ Nothing but kindness.’ Whether this was to be attributed to the duchess’s prayers in their behalf, or to the duke’s natural temper, who was not inclined to violence, I am not to determine ; but the fact is certain.”* The duchess was greatly tried in her domestic life. Beside being connected with the persecuting government of Charles, the duke was unprincipled and profligate, devoting himself “ without either restraint or decency, to all the pleasures of Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. iv., p. 42. Mr. John Loudon, who was some time a tutor in the family of Rothes, and afterward a minister of the church of Scotland; was Wodrow’s informer. He received this anecdote from the duchess herselL DUCHESS OF ROTHES. 207 wine and women.”* “ He gave himself,” says Fountainhall, great liberty in all sort of pleasures and debaucheries, particu- larly with Lady Anne, sister of the first duke of Gordon, whom he took along with him in his progress through the country, with hat and feather ; and by his bad example affected many of the nobility and gentry.”! But trying as this was to the duchess, the admirable prudence and gentleness which marked her temper and conduct under it all, so impressed the duke as to make him ashamed of the manner in which he was treating her. ‘‘ It was,” says Kirkton, “ confidently reported that his infamous converse with Lady Anne Gordon touched his own conscience so much, that one day, being under the dint of his own conviction, and reflecting upon his misbehavior toward his worthy lady (whom he could not but admire), he threw all the wretched love-tokens his miss had given him into the fire, upon suspicion and fear he was detained her captive by the power of witchcraft, as very many said he was.”! Still more calculated to excite in the mind of the duchess, the most poignant distress, were the circumstances connected with his death. His days may be said to have been shortened by his intemperance. So strong was his constitution that he could out- drink two or three sets of drunkards in succession, and after the greatest excesses an hour or two of sleep so completely recruit- ed him, that he could go about business without any apparent disorder in either body or mind. This could not always last ; it ultimately undermined his vigorous constitution, producing such diseases of stomach, that when not hot within, and full of strong drink, he had perpetual colics, so that he was always either sick or druiik.il He was seized with his last illness in Edin- burgh. On his death-bed his conscience was awakened ; and as he looked on his past life, and forward to a coming judgment, the horrors of despair settled on his soul. He sent for some of his lady’s ministers — those men who, when entertained by her at Leslie house, were afraid to meet him in the days of his ro- bust health — he sent for them now, that, if possible, they might minister relief to his troubled conscience. Two of them, Mr. John Carstairs, and Mr. George Johnston, who were then in Edinburgh, came to Holyrood house, where he lay ; and while they spoke to him freely of the sinfulness of his former ways, as fidelity demanded, true to their office, as messengers of peace, Burnet’s Owti Times, vol. i., p. 175. t Fountainhall’s Diary, quoted in Kirkton's History, by tlie editor, p. 204. t Kirkton's History, p. 212. || Buonet'e Own Times, vol. U p. 175. 208 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. they told him that pardon and mercy were to be obtained through the blood of Jesus for the greatest sinners of Adam’s race, even at the eleventh hour. Mr. Carstairs, a man unequalled in his day in the gift of prayer, engaged in that exercise ; and so weighty and affecting were his sentences, as to draw tears from almost every one present. But all availed not to pacify the conscience of the dying nobleman. He said to Carstairs, ‘‘We all thought little of what that man Cargill did in excommunicating us, but I find that sentence binding upon me now, and it will bind to eter- nity.” The duke of Hamilton, who witnessed the scene, deeply moved, said, “ When in health, we hunt and persecute these men, but when dying, we call for them : this is melancholy work !” The dying duke expired at Holyrood house, on the 27th July, 1681, in the 51st year of his age. His funeral obsequies were performed with unusual pomp. His body was first pri- vately brought up from Holyrood house to the high church of St. Giles, accompanied with a train of coaches ; thence it was con- ducted, with the greatest magnificence, to the royal chapel of Holyrood house, by a numerous procession, the order of which is given by Arnot in his history of Edinburgh.* From the chapel of Holyrood house, it was next conveyed, with the same funereal pomp, to Leith, thence it was transported to Burntisland ; and the day after, it was met by the gentlemen of the county of Fife (of which he was high sheriff), by whom it was accompanied to the family burying-place at Leslie. The body was laid in the grave with sound of open trumpets, and the honors placed above the grave. This superfluity of display was common during the reign of Charles H. at the funerals of the great. Under that reign it was a matter of policy, in prosecution of the designs of the government for the establishment of absolute power, to en- courage every circumstance which could mark the distinction of ranks, and hence the nobility and gentry gratified their vanity not only by the splendor of their retinues, but also by the extrava- gant pomp with which they conducted the funerals of their de- parted friends, as if they could thus keep up the distinctions of rank and elevated station after death had levelled them in the dust. “ Sorry pre-eminence of high descent Above the vulgar bom,'’ t Pp.‘l68, 611. t To such an extent, however, did this foolish vanity and absurd extravagance proceed, that the parliament which met at Edinburgh, September 13, 1681, passed an “ act restraining the exorbitant expenses of marriages, baptisms, and burials." — See the acts of the parliament of Scotland. DUCHESS OF ROTHES. 209 The duchess had to the duke, two daughters, Lady Margaret, and Lady Christian. Lady Margaret, the eldest, became on her father’s death, countess of Rothes, having inherited his extensive property in the counties of Aberdeen, Elgin, Fife, Forfar, Inver- ness, Kincardine, and Perth, and the earldom of Rothes, but not his other titles of duke of Rothes, marquis of Ballinbreich, &c., which, being limited to the heirs male of his body, became ex- tinct at his death. She was married, in 1674, to Charles, fifth earl of Haddington, the marriage contract being dated the 7th of October that year. The second daughter. Lady Christian, was married first to .James, third marquis of Montrose, to whom she had issue, and afterward, in 1687, to Sir John Bruce, of Kinross, baronet, to whom she had no children.* Amid all her domestic trials, the duchess found much comfort in her children, who, following her instructions and example, adorned the high stations they filled, and were patterns to their sex. Fler eldest daughter, in particular, who succeeded the duke, a lady of a cultivated understanding, and of much practical wisdom, was almost unequalled in her day for the depth of her piety, and the extent of her beneficence. Among the nonconforming ministers whom the duchess be- friended and patronized, was Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, one of the most popular ministers of his day, who was ejected from Forgan, in Fife, after the Restoration, and who subsequently be- came indulged minister at Kilmarnock. Previous to his death, which took place about the close of October, 1678,t this excellent minister, having consented to the posthumous publication of a series of sermons which he had delivered upon 2 Samuel xxiii. 5, and which, after his death, were published partly from short-hand notes taken by some of the hearers, and partly from his own notes, it was his desire that the volume should be dedicated to the duchess. But as before its publication she had been removed by death, Mr. Wedderburn’s widow, Helen Turnbull, dedicated it to the duchess’s daughter, the truly noble Margaret, countess of Rothes,” which she was induced to do not only in considera- tion of the Christian excellence of that lady, but also from respect to the memory of her sainted mother ; and as a memorial of the duchess we now quote it. “ Madam,” says Mrs. Wedderburn, * Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., p. 432. t The illness which issued in his death was brought on by a thrust be received from the butt of the musket of a Highlander during the invasion of the west by the Highland host in 1678, at the time when he was interceding with these savages to spare the town of Kilmarnock, which tliey were resolved to plunder. His last ill- ness continued about four montlts. 18 * 210 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. ‘‘ before that pious and eminent person, the duchess of Rothes, your ladyship’s renowned mother, was by death remoA^ed, I de- signed, according to the intention of my husband (who is now entered into the joy of his Lord), to dedicate this part of his labors to her grace. And now, when these papers, by advice of faithful and godly ministers, are to be exposed to public view, I judged it my duty to pay that respect to her grace’s memory as to prefix your ladyship’s name thereunto (which, no doubt, if my husband were alive, he himself would have done), which I the more confidently adventure upon, as that I know your ladyship to be the lively portraiture of the graces and virtues of your noble and now glorified mother, and to be of such wisdom and prudence, humil- ity and self-denial, as to excuse anything of unsuitableness that may be in this for one of my station and sex.” A feAv brief notices of Margaret, countess of Rothes, may form an appropriate sequel to the preceding sketch of her mother. Crawford describes her as “ a lady of incomparable piety and goodness and Wodrow speaks of her as that “ excellent lady who scarce had a parallel for religion, and everything good, in her age.”t Having embraced the same religious sentiments as her mother, she was a friend to the persecuted presbyterians, of which the government were well aware, and as an instance of the arts resorted to for depriving the sufferers of shelter from every quarter, it may be mentioned that the privy council, who found sheriff courts a powerful means of carrying on the perse- cution, persuaded that on succeeding her father, she would ap- point a sheriff depute for Fife, who would befriend the sufferers, had recourse to a most dishonorable expedient, in order to deprive her of the power of appointing a substitute to hold such a court in her name. On the 6th of October, 1681, the privy council ‘‘ order intimation to be made to her by the earl of Haddington, that she can not hold any sheriff court, nor any in her name, until she take the test.” ‘‘ The parliament in one of their acts,” says Wodrow, “ as we have seen, except the heirs of the duke from some hardships of this nature, j: yet the council urge this excellent lady with this oath, as what they knew she would never * Crawford’s Peerage of Scotland, p. 430. t Wodrow’s History, vol. iii., p. 300. t Wodrow refers to the act concerning public debts, passed September 17, 1681, discharging such noblemen, barons, and bur£?esses, as “ during the time of the late troubles and rebellion, did give their bonds for several great sums of money,” “of the said debts and bonds granted thereupon,” upon condition of their taking the test, “excepting always the heirs, executors, and successors of the deceased duke of Rothes, late lord-chancellor, who, in respect of his eminent loyalty and service to bis majesty, are hereby absolutely exonered and discharged of Uie said debts, with- out necessity of taking the aforesaid test, upon the account aforesaid, allenarly.” DUCHESS OF ROTHES, 211 take, that the offices might fall into the managers’ hands.”* The council succeeded in their design. Both the countess and the earl of Haddington, her husband, refused to take the test. Ac- cordingly the sheriffdom of Fife was lodged in the hands of the earl of Balcarres, who, in that same year, appointed Alexander Malcolm sheriff depute of that county, a man who proved as se- vere a presser of conformity as the government could desire, subjecting such as refused to take the test to severe oppression by fines, imprisonment, and other kinds of suffering.! Wodrow, in his Analecta, under the year 1730, has preserved the following memorial of this lady : “I am told that the late duchess or countess of Rothes, M^as one of the most extraordinary persons for religion and good sense, and eminent acts of charity, that was in the last age ; that her life, could it be recovered, would make a beautiful figure in our biography. I have little hope of recovering it. In the late dear years 1697 and 1698, she was remarkable for her charity. She distributed many bolls of meal among the poor every week, and it was calculated that she dealt out most of the yearly rent of the estate that way. She had a day in the week, Friday, I think, when sick and indisposed persons came to her ; and she spoke with them, and gave them medicines gratis ; and some cheats, pretending to be objects of charity, she discovered, and severely punished them. She was most intimate with John Archer, Alexander’s father, and many eminent Chris- tians in that neighborhood. She was eminent in prayer and wrestling, and had many singular answers of prayer. It’s a pity so little about her can now be recovered.” J The countess died on the 20th of August, 1700. Sir James Stewart, lord advocate of Scotland, after the revolution, says, in a letter to Principal William Carstairs, dated August 22, 1700, “ The good countess of Rothes died Tuesday last, much regretted by all, and very deservedly.” 1| She was succeeded by her eldest son, John, seventh earl of Rothes, who, like his predecessors for at least four preceding generations, was distinguished for the ex- cellence of his Christian character. He died in 1722, in the prime of life, in the full assurance of faith. A few hours before his departure, he called his children one by one, and took fare- well of each of them, speaking to each in particular, and to them all for nearly two hours, with the greatest seriousness and solidity, recommending religion to them as what alone would avail them, Wodrow's History, vol. iii., p. 300. ; Vol. iv., p. 172. t Ibid., vol. iii., p. 390. 11 Carstairs’s State Papers, p. 625, 212 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. when about to pass from time into eternity.* The well-known Colonel Blackadder, who was present with him at the last, says that he never witnessed so Christian, calm, and courageous a death. The colonel drew up an account of his death-bed scene, which is printed from the Wodrow MSS., in the Christian In- structor for November, 1825. In the preceding notices of the duchess of Rothes, of her pred- ecessors and descendants, it is interesting and instructive to see piety passing downward from parents to children for five succes- sive generations. This we are no doubt to trace to the sovereign grace of God, for genuine religion is not transmitted from parent to child, as a healthy constitution is transmitted. But it is also to be traced to the instrumentality of parents, and particularly of religious mothers, in the godly upbringing of their children. The duchess of Rothes’s mother, the duchess herself, her daughter and her son, all enjoyed the benefit of the religious instructions, the persevering prayers, and the holy example of godly mothers. To the pious endeavors of both parents to instil the principles of piety into the minds of their children, God has annexed a special blessing ; but it may be expected in particular that the labors of Christian mothers in this good work will be followed by the hap- piest effects. From their offspring being in infancy constantly under their care, and afterward in childhood and youth more frequently in their society than in that of the other parent, mothers have a more powerful influence than fathers in forming their character ; and how often, as must be known to all who are but slightly acquainted with Christian biography, have those who have been distinguished in their day for piety and extensive use- fulness in the church and in the world, had to trace their piety and their usefulness to the instructions, counsels, and admonitions, they had received, in their first and more tender years, from their God-fearing mothers ! Wodrow’s Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 641. COUNTESS OF CRAWFORD. 213 LADY MARY JOHNSTON, COUNTESS OF CRAWFORD. Lady Mary Johnston was the eldest daughter of James, earl of Annandale and Hartfell, by his wife Lady Henrietta Douglas, daughter of William, first marquis of Douglas, by his second wife. Lady Mary Gordon. She was married at Leith, on the 8th of March, 1670, to William, sixteenth earl of Crawford, and second earl of Lindsay, the son of John, earl of Crawford and Lindsay, of whom some notices have a. ready been given,* and brother to the duchess of Rothes, the subject of the preceding sketch.! Her husband, like his parents, was a nonconformist, and great defer- ence was paid to him by the presbyterians. On this account he was, throughout the period of the persecution, a marked man; and, from the danger to which he was exposed, he once intended to go abroad, though he never went, but lived in retirement till the revolution, which brought him deliverance and honor.! The early education and family connections of this lady tended tO' prejudice her mind against the suffering covenanters. But her marriage into a family distinguished at once for their warm attachment to that persecuted body, and for personal piety, was followed by a great change upon both her personal character and religious sentiments. She became, at one and the same time, a genuine Christian and a true blue presbyterian. The instrument of effecting this change upon her was Mr. John Welsh, a minister almost unequalled in the times of persecution, for the Christian intrepidity with which he jeoparded his life on the mountains and in the moors of Scotland, in his ardent and indefatigable zeal to proclaim to his fellow-countrymen the unsearchable riches of Christ, and whose intrepid labors of love were blessed by the Spirit of God for turning multitudes from disobedience to the wisdom of the just. * See pp. 199, 200. t Douglas's Peerage, vol. i., pp. 74, 387. t He was appointed by King William, president of the parliament, a commissioner of the treasury, and one of the commission for settling the government of the church. He was a man of great political sagacity, and the most active agent in effecting the overthrow of prelacy at the revolution. His correspondence during that eventful period has been printed in the “ Melville and Levin Papers.’’ “ His letters,” says Lord Lindsay, who is not disposed to overrate his merits, bear the stamp of buraing and enthusiastic sincerity, while in point of taste, though abounding in scriptural images, they are unusually graceful and free from cant, and the impression they leave is more favorable to him than might have been expected.” — Lord Lind- say’s Lives of the Lindsays, vol. ii., p. 174. 214 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. In the beginning of the year 1 674-— the first three months of which, as we have seen, were called “ the Blink,” from the little molestation then offered to the ejected ministers in holding con- venticles, whether in houses or in the fields* — Welsh went over from Edinburgh to Fife with his wife, where he spent about six weeks in preaching, none presuming either to pursue him from Edinburgh, or to lay hands on him in Fife, not even Sharp, who had his residence in that part of the country, and who of all others most thirsted for his blood. f During that period Welsh had large meetings both on the sabbath-day and on week-days, at which many of the gentry, attracted by the weight of his character and by his homely but powerful eloquence, were often present ; the most of whom seemed to be impressed by the word, and favora- bly disposed to the work in which he was engaged.^ It was at this time that Lady Crawford had an opportunity of hearing him preach for the first time, in the neighborhood of her own resi- dence, Struthers house, || and his discourse, accompanied by the influence of the Divine Spirit, was the means of turning her from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. From that day she became an altered person; the pride of her heart was humbled, so that, like Mary in the gospel, she sat at Jesus’s feet, a teachable disciple, listening to his voice, and in the whole of her subsequent deportment she exhibited the living marks of a child of God. Now, indeed, she had not many years to live, but during the brief course allotted to her on earth, she exemplified in an eminent degree the power of vital godliness. In her character were combined the devotion of the saint and the * For the reasons of this temporary cessation from persecution, see p. 182. t “ None was so busy as Mr. John Welsh, who this springy [1674], made a peram- bulation over Fife, and there, in vacant churches, and sometimes in the fields at Glenvale, at Duraquhair, and other places, gathered sometimes armies together, for which the gentry and people both smarted very sore.” — Kirkton’s Historj% p. 344. t Blackadder’s Memoirs, MS. copy. The same w^riter says, He [Welsh] was attended from place to place with companies of gentlemen and others, with great respect and applause.” “ The council,” says Kirkton, “ set a price upon Mr. W elsh’s head, and for that he never rode without a guard of horsemen, sometimes more, sometimes less, but seldom exceeding the number of ten horsemen.” — Kirkton’s His- tory, p. 380. II Struthers, or ns it is called in some old papers, Auchter uther-Struther, was for- merly the seat of the earls of Crawford. It is now in ruins, and stands about two miles southwest from the village of Ceres, Fifeshire. Its towers and battlements gave it a venerable and a sort of warlike appearance; but of this once splendid house there now exist very scanty remains. “ The park around the house,” says the old Statistical Account of Scotland, “ which is enclosed w4th a stone wall, contains about two hundred acres of ground ; there are a good many trees in different places of the park, particularly some venerable beeches of a very large size.” But in the new Statistical Account of Scotland, it is said that these ‘‘ venerable beeches, have died or been cut down.” COUNTESS OF CRAWFORD. 215 resolution of the martyr. Previous to her hearing Welsh she attended the curates without scruple, but after that, no arguments and no menaces employed by her relatives could prevail upon her to go and hear them ; and she embraced every opportunity within her reach of attending field-conventicles. In her the per- secuted, the poor, and the suffering, found a sympathizing friend.^' The vast change she had undergone, her relatives and acquaint- ances did not fail to 'observe ; and her Christian friends were struck with the rapidity with which she advanced in all the graces of the Spirit, outstripping many who had preceded her in their entrance on the Christian course. Her husband, who loved her with the tenderest affection, was improved in character by the imitation of her virtues, and encomiums upon her worth were extorted even from enemies. Of this lady, Mr. John Blackadder has preserved an interest- ing memorial in his “ Memoirs, wTitten by Himself.” After nar- rating Welsh’s visit to Fife, in the beginning of the year 1674, and referring to the ‘‘ many memorable effects of the power and wisdom of God, manifested at that time,” by the labors of that eminent minister, of which he gives some examples, he says : “ Among others, I must notice, to the commendation of the grace of God, that instance concerning Countess Crawford, then called Lady Lindsay,! daughter to the earl of Annandale, by Duke Ham- ilton’s sister (whose education was more likely to have alienated her from that way, than to ingratiate it to her), she coming to one of these great meetings at Duraquhair, near Cupar, and near to her own house : she by a special cast of God’s power, had been induced among others to come forth one of these great sabbaths at Duraquhair, where it was estimated there were about seven or eight thousand persons present, and much of the power of God appeared to the shaking the consciences, and awakening the hearts of the generality for the time, and leaving a lasting im- pression on others, among whom this truly honorable lady was one, who declared she wa’s constrained to close with the offer that was made in that great day of the gospel ; which was made known to many by manifest fruits of piety, showed forth in all her walk as a Christian and dutiful yoke-fellow to her lord, who also * Mr. John Carstairs in a letter to the earl of Crawford, dated May 2, 1678, says, “ I take it for granted your lordship’s excellent lady and sister covet most the relief of Christ’s oppressed interests, and that your endeavors therein will be most accept- able and satisfying, as I hope your brother’s sweet lady also doeth.” — Wodrow MSS., vol. lix., folio. No. 78. t Her husband was then only Lord Lindsay. He did not become Earl Crawford till his father’s death, which took place in 1676. 216 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. received good impressions of that day’s work, and the like from her very report of the Lord’s gracious presence and good she found to her soul that day ; which the writer hereof also had from herself, with great majesty and seriousness in the presence of her lord, who hath since also been helped to carry as a Chris- tian in the exercise of piety and righteousness (whereof he hath given a good proof in dispensing his estate, to pay his father’s creditors,* having very little to himself), and steadfast soundness in the public cause of reformation, with as much tenderness, and keeping at a distance from all steps of defection, as many of whom more might have been expected, and that to this day. Af- ter the day of this lady’s conversion to the Lord, and singular reformation, she could never be induced by all the insinuations and threats of her near and noble relations, to go back again to the prelatic preachers and their assemblies, or to countenance any of the prelates or curates as she had done, but frequented all occasions of preaching at these persecuted meetings she could conveniently win at. She lived and died endeavoring to adorn her profession by a conversation becoming the gospel ; even to the stopping the mouths of gainsayers. What is here declared as to this memorable instance and effect of the grace and power of Christ manifested to this lady, I am without fear of any man’s disproving, beside many the like to others at these persecuted meetings, called by many in this degenerate generation unlawful conventicles.”! Lady Crawford died in the year 1682, in the prime of life. This we learn from the epistle dedicatory, prefixed by Mr. John * He made his nonentailed property responsible for payment of his father’s debts “ that,” to use his own words, “ the memory of so good a man, and so kind a father, might not suffer by the neglect of a son that owed all things to him in gratitude as well as duty.” — Melville and Leven Papers, p. 259. Mr. John Carstairs, in his Epistle Dedicatory to Durham’s Sermons on Isaiah liii., addressed to the earl of Crawford, also speaks in commendation of his lordship’s Christian and exemplary conduct, in “ Choosing rather contentedly and satisfiedly to be (if it so please the Lord, and O that it may not !) the last of that ancient and honorable family, than to be found endeavoring to keep it from sinking by any sinful and unwarrantable course, particularly by defrauding just creditors (though the debt was not of your lordship’s own contracting), under whatever specious pretexts and advantages of law ; where- of many make no bones, who, if they may keep up their superfluities, care not to ruin their friends engaging in suretyship for their debt, and to live on the substance of others.” Carstairs adds, “With great satisfaction 1 notice how much your lord- ship makes it your business to follow your noble ancestors, in so far as they were ‘ followers of Christ,’ which many great men, even in the Christian world, alas ! do not much mind, not considering that it is true nobility, where God is the chief and top of the kin, and where religion is at the bottom ; and what renowned Ral- eigh saith, ‘ Hinc dictus nobilis quasi prce aliis viytute notabilis ; and what another saith, ‘ Qui ah illustrium majorum splendida virtuta degenerarunt nohilia por- tenta sunt' ” t Blackadder’e Memoirs, MS. copy ; see also Dr. Crichton’s printed copy, p. 167 COUNTESS OF CRAWFORD. 217 Carstairs to Durham’s sermons on Isaiah liii.* It is addressed “ Unto all afflicted and cross-bearing serious Christians ; and more particularly, to the Right Honorable and Truly Noble Lord William, Earl of Crawford;” and is dated November 15, 1682. After adducing and illustrating a variety of reasons, why the people of God should “ sweetly submit themselves to his will in all things, how cross soever to their own inclination,” he says : Let them all, my noble lord, prevail with your lordship in par- ticular, reverently to adore, silently to stoop unto, and sweetly to acquiesce in, the Lord’s sovereign, holy, and wise ordering your many and various complicated trials ; and more especially his late removing your excellent lady, the desire of your eyes, the Christian and comfortable companion of your youth, by his stroke.” In the same dedication, Carstairs bears testimony to the distinguished piety of this lady, in these words : “I am, my noble lord, the more easily prevailed with, and encouraged to address the dedication of these sermons to your lordship, more particularly when I remember ‘ the unfeigned faith that first dwelt in your grandmother,’ as another Lois ; and in your mother, as another Eunice ;t and more lately in your own choice lady, who, as another beloved Persis, ‘ labored much in the Lord fi. (and though she had but a very short Christian race, in which she was much encouraged by coming into your noble father’s family, and her beholding how hard your blessed mother did run and press toward the mark, even when in the last stage, and turning in a manner the last stoop of her Christian course ; yet it was a very swift one, wherein she did quite outrun many that were in Christ long before her) ; all three ladies of honor, almost — if I need to say almost — without parallels in their times, in the serious and diligent exercise of godliness, and patterns worthy to be imitated by others.” Carstairs adds, “And [the same un- feigned faith dwells] I trust in your lordship also, yea, and in several others of your elder and younger noble relations ; for grace hath such a draught of souls amongst you, as it useth not often to have in societies of so noble extract, ‘ for not many noble are called.’” The loss of this amiable and pious lady gave a severe shock to the feelings of the earl. Carstairs, who knew the intensity of his grief, addressed himself to the task of administering com- fort to his wounded heart. “ Let all mutinous thoughts about * She had issue to the earl, three sons, the eldest of whom was John, seventeenth earl of Crawford, and a daughter. — Douglas's Peerage, vol. i., p. 387. t 2 Timothy, i. 5. t Romans, xvi. 12. 19 218 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. His dealings with you be silenced with, ‘ It’s the Lord let not too much dwelling on the thoughts of your affliction, to the filling of your heart still with sorrow, incapacitate you for, nor divert you from, humbly asking the Lord, what he aims at by all these dispensations, what he would have you to learn out of them, what he reproveth and contends for, what he would have you amending your hands in, and what he would have you more weaned, self-denied, and mortified in, and what he would have you a further length and a greater proficient in : He hath told you ‘ the truth, that these things are expedient for you study to find them to be so in your experience. Sure he hath by them written in great, legible, and capital characters, yea even as with a sunbeam, vanity, emptiness, uncertainty, mutability, unsatis- factoriness, and disappointment upon the forehead of all creature comforts, and with a loud voice called your lordship, yet more seriously than ever, to seek after solid soul satisfaction in his own blessed and all-sufficient self.” And after observing that “ it is the scattering of our expectations and desires of happiness among other objects beside him, that breeds us all our disquiet, anxiety, and vexation he adds, “ There are some whom he loveth so well, that he can not (to speak so) find in his heart to see them thus to parcel out their affections, and to dote upon any painted imaginary happiness in creature-comforts ; and therefore, in design, he doth either very much blast them as to the expected satisfaction from them ; or quite remove them, that by making such a vacuity, he may make way for himself to fill it, and hap- pily to necessitate the person, humbly, prayerfully, and believ- ingly, to put him to the filling of it. And it is a great vacuity that he, ‘ who fills heaven and earth,’ can not fill ; a little of whose gracious presence, and manifested special love, can go very far to fill up the room that is made void, by the removal of the choi- cest and most desirable of all earthly comforts and enjoyments. Happy they, who, when they lose a near and dear relation or friend, or any idol they are fond of, are helped of God to make Jesus Christ, as it were, succeed to the same as its heir, by taking that loss as a summons to transfer and settle their whole love or him, the object incomparably most worthy of it, as being ‘ alto- gether lovely,’ or ‘ all desires !’ Cant. v. 16.” The earl afterward married for his second wife Lady Henrietta Seton, only daughter of Charles, second earl of Dunfermline, by his wife Lady Mary Douglas, third daughter of William, earl of Morton.* She was the relict of William, fifth earl of Wigton, to * Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p. 482. COUNTESS OP CRAWFORD. 219 whom she was married at Dalgety in September, 1670, whom she lost by death on the 8th of April, 1681, and to whom she had issue two sons and a daughter.* To the earl of Crawford she had a son and six daughters. Like his former countess, this lady was a woman of genuine piety, as well as of presbyterian principles ; and, like other ladies of nobility and honor, she had her own share in the sufferings of those evil times. She first suffered in her two sons by her first husband being taken from her and committed to a teacher to be educated in prelacy or popery ; and when she went to Edinburgh to complain to the government, and make application for having them restored to her, her complaint and request were disregarded. In a paper entitled “Grievances for Scotland, 1661 — 1688,” the following is included as a grievance : “ The threatening to take children from parents to breed them papists, and actually taking my Lord Wigton and his brother. My Lady Crawford, their mother, came over to Edinburgh, in great grief and perplexity, a few weeks before her delivery, but was harshly handled by the chancellor,! and on her soliciting the lords of council for re- covery of her children out of his hands, no man would open his mouth for her.”! treatment of her children was in glaring violation of the law. There was indeed at that period a standing law against presbyterians being employed as chaplains or pedagogues in families, or as teachers in schools, or as pro- fessors in colleges, conformity to prelacy being an essential qualification for all such situations ; but to abstract children from their parents, and to commit them to teachers for the purpose of their being trained up in prelacy or popery, was warranted by no statute even at that time, when the throne was a throne of iniquity, and when mischief had been so extensively framed by law. After the accession of James VII. to the throne, so gloomy were the anticipations of this lady as to the future state of matters in Scotland, that she was very desirous of going abroad. In a letter to a friend, dated September 8, 1685, speaking of the con- siderations which induced him to leave Scotland, as well as of the difficulties in the way, the earl says : “ The things that prompt me to go are, first, a passionate desire in a most dutiful, most affectionate, and singularly good wife, who is really dis- quieted with apprehensions of sad things that are coming on Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., p. 637. t The earl of Perth, f Wodrow MSS., vol. xl, folio, No. 3. In another paper entitled “ Grievances for Scotland,” this grievance is thus stated : “ The imposing of naughty persons to govern children, as one imposed on my Lord Wigton and his brother, who after be- trayed them to the chancellor.” — Ibid., vol. xl , folio, No. 7. 