''.n:-i>:}-J:':''./jr.W-umm

"Bd^J' H.

/.C/'/C/./lrJ

';v>/

(fj/.r/.

/

'ifi^

RICHARD CAMERON

RICHARD CAMERON BY
JOHN : :
HERKLESS FAMOUS scots:SERIES

^^

PUBLISHED BY W
OLIPHANT ANDERSON
U-FERRIEREDINBVRGH
AND LONDON -^ -vi.

The designs and ornaments of this
volume are by Mr Joseph Brown,
and the printing from the press of
Messrs TurnbuU & Spears, Edinburgh,

'75ci %-j,

f ¦ ^

PREFACE
I UNDERTOOK the prcscut task from an interest in the
Presbyterian rebelhon, but soon found that the " Lion of
the Covenant " was to the historian a lion in his den. I
could hardly get at him, and it seemed impossible to
catch more than a glimpse of him. In fact, the materials
for a biography of Richard Cameron were so scanty that
I grew alarmed, wondering how I was to make out my
tale of bricks with so little straw. At length, from
the registers of the University of St Andrews, and the
Wodrow MSS. in the Advocates' Library, I got some pick
ings. I have been able to correct a few dates and fill up
a gap or two in the meagre record. The hero is hardly
vivid withal ; but if the delineation does not amount to a
portrait, there is, I trust, such a rending of the shadows as
leaves the recognisable figure of a man. I have dispensed
with foot notes ; they would be of no value to the general
reader, for whom the work is intended.
I have to thank the Rev. J. Barrack, M.A., minister of

6 PREFACE
Falkland, for giving me access to the session records, and
Charles Gulland, Esq., Town-clerk of Falkland, for showing
me a deed of sasine which throws some light on the family
of Cameron. J. H.
The University, St Andrews,
October 1896.

PAGE

CONTENTS CHAPTER I
The Ecclesiastical Position .... 9
CHAPTER II
St Andrews ....... 22
CHAPTER III
Schoolmaster and Chaplain .... 38
CHAPTER IV
The Indulgence .,,,,, 52
CHAPTER V
In Holland .,,.... 81
CHAPTER VI
Preacher ....... 97
CHAPTER VII
The Sanquhar Declaration . . . .117
CHAPTER VIII
AVRSMOSS ..,.,,. 132

RICHARD CAMERON
CHAPTER I
THE ECCLESIASTICAL POSITION
The National Covenant was the bond of a people bent
on having religious liberty. James VI. and Charles I.,
while tampering with the government of the Church,
roused no open rebellion. A crisis, however, was reached
when Charles touched the forms of public worship ; and
then the question of the relation of the sovereign to the
Church was raised. Theory was set against theory ; the
divine right of the Church against the divine right of
the king; and in 1638, by the National Covenant,
Scotland decreed that her Church should be free from
royal control. Fifty years passed before a sovereign
came who wiUingly or unwillingly ratified this decree,
fifty years of tragedy.
During the first generation of the ryth century there
was no popular movement against Episcopacy. But re
sentment was felt, intense and widespread, when the
English Archbishop, acting under Charles, controlled
the Scottish bishops, making them his instruments to
intrude a liturgy on a Church over which, by reason
of national jealousy, he dared exercise no direct authority. 9

lo FAMOUS SCOTS
Was the Enghsh primate to rule the Scottish Church?
Were the bishops of Scotland to obey an EngUsh prelate ?
The Scots turned against Episcopacy, and in the famous
Glasgow Assembly Presbyterianism was restored; and the
right of the Church to fix its own canons of government
was claimed and exercised. The revolution of the National
Covenant was, however, not merely a movement against
Episcopacy. Greater issues were involved. The struggle
was one for freedom, though the question of the Church
was predominant; and, in the result, the theory of the
divine right of kings to govern by absolute prerogative was
destroyed for Scotland.
The Solemn League and Covenant marked a change
in the ecclesiastical policy of the Scots, as its champions
deemed Presbytery a divine institution, and Episcopacy an
evil thing. It was formed for the purpose of seci^ring
unity among Christians in the three kingdoms; and to
secure unity. Episcopacy must be destroyed. In due time
Cromwell and the Independents became as zealous as
the Scots in their attack on Episcopacy, and when they
triumphed the cause of the Covenant was ruined in
England. For a period, however, Presbyterianism spread
as if divinely Impelled ; and London itself -witnessed to
the success of the Scottish preachers.
Toleration in the 17 th century was not commonly
counted among the virtues ; and men in power deter
mined that every Scot who held public office should
accept the Covenant. Thus persecution -without the name
was practised, and was limited only because the nation as
a whole was at first one with its actual leaders. But dis
union was soon to come, and with it its evil. In 1645,

RICHARD CAMERON ii
amidst the civil strifes, an endeavour was made to Induce
Charles to establish Presbyterianism everywhere in his
kingdoms. He refused, after a disputation regarding the
divine origin of the rival systems of church government ;
and had to suffer for his action, when the Commission of
the General Assembly in 1646 protested that he should
not enter Scotland till he had signed the Covenant. In
1647 Charles, reduced in fortune, and a prisoner in Caris-
brook Castle, was wilUng to deal with the Scots. He
would give, under sensible restrictions, a parliamentary
sanction to the Covenant; and, by way of trial, would
establish Presbytery in England for a period of three years.
These and other terms were embodied in a treaty between
him and the Scottish Estates. This treaty, known as the
Engagement, did not commend itself to the General
Assembly, and the poUcy of the Estates was condemned.
What right had the civil powers to interfere with anything
relating to the Covenant ? The only possible engagement
which the Supreme Court of the Church would acknow
ledge should be one in which the king, after accepting
the Covenant and becoming a Presbyterian, would compel
his English subjects to follow him. Scotland was now
divided. At the head of the Covenanters or Church
party was the Marquess of Argyll; at the head of the
Engagers or Parliamentary party was the Duke of
Hamilton. Cromwell had the Engagers among his
opponents at Preston, and his triumph secured supremacy
to Argyll and the Covenanters in their own national
dispute. They in their excessive zeal passed the Act of
Classes, by which every opponent of the Covenant and
every Engager were excluded from places of trust and

12 FAMOUS SCOTS
honour. Immediately after the execution of Charles I.,
the Scottish Estates, reduced in membership by this Act,
proclaimed his son king, and ordained that before his
coronation, the new sovereign must accept the Covenant.
The prince refused the conditions, as he thought the road
to the crown was open without the aid of the Scots. He
was mistaken; and requiring that aid he agreed to the
Scottish demands. He would accept the Covenant for
himself, for his family, for his kingdoms; and accept he
did, before he set foot on Scottish soil. The prince had
no thought to become a saint, but he would do much,
and did much for the sake of a crown, even to the
despicable action of signing a declaration, shamefuUy
submitted to him, condemning his father's conduct, and
branding his mother's religion as idolatry.
The defeat at Dunbar of the Scottish army, from which
all Malignants or favourers of the Engagement had been
excluded, created among a section of the Covenanters an
intense desire for sanctity in their brotherhood. Cromwell
had been victor because his enemies had trafficked with a
prince who was not serious in religion. It was necessary,
therefore, were the divine blessing to be secured, that the
treaty with the prince should be annulled. A remonstrance
was accordingly presented to the Committee of the Estates,
setting forth the sin of the treaty, and of all dealings -with
Malignants. In the progress of events. Colonel Strachan,
the miUtary leader of the Remonstrants, was defeated by
a division of the English army ; but there still remained
Remonstrants to witness to their desire for an exclusive
sanctity, and to mark disunion among the Scots. In spite
of some opposition Charles was crowned at Scone, after

RICHARD CAMERON 13
he had sworn in the most solemn fashion to adhere to
the Covenants.
Disunion meant weakness, and men of sense saw this.
If all Malignants were to be kept out of the army there
was no hope to check the Puritan soldiers. Amidst
negotiations between the Parliament and the Church, it
was determined that Malignants should be permitted to
bear arms, after submission to ecclesiastical discipline;
and the Act of Classes was formaUy rescinded. This new
policy could not commend itself to men like the Remon
strants; and when in the Assembly of 1651 assent was
demanded for resolutions embodying this policy, a protest
was made by a minority of the members. These Pro
testers, among whom was Samuel Rutherfurd, were with
the Resolutioners to divide the Church into opposing
factions, and were to continue a bitter strife in years after
Oliver Cromwell had tyrannously, but perhaps wisely,
closed the General Assembly.
Moderation, with expediency as a basis, is a prosaic
principle of conduct calculated to insure peace. Enthu
siasm involves the danger of fanaticism shaped by an
extreme logic, and guided by fitful passion. These two
antagonisms, moderation and enthusiasm, guided each the
Resolutioners and the Protesters ; and, as a consequence,
those who desired peace at almost any price, and those
who were wearied by the fever of excessive zeal welcomed
the prospect of the Restoration. The Resolutioners, a
majority among the ministers, failed to gain a large
popular support ; and to their desire to have their vigorous
opponents subdued may be attributed a share of that joy
which hailed the return of Charles. Sharp, the future

14 FAMOUS SCOTS
archbishop, it has been alleged, tried to keep the parties
separate, and secretly frustrated a scheme of union pro
posed by the Synod of Lothian, in order that the
distractions of the Presbyterian Church might lead to
the introduction of Episcopacy. After the closing of
the General Assembly there was no great field for open
strife, and religion suffered nothing by Cromwell's act.
Both sections of the Presbyterians were marked by pious
fervour. But it was the Protesters who most earnestly
sought to change Scotland to a holy nation, strict in
morals, severe in the simplicity of worship ; and in their
endeavours to make the Presbyterian Church an organisa
tion for the establishment of such hoUness they caused
many to look on the country as priest-ridden, and to view
the king's return as the sure hope of relief. Kirkton, the
historian, tells us that he lived many years in a parish
where he never heard an oath, that family-worship was
practised in almost every house in the land, and that the
tavern-keepers were loudest in complaints against the
Church government, because 'their trade was broke.'
Struck by the excellence of the times he wrote, 'Then
was Scotland a heap of wheat set about with UUes, uniform,
or a palace of silver beautifully proportioned.' Certain
modern historians describe in very different terms this
period in which ministers and elders, like their successors
after the Revolution Settlement, not only investigated
cases of gross immorality, but also dealt with amusements
as if they were crimes, and with mild vices as if they
were enormous sins; and at the same time acted as
moral advisers and superintendents of manners. This
supervision was irksome to many. They could not breathe

RICHARD CAMERON 15
in ' that pure severity of perfect light.' But strict though
the discipline of the Church was it helped to give Scotland
that theological cast which has not left her, and to make
her more intelligent, if not more pious.
Throughout the years of the Protectorate English
soldiers were stationed in Scotland, who, by their presence,
kept alive the old national jealousy. Even the friends of
Cromwell could not calmly submit to the sight of English
troops in their midst. During these same years the
nobles, save the Marquess of Argyll and his friends, were
of little count in the government of the land. They were
poor after the turmoils of the Covenants ; they were lords
without a master to serve, expectants without a sovereign
to give them place and honour; and they were kept,
because of the clergy, and then of Cromwell's men, from
the influence associated with their station. In a country
with lively clerical factions, -with ministers as dominant as
busy priests, with soldiers from another land, with nobles
having only the heritage of their names, there were so many
men who looked with favour on the king's return that
when the Restoration took place there was in truth a
national rejoicing. Many of the ministers had long ceased
to pray pubUcly for the prince who had sworn to uphold
the Covenant, so little did they trust him ; and yet at the
Restoration there was everywhere in Scotland a lively hope
that aU things would be set right, simply because Charles
was king, and had come back to his own again. The
Protesters 'fear that the king come in,' wrote Douglas
the Covenanter to Sharp ; the ' new generation,' he told
him, ' bear a heart-hatred to the Covenant.'
Charles the Second entered London on the 2 9th of May,

1 6 FAMOUS SCOTS
1660, and many ofthe Scottish nobles, with ArgyU among
them, hastened to England. On the 8th of July ArgyU
was a prisoner, the man who had placed the Scottish crown
on the king's head. This arrest was the beginning of new
trouble. Others were seized, among whom was Johnston
of Warrlston, who had helped to draft the National
Covenant. James Guthrie and other Remonstrants were
soon to be thrown into prison for resolving to congratulate
the King on his restoration, and to remind him of the
Covenant. On the last day of August Sharp arrived m
Edinburgh, bearing a letter from the king to the local
Presbytery. Charles wrote, 'We do resolve to protect
and preserve the government of the Church of Scotland,
as it is settled by law, -without -violation  We
will also take care that the authority and acts of the
General Assembly at St Andrews and Dundee, 165 1, be
owned and stand in force until we shall caU another General
Assembly.' By a miserable subterfuge he was soon to recede
from the terms of this letter, but when it was read peace
seemed, in spite of the arrests, as if it were settling upon
Scotland. The Presbytery were deUghted. They bought
a silver box to hold the royal letter. But they were rash.
On the I St of January, 1661, the Scottish ParUament
met, with the Earl of Middleton as Commissioner, who
from a Covenanter had become an ultra-royaUst This
Parliament, distinguished by the vulgar manners of its lead
ing members, and the tyranny of Its acts, was styled the
Drunken ParUament, by Welch, the minister of Irongray ;
and by this name it has been marked. It acknowledged
the absolute power of the king over all persons and causes,
and framed an oath of allegiance to him as supreme. It

RICHARD CAMERON 17
resolved that the Covenant should not be renewed, that
bond with which, to the anger of the Royalists, the king had
been tied, with which, in the judgment of the Covenanters,
he had bound himself when a prince without a throne.
Of its measures that which is known as the Rescissory
Act is most noteworthy. By it was revoked the ecclesias
tical legislation passed since the abolition of Episcopacy.
But Episcopacy, thus made the legal form of government,
was not to be reinstated in indirect fashion. Charles would
deliberate, as he was ' sensible of the mercies of Almighty
God toward him, and desirous to improve these mercies to
the glory of God and honour of His great name.' This
was the prince who had sworn to uphold the Covenants,
and had written to the Edinburgh Presbytery that he would
maintain the Church as by law established. The letter to
the Presbytery, he was afterwards told, was one reason why
little objection was made to the Rescissory Act. The
moderate men had trusted him. Alarm soon spread, how
ever, and in some of the local assemblies of the clergy
protests were made against the abolition of Presby
tery. But what was to be done with the Church, with
that Church which, with its splendid traditions of the
National Covenant was now at the mercy of the king ?
Charles met with some of his Scottish Council. He heard
Middleton suggest that Episcopacy should forthwith be
estabhshed, and Lauderdale reject this policy as rash.
One told him there were six to one of the people
for Episcopacy, another that there were six to one for
Presbytery. Following the advice of the majority, who
doubtless gauged his inclinations, Charles resolved that
Episcopacy should henceforth be the constitutional form

1 8 FAMOUS SCOTS
of the Church of Scotland. He did not consult the
Church itself through its ministers and elders. If Charles
had possessed the moral or spiritual right to tamper with
the constitution of a church ; and if he had not deliberately
by oath accepted the National Covenant, setting forth the
Church's claim to govern itself, and the Solemn League
and Covenant condemning Episcopacy; then charity might
have found excuse for him, when amidst a conflict of
advisers he resolved to thrust Episcopacy upon Scotland.
But Charles with the instuict or habit of his race cast
aside oaths and promises, and the law of his rule was his
own inclination. The letter to the Presbytery of Edinburgh,
however, could not easily be forgotten, and some plausible
explanation had to be found. In this fashion the king
explained his promise to maintain the Church by law
established, and to summon a General Assembly before
changing its constitution — 'Whereas ... we did . . .
declare our purpose to maintain the government of the
Church of Scotland settled by law; and our parUament
having since that time not only rescinded aU the acts since
the troubles began referring to that government, but also
declared all those pretended parliaments nuU and void,
and left to us the settUng and securing of Church govern
ment; therefore ... we have, after mature deUberatlon
declared . . . our firm resolution to interpose our royal
authority for restoring of that Church to its right govern
ment by bishops, as it was by law before the late troubles,
. . . and as it now stands settled by law.' When the king
had interpreted the letter to his own purposes an Act was
passed by the Privy CouncU establishing Episcopacy as
the lawful government of the Church of Scotland. Parlia-

RICHARD CAMERON 19
ment met in its second session in 1662 and required all
men in public office to abjure the Covenant as seditious.
Further, it decided that all ministers inducted into their
charges after 1649, the date of the Parliamentary abolition
of patronage, should obtain a new presentation from the
patron and Institution from a bishop. After this Act three
hundred ministers left their manses, refusing to reject the
Covenants and to deny their faith at the bidding of a king.
In another century Scotland was again to show by a like
secession that she had among her clergy those who knew
how to obey, to their own suffering, an accepted spiritual
law. Other events, besides formal Acts of Parliament, showed
the quality of the rule of Charles. Argyll and Guthrie,
noble and preacher, leaders of the Covenanters, were put
to death. The scattered remains of Montrose were
gathered for decent burial, and this may be reckoned
an act of grace by the man who intending dishonour to
the body of Oliver Cromwell made war with the dead.
The Solemn League and Covenant was burned by order
of the EngUsh Parliament: the National Covenant was
publicly torn by heralds at the Market Cross of Edin
burgh. A reign of tyranny and mean vengeance had
begun. But Scotland was not dead to its traditions
and its love of liberty. For twenty-eight years, through
the times of Charles and of James, the strife between
freedom and tyranny was to last, a strife represented
on the one side by men of the people Uke Richard
Cameron, and on the other by king's men with their
titles of nobUity. A struggle with hardly a leader of
social fame in the one faction, does not kindle the

20 FAMOUS SCOTS
imagination of those who love a garish show in strife
and splendour in then heroes. The absence of almost
aU the nobles from ranks swelled by peasants and officered
by preachers, seems to mark the later Covenantmg
movement, not as a struggle for national freedom, but
as the hysteric of rude religious fanatics. Yet the
cause was one in character with the earlier revolution of
the National Covenant, which attracted Scotland's greatest
nobles, and with them Montrose himself Then, however,
the privileges of the nobles were touched, for Charles I.
had interfered with their hold over the teinds, had
threatened to take from them the lands of the ancient
Church, had sought to abolish their heritable jurisdic
tions, and was placing clerics in the offices of state. At
the Restoration these same nobles, or their representatives,
were poor; and instead of pri-vileges to guard, had only
favours to seek. These favours the king in England could
alone besto-yv. They accepted, therefore, a tyranny which
touched not themselves so much as the people who treasured
religious freedom ; and they refused to lose the royal smiles
and rewards for the sake of the independence of the Church.
Sycophants these nobles were, almost to a man. Some
fawned and became tyrants under an autocrat, others
sinned by not resisting. In bald and ugly form the
royal supremacy was set forth from time to time, and
these men were ever obedient, degrading themselves into
tools of the king who held that " God would not damn
a man for a little irregular pleasure " ; and who had it
declared by one of his parliaments that he derived his
power from Almighty God alone. Few men of rank were
Covenanters; and this fact has robbed the Presbyterian

RICHARD CAMERON 21
struggle of the glamour derived from titles and of the
splendour got from the noble names which carried the best
traditions of the land ; but it does not touch the justice of
the cause or make it less a Scottish fight for freedom.
Among the Covenanters Richard Cameron was prominent,
and for one year was the most conspicuous opponent of the
king. There are but few facts of his life to record. History
seems as if it had meant that not the man but only the
actor in a tragedy should be seen. And yet this man,
with but fragments of a recorded life, has had his name
bestowed in popular speech on a religious sect, and granted
by official authority to a regiment of the British army.
Fame has thus given him the place, if history has refused
him the reputation, of an Ulustrious Scotsman.

