Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

by John Galt

  CHAPTER XLV

  It has been seen, by what I have told concerning the part my grandfatherhad in the great work of the Reformation, that the heads of the house ofArgyle were among the foremost and the firmest friends of theresuscitated Evangil. The aged Earl of that time was in the very frontof the controversy as one of the Lords of the Congregation; and thoughhis son, the Lord of Lorn, hovered for a season, like other young men ofhis degree, in the purlieus and precincts of the Lady Regent's court,yet when her papistical counsels broke the paction with the protestantsat Perth, I have rehearsed how he, being then possessed of theinheritance of his father's dignities, did, with the bravery becominghis blood and station, remonstrate with her Highness against suchimpolitic craft and perfidy, and, along with the Lord James Stuart,utterly eschew her presence and method of government.

  After the return of Queen Mary from France, and while she manifested arespect for the rights of her covenanted people, that worthy Earl wasamong her best friends; and even after the dismal doings that led to hercaptivity in Lochleven Castle, and thence to the battle of Langside, hestill acted the part of a true nobleman to a sovereign so fickle and sofaithless. Whether he rued on the field that he had done so, or wassmitten with an infirmity that prevented him from fighting against hisold friend and covenanted brother, the good Regent Murray, belongs notto this history to inquire; but certain it is, that in him theprotestant principles of his honourable house suffered no dilapidation;and in the person of his grandson, the first marquis of the name, theywere stoutly asserted and maintained.

  When the first Charles, and Laud, that ravenous Arminian Antichrist,attempted to subvert and abrogate the presbyterian gospel worship, notonly did the Marquis stand forth in the van of the Covenanters to staythe religious oppression then meditated against his native land, butlaboured with all becoming earnestness to avert the pestilence of civilwar. In that doubtless Argyle offended the false counsellors about theKing; but when the English parliament, with a lawless arrogance, struckoff the head of the miscounselled and bigoted monarch, faithful to hiscovenants and the loyalty of his race, the Marquis was amongst theforemost of the Scottish nobles to proclaim the Prince of Wales king.With his own hands he placed on Charles the Second's head the ancientdiadem of Scotland. Surely it might therefore have been then supposedthat all previous offence against the royal family was forgotten andforgiven; yea, when it is considered that General Monk himself, theboldest in the cause of Cromwell's usurpation, was rewarded with adukedom in England for doing no more for the King there than Argyle haddone for him before in greater peril here, it could not have enteredinto the imagination of Christian men, that Argyle, for only submittinglike a private subject to the same usurped authority when it had becomesupreme, would, after the Restoration, be brought to the block. But itwas so; and though the machinations of political enemies converted thatsubmission into treasons to excuse their own crime, yet there was not anhonest man in all the realm that did not see in the doom of Argyle adismal omen of the cloud and storm which so soon after burst upon ourreligious liberties.

  Passing, however, by all those afflictions which took the colour ofpolitical animosities, I hasten to speak of the proceedings which, fromthe hour of the Restoration, were hatched for the revival of theprelatic oppression. The tyranny of the Stuarts is indeed of so fell anature that, having once tasted of blood in any cause, it will returnagain and again, however so often baffled, till it has either devouredits prey, or been itself mastered; and so it showed in this instance.For, regardless of those troubles which the attempt of the first Charlesto exercise an authority in spiritual things beyond the rights of allearthly sovereignty caused to the realm and to himself, the second nosooner felt the sceptre in his grip than he returned to the sameenormities; and he found a fit instrument in James Sharp, who, incontempt of the wrath of God, sold himself to Antichrist for the prelacyof St Andrews.