220 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Scotland ; now, when I consider the composedness of her temper for ordinary, I have sometimes looked on this restlessness in her spirit to be gone, as a warning from God that I should retire.”* BARBARA CUNNINGHAM, LADY CALDWELL. Barbara Cunningham was descended from the Cunninghams of Cunninghamhead in Ayrshire, one of the most ancient and powerful cadets of the Glencairn family^ which possessed at one time large properties in Lanarkshire, and even in Mid-Lothian, as well as in Cunningham, but which began to decline about the end of the seventeenth century. f Her ancestors early distin- guished themselves as warm promoters of the Reformation from popery. Her great-grandfather, William Cunningham of Cun- ninghamhead, who joined the lords of the congregation, and maintained with ardent zeal the cause for which they erected their standard, sat in the memorable parliament of August, 1560, which approved and ratified the confession of faith, and abolished the jurisdiction of the pope throughout the kingdom of Scotland. His name appears at the most important public document of the Scottish reformers, as at “ Ane Contract of the Lords and Barons, to defend the Liberty of the Evangell of Christ,” in 1560 ; at the Book of Discipline, which he subscribed January 27, 1561, as one of the members of the privy council ; and at the famous band for the support of the reformed religion, in 1562. He was a member of the assembly of 1565, which was so obnoxious to Queen Mary and the Roman catholics, and was one of five com- missioners sent to the queen by that assembly, with certain articles, — the first of which was that the mass and all papistical idolatry and jurisdiction should be universally abolished through- out the realm, — humbly desiring her to ratify and approve the same in parliament. j: Her father. Sir William Cunningham of * Wodrow’s Hist., vol. iv., p. 513. t Robertson’s Ayrshire Panailies, vol, i. p. 303. t Robertson’s Ayrshire Families, vol. i., p. 305. Knox’s History, Wodrow Society edition, vol. i., p. 366 ; and vol. ii., pp. 61, 258, 349, 486. Robertson is mistaken when he says that the “ laird of Cunningham,” who was a member of the assembly of 1565, was Barbara Cunningham's great-grand-uncle, John Cunningham, brother to her great-grandfather, William Cunningham. It was her great-grandfather him' self, who was a member of that assembly. He died in January, 1576. LADY CALDWELL. 221 Cunninghamhead, succeeded his father, John, about the year 1607, and was created a baronet in 1627. He was twice mar- ried ; first, in 1619, to Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Thomas Nic- olson, commissary of Aberdeen, by whom he had Sir William, who succeeded him,* and Barbara, the subject of this notice. He had several other children of this marriage, but they all died either unmarried or without issue. He married, secondly. Lady Margaret Campbell, daughter of Lord Loudon, but of this mar- riage there was no issse. He died about the year 1640.t Barbara Cunningham was married, in 1657, to William Muir of Caldwell and hence by the courtesy of the time she was usually styled Lady Caldwell. This “ honorable and excellent gentleman,” as he is called by Wodrow, zealously adhered to the ministers ejected in 1662, and was among the first who left off attending the ministry of the intruded curates. On the ejectment of Mr. Hugh Walker, the minister of Neilston, from his charge, by the act of the privy council at Glasgow, in 1662, Muir of Caldwell, who resided in that parish, ceased to attend the parish church, for which he was in some danger of being involved in trouble. Mr. John Carstairs, in a letter to Lady Ralston, dated March 6, 1663, says, “ The people here and in the parts about are likely to be sorely put to it, if the Lord do not graciously prevent ; they imprison some of them for not hearing both in this town and elsewhere. The Lord Cochrane is very zealous in this good cause. Some of Neilston parishioners are in prison at Paisley on that account, and Caldwell was cited by the lord- chancellor to appear before the council at Edinburgh, because he would not promise to hear afterward. He should have appeared yesterday, but he got the first day put by ; whether he will get his appearance shifted altogether, I know not. I heard (and it seems by that same zealous man’s means) that some din was made to the lord-chancellor about Caldwell, Dunlop, and the laird’s II keeping meetings together at Paisley. Some were afraid the chancellor would have called for the laird, but I have heard nothing since ; it’s like it will evanish and settle down ^ His son, Sir William, who succeeded him, like his daughter, Barbara, suffered not a little during the persecution, as we learn from Wodrow’s History. Besides being fined by Middlefon’s parliament in 1062, above .£200 sterling, he was impris- oned for several years in Stirling castle. He died in 1670. t Robertson's Ayt shire Families, vol. i., pp. 306-.308. t Fountainhall’s Decisions of the Lords of Session, &c., vol. ii., p. 558. William had succeeded his brother James, who died without issue, in 1654. Crawford's History of Renfrewshire, Robertson’s edition, p. 307. II The laird of Ralston. 19 ' 222 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. again.”* Lady Caldwell, being of similar ecclesiastical princi* pies with her husband, no doubt acted in a similar manner. The sufferings of this lady in the cause of religion and liberty, may be said to have commenced in the year 1666, after the un- successful attempt of the covenanters at Pentland hills. Her husband and a few gentlemen in the west, having gathered to- gether a small company of horsemen, amounting to about fifty, intended to join the covenanters under Colonel Wallace, who were then near Edinburgh ; but being informed, after proceeding a short way on their journey, that General Dalziel was between them and their friends, they dispersed. Caldwell, who was cap- tain of that little band, soon after found it necessary to provide for his safety by flight, and concealing himself for some time, he succeeded in getting safely over to Holland, where, like many others of his expatriated countrymen, he found a secure retreat, but from which he never returned to his native land. Mean- while he was prosecuted by his majesty’s advocate, before the lords justiciary for high treason, simply because he had been on the road to join those in arms ; and on the 16th of August, 1667, being found guilty of treason by a jury in his absence, he was sentenced to undergo capital punishment, and to be demeaned as a traitor, when he should be apprehended, and all his lands, ten- ements, annual rents, offices, titles, tacks, dignities, steadings, rooms, possessions, goods, and gear whatsoever, were declared to be forfeited to his majesty’s use.f On the 12th of October, the privy council appointed James Dunlop, of Househill, to uplift Muir of Caldwell’s rents for the year 1667, and bygone terms since the rebellion, and in future years, and to take an exact in- ventory of his whole movable goods and gear. His excellent estate, it is said, was at this time promised to General Dalziel, as a reward to the general for his success in suppressing the Pentland insurrection. It was not, however, actually gifted to him till July 11, 1670, when Charles granted in his favor a char- ter, under the great seal of the kingdom of Scotland, in due form, disponing to him, his heirs and assignees whatsoever, in perpe- tuity, the lands of Muir of Caldwell ; and every means was taken Wodrow MSS., vol. xlv., 8vo, No. 52. t These proceedings were unquestionably illegal ; for “ all processes of forfeiture before the justice coart, in absence, were contrary to the act 90th, parliament 11, James VI.'' — Morison’s Dictionary of the Decisions of the court of Session, p. 4695. The government, well aware of this, had recourse to an expedient to secure them- selves, and give validity to these proceedings. With this view, an act of parlia- ment was passed, post facto, in 1669, ratifying these forfeitures, and declaring them legal where it is for rising in arms and perduellion. — Wodrow’s History, vol. ii., p. 140. Fountainhall's Decisions, vol. ii., p. 558. LADY CALDWELL. 225 to render the gift secure. On the 22d of August, 1670, an act of parliament was passed, ratifying the royal grant, and giving validity to all steps taken to secure the estate to him and his heirs in perpetuum ; and on the 8th of October, that same year, he was infefted in the estate.* These proceedings against Muir of Caldwell, it is obvious, could not but deeply strike against Lady Caldwell. By the sen- tence of forfeiture pronounced upon him, she, though not the object avowedly aimed at, suffered in fact as much as he suffered himself. It affected the temporal comfort of herself and h,er chil- dren as much as it affected his. While he remained lurking in the country, she had to endure the anxiety arising from the dan- ger to which he was exposed, of falling into the hands of the government ; and during that time, or after he had made his es- cape to Holland, she suffered, previous to joining him, many hardships at home. The work of spoliation by Dalziel and his associates was then going on at the house and on the property of Caldwell, under her own eye. Of the extent to which the work was carried, some idea may be formed from a list of the losses she had sustained during the persecution, contained in the libel in the action she and her daughter brought against the grandson of Dalziel, before the court of session, after the revolu- tion, claiming reparation. This list enumerates the loss of “ thirty-six milk and yield cows, at 20 lbs. per piece, which be- longed to William Mure of Caldwell, and were in his own pos- session in the year 1666 ; a great gelding, worth 50 lbs. ster- ling ; four other horses at 100 lbs. per piece ; together with the whole growth of the mains of Caldwell, the said crop 1666, both corn and fodder, to the value of 2,000 merks ; fifty bolls of meal lying in the girnels at the said time, at 10 merks per boll ; the whole plenishing, utensils, and domicils, to the value of 3,000 merks ; three terms rent preceding Martinmas, 1667, of the said estate of Caldwell, extending to 10,500 merks intromitted with, by the said General Thomas Dalziel, before he obtained the gift of Caldwell’s forfeiture ; three hay-stacks standing in the corn- yard of the said mains of Caldwell, at 100 merks per piece ; the whole growth of little mains, which was in the Lady Caldwell’s elder,! her own hands, with the corn and fodder, and a hay stack, extending to the value of 550 lbs. Scots. ”J In the same Proceedings of parliament, February 20, 1707, in Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. xi., p, 103. t William Muir of Caldwell’s mother. t Proceedings of parliament, February 20, 1707, in Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. xi., Appendix. 224 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. document, it is stated that General Dalziel at Martinmas, 1666, intromitted with and took away from Lady Caldwell the furniture of the house of Caldwell. At last Lady Caldwell went over to Holland to join her hus- band, who, it appears, had taken up his residence in Rotterdam. Whatever might be her outward temporal circumstances while in Holland, she and her husband were protected in their life and property ; they were allowed, without restriction, to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience ; and they enjoyed a select and congenial society in those excellent ministers and laymen, with their wives, who, from similar causes, had been under the necessity of taking shelter in that country, from the fury of persecution. Both of them, as we learn from the corre- spondence of that period, were, during their exile, very highly esteemed by these refugees. Robert MAVard not only describes Muir of Caldwell as a man of great intelligence and remarkable for the elegance and felicity of language with which he expressed himself on ecclesiastical and religious subjects, but assigns him the first place in his day among the pious gentlemen of Scotland. “ As a companion,” says he, “ we had but one Caldwell among all the gentlemen I knew or yet know in Scotland.”* And speaking of Lady Caldwell, he says, “ Who did also cheerfully choose to be his fellow exile and companion in tribulation, as she desired to be in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.”! But she had not resided long in Holland when she was afflicted with the loss of her husband, who died at Rotterdam, on Wednes- day the 9th of February, 1670, his death, as was believed, having been hastened by the grief he felt on account of the calamitous state of the church in his native country. She had, however, under this trial the satisfaction of reflecting that she had been able to attend him under his last illness, and of witnessing the peace of mind, and the hopes of eternal glory, which sustained and cheered him on the bed of death. His dying words were noted down by Mr. Robert M‘Ward, who observes that, as “he uttered them at several times during his few days’ sickness, and as they were gathered from the memories of some gracious persons who were present, it Avill not be expected that they can be set down altogether in that order, liveliness and elegancy of phrase (wherein he had a peculiar happiness), as they were spoken by him.” Referring to the cause of his banishment, Caldwell said, “ I am in perfect peace and quiet of mind. There is no inconsistency between the obeying of God and man. Help, O Lord ! we can * Wodrow MSS., vol. Iviii., folio, No. 74. t Ibid., vol. Ixviii., folio, No. 23. LABY CALDWELL. 225 have no liberty but what is clogged (as we apprehend) with great slavery. If we can not get living in the world like men, let us be helped to die like men, in the avowing of the truth of our God.” He also said, “ King Charles, we are content to give thee all thine own ; but do not, may not, giye thee that which is only due unto King Jesus, and unto none else.” On another occasion he said, ‘‘I have forsaken all for thee, O Father, Son, and blessed Spirit ! to whom be praise for ever and ever.” But that it might not be supposed that he built on this his hopes of heaven, he added, Jesus hath paid the price, he hath satisfied his Father’s justice to the full ; I have laid all over on the cautioner, and he hath assured me that he hath undertaken all for me. He hath overcome, he hath overcome ; he will bruik his crown in spite of man and devils.” He repeatedly bore testimony to the worth of his wife. One time, on his desiring her to be called for, and it being told him that being very sick, she had lain down to rest, he said, “Tell her that she and I shall be in heaven for ever and ever, and there we shall eat angels’ food.” “ At another time, being strongly assaulted by the tempter, the Lord having given him great victory over him (as his gracious manner of dealing with him usually was), he cried out, ‘ I adjure thee, Satan, unto the bottomless pit, to go into everlasting chains, and to outer darkness, where there is weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.’ Then being a little silent, immediately he cried out, ‘ Trouble not Barbara Cunningham, for she is one of God’s elect:’ and again, and again, after a little silence, he cried, ‘ I say, tempt her not, for she is assuredly an elect vessel.’ He said further, ‘ My faithful spouse, my faithful spouse, most faithful hast thou been unto me’ (which was his ordinary expression to her, and of her), and did bless the Lord heartily that ever he saw her, and was joined unto her. He had often that expression after the most fierce and hor- rible assaults of Satan, ‘ Victory ! victory ! victory for evermore !’ ” * M‘Ward pronounces upon him the following encomium : “And really the death of this precious gentleman is so much the more to be laid to heart and lamented, that as he was such a hopeful and promising instrument for promoting the interest of Christ’s kingdom in his station and generation, and had upon mature de- liberation and choice, very singly and unbiasedly for Christ and the gospel’s sake, quit and forgone a considerable and ancient inheritance, with his native country, and the fellowship of all his natural relations, except of his lady only — so in as far as could be judged by godly, judicious and sober men, in regard to a pro- ^Wodrow MSS., vol. Ixviii., folio No. 23 . 226 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. curing means, the present sad condition of the church of Scot- land, and of the work of God therein, was the occasion of his death ; such a warm-hearted and kindly sympathizing son of Zion he was, and so sad a lift did he take of that which, alas ! many of his mother’s children walk too easily and lightly under; though the most accurate observer could never all the while of his so- journing as an exile abroad, nor along his sickness, hear him let so much as one word fall savoring the least dissatisfaction with, or unpleasant resentment of, his lot as to outward things.”* And in a letter to Lady Caldwell, M‘Ward says, “ He had the care of the church, besides all the things that were without and within, so much upon his heart, that after he had lost houses and lands, and country and friends, for the interest of his Master’s glory, as counting all these too little to have lost, and too low a significa- tion of that love to his Master, and that zeal of his house which did eat him up, he did, by choice, sacrifice his very life upon that interest, and became one of our greatest and most glorious martyrs.”! On the death of her husband. Lady Caldwell returned to Scot- land. Upon her return she went, it would appear, to take up her residence at Caldwell house, and provided herself with new furniture. But in that mansion she was not permitted long to reside. The forfeited estate of Caldwell having been gifted to Dalziel a few months after her husband’s death, she was com- pelled to quit Caldwell house, and to seek a home, as she best could find it, for herself and her four fatherless children, three of whom were daughters. And not content with her simple eject- ment, Dalziel took away the furniture of Caldwell house which she had procured, amounting to the value of 500 merks.j; She ^ Wodrow MSS., vol. Ixviii., folio, No, 23. t Ibid., vol. Ivii., folio, No. 74 . I This is included in the enumeration of her losses during the persecution, con- tained in the libel in the action she and her daughter raised against the grandson of Dalziel, before the court of sessions after the revolution. In the same document, the following losses are added, “ Item, the sum of 12,000 merks received by the general, or his said son, or their factors, from the respective tenants of the lands tor tacks, in name of grassum, or entry at Whitsunday, 1671. Item, 6,000 merks received by them from the feuars and vassals of the said estate, for entering them and other casualties that occurred during that time. Item, 10,000 merks sustained of damage through the said pursuer’s [Sir Thomas Dalziel’s] father demolishing the tower and manor place of Caldwell the time foresaid, and of the bygone rents of the lands, and others life-rented by the said Barbara Cunningham, and others particularly libelled.” From Decreet Absolvitor, Sir Thomas Dalziel of Binns against the Laird and Lady Caldwell, in Proceedings of Parliament, 20th February, 1707, in Acts of the Scot- tish Parliament. It may here be stated, that to make the most of Caldwell’s estate, which he had unjustly acquired, Dalziel, quarrelling the tacks of the tenants as set beneath their true value, instituted a process against the tenants before the lords of session for removing them although they had standing tacks of their several rooms granted them long before tlie forfeitui-e for years to run. Bjit the case was decided LADY CALDWELL. 227 was besides deprived of all visible means of supporting herself and her children ; for though, by her marriage contract, an annual rent jointure, suitable to her rank, was secured to her from the lands of Caldwell, and she had been actually infefted in the estate prior to its forfeiture, yet, as we shall afterward see, she was deprived of this her just right. Greatly changed were her circumstances now from what they were during the first eight or nine years after her marriage, when she lived at Caldwell house in affluence, and day followed day without any cause for worldly care or anxiety. But she was not discouraged. She did not distrust in adversity the God whom she had trusted and served in prosperity. Confiding in his promises, she believed that he would provide for her and hers ; and possessing too much self-respect to be dependent for the means of subsistence on the bounty of others, she, with her vir- tuous children, set themselves diligently to the task of supporting themselves by the labor of their own hands. Nor was she ever burdensome to any person, not even to her nearest relations ; and if at times when reduced to straits, she was under the neces- sity of applying to them for a temporary loan of money, she after- ward thankfully and fully repaid it. Kind friends, whose sym- pathy was excited by her afflicted lot, and who were afraid she might be in pecuniary difficulties, repeatedly offered her money, but her noble spirit of independence shrunk from the acceptance of all such assistance. In reference to a sum of money which some friend in Holland had sent through Mr. Robert M‘Ward of Rotterdam, to Mr. John Carstairs, to be communicated to her, Carstairs, in a letter to M‘Ward, dated February 8, 1678, says : “ The Lady Caldwell was impersuasible in that matter, though I showed her, at her desire, from whom it was, she having never taken from any, of which boasting she is resolved not to be de- prived, so long as she is able to live otherwise, which hath made me after this and some former essays, resolve not to trouble her. She desired me kindly to thank you in her name. I returned the money again to Mr. Watson. In this humble condition. Lady Caldwell, with her daughters, continued for many years, struggling for the means of subsist- ence, but contented and happy — happier far, indeed, than that barbarous and unprincipled man could possibly be, who now against him. On January 28, 1674, “ The lords of session decerned that where the tenants were innocent, and did not concur in the crime, [of treason, for which Cald- well was forfeited,] and had but tacks of an ordinary endurance, they should stand valid for the years to run after the forfeiture." — Morison’s Dictionary of Decisions, pp. 4685-4689. t Wodrow MSS., vol. lix., folio, No. 77. 228 THE LADIES OF THE COA^ENANT. wrongfully possessed, and had full and unlimited dominion over the manor-house, the yards and orchards, the woods and mead- ows, throughout the liberties of Caldwell. To a woman of her independent temper of mind, it would be a high satisfaction to reflect that, though poor, she and her children were a burden to nobody. But she was encouraged and supported by nobler sen- timents and more Divine consolations. The losses and suffer- ings she had sustained had been endured in the cause of Christ, and she did not regret having been called to undergo them in so good a cause. She accounted them her crown, her glory. She took joyfully the spoiling of her goods, knowing that she had in heaven a better and a more enduring substance. And, in the meantime, she had experienced that in proportion as her suf- ferings for Christ abounded, her consolations in Christ did much more abound. This, in her estimation, was of greater value than the largest earthly revenue ; and the longer she lived, the more strongly was her heart inclined, whatever difficulties and tribu- lations might intervene and oppose, to “ hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Such were the sentiments and feelings to which she gave expression in a letter to Colonel James Wallace, the friend of her husband. This let- ter has not been preserved, but its import we learn from Colonel Wallace’s reply, which, though without date, appears to have been written either in 1677 or 1678 ; and the portion of it illus- trative of the Christian character of Lady Caldwell may here be quoted. “ Elect Lady, and my Worthy and Dear Sister : Yours is come to my hand in most acceptable time. It seems that all that devils or men these many years have done (and that has not been little), against you to daunt your courage; or to make you, in the avowing of your Master and his persecuted interests, to lower your sails, has prevailed so little, that your faith and cour- age are upon the growing hand, an evidence, indeed, as to your persecutors of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. It seems when you at first, by choice, took Christ by the hand to be your Lord and portion, that you wist what you did ; and that notwithstanding of all the hardnesses you have met with in biding by him, your heart seems to cleave the faster -t.o him. This says you have been admitted into much of his company and fellowship. My soul blesses God on your behalf, who hath so carried to you, that I think you may take these words among others as spoken to you, ‘You have continued with me in my LADY CALDWELL. 229 afflictions : I appoint unto you a kingdom.’ It seems suffering for Christ, losing anything for him is to you your glory, is to you your gain. More and more of this spirit may you enjoy, that you may be among the few (as was said of Caleb and Joshua) that follow him fully, among the overcomers, those noble over- comers mentioned Rev. ii. and iii., among those to whom only (as picked out and chosen for that end) he is saying, ‘ Ye are my witnesses.’ Lady and my dear sister, I am of your judg- ment ; and I bless his name that ever he counted me worthy to appear in that roll.” He concluded thus : Let us mind one another. My love to all friends whom you know I love in the Lord. God’s grace be with you, and his blessing upon your little ones, whom he hath been a father to !”* As has been said before, though by her marriage contract Lady Caldwell had secured to her, from the lands of Caldwell, an annual rent jointure, and had been actually infefted in the es- tate, prior to its forfeiture,! she was deprived of this right. As might be expected, Dalziel, instead of respecting her rights, left no means untried to set them aside. In the beginning of the year 1680, as donator to the forfeited estate of Caldwell, he pur- sued her for mails and duties. She defended herself upon the ground of her lifetime infeftment. The base artifice with which her defence was met on the part of Dalziel, is worthy of notice. Among other things, it was alleged for him, first, that Lady Caldwell’s husband was yet alive, so that her liferent existed not ; and, secondly, that she herself was in the late rebellion, in June, 1679. Both allegations were equally untrue. Her husband was not then alive, having died in Holland, in 1670; and the slan- derous defamation that she was in the rebellion at Bothwell bridge was, doubtless, brought forward to injure her cause, by creating prejudices against her in the minds of her judges. On her bringing an action against Dalziel before the lords of session, * M'Crie’s Memoirs of Veitch and Brysson, &c., pp. 371-373. This letter is taken from the Wodrow MSS. It is addressed on the back, “ For the Lady Caldwell, at Glasgow.*’ t Sir William Cunningham, of Cunninghamhead, in his account of the suff'erings of Lady Caldwell, preserved among the Wodrow MSS. (vol. xxxiii., folio, No. 57), incorrectly says that she had neglected to take infeftment;’* and Wodrow, whose account of her sufferings is taken from that document, falls into a similar mistake.— (History, vol. iii., p. 440.) Fountainhall says, “ Muir of Caldwell, being married to Cunningham’s daughter, in 1657, he infefts her in a life-rent jointure, partly by way of locality, and partly an annuity.” — His Decisions, &c., p. 558. But though she was infefted upon her contract of marriage, her right was not confirmed by the earl of Eglinton, of whom her husband held immediately his lands. — Morison’s Dic- tionary of Decisions, pp. 4690-4693. 20 230 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. for her jointure from the forfeited estate, the lords, in November, 1682, found that though she had been infefted upon her contract of marriage, yet, as her right was not confirmed by the earl of Eglinton, her husband’s immediate superior,* her right fell under the forfeiture, and that by the forfeiture of a sub-vassal (whether the king’s immediate or mediate vassal), not only his own right, but all rights flowing from him, were carried.! For a considerable number of years after her return from Hol- land, Lady Caldwell had not experienced personal annoyance on account of her nonconforming principles, but was allowed, with- out disturbance, to pursue the peaceful occupations by which she 4,nd her children earned for themselves the means of subsistence. Indeed, considering what she had already suffered in being de- prived of all her worldly substance, the government might have been ashamed to subject her to additional hardships and more Accumulated sorrow. But arbitrary and persecuting governments are as little affected by a sense of shame as by a sense of jus- tice. In the year 1683, about twelve years after her return from the continent, during which time she had lived in industrious and contented poverty, chiefly, it would appear, at Glasgow, the storm of persecution suddenly burst upon her head. Without indict- ment or trial she was made prisoner, and confined in one of the state-prisons for upward of three years. The cause of her im- prisonment, and the hardships she endured during its continu- ance, we shall briefly relate, as affording a striking instance of the extreme disregard of justice, and the utter heartlessness which characterized the men who administered the affairs of our coun- try in the times of which we write. | The circumstance in which her imprisonment originated was the false information that a recusant minister had been preaching in her house. To make the narrative intelligible to the reader, it is necessary to state that the house in which she lived, which was in Glasgow, was near the foot, and upon the east side of the * Her right was not confirmed by him previous to the forfeiture, though it was confirmed by him during the time of the debate. t Morison’s Dictionary of Decisions, pp. 4690-4693. t Our narrative is taken chiefly from Sir William Cunningham’s MS. account of Lady Caldwell’s sufferings, already referred to. It may here be staled, that Sir William was not Lady Caldwell’s mother, as Dr. Burns, in his edition of Wodrow’s History, supposes (vol iii., p 441), but her brother’s son — her brother, as we have seen before, having died in 1670, when he was succeeded by his- eldest eon, the writer of that account. The son, like the father, was a sufferer in those evil times, even when a schoolboy, incapable of giving much offence, or creating much alanu. — See Wodrow’s History, vol. il, pp. 428, 429. He mairied Anne, daughter of Sir Archibald Stuart, of Castlemilk, but had no issue, and died in 1724. — ttobert- Bon’s Ayrshire Families, vol. i., p. 308. LADY CALDWELL. 231 street called the Saltmarket, and that the windows consisted mostly of timber boards, there being only a few inches of glass above the boards. One would suppose that it would have been difficult, or rather impossible, for any person, from the opposite side of the street, to discover,’ through the small pieces of glass at the top, what was going on in the interior of the house. But in those days it was no uncommon thing for base individuals,* either from pure malignity or in the mercenary hope of reward, to give false informations to the government and their underlings against the persecuted presbyterians ; and in the present case a person of this stamp, who lived on the opposite side of the street, affirmed that one night, on looking from his own house on the west side of the street, just opposite (to her house, he saw a min- ister preaching in her chamber. He immediately repaired to the land-provost of Glasgow, whose name was Barns, a man of known hostility to the presbyterians, and informed him of what he pretended he had seen. The provost, incited by Mr. Arthur Ross, then archbishop of Glasgow, whom he had informed of the case, proceeded so far as to give orders for the apprehension of Lady Caldwell and her three daughters who lived with her, and they were all imprisoned in the tolbooth of Glasgow. This was done, be it observed, before they were convicted of any fault, and solely upon the information of a single person, whose information might justly be suspected of falsehood, it being hardly credible that he could discover by candle-light through two glasses — his own window and the few inches of glass which were at the top of hers — at the distance of so broad a street, a minister preach- ing in the house, had a minister at the time been so engaged. In vain was redress to be looked for from the lo^ds of his majes- ty’s privy council, for they were the very fountain of oppression, the chief instruments of destroying the civil and religious liber- ties of their country. On being informed of the case, probably by the archbishop of Glasgow, the privy council not only ap- proved of the illegal proceedings of the provost of Glasgow, but gave orders, May 22d, 1683, that Lady Caldwell and her eldest daughter. Miss Jean, should be carried prisoners to the castle of Blackness,! by a strong guard. The orders were strictly execu- • These were either renegades from the presbyterian faith, or the lowest and most degraded of the people. t Blackness caslle is an ancient royal fortress, in the parish of Carriden, Linlith- gowshire. It is situated at the eastern extremity of the parish, on the south side of the firth of Forth, on a rocky promontory, projecting into the firth. It is built in the form of a ship, and is one of the oldest fortifications of Scotland, being a reg- ular fort of four bastions, which, along with the fortifications on the small island w 233 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. ted, and Lady Caldwell continued a prisoner there for a period of more than three years, and her daughter for nearly six months. Had the charge brought against Lady Caldwell been substan- tiated —had it been proved that, at the time specified, a noncon- forming minister had been preaching in her house — she and her daughter would no doubt have been liable to the severe penalties of the unrighteous and cruel laws then in force against conven- ticles. By an act of parliament, passed in August, 1670, outed ministers not licensed by the council, and any other persons not authorized by the bishop of the diocese, are prohibited from preaching, expounding scripture, or praying, in any meeting ex- cept in their own houses, and to those of their own family, under severe penalties ; and by the same act it is “ statute and com- manded that none be present at any meeting, where any . not licensed, authorized, nor tolerated, as said is, shall preach, ex- pound scripture, or pray,” except the minister’s own family ; and it is declared that “ every person who shall be found to have been present at any such meetings shall be, toties quoties, fined according to their qualities, in the respective suras following, and imprisoned until they pay their fines, and further during the coun- cil’s pleasure And if the master or mistress of any family, where any such meetings shall be kept, be present within the Inchgrarvie, seems completely to command the passage of the Forth to Stirling. It is one of the four ancient national fortresses that, by the articles of union, are required to be kept in constant repair; the other three being the castles of Edinburgh, Stir- ling, and Dumbarton. The period of its erection is unknown. During the struggle between presbytery and prelacy, in the reign of James VL, it was used as a place of confinement for those ministers and laymen who had become obnoxious to tlie government for their assertion of the principles of religious liberty. Here Mr. John Welsh, minister of Ayr, and five other ministers, were, for holding a general assem- bly at Aberdeen, in July, 1605, in opposition to the wishes of the monarch, confined from August that year till toward the close of the following year, when they w'ere banished the king’s dominions, not to return upon the pain of death. The dungeon in which Welsh was immured is still pointed out. It is the lower cell on the west part of the building. The visiter who enters it is enabled to form some idea of what our forefathers suffered in the cause of civil and religious freedom. It is of small di- mensions. The floor is the bare unequal rock, on which one can neither stand nor walk w’ith any measure of comfort ; and the only means by which light and air are admitted is a chink in the wall. Blackness castle was at length allowed to fall into disrepair, but as the persecution of Charles II. advanced, to find room for the whig prisoners, it was again fitted up as a place of confinement. “ 24tli June, 1677. The council wrote a letter to his majesty, desiring he would be pleased to grant warrant to his thresurie for lifting as much money as will repair the castle of Blackness for holding prisoners, the Bass being already full. His majesty sent down a warrant conform.” — Fountainhall’s Historical Notices, p. 169. Blackness castle was repaired in the year 1679, “ designed,” says Row, “to be a prison as formerly under the old bishops.” — Life of Robert Blair, p. 567. And within its gloomy w'alls many cove- nanters were immured for years. In a dungeon still called “ The Whigs’ Vault,” a dozen or a score of them, according to tradition, would sometimes be confined to- gether as so many cattle. LADY CALDWELL. 