CHAPTER II

ST ANDREWS

The royal burgh of Falkland in Fife, the birthplace of
Richard Cameron, was like Edinburgh and Dunfermline
associated with the kings of Scotland. One after another
of the Stuarts resided in the castle, where the young
Duke of Rothesay died or was murdered, or in the palace
which was erected in more modern times. There Mar
garet of Anjou and her son were received by the queen-
mother, Mary of Gueldres; and there Perkin Warbeck
was the guest of James IV. Thither Mary of Guise was
attracted by the woods and fields, and in the famed forest
her daughter sought the excitement and pleasure of the
hunt. James VI. loved the place, though it was the
scene of the disputation when Andrew Melville styled
him 'God's silly vassal.' In the exuberant days of his
courtship he proposed to give his wife 'the Erldome of
Fyff, with the palice and castell of Falkland,' and when
he created Sir Henry Carey a peer, he named him
Viscount Falkland in Fife. Charles I., Charles IL, Crom
well by his soldiers, and, last of all, Rob Roy, in the
Jacobite movement of 17 15, enriched the associations of
the burgh. The court life at Falkland was depicted by
Dunbar in more than one of bis comic poems; and

RICHARD CAMERON 23
Sir David Lindsay sang the praises of its hunting
fields : — ' Fair weill Falkland ! the fortrace of Fyfe,
Thy polyte park, under the Lowmound Law !
Sum tyme in thee I led ane lustye lyfe
The fallow deir, to see thaime raik on raw.'
Under the shadow of what remains of this ancient house
of the Stuarts stands the cottage where Richard Cameron
was born. The palace and the cottage, -without stretch
of fancy, serve as symbols of the social positions of the
king and the Covenanter, who had their places as
opponents in the Presbyterian revolution. It was the
cottage, for Cameron's sake, and not the palace with its
Stuart memories, which excited the interest of Carlyle
when he visited Falkland, and talked, as he had written,
of the Covenanters with 'their indomitable pious con
stancy.' Within the burgh the Hackstons of Rathillet
had a house, and there David Hackston and Richard
Cameron may have begun their comradeship which ended
in death.
Richard Cameron was the eldest son of Allan Cameron,
burgess of Falkland and general merchant there, and his
wife Margaret Paterson. Little is known of Allan Cameron
beyond the few details connecting him with the cause for
which his son died. He is named in the Falkland session
records in a note of the case of two women residing in
his house who had not presented to the minister and
elders the 'testimonial' regarding their previous life.
Among the title deeds of this house is an instrument of
sasine which gives his name and that of his wife, and which
describes Richard as the eldest son. It appears from this

24 FAMOUS SCOTS
instrument of sasine, of date 1700, granted in favour of
three grand-daughters of one David Ferguson, that in 1670
Allan Cameron and 'Mr Richard Cameron his eldest
lawful son,' -with consent of Margaret Paterson, 'spouse
to the said Allan, and mother to the said Mr Richard,'
sold a property in Falkland to this David Ferguson for
the sum of eleven hundred and seventy-five pounds, eight
shillings and fivepence, Scots money; and further, that a
bond of four hundred and ninety-three pounds, Scots
money, was held over the property by George Bayn,
merchant burgess of Edinburgh. Ferguson obtained
right to the whole property under redemption ; but appar
ently it was never redeemed, as his three grand-daughters
were infeft, and ultimately disposed of it. The bond to
George Bayn probably accounts for the assertion of a
modern editor of ' A Cloud of Witnesses,' that the title
deeds show that Allan Cameron borrowed money on the
house in order to send his son to one of the universities.
The date of Richard Cameron's birth cannot be ascer
tained, as the register no longer exists which might have
contained the note of his baptism. He was probably
born about 1648, as he entered the University of St
Andrews in 1662. In this latter year, it may be taken,
he was thirteen or fourteen years of age, as, till a recent
generation, boys who went to the universities enrolled
whUe they were very young. Little has been recorded
regarding the members of his family. One of the
brothers, Michael, is known chiefly from his death at
Ayrsmoss. In the Falkland session record, October 1674,
there Is the item, 'Michael Cameron and Rebecca
Armour were contracted, James Carmichael became

RICHARD CAMERON 25
surety for their pand, and they gave to the poor twelve
shilhngs.' It was customary to register contracts of
marriage, and to name a person acting as security for the
parties ; and it was usual to make a payment for the poor.
There is nothing further regarding this marriage, though
there are notes of marriages after contract, and therefore
it is impossible to say that it took place. A second
brother, Alexander, is also known by name. On the
24th of February, 1680, AUan Cameron wrote to M'Ward,
a Scottish minister in Holland, telling him he desired to
send his youngest son, Alexander, to study at the Dutch
colleges. He described him. as being over twenty-one
years of age, as having been a weaver, and as possessing
' only some smack of humanity,' that is, of classical learn
ing ; and stated that he feared to send him to a Scottish
university where he would be suspected on account of
his relatives, and would be in danger of corruption. The
universities at that time were under Episcopal domina
tion, and hence Allan Cameron, who had joined the
Covenanters, feared that his son might be led away from
the cause to which the other members of the family were
devoted. Alexander Cameron was in Utrecht about the
time of the Revolution. In a letter, published in
' Faithful Contendings,' he is styled Reverend, and is
blamed for joining with the 'Association Party,' some of
whom are described as guilty of or accessory to his
brother's murder. Among the traditions of the Covenan
ters there is a story of one Marion Cameron done to death
by royaUst troopers ; and this woman or girl was said by
some local report to be the sister of Richard Cameron.
Our information regarding the life of Cameron is meagre.

26 FAMOUS SCOTS
What has hitherto been published is mainly derived from
Patrick Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana. Some of his
facts he obtained from 'A Cloud of Witnesses,' and
others he himself coUected. Walker, who was born shortly
before the Restoration, was a staunch Covenanter, and in
social class, in education, and in habit was another Robert
Paterson, the Old Mortality of Scott. He seems to have
cared little for incidents throwing no Ught on the religious
career of his heroes, as he described Cameron's early life
in a few words, and devoted a long tract to a vindication
of his name. For the heroes of his own sect, the most
rigid Covenanters, he had the liveUest admiration ; while
for their opponents his hate was bitter. His fierce preju
dice and his amusing simplicity are shown in his descrip
tion of Archbishop Sharp. . . 'I have often wondered
if ever the sun shined upon a man guUty of so many
dreadful unheard-of acts of wickedness, attended with all
aggravating circumstances to make them prodigiously
heinous, except his dear brother Judas who murdered the
young prince of Iscariot, and his own father, married his
mother, and betrayed his Lord.' The writer of these
words may fittingly be taken as an example of certain
Covenanters who were as intolerant of Episcopacy as they
were zealous for Presbytery. From him we learn that
Richard Cameron 'was bom in Falkland, in Fife; his
father was a merchant there. After he had passed his
courses of learning he was schoolmaster and precentor to
the curate in Falkland, and sometimes heard the In
dulged.' Howie of Lochgoin, the author of ' The Scots
Worthies,' simply takes Walker's words without adding
detaUs to this brief notice.

RICHARD CAMERON . 27
If Cameron spent his school-days in Falkland, as pro
bably he did, he would receive religious instruction from
Mr WiUiam Livingstone, who belonged to the moderate
section of the Presbyterians. Livingstone was minister of
the parish till 1663, and the fact that he was then trans
lated to Burntisland indicates that he had conformed to
Episcopacy. As early as 165 1 he had broken away from
the strictest Presbyterians. ' This day,' so runs a notice
in the minutes of the Presbytery of Cupar, ' Mr Walter
Greig informed the Presbyterie that he had received ad
vertisement that there had been such doctrine preached by
Mr William Livingstone in the kinges hearing, as required
to be adverted, and that gave offence to some.' It is
known that Cameron, after his university career, held
office under the Episcopal minister of Falkland, and it
may therefore be assumed that his family, influenced by
Livingstone, belonged to the party of the Resolutioners,
and conformed at the Restoration to the new ecclesiastical
order. Youths from Fife intending to enter one of the uni
versities would almost certainly choose St Andrews. In
the matriculation-register of the University of St Andrews,
Martij 5, anno 1662, stands the name Richardus Cameron ;
and whUe there is no note to help identification, there is
no other name with which to confuse that of the future
Covenanter. In the college of St Salvator, of which
he became a member, he studied under Mr William
Campbell, the regent or tutor, who superintended through
out their course of four years the students who matricu
lated in 1662. This man had satisfied the Episcopal
requirements of Sharp, though his early zeal had flowed

28 FAMOUS SCOTS
in another direction. In 1649 he was a regent, and did
' dedicate his thesis to David Leslie, L. GeneraU of the
forces standing for the tyme in the kingdome.' Cameron
pursued the regular studies of the college, and on July
22, 1665, graduated Master of Arts. These studies, as
arranged by the General Assembly in 1642, included
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, arithmetic, logic, rhetoric, ethics,
geometry, metaphysics, astronomy, geography, anatomy.
Students were required, in all places within and without
the colleges, to speak Latin amongst themselves ; and for
recreation were allowed golf and archery, but were for
bidden to use cards or dice. There Is no incident or
story to light up the record of Cameron's student days,
nothing like the dining-room brawl, when Sharp, the
future archbishop, gave a comrade ' a sharp box on the ear'
for calling him a liar. The record is simply the dull
prose of the items of the register.
The signature in the list of graduates is Richardus
Camero. The new Master of Arts, perhaps in excitement
or carelessness, perhaps with the desire to use something
like a Latin form, failed to write the final letter of his
name. The formidable list of college studies suggests a
curriculum for an ' admirable Crichton,' and seems to
mark a Scottish graduate of the 1 7 th century as a paragon
of learning. These studies, however, were more varied
than exact, as in Cameron's case, at any rate, there was
never sign or reputation of profound scholarship. Sir
James Turner in his ' Memoirs ' speaks with candour of
the value of the degree which he gained in Glasgow
University in the early part of that century. ' I was com
manded,' he says, 'by my father and grandfather to

RICHARD CAMERON 29
commence Master of Arts at Glasgow, much against my
will, as never intending to make use of that title which
undeservedlie was bestowed upon me, as it was on many
others before me, and hath been on too many since.' The
Commissioners of 1642, however, had raised the standard
of the degree when they issued the recommendation —
' It is both a disgrace to learning, and a hindrance to
trades and other callings, that such as are grossly ignorant
and unfit for any profession in letters be honoured with
any degree or public testimony of learning ; it is therefore
earnestly recommended to the Faculty of Arts that such
trial be taken of students especially of magistrands, before
the time of laureation, so that those who are found
altogether unworthy be not admitted to the degree and
honour of Masters.'
St Andrews at this period was completely under the
control of Archbishop Sharp, who had been Presbyterian
minister of CraU, and for a year had been a professor in
the college of St Mary. Nothing Is known of Cameron's
youthful experience in this centre of Episcopacy. Certainly
there was no premature revolt from Established Church
order, no early promise of coming heroism. Before he
entered the University the change in the Church had taken
place, and Presbyterian rulers were no longer set over the
city. Samuel Rutherfurd, the Principal of St Mary's
College, had died In 1661, and had thus probably escaped
the penalty of execution or the glory of martyrdom.
Shortly after the Restoration he was discharged from his
ofifice, and to the messengers who called him before the
authorities in Edinburgh he is reported to have said,
' Tell them that sent you that I have got summons already

30 FAMOUS SCOTS
before a superior Judge and Judicatory, and I behove to
answer to my first summons ; and ere your day come, I
wiU be where few kings and great folk come.' His book,
' Lex Rex,' was publicly burned by the common hang
man. It was a tract subversive of the theory of unre
stricted royal prerogative, and in the order for its destruc
tion was described as withdrawing his Majesty's subjects
' from the duty of that loyal love and obedience which
they owed to his sacred person and greatness.' The
market-place where It was burned was not far distant from
the house of George Buchanan, who in another reign had
tried by a ' seditious pamphlet' to open the eyes of his
countrymen to the actual foundation of the authority of
their kings ; and was in a city closely associated -with
Knox who had asked and answered many questions
regarding the rights and duties of kings. Milton, in the
sonnet ' On the new forcers of conscience,' made com
plaint against the tyranny of Rutherfurd's party : —
' Because you have thrown off your Prelate Lord,
And with stiff vows renounc'd his Liturgy
To seize the widow'd whore Plurality
From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd,
Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences, that Christ set free ;
And ride us with a classic hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A.S. and Rutherford ? '
The 'Lex Rex,' in spite of its author's ecclesisatical
poUcy, makes for constitutional liberty, and its doctrines
helped to shape the mind of Richard Cameron, as he
showed in the Vindication of the Sanquhar Declaration.
Robert Blair, the minister of the first charge of St

RICHARD CAMERON 31
Andrews, was banished from the city shortly after Ruther
furd's death. Among the events of his varied life was
his expulsion from the University of Glasgow, as stated in
'The King's Large Declaration,' for being disaffected to
monarchical government. Rutherfurd and Blair for a
time ruled St Andrews; and, according to Balfour's
'Annals,' had emissaries in every college, and sought
to fill the university offices with men of their own
opinions. In days of intolerant enthusiasm it was
natural for leaders of a faction to seize the places
within their grasp, and the Presbyterians did what was
in turn done by the Episcopalians. Rutherfurd and
Blair opposed Sharp in his candidature for the professor
ship, though he was a scholar fitted for the work of
teaching. Their opposition was in vain, as their rule
was coming to an end, and soon they had to yield to
him. Shortly after his appointment to the professorship
Sharp received the degree of Doctor of Divinity and his
design, Blair's biographer says, was not to continue any
time in the coUege, but was 'to make the doctorate
a stirrup to mount him to prelacy ; for according to the
canon law, none can ascend to prelacy except first he be
a doctor of divinity.'
With or without the help of this degree he did become
a prelate. Archbishop of St Andrews, primate of Scotland ;
and for nearly twenty years was the most powerful and
most hated of the churchmen. Whether he betrayed or
saved the Church of Scotland, when he passed from pro
fessor to prelate, is likely to continue an open question ;
but the malediction of the staunch Presbyterian, Douglas,

32 FAMOUS SCOTS
seemed to many to be fulfilled. ' James,' said Douglas,
' I see you wUl engage, I perceive you are clear, you will
be bishop of St Andrews ; take it and the curse of God
with it.' Opposition of another kind, it is alleged, he
met with from Lauderdale who, some years after
Middleton, became the king's commissioner In the govern
ment of Scotland. Lauderdale assuredly opposed the
sudden introduction of Episcopacy as dangerous to the
public peace, and during the period of his power, whUe
proving a tyrant to the Covenanters, was no friend to the
prelates. 'Mr Sharp,' he is reported to have said,
'bishops you are to have in Scotland, and you, I hear,
are to be Archbishop of St Andrews ; but, whoever shall
be the man, I -wUl smite him and his order under the
fifth rib.' Not unfittingly Cromwell had styled him
Mr Sharp of that Ilk.
In the month of April, 1662, Sharp, now Archbishop,
proceeded through Fife in his progress towards St Andrews.
At various places, Falkland among these, he was met by
' divers persons and corporations.' A few noblemen and
gentlemen accompanied him, and between the Ejirl of
Rothes on the right hand, and the Earl of KelUe on the
left, he entered St Andrews. At the entrance to the city
he was met by Mr WUliam Comry of St Leonard's, and
Mr William Barclay, formerly of Falkland. On the
Sunday he preached in the To-wn Church -with ' a velvet
cushion in the pulpit before him.' His text was, 'For
I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified.' His sermon, we are told by
Lament, did not run much on these words, and leaving
them he preached in vindication of himself and of the

RICHARD CAMERON 33
utility of Episcopacy. At the end of AprU he returned to
Edinburgh. There had been nothing to disquiet him;
his opponents had been removed ; and in the city with its
memories of Knox, Melville, Henderson, and Rutherfurd
there was Episcopal peace.
A youth at college was not likely to come into personal
relationship with Sharp. Cameron, however, must have
noted the high social style of the Archbishop which his
countrymen have not loved hi their clergy; and the
spectacle of the man so largely responsible for the
troubles of the land may have awakened in him that
resentment against coercion and tyranny which was
natural to a Scot, and which was felt by him in the days
of his prominence.
Mr William Barclay, who met the Archbishop at St
Andrews, was the minister under whom Cameron was to
hold office in Falkland. He had been deposed from his
charge in 1644 for taking the side of Montrose; and
whatever he may have done during the Protectorate, he
was found in 1661 acting the part of an informer to Sharp
regarding Blair's preaching, and as a witness when Blair's
case was tried before the Privy Council. It was natural
that on the occurrence of a vacancy in Falkland the man
who had been deposed for malignancy should be restored ;
and it was according to custom that an informer should
receive a reward. The parish was fortunate after the
Restoration in gaining an experienced clergyman, even
though the grace of courtesy was absent from the
conduct of Mr WUliam Barclay. When the Presby
terian clergy were evicted, there was not a sufficient
number of educated men to fill the charges. Patrons
c

34 FAMOUS SCOTS
yielded their right to the bishops, whose presentees were
commonly known as curates. Bishop Burnet spoke of
these men as ignorant to a reproach, and as the worst
preachers he had ever heard. Kirkton describes them
as taken almost whoUy from the north of Scotland, and
reports that a gentleman complained that it was impossible
to get lads to keep the cows, 'they turn aU ministers.'
Kirkton is not slow to speak of their vices, and he Is
recording but a minor fault when he narrates, ' I've heard
the curates upon Edinburgh streets swear as fast as ever I
heard a debaucht red-coat.' It was a common beUef
among the Presbyterians that the bishops were guUty of
scandalous deeds, and that the curates outdid the bishops.
Stories were told which might have served as sequels to
'The Milleres Tale.' It is to be remembered, however,
that the curates, while they did not gaui the esteem of the
people, succeeded men who, by their adherence to principle
and their sacrifice of place, had won admiration. They
had, moreover, mean work to do. In many places a roll
of the parishioners was called on Sundays, that it might be
known how they were affected to the Church ; and it was
the duty of the curates to report to some officer of the
Government. Fines were le-vled from the non-conformists;
and in the progress of coercion personal property was
seized and estates were forfeited. The loyalty of the
Scottish cavaliers in the times of the last Stuart kings
was stimulated by the rewards of fines and estates.
Sharp himself erected a High Commission Court to
deal with the opponents of the Church ; and its charac
ter was shown in the case of certain boys who, for
throwing stones at a curate who had beaten a woman,