  But it was not among the ambitious and mercenary members of the clergythat the evidences of a backsliding generation were alone to be seen;many of the people, nobles and magistrates were infected with the sin ofthe same reprobation; and in verity, it might have been said of therealm that the restoration of King Charles the Second was hailed as anadvent ordained to make men forget all vows, sobriety and solemnities.It is, however, something to be said in commendation of the constancy ofmind and principle of our West Country folk that the immorality of thatdrunken loyalty was less outrageous and offensive to God and man amongthem, and that although we did submit and were commanded to commemoratethe anniversary of the King's restoration, it was nevertheless done withhumiliation and anxiety of spirit. But a vain thing it would be of me toattempt to tell the heartburning with which we heard of the manner thatthe Covenant, and of all things which had been hallowed and honourableto religious Scotland, were treated in the town of Lithgow on thatoccasion, although all of my grandfather's stock knew that from of oldit was a seat and sink of sycophancy, alien to holiness, and prone tolick the dust aneath the feet of whomsoever ministered to the corruptionabiding there.

  Had the general inebriation of the kingdom been confined only to suchmockers as the papistical progeny of the unregenerate town of Lithgow,we might perhaps have only grieved at the wantonness of the world; butthey were soon followed by more palpable enormities. Middleton, theKing's commissioner, coming on a progress to Glasgow, held a council ofstate there, at which was present the apostate Fairfoul, who had beenshortly before nominated Archbishop of that city; and at his wickedincitement, Middleton, in a fit of actual intoxication from strongdrink, let loose the bloodhounds of persecution by that memorable actof council which bears the date of the 1st of October, 1662,--ananniversary that ought ever to be held as a solemn fast in Scotland, ifsuch things might be, for by it all the ministers that had receivedGospel ordination from and after the year forty-nine, and who stillrefused to bend the knee to Baal, were banished, with their families,from their kirks and manses.

  But to understand in what way that wicked act, and the blood-causingproclamation which ensued, came to take effect, it is needful, beforeproceeding to the recital, to bid the courteous reader remember thepreaching of the doctrine of passive obedience by our time-servingpastor, Mr Sundrum, and how the kirk was deserted on that occasion;because, after his death, which happened in the forty-nine, godly MrSwinton became our chosen pastor, and being placed and inductedaccording to the apostolic ordination of Presbytery, fell, of course,like many of his Gospel brethren, under the ban of the aforesaidproclamation, of which some imperfect sough and rumour reached us on theFriday after it was framed.

  At first the particulars were not known, for it was described as themuttering of unclean spirits against the purity of the Truth; but thetidings startled us like the growl of some unknown and dreadful thing,and I dreamt that night of my grandfather, with his white hair and thecomely venerableness of his great age, appearing pale and sorrowful in afield before me, and pointing with a hand of streaming light tohorsemen, and chariots, and armies with banners, warring together on thedistant hills.

  Saturday was then the market-day at Irvine; and though I had but littlebusiness there, I yet went in with my brother Robin, chiefly to hear thetalk of the town. In this I but partook of the common sympathy of thewhole country-side; for, on entering the town-end port, we found theconcourse of people there assembled little short of the crowd at MarymasFair, and all eager to learn what the council held at Glasgow had done;but no one could tell. Only it was known that the Earl of Eglinton, whohad been present at the council, was returned home to the castle, andthat he had sent for the provost that morning on very urgent business.

  While we were thus all speaking and marvelling one with another, a crygot up that a band of soldiers was coming into the town from Ayr, thereport of which, for the space of several minutes, struck every one withawe and apprehension. And scarcely had the sough of this passed over us,when it was told that the provost had privately returned from EglintonCastle by the Gallows-knowes to the backsides, and that he had
sent forthe minister and the bailies, with others of the council, to meet him inthe clerk's chamber.

  No one wist what the meaning of such movements and mysteries could be;but all boded danger to the fold and flock, none doubting that thewolves of episcopalian covetousness were hungering and thirsting for theblood of the covenanted lambs. Nor were we long left to our guesses;for, soon after the magistrates and the minister had met, a copy of theproclamation of the council held at Glasgow was put upon the Tolboothdoor, by which it was manifested to every eye that the fences of thevineyard were indeed broken down, and that the boar was let in andwrathfully trampling down and laying waste.