233 Louse for the time, they are to be fined in the double of what is to be paid by them for being present at a house conventicle.”* And in an act of parliament, June, 1672, in reference to the part of the preceding act which prohibits nonconforming ministers, not licensed by the council, or not having authority from the bishop of the diocese, “ from preaching, expounding scripture, or 'praying in any meeting, except in their own houses, and to those of their own family,” it is said: ‘'Since there maybe some questions and doubts concerning the meaning and extent of that word pray^ his majesty doth, with advice aforesaid, declare that it is not to be understood as if thereby prayer in families were discharged by the persons of the family, and such as shall be present, not exceeding the number of four persons, besides those of the fam- ily ; [but] it is always declared that this act doth not give allow- ance to any outed minister to pray in any families except in the parishes where they be allowed to preach.”! Even the indulged ministers could not, according to the acts of the indulgence, Sep- tember, 1672, have preached in the private house of a friend without involving themselves and their hearers in the violation of these laws ; and they were laws still in force, in so far as Glasgow was concerned : for although a proclamation, suspend- ing the laws against house conventicles on the south side of the river Tay, was issued, dated June 29, 1679, “the town of Edin- burgh and two miles around it, with the lordships of Musselburgh and Dalkeith, the cities of St. Andrews, and Glasgow, and Stir- ling, and a mile about each of them,” are excepted.]: Had Lady Caldwell and her daughter then been convicted of the charge brought against them, they would, according to the iniquitous laws then in force, have been liable to be fined, and, failing to pay their fines, to be imprisoned. H * Wodrow's History, vol. ii., p. 169. t Ibid , p. 200. t Ibid., vol. iii., p. 149. But even as to house conventicles, as Fountainhall in- forms us, the council afterward found that, notwithstanding this proclamation of in- dulgence, they might be punished and fined unless licensed by the council — that the king’s indulgence had not permitted them but only where, upon application to the council, they are established. — Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs, p. 244. II Sir William Cunningham, in his account of Lady Caldwell’s sufferings, speak- ing of her daughter. Miss Jean, indeed says: “Yea, though the matter of fact as alleged had been true, what law even then could make the poor gentlewoman of twenty years of age liable to such cruel treatment, she being in her mother’s house, where, though there had been sermon, yet bylaw it ought to have been proven that there w^ere five more than the family present to hear it, w^hereas it was never pretended that there were any more present than the lady and her family.” Wod- row makes the same statement : but both are mistaken. It would have been ille- gal, as is evident from the acts of parliament quoted in the text, for a nonconforming minister to have preached in Lady Caldwell’s house, though none but tlie members of her family had been present. 234 THE LADIES OP THE COVENANT. Bat tliey were not convicted of the breach of any law. Their imprisonment was therefore illegal. Presbyterian ministers were indeed in the habit of paying visits to Lady Caldwell, and they frequently preached in her house — but this was never proved ; and in reference to the particular charge, on the ground of which she was imprisoned, she always denied that, at the time speci- fied by her accuser, any person was preaching in her house, and the contrary was never established against her. No attempt was indeed made to prove the charge ; the very forms of law were disregarded ; no judicial procedure was gone through ; a sum- mary and arbitrary course, which bore injustice on its very front, was adopted — a course naturally tending to destroy all se- curity of personal liberty, and to beget a universal distrust ; for any one might have been arrested upon a similar charge, and, however innocent, have been consigned to a dungeon. The treatment of Lady Caldwell and her eldest daughter was not only illegal and tyrannical, it was also barbarously cruel. It was robbing of her liberty, a lady who had nothing else under God but the fruits of her own industry, to support herself and her children, and against whom nothing could be found by her persecutors, save only that “ after the way which they called her- esy, she worshipped the God of her fathers.” ’ When brought to the castle of Blackness, she and her daugh- ter were kept close prisoners, except that the governor, who was disposed to favor them, sometimes (though at his peril) allowed them to visit his lady, whose room was immediately below the cell in which they were confined. The society of the two cap- tives would serve in some degree to relieve the tedious hours of their imprisonment ; but after the lapse of nearly six months,* Miss Jean, who was only about twenty years of age, began to suffer in her health, in consequence of her close confinement, which excited painful apprehensions in her mother, whose sense of her own sufferings was for the time absorbed in the deep and distressing concern which she felt for her afflicted daughter. Lady Caldwell having conveyed to some of her relations infor- mation respecting the indisposition of Miss Jean, and begged them to interpose their kind assistance for obtaining her release for the recovery of her health, application was made to the privy council by several of her relations, for the liberation of the two Sir William Cunningham says, “ a year and some more and Wodrow says, “ for near a year's time." But from the date of the order of the council for her lib- eration, compared with the date of the act of council ordering her imprisonmei^, it is evident that the period of her imprisoment was somewhat less than six months. LADY CALDWELL. 235 ladies, or at least for the liberation of the indisposed daughter. After much trouble and no small expense, an order was at last obtained for the latter being set at liberty. In answer to a peti- tion which she presented to the privy council to that efiect, accompanied with the testimonials of physicians as to her ill health, the following act of council was passed : — ll^A September^ 1683. “ The lords of his majesty’s privy council, having heard and considered a petition presented by Jean Mure, prisoner in the castle of Blackness, for several alleged irregularities and disor- ders, and in regard of her present sickness and indisposition, testified under the hands of physicians, supplicating for liberty, do hereby give order and warrant to the earl of Linlithgow, gov- ernor of the said castle of Blackness, and his deputies there, to set the said Jean Mure, petitioner, at liberty, in regard of her present indisposition and sickness, and that she hath found suffi- cient caution, acted in the books of privy council, that she shall re-enter her person in prison, within the said castle of Blackness, upon the first day of November next, under the penalty of one thousand merks Scots money in case of failure.”* She was, however, afterward relieved from the necessity of returning to the prison of Blackness at the time specified in this act. Having presented another petition to the council, ‘‘ desiring that the former liberty allowed her forth of the castle of Black- ness, where she was prisoner for several alleged irregularities, might be prorogate for some further time, to the effect she may go about her own and her mother’s affairs, and may have access to her, being prisoner in the said castle, both day and night,” the council, at their meeting on the 6th of December, 1683, ‘‘ proro- gate and continue the petitioner’s foresaid liberty forth of the said castle, in regard she hath found sufficient caution, acted in the books of privy council, that she shall compear personally before the council upon the first Thursday of February next, or that the said day she shall re-enter her person in prison, within the said castle of Blackness, and that under the penalty of one thousand merks Scots money in case of failure, in either of the premises.”! In February she presented a third petition to the council, “ showing that, being incarcerated with her mother in the castle of Blackness, near ten months ago, for being present at a con- venticle, as alleged, in her said mother’s house, and upon appli- cation being made to the council liberated, but withal ordained to re-enter this instant month of February, her imprisonment had Decreets of Privy Council. t Register of Acts of Privy Council 236 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. been attended with great indisposition of health ; and therefore humbly craving that the council would be pleased to consider her circumstances, a very young gentlewoman, having no means of livelihood but by a dependence on her mother, and to commis- erate her case, and ordain her to be set at liberty, at least upon caution to compear when called.” “ The lords of his majesty’s privy council having,” at their meeting of the 14th of February, 1684, “considered the foresaid petition, give warrant to the clerks of council to deliver to the supplicant’s cautioner the bonds given for her, in regard conform thereto he has exhibited her.”* The young lady’s trouble, it would appear, on account of the alleged conventicle in her mother’s house was now brought to a close. But her mother’s sufferings on the same account were of much longer duration. Lady Caldwell, at the time when her daughter was liberated, was allowed, “ as a mighty favor,” “ to ascend by some steps, to take the air upon the head of the castle-wall, but at that time not to go without the foot of the turnpike where she lodged, though indeed afterward she obtained the liberty within the precincts of the castle.”! But after this she continued a prisoner there for about two years and nine months. The suffer- ings 'she endured during that period must have been great. We have no chronicler who has left a record of the annoyances and privations which the covenanting prisoners endured in the castle of Blackness, as James Fraser of Brea has left a record of those endured by the prisoners of the Bass. As in the Bass, they would probably suffer from the caprice, rudeness and profaneness of the garrison. From several of the petitions presented by the prisoners which we have seen, it appears that in most cases the health of the prisoners gave way, and that diseases of a very serious nature were often contracted. Hard as it was for this lady to be deprived of all her substance, and to be compelled scantily to support herself and her children by the labor of her own hands, her condition was now much more painful and dis- tressing. Now she was removed from her children, who had proved a blessing and a comfort to her, and shut up in a prison, was doomed to spend her time under harsh restraint and in soli tude, her children, relatives, and friends being only occasionally allowed to visit her. In this desolate situation, the days and the months would pass heavily away, and she could not but often experience a sinking in her spirit. It was, however, well that * Decreets of Privy Council. t Sir William Cunningham’s MS. account of the sufferings of Lady Caldwell. LADY CALDWELL. 237 by the discipline of adversity the principles of her faith had been well established, and that she was prepared, by her Christian fortitude, and her holy trust in God, to suffer still greater hard- ships than those to which she had been even as yet inured. Among the hardships which she endured during this period of her imprisonment, the following case of heartless cruelty reflects the utmost disgrace upon the government of that day. Her cousin-german, Mr. Walter Sandilands,* of Hilderston, then living at the west port of Linlithgow, the heiress of which property he had married, having fallen sick of a violent fever, which issued in his death, she, on hearing of his dangerous illness, sent two of her daughters, probably on their paying her one of those occa- sional visits which for a time cheered up her heart, to give him her kind compliments and inquire how he was. Within a few hours after their arrival at his house, her second daughter. Miss Anne, was attacked by the fever, of which she afterward died at Linlithgow. Being informed of the severe and dangerous sickness of her daughter. Lady Caldwell naturally felt a strong desire to see her ; and being distant from her only two miles, she hoped that so small a favor would, upon application, not be refused. But her hopes were disappointed. Though she earn- estly desired to be permitted to go and see her “ dearly beloved dying daughter,” for only one hour, should no longer time be granted, and though she willingly offered to take a guard with her, yea, to take the whole garrison along with her as a guard, should it be required, and to maintain them at her own expense, while she made this visit ; yet the most earnest solicitations were ineffectual. These cruel men, trifling with the yearnings of a mother’s love, refused to grant so reasonable a request, and thus she was deprived of the opportunity of seeing her daughter before her death. To such as know a mother’s heart, it is need- less to say how pungent must have been her anguish to think, that her daughter should sicken, die, and be buried, while she, though at the distance of not more than two miles, was only per- mitted to hear of all this as each mournful event successively happened.! * Mr. Walter Sandilands was the son of William Sandilands, brother to the fourth Lord Torphichen, by his wife, who was a sister of Lady Caldwell’s father. Both his parents were “ distinguished for their attachment to the principles of the pres- byterian church of Scotland, and their mansion-house at Hilderston was often the hospitable resort of the persecuted covenanters.” Mr. Walter himself ” retained the same attachment to protestant and presbyterian principles which had characterized the family from the days of their illustrious ancestor, Sir James Sandilands, the friend and patron of John Knox.” — Wodrow’s History, vol. iii., p. 441. t Sir William Cunningham, in his MS. account of Lady Caldwell’s sufferings, 238 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. After being imprisoned for more than three years, Lady Cald- well was at length released, in answer to a petition which she presented to the privy council. From the character of the peti- tions presented to the privy council by the imprisoned covenant- ers, we can almost always learn whether a long imprisonment had the effect of weakening their resolution, or whether their steadfastness of purpose remained unshaken. If the former had been the effect, some concession is made, as an engagement to live regularly, or to obey the laws ; if the latter, an entire silence is preserved on that subject, so that the omission is pregnant with meaning — is a certain evidence that the spirit was unsubdued by persecution. This last was the form of Lady Caldwell’s petition. It is simply a prayer to be released from her confinement, on the ground of her ill health, and her impoverished circumstances, and contains not a single statement implying the least wavering or unsteadfastness as to her principles. This is no small commen- dation. Imprisonment, so far from being a light punishment, may be rendered the most bitter and crushing to the spirit, that can be inflicted, and when protracted during months and years, it has not unfrequently subdued the fortitude of men, who, in the excitement and activity of actual conflict, have braved death, in resisting arbitrary and unhallowed impositions upon conscience. Acting like a slow and lingering torture, it has exhausted the patience of the spirit, and laid prostrate its moral heroism. But Lady Caldwell’s moral firmness, after an imprisonment of more than three years, remained unmoved. She had no attachment to prison walls, to dank and confined air; for she had experienced their injurious effects in exhausting the strength of her frame. She had no satisfaction in being kept from the society of her children, for she had found in this her greatest earthly comfort, since their father’s death. She had no liking for the numerous privations and hardships of her captivity. All these were associated in her mind, with painful feelings and recollection, with sighs, tears, and regrets — the natural companions of a prison’s inmates. But to escape from them she would not compromise her integrity, or ■which relates chiefly to those connected with her imprisonment in Blackness castle, concludes thus : As the records of the secret council will vouch a great part of this narration, so Glasgow affords yet many living witnesses of the truth of what is before advanced, and the neighborhood of Blackness, there being several honorable persons yet alive who can bear testimony to it, as well as yet living fellow-prisoners. As also the truth of what is said is referred to the declaration of the present laird of Bedlormie, then deputy -governor of the castle of Blackness, upon his word of honor; yea, there is a defiance given to the challenger, to search if he can find, among any of the records of the jurisdictions of Scotland, if the Lady Caldwell had been im- peached, or convict, any other way but in the manner already said." LADY CALDWELL. 239 do aiiglit inconsistent with the principles for which she was hon- ored to suffer so much. The petition she presented to the privy council is as follows : — “ Unto the Right Honorable the Lords of his Majesty’s Prhy Council — The Petition of Barbara Cunningham, relict of Wil- liam Mure, sometime of Caldwell, prisoner in the Castle of Blackness, Humbly Sheweth, “ That your lordships’ petitioner hath been detained prisoner above these three years, for alleged being present at a house- conventicle, by reason whereof she is become very valetudinary, and is also reduced to great difficulties, being (in respect of her deceased husband’s forfeiture), wholly deprived of any subsist- ence forth of that estate, either to her or her children, these nine- teen years begone. “ May it therefore please your lordships to commiserate my valetudinary and destitute condition, and to ordain me to be set at liberty, and your petitioner shall ever pray,” &c.* As this petition, though worded respectfully, makes not the least acknowledgment of a fault, nor contains any engagement to live regularly in future, it was by no means calculated to concili- ate the favor of the lords of his majesty’s privy council. But as James VH. was then beginning, with the view of promoting his scheme of introducing popery and slavery into Britain, to profess great zeal for the toleration of protestant dissenters, the omissions of the petition of the stern and inflexible covenantress were over- looked ; and the following order was issued for her liberation : — “ Edinburgh, 21st June, 1686. “ The lords of his majesty’s privy council having considered tho bills presented by Barbara Cunningham, Lady Caldwell, now prisoner in the castle of Blackness, desiring liberty upon the considerations therein mentioned, do hereby recommend to the earl of Linlithgow, lord-justice-general, and chief governor of the said castle of Blackness, to grant, order, and warrant, to set the said Lady Caldwell forthwith at liberty, for which this shall be a sufficient warrant to the said earl and all others concerned.”! According to this order. Lady Caldwell, without coming under any engagement whatever, or even receiving a caution not to * Warrants of Privy Council. Sir William Cunningham, in his account of Lady Caldwell’s sufferings, and Wodrow, in his History, incorrectly say that she was dis- missed without any petition having been presented to the council for her liberation, t W arrants of Privy Council. 240 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. offend against the laws in future, was liberated, and, after a long separation, restored to the bosom of her family. During the re- mainder of the persecution, which was now drawing to a close, she was permitted to live with her children in peace ; and they lived together in the same humble condition as before, earning their subsistence by honest industry. Tt is gratifying to know that, after the revolution, justice, in so far as possible, was done to this worthy lady and her family. The forfeiture of her husband was rescinded by the Scottish par- liament, not only by the general act of July 4, 1690, rescinding the forfeitures and fines of the covenanters, from the first of Jan- uary, 1665, to the 5th of November, 1688, in which his name occurs, among some hundreds of other names, but by another act, 19th July, 1690, which expressly rescinded it on the ground of its having been pronounced by the justiciary court in his absence ; which, it is declared, was illegal, and therefore, from the begin- ning, null and void.* To illustrate further the good inclination of those in high places, after the revolution, to do all justice to those who had suffered during the persecution, it is worthy of remark that her then only surviving child, Barbara! (who had married John Fairlie of that ilk), having, as heiress and execu- trix to her father, and Lady Caldwell herself having for her life- rent, right, and interest, pursued Sir Thomas Dalziel of Binns^ grandchild to the donator, before the lords of session, for pay- ment of the rents of the estate of Caldwell intromitted with by the said donator, or his gratuitous assignees, during the forfeiture, the lords of session, on the 5th of December, 1705, found Sir Thomas liable not only for his predecessor’s bygone actual intromissions, but for the whole rental of the estate from the time his grand- father entered into the possession, and even for omissions. Some of the judges thought the restitution of by ones very hard. But the answer was. Durum est, sed ita lex scripta est.^ The case having, however, been carried, by Sir Thomas Dalziel, to the Scottish parliament, the decision of the court of session was al- tered on the 20th of February, 1707, and Sir Thomas relieved * The act is entitled, “ Act rescinding forfeitures in absence before the justice court, preceding the year 1669, and restoring Caldwell, and Kersland, and Mr. William Veitch.*’ — Acts of the Parliament of Scotland. t Lady Caldwell’s eldest daughter, Jean, who had married Colonel John Erskine of Carnock, died, without issue, a few years after the revolution, perhaps in 1695. On the 8th of January, 1696, by decreet of the commissary court of Edinburgh, Bar- bara Mure, her sister, was decerned nearest of kin to her. — Register of Confirmed Testaments, 24th July, 1696. t That is, It may be hard, but such is the law/' — Morison’s Dictionary of De- cisionsi, pp. 4694, 4750. LADY COLVILL. 241 from his liability for the bygone rents of the estate of Caldwell preceding the term of Martinmas, 1688, on account of certain specialities in- his case, distinguishing it from other cases falling under the act rescissory.* From the references made in these proceedings to the subject of this notice, it is evident that she was then alive. But how long she survived we have not been able to ascertain. LADY COLVILL. Lady Colvill, whose maiden name was Margaret Wemyss, was the daughter of David Wemyss, of Fingask, and wife of Robert, Lord Colvill, who succeeded his uncle, of the same name, in 1662, as second Lord Colvill, of Ochiltree. In 1671 she be- came a widow, his lordship having died at Cleish, on the 12th of February that year. She had issue to him a son, Robert, who succeeded his father as third Lord Colvill of Ochiltree ; and two daughters, 1, the honorable Margaret Colvill, who was married in 1701, to Sir John Ayton, of Ayton, in Fife, being his second wife ; and, 2, the honorable Colvill, who was married to the Rev. Mr. Logan, minister of Torry.f The severity with which Lady Colvill was treated by the gov- ernment, may be regarded as an involuntary testimony to the fi- delity and steadfastness with which she adhered to the persecu- ted cause of presbytery. She was classed among that “ despe- rate and implacable party who keep seditious and numerous field- conventicles, and that in open contempt of our authority, as if it were to brave us and those that are in places of trust under us.”J Other marks of the government’s displeasure were fixed upon her, all which in fact were so many badges of honorable distinc- tion. She became early conspicuous as a frequenter of field-conven- ticles ; and her name appears among the ladies against whom the government first proceeded on that account, an honor for which she was no doubt indebted to Archbishop Sharp, who, as he resided in Fife, was particularly zealous in his endeavors to arrest and put down the progress of “ fanaticism” within his own borders, and who had a great abhorrence of fanatic ladies. * Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, March, 20, 1707. I Douglas's Peerage, vol. i., p. 361. t Wodrow's History, vol. ii., p. 238. 21 242 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. About the close of the year 1672, and in the years 1673 and 1674, meetings in the open fields were frequently held in Kinross- shire, where Lady Colvill resided ; and she was in the habit of attending these meetings, as well as of hospitably entertaining in her house the ministers who preached at them, among whom were Mr. John Welsh, Mr. Samuel Arnot, Mr. Gabriel Semple, Mr. Thomas Hog, minister at Larbert, and many others.* The zeal and liberality with which she countenanced the preaching of the gospel at field conventicles, and befriended the persecuted ministers, coming to the ears of the government, the storm of persecution began to gather around her. The more immediate cause of this was the following circumstance : a party of soldiers had been sent to disperse a field conventicle held in the Lomonds of Fife ; they met with no resistance from the people ; but Sharp, to excite the council to greater violence, falsely alleged that the people had made resistance. This fabricated story being com- municated to the court, a letter came from the king to the coun- cil, dated June 23d, 1674, requiring the council to bring the ringleaders of that disorder to punishment, and promising to send for their assistance some forces from England and Ireland.! This letter occasioned a bitter persecution against all in Fife, both men and women, who attended conventicles. A long cata- logue of names, including several ladies as well as gentlemen, and a number of the common people, was sent over to the agents of the government in Fife, who were required to summon them to appear before the privy council at Edinburgh.^ Lady Colvill’s name was in this list ; and she, with several other ladies and gentlemen were summoned to appear before the lords of the privy council on the 9th of July. The charges for which they were summoned to answer, were their keeping and being present at house and field conventicles at Dunfermline, Cleish, Orval, and other places ; their inviting and countenancing outed ministers in their invasion and intrusion upon the kirks and pulpits of For- gan, Balmerinoch, Collessie, Monzie, and Auchtermuchty, and hearing them preach and pray therein ; and their harboring, re- setting, and entertaining Mr. John Welsh, a declared and pro- claimed traitor, in their houses and elsewhere. Lady Colvill and the others who were summoned, not being prepared to make any confessions of criminality, or to promise to abstain from at- tending conventicles in future, deemed it prudent to disobey the * Account of the Sufferings of the Covenanters in Kinross-shire, W odrow MSS., vol. xxxiii., folio, No. 143. t Wodrow’s History, vol. ii-, p. 238. t Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 545. LADY COLVILL. 243 summons, probably dreading imprisonment had they made their appearance. For this contempt of authority they were, upon the 15th and 16th of July, that same year, denounced his majesty’s rebels, and put to the horn at the market crosses of Cupar and Forfar, by virtue of letters of denunciation, raised and executed at the instance of his majesty’s advocate.* Lady Colvill was afterward summoned to appear before a committee of the privy council, which was to meet at Cupar on the 15th of September. She did not compear, but was fined, and ordained to pay her fine before the 1st of November. To what amount she was fined we are not informed.! Against this lady the council proceeded still further. On the 6th of August, 1675, they issued letters of intercommuning against her and upward of one hundred more individuals, among whom were several other ladies of rank. Intercommuning was a very severe sentence, making, as it did, every man or woman who should harbor, entertain, or converse with the persons inter- communed, equally guilty with them. By these letters, all sher- iffs, stewards, bailies of regalities, and bailiaries, and their dep- uties, and magistrates of burghs, are required “ to apprehend and commit to prison any of the persons above written, our rebels, whom you shall find within your respective jurisdictions, accord- ing to justice, as you shall answer to us thereupon. ’’J The let- ters were proclaimed in Cupar in the beginning of October, 1675.11 “ Perhaps,” says Wodrow, “it was every way without a parallel, that so many ladies and gentlewomen married, should be put in such circumstances ; but this was to strike the greater terror on their husbands and other gentlewomen.” Kirkton, in narrating this case, says : “ But though the coun- cil sisted in their persecutions upon denunciation and intercom- muning, so did not our officers and soldiers, who rested not, but upon imprisoning, robbing, wounding, killing the poor fanatics * Wodrow, in his History (vol. ii., p. 242), mentions a Lady Colvill, who was summoned to appear before the privy council on the 9th of July, 1674, and who was acquitted, on her compearing- before the council, in consequence of her bringing with her a testimonial in her favor from the minister of her parish, and promising not to go to any conventicles in future. But she was evidently a different person from the subject of this sketch. On consulting the Register of Acts of Privy Council, we find that her maiden name was “ Dame Euphan Mortoun." t Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 551. t Wodrow’s History, vol. ii , pp. 286-288. Mr. John Carstairs, in a letter to Mr. Robert MWard, then in Rotterdam dated August 6, 1675, says, “ This day the let- ters of intercommuning were passed. If we were in any tolerable frame for such a mercy, as, alas ! we are not, I would take this furious driving as a token for good, and some presage that their time would be but short.” — Wodrow MSS., vol. lix., folio, No. 36. II Row’s Life of Robert Blair, p. 562. 244 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. and conventiclers, where they might find them ; and truly, many of our soldiers made persecution not so much a duty of tneir office as an employment of gain.”* The concluding part of this extract is perfectly correct ; but Kirkton is mistaken when he says that the council “ sisted in their persecution upon denuncia- tion and intercommuning.” So far was this from being the case, that in a very severe proclamation against conventicles and other disorders, issued by the council on the 1st of March, 1676, the magistrates of the several burghs are required to seize upon any persons who were or should in future be intercommuned ; all noblemen, gentlemen, magistrates, and all other subjects, are forbidden to intercommune with, harbor or relieve any of the persons who were or should hereafter be intercommuned, under the pains due to intercommuners by law ; and a reward of 500 merks is offered to such as should discover any person guilty of intercommuning with, harboring, or relieving any of the inter- communed. f On the 27th of April, that same year, in prosecu- tion of the same object, the following letter, signed by the duke of Rothes, in name of the council, was sent to the sheriffs of the several shires : — ‘‘ Right Honorable : The lords of his majesty’s privy coun- cil, at their last meeting, did order that the enclosed letters of intercommuning should be transmitted to you, that you may with all possible diligence cause search for, apprehend and imprison, such of the said persons as are, or shall happen to come within the bounds of your shire, and have ordered that against the 22d day of June next, you report a particular account of your dili- gence to the council. This the council has appointed to be sig- nified to you, by your humble servant, “ Rothes Cancell, I. P. D.”J Lady Colvill, like her friends against whom these letters of intercommuning were issued, lay under this sentence till the king’s proclamation, dated Whitehall, June 29, 1679, by which all letters of intercommuning were suspended, a measure which relieved multitudes who were fugitives and intercommuned, * Kirkton’s History, p. 363, 364. t Wodrow's History, vol. ii., p. 319. t Register of Acts of Privy Council. It is, however, true, as Kirkton observes, that at this time “ intercommuning was not so stretched and improven as after Both- well bridge, when converse with a few rebels made almost all Scotland as guilty as if they had been in arms against the king at Bothwell Bridge." — Kirkton’s His* tory, p. 363. LADY COLVILL. 245 and upon their hiding for many years.”* But while lying under this sentence, her zeal was in no wise abated. She still con- tinued to attend conventicles, and to entertain in her hotise the nonconforming ministers who came to preach in that part of the country where she lived. In the year 1677, when no public meetings were held in Kinross-shire for divine worship, except during the night, because of the fury of the troopers, who lay more than a year and a half in Kinross, meetings for sermon were sometimes held in her house ; and her character and prin- ciples being well known, she had her own share of the annoy- ances and severities inflicted by the troopers, who perambulated the country to put down house and field conventicles. From Captain William Carstairs,t in particular, she suffered no small degree of molestation and hardship. This man, who had no commission from the king, but who had been sent out by Arch- bishop Sharp, under pretence of searching for denounced and intercommuned persons, was at that time extremely active against the nonconformists in the east of Fife, on whom, with a party of about a dozen of soldiers, he committed many cruelties. Re- ceiving information of a conventicle which had been kept in Lady Colvill’s house, at Cleish, on a sabbath-day, in the month of November, at which a preacher, named Mr. Robert Anderson officiated, and learning that Mr. Anderson was lodged in her house, he came with his party to the house of Cleish early on the Monday morning, in order to make sure of apprehending his in- tended prisoners — so early, indeed, as about two or three hours before day — and, rapping at the gate of the house, surprised and alarmed all the inmates. Having made their way into the house, they apprehended Mr. Anderson, and William Sethrum, the chamberlain, and “ broke Robert Steedman’s head, who made his escape ; and when the captain missed him, he fell into a fit of the convulsion, and continued two or three hours in it.” This proved a very fortunate circumstance for Lady Colvill and her son. Lord Colvill, who was then a child, for during the time that Car- * Wodrow’e Historj", vol. iii.. pp. 149, 151. t Carstairs was “ a wretch who earned a living in Scotland by going disguised to conventicles, and then informing again.st the preachers." — Macauley’s History of England, vol. i., p. 237. It was believed that at the time when the supposed popish plot in England, in 1680, excited so great alarm, this infamous man, to get money, lent his aid by f^alse testimony to the execution of several guiltless persons. “ His end," says Macauley, quoting from Bishop Burnet, “was all horror and despair, and with his last breath he had told his attendants to throw him into the ditch like a dog, for that he was not fit to sleep in a Christian burial-ground." — Ibid., vol. i., p. 482. 