RICHARD CAMERON 35
were scourged, burned in the face, and sold as slaves to
Barbadoes. Some of the evicted ministers continued to reside in
their former parishes, drawing the people to field-meetings,
untU the Government forbade them to preach. The
curates could inform regarding these meetings, but they
were powerless to punish. Drastic measures were required
to queU the sUent but persistent revolution. Sir James
Turner, author of ' Memoirs of his own Life and Times,'
a soldier of fortune with the characteristic vices, was sent
to the West with a body of troopers. He and his men
acted with a vigour which a tyrannical Government could
appreciate ; and yet many of the people still clung to the
evicted clergy, meeting with them secretly for worship,
obtaining their services for marriages, and taking children
to them to be baptized.
In 1666, in consequence of a fray roused by the cruelty
of the soldiers, a number of Covenanters, banding together,
went to Dumfries and made Turner prisoner. The open
revolt against tyranny had begun. Continuing in arms
they marched through Ayrshire to Lanark, and then
towards Edinburgh. On the 28th of November they
reached Rullion Green, where they were met by General
Dalziel, the fiercest and most savage soldier of the time.
They had been disappointed in their progress, as they
looked for the persecuted everywhere to join them.
UndrUled peasants, however, were not necessarily
cowards because they would not meet the trained
bands of the king; and RuUion Green proved how
weak was enthusiasm^ before discipUne. Dalziel was
victor, slaying some forty-five men, and taking a

36 FAMOUS SCOTS
hundred prisoners ; and these prisoners learned, through
suffering, the enormity of the crime of seeking freedom.
Many were cruelly treated and then sent to death. Among
these was Hugh M'Kail, a youthful preacher who was
tortured with the boot that he might reveal the secrets of
his party; but he had nothing to hide, whUe he freely
confessed his hatred of the oppression of pitUess tyrants.
After his victory Dalziel was sent among the Cove
nanters, and cruelty and oppression almost queUed them
into obedience.
In 1667, thanks to the reviving patriotism of certain
nobles, a mUder character showed itself in the poUcy of
the Government; and easy terms of submission were offered
to many of those who had taken arms. This pohcy, though
instituting the Indulgences for the Presbyterian clergy, did
not long continue ; and it may be that it was fanaticism,
or it may be that it was independence and a sense of
injury, which doomed it to failure. The difficulty which
confronted the Government in their efforts for ecclesiastical
unity came from the fact that in a country with traditions
of liberty, where torture was now made use of, there were
men who would not conform to a church without Scriptural
basis, and would not obey a king who, intruding into spiritual
things, was breaking the unwritten law of God. These
Covenanters did not forget the men who had been evicted
for conscience' sake ; nor would they abandon them for
the curates who, in the general opinion, far from being
holy were not even decent.
The Indulgences, which mark a stage in the Covenanting
strife, increased rather than diminished the conventicles.
These meetings were common in Fife and were known

RICHARD CAMERON 37
even in Falkland, where Livingstone had been a moderate
Presbyterian and Barclay was an immoderate Episcopalian.
Richard Cameron, who according to the record became
schoolmaster and precentor to the curate of Falkland, in
due time attended the conventicles, and in due time gave
the most active opposition to the Indulgences and the
Indulged.

CHAPTER III
schoolmaster and CHAPLAIN
In the 17 th century and till a much later period, the
schoolmaster was closely associated with the minister in
parochial work. He was generally the session-clerk,
and frequently acted as reader in the church, when there
was such a functionary. Cameron does not seem to have
been either session-clerk or reader, and, therefore, may not
have been first master in the school or schools of Falk
land. He was, however, a teacher, and was also precentor
' to raise the tune ' at the services of pubUc worship.
The date of his return to Falkland is unknown. After he
graduated he may have attended the classes of Di-vdnity
in St Mary's College ; but as students were not required
to matriculate in each successive year of attendance,
there is no way of discovering how long he remained
in the University. It is not likely, however, that
he went through the usual theological course after his
graduation in 1665, as the Falkland record begliming
6th October, 1667, contains no note of his appointment
as precentor. There is, indeed, no such note under an
earlier year, but the record from ist April, 1663, to 5th
October, 1667, has not been preserved. Under the 29th
of March, 1674, there is a minute which throws some
38

RICHARD CAMERON 39
light on his career. A part of the fees for making
graves was to be given to the precentor; 'but. In
the meantime, it is ordained that this money which
is ordained for the precentor shall be laid in the
box.' Shortly afterwards a Robert Lindsay was elected,
who by way of salary was to receive the rent of his
chamber, and a share of the fees for baptism, marriage,
and burial. Some such salary Cameron would receive ;
and it is of importance to note that in March, 1674,
the ofifice was vacant, which at some time he had
held. The session records contain nothing relative to his
work as schoolmaster. Before he entered on his duties
he must have received a certificate from the Archbishop
of St Andrews. Sharp knew no toleration, and in neither
church nor school would permit a Presbyterian to teach.
Under his Influence the Synod of Fife appointed 'that
the Presbyteries put in execution that former Act relating
to schoolmasters, chaplains, and paedagogues, that none
be admittit to ofificiat within their bounds, bot those who
are warranted be my Lord Archbishop's Ucense.' Sharp's
poUcy was thorough. AU ministers, chaplains, and school
masters were to acknowledge Episcopacy; and Presby
terianism was to be cast out of the land. The Archbishop
of St Andrews was an astute man, but in his vision of
triumphant Episcopacy, unalterable facts were omitted.
Neither Act of Parliament nor statute of a Lord Arch
bishop could transform in the mass the ministers, chaplains,
and schoolmasters, and make them abjure the Presbyterian
creed which was to so many a symbol of freedom ; and
the civil and ecclesiastical rulers were to learn that tyranny

40 FAMOUS SCOTS
was impotent to overturn the nation's prejudice or
principle. Cameron ceased to be schoolmaster when he ceased
to be precentor, as his departure from Falkland did not
depend on his competence to discharge the duties of
either of his ofifices, but on his attitude to the government
of the Church. The first indication of a change in his
ecclesiastical position was the fact that 'he sometimes
heard the Indulged.' In 1669, in accordance with a
new principle introduced into the pohcy of the Govern
ment, an Indulgence was extended to certain Presbyterian
ministers. Some of the ministers were to be permitted
to preach, and were to receive stipends, provided they
accepted collation from a bishop ; others who would not
thus acknowledge Episcopacy were to have the manses
and glebes, subject to conditions. Leighton, bishop of
Dunblane, almost the one tolerant man of his time, may
have suggested these arrangements which were accepted
by twelve, and then by thirty ministers. On the other
hand, it has been asserted that Lauderdale, to annoy the
prelates, de-vdsed this relief for their opponents. 'Whoever
was the author, the scheme satisfied neither the one party
nor the other. The strict Covenanters would accept no
help from what to their thinking was an Erastian source.
The Episcopalians objected to any interference with the
jurisdiction of the bishops; but amidst their claims of
independence they were forced to accept, and had not the
courage to resist, an Act which made Charles supreme in
all ecclesiastical affairs, giving him the sole right to deter
mine and to administer the government of the Church.
It has been suggested that the Act of Supremacy was passed

RICHARD CAMERON 41
at the instigation of certain influential Presbyterians, in
order that the Indulgence might be made legal as coming
from one with authority to legislate for the Church. This
suggestion is based on a misunderstanding. The Cove
nanters beUeved that no earthly power could give a king
a spiritual jurisdiction withui the Church, and in their
judgment, therefore, no Act of Parliament could confer
on Charles supremacy over the Church. Sharp and the
other prelates objected to the Act. They had not, how
ever, that courage to resist) an encroachment of the royal
prerogative which so many of the Presbyterians displayed
at the Restoration.
The Indulged ministers whom Cameron heard were
under Government supervision, and would certainly not
touch the questions of ecclesiastical policy. By the
zealous Covenanters they were styled dumb dogs for not
denouncing Prelacy. Having conformed, they were com
mitted to sUence; and perhaps they were justified in
their silence. Yet men who had left the National Church,
on account of the tyranny which intruded Episcopacy,
were not heroes when they took their licence to preach
from the hands of the king, and returned to their parishes
by the sanction of a prelate. In 1672, a second Indul
gence was granted to some eighty ministers. Heroism
was declining among the clergy. Many of them were
reduced in their opposition to the Government through
the Indulgence, on the one hand, and coercion on the
other, but there were some who became more determined
in their claim of freedom of worship. After the first
Indulgence, extensive field-meetuigs were arranged, at
which some of the worshippers appeared in arms for

42 FAMOUS SCOTS
protection against mUitary attack. The Government were
alarmed lest the conventicles should lead to civU
war, and 'the tale of bricks was doubled.' In 1670,
they passed an Act requiring anyone, if interrogated
by an ofificer of the Crown, to give such information
as he had regarding the field-meetings; and ordaining
imprisonment or banishment for those who refused this
information. For an offending minister a still harder fate
was devised. If he preached in the fields he was to be
punished by the confiscation of his goods and by death.
The Government became mean in their tyranny, and
offered rewards to informers bringing word of the field-
preachers. Fines, imprisonment, and exile were reserved
for such as had children baptized by these preachers,
and for such as absented themselves from the churches.
To make these laws effective, magistrates and land
owners were to be responsible for conventicles, house
holders were to answer for the conduct of their
servants and children ; and a crisis was reached in this
miserable play of tyranny, when it was decreed that
he who befriended suspects should be held guUty of
their alleged crimes. When punishment was so freely
threatened in this period of vigorous government, a
prison was needed : and one was found on the Bass
Rock, where many a Covenanter spent months and
years within the sight of the land whose freedom he
loved. The true story of the Covenanters Is to be found in the
Statute-book of Scotland and in the minutes of her Pri-vy
CouncU. These men, in the judgment of not a few, were
fanatics incensed against Episcopacy, and fooUsh in their

RICHARD CAMERON 43
zeal for Presbytery; martyrs not for the truth of God,
but for visionary schemes of freedom from control;
false patriots seeking not the good of the land, but
opposing a beneficent Government resolute for order.
But the laws tell their own tale ; and where else are such
laws to be found? Men who have opposed tyranny
shaped into laws do not deserve to be branded as
fanatics to their shame. What is named fanaticism is
oftentimes an excellent thing, the unwearied and un
compromising advocacy of a principle worthy to be
fought for, the persistent striving of the few for a noble
cause. We do not know the circumstances under which
Cameron was induced to risk punishment by attend
ing the conventicles. The record in the Biographia
Presbyteriana is : 'At length he went to hear the per
secuted gospel in the fields'; and the pious reflection
is added, 'In that sun-blink day of power, when the
net of the Gospel let down at the right side of the
ship, then a great draught of perishing souls was effect
ually caught.' Fife, at this period, was the scene of
many conventicles, in connection with which Mr John
Welch, the great-grandson of Knox, was conspicuous.
Welch was minister of the parish of Irongray, in Dum
fries, from which he was compelled to retire in 1662
for refusing to conform. He was afterwards to be as
sociated in friendly relation with Cameron, who, very
probably, was first attracted to him in Fife. Between
1670 and 1672 Welch preached at various times at
Kinkel, near St Andrews, 'and had numerous hearers
from that city, university, and neighbourhood.' In the

44 FAMOUS SCOTS
summer of 1674 he went through Fife, preaching from
place to place, and drawing together congregations of
eight or ten thousand people. In the Scots Worthies,
from which the facts regarding Welch are gathered, it
is narrated that ' another of Mr Welch's meetings was at
Falkland Wood, on a day when a number of gentry were
present. The curate of Falkland came forth on this
occasion, and some with him, in a boasting, swaggering
way, offering to debate with him, after preaching. But
if Mr Welch had not, by his composed and calm words,
restrained the people, they would have debated the curate
at that which would have done his turn, before he could
have begun.' The minister of Falkland in this year was
Mr John Hay, the successor of Mr William Barclay.
Before his appointment to Falkland, Hay had been a
regent in St Leonard's College, St Andrews. His bigotry,
or zealous consistency, was seen in the fact that he
was deposed from his living, at the Revolution Settle
ment, for refusing to read a proclamation issued by the
Estates. Cameron was not the only schoolmaster in Fife
who attended the conventicles. In the Synod of Fife,
October 1672, attention was drawn to the disaffected
chaplains and schoolmasters; and an instruction was
issued to the Presbyteries : ' The Lord Archbishop and
Synod, being informed that several chaplaines and schole-
masters, disaffected to the government of the Church, doe,
by their lecturing and conventicling, aUenat several
persons from that peaceable submission to their pastors,
and the attendance on the pubhc worship of God, as
becometh them; therefor the Lord Archbishop and

RICHARD CAMERON

45

Synod appoint that the several Presbitries take notice of
such persons, and that they give in ther names at the
next Synod, that none ofificiat in such stations without
licence.' In a representation to the Privy Council,
made by the same Synod in 1674, mention was made
of "^the travelling of multituds of people on the Lord's
day to conventicles at a great distance.' There is no
information that Cameron was one of those referred to
in the instruction to the presbyteries ; but, in any case,
men of his own profession, by whom he might be in
fluenced, openly attended the field-meetings. In the Scots
Worthies it is related that when the curates understood
that he was frequenting these meetings, they endeavoured,
by flattery and threats, and by direct persuasion, to make
him abstain. He had, however, 'got a lively discovery of
the sin of prelacy, and he deserted the curates altogether.'
At this crisis he applied himself to the burning questions
of the day, and convinced himself that the Indulgences
were sinful because they came from the king, who had no
jurisdiction in the Church, and that the honour of Christ
was wronged by any admission of Erastianism. He
longed for an opportunity, we are told, to testify against
the Indulgences, and this opportunity was afforded when
he left Falkland to become private chaplain to Sir WUliam
Scott of Harden, in Selkirkshire. We do not know at
what date, or by whose recommendation, he gained this
appointment. It was not uncommon at this time for
Scottish gentlemen to engage domestic chaplains, and
many were enabled to show kindness to evicted ministers
by taking them into their employment. These chaplains
were not overlooked by the vigUance of the Government.

46 FAMOUS SCOTS
In 1675, Mr John King, chaplain to Lord Cardross, was
seized by dragoons, from whom he was rescued by some
country people. The Privy CouncU, to whom the case
was reported, imprisoned and fined Lord Cardross,
placed garrisons in certain private houses, and issued
this order: 'Whereas the CouncU, by an Act of 28th
July 1674, did ordain the archbishops and bishops in
their respective dioceses to Inquire what persons had
taken upon them to be chaplains in families, or to teach
any pubhc schools, or to be pedagogues to the children
of persons of quahty, and to report ; in regard the said
report has not been made, we have renewed our former
act.' The chaplains, in spite of the Episcopal super
vision, continued to give trouble, and were again the
cause of a special order. In the Register of the Synod
of Dunblane, 1682, in reference to the 'Test,' there is
this note : ' and as to chaplains refractioned herein, it is
appointed that the minister of the parish, where such
remained, shall give timeous advertisement to the master
of the chaplain that he ought not to entertain such a
chaplain, contrary to the Act of ParUament.' ' It was
not necessary that the domestic chaplains should be
in clerical orders. Some of them were, such as this
Mr John King. Cameron, though not a licensed
preacher when he went to Harden, was none the less
subject to the supervision required by the order of the
Council. There is nothing to indicate what the duties were
which Cameron performed at Harden; but from such
sources as the autobiography of Thomas Boston, it may
be gathered that the private chaplain conducted family

RICHARD CAMERON 47
worship, catechized the servants, reproved and warned
any that were vicious, and also, where there were children,
acted as tutor.
Sir William Scott, whose house Cameron entered, was
the grandson of ' Auld Wat of Harden,' and his wife
'The Flower of Yarrow,' celebrated in more than one
ballad. His father had been fined by Cromwell for
attachment to the cause of Charles IL, and he himself
had been knighted by that monarch shortly after the
Restoration. At the date of Cameron's appointment,
Scott and his wife, 'a daughter of the house of Kilmar
nock,' had alienated themselves from the strictest royalists
so far as to attend the Presbyterian services ; and the fact
that they took into their house one who had deserted the
curates, indicates their dissatisfaction with the coercive
poUcy of the Government. Another member of the Har
den family, the knight's brother, Walter Scott of Raeburn,
had made himself conspicuous by joining the sect of the
Quakers, who were strongly opposed by Presbyterians and
Episcopalians alike. In 1665 he was sent to prison, and
the Council gave the custody of his children to Harden,
that they might be ' educated in the true religion.' Rae
burn was the Quaker ancestor of Sir Walter Scott, to
whom reference is made in the Introduction to the
' Heart of Midlothian.'
Cameron, as has been noted, longed for an opportunity
of testifying against Erastianism. This opportunity he
found, in the first instance, at Harden, where a testimony
implied no remarkable heroism, though the information is
that there were ' many strong temptations to the contrary.'
It was awkward for Scott to have one of his household

48 FAMOUS SCOTS
speaking openly against the action of the Government;
and while he, or at least his wife, was soon to foUow their
chaplain in forsaking the Indulged, he was not yet wiUing
to incur a penalty for harbouring an offender. On the
other hand, it was the custom of the zealous Covenanters
to bear witness to their behefs, when occasion offered;
and Cameron, with the newly found fervour of his sect,
would have held it sin to be sUent among those who
recognised, however indirectly, the justice of the royal
policy. A crisis was reached on the day when he
refused to follow the lady of Harden into the church
of one of the Indulged ministers. The young man
would not bow down In the House of Rimmon, —
would not even enter it. The Incident is recounted
in the Scots Worthies: ' . . . Particularly on Sabbath,
when called to attend the lady to church, he returned
from the entry refusing to go into it, and spent the day
in his chamber. Here he met with much of the Lord's
presence, as he himself afterwards testified, and got very
clear discoveries of the nature of these temptations
which were like to prevail -with him before; and upon
Monday, giving a reason to Sir Walter and his lady why
he went not to church, he took occasion to be plain in
testifying against the Indulgence, both in its origin and
nature.' The sequel is not surprising : ' After this,
finding his service would be no longer acceptable to
them, he went to the South.'
This was the beginning of Cameron's active opposition
to the Indulged, an opposition with which his name is
associated in the annals of the Covenanters ; and if this
first transaction involved no serious sacrifice, it at least

RICHARD CAMERON 49
meant material loss as he was deprived of his chaplaincy.
The incident might indeed be reduced to an example of
commonplace and unwarrantable interference on the part
of a young man with the affairs and convictions of his
employer. He was not compelled to intrude uito
Harden's doings. Yet, according to the moral ideas of
his party, he was doing wrong if he did not witness against
what in their judgment was error; and nothing in the
eyes of the strictest Covenanters could justify them
if they entered the churches of the Indulged and joined
in the worship.
It is interesting to learn, in view of Cameron's association
with them, that in 1683, Sir WUliam Scott was fined in the
sum of 46,125 pounds, Scots, on account of his wife's
withdrawing from the Church. According to Fountain-
hall, the knight and his wife had been present at a
conventicle, and it is stated that 'the King's Advocate,
Sir George Mackenzie, got a previous gift of this fine for
journeys to London.' The evidence for Harden's defec
tion from the Church is doubtful, as he petitioned the
Privy Council to free him from responsibUity for his wife's
conduct in consideration of his own loyalty. The petition
was refused, as it was held that a husband is, de jure, master
of his wife, whatever he may be de facto. Harden was sent
to prison, as he was unable to pay the fine, which had been
modified to fifteen hundred pounds sterling. His loyalty
and his age, though he was about seventy years old, did
not save him from the severity of the Government ; and it
is ob-vious that his loyalty was suspected. There is no
reason to believe that Cameron had directly influenced
either the knight or the lady, as the fine was imposed on
D

so FAMOUS SCOTS
them after he had fallen at Ayrsmoss. It is of interest,
however, to know that the lady, at any rate, was not
disobedient at last to the teaching of the young chaplain,
and that she was found guUty of that very fault of ab
stention from the Church, for which he had left her
service. Cameron's attitude to the Indulged, while he was at
Harden, was afterwards examined when he was charged
with causing disunion among the Presbyterians. At a
meeting of Presbyterians, held in 1678, he was asked by
the moderator or chairman, if he had hejud an Indulged
minister before he went to Harden, and if he had made
any objection when warned that he must attend the
lady who was in the habit of hearing the Indulged.
Cameron replied that while there had been letters fi-om
the moderator to the lady and to himself, setting forth
that once, in presence of a Mr James Douglas, he had
declared that he had no scruples in hearing the
Indulged, yet Douglas, when Interrogated, had no know
ledge of the affair. The moderator further inquired
if, after leaving Harden, he had not asked him to
beg the lady to take him back to her service. At
this Cameron smiled and said he remembered no such
thing. It is of little importance whether Cameron or the
moderator was correct in his e-vddence. Cameron
perhaps wished to return to Harden and was -willing
to attend the lady. But as he had taken no promi
nent part in the ecclesiastical strife of the time, he
was not guilty of any serious inconsistency. It was
the policy of his Presbyterian opponents, when his

RICHARD CAMERON 51
enthusiasm was extreme, to prove that his conduct
had not been uniform. Whatever they proved, there
was no grave weakness in a young man, not yet
engaged in public affairs, desiring to recover a situa
tion.

CHAPTER IV
the indulgence
The disputes of factions seldom command interest beyond
their own day, and are generally unworthy of an abiding
place in history. The wrangling of the Covenanters over
the Indulgence, which was the tedious warfare of men who
had need for union in face of the serious injury inflicted
on their Church and of the wrong done to their country's
freedom, deserves attention only in so far as it helps to
explain the failure of the opposition to the excesses of the
royal prerogative. Cameron, though he may never have
reached the greatness of ' a soldier in the liberation war of
humanity,' had a better work to do than to spend his
energy in a petty ecclesiastical strife. He was to stand
forward for the nation's liberty, but in the first year of his
public career he was at most a leader in a faction.
Cameron, when he left Harden, went to the South,
' where he was introduced to the famous John Welch of
Irongray.' No definite date can be assigned to this event,
as nothing is known of his career between his departure
from Falkland in 1673 or 1674, and his licence as a
preacher in 1678, save the incident of the chaplaincy at
Harden and the occasional visits to Edinburgh, referred to
in documents among the Wodrow MSS. He had held office

RICHARD CAMERON 53
in Falkland under the Episcopal clergyman, and had in
curred his wrath by attending the services of Presbyterian
ministers. From the Indulged he had passed to the field-
preachers, convinced that traffic with the Indulgence
involved the gmlt of Erastianism. Some time after his
chaplaincy he became a preacher of the Gospel, and his
short ministerial life was marked by an uncompromising
advocacy of the spiritual independence or divine right of
the Church, and the boldest opposition to the men who,
receding from this principle, accepted favours from the
Government. Welch, the ' outed ' minister of Irongray, was the most
intrepid of the field-preachers, and Cameron's zeal was
shown when he sought his company. In 1674 a reward
was offered for Welch's seizure, but still another step was
to be taken in the path of coercion. An old law of
Catholic times, known as Letters of Intercommuning, was
put in force against more than a hundred persons, among
whom were 'many ladies gentlewomen married.' Letters
of this kind, issued on the 6th of August, 1675, began as
by irony with the words : ' Charles, by the grace of God,
king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the
Faith.' Command was given to the king's heges ' that
none of them presume nor take upon hand to reset,
supply, or intercommune with any of the aforesaid persons
or rebels, for the causes foresaid, nor furnish them with
meat, drink, house, harbour, -victual, nor no other thing
useful or comfortable to them, nor have intelligence with
them by word, writ, or message, or any other manner of
way, under the pain to be reputed and esteemed art and
part with them in the crimes foresaid, and pursued therefore

S4 FAMOUS SCOTS
with all rigour, to the terror of others.' The persons
named had already been declared rebels, but they had not
answered the summons to appear before the CouncU ; and
hence this instrument of tyranny had been used. In
July, 1674, at the market crosses of Cupar, Falkland, and
Perth, certain men, among whom was John Geddie, of
Falkland, father of the remarkable Emelia Geddie of the
once popular tract, were declared rebels for attending con
venticles, and for entertaining 'outed' ministers ; and these
men were now named in the Letters. Welch was several
times mentioned, as when Lady ColviUe and others were
charged with ' harbouring, resetting, and entertaining Mr
John Welch, a declared and proclaimed traitor, in their
houses and elsewhere, and conducting and conveying him
through several places in Fife, in an hostUe manner, and
threatening those who should apprehend, molest, and
interrupt the said Mr John Welch and others in his com
pany.' The conduct of Welch, and the acts of the Government
directed against him, indicate clearly the character of the
faction to which Cameron allied himself He sought no
easy life, and he found neither peace nor worldly honour
by joining men who were persistently persecuted by the
Government. Welch, in spite ofthe reward offered for his
seizure, was not betrayed, as in February, 1676, Durham
of Largo was fined for resetting him ; nor did he desist
from preaching, as a minute of the Privy Council, April,
1676, bears: 'Whereas the Privy CouncU is informed
that there hath been a numerous conventicle lately held in
the shire of Ayr, at Coilmnwood, at which Mr John Welch,
a declared traitor, preached.' During the years m which

RICHARD CAMERON 55
the field-preachers were hunted by the Government, the
management of the country was in the hands of Lauder
dale ; and to him is largely to be accredited the tyranny
which with royal sanction was so plentifully measured out
to the Covenanters. His rule, however, was not allowed
to pass unchallenged by some of the nobles, who had cast
patriotism aside at the Restoration. At the beginning of
1676, the Duke of HamUton, anxious to have Lauderdale
removed from the ofifice of Royal Commissioner, and
touched by the hardships of his fellow-countrymen, repre
sented to Charles that many of the people were cruelly
handled in consequence of false accusations. Lauderdale
in turn brought charges against HamUton of unfriendliness
to the king's cause ; and Charles, approving the policy of
his Commissioner, ordered Hamilton not to interfere in
public affairs. Others besides HamUton tried in vain to
move the king against Lauderdale.
The Commissioner, having gained the royal assent to
the rigorous treatment of offenders, increased his vigilance,
and so ruthlessly pursued the rebels that their preachers
were not safe to remain in the country. Some of these
men found an asylum in the north of England, and the
tyranny which exiled them increased the disaffection of the
people, and left the Government powerless, with the
ordinary means at their command, to check the growing
rebeUion. Welch and other preachers, seeing the mind of
the people, returned in 1677, and, openly defying the law,
continued their meetings in the fields. The Indulged
ministers, as the conventicles indicated, had gained little
of the popular favour ; and, hoping to reduce the strength
of their Presbyterian opponents, they determined to secure

5 6 FAMOUS SCOTS
a conference, for the ostensible purpose of promoting
union. A meeting was accordingly held in Edinburgh, at
which the main business was the discussion of a proposal
that the ministers of the different parties should, on
occasion, preach for one another. The plan was approved
by a majority, and, as it involved a breach of the terms
ofthe Indulgence, and also ofthe law against conventicles,
it seems as if the intending law-breakers believed that they
would not be pursued for their conduct. Anything which
diminished the popularity of the conventicles was likely to
be favoured by the Government, and the contrast between
the ease of the Indulged and the hardships of the field-
preachers, who had the esteem of the people, would
become less prominent through intercourse and friendship.
A debate was also raised on the question of ordination
where there was no call or invitation to the charge of a
congregation, and many declared themselves against the
practice. After the conference, which was -without good
result, the disunion of the Covenanters became more pro
nounced, and the one party inveighed against the other.
The character of the controversy is seen in the style ofthe
author of ' Earnest Contendings for the Faith,' who wTOte
concerning ' that late meeting in Edinburgh caUing itself
a general meeting or assembly (though I hope never to
look upon it otherwise than on an Erastian sjmagogue, nor
to be hum'd or ha'd with, I know not what, out of this
persuasion).' Walker, who had also the gift of forcible
expression, spoke about ' an Erastian meeting of minis
ters, of actually-indulged and not-indulged, kept at
Edinburgh, procured by the Indulged and their
favourites, in order to get union made up and kept up.

RICHARD CAMERON 57
or rather a conspiracy peace, without truth, unity, without
verity ; an holding evidence of false prophets and back
sliders.' The opposition of the sections continued and
showed itself with emphasis in the contentions before
Bothwell Bridge, and this Edinburgh meeting, after the
Indulgence itself, may be taken as the beginning of the
cleavage of the Covenanters. The moderation of the one
party became as marked as the excessive zeal or fanaticism
of the other ; and moderation meant neither more nor less
than a surrender to an authority which, after the Restora
tion, had been denied by three or four hundred men to
their loss of ecclesiastical station and social position.
Cameron, according to Walker, was sometimes charged
with being the first to advocate a separation from the
Indulged and to hold up to popular contempt these men
who, in their weariness of suffering, were glad to accept
rehef on terms dictated by the Government. But before
Cameron became a minister Welwood and Kid, two young
preachers, had helped to create the party with which he
was afterwards associated. They are described in Walker's
ecstatic style as having cried at a great conventicle:
'Treason, treason, treason, against King Christ in Scot
land : They would have him a king without a kingdom,
and a king without subjects : there is not a clean pulpit
In all Scotland this day, curate nor indulged ; wherefore
come out among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord,
and touch not these unclean things, and I will be a father
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the
Lord Almighty.' Welwood, eager and uncompromising,
died in 1 6 7 9, worn out with sickness, after he had won an
honourable place in the reverence of the Covenanters. He

5 8 FAMOUS SCOTS
was associated with Cameron, and died but one year before
him ; but he was his forerunner rather than a leader with
him in the attack against the conforming Presbyterians.
Kid was afterwards executed in Edinburgh, and the fact
that Welwood and he preached together led Walker to con
jecture that these were the two who, with Cameron, were
called before a meeting at Edinburgh to answer to a charge
of schism. Walker was speaking from imperfect know
ledge, as there is no record of Welwood and Cameron being
charged together. A minute of the ' proceedings of the
brethren ' at Edinburgh, August 2 ist, 1678, shows that Mr
John Kid and Mr Thomas Hog appeared along with
Cameron, and were blamed for causing dispeace. In
consequence of the di-visions, the field-preachers became
more conspicuous, and incurred greater danger. There
were now few of these preachers, as the severity of the
Government, while increasing the fervour of the people for
liberty, lessened the number of those who were willing to
suffer for it. Not many would endure privation for a
spiritual theory. But when Richard Cameron became a
minister in the strictest faction of the Covenanters he
joined the ranks, not of those who loved ease and comfort
for themselves, but of rebels whom the grateful memory of
Scotland has styled heroes and martyrs.
The popular enthusiasm for liberty, genuine but im
plying as yet no great danger, in spite of coercive laws,
continued to increase amidst the endeavours of the Govern
ment to stamp out the conventicles. Thousands of people
attended field-meetings in the year 1677, and were
strengthened by the sight of their o-wn numbers. The
Episcopal clergy, on the other hand, becoming alarmed

RICHARD CAMERON 59
when they recognised this enthusiasm, made representa
tions to the Privy CouncU, and on the 2nd of May an Act
was passed declaring that no new Indulgence was to be
granted. Lauderdale, who had been in London during
the early part of the year, returned in the summer, when
the Presbyterians approached him for help. They be
sought him to remove the sentences attached to the Letters
of Intercommuning, and to release the prisoners of the
Bass. Lauderdale would promise nothing, and instead of
showing mercy threatened greater severity. When, how
ever, it was represented that any new coercion would insure
ruin to tenants and loss to landowners, he spoke of a third
Indulgence. Again the Bishops were in alarm, but they
soon learned that it was convenient to keep the Presby
terians in hope tUl the Government should be able to
suppress them. Towards the close of this year, 1677, a
new and surprising method was adopted for queUing the
Covenanters. Orders were sent to the heritors of Ayr and
Renfrew, where the conventicles were most numerous, to
take steps to put down all field-meetings. The heritors
replied that they were powerless, and recommended tolera
tion. The Government, however, would have nothing to
do with toleration, and forthwith coUected troops in Eng
land and in Ireland, which were meant for Scotland.
These troops were not used, as, for some reason it was
resolved to employ the services of Highlanders, who exer
cised their commission as if the old feuds between the
Highlands and the Lowlands had been re-vived. The
Highland Host, as it is commonly styled, numbering six
or eight thousand men, coUected at Stirling early in 1678.
'A barbarous, savage people, accustomed to rapine and

6o FAMOUS SCOTS
spoU,' said Wodrow. ' An inhuman and barbarous crew,'
said the gentlemen of Ayrshire, when they remonstrated.
Some of these gentlemen desiring to go to London to make
representations to the king, were forbidden by the Privy
Council to cross the Border. The Highlanders, authorized
to take free quarters, wherever they went, and to seize
horses for their use, were promised indemnity against aU
civil and criminal proceedings for killing, wounding, appre
hending, or imprisoning any who opposed them. They
were commissioned to demand signatures to a bond, and
to punish those who refused to sign it. The bond was an
obligation by the heads of houses, for themselves, -wives,
children and servants, to abstain from going to conven
ticles, and to refuse help of any kind to intercommuned
ministers or vagrant preachers. The Highlanders were
ready to fulfil their commission, and they did not forget the
promised indemnity. Their march meant riot and rapine
wherever they went. Towards the end of February they
were ordered home. Wodrow has described their going.
' One would have thought they had been at the sacking
of some besieged town, by their baggage and luggage.
They were loaded with spoil : they carried away a great
many horses, and no small quantity of goods out of mer
chants' shops, whole webs of linen and woollen cloth, some
silver plate bearing the names and arms of gentlemen.
You would have seen them with loads of bedclothes,
carpets, men and women's wearing clothes, pots, pans,
gridirons, shoes, and other furniture, whereof they had
pillaged the country ; and two of their colonels. Airly and
Strathmore, are said to have sent home great sums of
money, which could not all be the produce of their pay.'

RICHARD CAMERON 6i
Having tried the experiment of the barbarity of the High
land Host the Government determined to raise a regular
army for the repression of the Covenanters, and for this
purpose they imposed a tax, the 'cess,' as it was popu
larly named. This 'cess' was another cause of conten
tion among the Covenanters. Cameron and his friends
maintained that payment of a tax to be used for putting
down conventicles impUed yielding to an Erastian
Government. Cameron, who had joined Welch after leaving Harden,
as has been noted, was Ucensed as a preacher in the be
ginning of the year 1678, if we may trust a document
which is to be found among the Wodrow papers. This
document, which, though never printed, seems to have
been -written for circulation, is a characterisation of
Cameron, and is signed Veridicus, a name taken, as is
supposed, by Scot of Oxenham. Scot, writing whUe
Cameron was stUl living, spoke of his shifts and pre
varications, sneered at 'worthy Mr Cameron's humility,'
and censuring his conduct, declared that he had been
licensed but five months when he appeared at the Edin
burgh meeting in August 1678. The record in the Bio
graphia Presbyteriana is that after Cameron had been
some time with the field-preachers in the South, ' Mr
Welch perceived that he was not only exercised unto
godliness, but had his own share of gifts and learning.'
Mr Welch and others pressed him to undergo his trial
before them, in order to get an act of hcence to preach
the Gospel. For some time he refused, but after much
entreaty he was prevailed with. Accordingly, he got his
licence from Mr Welch and Mr Gabriel Semple and others.

62 FAMOUS SCOTS
at Haugh-head in Teviotdale, at Henry HaU's house. He
told them he would be a bone of contention among them,
for if ever he preached against a national sin in Scotland,
it should be against the Indulgence and separation from
the Indulged.' Many of the " outed " mhiisters, in spite of
constant oppression, had no thought of yielding, and con
sequently they maintained their irregular organisation by
adding licensed preachers and ordained ministers. During
their times of trouble the Covenanters followed the old
regulations for the licence of students, as if Presbyterianism
were stiU established. Candidates were required to under
go 'trials' before ordained ministers, who granted them
licence if the examination proved satisfactory. A homily,
an English exegesis, and a Latin thesis were prescribed to
them, and they had to submit themselves for examination
in various branches of theological study. Presbyterian
students at this period had not the advantage of attending
the Divinity classes in the universities, as the professors,
being Episcopalians, taught the distinctive doctrines of
their Church. Before the Revolution Settlement, Wodrow,
the father of the historian, was appointed by the Presby
terians to superintend the studies of young men desirous of
becoming preachers, and there may have been some such
instructor in Edinburgh whom Cameron attended, when he
made those visits to the city which have been noted. He
may have been a student in St Mary's College before he
left St Andrews, or he may have pursued his studies under
some such teacher as Wodrow. It is certain, however,
that he must have studied theology to some degree, other
wise the ministers, -with their faithful adherence to the old
Presbyterian forms, would not have granted him a licence

RICHARD CAMERON 63
to preach. The truth of this statement is illustrated in
the case of James Renwick, who was sent to the University
of Groningen by the men who adhered to the testimony of
Cameron and Cargill.
Mr Gabriel Semple, who assisted at the ceremony of
licence, was the second son of Sir Bryce Semple, Sheriff-
principal of Renfrew. He was minister of Kirkpatrick-
Durham at the Restoration, and when he left his church he
continued in the neighbourhood, drawing the parishioners
to his services. Welch joined him, and continued the
preaching after Semple had left the district. This, Wod
row informs us, was the beginning of the field-meetings.
Semple lived through many hardships, to be chosen
minister of Jedburgh after the Revolution Settlement.
Henry HaU, in whose house the ceremony took place,
was forced to leave Scotland for a time, as the curates
pursued him for giving his ground for field-meetings.
When he returned he was one of the leaders of the
Presbyterians at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge; and
later was closely associated with Cameron and with Car-
gUl, the famous preacher. The ruins of the house where
Cameron was licensed are still to be seen. Cameron,
according to Walker's record, warned the ministers that
he would be a bone of contention among them. In the
discussion at the Edinburgh meeting, when a charge of
schism was preferred, he was asked if he had not been
required at his hcence not to deal with disputed points,
and he answered that he had been charged not to foment
divisions, and not to do or speak that which might cause
offence. He was further pressed to say whether he had
made any engagement not to preach against the Indulged.