21 246 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. stairs lay in the fit, they made their escape. On recovering, he carried Mr. Anderson and the chamberlain to the lolbooth of Falkland.* To escape the fury of this miscreant, whose sever- ities toward others, and whose visits to her own house gave her but too just ground for apprehension. Lady Colvill was obliged to remain for some time from her house, and, like hundreds more of the covenanters, who were hunted like moor-fowl or wild beasts, to hide herself in the mountains and fields, by which her health was greatly impaired.! As might be expected of so zealous a covenanter. Lady Colvill preferred having in her family servants whose sentiments in reli- gious matters corresponded with her own ; nor in this preference could she be charged with illiberality, when it is considered that, in such trying and dangerous times, there was no inconsiderable risk that servants of opposite principles might, from their hatred of nonconformity, or from their love of filthy lucre, have become spies in the family, and betrayed their mistress, or have involved her in trouble. So early as 1670, before the death of her hus- band, some of her servants were prosecuted for attending a field conventicle. Margaret Morton, her gentlewoman, and Elizabeth Young, her servant-maid, having been present at the field-meet- ing held upon Death hill, in the west of Fife, on the 18th of June, 1670, which created much noise, and greatly exasperated the government, were, along with many others in the shire of Kin- ross, immediately summoned to appear before the privy council ; and making their appearance, they, with the rest who appeared, were thrown into prison, where they were kept for a long time.J Thirteen or fourteen years later, several of her servants (among whom was Margaret Morton, a highly-valued domestic, judging from the lengthened period during which she had served her ladyship) were again punished for their presbyterian principles. From a note of a decreet, dated December 26, 1683, and July 15, 1684, recorded in the sheriff-court books of Fife, at the in- stance of Mr. John Malcolm, procurator fiscal, against several persons for withdrawing from the church, keeping house and field conventicles, &c., we learn that Margaret Morton, gentle- woman to Lady Colvill, William Morton, and William Young, servants to the said lady, all in the parish of Cleish, were fined ^ Kirkton says, “ William Sethrum he laid in prison, but the doors were opened, and he set free.’* — History, p. 380. t Account of the Sufferings of the Covenanters in Kinross-shire, Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxiii., folio, No. 143. t Ibid., vol. xxxiii., foUo, No. 143. Row’s Life of Robert Blair, pp. 53C-538. each in the sum of three hundred pounds Scots, and were re- ported to have fled.*' To give her son a sound religious education, was a special part of Lady Colvill’s care. Besides instructing him in the com- mon doctrines and precepts of Christianity, it was her endeavor to train him up in the principles of presbytery and of the cove- nant, which in her judgment were founded on the word of God, and connected with the honor of her Lord and Savior. But the comfort and happiness of employing her widowhood in this lau- dable and delightful task, she was not permitted to enjoy. In violation of the laws of nature atid society, as well as of the law of God, the privy council resolved to take her son from her, and place him under guardians and teachers who would instil into him such principles as would meet -the approbation of the gov- ernment. From the strength of the opposition which persecu- tors have often encountered in prosecuting their scheme for de- stroying the church, it has often suggested itself to them that one of the most important means of gaining their object is to prevent the young from being instructed in the persecuted principles. Julian the apostate, the more effectually to suppress and destroy Christianity, shut up the schools and colleges of the Christians, authorizing only pagans as the teachers of youth, in the confi- dence that the tender minds of the rising generation would re- ceive at one and the same time the impressions of literature and idolatry. A similar policy was adopted by the rulers of France, who, on the revocation of the edict of Nantz, commanded the Huguenots, that those henceforward born of them should be bap- tized in the Roman catholic religion, and be placed under in- structors who were the enemies of their faith, to be educated in the superstition which they abhorred. The same cruel and ty- rannical system was adopted against the presbyterians of Scot- land. To poison the springs and fountains of learning, it was ordained by parliament, so early as 1662 , that none should be principal, masters, regents, or other professors in universities or colleges, unless they owned the government of the church by arclibishopsr and bishops, as then established by law, and that none should teach any public school, or be pedagogues to the children of persons of quality, without the license of the bishop of the diocese. t But detestable as was the tyranny of these ^ Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxiii., folio, No. 144. t Wodrow’s History, vol. i., p. 267. Presbyterian teachers sometimes attempted to form schools for the education of the young, but they did so at the risk of being imprisoned and otherwise punished — there being always individuals who, from va- rious motives, were sure to inform the government again.st them. The following 248 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. enactments, the government went even still further. The chil- dren of presbyterians of quality were taken from their parents, and placed in the hands of such as would educate them in prin- ciples which they repudiated as contrary to the word of God, and to the solemn obligations under which the nation had been brought. On learning the intention of the government to take her son from her and place him under prelatic teachers. Lady Colvill determined, as was natural enough, to keep her son, if possible, from falling into their hands, and with this view she removed him out of the way. By this the indignation of the government being excited, they immediately instituted proceedings against her. In the first place, they fined her in her absence in the sum of five thousand merks Scots ;* and failing to pay this sum, she was apprehended and imprisoned in the tolbooth of Edinburgh. Lord Fountainhall gives the following account of the cause of her imprisonment: “ December 2, 1684. The Lady Colvill is imprisoned in Edinburgh tolbooth, by the privy council, for her irregularities, and particularly for breeding up her son, the Lord Colvill, in fanaticism and other disloyal principles, and abstract- ing and putting him out of the way, when the council was going to commit his education to others ; for which we have acts of parliament as to the children of papists, which may be extended a paritate to others.”! The reader is to observe that this writer was an enemy to the presbyterians, whom, though he was more moderate than the most of his kind in his day, he regarded as fanatics,; and that his account of this lady is tinged with his party prejudices. His exaggerated and colored statement, when translated into the simple language of truth, isj that she was im- prisoned for withdrawing from her parish church, attending house and field conventicles, and particularly for training up her son. Lord Colvill, in the principles of presbytery and of the covenant. quotation from Fountainh all's Historical Notices (p. 294) is a specimen of what fre- quently happened in cases of this nature: “ 2d June, 1681. The private school- master in Edinburgh being called before the privy council and complained on by the master of the high grammar-school (one school is far from being able to serve Edinburgh now) ; there are Mr. Strang, Mr. William Greenlaw, and two or three others of them imprisoned, till they find caution not to teach Latin till they be licensed by the bishop: for several of them were outed ministers, and others who were sus- pected to poison the young ones with disloyal principles, so that the regents of the colleges defended themselves, that many of their youth were infected and leavened ere they came to them ; and even when they are licensed, not to teach the grammar, but only the rudiments and vocables ; for then the children may be come to that strength as to go to the high school." * That is, 277Z. 65 . Qd. sterling. t Fountainhall’s Decisions of the Lords of Session, vol. i., p* 316. LADY COLVILL. 349 The cell into which this lady was cast was one of the worst in the prison. It was a narrow dark room, where she required to burn candles during the whole day, and where she was with- out fire, though it was in the depth of winter. It might be thought,” says a MS. account of the sufferings of that period “ that persons of quality and honor were not concerned in these sufferings ; but the contrary is evident, as, besides other instances, in the case of my Lady Colvill, who, being fined in absence, at last was made prisoner in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, in a little room where she could not get the use of fire and the benefit of the light of day, and that for some months in the winter season.”* And in another MS. of the same period, entitled “ Grievances from Scotland, 1661-1688,” the following is specified as a griev- ance : “ My Lady Colvill was put in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, in a strait, dark, fireless room, where, all day long she behooved to keep candles burning ; and was thus kept for a long time, because she would not deliver up her son, my Lord Colvill. Their quarrel with her was her not countenancing the profane clergy.”! After lying for some weeks in this narrow, cold, and gloomy cell, than which a worse was not appropriated to robbers and murderers. Lady Colvill, from the privations and hardships she endured, was induced to petition the privy council that she might be removed to a more convenient room in the prison ; and the council, at their meeting, on the 24th of December, 1684, ‘‘hav- ing considered her petition, gave order and warrant to the mag- istrates of Edinburgh, and keepers of the tolbooth thereof, to accommodate her with a more convenient room than that which she is nowin, and to detain her prisoner therein till further order.”! In consequence of this order she appears to have been removed to “ a more convenient room” in the prison ; but, in those days, the best of the Scottish prisons were cheerless and unwholesome dungeons ; and her health soon began to be affected. By the harsh treatment to which she had formerly been subjected, in being driven to the mountains, to shelter herself from a ruthless soldiery, her constitution had been greatly shaken ; and it did not now possess vigor enough for the endurance of a rigorous and tedious imprisonment. After she had been shut up for nearly three months, her bodily indisposition became so great that her life was in danger. In these circumstances she presented a petition to the privy council, which was supported by the testi- Wodrow MSS., vol. xl, folio, No. 6. f Ibid., vol. xl., folio, No. 3. X Register of Acts of Privy Council. 250 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. monial of a physician, praying that she might enjoy a temporary release for the recovery of her health, but containing no admission of the justice of her imprisonment, nor any engagement that, in matters of religion, she would in future live and act as the gov- ernment were pleased to dictate. In answer to this petition, the council, at their meeting on the 17th of March, gave order and warrant to the magistrate of Edinburgh to set her at liberty, upon her finding sufficient caution, under the penalty of the fine for which she is incarcerated, and to confine herself to a chamber in Edinburgh, and to re-enter the said prison upon the second of April next.”* At the time when Lady Colvill was apprehended and impris- oned in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, her son. Lord Colvill, was attending the college of Edinburgh. On learning what had be- fallen his mother, and hearing farther that orders had been given to apprehend and imprison him also, the youth, in great conster- nation, fled from the city ; nor does it appear that he returned again to the college that session. To his mother this was a source of great uneasiness ; and she was extremely anxious that he should be brought back to the college to prosecute his studies. This appears from a petition which she presented to the council, when the day appointed for her re-entering prison arrived, at which time she was still very much unwell. After stating that the council had been pleased to grant her temporary liberty, in order to use means for the recovery of her health, but that her physicians had declared that it was impossible for them to enter on a course of medicinal treatment, with a view to her recovery in so short a time, she goes on to say, that what troubled her more (though she was brought very low by sickness), was, that by her surprising imprisonment, her son did run away, hearing that a party was ordered to apprehend him likewise ; and that now should she again enter prison, neither she herself, nor her friends, would be able to prevail upon him to return to the col- lege to his studies, because he apprehended that so long as the council inclined to keep her prisoner, they would likewise keep him a prisoner. She engages that should the council allow her any competent time, she would, upon the word and honor of a gentlewoman, take pains and concur with his friends to the ut- most of her ability, to bring him back to the college ; and after he is once settled there, she expresses her willingness to be dis- posed of as the council should think fit, and in the meantime offers to give sufficient security that she would present herself * Register of Acts of Privy Council. LADY COLVILL. 251 before the council when called. On these grounds, she humbly supplicates that the council would be pleased t^ allow her some competent time for the purpose specified, the state of her health being such, that she would require to be carried to prison on a bed, and she being fully resolved to loy the time which the council should allow her, in bringing back and settling her son. Having considered this petition at their meeting on the 3d of April, the council “ continue the petitioner’s liberty forth of the prison until this day seven night, upon the terms and caution as formerly.”* On the 14th of March, 1685, the council “ gave order for set- ting at liberty any women prisoners for receipt or harboring of rebels, or on account of their wicked principles, upon their swearing the abjuration of the late traitorous paper,t and likewise giving their oaths that they shall not hereafter reset, harbor, or keep intelligence with rebels and fugitives. But this act was intended to apply exclusively to such imprisoned women as be- longed to the society people, or Cameronians ; and as Lady Col- vill did not belong to that party, this act brought her no relief. There is, however, another consideration — the cupidity of the government — which accounts for the greater leniency shown to^ ward these Cameronian women, than toward this lady. Where- ever these rapacious rulers found wealthy presbyterians, their watchword, like that of one of Shakspere’s characters; was “ Down with them, fleece them,” and getting them once within their grasp, they did not quit their hold till they had stripped them of all, or of much that they possessed. These Cameronian women being without exception poor, no money could be extract- ed from them ; but Lady Colvill being a richer prey, the govern- ment had an eye upon her fine, and to squeeze from her the 5,000 merks, continued relentlessly to harass her. At their meeting on the 16th of April, the lords of his majesty’s privy council “ grant warrant to his majesty’s advocate, to raise a process be- fore the council, against the Lord Colvill and his mother for dis- orders and at the same meeting, they “ grant warrant to the clerks of the council to receive caution from the Lady Colvill for her re-entering prison within the tolbooth of Edinburgh when called, under the penalty of five thousand merks. ”|1 She appears ^ Register of Acts of Privy Council. t Ibid. || Ibid. t This was an oath abjuring a paper emitted by the society people entitled, “ The Apologetic Declaration and Admonitory Vindication of the True Presbyterians of the Church of Scotland, especially anent Intelligencers and Informers.'’ For a more particular account of this paper, and of the oath abjuring it, see notices of Margaret M'Lauchlan, and Margaret Wilson. 252 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. to have given bond for her appearance before the ccruncil on the 21st of April ; and the council, at their meeting on that day, con- tinue her liberty upon her again finding security, under the pen- alty contained in her former bond, to compear before his majesty’s high commissioner, upon the last Thursday of that month. Whether she appeared before the high commissioner on the day appointed, it is not said; but if she did, she does not appear to have given him the satisfaction which he required ; for the coun- cil, at their meeting of the 30th of April, “ gave order to Patrick Graham, captain of the town of Edinburgh’s company, to appre- hend her, and to see her re-entered prisoner within the tolbooth of Edinburgh.”* This is the last notice of Lady Colvill which we meet with in the records of the privy council. Whether the order was executed, or if it was, how long she continued in pris- on, we have not been able to ascertain. In reviewing these notices of Lady Colvill’s history, it is pleasing and interesting to find that severe as was the treatment which she experienced, it had no effect in inducing her to make any unworthy compliance in order to be set at liberty, or in order to obtain a relaxation of the severity of her imprisonment. She repeatedly petitioned the privy council, on one occasion, for a better room ; on another for a temporary release, on account of her bodily indisposition ; on another for a further prorogation of the term of her liberty ; but these favors she never asked on dis- honorable terms. Rather than do this, she was .prepared to suf- fer the slow and lingering torture of a prison — a proof how well established the principles of her faith were, and that she pos- sessed no small degree of Christian resolution. This is the more worthy of commendation, when the weak and sickly state of body to which she was reduced is considered. But whatever were her sufferings at the hands of men, the reflection that these were endured in the cause of Christ — that it was for her stead- fast adherence to him that she was denounced a rebel, intercom- muned, maligned as a fanatic, fined, and thrown into a dark and unwholesome prison, would yield her true satisfaction. She was honored to suffer for Christ, and under whatever pretexts she was persecuted, she was, doubtless, in the sight of Him who judgeth righteous judgment, found entitled to that benediction of the Sa- vior, “ Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad ; for great is your reward in heaven ; for so persecuted they the prophets which were be- fore you.” Register of Acts of Privy CouncU. LADY CAVERS. 263 CATHERINE RIGG, LADY CAVERS. Catherine Rigg was the eldest daughter of Thomas Rigg, of Aihernie, by his wife, Margaret Moneypenny, daughter of Moneypenny, of Pitmillie, Esq.* Her ancestors, on the father’s side, were distinguished for their ardent zeal and active labors in promoting both the first reformation from popery, and the sec- ond reformation from prelacy. Her paternal great-grandmother, Catherine Row, who w^as the eldest daughter of the celebrated Dr. John Row, minister of Perth, and the able coadjutor of our illustrious reformer, John Knox, is described by Mr. William Row, minister of Ceres, in speaking of the year 1587, when she could not have been more than between twenty and thirty years of age, as “ one of the most religious and wise matrons then in Edinburgh.” Her paternal great-grandfather, William Rigg, the husband of the lady now mentioned, was a wealthy merchant- burgess in Edinburgh, and a warm supporter of the Reformation, as well as a man of much moral and religious worth. f Her pa- ternal grandfather, William Rigg, the son of the preceding, and who, like his father, was a merchant in Edinburgh, was a man of eminent piety, uncommon benevolence, and great public spirit. He is said to have spent, yearly, not less than eight or nine thousand merks (about £350 sterling), for pious purposes.^: For his opposition to the introduction of the Perth articles by James YL, he was fined fifty thousand pounds Scots, and ordered to be imprisoned in the castle of Blackness till the fine was paid. He also took an active part in the proceedings of the covenanters against the court, in the reign of Charles I. He was, at one time, one of the bailies of Edinburgh, in which capacity, Mr. John Liv- ingstone says, he gave great evidence that he had the spirit of a magistrate beyond many, being a terror to all evil doers.” Having purchased the estate of Athernie, in Fife, he is often called in the annals of that period, William Rigg, of Athernie. * Lamont’s Diarj’’, p. 115, compared with Douglas’s Baronage of Scotland, p. 223. t Row’s History of the Kirk of Scotland, pp. 457, 469, 472. t He inherited considerable property from his father, to whom he was retoured heir, August 16, 1619, in various lands in Fife, Ross, and Cromai'ty, and in a tene- ment of land in the- burgh of Elgin. — Inquis. Retor. Abbrev. Fife, No. 293 ; Ross and Cromarty, No. 52 ; Elgin and Forres, No. 34, He was also very successful iu business. 22 254 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. He died on the 2d of January, 1644.^ The father of the subject of this notice, Thomas Rigg, was the eldest son, or the eldest surviving son of the preceding, as appears from his having been served heir to him in his extensive heritable property.! Of her father’s life we know much less than of her grandfather’s ; nor have we discovered the exact date of his death ; but it must have been previous to the year 1659, as her mother appears in that year as the wife of the celebrated Sir John Scot, of Scots- tarvet, who had been twice married before, and who died in 1670, in the 84th year of his age.J Of the early life of this lady no particulars have been preserv- ed. In March, 1659, she was married to Sir William Douglas, * See a notice of this excellent man prefixed to one of Rutherford’s Letters to him; Whyte and Kennedy’s edition, p. 216. t Thomas Kigg was retoured heir to his father, April 18, 1644, in various tene- ments in Edinburgh ; in the lands of Manualrig, Bowhouses, and Cromarland, or Manual-Foulis, in Stirlingshire; in lands in Ross, Cromarty, and Fife; and in a tenement within the burgh of Elgin. — Inquis Retor. Abbrev. Edinburgh, No. 920; Stirling, No. 180; Ross and Cromarty, No. 93. $ Lamont’s Diary, p. 115. Crawford, in his Genealogical Collections, gives the following particulars respecting the family of Rigg', of Athernie : “ William Rigg, bailie, of Athernie, a very good religious man, and an excessive rich merchant, pur- chased the estate of Athernie, in Fife, and other lands. He had a son by his wife, a Beatson, of the hou.se of Balf (Herald’s Office), and Janet, a daughter, who was married to Sir Walter Riddell, of that ilk, and had issue, Sir John, and Mr. Archi- bald ; another daughter, married to Mr. John Skene, of Halyards, had issue, &c. Second. [Thomas] Rige^, of Athernie, married [Margaret] Moneypenny, daughter of Money penn}’ of Pitmiilie, by Myrton, his wife, daughter of Myrton, of Cambo (Ibid.), had a s ni [William] and two daughters. Dame Catherine Rigg, who was married to Sir William Douglas, of Cavers ; and [Margaret] Rigg, her sister, who was married to George Scot, of Pitlochie, son to Sir John Scot, of Scotstarvet; [both] had issue. His lady, Pitmillie’s daughter, was the third wife of Sir John Scot, ot Scotstarvet, and had a son, [Walter] Scot, to whom he gave Edenshead, whose daughter and heir was married to Mr. Charles Erskine, brother to the earl of Buchan.” — MS. Folio, in Advocates’ Library. William Rigg, of Athernie, the brother of Lady Cavers, bad by his wife a son, William, and a daughter, Euphan, who, with their mother, both died at sea, in going out to East New Jersey, in America, with Mr. George Scot, of Pitlochie, in 1685. In that disastrous voyage, about seventy died by a malignant fever which broke out in the vessel, and the names of Lady Athernie, her daughter Euphan, and her son William, appear on a list of those who thus perished. — Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxvi., 4to., Nos. 65, 66 ; and vol. xxxiii., folio, No. 1 17. In the commissary records of Edinburgh, 24lh November, 1693, there is registered, *• The testament, dative and inventar, of the debts pertain- ing to umquhill William and Euphan Rigg, lawful children to the deceased Wil- liam Rigg, of Athernie, sometime residenters in Edinburgh, who deceased at sea, in a voj'^age to East Jersey, in the month of , 168 [5] years, faithfully made and given up by William and Sarah Rigg, lawful children to the deceased Mr. Walter Rigg, at Athelstaneford, and Patrick Hepburn, writer in Edinburgh, husband to the said Sarah, for his interest, Walter, Alexander, and Catharine Rigg, lawful children to the deceased James Rigg, merchant burgess of Edinburgh, only exec- utors datives, decerned as nearest of kin to the said defuncts, by decreet of the Commissars of Edinburgh, as the same of the date of the third day of May, 1693, in it- self at more lengthbears.” Lady Cavers’s sister, the wife of Mr. George Scot, of Pit- lochie, also died by the fever on the same voyage. LADY CAVERS. 255 of Cavers, younger. The circumstances in which their court- ship and marriage originated are thus recorded by Crawford, in his Genealogical Collections : “ I have heard that Sir William Douglas of Cavers applied to Sir John Scot, of Scotstarvet, to have borrowed from him the sum of 50,000 merks, that he want- ed to pay off some of his pressing debts. Sir John told him that he could not do it himself at present ; but there was a young gentlewoman at his house who had just as much portion, in ready money, as he wanted to borrow, and he did not know but both the lady and her portion might be at his service. From this hint Sir William made his application and addresses to Miss Catherine Rigg, and obtained the lady in marriage soon after that.”* Crawford adds, ‘‘ A mighty religious, good woman she was as any could be in her time.” Both Lady Cavers and Sir William, who was a man of prin- ciple, adhered to the cause of the ministers ejected in 1662 ;t by which they excited the resentment of the government. For refusing to take the declaration which abjured the national cove- nant, Sir William was removed from his office of sheriff of Te- viotdale, in which he stood infefted.J Fie and his wife also suf- fered when, on their children having so far advanced in years as to require a tutor, they selected one from among the students or preachers of the nonconformists. To intrust the education of youth in schools, in colleges, and in families of rank exclusively to such as conformed to prelacy, formed from the beginning, as we have seen before, || a leading part of the scheme of the govern- ment for establishing prelacy. And to enforce the laws enacted, in reference to this matter, a proclamation was issued by the privy council, on the 1st of March, 1676, forbidding all persons in future to entertain any schoolmaster, pedagogue, or chaplain, for performance of family worship, who had not license to that effect under the hands ojf the respective bishops of their diocese, * MS. folio in Advocates’ Library. t Tbe minister of Cavers, Mr. James Gillon, was among the number of the ejected ministers. He died in 1688. The circumstances connected with his death are thus recorded by Kirkton : “ Another act of cruelty they [the government] committed at this time [at the time when James Mitchell attempted the assassination of Arch- bishop Sharp], was: upon pretence of searching for the bishop’s assassinat, they seized Mr. James Gillon, late minister at Cavers, and made him run on foot from Currie (whither he had retired for his health), to the west port of Edinburgh at midnight, and then [he] was carried to prison: and when the council found the mis- take, they did indeed suffer him to go to his chamber; but his cruel usage disor- dered him so that within two days he died.” — History of the Church of Scotland, p. 284. X Register of Acts of Privy Council, 25th July, 1684. 11 See Notice of Lady Colvill, pp. 247, 248. 256 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. under the penalty of three thousand merks to be exacted for each nobleman, and twelve hundred merks for each gentleman, and six hundred merks for a burgess or any other subject, for each such offence, as they should be found guilty in the premises. But the family of Cavers, having, in disregard of this proclamation, kept with them Mr. James Osburn, a presbyterian student or preacher, as tutor to their children, letters v/ere raised at the instance of Sir John Nisbet, his majesty’s advocate, charging Sir William with having “ ever since the date of the said proclamation, and contrary to the duty and loyalty incumbent upon, and required of good subjects, entertained, reset, and countenanced Mr. James Osburn, as a schoolmaster, or pedagogue, or as his chaplain, at the least for performance of family worship, albeit he be a per- son not licensed nor authorized under the hand of the bishop of the diocese, to that effect ; . . . whereby the said Sir William Doug- las of Cavers, hath directly contravened the tenor of the said act of parliament, and the said proclamation, and thereby not only incurred the pains and penalties therein contained, but ought to exhibit and produce to his majesty’s privy council the person of the said Mr. James [Osburn].” By these letters he w^s charged to compear personally before the privy council on the 3d of Au- gust, 1676, to answer to the foresaid complaint, and to hear and see such order taken thereanent, as appertained, under pain of re- bellion, (fee. Sir William not having appeared at the bar of the council, in obedience to the summons, the council “ ordained let- ters to be directed to messengers-at-arms, to denounce him his majesty’s rebel, and put him to the horn, and to escheat, f the way from France to Holland, knew him. LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 439 personal friendship of that prince, who, looking on him as a confessor for the protestant religion and the liberties of his country, treated him with a very particular respect, he judged it ex]5edient to continue to keep up his assumed character as a medical gentleman. After his arrival in that country, he sent to his lady his narrative of Argyll’s expedition, formerly referred to, which is written in the form of a letter to her, and which, though it was written in Scotland, he had not found, while there, a convenient opportunity of sending to her. This narrative he begins as follows : — “ My dear Heart Since I can have small hope of seeing you any more, or enjoying the pleasure of conversing with you, a thing wherein as now I more than ever discern my happiness on this earth did much consist, not knowing how long God will preserve me from the hands of mine enemies, who hunt earnestly after my life, have set a rate upon my head, and done otherwise what they can to cut off from me all ways of escaping their fury ; I found myself obliged, on many accounts, public and my own, to spend some time, in giving to the nation, and my friends and my family, some account of the matters I have of late had hand in, and of myself ; that the affair chiefly, many worthy persons therein concerned, and I, may not by ignorant, or false representations, be prejudged or discredited ; and there is none to whom I can address it so duly as you, or so safely ; for though this mock par- liament have made it, by their forfaulting me, very dangerous for others, yet you may with somewhat more safety receive a letter from me ; also none will take so much care of dispersing the contents as I think you will ; besides that there is none I can be more obliged to satisfy than you by it ; and for these purposes I recommend it to your care and discretion.”! Sir Patrick’s estate having been forfeited to the crown, Grisell, after he had left the country, went to London, by sea, with her mother ; whose object, in undertaking that journey, was to en- deavor to obtain from government an allowance out of her hus- band’s estate, for herself and her ten children. They waited long in London, and were assisted in their endeavors by many good “ This paper was addressed to his wife from Holland — Note, in Rose’s Obser- vations in Fox's History. There is a second copy of this Narrative, apparently in the handwriting of Alexander, earl of Marchmont, which is headed as follows: — •Letter to D. Gii elle Kar, from her husband, Sir Patrick Hume, in anno 1685, WTyten froin Kilwinning, where he lurked at the time, by the kind favor of Lady Montgomerie. -sister to the earl of Eglinton. and spouse of Dunbar, youngey of Baldoon, taken from a copy wry ten of his own hand, which is yet amongst his papers.’ ” — Note of Editor of The Marchmont Papers, t The Marchmont Papers, vol. iii., p. 2. 440 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. friends, from whom they met with much kindness and ciyh^y, as Lord William Russell’s family, Lord Wharton’s, and others, but all she could obtain was, according to Lady Murray, only about one hundred and fifty pounds per annum.* This matter being settled, they returned to Scotlaiid to prepare for going over to Holland to Sir Patrick, who sent for them, and they all went over together, with the exception of Grisell’s sister, Julian, whose ill health unfitted her for such a journey. Grisell afterward re- turned from Holland by herself, to bring over Julian, when her health was in some measure recruited, to join the rest of the family. She was at the same time intrusted with the manage- ment of some of her father’s business, and got instructions to collect as much of the debts due to him as possible. All this she performed with her usual discretion and success, though not without encountering adventures that would have completely overwhelmed the resources of most young ladies of her age and rank” in our day. Her sister Julian was still so very weak, as to require the attendance of a nurse during the whole of the voyage, which happened to be very tedious, and in which they encountered a severe storm, the terrors of which were aggravated by the brutality of the captain of the vessel. Grisell had bar- gained for the cabin bed, and was very well provided in provis- ions and other necessary things. Three or four other ladies had also agreed with the captain for the same bed ; and a dispute arose between these ladies in the cabin, as to who should have the bed, in which, however, Grisell took no part, and a gentleman present bade her let the disputants settle the matter between them ; for, said he, “ You will see how it will end.” Two of the ladies went into the cabin bed, and the rest found a bed as they best could ; while Grisell and her sister lay upon the floor, with a bag of books, which she was carrying to her father, for their pillow. They had not lain long, when the captain of the vessel coming down to the cabin, voraciously devoured their whole provisions. He then said to the two ladies in the cabin bed, “ Turn out, turn out and, stripping before them, lay down in the bed himself. But a terrible storm arising, which required his attendance and labor on deck to save the ship, he had soon to rise, and they saw no more of him till they landed at the Brill. * Sir Patrick’s estate was afterward, by the king’s letter, dated of 1686, gifted to Kenneth, earl of Seaforih, under several reservations mentioned, one of which was, that he be “ bound to pay the young Lady Pol warth’s jointure, conform to her contract of marriage with the said Sir Patrick Hume, and the additional join- ture thereafter granted unto her ; both extending to three thousand merks Scots money,” that is, <£166, 13s., 4d., sterling. — The Marchmont Papers, vol. iii., p. 67. LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 441 From the Brill they set out the same night, on foot, for Rotterdam, ki company with a gentleman who came over at the same time, to take refuge in Holland from the persecution which was raging in Scotland, and who was of great service to them. The night was cold, wet, and disagreeable, and the roads were very bad ; Julian, in consequence of her previous ill health, and being only a girl, was not well able to travel, and soon lost her shoes in the mud, upon which Grisell carried her on her back the rest of the way, the gentleman kindly carrying their small luggage. 