64 FAMOUS SCOTS
He replied that he had refused to make such an engage
ment when it was proposed to him in private; and it is
evident from the report of the meeting that he was con
vinced that he had made no promise which he had not
kept. As soon as he was licensed he was sent to preach in
Annandale, after pleading that he knew not what sort of
people were there. ' Go your way, Ritchie,' said Welch,
' set the fire of hell to their tail.' Cameron proceeded to
Annandale, whatever may have been the spiritual function
impUed in Welch's charge. The people to whom he first
ministered were popularly kno-wn as Annandale thieves,
and he had therefore other duty than to discourse on
ecclesiastical affairs. The text of the first sermon was the
words from Jer. iii. 19:' How shall I put thee among
the chUdren,' and with evident sarcasm, he cried : ' Put
you among the chUdren, the offspring of robbers and
thieves.' The description of the first day's preaching is
thus sententiously given by Walker : ' . . . Many have
heard of Annandale thieves. Some of them who got a
merciful cast that day told it afterwards that it was the first
field-preaching that ever they heard ; and that they went
out of curiosity to see how a minister would preach in a
tent, and people sit on the ground. But if many of them
went without an errand, they got one that day.' Though
Cameron's sermon has not been preserved, it is e-vident he
used no honeyed words, since he styled them thieves, a
name which they and their forefathers had earned. Sir
Walter Scott, in the introduction to the 'Minstrelsy,' remarks
that we learn from the passage quoted from Walker that
some of the Borderers retained to a late period their in-

RICHARD CAMERON 65
difference to religion. Kirkton, with another story to
tell regarding the effect of the field-meetings in which
Cameron was engaged, records that in 1678 the Marquess
of Athole and the Earl of Perth were proceeding through
Annandale with a small retinue. Resting one night at a
cottage, they ' professed they feared much their horses
should be stolen, because they could not get them within
a locked door ; but the poor country people told them they
need not, for there was now no thieving in the country
since the field-preachings came among them.' Kirk-
patrick Sharpe, the editor of Kirkton's History, doubts
with his customary prejudice this reformation of the thieves,
saying, that whUe the Whig preachers, from their doctrines
of insubordination and their lawless lives, were fitted to
become friends of these ' minions of the moon,' the new
habits were not of long duration. Cameron's way of
making friends of these minions was to caU them the
offspring of robbers and thieves.
The career on which Cameron had now entered was
fraught with the greatest danger. He was deUberately
acting as a rebel by setting himself against the law, and
was incurring the penalty of an offender. We have no
detailed narrative of his wanderings, no description of his
hardships. The life of a field-preacher is, however,
graphically shown in Kirkton's account of Welch, — ' not
withstanding of all the threats of the State, the great price
set upon his head, the spite of the bishops, the diligence
of aU bloodhounds, he maintained his difficult post of
preaching upon the mountains of Scotland, many times
to many thousands, for near twenty years' time. ... I
have known him ride three days and two nights without
E

66 FAMOUS SCOTS
sleep, and preach upon a mountain at midnight in one
of the nights.'
After his mission to the Annandale thieves, Cameron
preached several times in company with Welch, Semple,
and others. It is also stated that he preached more than
once at Maybole, 'where,' the record is, 'were many
thousands of people, being the first time that the sacra
ment of the Lord's Supper was dispensed in the open
fields.' In 1677 the practice of dispensing the sacrament
at conventicles was begun. There is no detaUed account
of the Maybole meeting at which Welch and other
clergymen ofificiated; but Blackadder's description of a
communion in Teviotdale may serve to show the solemn
scenes in which Cameron engaged, and to iUustrate the
fashion in which the Covenanters worshipped God, and
obeyed the injunction of their Lord. To the people
gathered together in Teviotdale danger was expected from
the Earl of Hume who, according to a report, had
threatened to make his horses drink the communion wiae,
and to trample the sacred elements under foot. Some
of the people appeared in arms, and from these, pickets
of twelve or sixteen men were arranged, whUe shigle
horsemen were sent to a distance to watch the approach
of the enemy. Other horsemen were stationed round
the congregation, within reach of the preacher's voice.
When these military preparations were made, then, says
Blackadder, 'We entered on the administration of the
holy ordinance, committing it and ourselves to the in-nsible
protection of the Lord of Hosts, in whose name we were
met together. Our trust was in the arm of Jehovah. . . .
The place where we convened was every way commodious,

RICHARD CAMERON 67
and seemed to have been formed on purpose. It was a
green and pleasant haugh, fast by the water side. On
either hand there was a spacious brae, in form of a half
round, covered with delightful pasture, and rising -with a
gentle slope to a goodly height. Above us was the clear
blue sky, for it was a sweet and calm Sabbath morning,
promising to be, indeed, one of the days of the Son of
Man. The communion tables were spread on the green
by the water, and around them the people had arranged
themselves in decent order. But the far greater multitude
sat on the brae-face, which was crowded from top to
bottom, full as pleasant a sight as was ever seen of that
sort. . . . And truly the spectacle of so many grave,
composed, and devout faces must have struck the adver
saries with awe, and been more formidable than any
outward abiUty of fierce looks and warlike array. We
desired not the countenance of earthly kings ; there was
a spiritual and divine majesty shining on the work, and
sensible evidence that the great Master of AssembUes was
present in the midst. . . . Though our vows were not
offered within the courts of God's house, they wanted not
sincerity of heart, which is better than the reverence of
sanctuaries. Amidst the lonely mountains we remembered
the words of our Lord, that true worship was not peculiar
to Jerusalem or Samaria; that the beauty of holiness
consisted not in consecrated buildings or material temples.
. . . The ordinance of the last supper, that memorial
of his dying love till his second coming, was signaUy
countenanced, and backed with power and refreshing
influence from above. Blessed be God for he hath visited
and confirmed his heritage when it was weary. . . .

68 FAMOUS SCOTS
Few such days were seen in the desolate Church of
Scotland, and few will ever -witness the like. There was
a rich and plentiful effusion of the spirit shed abroad on
many hearts. Their souls, filled with heavenly transports,
seemed to breathe in a divine element, and to burn
upwards, as with the fire of a pure and holy devotion.
The ministers were visibly assisted to speak home to the
conscience of the hearers. It seemed as if God had
touched their lips with a live coal from his altar, for they
who witnessed declared they carried more like ambas
sadors from the court of heaven, than men cast in earthly
mould.' Such is Blackadder's graphic description of a
day of the desolate Church of Scotland, of God's visitation
of his heritage when it was weary.
While there is no detailed record of the conventicle at
Maybole, Welch's addresses have been preserved. The
day seems to have been wet, as he began by rebuking
his hearers for their want of patience during a shower of
rain, and telling them that they should be thankful that
fire and brimstone were not falUng. The sermon, which
was to be brief because of the rain, was divided and sub
divided into sufiScient paragraphs to satisfy any man of
the seventeenth, and to perplex any man of the nineteenth
century. The sermon and addresses show vigour of speech,
but they are commonplace in thought, and are without
the eloquence of Blackadder. It is to be remembered,
however, that the addresses, which were not prepared for
publication by the speaker, were printed from notes fur
nished by hearers, who may not have been skilful reporters.
Five months after his licence, Cameron was cited to
answer to a charge of creating schism. There were now

RICHARD CAMERON 69
three distinct parties among the Covenanters. One set of
the clergy had accepted the Indulgence; another, while
refusing it, had not cut themselves off from communion
¦with the Indulged. The faction to which Cameron
belonged stood alone, judging the others guUty of a
betrayal of the Covenants. History may find the pleas
by which these parties justified themselves, yet they were
set against one another at a time when unity was neces
sary for their preservation as a Church. Blackadder
asserts that the Indulged clergy endeavoured to create a
prejudice against the field-meetings, and that among the
non-Indulged there was irritation, on the one hand, on
account of the laxity of the leaders, and annoyance, on
the other, owing to the violent zeal of some of the younger
preachers. These younger men were charged with walking
disorderly, and with holding conventicles in parishes
where Presbyterian services were being conducted in the
churches. He tells us that he himself knew of no one
save Richard Cameron who preached -with contempt, or
used strong language against the Indulged, or advised
separation from them. Cameron, he adds, was often
blamed for extravagant speaking.
Further illustration of the division of the factions is
given in Blackadder's account of his own experience at a
meeting of clergy, perhaps that one to which Cameron
was cited. When he suggested that the old relation of
the Indulged and the non-Indulged should continue in
peace, and that the young men should be cautioned
against extravagance of speech, he met with no interrup
tion ; but when he proposed that there should be serious
consideration regarding the sin of being unfaithful to Christ,

70 FAMOUS SCOTS
through not bearing proper testimony against the usurping
enemy, he was met with cries of ' Divisive, divisive,' and
' Come let us unite.'
The disunion of the Covenanters is no way better seen
than in Cameron's preaching and in the charges preferred
against him. Wodrow makes a passing reference to these
troubles among the Presbyterians. When accounts of the
sermons of some of the ' probationers ' were carried to the
ministers, it was resolved that action should be taken ; and
accordingly a meeting was held in Edinburgh, towards the
end of August. An attempt was made -with two of the
'probationers' to convince them of error, but a third
declined to subject himself to authority. Wodrow does
not name these ' probationers,' but he Is referring to Mr
John Kid and Mr Thomas Hog, and to Richard Cameron.
Among the Wodrow MSS. are documents which throw
further light on these proceedings. On the 2 ist of August,
1678, the three 'probationers' appeared before 'the
brethren,' who were not able to constitute a presbytery, as
they possessed no jurisdiction recognized by the State or
deputed to them by an organized Church. None the less
they claimed to exercise authority over the young preachers.
On the 26th of August, a meeting was convened for
trying the case of Cameron, and Mr Edward Jamison,
who had been one of the 'intercommuned,' was chosen
moderator. Among those present was Rodger, an Indulged
minister. Formalities were observed, and Cameron was
duly cited by Mr Robert Ross, who was soon to leave the
hunting of schismatics to become a prisoner on the Bass
for his love of Presbyterianism. Throughout the proceed
ings, Cameron showed no dread of the dignities, and the

RICHARD CAMERON 71
conduct and appearance of the young man irritated his
reverend superiors. He demanded to know who accused
him of drawing the people away from the Indulged, and
was told that his actions were the clamour of the country.
He was advised that it was unbecoming for a 'probationer'
to meddle with disputed matters, and he affirmed that he
had a Scriptural warrant for all he said. He resolutely
refused to change the style of his preaching, and when
pressed cried, 'O dreadful, not for the world.' The
ministers, faUing to bend him to their will, appointed a
committee to confer with him ; and at another meeting,
August 28th, at which Scot of Hawick was moderator, he
agreed to subject himself to them in the Lord. His sub
jection, however, led to no promise of amendment; and
baffled by him, the ministers solemnly charged him to
abstain from railing against any of the Presbyterians, and
required him to attend a future meeting. He expressed
his wUlingness to attend, provided some of his friends were
allowed to accompany him.
Cameron had yielded nothing. He was guilty, before
his seniors, of youth and its rashness ; but his resoluteness
was for his principles, and it explains the prominence he
had gained in the short space of five months. These
principles he held to be the truths of God, to be guarded
for Him ; and he counted the honour of the Church of
Christ the one thing needful for him to save from the
touch of His enemies. Insignificant in station, youthful,
and with Uttle experience as a preacher, he steadfastly
championed the freedom of the Church from civil control,
as great men in other lands and other times had done.
When Hildebrand again and again throughout his life, when

72 FAMOUS SCOTS
Richelieu in his speech before the States General, defended
the spiritual rights of the Church, they were doing in con
spicuous places that which Richard Cameron did, amidst
the strife of factions, in the small country of Scotland. The
clamour of the factions and his own bitter words may be
left unheard, while he pleads for his Church as for the
honour of Christ. A man has only to become old to
become tolerant, Goethe said. Cameron was a young
man, it may be urged; but it may also be said that,
while tolerance may be the virtue of charity, it may also
be the vice of indifference.
In spite of the solemn injunctions of 'the brethren,'
Cameron preached in Monkland on the Sunday following
their meeting, and was accompanied by Robert Hamilton
and a band of armed men. This Robert Hamilton, a
younger son of the Baronet of Preston, afterwards com
manded the Covenanters at Drumclog and BothweU
Bridge. Whether or not the victory at Drumclog was
won by him, the defeat at Bothwell Bridge was largely due
to his fault. On this Sunday when Cameron preached, Mr
Matthew Selkirk also went to Monkland, at the desire of
the ministers in Glasgow; but he was not allowed to speak,
as Hamilton and his party objected to him as a favourer
of the Indulged. In a libel afterwards served, Cameron
was charged with refusing to preach with Selkirk and with
hindering him from joining in the service. In due time,
however, he presented a document, known as the Monk-
land testimony, which bore that he had preached at the
invitation of the parishioners who objected to Selkirk.
Cameron was not without encouragement in the course
he had taken. Letters were sent to him approving his

RICHARD CAMERON 73
conduct, among which was one from Brown, the 'outed '
minister of Wamphray, who was a refugee in HoUand.
Brown advised him to proceed, and stated his opinion
that the Edinburgh meeting possessed no jurisdiction.
Strengthened by these letters, Cameron continued his
labours till he stirred 'the brethren' to further action.
A sermon at a conventicle in KUmarnock, at which five or
six ministers were present, brought matters to a crisis. A
libel was prepared and duly served. It contained fifteen
counts and was formidable chiefly for its array of detaUs.
Neither heresy nor immorality could be charged against
him, and the tragedy was therefore commonplace. He
had preached in parishes without the consent of the
ministers, and had taken the leading place at con
venticles when ordained ministers were present. At
one of these conventicles, when Welch was there, he had
spoken without his permission; he had organized a
meeting in opposition to him : and had endeavoured
to make strife between him and his former hearers in
Irongray. The Indulgence, of course, appeared in the libel. He
had asked the people if they received any good from the
ministers who had accepted it ; had compared these
ministers to Cain; and had declared that while they
had received their commission from men, he had his
from the Lord. It was asserted that he had declared
that he would have preached even had he not been
licensed ; and that he had styled himself an ambassador
of Christ, and had spoken as with the authority of an
ordained minister. Further, he was accused of saying
that the Lord hardly ever punished people for their

74 FAMOUS SCOTS
own fault but for the fault of the magistrates; and it
was objected against him that he had refused to admit
the jurisdiction of the Edinburgh meeting.
The libel was served, and he was cited to appear before
the men who had licensed him. He would surely submit
to them, though he had not yielded to ' the brethren ' in
Edinburgh. The meeting to which he was called was held
at Sundaywell, in Dunscore, a parish in Nithsdale, on
November 14th, 1678. Dunscore is associated with the
infamous Grierson of Lag, who had a seat there, and who
was buried in the graveyard of the old church. EUisland,
Burns' farm, and Craigenputtock, Carlyle's house, are both
situated in the parish. Sundaywell was a square tower,
built by John Kirk who befriended the Covenanters, and
this house often afforded an asylum to Blackadder and
other ministers. Welch presided over the meeting as
moderator, and with him were Gabriel Semple, Thomas
Douglas, and David Williamson, ministers, along -with
several elders. Henry Hall presented himself as a
friend of the accused, but was ejected for interrupting
the meeting and as not being a member. Cameron,
when called, desired to know whether the members
were met as a judicatory, who were the members, and
did they hold the various articles of the libel as implying
guilt. He was informed that the members constituted a
judicatory, such as that which Ucensed him, and he was
therefore forced to agree to their authority. In his answers
to the libel he did not deny some of the charges, such as
preaching without Welch's permission; he did not re
member calling himself an ambassador of Christ, or
saying that the guUt of magistrates brought plagues on

RICHARD CAMERON 75
the people ; and he admitted that he spoke against the
Indulged, advising his hearers not to attend them, but
he did not compare them to Cain.
On the following day when the meeting was resumed,
with Gabriel Semple as moderator, Cameron handed in a
protest against the treatment to which he was being sub
jected. This protest was signed by Robert HamUton,
Michael Cameron, Robert Gray, John Fowler, and others.
He objected to Welch sitting as one of his judges, when he
was involved in the charges ; and plausible as this objec
tion was, it was not sustained. Cameron accordingly
refused to give answers or to declare his principles till
Welch was removed ; and as Welch was not removed, he
walked out. Before he went he was advised to be circum
spect in his conduct and inoffensive in his speech, and was
informed that his sentence was to be delayed for five or six
weeks. As after the Edinburgh meeting so after that at
Dunscore, he preached on the first possible occasion against
the opposite factions, and report was duly made to the
ministers convened at Irongray, on the 21st of November.
Walker's account of the proceedings at Dunscore is inac
curate. It bears that a proposition was made to deprive
Cameron of his licence, and that, while he refused to
acknowledge the jurisdiction of the meeting, he promised
to abstain for a period from preaching on disputed subjects,
and was constrained to do this for the sake of those who
refused to take part against him. It has been seen, how
ever, that immediately after the Dunscore meeting he
preached against the Indulged. Walker also relates that
Cameron was cited before the ministers assembled in
Dundeugh in Galloway. Dundeugh is a lonely spot

76 FAMOUS SCOTS
half-way between Dairy and Carsphairn, where the Water
of Deugh joins the Water of Ken. There is a note
among the Wodrow MSS. of a meeting, December 26th,
1678, held in Dundeugh, the house of one Gordon, at
which Welch, Semple, and Douglas were present, and at
which Robert Hamilton declaimed against them for their
Erastianism. Hamilton himself related that he was sum
moned to appear before the ministers, and that he obeyed
only to disown them and to protest against their pro
ceedings. There is no record of the sentence passed on Cameron,
though references to it are not wanting. Robert Hamilton
spoke in one of his letters of the sentence pronounced on
' great Mr Cameron,' as if it were well-known. Direct refer
ence was made to it in the dying words of Robert Gray, who
joined in the protest at Dunscore. This man was hanged
in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, 1682, for writing in plain
terms regarding the king. It was a custom among Cove
nanters who were executed to make a speech to the people
assembled to witness their death, as did the Marquess
of Argyle, or to read a formally prepared 'testimony.'
Gray, among several references to events associated -with
Cameron's name, said : ' I leave my testimony against these
ministers that sat in Presbytery against worthy Mr Richard
Cameron, that highly honoured martyr of Jesus Christ, and
thought to have deposed him from his ministry. I also
leave my testimony against that meeting that sat at Sun-
dewal, in Nithsdale, which I was a witness to.' So late as
1707, in the proceedings against Macmillan of Balmaghie,
one disputant addressing another, said : ' Do you mind how
you sat a member of that Presbytery which sat at Sunday-