0-n arriving at Rotterdam, they found their eldest brother Patrick and their father waiting for them, to convey them to Utrecht, where the family resided ; and no sooner did she reach home, than, in the midst of her beloved parents, sisters, and brothers, she forgot all her hardships, and felt the utmost contentment and happiness. They lived three years and half in Holland, and, during that time, Grisell made a second voyage to Scotland, about her father’s worldly affairs. Her father, to escape detection, did not stir abroad, and, as has been previously said, still continued to assume the character of a surgeon, passing under the name of Dr. Wallace ; though it was well known, by the Scottish exiles and their friends, who he was. Finding their greatest comfort at home, and their house being a place of constant resort to the presbyterian refu- gees, of whom at that time, there was a great number in PIol- land, they were particularly desirous of having a good house ; and they rented one at nearly a fourth part of their whole annual income. From the smallness of their income, they could not afford to keep a servant, having only, besides themselves, a little girl to wash the dishes ; so that the duties of the kitchen, and, indeed, the management of the whole household establishment, devolved on Grisell ; for which, from her active and industrious habits, she was well qualified, and by which she proved a great blessing to her parents, brothers, and sisters. During the whole time of their residence in Holland, a week did not pass in which she did not sit up two nights engaged in some necessary house- hold occupation. “ She went to market, went to the mill to have their corn ground, which it seems is the way with good mana- gers there, dressed the linen, cleaned the house, made ready the dinner, mended the children’s stockings and other clothes, made what she could for them, and, in short, did everything.” Her sister Christian, who was a year or two younger, had no turn for business, but had good talents for music, and was full of vivacity and humor. Out of their small income, her parents bought, at a 442 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. triffing price, a harpsichord, which turned out to be an excellent instrument; and in the musical. performances of Christian, who both played and sung well, her father and mother, and the rest of the family, who were fond of music, found an agreeable relax- ation in their vacant hours. Griselidhad the same talents for music as her sister, and was equally fond of it ; but the manage- ment of household affairs devolving on her, she had less leisure far indulging in that amusement. The performance of these domes- tic offices was to her, however, a labor of love ; and so far was she from envying or upbraiding her sister, who was exempted from the toil and drudgery to which she had to submit, that many jokes used to pass between them about their different occupa- tions. Nor had she any good ground for wishing to exchange occupations with her sister. “ ‘ It is more blessed to minister, than to be ministered unto,’ said the most perfect character that ever appeared in the human form. Could any young person, of ever such a listless and idle disposition, not entirely debased by selfishness, read of the different occupations of Lady Grigell Baillie and this sister of hers, nearly of her own age, whose time was mostly spent in reading or playing on a musical instrument, and wish, for one moment, to have been the last-mentioned lady, rather than the other ?”* Every morning, before six o’clock, Grisell lighted her father’s fire in his study, after which she awoke him, for he was always a good sleeper ; a blessing, among others, which she inherited from him. She then prepared for him warm small beer, with a spoonful of bitters in it — a beverage which he continued to take every morningj as soon as he got up, during the whole of his life. She next got the children dressed, and brought them all into his room ; where he taught them the different branches of education, the Latin, French, or Dutch lan- guages, geography, writing, reading, or English, according to their ages ; and his lady taught them such departments of learn- ing, and such accomplishments, as belong to the province of the female teacher. In this useful and interesting way, were Sir Patrick Hume and his lady employed during the whole period of their residence in Holland ; their outward circumstances be- ing such, that they could not afford to put their children to school. Grisell, when she had some spare time, took a lesson with the rest in French and Dutch, and also amused herself with music. ‘‘ I have now,” says her daughter. Lady Murray, “ a book of songs, of her writing, when there ; many of them are interrupted, half writ, some broke off in the middle of a sentence.” Joanna Bailiie's Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters, Preface, p. xxxii. LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 443 Whether this collection, which is probably now lost, consisted of songs altogether of her own composition or not, it is not said. But a song of her composition, which affords a favorable speci- men, of her talents in this species of writing, has been long in print, viz. : ‘‘Were na my heart licht I wad dee,” and it may gratify the reader to see a copy of it here : — ■ There was ance a may, and she loo’d na men, She big-git her bonny bower down in yon glen ; But now she cries dool ! and a-well-a-day ! Come down the green gate, and come here away. But now she cries, &c. “ When bonny young Johnny came o’er the sea, He said he saw naething sae lovely as me ; He hecht me baith rings and mony braw things ; And were na my heart licht I wad dee. He hecht me, &c. “ He had a wee titty that loo’d na me. Because I was twice as bonny as she ; She raised such- a pother ’twixt him and his mother. That were na my heart licht I wad dee. She raised, &c. “ The day it was set and the bridal to be, Tfepe wife took a dwam, and lay down to dee ; She mained and she grained out o’ dolour and pain, Till he vowed he never wad see me again. She mained, &c. “ His kin was for ane o’ a higher degree, Said, What had he to do with the like of me ? Albeit 1 was bonny, 1 was nae for Johnny : And were na my heart licht I wad dee. Albeit I was bonny, &c. ^ “ They said I had, neither cow nor calf, Nor dribbles o’ drink riiis throw the dralF, Nor pickles o’ meal rins throw the mill-ee : And were na my heart licht I wad dee. Nor pickles, &c. “ His titty she was baith wylie and slee, She spied me as I came o’er the lea ; And then she ran in and made a loud din : Believe your ain een, an ye trow na me. And then she ran in, &c. “His bonnet stood aye fu’ round on his brow ; His auld ane looked as weel as some’s new ; But now he lets t’ wear ony gate it will hing, And casts himself dowie upon the corn bing. But now he, &c. “ And now he gaes daundrin about the dykes. And a’ he dow do is to hund the tykes ; The live-lang nicht he ne’er steeks his e’e ; And were na my heart licht I wad dee. 444 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. *' Were I young for thee, as I ha’e been, W e should ha’e been gallopin down on yon green, And linkin it blytbe on the lily-white lee ; And wow gin I were but young for thee ! And linkin it, “ This/’ as has been justly said by a writer in the Scots Mag- azine, “ is very good ; at once simple, lively, and tender.”! The same writer expresses a hope that the book of songs in Grisell’s handwriting, to which Lady Murray refers as being in her possession, may yet be recovered, and that it might afford further specimens of her poetical talents ; or, if not altogether of her own composition, might furnish some Valuable additions to the lyric treasures by which Scotland has been so peculiarly dis- tinguished. He then adds, “We are enabled to subjoin one unpub- lished fragment of this description — supposed to be Lady Grisell’s composition, from circumstantial evidence. It was lately discover- ed, in her handwriting, among a parcel of old letters, and enclosed in one of them, written about the time of her father’s forfeiture, to her brother Patrick, then serving with Mr. Baillie in the prince of Orange’s guards. The first two of the stanzas are copied from this MS. The others (in brackets) are subjoined, as an imper- fect attempt to complete the song in a similar style, but with a more direct reference to the situation of Lady Grisell and the family of Pol war th at that disastrous period.” “ O the ewe bughting’s bonnie, baith e’euing and morn, When our blytbe shepherds play on their bog-reed and hora ; While we ’re milking they ’re lilting baith pleasant and clear — But my heart ’s like to break when I think of my. dear ! “ O the shepherd take pleasure to blow on the horn, To raise up their flocks o’ sheep soon i’ the mom ; On the bonnie green banks they feed pleasant and free — But, alas ! my dear heart, all my sighing’s for thee ! “ [How blythe wi’ my Sandy out o’er the brown fells, I ha’e followed the flocks through the fresh heather-bells ! But now I sit greeting amang the lang broom, In the dowie green cleuchs whare the burnie glides down. O wae to the traitors ! an’ black be their fa’, Wha banished my kind-hearted shepherd aw a ! Wha banished my laddie ayont the wide sea, That aye was sae lael to his country and me. “ But the cruel oppressors shall tremble for fear. When the true-blue and orange in triumph appear ; And the star of the east leads them o’er the dark sea, Wi’ freedom to Scotland, and Sandy to me.”]J * Uitson’s Scottish Songs, voi. i., p. 128 ; and Chambers’s Scottish Songs, vol. ii., p. 321. t Scots Magazine, New Series, for 1818, pp. 35, 36. J Ibid., pp. 435, 436. LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 445 From these lively specimens of Grisell’s lyric compositions, as well as from the whole of the preceding narrative, it was evi- dent that, in addition to her other good qualities, she was char- acterized by a buoyant animation of spirit, combined with a guile- lessness of soul which gave a great charm to her character, and made her universally beloved. In her history, and, indeed, in that of all her family, whose good humor and harmless pleasant- ry made their society so agreeable^ and so greatly courted, we perceive how erroneously presbytery and the covenant have often been represented as deadly enemies to innocent hilarity, and our presbyterian ancestors as the personification of austerity and mo- roseness. To her eldest brother Patrick, who was nearest to her own age, and who was brought up with her, Grisell was more strong- ly attached than to her other brothers or sisters. He and George Baillie (the son of Robert Baillie the martyr), her future hus- band, who was deprived of his father’s estate which had been for- feited, and who was then in Holland, having been also obliged to take refuge in exile, served for some time as privates in the prince of Orange’s guards, till more honorable and lucrative sit- uations were provided for them in the army, which was done be- fore the revolution. Grisell, who was always very neat in her own dress, felt an honest pride in seeing her brother neat and clean in his ; and it being the fashion, in those days, to wear lit- tle point cravats and cuffs, she sat up many a night to have them and his linens in as good order for him as any in the place. His dress was, indeed, one of the heaviest items in their expenses. Narrow and precarious as was the income of Sir Patrick and his family, they were distinguished for their kind-hearted hospi- tality. His house, as has been said before, was much frequented by such of his countrymen, as, like himself, had taken refuge from persecution in Holland. And seldom did the family sit down to dinner, without having three, four, or five, of these refugees with them to partake of their humble repast. But Providence so re- markably blessed them in their basket and in their store, that they wanted for nothing which they really needed. And virtue being associated with adversity, they felt contentment and hap- piness ; a state of mind which was much promoted by their con- trasting the comfortable retreat they had found on a foreign shore, with the suffering condition of many of their presbyterian friends at home. ‘‘ Many a hundred times,” says Lady Murray, speak- ing of her mother, “ I have heard her say, she could never look back upon their manner of living there, without thinking it a mir- 38 446 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. acle ; they had no want, but plenty of everything they desired, and much contentment, and [she] always declared it [to be] the most pleasant part of her life ; though they were not without their lit- tle distresses; but to them they were rather jokes than griev- ances.” Sir Patrick being a scholar, the professors and learned men of Utrecht were often visitants at his house, and the best entertainment he could give them was a glass of alabaster beer, which was a kind of ale better than the common. In exile, he continued to watch over the state of affairs in Scot- land, and discovered in William, prince of Orange, of whose talents and character he entertained the highest admiration, the future deliverer of his country. He had penetration enough to see, that the object aimed at in James YII.’s schemes of tolera- tion for dissenters, was under the disguise of benefiting them, to afford relief to papists, and ultimately to pave the way for the establishment of popery. Accordingly, in June, 1668, he ad- dressed from Utrecht a well-written and powerfully-reasoned letter, to his friend Sir William Denholm, who had been in Ar- gyll’s expedition, to be communicated to the presbyterian minis- ters of Scotland, to put them on their guard against an insidious plan which was in agitation, to induce them to petition in favor of King James’s deceptive measure for a toleration. “ All I shall add,” says he in the close, is to wish protestants to see to it and not to be gulled by their enemies, not to misjudge their friends, and to be ever ready to do or to suffer, as God shall call them to it, for their interests of so high moment : pro Chruto et palria dulce periculurn,'^’’* At length the time of Britain’s deliverance drew near. James YII. having, by his violent and infatuated policy to establish ar- bitrary power and popery in England, roused the indignation of the English people, William, prince of Orange, to save the lib- erties of Britain, made preparations for invading it. Grisell’s father shared in the counsels of William ; and, along with his son Patrick and George Baillie, accompanied him in his enter- prise when the fleet was ready to sail. As was natural, she and the rest of the family felt deeply interested in the success of this undertaking. At first they were afflicted with anxious and mis- giving thoughts as to the issue, when William’s whole, fleet was scattered and driven back by a violent tempest. Having heard of this melancholy news, she herself, her mother, and her sister, “ immediately came from Utrecht to Helvoetsluys, to get what information they could. The place was so crowded by people ^ The Marchmont Papers, vol. iii., p. 98. LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 447 from all quarters, come for tlie same purpose, that her mother, she, and her sister, were forced to lie in the boat they came in ; and, for three days continually, to see coming floating in, beds, chests, horses, &c., that had been thrown overboard in their dis- tress. At the end of the’ third day, the prince, and some other ships came in ; but no account of the ship their friends were in. Their despair was great, but in a few days was relieved by their coming in safe, but with the loss of all their baggage, which, at that time, was no small distress to them.”* When the fleet, on the damage made being repaired, set out again, the solicitude of Grisell, her mother, and the rest of the family, for its success, was more intense than ever. To hear of those embarked having safely landed in England, was the great- est joy they could picture to their minds. Of this they had soon the satisfaction of hearing ; but the joy which such tidings, in ordinary circumstances, would have given them, was swallowed up by the sorrow into which they were plunged by the unex- pected loss of Grisell’s sister, Christian, who, on the very day on which the welcome news reached them, died suddenly of a sore throat, caught from her exposure in the damp, open boat, at Helvoetsluys. To Grisell, who was of strong and tender affec- tions, the loss of “ the sister of her heart” was a great affliction. When that happy news came,” says Lady Murray, “ it was no more to my mother than any occurrence she had not the least concern in ; for that very day her sister Christian died of a sore throat ; which was so heavy an affliction to both her and her mother, that they had no feeling for anything else ; and,” adds Lady Murray, “ often have I heard her say she had no notion of any other cause of sorrow but the death and affliction of those she loved ; and of that she was sensible to her last, in the most tender manner. She had endured many hardships, without being depressed by them ; on the contrary, her spirits and activity in- creased the more she had occasion for them ; but the death of her friends was always a load too heavy for her.” Happily, the prince of Orange’s undertaking was crowned with success. In England, all parties rallied around him — a very merciful providence for Scotland, which, wasted by a per- secution of twenty-eight years, was now lying under the iron wheel of despotism, crushed in spirit, and more hopeless of de- liverance, in so far as her own intrinsic power was concerned, than at any previous period of her history. But England, in saving herself, saved Scotland. When matters were all settled * Lady Murray's Narrative- 448 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. in England, GriselFs brothers and sisters were sent home to Scotland, under the care of a friend ; while she herself and her mother came over with the princess of Orange to London. The princess, now about to ascend the British throne, attracted by the engaging character and the peculiarly prepossessing personal appearance of Grisell,* wished to retain her near her person, as one of her maids of honor. But though this was a situation for which Grisell was well qualified, and to which many of her age would have been proud to have been elevated, she declined the appointment, preferring to go home with the rest of her family. The reader has already been informed of the youthful attach- ment which sprung up between her and George Baillie, within the walls of his father’s prison ; and also that Baillie was a refu- gee in Holland at the time when she and her father’s family were resident in that country. In their exile, their affection for each other increased, and they had their marriage always in view ; though, from the circumstances in which they were then placed, neither of them having a shilling, they deemed it unwise to make known their intentions to her parents, and were at no small pains to conceal their mutual passion from them. In the midst of her parents’ troubles, she had offers of marriage from two gentlemen of fortune and good character, in her own neighborhood, in Scot- land, who had done nothing to incur the resentment of the gov- ernment ; and her parents, thinking these to be favorable oppor- tunities for her comfortable settlement in life, pressed her to marry one or other of these gentlemen. “ She earnestly rejected both, but without giving any reason for it, though her parents suspected it ; and it was the only thing in which she ever dis- pleased or disobeyed them. These gentlemen were intimate and sincere friends to Mr. Baillie and her to the day of their death, and often said to them both she had made a much better choice in him ; for they made no secret of having made their addresses to her. Her parents were ever fond of George Baillie, and he was always with them. So great an opinion had they of him. Her personal appearance is thus described by her daughter: “She was middle’ sized, well made, clever in her person, very handsome, with a life and sweetness in her eyes very uncommon, and great delicacy in all her features ; her hair was chest- nut ; and, to her last, had the finest complexion, with the clearest red in her cheeks and lips that could be seen in one of fifteen, which, added to her natural constitu- tion, might be owing to the great moderation she had in her diet throughout her whole life.” Lady Murray adds: “ Pottage and milk was her greatest feast, and by choice she preferred them to everything, though nothing came wrong to her that others could eat. Water she preferred to any liquor, and though often obliged to take a glass of wine, she always did it unwillingly, thinking it hurt her, and did not like it.” LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 449 that he was generally preferred to any other, and trusted to go out with her, and take care of her, when she had any business to do. They had no objection but the circumstances he was in ; which had no weight with her, for she always hoped things would turn out at last as they really did ; and, if they did not, she was resolved not to marry at all.” Having, after the revolution, been put in possession of his father’s estatej which had been gifted to the duke of Gordon, Baillie made known to her parents the engagement between him and her ; and they were married at Redbraes castle, on September 17, 1692. At that time, her father (his political and personal troubles being now over) was in high favor with King William, and was enjoying in security that wealth and honor to which his sufferings in the cause of religion and liberty so well entitled him.* The fruits of GriselFs marriage with George Baillie were a son, Robert, born- January 23, 1694, who died young ; and two daughters — Grisell, who was married August 26, 1710, to Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope, Bart., M. P., and died without issue, June 6, 1759, aged sixty-seven ; and Rachel, born Febru- ary 23, 1696, married to Charles, Lord Binning (eldest son of Thomas, sixth earl of Haddington), and mother of Thomas, sev- enth earl of Haddington, George Baillie of Jerviswood, and other children.! Lady Grisell’s marriage with Mr. Baillie was unusually happy. She indeed proved to him, in the words of the poet — “ A guardian angel o’&i' his life presiding, Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.*’ * On the new order of things introduced at the revolution, he was nominated a member of the new privy council in Scotland, and in December, 1690, was created a Scottish peer by the title of Lord Polwarth. In 1692, he was appointed principal sheriff of Berwickshire, and, in 1693, one of the four extraordinary lords of session. In 1696, he was made lord chancellor of Scotland, the highest office in that king- dom ; in less than a year after, he was created earl of Marchmont; and, in 1698, he was appointed lord hig^h commissioner to represent Uie king’s person in the session of parliament which met at Edinburgh in July that year. It is interesting to know that, in prosperity, this nobleman did not forget those who had befriended him in adver- sity. “ There is a family tradition which relates that, being obliged, in consequence cf political persecution, to quit Redbraes house and cross the country, a little above Greenlaw, he met with a man of the name of Broomfield, the miller of Greenlaw mill, who was repairing a slap or breach in the mill-caul. Sir Patrick, addressing h m by the occupation in which he was engaged, said, ‘ Slap, have you any money V upon whicVi Broomfield supplied him with what was considered necessary for his pt-e.sent exigency. Sir Patrick, it is added, was obliged to pass over into Holland ; but when he came back with King William, did not forget his former benefactor in need. It is not stated what return he made him, but the family was settled in a free house as long as they lived, and ever after retained the name of Slap '' — New Sta- tistical Account of Scotland. t Douglas’s Peerage, vol. ii., p. 81. 38 * 450 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Equally ardent and tender was his affection toward her, in whom he found combined the qualities of the “ virtuous woman” whom Solomon’s mother so happily describes, and whose “ price is far above rubies.” On her he left the sole charge of domestic af- fairs, and even in reference to matters of graver importance he placed great confidence in her judgment. “ None could better judge,” says her daughter, “ than herself, what was most proper to be done upon any occasion ; of which my father was so con- vinced, that I have good reason to believe he never did anything of consequence through his whole life without asking her advice. She had a quickness of apprehension and sagacity that generally hit upon the fittest things to be done.” Her daughter adds : “ Though she had a quick and ready wit, yet she spoke little in company, but where she was quite free and intimate. . She used often to wonder at a talent she met with in many, that could entertain their company with numberless words, and yet say nothing.” In 1703, Lady Baillie lost her dear mother, who died at Edin- burgh, October 11, that year. On her dying bed, her mother, who retained her judgment to the last, was surrounded by all her children. At this scene. Lady Baillie, in the agony of her grief, had hid herself behind the curtain of the bed, so that her mother, in looking round upon them all, did not see her, upon which she said, “ Where is Grisell ?” Lady Baillie immediately came near her mother, who, taking her by the hand, said, “ My dear Grisell, blessed be you above all, for a helpful child have you been to me.” — “ I have often heard my mother,” says Lady Murray, “ tell this in floods of tears, which she was always in when she spoke of her mother at all.” Great was the sorrow of the earl of March- mont, and of the> Avhole family, on the death of this excellent wife and mother. During life, she had experienced great variety in her outward condition. But, in every situation, she was distin- guished by unpretending piety and unspotted virtue, united with great sweetness, composure, and equanimity of temper. So well disciplined had been her mind by adversity, that, when exalted to wealth and honor, none of her acquaintances, from the highest to the lowest, ever found that these had created any change in the temper of her mind. To her virtues and amiable qualities her husband has borne a very affecting testimony in an inscrip- tion he wrote on her bible, which he gave to his daughter. Lady Baillie : — “ Grisell Lady Marchmont, her book. To Lady Grisell Hume, Lady Jerviswood, my beloved daughter. My heart, in remem- LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 451 brance of your mother, keep this bible, which is what she ordi- narily made use of. She had been happy of a religious and vir- tuous education, by the care of virtuous and religious parents. She was of a middle stature, of a plump, full body ; a clear, ruddy complexion ; a grave, majestic countenance ; a composed, steady, and mild spirit ; of a most firm and equal mind, never elevated by prosperity, nor debased or daunted by adversity. She was a wonderful stay and support to me in our exile and trouble, and an humble and thankful partaker with me in our more prosperous condition ; in both which, by the blessing of God, she helped much to keep the balance of our deportment even. She was constant and diligent in the practice of religion and virtue, a care- ful observer of worship to God, and of her duties to her husband, her children, her friends, her neighbors, her tenants, and her ser- vants : so that it may justly be said, her piety, probity, virtue, and prudence, were without a blot or stain, and beyond reproach. As by the blessing of God she had lived well, so by his mercy, in the time of her sickness and at her death, there appeared many convincing evidences that the Lord took her to the enjoyment of endless happiness and bliss. She died, October 11, 1703, at Edinburgh, and was buried in my burying-place, near the Canon- gate church, where I have caused mark out a grave for myself close by hers, upon the left side, in the middle of the ground. ‘‘ Marchmont.” From her tender years. Lady Baillie had been a constant help and support to her father’s family ; and even after she became the mother of a family herself, she was still useful to them in many respects. From the time that her brother Alexander, Lord Polwarth, went abroad in 1716 (in consequence of his appoint- ment, the year before, to be envoy extraordinary to the courts of Denmark and Prussia), and all the time he was at Copenhagen and Cambray, she had the whole management of his affairs, and the care of the education of his children. It may also be men- tioned, as an evidence of the care she continued to take of her father, that, during the last years of his life, which he passed at Berwick-upon-Tweed, she went to Scotland every alternate year to see him ; and the infirmities of old age unfitting him for taking the trouble of looking after his own affairs, she examined and settled his steward’s accounts, which were often long and intri- cate. ‘‘Very unlike too many married women,” says Joanna Baillie, “ who, in taking upon them the duties of a wife and mother, suffer these to absorb every other ; and visit their father’s 452 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. house seldom, and as a stranger, who has nothing to do there but to be served and waited upon. If misfortune or disease come upon their parents, it is the single daughters only who seem to be concerned in all this. She who is a neglectful daughter, is an attentive wife and mother from a mean cause.”* When in London, Lady Baiilie regularly wrote every other post to her father, or to her sister, Lady Julian, who then lived with him, and watched over his declining years with affectionate care ; sent him the newspapers, and any new book or pamphlet which she thought would interest him. Amid the infirmities of old age, the good man retained all the kindly cheerfulness of his earlier days ; and this made his society delightful to the youngest of his descendants — the means both of improvement and of enjoyment. To join the useful with the agreeable in social intercourse, and indeed in the whole business of life, was a principle upon which he seems studiously to have acted ; and hence the device which is constantly found in his books and manuscripts : — “ ‘ Omne tulit punctura, qui miscuit utile dulci.’ H. D. A.^’t Even on his death-bed he could not resist his old propensity to joking. Sitting by his bedside, not many hours before he ex- pired, Lord Binning observed him smiling, and said, “ My lord, what are you laughing at?” To which the dying earl answered, “ I am diverted to think what a disappointment the worms will meet with, when they come to me, expecting a good meal, and find nothing but bones !” He was much emaciated in body, and indeed he had always been a thin, clever man. None of his family were then in Scotland, except his daughter Lady Julian, who attended him, and his son-in-law. Lord Binning, who no sooner heard from Lady Julian of her father’s illness, than he hastened to visit him, and continued with him till his death. He expired without a groan, and seemed to rejoice in the prospect of his departure. Lady Baiilie had not the satisfaction of seeing him under his last illness. On hearing of his death,j; she was deeply affected, though, from his advanced age, it was an event which could hardly take her by surprise. She met with another domestic affliction, which she deeply felt, in the death of the amiable and accomplished Lord Bin- Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters, p. 270. t The last three letters are a contraction for Horace's “ De Arte Poetica." Some- times he writes the quotation more briefly, thus : — “ ‘ Omne tiilit punctum.’ H D. A.” — The Marchmont Papers. t He died in 1724, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. LADY BAILLIE OF JERVIS WOOD. 453 ning,* the husband of her daughter Rachel, in 1733. Having fallen into ill health, he went to Italy, for the benefit of the cli- mate, and, having lived at Naples for some time, he died there on January 30, that year, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, hav- ing borne his sufferings with the utmost patience, resignation, and even cheerfulness and good humor. To this nobleman she was as strongly attached as if he had been her own child, and she and her whole family accompanied him to Italy. They re- sided in Naples about sixteen months. On the death of Lord Binning, they went to Oxford, for the education of his children,! Thomas, afterward seventh earl of Haddington, and his two brothers. For Lord Binning’s chil- dren, Lady Baillie had a strong affection. She was not without ambition of their rising to distinction in the world, “ and omitted nothing she could devise to further them this way ; but yet, whenever she spoke about them, the great thing she expressed herself with most concern about was that they might become virtuous and religious men.”! While resident in Oxford, she met with a trial, in the death of Mr. Baillie, which, perhaps, inflicted a heavier blow on her heart than any of the past afflictions of her life. He died there, on sabbath, August 6, 1738, after an illness of only forty-eight hours, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He had lived an eminently pious and exemplary life, and his latter end was peace. During the whole time of his illness, he was employed in breath- ing out prayers to his God and Savior, for his own salvation, and that of his family. He departed with a calm, serene countenance, and v^^ith scarce a groan. His body was sent home to be interred in his own burying-place, at Mellerstain ; attended, according to his own orders, which Lady Baillie was careful to have exe- cuted, only by his near relations, near neighbors, and his own tenants. Under this bereavement, it was difficult for her to bear up. From the peculiar tenderness of her feelings, she was al- ways extremely susceptible to the emotions of sorrow on the loss of friends. But when, in her old age, she was bereft of the ex- cellent companion to whom she had been so long united, whom * Like Lady Baillie, Lord Binning possessed an elegant talent for song-writing. He was the author of Pastoral Ballads. His ballad beginning “Did ever swain a nymph adore,” has long been well known. — Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i , p. 684. Rit- Bon’s Collection of Scottish Songs, vol. i., p. 73. t He had “committed and recommended to Mr. Baillie’s care the education of his children, and said he needed give no directions about it, since he was to do it. What he wished most earnestly was to have them good and hoaest men, which be knew would also be Mr. Baillie’s chief care.” — Lady Murray’s Narrative. X Lady Murray’s Narrative. 454 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. she called “ the best of husbands, and delight of my life for forty- eight years and as to whom she often declared, “ that they never had a shadow of a quarrel or misunderstanding, no, not for a mo- ment it is not surprising that she was almost overwhelmed by the stroke, and that hers was a sorrow which could not altogether be assuaged on this side of the grave. The account which Lady Murray gives of her mother’s sorrow under this loss is very touching. ‘‘ When she lost him, her affliction was so great that it threw her into a dangerous fit of illness, which, with joy, she would have allowed herself to sink under, had she not thought her life was still necessary for the happiness of her family ; as Sir Alexander Murray then threatened, by long letters writ to us, to give us a great deal of trouble and disturbance, which could not well take place unless he outlived her. . . . She stayed near two years longer at Oxford, as long as it was thought fit for her grandsons, though the most melancholy, disagreeable place she could be in, far from friends, and no business to amuse, or take off her thoughts from her heavy loss ; so that the sedentary life she led, which she had never been used to, again threw her into a long and dangerous fit of illness, in which her life was despaired of by every one.” And after stating that her mother and the whole family came, in 1740, to London, and thence immediately to Scotland, Lady Murray adds, “ Everything at home so continu- ally renewed her grief, that scarce a day passed without her bursting out in tears ; though she did her utmost to command her- self, not to give us pain, yet it often overcame her One day, looking round and admiring the beauties of the place, she checked herself, burst out in tears, and said, ‘ What is all this to me, since your father does not see and enjoy it !’ Such re- flections she often had, and neither amusements nor business could put them out of her thoughts. As I almost always put her to bed, I can declare I never saw her lie down but with a deep groan, and generally tears, not soon to be pacified ; nor could she be persuaded to take another room, choosing everything that could put her in mind of him. She had some hundreds of his letters, he having been often at London, absent from her for many months at a time, and never missed writing one single post. She had carefully preserved them all, and set about read- ing of them ; which put her into such fits of grief and crying, quite sunk and destroyed her, that we thought it would kill her. She one day said she was ashamed to be alive, after losing one that had writ her such letters, and with whom she could have been contented to live on the top of a mountain, on bread and LADY J3AILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 455 water; and had no pleasure in anything but for his sake. Happy, said she, had it been for her, if she had constantly read over his letters, and governed her whole actions by them. She intended sealing them up in a bag, and bade me see they were buried in the coffin with her. I begged to read some of them, which she allowed me ; and I earnestly entreated they might not be buried, but preserved for the sake of his posterity, and they are now in my custody. In nothing I ever saw did I find so much to instruct, to admire, to please ; they are a true picture of his heart ; full of the most tender and condescending affection, just remarks and reflections, true goodness, submission to Providence, entire resignation and contentment, without cant, superstition, severity, or uncharitableness to others ; constant justness to all, and frugality in his private affairs, for the sake of his family.” In September, 1744, it being thought proper that her grand- sons should go to London, she resolved that she herself and her whole family should go with them ; her object being, as they were just entering into the world, to watch over them, and aid them by her counsel and experience ; though she owned it to be her desire, as was most natural, to end her days in quiet. At the same time she felt persuaded that she should not return, and desired her children, in the event of her dying thereto bring home her body to be buried beside that of her husband. “ The rebellion of 1745 was a great affliction to her ; the dis- tress of her country and friends went near her heart, and made great impression on her health and spirits. Nobody could be more sensibly touched with the desolation of this poor country ; yet she never expressed herself with bitterness nor resentment against the authors of it, and could not bear to hear others do so. She said it was the judgment of God upon us, and too well de- ;Served by all ranks ; therefore we ought to submit to it, and en- deavor to avert it by other methods than railing and ill will at those who were the instruments of it.” Her religion was emi- nently free from a censorious and uncharitable spirit toward others. Lady Murray, after stating that her mother “ was much devoted to piety, and the service of God,” adds, “ People who exercise themselves much this way, are often observed to con- tract a morose way of thinking concerning others, which she had no tincture of. Her religion improved her in charity, and patience for other people’s failings, and forgiveness of injuries ; and, no doubt, was one great source of that constant cheerfulness she was so remarkable for.” 456 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT.*^ While in London, she seldom went abroad, except to visit Lady Stanhope. But, in her own children and grandchildren, she enjoyed the most agreeable society at home ; and she also found much pleasure in the frequent visits paid to her by her old friends and acquaintances, as well as by several new ones, who thought no time better spent than in her company. At last, the time drew near when she must go the way of all the earth. An epidemical cold being prevalent in the English capital, she caught the disease, which, after hanging about her for some time, terminated fatally. She was, however, confined to her bed only a few days, and there was no aberration of mind, to the last. Two days before her death, her family being all in the room be- side her, she said, “ My dears, read the last chapter of the Prov- erbs ; you know what it is.” “To have her grandsons happily married,” says Lady Murray, “ lay near her heart ; and I ima- gine it was with regard to that she said it. I think it is a very strong picture of herself ; and if ever any deserve to have it said of them, she does.” Some may imagine, that thoughts respect- ing the happy marriage of her grandsons was scarcely exercise appropriate for a deathbed. But this would be to take a very imperfect and contracted view of the Christian exercise appro- priate in such circumstances. No doubt the greatest questions to every^nan and woman when about to enter eternity, and ap- pear at God’s judgment-seat, are, “ Am I at peace with God ?” “ Have I obtained that renewed heart which is indispensable to admission into heaven ?” “ Am I trusting, not to my own good works, or virtues, but exclusively to the Divine righteousness of Christ ; an interest in which is ^ually indispensable to admis- sion into heaven ?” But while ^1 true Christians will, in the prospect of death, give their chief thoughts to these subjects, they may, at the same time, in perfect consistency with this, feel an interest in whatever contributes to the well-being, both temporal and eternal, of their friends whom they are to leave be- hind them in the world ; and to this a happy marriage relation, which is greatly conducive to the promotion of both virtue and piety, unquestionally contributes. The next day Lady Baillie called for Lady Murray, to whom she gave directions about some few things ; and expressed it as her desire to be carried home and interred beside her dear husband ; but said, that perhaps it might be too much trouble and inconvenience to them at that season. She therefore left it to Lady Murray to do as she pleased ; “ but,” says she, “ in a black purse in my cabinet you will find money sufficient to do it.” This money she had kept by her for that ^ LADY BAILLIE OF JERVISWOOD. 457 purpose, that whenever her death took place, her children might be able, without being straitened, to carry her mortal remains to Scotland, to be deposited in the same resting-place with those of her husband. Having said this, she added, I have now no more to say or do tenderly embraced Lady Murray, and laid down her head upon the pillow, after which she spoke little. True Christians, of strong and warm affections, have often antici- pated with delight, the recognition of their beloved pious friends and relatives in heaven, expecting to derive, from this source, no small portion of their future felicity. Lady Baillie always ex- pressed her assurance, that she and Mr. Baillie, who had so long lived together on earth, as heirs of the grace of life, would meet together and know one another in a better world ; and she often said after his death, that without that belief she could not have supported herself. This reflection was cheering to her even when dying. “ Now, my dear,” said she to Lady Murray, “ I can die in peace, and desire nothing but to be where your father is.” She died on December 6, 1746, surrounded by her whole family, who showed a lively sense of what they lost when she breathed her last. According to her desire, her body was con- veyed from London to Scotland ; and, on Christmas day, Decem- ber 25, which was her birth-day, was laid by the side of her husband in the monument of Mellerstain. She was buried in the same manner in which, according to his own orders, she herself had directed his funeral — near relations, near neighbors, and her own tenants, only, being present. Lady Baillie had been universally respected while living, and she died universally lamented. In her death, many lost not only a friend, but a benefactor ; for she was very charitable to the dis- tressed ; remembering what she herself had suffered ; nor was her beneficence confined to those of her own way of thinking.* The esteem in which she was held, was testified by the many letters of condolence, which, on the event, her family received from all quarters. Lord Cornbury, writing to Lady Hervey on her death, says : “ Indeed, I am sorry that we shall see our good old friend no more. I am sorry that we shall partake no more in the society of that hospitality, that benevolence, that good humor, that good sense, that cheerful dignity, the result of so many virtues which were so amiable in her, and what did so much honor to humanity ; and I am very sorry for what those * The very last week of her life she sent a servant to Newgate to inquire after one she heard was there in distress, and to give him some relief, though she had r:cver seen him, but knew his friends. ' — Lady Murray’s Narrative. 39 45S THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. must suffer at present, whom she had bred up to have affections, and who had so justly so much for her.’ Lady Baillie in truth, possessed a combination of qualities not often to be met with in the same person ; and which would have adorned the most ex- alted station. “ It appears to me,” says Joanna Baillie, “ that a more perfect female character could scarcely be imagined ; for, while she is daily exercised in all that is useful, enlivening, and endearing, her wisdom and courage, on every extraordinary and dillicult occasion, gave a full assurance to the mind, that the de- voted daughter of Sir Patrick Hume, and the tender helpmate of Baillie, would have made a most able and magnanimous queen.”* The inscription engraven on marble upon her monu- ment, which was written by one who knew her well, Sir Thomas Burnet, one of the judges of the court of common pleas, and youngest son of Bishop Burnet, summarily records the leading and most singular events of her life, and gives a full, compre- hensive, and withal a just view of her character. This inscrip- tion, with which we shall conclude our sketch, is as follows : — HERE LIETH The Right Honorable Lady Grisell Baillie, wife of George Baillie of Jerviswood, Esq., eldest daughter of the Right Honorable, Patrick, Earl of March mont ; a pattern to her sex, and an honor to her country. She excelled in the character of a daughter, a wife, a mother. While an infant,} at the hazard of her own, she preserved her father’s life; who under the rigorous persecution of arbitrary power, sought refuge in the close confinement of a tomb, where he was nightly supplied with necessaries, conveyed by her, with a caution far above her years, a courage almost above her sex ; a real instance of the so much celebrated Roman charity. She was a shining example of conjugal affection, that knew no dissension, felt no decline, during almost a fifty years' union ; the dissolution of w^hich she survived from duty, not choice. Her conduct as a parent was amiable, exemplary, successful, to a degree not well to be expressed, without mixing the praises of the dead with those of the living ; who desire that all praise, but of her, should be silent. At different times she managed the affairs of her father, her husband, her family, her relations, with unwearied application, w’ith happy economy, as distant from avarice as from prodigality. Christian piety, love of her country, zeal for her friends, compassion for her enemies, cheerfulness of spirit, pleasantness of conversation, dignity of mind, • Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters, Preface, p. xxvi. t See p. 433, Note DUCHESS OF ATHOLL. 459 good breeding, good humor, good sense, were the daily ornaments of a useful life, protracted by Providence to an uncommon length, for the benefit of all who fell within the sphere of her benevolence. Full of years and of good wo|'ks, she died on the 6th day of December, 1746, near the end of her 8ist year, and was buried on her birthday, the 25th of that month. LADY CATHARINE HAMILTON, DUCHESS OF ATHOLL Among the “ devout and honorable women not a few” in our country, who, in former times, adorned a high station by their exalted piety and their zeal for God, the subject of the present notice is entitled to a prominent place. It is chiefly from her diary* that we derive the information we possess concerning her, and it is mostly a record of her Christian exercise and experi- ence ; so that few incidents in her history are now known. Her life, indeed, appears to have been of a regular and little varying tenor, hardly connected with any of those signal events and con- junctures which give to biography much of its attraction ; and a sketch of it does not, therefore, admit of a varied and striking narrative. But it may, notwithstanding, be interesting and in- structive to the serious reader, to peruse a few illustrations of her eminently devout and Christian character. To those ladies who have already engaged our attention, she was similar in spirit and in sentiments ; • and she could look back to many of her an- cestors, on whom God had conferred the highest of all nobility, the titles of which “ are not written in old rotten or moulded parchments, but are more ancient than the heavens.” She com- menced her diary about the year 1688 , in the twenty-fifth year of her age, and continued it down to the period of her death. From the commencement, it displays remarkably sound views of evangelical truth, and much maturity of religious experience ; and throughout, it breathes a spirit singularly amiable, and fer- vently pious. As many parts of it are very much alike, instead of giving it entire, it will be sufficient to select a few passages as a representation of the general character of the whole. ^ Her diary is printed in the Christian Magazine, for 1813, to which it was com- municated by the late Rev. Mr. Moncrieff*, minister of the secession Church in Ham- ilton. 460 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. Catharine Hamilton was the second daughter of William, third duke of Hamilton, and Anne, duchess of Hamilton, of whom a notice has already been given. She was born at Hamilton palace in 1662, and in 1683 was married to John Lord Murray, eldest son of the first marquis of Atholl, afterward first duke of Atholl, in the twenty-first year of her age. She enjoyed the great blessing of an eminently pious mother, who anxiously en- deavored to imbue her young mind with divine truth and the fear of God. Under this religious training she greatly profited; and she appears to have been from her earliest years of a serious and contemplative turn of mind. At an early period she had acquired an extensive acquaintance with the Scriptures, and an accurate knowledge of the distinguishing truths of the gospel. Nor did this knowledge merely float in the head ; it deeply impressed her heart, resulting in early proofs of- her genuine piety. Near the beginning of her diary there is the following entry : — O my soul! remember Friday the 18th of November, 1681, and Thursday the 24th, wherein the Lord thy God was pleased to give thee sweetest consolation in himself, and some assurance of his reconciled countenance at Hamilton.” This was in the nineteenth year of her age, two years previ- ous to her marriage. But her husband, in a note on this pas- sage, states that he had heard her say that she had given herself up to God some years before the time referred to. Thus, ere she had reached womanhood, she had surrendered herself to God, and the whole of her subsequent life evinced the entireness and the sincerity with which the surrender had been made. Christ she then chose as her Savior, God as her portion, the Divine glory as her chief end, the Divine law as her infallible guide ; and from her God and Savior she sought and found grace and strength to proceed in the Christian course. It is indeed inter- esting to see a young lady in exalted station thus escaping the fascinations of worldly pleasure and gayety, with which the young are so apt to be entangled, and making the concerns of the soul and of eternity, which the young are so prone to defer to a future season, the chief object of her attention : — “ Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green, And with those few art eminently seen, That labor up the hill of heavenly truth, The better part witli Mary and with Ruth, Chosen thou hast.”^ In her diary the allusions to the period of the persecution are ^ Milton. DUCHESS OF ATHOLL. 461 few and only casual, but they plainly indicate her detestation of the ferocious intolerance of that period, and her sympathy with those good men who, for standing up in defence of their religious rights and liberties, were banished to foreign climes, or pined in dungeons, or whose blood was shed on scalfolds. Speaking of the forfeiture of the estate of the earl of Argyll, which took place in the close of the year 1681, and of the marquis of Atholl, who raised and headed some of the troops which were afterward led against the earl, having accepted and retained some of his for- feited lands, she says, “ I was always convinced that it was a most unjust forfeiture that of the late earl of Argyll, and so was grieved that my husband’s father should have any part of it given to him.” At the same time she records, with much satisfaction, that her husband had no hand in the oppression of the Argyll family, and would never consent to share in the spoils. “ My husband,” says she. “ had no part in it [the forfeited estate], and did at the time disapprove of his father’s meddling with it, and would never, though he pressed him to it, take anything of it.” After the persecution had closed, she took a deep interest in the prosperity of the presbyterian church ; and knowing that the gospel is “the power of God unto salvation,” she was particu- larly concerned that the parishes of Scotland should be supplied with devoted evangelical ministers. Lay patronage having been abolished at the revolution, her husband had not the power of presenting ministers to vacant parishes ; but as the heritors of each parish, being protestants, and the elders, were to propose a suitable person to the congregation, to be either approved or dis- approved by them,* heritors and elders, it is obvious, had great influence in the settlement of ministers ; and she was extremely desirous that her husband should use this influence in procuring the settlement of pious and able gospel ministers. To prevail on him to do this, her prayers and counsel were not wanting ; and, by the blessing of God, they had the desired effect. Wri- ting at Falkland, May 9, 1691, in reference to the settlement of a minister in that place, she says : “ O Lord, help me always to remember thy goodness to me. Thou hast many times prevented me with thy mercies, and disappointed my fears ; and now again, lately, I have had another proof of it. Thou only knowest what a burden it was to me, the- fear I was in that my husband should have obstructed a good minister being settled in this place ; and now, glory to God that has given me to see him the main, nay, The reasons of the congregation, if they disapproved of the person proposed, were to be laid before the pres%tery, which was to judge of them. 39* 462 THE LADIES OE THE COVENANT. I may say the only instrument of bringing a godly minister, the Rev. Mr. John Forrest, to this place. O Lord, grant he may in the first place reap the benefit of his ministry to himself, and bless it in a special manner to him^ that he, finding the good of it, may yet be more instrumental in bringing in good ministers to the places he has interest in.” Falkland at that time was a very irreligious and profane place. During the persecution, though there were in it a few intelligent and pious persons, who refused to conform to prelacy, and to whom Mr. John Wei wood and other proscribed ministers fre- quently preached privately in some of their houses, yet the great body of the population had no scruples in conforming to prelacy ; so that when the curate of the parish dispensed the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, a great multitude assembled, and he could boast, what many of his brethren could not do, of the large num- ber on his communicants’ roll.* In this place, where “ Satan had his seat in much peace,”! where ignorance and profanity so greatly abounded, it could not be expected that the people would set much value upon the gospel, or that they would feel anything like a general desire for the settlement of an evangelical and de- voted minister among them. It was therefore a very merciful providence that others, who better understood and appreciated the worth of an efhcient gospel ministry, successfully exerted themselves in procuring for them this great blessing. At this time, the subject of our notice was residing at Falkland palace, which was a favorite retreat of James VL, probably on account of his attachment to hunting, for which the adjacent for- est afforded excellent opportunities, but which, after his acces- sion to the crown of England, ceased to be a royal residence, though it was visited by Charles 1. aad Charles 11. In 1658, it fell into the hands of the Atholl family. From the entries in her diary. Lady Murray appears residing there from January, 1689, till May, 1691. During this period her husband was threatened with a con- sumption, and his health continued for more than a year in a very precarious state. This caused her deep anxiety ; and her re- flections in regard to his condition, evince the struggle she felt between natural aflection and submission to the will of God. Writing at Cupar, sabbath, May 17, 1691, after adverting to his illness, she adds, “ Thou knowest that I have this day promised if thou wilt be pleased to spare and recover him, to endeavor, through thy strength, to live more watchfully and holily ; but, * Diary of Jean Coliace, Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxi., 8vo, No. 7. t Ibid. DUCHESS OF ATHOLL. 46: ah ! Lord, how unable am I for anything that is good, if thou as- sist me not. True is thy word which thou hast said, holy Jesus ! that without thee we can do nothing, John xv. 5. But I shall be able to do all things, even the hardest, if thou assist. There- fore, this day, with all my soul I beg of thee, that thou wilt give me entire submission to thy holy will and pleasure, whatever it shall be : that even if thou shouldst see fit to take away the desire of mine eyes, I may lay my hand on my mouth and be silent, since it is thy doing, who canst do nothing wrong. And be with me in the midst of my troubles, and support me under them, as thou hast been graciously pleased to do this time and heretofore, or which I de- sire, from the bottom of my soul, to bless and magnify thy name, who canst abundantly make up the loss of all earthly comforts. Be thou, then, in place of all unto me, blessed Jesus ! and let never any idol be in my heart when thou oughtest to be in the chief room. But thou hast not only allowed of a lawful love to my husband, but commanded me to have it. Therefore, it is lawful, and my duty, to pray for him. Spare him, O Lord ! for Christ’s sake, and bless binl with long life in this world, that he may glorify thee in his generation, and be an instrument of doing good to the people among whom thou hast set him, and be a blessing to bis family. O God, hear me ! and grant unto me, for Christ’s sake, O grant, that the shaking of this rod over my head may be a mean to bring me back to my duty, which it will be, if thou grant thy blessing with it, which I beg for thy Son’s sake, for whose sake alone I desire to be heard.” She afterward records her gratitude to God for her husband’s recovery to health. Having resolved, in the summer of 1697, to go to Hamilton to visit her mother, and to enjoy the sacrament of the Lord’s sup- per, which was to be celebrated there on the 19th of July, she spent the sabbath preceding at Edinburgh, where her husband, now earl of Tullibardine,* then was. She was careful, at all times, to sanctify the Lord’s day, but this being the sabbath pre- ceding that on which she purposed to commemorate the Lord’s death in the sacrament of the supper, she endeavored in a par- ticular manner, by meditation and prayer, to have her mind brought into a suitable frame for the solemn service which she had in prospect. “ Edinburgh, Sunday, July 12, 1697. O my soul, bless God the Lord that ever he put it into thy heart to seek him, for he hath promised that those that seek him shall find him. * He was created earl of Tullibardine, Viscount Glen Almond, and Lord Murray^ for life, Jub' 27, 1696. 464 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. This day I was reading the 16th chapter of John, verses 23, 24, ‘ Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Fa- ther in my name, he will give it you,’ &c. O gracious promises \ Then I began to think what it was I would ask of God. The thought that immediately occurred to me was, Jesus Christ to dwell in my heart by faith and love. Methought, that if God would put it in my offer to have all the universe, with all the glory, honor, riches, and splendor of it, I would rather have Christ, to be my King, Priest,. and Prophet, than have it all. O that he would always rule in me, and conquer all his and my en- emies — my corruptions, temptations, and sins, I mean — and al- ways assist and strengthen me to serve him faithfully and up- rightly. Now, blessed Jesus, thou who hast said, ‘ Whatsoever we ask in thy name, the Father will give it,’ this is my petition and my request : fulfil thy word to me. Thou art faithful that hast promised : therefore I desire to believe and trust that thou wilt perform. O never forsake me, nor leave me to myself. Lord, I do believe and hope that thou wilt, through the riches of free grace, and thy meritorious satisfaction, redeem and save me from eternal death and damnation ; but I beg not only so, but to be redeemed from the power of sin, corruption, and vain imagi- nations. Oh ! they are strong and stirring. O wilt thou not sub- due them ! Lord I desire to obey thee, and to be of good cheer, and believe that, as thou hast overcome the world, so thou wilt overcome my sins, in thy own due and appointed time. And now. Lord, thou knowest I am designing, if thou shalt permit, to partake of thy holy supper. O, prepare me for it, and let me not be an unworthy receiver. Do thou there meet with my soul, and renew thy covenant and faithfulness unto me, and enlarge my heart and soul, and give me supplies of grace and strength to serve thee. Oh ! I have often played the harlot, and gone astray with many lovers, Jer. hi. 1. Yet thou sayest. Return again unto me, and often, as in this chapter invitest me to return. O Lord, I come unto thee, for thou art the Lord, my covenanted God. Thou knowest that, this day, I know not of any fraud or guile in this declaration. If there be. Lord, search me and try me, and discover it unto me, and take it away, and cleanse me from all mine iniquities. O let this be my mercy this day.” By the observance of the Lord’s supper at this time, she was much refreshed and comforted. On the Wednesday after, she solemnly calls upon her soul not to forget to render to God thanks- giving and praise, for having dealt so bountifully and mercifully with her. ‘‘ Thou hast been pleased,” she says, “ to give me at DUCHESS OF ATHOLL. 465 this time, what thou wast graciously pleased to do, the last two times I communicated, namely, a promise in Scripture, which thou madest me formerly believe in, and rest quietly upon, which was the 16th verse of the fifteenth chapter of John: ‘I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruh;, and that your fruit should remain ; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father, in my name, he may give it you.’. ... A little before going to thy table, thou knowest what darkness and con- fusedness I had, though still, blessed be thy holy name ! there remained the hope and confidence of thy being reconciled to me through the blood of the Lamb, represented to me at thy table, as shed for my sins ; but thou wast most graciously pleased before 1 went to thy table, to make me go there with solid peace and sat- isfaction, hrmly believing that thou calledst me, and that I had a right to go there. Also when I was at thy table, it was said by thy minister — I doubt not by thy guiding and directing Spirit — What is your request, and what is your petition? Then it oc- curred again unto me what I had done before, when reading the 23d and 24th verses of the sixteenth of John, to entreat Jesus Christ to dwell in my heart by faith, and never to leave me, nor forsake me ; and there [at the Lord’s table] I did, thou knowest, O Lord, with the sincerity of my soul, accept of the Lord as my covenanted God, and did most earnestly entreat the assistance of thy Holy Spirit and strength to be with me for ever, that 1 may never go out of thy way, but be helped to live uprightly and holily all the days of my appointed time.” Hamilton was a place endeared to her by many sacred as well as tender recollections. Not only was it her birthplace, the dwelling-place of her infancy, and her parental residence ; but God there first visited her soul in mercy — an event the most im- portant in her history, when viewed in the light of eternity. In after-life she looked back to this period with feelings of the deep- est gratitude to God ; and Hamilton was to her ever after a con- secrated spot, “ This was the place,” says she, after recording her experience of the goodness of God to her on that sacramental occasion, “ where thou first lookedst upon me in mercy, and saidst unto me when I was in my blood. Live, about sixteen or seventeen years ago. But, oh !” she adds, “ I have been often a trangressor and revolter since ; but thou wast faithful, and didst not break thy covenant with me, nor alter the thing that had gone out of thy mouth, Psalm Ixxxix. 34, but rather performedst thy promise, verses 31, 32, ‘ That if I should break thy statutes, and keep not thy covenant, thou wouldest visit my transgressions 466 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. with the rod, and mine iniquity with stripes, but thy loving-kind" ness thou wouldest never take away from me, nor suffer thy faithfulness to fail.’ Blessed be thy holy name, thou art the same yesterday, to-day, and for evermore, on which I rest. Amen, amen.” In the beginning of September, 1697, she and her husband left Edinburgh for London. On sabbath, September 5, they rested at Alnwick, the seat of the duke of Northumberland ; and, on Saturday, the 18th of that month, they arrived at Kensington, v/here they remained the greater part of a year. During the time of her residence at Kensington, though, from her living at court, her obstacles to retirement and meditation were increased, there is ample evidence from her diary that much of her time was spent in reading the Scriptures, in spiritual meditation, in self-examination, and in prayer. At the commencement of a new year it was her practice, in a particular manner to review her past life ; to take an account of the manner in which she had spent the year that was gone, never to be recalled ; to mark the rapidity with which she was advan- cing in the journey of life, and to embrace God anew, as her God for time and for eternity. On the first day of the year 1698, when in the thirty-sixth year of her age, she thus writes : “ I have this day renewed again my covenant with my God, though in great weakness, yet, I hope in sincerity. I have given up my- self, soul and body, to be at his disposal, as he sees meet. O that he would be pleased to give me new strength to serve him in newness of life this new year, and that as days are added to my natural life, so grace may be added to my spiritual. O that with the old year, which will never return again, I may have left off my old, sinful, crooked, and worldly ways, and never return to them again. Lord, thou who searchest the heart, and triest the reins, knowest that this is more the desire of my soul than all gold or silver, or honors or pleasures upon this earth. Therefore, O deny me not the earnest request of my soul this day, and ful- fil that scripture thou broughtest to my mind this morning in prayer, ‘ I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,’ Heb. xiii. 5.” On the first day of a subsequent year, 1699, which was sab- bath, she thus writes at Huntingtower : “ This day I have been reflecting how I have spent the last year, and alas ! I find great cause to mourn, for I have been very earthly-minded and carnal, and, with Martha, cumbered about many things, and have much neglected the one thing needful. Lord, pardon me, for Jesus Christ’s sake ; I desire to repent and be humble. O that thou DUCHESS OF ATHOLL. 467 niayest help me to spend this year better, if thou sparest me. But I find all my resolutions ineffectual unless tjiou assist me ; but if thou wilt put to thy helping hand, and give me the lively in- fluences of thy Holy Spirit, duties will not only be easy but pleas- ant to me. I have been endeavoring, though, alas ! in much deadness and weakness, to renew my covenant with thee ; and this day I desire to confirm all that I have ever done before, to resign myself and all that is mine to thee. Holy Lord, accept of me, and give me sincerity and truth, and say thou that thou acceptest of me.” Huntingtower (formerly called Ruthven castle), at which these reflections were written, was another place where she and her husband sometimes resided. This castle, which is in the parish of Tibbermuir, is a very ancient building, though it does not ap- pear ever to have been a place of great strength. It was for- merly the seat of the Gowrie family, and the place where James VI. was some time confined by the earl of Gowrie and others, in the enterprise usually called the Raid of Ruthven ; but the cas- tle, with the adjoining barony, became the property of the Atholl family, by a marriage with the Tullibardine family, who had re- ceived it from James YL, after the earl of Gowrie had lost it in consequence of his conspiracy. It is now the seat of a calico- printing establishment. To the spiritual welfare of her children. Lady Tullibardine’s pious emotions, wishes, and prayers were, in an especial manner, directed. When, in May, 1698, the earl went to Oxford with their eldest son, John, purposing to leave him there at school, should it be found a suitable place for carrying on his education, she records her earnest desire not only that her son might be ac- complished in every kind of secular learning, but that, as God had distinguished him by a high birth in this world, he would also confer upon him the higher distinction of being holy in char- acter, and a promoter of true godliness. ‘‘ I could not remem- ber,” she adds, “ that I had dedicated him in the womb so much to God as I had done the rest; but this day [sabbath. May 22], I have resigned him, and all the rest of my children, wholly to be the Lord’s. O accept of the gift, so far as they are mine to give ; they are thine by creation, O let them be thine by adop- tion, regeneration, sanctification, and redemption. Fulfil to me, O Lord, the 127th and 128th psalms, that my children may be thy heritage, and the fruit of my womb thy reward ; that thus I may be blessed out of Zion, that thus I may be blessed of those that desire to fear thy name, and that I may see the good of thy Je- 468 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. rusalem, and peace upon thy Israel. And O forget not my ab- sent husband, the father of these children, whom I have given up unto thee, and make him say amen to the bargain ; and be thou his God, and my God, and the God of our seed, from henceforth, from this day, and for ever, amen. And to thee, holy Father, blessed Redeemer, and sanctifying Spirit, be the glory and praise of all.” In June this year she returned to Scotland with the earl, who went north to attend the Scottish parliament ;* and during their stay at Edinburgh, their lodgings were in the abbey. They next went to Huntingtower ; and from the dates in her diary, she ap- pears residing there from November 1698, to May 1701. From her diary we are at no loss to discover her warm attach- ment to the presbyterian church of Scotland. But while espous- ing from conviction the presbyterian cause, she held her princi- ples in a spirit of charity and forbearance. Hers was not a re- ligion which would deny the validity of a Divine ordinance, be- cause not administered in the way she judged most agreeable to the Word of God, or which would deny the Christianity of all who did not belong to the church of which she was a member. So high were the Scottish episcopalians of that day on the doctrine of episcopal succession, as to deny that presbyterian ministers were lawful ministers ; maintaining that without episcopal government there could be no regular ordination of ministers, and consequent- ly holding that all the services of the presbyterian ministers as such were so many irregular nullities. Even some of the more wild among them went so far as to declare, that those who were not of the communion of the church of England were in a state of damnation, and left to the uncovenanted mercy of God.f But these opinions the duchess justly regarded as extreme and unten- able, and the remarks she makes on them, while indicating her entire want of sympathy with such extravagant sectarianism, and her regret that it should be obtruded on the church, to create division and offence, are yet marked by great mildness of tem- per. “ Dunk eld, April 4, 1706 : I was this day reflecting upon the sad divisions of this church ; and now it is become a doctrine preached up by the episcopalians, that the presbyterians are not lawful ministers, and that what they do is not valid, so that those they baptize are not baptized ; and that the people owe them no obedience in their ministerial authority. I was made to think it was a matter of great lamentation, and presaged very sad things Carstairs’s State Papers, p. 381. t Wodrow’s Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 202, 400. DUCHESS OF ATHOLL. 