RICHARD CAMERON 77
well and Dundeugh upon Mr Richard Cameron, in order to
depose him ? '
The only punishment which could have been inflicted
on Cameron was the loss, or the suspension for a period,
of his Ucence to preach ; and whatever it was, it was un
heeded. The offended ministers were therefore con
strained to pubUsh among the Presbyterians a resolution
forbidding anyone to preach without their consent in
Galloway and neighbouring places. This resolution, in
tended to exclude 'great Cameron,' as Hamilton wrote,
was of no avail to stop the mouth of the resolute enemy of
Erastianism. In spite of ministers and elders with their
sentence and their resolution, he continued to preach in
his own fashion till he went to Holland in the spring of
1679. According to Walker's account he became melan
choly, in consequence of the promise given at Dunscore,
feehng precluded from preaching the whole counsel of
God, and he determined therefore to spend in HoUand
the time during which he was not to preach against the
Indulged. In 1678, we are told, he went to Holland,
where he met among the refugees from Scotland the most
pronounced advocates of the separation he was wont to
advise. Walker's account is erroneous both as to the
promise and as to the date of leaving the country. An
occurrence in April, 1679, throws some light on Cameron's
movements. A royalist trooper was shot dead at Loudon
HiU, and another was seriously wounded who identified his
assailant as John Scarlet, who for gross immorality had been
dismissed from the service of Welch the preacher. Accord
ing to rumour. Scarlet was one of an armed guard accom
panying Cameron in his wanderings, though from certain

78 FAMOUS SCOTS
facts Wodrow concluded he was a Government spy. The
blame of the murder was undoubtedly given to Cameron's
party, and some of their enemies took steps to exonerate
themselves. On the 28th of April, an address was pre
sented to the Privy Council by noblemen and gentlemen
of Ayr, expressing condemnation of the murder and detes
tation of some field-meetings of the common people
' occasioned by a few hot-headed preachers, most part
whereof were never ministers of the Church of Scotland.'
It was during one of these meetings that Robert HamUton
declared that none who heard the Indulged or paid the
' cess ' should join his party. Some one cried ' we are
almost all " cess " men,' and the confusion was only stilled
when Cameron, who was the preacher, called out that it
would be impossible to purge the meeting that day.
Under Hamilton's guidance, the movement of the Cove
nanters associated with him was fast losing a distinctively
religious character.
There is stiU another proof that Cameron was in Scot
land during the early part of 1679, and was resolute in his
work of preaching, in spite of the Government with their
troops levied by means of the 'cess.' On the 6th of
May, Claverhouse, dispatched a letter from Dumfries to the
Earl of Linlithgow, and reported : ' On Saturday night
last I ordered Captain Inglis ... to be here on the
Sunday morning. ... I mounted the foot and marched
with all towards those places where the conventicles had
been the Sunday before ; first to the head of Glenea . . .
and then to the borders of Crawford Moor, where Cameron
had preached the Sunday before, and did actually preach
that very day, the matter of three miles from the place

RICHARD CAMERON 79
where we were at, though we could see no appearance of
them in any places we had seen, because of the thickness
of the fog. . . . They took three tenant men coming
from that meeting. I have not had the time to examine
them strictly ; but I hear it was really Cameron preached.'
Cameron, then, was in Scotland in 1679, ^^^ '^^^
known to the servants of the Government who were pur
suing the policy of coercion, which led to the rising at
Drumclog and the battle at Bothwell Bridge. He was
not at Drumclog, as afterwards in his sermons he referred
to the engagement, and did not speak of himself as having
been in it ; and there is evidence to show that he was in
Holland before the date of Bothwell Bridge. It may be
taken, therefore, that he left Scotland somewhere about
May, 1679.
His enemies subsequently asserted that the object of his
journey was to purchase arms and ammunition. It is
much more likely that his first intention was to seek from
the Scottish ministers in Rotterdam the ordination to the
ministry which he could not expect to receive from the
clergy whose jurisdiction he had denied, and whose
injunctions he had scorned. It was necessary for him to
be ordained if he was to continue to receive from the
people that respect which they seldom gave to one not
recognized as having the name and exercising the autho
rity of an ambassador of Christ.
While Richard Cameron was advocating the doctrine of
spiritual independence, his father was testifying in other
fashion against the coercion of the Government. Allan
Cameron, as appears from letters among the Wodrow
MSS., was in the habit of holding conventicles in his

8o FAMOUS SCOTS
house in Falkland, and for this breach of the law he was
seized by the town-major on the 25th of August, 1678.
After a trial he was sentenced to pay a fine of a hundred
merks. This fine he would not pay, in spite of the advice
of his friends, preferring to remain a prisoner. He would
not yield in the slightest point to the Government, and
acknowledge the justice of their policy. The old man had
the spirit of determination which his son exhibited through
the course of his public career.

CHAPTER V

IN HOLLAND

It is an impossible task, as history shows, to mark out and
fix permanently the relation of the State to the Church.
In a dual control the question as to the predominant
partner must arise, and the State and the Church have
ever been changing their relationship. Hildebrand, on a
memorable occasion, kept an emperor standing as a
penitent at the gate of his castle ; and Innocent III. was
the political master of nations. A century after the Re
formation, a king of Scotland imposed a set of canons on
the National Church, through her bishops ; and another,
by an Act of his Parliament, changed her government
without the consent of the clergy or the people. In an
age when the connection of the civil and spiritual powers
had not settled into custom, there was no unquestioned
authority by which to judge the action of these kings.
Charles II. might have the right, as he had the power,
to grant an Indulgence ; and when it was granted, who was
to make it wrong to accept it ? During his reign no one
had hope of changing the government of the Church, and
there was, therefore, the plausible argument that, for the
sake of the weightier matters of religion, and also for the
sake of national and domestic peace, the Presbyterians
F 8i

82 FAMOUS SCOTS
should accept the proffered terms. These terms, it could
be said, involved no acknowledgment of the divine origin
or the expediency of Episcopacy ; and they did not in
volve assent to the doctrine that the State had any right
to make conditions for the Church. It could also be
affirmed that the ministers evicted in 1662 entered no
united protest against the action of the State, and
that they simply refused to seek a new presentation,
from a patron. It was undoubtedly the contention of
the Indulged that they had injured no principle of
religion, and had done no harm to freedom by their
compromise. On the other hand, it was held by Cameron and his
associates that this compromise meant a withdrawal ofthe
Church's claim to autonomy, a claim to be asserted what
ever the king might do, and however long Episcopacy
might continue. It might be granted that the Presby
terians after the Restoration, through lack of opportunity,
had made no united declaration against the wrong done
to the Church ; but it could be shown that there was the
National Covenant, -with its refusal of ' approbation of the
corruptions of the public government of the Kirk tiU they
be tried and allowed in Free Assemblies and in Parliament.'
James VI. had not touched the constitution ofthe Church
save through assemblies, lawful or ' pretended.' Charles
I., when trying to impose the liturgy, had acted through
bishops. Charles II. introduced Episcopacy without con
sulting the Church, and every man who had accepted the
National Covenant denied the king's right to interfere in
what, by usage, if not by divine appointment, was the
prerogative of the Church. After this fashion the

RICHARD CAMERON 83
strict Covenanters justified their position, and they could
show that Charles, in his ruthless display of power,
had not only crushed the Covenant, but had also
cast aside the Westminster Confession of Faith, which
had received Parliamentary as well as ecclesiastical
sanction. In this Confession it was set forth that
'the Lord Jesus, as king and head of His Church,
hath therein appointed a government in the hand of
church-officers, distinct from the civil magistrate,' and
that ' it belongeth to Synods and Councils. ... to
set down rules and directions for the better ordering
of the public worship of God, and government of His
Church.' Cameron and his associates, this at least may be
said, were faithful to the National Covenant and to the
Westminster Confession of Faith, to principles in these
which were recognized in the Revolution Settlement.
Apart from these documents, they were not without
written apologies and vindications. Rutherfurd's ' Lex
Rex,' Brown's 'Apologetical Relation,' Stirling's 'Naph-
tali,' Stuart's 'Jus Populi Vindicatum,' and the 'Apo
logy for the persecuted ministers and professors of the
Presbyterian Reformed Religion,' were in circulation
among the Covenanters.
It is rash to condemn the men of former generations
who entered on compromise, as they may have been
guided by common-sense, and may have attained nearer to
righteousness by freeing themselves from obedience to a
formal principle. Those among the Covenanters who,
acting on maxims of prudence, entered on a compromise,
are likely to secure the approbation of cautious men.

84 FAMOUS SCOTS
Moderation, guided by right reason, is the exceUent way of
life : without right reason it is not. Enthusiasts like
Richard Cameron, with their uncompromising adherence
to principles, incur the guUt of fanaticism in the judgment
of those who hate extremes in conduct ; and yet, when
they 'face fearful odds,' losing worldly goods, wrecking
their comfort, courting death, they win the admiration of
generous minds, and when they die in their fanaticism
they are heroes even to many who woiUd not have stood
by their side. Cameron was an enthusiast. He would
have no dealings with the Indulged, whom he classed
with the curates as creatures of the Government, and
whom he condemned as unfaithful to Christ, for their re
cognition of the king's authority in the Church. In this
strong antagonism he had few of the field-preachers with
him, as the hard experience of many years had begotten
in the older men a tolerance which he in his youth deemed
sinful. Their toleration, however, did not extend to him,
and they sought, as appears, to deprive him of his Hcence
to preach. Cameron, in his turn, answered them by
paying no heed to their sentence, and resolved to
seek ordination from Scottish Presbyterian ministers in
Holland. In the seventeenth century, there was a close aUiance
between Scotland and Holland, which had also had its
struggles for liberty. Both countries were Protestant,
and this bond of sympathy was strengthened by one of
commerce. Some years before the date of the Restora
tion, the Scots residing in Rotterdam, with the consent of
the Dutch authorities, established a church. In 1676,
Robert M'Ward was appointed one of the ministers of

RICHARD CAMERON 85
this church. He had been deposed from his living in
Glasgow, imprisoned, and then ordered into banishment
for treasonable preaching or, otherwise, for ' testimony
against the glaring defections of the times.' Free to
choose the place of his exUe, he had proceeded to Hol
land. M'Ward was the author of books and tracts, one
of which, ' Earnest Contendings for the Faith,' was an
elaborate argument against union with the Indulged.
Associated with him was Mr John Brown, at one time
minister of Wamphray, author of ' The History of the
Indulgence.' In the records of the Scottish Privy
Council it is stated that ' Mr John Brown of
Wamphray, being convened before the Council for
abusing and reproaching some ministers for keeping
the diocesan Synod with the Archbishop of Glasgow,
calling them perjured knaves and villains, did acknow
ledge that he called them false knaves for so doing,
because they had. promised the contrary to him.' For
his vigorous speech he was deposed and imprisoned;
and being ordered into banishment, he found a home
in Holland, where, however, he had no ministerial
charge. Even in HoUand these men were not free from the
power of Charles, who in 1670 applied for M 'Ward's
expulsion, for publishing tracts against the Government in
Scotland. In consequence of the king's request, M'Ward
and others were commanded to leave Holland, but the
order was not strictly enforced. In 1677, Charles made
another representation, demanding that M'Ward, Brown,
and Colonel Wallace, who had commanded at Pentland,
should be sent out of Holland, and asserting that the

86 FAMOUS SCOTS
matter affected his own personal safety and the peace
of his realm. The Dutch authorities, while they were
not strongly desirous of serving Charles, and were
unwilling to show severity to the Scottish refugees,
contrived a sentence of banishment which meant simply
a withdrawal from Rotterdam. The punishment feU
most severely on M'Ward, who lost his ministerial
charge. As on the former occasion, the authorities
passed their sentence and did no more, so that in 1678
M'Ward and Brown were back once more in Rotterdam,
where, in the following year, Richard Cameron found
them. According to the Biographia Presbyteriana, Cameron,
during his stay in Rotterdam, preached in private houses
and in the Scots Church, and his services were appreciated.
His favourite text was, ' Come unto me aU ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ' ; and it is
stated that he did not touch on the Indulgence and cess-
paying 'except in prayer, lamenting over the lamentable
case of Scotland by tyranny and defections.' Representa
tions had been made that he was incapable of preaching
anything but denunciations, and M'Ward took occasion to
give his own experience of him. In ' Earnest Contend
ings ' he wrote : ' I crave leave to tell you, that the
common report of poor Mr Cameron was, that not only
he did preach nothing but Bable against the Indulgence ;
but that he could do no other thing. And this was so
confidently and commonly talked, that I was not in case
to contradict it upon knowledge. But, sir, by his coming
hither, the reporters have lost their credit of being so easUy
believed for the future ; and many who heard him were

RICHARD CAMERON 87
convinced that prejudice, heightened to malice, had given
men liberty to talk so : for here he was found a man of
a savory gospel-spirit, the bias of his heart lying towards
the proposing of Christ, and persuading to a closing with
Him. And besides, I can tell you what a person said to
myself, whom you esteem gracious and judicious, . . .
having heard him preach after his ordination, — that they
had not heard such a gospel-preaching since Mr Brown's
banishment.' More than one correspondent sent M'Ward
accounts of the Edinburgh meeting, which, whether written
simply to give information or to make complaint regarding
Cameron, were not all received. In one of his replies,
M'Ward made a defence of Cameron, in which there is
some indication of the charges against him. Writing to a
correspondent on the 20th of January, 1679, he said: 'Dear
Brother, — Yours of December 2 8th I received yesterday :
To the first part whereof I can say but little, not having
received yours, which you say was sent by sea, giving
account of Mr Cameron's business. Neither have I re
ceived any of these, which I hear others beside yourself
have written about that affair. But I judge I may safely
say this much ; I wish there may be more slow driving,
than you insinuate in your letter. . . . You insinuate
there wUl be no apology for his declining their authority.
Dear Brother, I shall not answer the matter before I hear
it ; for that were folly and shame : Only let me put you in
remembrance of what I have said about all meetings of
that nature. ... It will in my poor opinion, for anything
I have ever yet heard, be a difficult task for them, to prove
that meeting to have been a true presbytery, having the
authority which they clamour was declined. And tiU they

88 FAMOUS SCOTS
do this, there needs little apology be made. ... As to
the 2nd thing you hint, that it was not so much the
matter of the Indulgence he was quarrelled about, as &c.
I see as little, for all that ever I heard said, or, I beheve,
shall ever hear, how this can be asserted; for that Et
csetera, was but things which fell in, at the By, when
quarrelled about this. And here give me leave, D.
Brother, to be plain with you: I am from what past
in that meeting, and what is like to follow upon it, the
more confirm'd in my former apprehensions about
what shall be the issue of all these meetings, be the
constituent members what they wUl, tlU once we meet
to mourn. O the shame ! alas ! will we not see it ?
wiU we not be sensible of it? that the first meeting,
resuming Presbyterian power should begin at patronizing
the Indulgence.'
In another of the letters of this period, that from
Carstairs to Dickson, of date, February 17th, 1679, com
plaint, was made of Brown's strictures on the Edinburgh
meeting, and of his praise of Cameron, 'as if none such
had been raised up in the Church of Scotland for many
years before,' None of the letters injured Cameron in
the eyes of M'Ward and Brown, who showed their
approbation of his conduct by conferring ordination on
him. It has been shown that many of the Presbyterians
had declared against the ordination of anyone not called
or invited to the charge of a particular congregation.
Unaffected by this declaration, since It was made by
men whom they judged guilty of Erastianism, these two
ministers determined to ordain Cameron, and in order to
constitute a Presbytery, called in a Dutchman, Mr James

RICHARD CAMERON 89
Koelman. Koelman, who had been ejected from his
charge at Sluis, in Flanders, for refusing to observe the
festival days and formularies of the Dutch Church, was
known as the author of several theological works, and as
the translator of Rutherfurd's Letters. The ordination
took place in the old Scots Church, Rotterdam, which
is now no longer used as a church ; and after the cere
mony of laying on of hands, M'Ward, stiU touching the
head of Cameron, cried : ' Behold, all ye beholders, here is
the head of a faithful minister and servant of Jesus Christ,
who shall lose the same for his Master's interest, and shall
be set up before sun and moon in the public view of the
world.' Another version of the prophecy is : ' The head
on whom their hands are laid shall be soon and cruelly
cut off.'
Cameron's ordination was as regular and genuine as his
licence, but whether either was regular or genuine is
Ukely to be disputed. Probably three ordained ministers
had precisely the same power as a congregation of all
the evicted clergy of Scotland. Law, in his Memorials,
has shown the light In which the moderate Presbyterians
viewed that ordination. Writing in condemnation of
Brown and M'Ward for their attitude to the Indulgence,
he said : ' And some young men expectants, such as Mr
Cameron and Mr Hog and others, to whom the ministrie
denied ordination here, because of their corrupt principles
and practices, and the want of a call from the people to
particular congregations, going over to Holland, received
a lame ordination by them to the ministrie ; and contrary
to all discIpUne in our Church, were admitted ministers
of the Church of Scotland, without assigning to any

90 FAMOUS SCOTS
particular congregation, or call of the people to any ; and
here they show themselves prelates, in following prelatick
practices, who use, especially in England, to ordain men
to the ministrie without designation of any particular
charge and flock over which they are sett' In the Scots
Worthies, there is an account of a conversation between
one Robert Garnock and an unknown Presbyterian
minister, probably Mr John Law, minister at Edinburgh
after the Revolution, in which there is this record :
' speaking anent Messrs Cameron and Cargill, this person
then said to him that the former was no minister, and
the latter was once one, but had quitted it; and that
they received their doctrines from men, then hearers,
who said, "you must preach such and such doc
trines, and we will hear you."' These notices, while
of no value in setthng the question of the vahdity of
Cameron's ordination, show the strength of the feel
ing entertained against him. He himself, however,
had no doubt about his ministerial position, as on
his return to Scotland he officiated as an ordained
minister. 'Another old Christian sufferer told me,'
says Walker, ' that he married him a little after he
came home.'
M'Ward's words regarding the fate of Cameron are in
keeping with the prophetic powers piously ascribed to
some of the Presbyterian preachers. The stories which
record supernatural powers and events point, not to fraud,
but to the conviction of the Covenanters that their cause
was the Lord's, and that their ministers were his chosen
servants. Even if such stories are greatly to be suspected,
there is stiU no need to doubt that M'Ward spoke as he