469 to this nation, and the more that it was so little laid to heart, and that there is so great a neglect, to say no worse, of the gospel which is preached so powerfully among us.” The duchess was seized with her last illness at Hamilton pal- ace, whither she had gone on a visit to her mother, about the close of the year 1706, and she died there in January, 1707, in the forty-fifth year of her age. Her husband, to his great grief, was absent during the closing scene, having been attending the last parliament of Scotland, at Edinburgh, and not having been apprized of her dangerous condition in sufficient time to be able to reach Hamilton, to see her in life, the symptoms not having assumed a decidedly alarming aspect till shortly before her death. But by her mother, the duchess of Hamilton, and other sympa- thizing friends, she was waited upon with all manner of affec- tionate tenderness and care. To the last she retained the full possession of her faculties, and as her life had been eminently holy, so her latter end was peace. She had long been under the training of her heavenly Father, and now she maintained a tranquil resignation to his sovereign will. Her confidence as a guilty sinner — for such she felt herself to be — in the great pro- pitiation, and in God’s everlasting covenant, remained unshaken throughout the mortal conflict, producing the sure anticipation of future blessedness, and enabling her to triumph over all the terrors of the last enemy. Not much more than two hours before her death, the medical gentleman who attended her, finding the vital powers fast sinking, informed her friends present of her dangerous situation. This was on the 9th of January, a little before ten o’clock at night. Mr. Findlater, one of the ministers of the parish of Hamilton, being immediately sent for, to administer to her religious comfort, and to pray with her, hastened to the palace ; and, at the request of the duke of Atholl, he wrote a short account of the circum- stances attending her death. When he came into the room, an attendant told her that Mr. Findlater was present, to whom, being in a state of great prostration, she answered, “Tell him I can not speak ; desire him to pray.” After prayer he spoke to her a few words encouraging her against the terror of death, from the nature of God’s covenant with her, and her interest in it. She then regretted her want of strength to speak, that she might show what interest she had in the covenant, and what God had done for her soul. She owned that she had frequently renewed her covenant with God, and given her consent to it, and that now this was her greatest comfort. Her want of strength to declare 40 470 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. to those about her, so fully as she desired, her experience of the goodness of God, and her calm and brightening hope of endless felicity, was indeed her greatest grief. This she regretted not only to Mr. Findlater, but also to her nurse who attended her, to whom she called frequently a little before her death, “ O pray, pray that I may have a little ease, that I may declare God’s goodness to me.” Having withdrawn for a short time to the next room, Mr. Findlater returned to her chamber, and, thinking she had become more oppressed, asked her how it was with her. She answered, ‘‘Very weak — and dying.” But she knew in whom she had believed, and seemed to comfort herself with these words, which the minister quoted, and which she repeated after him, “ My flesh and my heart faileth : but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” She then desired him to pray. He asked her what he should pray for to her ; what was that one thing she would seek from the Lord, above all things. “ Pray,” said she, “ but for as much strength as that I may de- clare the goodness of God to me ;” straining herself apparently, and speaking with a more elevated voice than formerly. He asked her whether she desired to live, or to die and be with Christ, which was best of all. She said, “ That is best of all indeed.” In time of prayer he heard her repeat some words of scripture after him ; particularly when mention was made of the covenant being ordered in all things, and sure, she said, “ That is all my salvation and all my desire ;” which, says Mr. Find- later, “ were the last words she spoke in my hearing. Though her body was greatly pained,” he adds, “ yet her soul seemed full of the joy of the Lord, which is unspeakable and full of glory.” He again left her chamber a second time. During his absence, her mother, seeing her weak, asked her if she had anything to say to her. She answered — and the answer shows how unabated affection for dear surviving earthly friends may mingle with the calm resignation that bids farewell to life, and with the joy aris- ing from the certain prospect of everlasting blessedness — “ Dear mother, be kind to my Lord,” which were the last words she spoke, as the duke feelingly records. When Mr. Findlater came into her room the third time, she could speak none, and in a moment or two after he had again prayed with her, she fell asleep in Christ, about a quarter of an hour after twelve o’clock at night. The duke of Atholl was much affected by the death of his beloved wife, of whose great worth he was deeply sensible, and it enhanced his sorrow that he enjoyed not the melancholy satis- faction of seeing her on her deathbed. At the close of her diary DUCHESS OF ATHOLL. 471 he thus records the mournful dispensation : ‘‘ It hath pleased the great and only wise God, who doeth what he sees fit in heaven and in earth, to take from me, to himself, my dear wife, Catha- rine, duchess of Atholl, and in her my chiefest earthly comfort. She died at Hamilton between the ninth and tenth of January, 1707, between twelve and one o’clock, Friday morning. I was at that time in Edinburgh, attending the last parliament of Scot- land, and was not timeously advertised of her dangerous condi- tion, so tha.t I wanted the satisfaction of being with her in her last hours, which was an extraordinary great addition to my irreparable loss. Mr. Findlater, minister of Hamilton, was sent for but two hours before her death, till which time the doctor that was with her did not declare she was in any danger. I desired Mr. Findlater to put in writing what she had said con- cerning the state of her soul ; which shows that she died in the same holy disposition and frame in which she had lived.” As the duke highly esteemed and loved the duchess while she lived, so he continued to cherish her memory after she was gone. From several parts of her diary, there is reason to believe that he was not neglectful of the most important interests, and that his religious impressions were very much owing to her prayers, counsel, and example. He greatly valued the memorials of her Christian experience and exercise contained in her diary, which she expressly left as a dying legacy to him, in the hope that he might profit by it ; and the solemn and affectionate thought of her virtues and graces, now when she had entered eternity, enforced with new power the motives to religion. He now seemed, as it were, to hear her in that document, speaking to him from the eternal world, bidding him make the salvation of the soul the one thing needful, and follow in the path which had conducted her to immortal happiness. Even ten years subsequently to her death, he employe^^mself in transcribing a copy from the origi- nal, written with ne^own hand, prefixing to the copy the follow- ing notice : “ This book, with some other papers written by my dear wife, were left by her to me just before her death. She recommended them to me by a paper she caused me to write at that time, calling them her treasure, which she desired I might make good use of. — Dunkeld, March, 1717. Atholl.” In politics the duke was shifting, but he continued to his death warmly attached to the go^^ernment and worship of the church of Scotland. “ He was a most zealous presbyterian,” says Douglas, “ and, after he joined the cavaliers, still courted and preserved his interest with the presbyterian ministers, professing 472 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. always to be firm to their kirk-government, hearing them always in their church(?fe, and patronizing them much more than those of the episcopal persuasion, which induced many of the tories to doubt his sincerity.”* His continuing to adhere steadily to the presbyterian church, after joining the cavaliers, was so incon- sistent, that it could hardly fail of rendering him an object of distrust to the party which he joined. But the inconsistency is easily explained, when we take into account that he was proba- bly not a stranger to true religion. Circumstances prevailed in nuking him desert the whigs, among whom he very likely saw not a little of the selfishness, corruption, and want of principle, which have often disgraced politicians of all classes ; but the religious element kept him close to the church of Scotland, to which almost all the piety of Scotland was at that time confined.' In the former case, he may be said to have acted according to early educational influence ; in the latter, according to the happier influence which his duchess had exerted upon him while she lived, and which her memory continued to exercise upon him after her death. Douglas’s Peerage, vol. i., p. 150. APPENDIX. No. I. — (p. 49.) Letter of Mr, Robert Ward to Lady Ardross, [This letter, which is in vol. lx., folio. No. 31, of the Wodrow MSS., is in M‘Ward’s handwriting, and he describes it “A double of a line to the Lady Ardross when I was in prison, and she was to leave the town.”] “ Worthy Madam : All that I can do (neither can I do that to pur- pose), is only to acknowledge a debt to your ladyship, which I am not able to pay; but I know you were pleased upon such an account to concern and interest yourself in that business, as, when I can not re- quite it, He who takes notice of less, and will not suffer a cup of cold water to want its reward, will remember this your labor of love, and make it a fruit which shall abound to your account. I hope, madam, however your affairs have, by calling you hence, deprived your lady- ship of the occasion and me of the advantage of your interceding with men in my behalf, yet ye will not forget to deal with God in my be- half, that now, when it comes to the swellings of Jordan, I may not sink nor succumb, and desert a cause upon which [I] am obliged not only to venture my life, but some way soul also, which is by sealing that poor testimony with my blood, if he call me to it, though he should suffer me to die in the dark, and never say to my soul he could save me.” No. II. — (p. 96.) The Marchioness of Argyll's Interview with Middleton, after the Condemn nation of her Husband, In another part of his Analecta (vol. i., p. 73), Wodrow records a few additional facts in reference to this interview. “ December 6, 1705. As to what goes before November 11, Mr. Robert Muir gives the very same account that he had from Mr. James Drummond, the Lady Ar- gyll’s chaplain, with this variation, that the king told Middleton while yet a gentleman at Breda, that he behooved, when he went over to England (it was a very little before his restoration), he behooved to be his commissioner in Scotland, [to] get these three things done. And he told him this would anger the nobility, and refused, till for three days the king looked down on him ; and when he asked him the reason, AO* 474 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. he said he would still do so till he went in with his former proposal, which he did. And, therefore, says he, to the Lady Argyll, ‘ I can do you no service.’ And he told her that purposely he had shifted speak- ing to her ; and that he kept spies on her servants when they came to the abbey, so that, when they called for him, he was still not to be found ; and at this time she had surprised him. This, Mrv Drummond heard her tell frequently.” No. III.— (p. 100.) Marchioness of Argyll, and her Son the Earl of Argyll. Her son, the earl of Argyll, afterward became a great courtier, took the declaration abjuring the covenants, and in other respects complied with the evil courses of the time. This Avas deeply regretted by his mother, and the best friends of the Argyll family, who were ready to exclaim, O tempora ! O mores P' But she never lost hopes of his returning to his father’s principles, as appears from a letter of Mr. James Stirling, minister of Barony, Glasgow, to a brother minister whose name is unknown, dated Glasgow, May 5, 1722, in which he says : “I was yesterday visiting Mr. John Stewart’s eldest son, who I truly fear may be dying. His mother, Mrs. Stewart, told me a pas- sage Avhich she had from her honest father, John Ritchie, which I sup- pose ye may have known, and she said he told it to her several times, that he was very intimate with that choice elect lady, my lady mar- chioness of Argyll. He was one day with her in her chamber, and he said very freely to her, ‘Madam, I apprehend that your son the earl of Argyll’s going on in such a way, with the court of this time, will be grieving to your ladyship.’ The sun was shining then very brightly in that chamber where he and my lady was, and she answered John Ritchie thus: ‘John, I am as clear[ly] and fully persuaded as ye now clearly see the sun shining in this chamber, that my son will have a saving change wrought upon him before he die, and that he will return to his father’s way, and that he will be brought to suffer for it.’ Mrs. SteAvart said to me that her father told her this, that I now write to you, many times — as* good as twenty times — and that her father Avas very great Avith ‘ that noble prince’ (as worthy Mr. John Carstairs used to call him), the marquis of Argyll. I heard once something like this, but never got such a document for it as I got yesterday.”^ No. IV.— (p. 128.) Letter of Mrs. John Carstairs to her Husband. The letter AV’hich it Avas intended to insert here having appeared in the “ Christian Instructor” for 1840 (p. 55), is omitted to make room for some original papers. * Letters to Wodrov/, vol. x , 4to, No. 170, MSS. in Advocates’ Library. APPENDIX. 475 No. V.— (p. 147.) Suspected Corruption of Clarendon^ s History. WoDROW, writing in 1731, says : “ Mr. J. Hamilton tells me that he had what follows from the duchess of Hamilton’s own mouth ; the old duchess I mean, the heir to the family ; and so, I think, it may be depended on. He says Bishop Guthrie’s Memoirs were published a little before Clarendon’s History, first printed 1710, at Oxford ; that it was then generally believed that the edition of Bishop Guthrie was much altered from the bishop’s papers, by the influence of the gentle- men of Oxford, who had the publishing of Clarendon in their hands; that when he was talking of this with the duchess, and the approach- ing edition of Clarendon, her grace told him that when she was at court, after the restoration, when the earl of Clarendon was writing his His- tory, he came and visited her, and told her that he knew her father very well, and took him to be one of the honestest men of his acquaint- ance. He added, her father had been abused and very ill used by the party writers, before and since his death ; and that now he was writing a history of those times, he was willing to do the duke all the justice in his power, and desired her to furnish him with any papers which might give light to his actings. Accordingly, when she came down to Scotland, her grace called for Dr. Burnet, and implored him to. rummage all the papers in Hamilton that related to her father, and to lay out what he reckoned might be of use to the earl ; and she sent up by an express a large bundle of papers, relative to her father, to England. That, next lime she went to court, a ^^ear or two after, the earl of Clarendon came and waited upon her at London, thanked her for the papers she had communicat to him, and returned them all safe. He told her he was now perfectly satisfied as to her father’s character, and that he was as honest a man as breathed, and would give it fully and fairly to the world ; only, there remained one particular about Vvdiich he was not yet so clear as he could wish. The duke’s enemies alleged that he brought over ten thousand stand of arms from Holland, and seemed to vouch it; they pretended further, that he himself had a design on the crown, to accomplish which he got these arms. This, the duchess said, touched her very nearly, and she immediately resolved to send a servant express to Hamilton, and or- dered a ne%^ search to be made at Hamilton, particularly for anything that related to ten thousand stand of arms ; and, very happily, the ser- vant brought her the original commission, under the king’s own hand, to bring so many stand of arms for his service ! This the duchess im- mediately sent to the earl. When he saw and read it, he came back with it to her grace, and said : ‘Now, madam, I am satisfied in every point; and I believe and am assured your father was one of the best, sincerest, and honestest persons, of that time ; and I will give him, as is my duty, a just and fair character to the world.’ This passed before Clarendon was published. Expectations were great enough when the 476 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. earl’s History was a-printing. As soon as it came down, the duchess got it and read it. When Mr. Hamilton saw her after she had got the printed Clarendon, he asked her how she liked it. She answered, with some concern : ‘ I have read it, and I and my family are greatly abused in it ; and, I apprehend, this is the fruit of the earl’s MS. its lying twenty years in the hands of the gentlemen at Oxford’ — and she verily believed that the earl’s original History was grossly vitiated.”^ No. VL— (p. 282.) Indictment of Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey, The justiciary court having met at Edinburgh, on the 17th of Janu- ary, 1681, the judges on the bench being Lords Richard Maitland of Duddop, justice-clerk, James Foulis of Colintoun, Robert Nairn of Strathurd, David Balfour of Forret, David Falconer of Newtoun, and Roger Hog of Harcars ; the two martyrs were brought to the bar, and their indictment was read, an extract of which, from the records of the justiciary court, we here subjoin : — ^'‘Iniran, “Isabel Alison, ) . “Marion Harvey, 5 Indicted and accused. That where notwithstanding by the common law, the law of nations, laws and acts of parliament of this kingdom and constant practice thereof, the rising, joining, and assembling together in arms of any number of his majesty’s subjects, the entering into leagues or bonds with foreigners, or among themselves, without and contrary to his majesty’s command, warrant, and authority, and the abetting, as- sisting, receipting, intercommuning, and keeping correspondence with such rebels, supplying or furnishing them with meat, drink, &c., are most detestable, horrid, heinous, and abominable crimes of rebellion, treason, and lese-majesty, and are punishable with forfaulture of life, lands, heritages, and escheat of their moveables ; and by the 129th act, 8th parliament. King James VI., the royal power and authority in the person of the king’s majesty, his heirs and successors, over all estates spiritual and temporal, within this realm, is ratified, approven, and perpetually confirmed, and it is thereby statute and ordained that his highness, his heirs and successors, by themselves and their c?)uncil are, and in time to come shall be, judges competent to all persons his high- ness’s subjects, of whatever estate, degree, function, or condition they be, of spiritual or temporal, in all matters wherein they, or any of them shall be apprehended, summoned, or charged to answer to such things as shall be speired at them by our sovereign lord, or his council, and that none of them that shall happen to be apprehended, called, or summoned to the effect aforesaid, presume or take upon hand to decline the judgment of his highness, his heirs, and successors, or their council, * Wodrow’s Analecta, vol. iv., pp. 299-39i. APPENDIX. 477 under the pain of treason. And by the 10th act, 10th parliament, King James VI., it is statute and ordained, that all his highness’s subjects content themselves in quietness and dutiful obedience to his highness and his authority, and that none of them presume nor take upon hand publicly to disclaim, or privately to speak or write any purpose of re- proach or slander to his majesty’s person, estate, or government, or to deprave his laws and acts of parliament, or misconstrue his proceed- ings, whereby any misliking may be moved betwixt his highness, or his nobility, and loving subjects in time coming, under the pain of death, to be execut upon them with all rigor, as seditious and wicked instru- ments, enemies to his highness and the common weal of this realm. And by the 12th act of the same parliament of King James VI., it is statute and ordained that in time coming no league nor bonds be made among his majesty’s subjects of any degree upon whatsomever color [or] pretence, without his highness’s and his successor’s privity, and consent had and obtained thereto, under the pain to be holden and ex- ecut as movers of sedition. And by the 2d act, 2d session of his majesty’s first parliament, it is statute and ordained, that if any person or persons shall hereafter plot, contrive, or intend death or destruction to the king’s majesty, or any bodily harm tending to death or destruc- tion, or to deprive, depose, or suspend him from the style, honor, and kingly name of the imperial crown of this kingdom, or any others his majesty’s dominions, or to suspend him from the exercise of his royal government ; and shall, by writing, printing, or other malicious and. advised speaking, express and declare such their treasonable intentions, after such persons being, upon sufficient probation, legally convict thereof, shall be deemed declared and adjudged traitors, and shall suffer forfaulture of life, lands, and goods, as in the cases of high treason : NEVERTHELESS, it is of Verity that ye, the said Isabel Alison and Ma- rion Harvey, have presumed to commit and are guilty of the said crimes, in so far as ye have oft and diverse times receipt, maintained, supplied, intercommuned, and kept correspondence with Mr. Donald Cargill, Mr. Thomas Douglas, Mr. John Welsh, the deceased Mr. Richard Cameron, the bloody and sacrilegious murderers of the late archbishop of St. Andrews, and sundry other notorious traitors; have heard the said ministers preach up treason and rebellion, and they and their associates having formed and devised a treasonable paper, called the Fanatics’ New Covenant, whereby they covenant and bind them- selves to overthrow his majesty’s power and authority, most treasona- bly asserting that the hands of our king and most part of the rulers have been against the throne of the Lord, the purity and power of re- ligion and godliness, and have degenerat into tyranny, have mani- festly rejected God, his service and reformation as a slavery, have gov- erned contrary to all laws. Divine and human, exercised tyranny and arbitrary government, oppressed men in their consciences and civil rights, used free subjects (Christians and reasonable men) with less dis- cretion than their beasts ; most horridly and treasonably declaring the king’s government to be but a lustful rage, exercised with as little right, 478 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. reason, and with more cruelty than in beasts, and the king himself, and the governors under him, to be public grassators and public judgments, which all men ought as earnestly to labor to be free of as of sword, famine, or pestilence raging among them ; declaring themselves obliged to execute God’s judgment upon them, and that to uphold them is to uphold Satan’s kingdom and to bear down Christ’s ; most solemnly, avow'edly, and treasonably (therefore) rejecting the king’s most sacred majesty, their gracious sovereign, a native prince, and those associat with him from being their rulers, declaring them henceforth to be no lawful rulers, and that they neither owe nor should yield any willing obedience to them ; and also declaring themselves as much bound in allegiance to devils as to them, they being (as they most treasonably say) the devil’s vicege- rents and not God’s ; and likewise the said monstrous traitors having pub- lished an execrable declaration at the market cross of Sanquhar, upon the 22d of June last, whereby they most treasonably disown their sov- ereign and native prince, whom they call Charles Stewart, who hath been tyrannizing on the throne of Scotland, and government thereof forfaulted (as they treasonably pretend) several years since by this perjury and breach of covenant with God and his church, and other reasons therein mentioned ; most treasonably, therefore, denouncing and declaring war against their sacred sovereign (whom they call a tyrant and usurper) and all the men of his practices, as enemies to the Lord Jesus Christ, his house and covenants, and against such as have strengthened him, sided with him, or any ways acknowledged him in his usurpation and tyranny, civil and ecclesiastic ; as also the said traitorous rebels having entered into and subscribed a treasonable bond of combination against their sacred sovereign, wherein they openly and avowedly disown him as a perfidious covenant-breaker, usurper of the royal prerogatives of Jesus Christ, and encroacher upon the liberties of the church, a stated opponent to Jesus Christ himself (the Mediator), and to the free government of his house, as the said covenant declara- tion, and bond of combination, containing therein sundry other treason- able articles and clauses, in themselves at length purport ; the which horrid and treasonable papers, abominable and unchristian expressions, principles and opinions above-mentioned therein contained, ye, the said Isabel Alison and Marion Harvey, have judicially, in presence of the lords justice-clerk, and commissioners of justiciary, owned and adhered to, the same being read to you, because (as ye say) ye see nothing in them against the Scriptures, and have most treasonably declined the king’s majesty’s authority, and the authority of the lords justiciary, because (as ye most falsely and treasonably say) they carry the sword against the Lord. And ye, the said Marion Harvey, have most trea- sonably approven of the execrable excommunication used by Mr. Donald Cargill against his sacred sovereign at Torwood, upon the day of [Sept.] last, and likewise owned and approved of the killing of the archbishop of St. Andrews as lawful, declaring that he was as miserable a wretch as ever betrayed the kirk of Scotland ; of the which treasonable crimes above mentioned, ye, and ilk ane of you, are actors. APPENDIX. 479 art and part, which being found by an assize, ye ought to be punished with forfaulture of life, land, and goods, to the terrors of others to com- mit the like hereafter.” No. VIL— (P. 302.) Apprehension of Hume of Graden, and the Scujffle in which Thomas Ker, of Heyhope, was hilled* This scene is particularly described (but who the writer was we are unable to determine) in a paper among the Wodrow MSS., entitled, “ A true account of the cruel murder of Thomas Ker, brother to the laird of Cherry trees, according to the relation of some who were pres- ent, which I find among my father’s papers, as follows : I come now to the tragical passage of our dear friend’s murder, Thomas Ker, Cherrytrees’ brother. Graden Hume, being with my Lord Hume, at dinner, was speaking somewhat freely to him, and after dinner, my lord takes him aside, and tells him he might take him if he would, and that the king had sent an express to Colonel Struthers to apprehend all vagrant Scots that were in Northumberland. Whereupon Graden, without taking leave, came straight to Crookum, where were Thomas Ker, young Bukum, Henry Hall, Alexander Hume, and Hector Aird (who were then sheltering, the persecution being now so hot in their bounds), and presseth them to go from that place, and not to stay all night; which they did, though late. But Graden, being wearied, lies down in their bed, and at midnight the party comes and apprehends Graden, and carries him first to my Lord Hume, and from thence to Hume castle. Our friends, hearing of it, send to advertise some more friends for his rescue ; and they go to Crookum, where the tryst was set to wait the party’s coming that way. However, there came none but whom I have named, and after they had stayed a little at the place, they are advertised that the party was gone another way, which put them to consult what to do next. In the meantime comes there one telling them Struthers is at hand with his party. They, not judg- ing it could be so, thinking he had been gone with Graden, Ker comes to the door, and while he is walking there, smoking his pipe, he dis- covers the party, and immediately calls his friends to draw their horses, and draws his own first, resolving not to be taken, but thought to have taken a by-way, thinking Struthers would have passed them. How- ever, when Ker mounts, one Squire Martins, Sir John Martins, the mayor of Newcastle’s son, Struthers’ nephew, would by all means challenge our friend, contrary [to] the rest, their inclination, and com- ing up to Ker, asked who he was. He answered, he was a gentleman. He says, ‘ Be taken, dog.’ Ker says, ‘ Where is your order V Upon which he drew his pistol, and shot Ker in the belly. Immediately Ker fired, and shot him dead through the head ; and after, Ker, finding himself deadly wounded, ran upon the party, and fired his other pistol, and then drew his sword, and fought while he was able to sit on horse- back, and then dropped down, yet wrestled on his knees, and prayed, 480 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. while the rest were fighting, till his breath was gone. , -Our friends fought while they were able. Alexander Hume is run through the body ; Henry Hall is shot through the arm : all sorely wounded, but hopes of their recovery. The English, some mortally wounded, and two killed, with two of their best horses, valued at 100 pieces. Our friends, being disabled, retired, and the enemy durst not pursue them., Struthers comes to Ker while his breath was hardly out, and he and*^ all of them run their swords in him, and takes by the heels and trails him through the puddle, and then flings him on a dunghill. They would not let bury his corpse, till a party of friends went in and brought it away. This is the truest account of it I can learn.”* No. VIIL~(P. 314.) The Fiery Cross] carried through the Shire of Moray ^ in 1679. That the design in carrying the fiery cross through the shire at this time was to prevent the heritors and militia from going out to assist the king’s host, was an allegation which, after the closest investigation, remained unproved. To protect the country from the M‘Donalds seems to have been the sole object of those with whom its mission originated on that occasion, though they may have been misinformed as to the hostile intention of the M‘Donalds. But of this the reader may judge for himself, from the evidence collected on this subject by the commissioners of the privy council at Elgin, some years after, and which is as follows : — “ February 3, 1685. “In presence of the earls of Errol and Kintore, and Sir George Monro. “ Alexander Brodie, of Lethin, being solemnly sworn, upon his great oath, depones he received a letter from his daughter, the Lady Grant, about the time of the going out of the king’s host, informing him of the M ‘Donalds coming down upon the country, and that the laird of ^ Wodrow MSS., vol. xxxii., folio, No. 175. t The use of the fiery cross by the highland chieftains, for summoning their clans to a place of rendezvous upon any sudden or important emergency was common in the olden time. It was also called Crean Tarigh, or the Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what the symbol implied, inferred infamy. One of the ends of the horizontal piece was either burnt or burning, and a piece of linen or white cloth stained with blood, was suspended from the other end ; and then the signal was de- livered from hand to hand, till it had passed through the whole territories of the clan, which it did with incredible celerity. “At the sight of the fiery cross, every man from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair in his best accoutrements to the place of rendezvous. He who failed to appear, suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were emblematically de- nounced to the disobedient, by the bloody and burned marks upon this warlike sig- nal.” — Sir Walter Scott. On June 9, l(i85, by order of the privy council, this sig- nal was sent through the west of Fife and Kinross as nearer to Stirling, that all betwixt sixty and sixteen might rise and oppose Argyll and his forces. — Fountain- hall’s Decisions, vol. i., p. 364. This is, perhaps, the last instance in which the fiery cross was sent round by the command of the government. It often made its circuit, by the direction of the highland chieftains, during the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. — Brown’s History of the Highlands, vol. i., p. 129. APPENDIX. 481 Grant was gone through the country among his friends to advise what to do ; and depones that being called to a burial at Auldearn, he showed the letter to the gentlemen present, and thereafter, at a meeting of the gentry of the shires of Moray and Nairn, it was resolved to send Cap- tain Stewart express to the earl of Moray, to advise what to do ; and ;this is the truth, as he shall answer to God ; depones the earl of Moray sent an answer, and the militia was ordered to come out with all dili- gence. “ Alexander Brodie. “ Alexander Tulloch, of Tannahies, being solemnly sworn, .... depones, at the time the heritors were called out to the king’s host, the time of Both well bridge, there came a fiery cross through the country from the west, wdiich surprised the people, and put them in a fright, as if Mr. M ‘Donald were coming to invade the country, which was altogether false, and supposed by the loyal party to be done of purpose by the disaffected, to impede the heritors from going to the king’s host. “ Alexander Tulloch. “ John Gumming of Logie, being solemnly sworn, depones, when he was busy convening the militia, and furnishing them with ammuni- tion, there came an alarm of a fiery cross through Moray, as if it were to be invaded by the M‘ Donald’s, which, he apprehends, was to inter- rupt the king’s service, and hinder the militia and heritors to go out to the king’s host, there being no such thing as M ‘Don aids invading the country : Depones it was reported to have come from the highlands and from Strathspey. “ John Gumming. “ George Kay, procurator-fiscal of Moray, being sworn, upon oath, depones he saw the fiery cross, that came through Moray, the time of the going out of the king’s host, as the same came to Elgin : Depones it was a fiery stick, kindled at both ends, and set upon a pole, and car- ried in a man’s hand, and so affrighted the country, and the town of Elgin, that they kept a guard of thirty men nightly : Depones the name of the person who carried the fiery cross from this, is [John] Proctor, as he remembers, but knows not who brought [it] ; Depones the bearer of the cross alarmed the country with the invasion of the M ‘Donalds, but never anything followed thereupon, nor did the M‘Don- alds come down : Depones the cross came from Strathspey or the braes of Moray, from the west, as they were informed ; and this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “ George Kay. “ Sir Alex. Innes of Garlestoun, depones he heard of a fiery cross that came through Moray the time they were going to the king’s host, and that Robert Innes, por. [portioner] of Urquhart, took it out of the man’s hand that brought it there, and waved it before the minister, fore [before] the time of sermon: Depones he heard it came from Gald- er, or Lethin, or Old Brodie, and he heard the other night, that Lethin took out a paper at that time, which he said was a letter from Sraths- pey, which informed him that the M ‘Donalds were coming down upon the country : Depones the M ‘Donalds were not near the country, nor 41 482 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT, near those places from which the alarm came, but all was designed of ])urpose to fright the country, and hinder them to go out to the king’s iiost, as he heard. “ Alexander Innes. “Elgin, February 4, 1685. “In presence of the earls of Errol and Kintore, and Sir George Monro. “ John Proctor, tailor in Elgin, depones he was the man that car- ried the fiery cross from this town to Urquhart, and that he got it from the magistrates, and that the man that brought it did alarm the country, as if the McDonalds were presently coming down to slay them ; all which so affrighted the town that they kept strong guards : Depones he heard it came from the highlands and Strathspey, and that it was de- signed, as has been since believed, to hinder the people to go out to the king’s host ; Depones it came from the kirk of Birney ; and this is the truth, as he shall answer to God : Depones he can not write. “ Eriiol. “ Kintore. “ G. Monro. “ Alexander. Kinnaird of Culbin, depones . . . that about the time they w'ere going out to the king’s host, there was a report and alarm raised, as if the M‘Donalds were coming down to invade the country; whereupon there was a meeting of the gentry convened at Auldearn, among whom his father was one, and that there Lethin took out a let- ter which, he said, came from Strathspey, which informed him that the M‘Donalds were coming down ; whereupon the gentlemen took care for their security, and his father closed up his papers in a stone wall : Depones about that time there came a fiery cross through the country, which gave them the same alarm, and that there was no such thing as the McDonalds coming down, but all was done on design to keep the people from going out to the king’s host. “ Alexander Kinnaird. “ Thomas Kinnaird, elder, of Culbin, being solemnly sworn, de- pones that there was a meeting of the gentry convened at Auldearn by Lethin, at which most of the gentlemen in that part of the country were present, and there Lethin produced a letter which, he said, had come from Strathspey, from Grant, which informed him that the M ‘Donalds were coming down to invade the country, and there he pro- posed and advised that the gentlemen should stay at home and guard the country, and not go out to the king’s host : Depones the letter was read, and he remembers there was this expression in it, that M‘Donald said he should dine at Brodie, and sup at the seaside ; which affVighted the country ; and that, at the same time, there went a fiery cross through the country, which gave the same alarm : Depones he himself, and several of the gentry present, opposed the motion of staying at home, and that, having secured his papers in a stone wall, he and his son and several of his servants went out against the rebels : And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “ Thomas Kinnaird. APPENDIX. 483 “ Francis Wiseman, one of the bailies of Elgin, being solemnly sworn, depones that the very sabbath before the people went out against the rebels, there came a fiery cross from Birney to Elgin, and that it was talked that it had come from Knockandoch to Birney, and that it alarmed them that Mr. M‘Donald was presently coming down upon the country, which so frighted them that they kept strong guards about the town : Depones it came to Elgin in the hands of a servant of John Dikeside’s as he was informed : And this is the truth, as he shall an swer to God. ‘‘ Francis Wiseman. “John Innes of Dikeside, in Birney parish, depones that the timf the heritors were going out to Both well bridge against the rebels, there was a fiery cross that came through the country, to alarm the country, as if the M ‘Donalds were coming down to take all away, which so affrighted the people, that it put a stop to the going out of the gentry and militia against the rebels for eight days : Depones the cross came down from Gedloch, by a servant of John Leslie’s of Mid- dletoun, to him, and the deponent gave it to Peter Kynes, his servant, who carried it in to the provost of Elgin : And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “ John Innes. “ Mr. John Gumming, minister at Birney, being solemnly sworn, depones that the time the people were making ready to go against the rebels, there came a fiery cross through the country, from Bothes to the parish of Birney, and they said it came from Strathspey to that, and that the alarm went that M‘Donald was in the braes of Badenoch with men in arms, or thereabout, and that the laird of Grant was ma- king ready, and raising men to oppose him ; and depones, this so af- frighted the country, that they were afraid to leave their houses to go out to the king’s host, as he judged : And this is all he presently re- members, and the truth, as he shall answer to God. “John Gumming, minister at Birney. “ Mr. John Leslie, minister at Rothes, depones there came a fiery cross from the parish of Dallas to the parish of Rothes, the time the heritors were going out against the rebels, which strangely alarmed the country, as if M ‘Donald w^ere coming with a thousand men to invade the country, and it was a falsehood, and was looked upon by honest men to be done of purpose and design to retard the king’s service : And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “ John Leslie. “Archibald Grant of Balmholm, solemnly sworn, depones he lives in Knockandoch parish, and that the time the heritors and militia were convening to go out against the rebels at Bothwell bridge, there came a fiery cross from Kirkdals, which is in Knockandoch parish, down the country, to his house, and from that to Rothes, and down to the sea : Depones the cross went from house to house, and was changed from hand to hand, to give the quicker alarm, and that the report went with it that M ‘Donald was in the hills coming down to invade the coun- try, which strongly affrighted the people, and retarded their going out 484 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. against the rebels, but the deponent himself went to serve the king’s host, against the rebels : And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “ Archibald Grant.”* No. IX.— (p. 314.) Desired Extension of the Indulgence to Moi'ay shire* Though no active measures were taken at Edinburgh by the com- missioners referred to in the text, for the extension of the indulgence to Morayshire, the entertainment of the question by the presbyterians in the north, was displeasing to the government, and the commissioners Df the privy council which met at Elgin, in 1685, made particular in- quiries as to this matter. The depositions of such as were examined in regard to it, extracted from the records of their proceedings, may be interesting to the reader. They are as follows : — “ Elgin, Feb. 10, 1685. “In presence of the earls of Errol and Kintore, and Sir George Monro. “Sir Hugh Campbell of Calder, being solemnly sworn, depones that about July 10, 1679, he being come to Brodie to visit his uncle, he can not say whether he was called or came accidentally, his uncle being then unwell, he used to come oft and visit him ; Depones when he came there he found several gentlemen, such as Grant, Grange, Lethin, Kinsterie, Milntoun, Windiehill, young Innes, and Donald Campbell, the deponent’s brother, and some others, to whom and to the deponent Brodie told that he was informed that the king’s, majesty had granted an indulgence to those be-south Tay, and that if it were known that any there had a mind to have the like indulgence, it might be obtained. It was spoke of whether a petition might be drawn to that purpose, but the deponent said it was against law, and was not to be done. The next thing was thought on was to s^nd a gentleman or two to Edinburgh, to see what was in the matter, and whether such a thing was feasible, and it was proposed that young Innes and Donald Campbell should go. But they excusing themselves at that time, Bro- die desired Grange to go ; but he declined it, or to do any anything by himself, although he seemed to have some oilier affairs at Edinburgh. Whereupon Brodie pressed the deponent to go with him, in respect he knew he was to go very shortly, however; which, at Brodie’s desire, he condescended to do, and to give him his advice, when upon the place, if he could see that anything could be done without giving offence. Whereupon there was a letter written, and left blank upon the back, that Grange and the deponent might fill up any person’s name there they should think fit, if they saw any ground to think that their desires could be granted. The letter was but short, narrating what we heard, and desiring to inform himself whether an indulgence might be ob- tained ; and the only argument as he remembers proposed in the letter * Warants of Privy Council. APPENDIX. 485 was that none of the subscribers had ever been at any field-conventi- cle, and had never joined in anns, and never should join in arms with any person who had, or should take arms against the king’s person, or authority : Depones likewise, that the deponent does not mind how much money should have been collected for the expense of any who should [have] been employed in case the affair could have been prose- cute, but the deponent well remembers that Donald Campbell, his brother, did collect five hundred pounds Scots, and some little odds, v^diich money, with the letter above mentioned, was given to the laird of Grange ; and within a few days after the deponent and he came to Ed- inburgh, Grange asked the deponent what to do with the letter, and he advised him to destroy it, which was accordingly done ; and when Grange came home, leaving the deponent at Edinburgh, he left the five hundred pounds, and odd money, with the deponent, to be given to his brother, who was not then arrived at Edinburgh, and accordingly the deponent held compt with his brother anent it. This is all he remem- bers of the affair, according to his present knowledge and memory, as he shall answer to God : Depones the letter was subscribed (for what the deponent knows) by all that were present, and that the deponent himself did contribute no money : Depones Mr. Robert Martin came to the deponent, and dealt with him, that he might be employed to ne- gotiate to obtain the indulgence, but the deponent absolutely declined to employ him, but caused destroy the letter relating to it, as is above said. “H. C. of Calder. “ Ludovick Grant, of that ilk, being solemnly sworn, depones he was at Brodie eight or ten days after their return from Bothwell or thereby, where there were present Calder, Grange, Lethin, Innes younger, and other gentlemen, and a letter was drawn and signed by them, but not direct on the back, but to have been backed for any of the statesmen should be thought most fit, that they might deal for pro- curing the indulgence to be extended to this country, and the letter was given to Calder and Grange, who carried it south, and the affair was referred to their management : Depones there was money to have been given to Calder and Grange, for their expense in going to Edinburgh. And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “Ludovick Grant. “ Thomas Dunbar of Grange, being solemnly sworn, depones that Innes younger told the deponent, about the 12th of July, 1679, that there was an indulgenc^granted to the west and south of Scotland, and within a few days thereafter he had occasion to be at my Lord Bro- die’s house seeing him, where there was Innes younger, Calder, Grant, Kilravock, Lethin, Milntoun, and Donald Campbell ; and being dis- coursing anent the indulgence, old Brodie told that he had got some advertisement that there was indulgence granted, and thought, if we moved any such thing, we might have the like favor granted to us : whereupon the gentlemen above named resolved that they would draw a letter ; which accordingly was done, the contents whereof were in 41 * 486 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. these terms : That forasmuch as his majesty had been js^raciously pleased to grant indulgence to the south and west parts of Scotland, and who had been in actual rebellion against his majesty, and kept field con- venticles, the like whereof had never been in these parts of Scot- land, and we hoped tliere never should be such practices found among us, that therefore their lordships would be pleased to try if his majesty would be pleased to extend his gracious favor to this place of the coun- try. This letter was left blank upon the back as to the address, till it should be considered whether it should have been addressed to my lord chancellor or my lord secretary. Young Innes and Donald Camp- bell were desired to go south with the letter. Donald Campbell could not go at that time, and Innes would not go without him. Whereupon the laird of Calder and the deponent being going, however, the letter was given to them, that they might try what might be gotten done in the matter ; and they having come to Edinburgh, he thinks before the 20th of July, found that there was no place for moving in that matter, but rather that the indulgence granted was like to be retracted, they did not move at all, less or more, but tore the letter, and came home how soon they had done their business : Depones Mr. Robert Martin would be intruding himself upon the employment, but they gave him none : And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “ Thomas Dunbar. “Francis Brodie of Milntoun, being solemnly sworn, depones that about the beginning of July, 1679, being at Brodie at a meeting' where there were present Grant, Grange, Calder, Innes younger, Kilravock, and some others (but remembers not if Pitgavenie was there), there was a letter drawn which he conceives was direct to the chancellor, or lords of privy council, and a warrant or instructions given to young Innes and Donald Campbell, to go south, to deal and negotiate that this country might participate of his majesty’s favor and indulgence granted to those in the south and west of Scotland ; and money was to have been given for their expense as he heard, but himself gave none : And this is the truth, as he shall answer to God. “ Francis Brodie, “ Errgl, “ Kintore, “ G. Monro.”* No. X.— (p. 350.) - t^ense in which the Covenanters refused to say “ God save the KingP Though it is incorrect tQ affirm that Margaret Wilson refused to save her life by saying “ God save the king,” yet many of the cove- nanters no doubt refused to say this even to save their lives. It would, however, be to take a very superficial view of the case, to ascribe this to a foolish obstinacy. They were quite ready to use the words in the * WaiTants of Privy Council. APPENDIX. 487 spirit of that exhortation of Panl : “I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men ; for kings and for all that are in authority ; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Tim. ii. 1, 2). The sense in which they declined to say “God save the king” was the sense put upon the words by their persecutors — a sense which implied an acknowledgment not only of the king’s civil suprema- cy, which all the presbyterians, with the exception of the Cameronians, were ready to make, but also of his ecclesiastical supremacy, an ac- knowledgment which none of them could consistently make, as, accord- ing to their principles, this would have been sacrilegiously to yield to him that headship over the church which Christ claims as his exclu- sive and inalienable prerogative. When, in August, 1684, John Camp- bell of Over- Wei wood, in Ayrshire, was imprisoned in Glasgow, Wind- ram asked him if he would pray for the king. Campbell answered that he both did and would pray that the Lord would enable him to live a godly life here, and bestow upon him a life of glory hereafter. “ That is not enough,” said Windram ; “ you must pray for King Charles II. as he is supreme over all persons and causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil.” Campbell replied that in his opinion that was “ praying for him as the head of the church, which belonged only to Christ ; and he reckoned it arrogance in any creature whatsoever to claim it.” — Wod- row’s History, vol. iv., p. 49. No. XL— (p. 377.) Countess of Argyll's Sympathy with the Covenanters, In illustration of this lady’s benevolent sympathy with and favor for the persecuted presbyterians, we may here insert the two following letters, addressed to “ Mr. Robert Miller, merchant in the exchange at Edinburgh;” which refer to some individual not named, who was evidently suffering for nonconformity, and in whom she felt deeply in- terested : — Letter I. Stirling, September 8, 1683. “ Loving Friend : I received yours, for which I heartily thank you. I was both satisfied and grieved to read all you sent me. My heart felt what he was suffering, as much as any alive ; for I both love and respect that person, and, were it fit for me, would go far to do him any good. But I hope in Him [that he] who is merciful, and hath a care of his own, and also of the innocent, will show his sovereign power, and not only preserve him, but bring him through this his trouble, and reward all does [who do] him good. I spoke to my Lady Arroll for him, and I think it were not amiss his sister Mary came in, and spake to her and the Lady Largo, and tell her all that belongs him remem- bers their kindness to their father, and that even he expects they will 488 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. do him good in what is in their power. I w'as much for Mary’s going to England. I wish she could go yet, and that your affairs would allow you. I shall not offer to desire it absolutely ; but since you go once a year, I would be in your debt five pounds, so you could go and assist.him, and take Mary with you ; and she being a woman and a sister, might venture where it were not fit to you to go. I should write wdth her to some, and you would be able to advise her, and do things she could not do. I went and spoke to the advocate ere he went, and he and his lady promised to do Mr. W all the service they could ; and her woman, Mrs. Carintoun, promised to mind them. So the sooner any go, it were the better. Let your cousin Mary know of all that you sent to me ; and if you kept the cipher of them, ler her see them and advise with her lady, who I am sure will not hinder her to go, and I doubt not will assist him, and I think so should all that con- cerns him for whom he is innocently suffering, only because he served him he is suspected. The great God direct well all that may contrib- ute for his relief and advantage. I expect to hear by the bearer from you : so adieu ! “P. S. — The enclosed I would have you to send with some sure hand to Fife, to my Sophia. If you will be pleased to speak to George M‘Kenzie, or his man, to send any of my son’s servants to you, that is going to Fife, he will do it.” Letter II. “ Loving Friend : Since your own affairs takes you not where I wished you to go, I will not take on me to send you. But if you had been to go, I would have been content with all my heart to have been, as I said, five pounds in your debt, so you could have served your wor- thy cousin, and been useful to him at this time. Had I had the money beside me when I wrote, I had sent it you ; and had I money, or could get my own, I could have sent one with a better sum, if it could contribute to his good, for whom I have a real kindness ; for the Lord, I hope, will be in place of all to him, and let the world see his inno- cence and faithfulness. If I have time, I will write to your cousin Mary. I have time to say no more but No. XII.— (p. 384.) A Letter of the Earl of Argyll to his Lady, in Ciphers, This letter was probably wTitten after he heard that the conspiracy was discovered ; and it abounds in mute ciphers. It is as follows : — * These two letters are printed from copies obligingly communicated by David Laing, Esq , Signet Library. There is a letter written by the same lady to Mr. lloberd Douglas, dated London, August 21, 1669, in vol. xxvi., folio, No. 112 of the Wodrow MSS. But this letter I have not seen. The volume in which it is to be found is probably in the possession of the very Rev. Principal Lee. APPENDIX. 489 “ 32 67 48 45 25 43 24 51 26 41 44 36 51 40 43 44 69 28 37 26 54 56 48 57 53 52 39 44 56 27 47 44 29 48 57 39 50 53 57 58 22 53 53 40 50 48 52 58 57 64 54 59 56 54 53 57 44 57 68 58 47 56 48 42 44 51 69 21 56 44 43 57 51 40 43 44 28 54 56 53 54 53 58 48 58 48 53 52 20 53 45 44 59 44 56 62 67 58 47 48 52 40 32 51 48 46 47 58 57 44 42 59 56 44 39 41 56 40 52 43 60 48 58 47 53 59 58 40 41 53 61 64 58 47 44 52 58 53 43 44 40 50 44 60 48 58 47 41 48 56 42 57 41 59 58 48 58 48 57 52 53 58 58 40 50 49 48 52 46 60 48 50 43 53 44 48 58 64 60 47 50 58 48 57 74 40 54 44 52 44 43 52 44 44 43 97 52 53 58 47 48 52 43 44 56 41 59 58 57 47 53 59 50 43 45 59 56 58 47 44 56 44 51. The above letter deciphered. and mutes pointed out ; * m stands for mute : — in m m Duke m Monmouth mm mm m m m “ 32 67 If 25 D 27 M 26 be 36 made 69 28 prison395r, 27 he 29 mm mm Carstaira is 39 lost 22 to all intents and purposes. 68. Thrice Mr. 6921 Redf rn ^ ^ m m m ^ m Scotland made 28 proposition 20 of every 67 thing 32 might secure 39 Brand battle England without a box, and then to deal with Birch ; but it is not talking will do it; and what has happened need not hinder, but should further them.”f No. XIII.— (P. 394.) Extracts from a Letter of the Countess of Argyll, to her Son, Colin, Earl of Balcarres, The letter from which the following extracts are taken, was written by the countess to her son, after his marriage, at an early age, to Mad- emoiselle Mauritia de Nassau, daughter of Louis de Nassau, count of Beverwaert and Auverquerque, in Holland, || by Elizabeth, countess of Horn. The particulars of the marriage have more than the interest of romance. The young Mauritia had fallen in love with Colin, who was extremely handsome, at his first presentation at the court of Charles II. ; and, ere long, the day was fixed for their marriage. “ The prince of Orange, afterward William III., presented his fair kinswoman, on this joyful occasion, with a pair of magnificent emerald ear-rings, as his wedding-gift. The day arrived, the noble party were assembled in the church, and the bride was at the altar ; but, to the dismay of the ^ As, by the alphabet made use of in this letter, 40 stands for the letter a, 41 for b, and so on till you come to 64, which stands for & ; the way to distinguish the mutes from the significant ciphers is, to observe whether any two figures fall within the compa.ss of the alphabet from 40 to 64. Thus, the figures 32, 67, at the beginning of the letter, are mutes, 32 being a number below the first cipher, and 67 a number above the last. t This alludes to a plan which Mr. Carstairs had formed for surprising the castle of Edinburgh. I Carstairs’ State Papers, p. 107. |j Natural son of Maurice, prince of Orange. 490 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. company, no bridegroom appeared ! The volatile Colin had forgotten the day of his marriage,, and was discovered in his night-gown and slip{)ers, quietly eating his breakfast! Thus far the tale is told with a smile on the lip, but many a tear was shed at the conclusion. Colin hurried to the church, but in his haste left the ring in his writing-case ; a friend in the company gave him one — the ceremony went on, and, without looking at it, he placed it on the finger of his fair young bride. It was a mourning-ring, with the morthead and crossed bones. On perceiving it at the close of the ceremony, she fainted away ; and the evil omen had made such an impression on her mind that, on recover- ing, she declared she should die within the year, and her presentiment was too truly fulfilled. “ It was in the joy of seeing Colin established, to all appearance, so happily fc^ life, that his mother addressed him an admirable letter of advice, moral, religious, political and domestic. No subject is left un- touched, of which a mother would be anxious to impress right ideas on a son.” She thus writes in the beginning : “ Because the interest of the soul is preferable to that of the body, I shall first desire you to be serious in your religion, worshipping your God, and let your dependence be con- stantly upon him for all things ; the first step in it is to believe in God, that he made and upholds the universe in wisdom, in goodness, and in justice ; that we must adore, obey him, and approve of all he does. The fear of God, says Solomon, is the beginning of knowledge ; he is a buckler to all that walk uprightly. Dedicate some certain time eve- ry day to the service of your glorious Maker and Redeemer; in that, take a survey of your life, shorter or longer, as the time will permit ; thank him for making you what you are — for redeeming you, giving you his Word and Spirit, and that you live under the gospel — for all the faculties of your soul and body — that you are descended of Chris- tian parents — for your provisions — for all you have in possession. Read, pray ; consider the life and death of your blessed Savior and Lord, and your heart will be warmed with that love that is beyond ex- pression, that meekness and humility that endured the contradiction of sinners against himself. Strive to conform to him ; no fraud, no guile, no evil-speaking was found with him, for all the injustice and wicked backbiting he met with ; he was kind, doing always good. He for- gave, was patient in enduring injuries, was charitable. My dear son, the great work to which we are called is to be partakers of his holy, harmless nature ; true religion stands in imitating of him and converse with him. ‘ Truly,’ says the apostle John, ‘ our fellowship is with the Father and the Son.’ David says, ‘Evening, and morning, and mid-da^q will I pray to Thee.’ We have directions and examples in the Holy Word for what we should do ; and we are told to watch and pray that we be not led into temptation (they are oft most afraid of them that are most resolved and best acquainted to resist them) ; to implore his help for supply of grace and strength, or of what we need ; and to encourage us to it, he says none shall seek his face in vain. He APPENDIX. 491 gives us liis Holy Word that we may daily read out of it Divine les- sons ; it is a lantern to our feet to walk cleanly, and sure it is for in- struction and direction in righteousness ; read often of the life and death of your Savior; read the book of Psalms, Proverbs, and Eccle- siastes ; often the Epistles, not neglecting the other Scriptures ; for other books, I would have you read those most that will make you know the Scriptures and your duty ; and yourself must make con- science of your duty to your particular relations.” To his prince she inculcates loyalty and reverence ; to his country, love and protection ; reminding him, however, that public characters are unhappy, except in times when virtue is loved for its own sake. “ Strive,” says she, “to enrich your mind with virtue, and let it be attended with the golden chain of knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity.” Possessed of these, “ though you were bereft of all the world can give you or take from you, you are justly to be accounted happy.” Friendship she holds as the choicest earthly blessing, but she gives her son important cautions and advices on the subject. “Where the fear of God is not,” says she, “and the practice of Christian virtues, that friendship can not stand long ; there is certainly a secret curse in that friendship whereof God is not the foundation and the end. Let not the least jealousy of your faithful friend enter into your mind, but whatever he do, think it was well intended ; in some cases it is better to be deceived than distrust.” Yet “though friendship be the greatest solace of life, it proves not always firm enough to repose the soul absolutely upon. The fixedness of all things here below depends on God, who would have us to fix all our peace and contentment, even this we enjoy in the creatures, on himself. There is great reason for it. It’s much if our friend’s judg- ment, affection, and interest, long agree ; if there be but a difference in any of these, it doth much to mar all, the one being constrained to love that the other loves not ; one of you may have a friend whose favor may make great breaches, an Ahithophel or a Ziba ; our Savior had those who followed him for interest, that did soon forsake him, and turned his betrayers and enemies. If one of you be calmer nor [than] the other, and allows not all the other does out of humor, this causes mistakes. As a man is, so is his strength. A virtuous, faithful friend, whose ways are ordered of God, who is of a sweet, equal, cheerful humor, not jealous, not easily made to break the friendship he hath made on good grounds, which is understood to be kindled from heaven, is certainly the greatest jewel on earth. But if God so dispose of it, that your friends, though the nearest relations on earth, change to you, strive to be constant to them, and to overcome all with patience. Let meekness smooth over all their passions, espouse their interest, pursue them with kindness and serviceableness of all kinds, seek reconciliation on any terms, amend what they think amiss. Let ingenuity be in all your words and actions ; put on charity, which is the bond of perfec- tion, which suffereth long, is kind, envieth not ; forbear upbraiding 492 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. or repeating what you have done to oblige them, but look on what you do for your friends, and their acceptance of it, as that wherefore you are most indebted to them ; from those you are engaged to in friend- ship strive to be content with frowns as well as smiles; bear all their infirmities, considering they must bear yours. »********^i» “ To be kind to your sisters is not only the earnest desire of your mother, who lodged you all in her womb ; but what is far more, it is commanded you by the Spirit of God to add to your faith and virtue, ‘ brotherly kindness.’ ‘ A brother,’ says Solomon, ‘is born for adver- sity.’ If it be enjoined us to bear this kindness to all that love God, our Lord and Father, far more are you to bear it to your sisters, who are both lovers of God, and your own sisters also. ‘ A brother loves at all times,’ saith Solomon. They have you now for their father; be kind to them as he was, and live as you would have yours to do after you are gone. God, I hope, will requite your brotherly care and kindness with a blessing to you in your own. St. John saith, he that loves his brother (I may say sisters also) lives in light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. Good Abraham said to Lot, ‘ Let not strife be betwixt thee and me, and thy servants and mine, we are brethren.’ Our Savior has told us, ‘A family divided can not stand ;’ and saith the Spirit of God, ‘ How pleasant it is to see brethren to dwell together in unity !’ A threefold cord is not easily broken ; how pleasant, how easy it is to live in love, and to do our duty to all ! Their virtue, I hope, will make you love and trust them.” To regard his wife as the dearest friend of his bosom (“ Believe it,” she says, “no man is happy but he that is so in his own house,”), to educate his children in the fear and love of God, in truth and knowledge, telling them “ of the virtues of those who have been before them, that they may do nothing base or unworthy that looks like de- generating from them,” “ to maintain an orderly and religious house- hold, shunning whisperers and flatterers, that sail with all winds;” to be kind to his servants in their vigor, and careful of them in age and sickness ; to love, rather than hate his enemies ; and, to extend his charity beyond the external duties of a Christian toward the poor and afflicted, to the regulations of his opinions with regard to others, ques- tioning his own, rather than their judgment; learning of his Savior to be meek, and remembering that “ God was not in the thunder or the fire, but in the calm, still voice ;” to be modest in society abroad, and to look on the careful management of his affairs at home as a duty — these, and many other incidental duties, are enforced with affection as tender as the language is energetic. “ Your good grandfather. Lord David,” she concludes, “ thought that day misspent he knew not some new thing. He was a very stu- dious and diligent man in his affairs. You that have such a closet [library], such gardens, and so much to do within doors and without, need not think the time tedious, nor be idle ; it is the hand of the dil- igent maketh rich The good man orders his affairs with discretion ; APPENDIX. 493 it is the diligent that is the only person fit for government ; Solomon saith, his thoughts tend to plenteousness, and he may stand before kings. “ My care hath been great for you and your family, and you may see by this, I will be always, my dear son, your kind mother, “Anna Argyll.”* No. XIV.— (P. 408.) The Sufferings of Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinhrech, The account in the text is confirmed by a “petition of Sir Duncan Campbell for himself and his distressed friends, tenants, and vassals, in Knapdale, Glassary, and Kelislait,” presented to the estates of par- liament after the revolution. Referring to his having taken up arms with the earl of Argyll, in 1685, “in defence of the protestant religion, and in opposition to popery and arbitrary power,” the petition states that the “ petitioner having, from his sense of the justice and necessity of the said earl, his undertaking, and for the defence of the country, cause man and garrison his house of Carnassary ; the same was be- sieged, and a treaty for surrender being in dependence, the deceased Lauchlane M‘Laine, of Torlisk, Lauchlane M‘Laine, of Coll, M‘Laine, of Ardgour, M‘Laine, of Kenlochalin, M'Laine, of Lochbuy, Donald M‘Neil, of Collachie, Archibald M‘Lauchlane, of Craiginterave, and M ‘Kerch nie, in Kin tyre, conjunctly and severally, with their barbarous accomplices, did in the first place cause hang Dugald M‘Tavish, fiar of Dunardarie, at the said house of Car- na»ssary, and immediately after the surrendering thereof, did barbarously murder Alexander Campbell, of Strondour, the petitioner’s uncle, and without any regard to any conditions of faith given, they did fall upon and w'ound above twenty of the soldiers of the garrison, plunder and carry away out of the said house threescore horse led [i.e., laden] of goods and plenishing, and after all these cruelties and robberies, the said deceased Lauchlane M‘Laine, of Torlisk, with his above-named followers and accomplices, did set fire to the said house of Carnassary, and burn it to ashes, and after all, your petitioner’s estate being an- nexed to the crown, the rents thereof were intromitted with, and up- lifted by William Stewart, of Craigtown, as having commission from the lords of the treasury, since the year 1685, to Martinmas, 1689, and the same are yet in his hands; and during this space, the said friends, tenants, and vassals, were, by the arbitrary exactions of the deceased viscount of Strathallan, and Sir John Drummond, of Machonie, op- pressed, leased, and damnified in certain great sums of money : likeas, the said Donald M‘Neil of Collachie, and Archibald M‘Lauchlane, of Craiginterave, did intromit with and take up out of the parishes of Knapdale, Kelislate, Glassary, and Ariskeodnish [z.6., Kilmartin], the number of 2000 cows, belonging to the petitioner, his friends and ten- ants ; and the said M‘Kerchnie, in Kintyre, did seize upon the haill ^ Lives of the Lindsays, vol. ii., pp. 120-128. 32 494 THE LADIES OF THE COVENANT. goods and plenishing within the petitioner’s house of Lochgair, where- through the petitioner, his said friends, tenants, and vassals, are disa- bled, leased, and damnified in the sums of money and avails following : viz., by the burning of the said house of Carnassary, in the sum of d€20,000 Scots ; by the taking away of the said goods, as will appear by a particular list, in the sum of 6020,000 money foresaid ; by his lying out of his estate intromitted with by the said William Stewart in the sum of 6024,000 money foresaid ; by the said arbitrary exactions of the said viscount Strathallan and Sir John Drummond, of Macho- nie, in the sum of 6012,000 money aforesaid ; and by the said Donald McNeil, and Archibald M‘Lauchlane, of Craiginterave, their intromit- ting with and taking up of the said 2000 cows, in the sum of 6040,000 money foresaid ; and by the said M‘Kerchnie, his taking away of the plenishing of the house of Lochgair, in the sum of 602000 money fore- said ; extending in haill the said sums, to the sum of 60118,000 Scots money foresaid.”* *■ Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, July 8, 1690 THE END. 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