RICHARD CAMERON 91
was reported. He had heard of the battle at Bothwell
Bridge, and of the execution of two ministers at Edin
burgh, and he was accordingly urging Cameron to return
to Scotland in order to renew the opposition to the Stuart
rule. M'Ward's own interpretation of his words, as
Walker gives It, was equivalent to a claim to a pro
phetic vision. It was not foresight nor forethought
which he had, yet when his hand was on Cameron's
head he was as much persuaded of the approaching
death as if he had been to Ayrsmoss to see his head
and his hands cut off, or to the Netherbow to look at
tliem. This was an explanation made after Cameron's
death. Before the ceremony of ordination, M'Ward addressed
Cameron : ' Richard, the pubUck standard of the Gospel
is fallen in Scotland ; and if I know anything of the mind
of the Lord, ye are called to undergo your trials before
us, and go home and lift the fallen Standard, and display
it publickly before the world; but before ye put your
hand to it, ye shall go to as many of the field-ministers
as ye can find, and give them your hearty in-vitation to
go with you ; and if they wUl not go, go your lone, and
the Lord will go with you.' Cameron's hatred of
Erastianism, his religious fervour, and his devotion to
his ideal of duty, made him the man for a task which
required courage and zeal. M'Ward and Brown were
themselves too old to return to labour in Scotland. Be
sides, they were under sentence of banishment. It is
unjust therefore, to think of them as guilty of cowardice,
in proposing Cameron for a dangerous journey on which
they themselves would not venture. He was young and

92 FAMOUS SCOTS
eager, and work assigned to him by men of high reputa
tion, by men who had spoken, and written, and suffered
for their religion, was exactly the commission which he
desired. A new purpose was now given to his enthusiasm,
and, conscious of it, he returned to Scotland in the autumn
of 1679.
During his absence, events of grave importance had taken
place. On the 3rd of May, 1679, Archbishop Sharp was
murdered on Magus Muir, and with his death there passed
away the most execrated man in the country. His sins
have been multiplied by his enemies, and infamous
names have been given to him ; but it is the merest
commonplace of morality to say that his murder was
a crime, and that his assassins did no good to the
Covenanting cause. When contrasted with Archbishop
Leighton, the most tolerant and most pious of the
Scottish prelates of the time, he remains an ecclesi
astic rather than a religious man, a self seeker rather
than a patriot ; and his memory, in spite of his
monument with its legend, is not that of a saint.
Nor is it likely to be forgotten that his tyranny and
meanness of many years were not overlooked by fate
when he was killed by men waiting, as is generaUy
believed, for Carmichael, the spy, whom he had ap
pointed to hunt out the frequenters of the field-meet
ings in Fife.
Rightly and naturally, a search was made for the mur
derers, who hastened, most of them, to the West, where
the Covenanters were strongest. These Covenanters of
the West were not daunted by the uproar which Sharp's
death had raised. On the contrary, they were excited to

RICHARD CAMERON 93
new agitation ; and a party of them resolved to celebrate
the 29th of May, not by rendering thanks to heaven for
the Restoration, as had been ordered, but by making a
formal protest against the ecclesiastical policy of the
Government. This protest, known as the Rutherglen
Declaration, created no small stir, and the Council com
missioned Graham of Claverhouse, to find the agitators of
the petty rebellion. Claverhouse, learning that Douglas,
one of Cameron's party, was to preach at Loudon
HUl on the Sunday after the Rutherglen affair, deter
mined to disperse the conventicle. On this Sunday,
June ist, 1679, many of the Covenanters appeared
in arms. During the service, word was given that
horsemen were approaching, and quickly the worship
came to an end that the men might make ready to
fight. At once they moved to the ground near Drum
clog, where they met the enemy and gained the
victory. Claverhouse fled, leaving thirty of his troopers
dead. After Drumclog, the Covenanters, who had been
led by Robert Hamilton, continued in arms, and
soon their ranks were swelled. Eager though they
were, and inspired by success, they were ill prepared
to meet the army under the Duke of Monmouth, who
was now in Scotland. On the 22 nd of June, the
battle of Bothwell Bridge was fought with dire disaster
to the Covenanters, who prepared for the contest by
bitter disputes.
Sir Walter Scott, in Old Mortality, has not neglected
to show the absurd dissensions of the Presbyterians.
Leaders and preachers quarrel. Among the preachers is
Ephraim Macbriar, whose name and character are sug-

94 FAMOUS SCOTS
gestive of Hugh MackaU, but whose sermon is based
on one of Cameron's. Wodrow's account, duU and
tedious, does not contradict Scott's, and plainly sets
forth the folly of the strife. Another document, ' Ure's
Narrative of the rising at Bothwell Bridge,' refers to the
rumour that Cameron was in Scotland at the time of the
engagement, and that his supposed presence among the
Covenanters increased the resentment of the moderate
men. Ure himself would not accept the policy of
Hamilton and Cameron, and he did not hesitate to
speak with frankness. Fifty-two men were in company
with him before Bothwell Bridge, and in one of the debates
he declared that many more would have joined him
had it not been thought that Cameron was with Hamil
ton. He was assured that Cameron was in Holland.
'And I prayed God,' wrote Ure, 'that all his faction
were with him.'
In the 'Narrative,' there is light thrown on the dis
union of the Covenanters. At one of the meetings of
the military councU both parties were so hot that they
expected 'to have gone by the ears.' On the one
hand, there was the sensible demand to fight the enemy,
and to leave aU debates tiU the time of a free parUament
and a General Assembly. On the other, there was the
accusation that those who made this demand were as
bad as the Indulged. HamUton and his friends declared
that they would as soon sheathe their swords in the
favourers of the Indulgence as in some of the MaUgnants.
Amidst the wranglings, they professed to own Cameron's
doctrines, and to be willing to act by his judgment.
The associates of Ure offered to sign a denial of the

RICHARD CAMERON 95
Indulgence, and he himself addressed Hamilton, teUing
him that he had a wife and five children, and a little bit
of an estate, and that he had come to hazard his all and
his life to get the yoke of prelacy and supremacy re
moved; but that it was evident that those who followed
Cameron intended to tyrannize over their consciences
and lead them into a worse snare than that in which
they had been. In passionate words he declared
that he was ready to fight tiU his last drop of blood
was shed before he followed one step-length with his
opponents. In his anger he told Cargill that 'he
rendered himself odious by his naughty principles';
and very naturally, as is recorded, Cargill was much
offended. Donald CarglU, who was now to be closely associated
with Cameron, was born about the year 1610. After
the Act of 1662 he was evicted from the Barony Church,
Glasgow, of which he was minister, and for seditious
preaching was banished north of the Tay. The sentence
was never rigidly enforced, and was, in fact, removed.
After the period of his banishment he became an active
field-preacher, and was often sought for by the Govern
ment. He was present at BothweU Bridge, and was
taken prisoner and then left by his captors, as his wounds
seemed fatal. He lived, however, to join Cameron in
open rebellion.
Cameron's party, as it may be called, was smaU before
BothweU Bridge, and was still smaller when the battle
was over. Some of the men escaped, and some fell on
the field, whUe others were among the banished who met
a tragic death under the hatchways of the ship destined

96 FAMOUS SCOTS
for Barbadoes, when it was wrecked on one of the Orkney
Islands. There were also others who remained prisoners
till they were liberated on signing the ' bond,' as it was
styled, by which they pledged themselves to keep the
peace.

CHAPTER VI
PREACHER
After the battle of Bothwell Bridge, whUe the clemency
of Monmouth influenced the government of Scotland, a
third Indulgence was published permitting ministers in
certain parts of the country, who had not been implicated
in the late rebeUion, to hold services in private houses and
to dispense the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Condi
tions were annexed which made it an act of grace upon the
part of the king ; and which prevented it therefore from
being largely accepted. A representation had been made
to Monmouth by the Presbyterians who had not been
under arms ; and probably they expected freedom, rather
than a restricted permission, for public worship. They
asserted that the recent troubles would not have taken
place had they had liberty to preach and to exercise
discipline, and they pointed out that such liberty would
not be inconsistent with prelacy. Monmouth was merci
ful, but he could not overrule Lauderdale with his pitiless
policy, or extract toleration from the Episcopalians. The
Indulgence and the liberation of some of the prisoners of
the Bass were the utmost he could secure. WhUe the
Duke's influence in Scottish affairs continued, during
what Wodrow styled the ' breathing time,' the Presbyterian
ministers met in Edinburgh on the 8th of August ; and it
G 97

98 FAMOUS SCOTS
is evident from their attempt to unite and to exercise
discipline through a society, that they hoped in due time
to have the liberty which Nonconformists of later times
secured. The meeting was large, but the few ministers of
Cameron's party were absent. It was agreed ' that aU
ministers should, in the first place, visit their own congre
gations where they were formerly settled, and try what
access they can have to preach the gospel unto them.
That they associate themselves into meetings, as their
numbers, in particular bounds, and their circumstances
will best allow, and take care to provide preaching to the
people, in the bounds of their respective meetings, who
are desirous of it. That every minister shall be a member
of the meeting within whose bounds he resides. That
indulged ministers, not indulged to the congregations they
were in when laid aside, if their people, of whom they
formerly had the charge, call them, return to them, and
quit the places they are at present in. That aU who are
licensed to preach be particularly taken obliged unto sub
jection to the meeting which licensed them, and to submit
themselves to their direction.' The scheme here drafted
came to nothing, though Wodrow thought that but for the
changes in the civil government the divisions among the
Presbyterians might have been healed. These changes
meant the going of the Duke of Monmouth and the coming
of the Duke of York.
While the moderate Presbyterians were engaged in
visionary schemes, the Government were hunting the
rebels who had escaped from BothweU Bridge, and who
had refused the terms procured by Monmouth. The men
who fought were rebels, however righteous was their

RICHARD CAMERON 99
cause ; and it was according to law and custom that the
defeated should submit or be punished. So much may
be said on behalf of the Government. But what is to be
urged for the method taken to secure the rebels ? Claver
house with others was commissioned to seek them, and
his doings in Ayr and GaUoway have gained for him a
reputation for abominable cruelty. It is told, and his
apologists have not refuted all the stories, that the furnish
ings of houses were ruthlessly destroyed and the cattle and
sheep seized ; that women were outraged ; that fines were
extorted ; and that torture was used to enforce confessions.
Innocent men suffered with the guilty, and Claverhouse
was enriched by the spoils and the fines. It was a time
of anarchy under the guise of law, of cruelty under the
pretence of constitutional government. There were
worse days to come before the rule of the Stuarts
should cease; the 'kilUng times' were to prepare Scot
land for the Revolution. But the barbarities of Claver
house and his troopers might well have roused milder
men than Cameron, who was soon to repudiate allegiance
to the king.
WhUe no rising of the people checked the ravages of
Claverhouse, some of the nobles, led by the Duke of
Hamilton, endeavoured once more to obtain the dismissal
of Lauderdale. Lauderdale added to the coarsest of
manners unbounded ambition and profligacy ; and to his
need and greed of money many an act of persecution was
due. It was galling to HamUton, with his ancient lineage,
to see this man in the seat of authority ; and it may be
granted that now, as in the former attempt, he had com
passion on the people. A complaint was drawn up, charg-

loo FAMOUS SCOTS
ing Lauderdale with gross mismanagement of the affairs
of Scotland, and was presented to the king. This docu
ment might have served as a justification of the revolt
of the Presbyterians. Charles heard the complaint.
He may have been jealous of HamUton, who was not
far from the crown. In any case he continued his con
fidence in Lauderdale, and almost all expectation of a
mUder government for Scotland was gone. There was
StUl a lingering hope that concessions might be gained
through the Duke of York. The Presbyterians seemed to
think that as he was a Roman Catholic he might favour
them as Nonconformists, whUe he was seeking toleration
for the adherents of his own religion. But they were to
learn that nothing was to be gained from the prince who,
with the vices of the Stuarts, had the fierceness of a reUgious
bigot. Amidst the political combinations and schemes in
England, Monmouth was recaUed, and York was sent in his
place. On the 24th of November, 1679, York entered
Edinburgh, where by royal command he was met and en
tertained by the magistrates of the city and by the chief
noblemen of Scotland. Shortly afterwards he was admitted
a member of the Privy Council, and by the instructions of
Charles he was not required to take the oaths. The law
was set aside to suit a Catholic.
The events connected with the Duke of York did not
escape the attention of Cameron's friends in Holland, who
acted as if the religious reputation of Scotland had been
entrusted to their keeping. There is a letter from
M'Ward, dealing with the Duke of York's reception in ,
Edinburgh, which was addressed to CargiU or Cameron, or
some leading man of their party. The ' no Popery ' cry

RICHARD CAMERON loi
is very distinctly sounded in it : the character of the prince
is set forth in strong terms ; and in impassioned words the
question is asked: What wUl be thought of Scotland by the
noble patriots of England ? The nation, he writes, wUl
be looked upon as a company of poor, base, degenerate
souls, without regard to religion or respect to liberty. But
to prevent this degradation of the nation's fame, M'Ward
urges : ' I would have you forthwith, without any further
demur, procrastination, or delay, speak to some of your
more zealous and serious brethren, and awaken them unto
the due and deep consideration of these things ; that they
and you may excite, and stir up the people to give such a
present signification of their hatred at, and abhorrence of,
this deed, as may let the world, which may be filled with
the noise of this reception, hear also, that there are persons
in that land, of that love and loyalty to Christ, and of that
regard to liberty, as they dare adventure at all disadvan
tages, yea, in the sight of death, to give such significations
of their abhorrence of that deed, as may keep a proportion
with aU the Council of Scotland hath decreed and done,
to make his reception famous, and the decrees themselves
infamous.' His suggestions are, that the preachers should
tell the people that a breach of the Covenant had been
made in the reception of the prince, a Catholic ; and that
a day of humUiation should be kept in various places.
Eleven reasons, set forth with tedious fulness, are stated In
favour of this course ; and a warning is given in alliterative
words : ' You will be buzzed in the ear with the old thread
bare tattle of prudence, and words (vain words) will not
be wanting, to blow up the bubble to a bigness of bulk and
beautifulness of aspect.' This letter, whether directed

102 FAMOUS SCOTS
to Cameron or not, and Walker says there was such a
letter to him, influenced his actions, as he arranged
public fasts at which he preached on the guilt of the
nation. Cameron returned to Scotland in the autumn of 1679,
and on the 30th of October sent M'Ward an account of
himself He had already written from Newcastle on his
homeward journey. From Newcastle he proceeded to
Annandale and Nithsdale, where he was received by the
people with great joy. It was his fixed purpose, he said,
to continue preaching, and he now asked advice on certain
matters. Was he to agree to private intercourse with
ministers of the moderate party ; and what was he to do
if asked to preach with them, or invited by them to speak
in any place ? How was he to behave if cited to a meeting
of the clergy ? He further desired to know if he should
arrange field-meetings or, considering the danger, should
he leave this matter in the hands of the people; and,
also, what he should do if taken prisoner and he had
no time for a 'testimony.' The paper with these ques
tions, in Cameron's own writing, has been preserved.
M'Ward's answers, if he gave them, are not known ; but
there is a letter from him, written in November, 1679,
in which, for Brown and himself, he seriously advised
Cameron to preach in the fields as a public testimony
for freedom.
It was not now mainly the question of the Indulgence
to which Cameron's zeal was to be directed. He had
entered on a larger mission; and in times when the
vigilance of the Government was keenest, and many in
their fear were content to worship in secret, he came

RICHARD CAMERON 103
forward, a rebel but a hero, to speak for freedom and
the Presbyterian cause.
M'Ward, in his charge at the ordination ceremony, had
advised him to seek the aid of the former field-preachers.
Cameron obeyed, but the only co-operation he could
obtain was from Cargill, and for a time from Douglas.
These ministers did not forget the instructions of
M'Ward's letter, and fasts were held in different parts
of Clydesdale,
Commendation, if it be of any value, was given to their
preaching by James Robertson, who was executed in 1682,
It is difficult to understand why a dying man should make
mention of small events. Robertson gave his ' testimony '
in favour of fasts, 'particularly one holden at Auchen-
gilloch by three ministers, two of them now glorified, viz.,
Mr Donald CargUl and Mr Richard Cameron, where the
land's guilt was freely and faithfully discovered.' At the
fasts there was mourning for the reception given to the
Duke of York, whom Walker styled 'A sworn vassal of
Antichrist,' 'The Devil's Lieutenant.'
A remarkable charge was made by Robert Hamilton in
a letter addressed to the 'Societies.' He accused one
Barclay, and certain other ministers, of underhand opposi
tion to Cameron and CargiU at a time when they were ' in
the fields, carrying Christ's standard over the mountains
of Scotland.' These ministers, while refusing to join
Cameron and Cargill, proceeded to Galloway, where they
pretended they were associated with them. They inveighed
against the Indulgence, and in this way induced the people
to hear them; and having gained the people, they maligned
the two Covenanting ministers and condemned their mis-

I04 FAMOUS SCOTS
sion. The charge was gravely made, and, whether true or
not, was an indication that Hamilton knew of the serious
opposition directed against the ministers of his party.
From the sermons preached by Cameron which have
been printed, it may be seen that he spoke fearlessly of
the events of his day. He laments in passionate words
that few are willing to attend the field-meetings : ' Are
ye come to seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified?
Last year about this time our Lord was, as it were,
upon the Mount of Olives. He rode, as it were,
triumphantly at the head of a small party to the market-
cross of Rutherglen, and many cried, " Hosannah to the
Son of David," for a few days after. But since the 22nd
of June, 1679, how many have cried out, "Crucify Him,
crucify Him, away with Him : we will have no more to
do with Him. Christ is too dear a Lord for us. These
field-meetings of His are too costly for us. We -wish
there never had been any of these field-meetings in
Scotland."' The Presbyterian ministers who yielded to
the Government, or who were afraid, are not spared :
'We were strong last year, two troops would not have
terrified us; now we cannot get a meeting that dare
engage with one troop. But be not dismayed, despond
no more; "the day of your redemption draweth nigh:
they spring like grass, it Is that they may be cut off."
Our Lord wUl make them cast away their arms as fast as
the poor men did last year, upon the 22 nd of June, at
Bothwell Bridge. We had many gentlemen, and ministers
that were not worthy to be called ministers. It was
an Ul omen.' Again, in more scathing words, he
inveighs against these ministers : ' There are many

RICHARD CAMERON 105
ministers in Scotland (it is true I am but a young man
that says it) that shall not be any ministers if there were
no ministers to be had in it. We must speak against
ministers, and we must cry for the sins of the ministers
of Scotland, that have betrayed the work of reformation,
and even gone beyond curates and bishops in betraying
and destroying of it. The Lord wUl lay that woe unto
their charge.' His zeal found no excuse for his oppon
ents : ' Those who have taken the Indulgences first or
last,' he said ; ' Those who have complied with them —
let them be godly men, or be what they will — in this
case they have not love to Christ in exercise.'
In another place he illustrates the difficulty of forsaking
sin by a reference to those who paid the ' cess ' : ' Many
a man that has even paid that wicked cess will acknow
ledge it an evil and a sin. Woe's me, says he, I would they
had taken thrice as much. But say to them, will ye pay
it again ? They are at a stand there, and likewise they
will acknowledge the Indulgence is a sin, but they must
not leave it.' Cameron was not afraid, after the fashion
of the Scottish preachers from the time of Knox, to
speak openly of the king, and to denounce him. If he
sinned in so doing, he sinned in notable company ; and
while the excellence of the company is no justification
for a fault, it may be that Knox and MelvUle and other
Scottish churchmen had the right, as they had the fear
lessness, to denounce sin in high places even as in low.
'I wUl tell you where our help is,' cried Cameron, on
one occasion ; ' It is in Him who delivered our fathers
from Popery in the days of Queen Mary and her tyranny.
Our help is in Him who delivered them from the subtlety

io6 FAMOUS SCOTS
and cruelty of that fox, James VI. Though dead we
we may justly caU him so. Christ called Herod a fox.
He delivered us, too, from that yoke -wreathed on our
necks by Charles I. In Him is our help. And oh ! that
He would help us from the tyranny of this man upon the
throne.' The treason in these words is mUd, but a graver
charge of speaking evil against dignities could be formed
from other words of his : ' The righteous shaU flourish
like the palm tree. Here ye see it is best to be planted
in the house of God, but I wot weU there is no curate-
plant in His house this day. And are not the Indulged
worse ? for they are also under the sign and badge of the
beast. How is it that they hold their ministry ? They
hold it in dependence upon the devil's vicegerent, for if
ever he had a vicegerent on earth, it must be Charles IL,
and preach as they will either in houses or churches
they shall not flourish.' In another sermon he preached
rebellion in the plainest and strongest terms, and probably
he remembered that all rebellion was not condemned by
the ancient prophet, but only the rebellion against a law
that was just, and a law-giver who was good. And this is
Cameron's incitement to political revolt which he gave
before the day of the Sanquhar Declaration : ' But we
set up kings and princes, but not by Him. If you would
have Him be for you ye must cut off this king, and these
princes, and make able men be your rulers, endued with
suitable qualifications both of body and mind, that may
employ their power for the cause and interest of God.
What would we do with such powers as state themselves
in opposition to God ? If we had the zeal of God within
us we would not call him our king, and even with regard

RICHARD CAMERON 107
to the nobles and magistrates of this land, we would not
acknowledge them to be magistrates. Ye read in the
Acts of the General Assembly, where Montrose was called
James Graham. But ye shall say, " There was an Act of
Parliament that declared him a traitor, as one that had
forfeited both life and fortune." But, say ye, ye wiU not
look upon them in this light as the Assembly has not
deposed them. Nay, but they have done what deserves
deposition ; and even our king and princes, the most
part of them deserve deposition. ... I know not if
this generation will be honoured to cast off these
rulers, but those that the Lord makes instruments
to bring back Christ, and to recover our liberties,
civil and ecclesiastic, shall be such as shaU disown
this king and these inferiors under him, and against
whom our Lord is denouncing war. Let them take
heed unto themselves, for though they should take us
to scaffolds, or kill us in the fields, the Lord will yet
raise up a party who wiU be avenged upon them. And
are there none to execute justice and judgment upon these
wicked men who are both treacherous and tyrannical?
The Lord is calling men of all ranks and stations to
execute judgment upon them. And if it be done we
cannot but justify the deed, and such are to be com
mended for it, as Jael was. " Blessed above women shall
Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, be." '
There is a suspicion, and perhaps a stronger word
should be used, that Cameron was not simply preaching
civil war, but was justifying anyone who should repeat
the part of Jael. If this suspicion be correct then, if
judged by the usual moral and religious standards of the

io8 FAMOUS SCOTS
present day, he should be condemned for inciting to
murder. But morality and religion in the seventeenth
century were nearer than they now are to Judaism ; and
the difference between the Old Testament and the New
was not wisely appreciated. Cameron's words are there,
and they are likely to be differently interpreted and
therefore differently judged ; and it may be noted that, in
an examination connected with the Rye House plot, a
witness declared that Cameron and Hackston of RathiUet
had meditated the assassination of the Duke of York.
The roll of crimes committed by the Covenanters is
singularly small when the cruelty to which they were
subjected is observed, and when it is remembered that
crowds of men who were banded under the name of
religion were not likely to be each and all governed by the
precepts of Christ. In view of the general character of
the Covenanters, and of the fact that he was speaking
openly to a congregation, it may be concluded that
Cameron meant nothing more than a call to civil war,
which men are wont to justify when it is successful. If
he meant not assassination but war, he had many prece
dents for urging that tyranny in religion may be met by
arms ; and the purpose of his words can be justified, for,
while an appeal to arms must be a last resort in a
religious struggle, it is a resort for men who count truth
more than life. Of Cameron it may be said that he did
not point out a way he did not himself take, since he
died fighting at Ayrsmoss. He was not, however, merely
an agitator, loving war and inciting to it. He had the
gentle spirit which became him as a preacher of the
gospel; and this spirit was shown in his advice to his

RICHARD CAMERON 109
hearers how to act when questioned by enemies : ' I
confess folk are much to be pitied at this time who take
a liberty to lie, especially when soldiers come to the house
and ask if such a man was there ? It is true ye are- not
bound at the very first (if ye can without sin shift it) to
teU them, but beware of lying on any account. Rather
tell them that such a one was there, though you and
your house should be ruined by it ; yea, though it should
tend to the prejudice of the best ministers in Scotland.
God will not give you thanks for saving one's life by a
lie.' The sermons of Cameron which have been published were
printed from notes taken by hearers, and by this method of
publication they have doubtless suffered. Howie of Loch
goin, when he acted as editor, changed many of the Scottish
words found in the manuscript copies before him, and in
in so doing debased them. The sermons are in places
dull in style and commonplace in thought, and nowhere
is there the eloquence with which Blackadder described
the Communion scene. Yet he had the persuasive power
of a great preacher, and the words which are now dull to
a reader may have been kindled by the fervour and passion
of the speaker. Walker describes the effect of a sermon
based on the text : ' And ye will not come to me, that ye
might have Ufe ' (John v. 40). Cameron fell into a ' rap
of calm weeping,' and his hearers wept with him. He
stopped during the delivery of the sermon, and prayed for
the restoration of the Jews, for the fall of Antichrist, and
for the hastening of the day when the Stuarts would be
swept from the throne. The sermon has been printed,
and the part which most deeply affected the people is

no FAMOUS SCOTS
probably that containing these words : ' Now for you
that are saying this — " It is true, it is not easy to bring
folk to Christ. I have had a profession for many years,"
say ye, " and yet, I fear, I have never yet come to Christ."
But I say our Lord Is here this day, saying : " Will ye take
me, ye that have a lie so long in your right hand ? " . , .
There may be some saying, " If I get or take Him, I shaU
get a cross also." WeU, that is true, but ye wUl get a
sweet cross. Thus we offer Him unto you in the parishes
of Auchinleck, Douglas, Crawfordjohn, and all ye that
live there about. And what say ye ? Will ye take Him ?
Tell us what ye say, for we take instruments before these
hills and mountains around us that we have offered Him
unto you this day. . . . Angels are wondering at this
offer : they stand beholding with admiration that our Lord
is giving you such an offer this day. . . . The angels will
go up to report at the throne what is everyone's choice
this day.'
Sir Walter Scott, in chap. xvU. of ' Old Mortahty,' has
sketched a sermon by Kettledrummle on a text from the
forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah. The text was used by
Cameron, but there is nothing in his sermon about
sweeping away Papists and Prelatists, and there is no
laying bare of royal immoralities, as was done by Kettle
drummle in reference to Charles II. Scott makes his
preacher 'handle very pithily the doctrine of defensive
arms and of resistance to Charles.' Cameron, in his
sermon, justified resistance as set forth in the Sanquhar
Declaration, and spoke freely of the use of arms : ' And
indeed, suffering for the cause gives a noble dash to
enemies. We never lost anything by dearly suffering,

RICHARD CAMERON in
but gained much by these who lost their lives on fields
and scaffolds. But there are many that will say : Indeed,
we should suffer. But, say they, we should not fight.
But let me see the man that says he is not for fighting —
it's true, if the Lord call not to it, it should be so. But
for suffering, that man wiU confine in the breadth of a
turnover (a small coin) that that he will suffer for. These
that cry down defensive arms, when they see it comes to
this : " You must do this or suffer," they will never suffer
any loss as to their own matters. But they will suffer the
Gospel to go away.' Scott had evidently read Cameron's
sermon, which is not ridiculous, and from it sketched
Kettledrummle's sermon, which is.
The best testimony to the power of Cameron's preach
ing is the fact that the tradition of that preaching has not
died out among the people of the districts where he spoke.
In Darmeid, a lonely spot in the parish of Cambusnethan,
a monument has been raised to his memory ; and in
AuchengUloch, a glen in the parish of Lesmahagow,
where also he held a conventicle, there is another monu
ment bearing his name. It is remembered where he
preached at Mungo HiU, to the south of Eaglesham, at
Kirkmahoe, at the Shawhead, at Quarryholes on the Dun-
eaton, at Kype Water in Evandale, at New Cumnock, and
at Carluke.
Stories have been recorded, which are intended to show
that Cameron possessed the prophetic powers so com
monly ascribed to the Covenanting preachers. On one
occasion, a certain Andrew Dalziel cried out : ' Sir, we
neither know you nor your God.' Cameron mused a
little, and replied that this man would know God in His

n2 FAMOUS SCOTS
judgments, which would be sudden and surprising, and he
warned him. Dalziel died a few days afterwards in a
frightful manner. The story was true, so far as Dalziel's
words are concerned, since Robert HamUton repeated
them in one of his letters. He, however, said nothing
about the prophecy and the death. On another occasion
the Laird of Logan and the Laird of Horsecleugh re
presented Cameron as a naughty person and a Jesuit.
This charge is worthy of observation in view of the
interpretation which may be put on Cameron's words
already quoted, that they Incited to the assassination of
the Duke of York ; and also in view of the doctrine of the
Jesuits, that in certain circumstances tyrannicide is a
duty. The application of the word Jesuit to Cameron
was probably more than the mere giving of a nickname,
since there seems to have been a belief that the Jesuits
were connected with the Covenanting movement. In a
proclamation issued by the Government after Bothwell
Bridge, the frequenters of conventicles were described as
being exposed to their Influence ; and in the printed
narrative of Titus Oates there was more than one reference
to Jesuits mixing among the people under the guise of
Presbyterians. The two men who had caUed Cameron
a Jesuit, and who had tried to dissuade people from hear
ing him, repented of their words, and sought his pardon.
He showed caution In his reply. 'While for his own
part he forgave them, he assured them that he was per
suaded they would be punished for the wrongs done
by them to the interests of Christ. The prophecy is
said to have been fulfilled in the fact that for fifty years
the family of the one man was childless, though its con-

RICHARD CAMERON n3
tinuation was not explained ; and in the fact that the
house of the other was burned.
An incident of another kind has been recorded, evi
dently for the purpose of showing the supernatural care
which attended Cameron's preaching. A certain Mr H.
E. studied a sermon which he meant to deUver against
him and CargiU. ' But on the Saturday night,' says
Walker, ' there was a voice spoke aloud to him, saying
audi two times. He answered audi est, I hear. The
voice said again, " Beware of calUng Cameron's words
vain." This stopped him from preaching against them.'
Stories such as this have unfortunately helped to cast
ridicule on the Covenanters and their cause.
The aspersions cast on Cameron's good name are
illustrated not only by the story of the two lairds, but
also by the charge of assassination which was made after
his death. In a work styled ' A true Account and De
claration of the horrid conspiracy against the late king,
his present Majesty, and the Government,' there is in
cluded the evidence of a Robert Smith, who at one time
resided in the parish of Dunscore. This book, which is
said to have been written by Bishop Spratt, was printed
in 1685, and Smith's evidence, which it contains, was
given on the 24th of February, 1684. Smith asserted
that, for two years before Bothwell Bridge, conventicles
were numerous, at which contributions were levied which,
while nominally for the support of the ministers and the
poor, were largely spent in the purchase of arms and
ammunition. Further, he said that, in 1679, Richard and
Michael Cameron were in HoUand, paying for arms which
had been sent to Scotland, and purchasing a supply, which
H

114 FAMOUS SCOTS
was ready to be shipped, when they heard of BothweU
Bridge. On their return the Camerons, who were shel
tered by Sir Hugh and Sir George Campbell of Cesnock,
held conventicles for the purpose of seeing how many
people would join them in opposition to the Government.
Smith also related that on one occasion he was with the
Camerons and Hackston of RathiUet, in a house where a
conventicle had been held. Hackston proposed to kill
the Duke of York, who was then in Scotland, and said
he himself would do It if he could reach him. Before
arranging a plan he wished to find out how many people
passed into the room to see the Duke dining, and to dis
cover whether it was possible for a man to enter with
a long cloak and a sword, or a woman -with a plaid. As
he was well known, he could not risk discovery by going
near the Duke's house, and he therefore desired someone
of his less known companions to obtain the information
for him. Michael Cameron offered his services, and he
departed, taking Smith with him. As they were returning,
they were recognized and had to flee, and so the plan of
assassination came to nothing.
Smith's evidence was that of an informer, and it was
given at a time when it could not be denied by the
accused. Cameron may have purchased arms when he
was in HoUand. There is no proof that he did, and there
is certainly none, beyond this ' Information,' that there
was ever a plot among the Covenanters for the murder of
the Duke of York. Cameron praised the deed of Jael,
and possibly his fervour was interpreted as incitement to
murder. There was, however, no mention of assassination
in any of the charges brought by the Government against

RICHARD CAMERON

"5

Cameron and his associates ; and the open warfare of
Bothwell Bridge, on the one hand, and the public policy
of the Rutherglen and Sanquhar Declarations, on the
other, were methods of rebellion very different from as
sassination. At the worst, were Smith's evidence true,
there was in the intended assassination no private malice,
no sordid lust ; there was simply the burning desire to
gain the public good as conceived by fanaticism.
Besides the sermons, three letters written by Richard
Cameron have been published. These letters are of no
importance, as they throw little light on his doings and
on his character. Two were addressed to Alexander
Gordon of Earlston, who was in hiding for his part at
BothweU Bridge, and one was to his wife, the lady of
Earlston, younger. Cameron referred to some secret
undertaking, — that possibly which culminated in the San
quhar Declaration ; and spoke of his brother as going to
HoUand, and as being wiUing to carry any communica
tion which Earlston or his wife might wish to send.
The brother of whom he spoke was probably Alexander,
mentioned in Allan Cameron's letter to M'Ward, of
date February 24th, 1680. Allan Cameron wrote from
the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, where he was stUl under
going imprisonment for not paying the fine imposed for
holding a conventicle in his house. He spoke of the
faithful martyrs executed on Magus Muir, and of his own
suffering in spirit since the disaster of Bothwell Bridge.
He stated that his wife was near him in Edinburgh, and
also that his son Richard, while he was being reproached
for preaching in the fields, received little encouragement
from his friends, who blamed him for endangering him-

ii6 FAMOUS SCOTS
self and the people. He himself spoke of his 'poor,
foolish, ignorant son,' and though the words seem harsh,
they were foUowed by others which show a father's love
and a good man's piety. For his wife and himself he
wrote, 'we, blessed be our merciful God, have desired
freely to offer him up to his Lord and Master in
whatsoever service He has for him.'

CHAPTER VII
THE SANQUHAR DECLARATION
The conventicles, with the protests against the reception
given to the Duke of York, attracted the attention of the
Government, who set a watch for the preachers. Cargill
and Cameron accordingly separated, and the former took
with him Henry Hall, who had been much with them in
their wanderings. For some reason, probably that they
might be ready for communication with Holland, Cargill
and his friend proceeded towards the Firth of Forth, and
continued in the district of Bo'ness and Carriden, till the
curates of these places gave information against them to
the governor of Blackness. On the 3rd of June, a com
pany of soldiers was sent in search of them ; and the
governor learning, immediately after the soldiers had
departed, that Cargill and Hall were in Queensferry, set
out with a single servant and discovered them in an inn.
Bidding his servant find his men, he entered the house
and engaged in conversation with the two Covenanters,
pretending great respect, and asking to drink wine with
them. Some time passed without the arrival of the
soldiers, and at last, weary of delay, and throwing off his
mask, the governor declared the men his prisoners, and
called on the people of the house to help him. One of
"7

ii8 FAMOUS SCOTS
the attendants went to his aid. A struggle ensued,
and whUe Hall closed with the governor, CargiU, who
was an old man, fled. When his friend was safe, HaU
endeavoured to escape, and making his way out, was
struck on the head by the attendant. He had
strength to reach the outside, and some women of the
village tried to carry him to a place of safety; but
General Dalziel, who was stationed in the district,
coming on the spot, took him and hurried him away
towards Edinburgh. There was no compassion for the
wounded man, and he died on the road. On his body
a document was found, now generally known as the
Queensferry Paper.
The document, which is long and intricate, shows the
labour of skUled hands, and could hardly have been the
work of a clergyman like Cargill and a country gentleman
Uke Hall. It has generally been ascribed to CargiU,
though Cameron and Hackston of RathiUet, it was after
wards asserted, were implicated in its production. No
signatures had been attached to it. In its form it was a
bond or covenant, in which the supposed subscribers
made solemn protestations of religious faith and resolu
tions regarding the doctrine, worship, and government of
the Church. They attacked the character and rule of the
king, and argued whether they were bound to continue
allegiance to him in view of the long continuance of
monarchy, of the principles of the National Covenant,
and of any hope of reformation in him and the members
of his famUy. Satisfied that they were not constrained
to continue their allegiance, they declared in favour of a
republican government, 'We then being made free by

RICHARD CAMERON 119
God and their own doings . . . and being now loosed
from all obligations both divine and civil to them, knowing
also, that no society of men, having corruption in them,
can be without laws and government, and withal de
siring to be governed in the best way that Is least liable
to inconveniences, and least apt to degenerate into
tyranny; we do declare that we shall set up over
ourselves, and over what God shall give us power of,
government and governors according to the word of
God, and especially that word. Exodus xviii. 21. . . .
That we shall no more commit the government of
ourselves, and the making of laws for us, to any one
single person, or lineal successor, we not being by
God, as the Jews were, bound to one single family;
and this kind of government by a single person being
most liable to inconveniences, and aptest to degenerate
into tyranny, as sad and long experience hath taught
us.' The Paper, not having been signed, cannot be classed
as a publication of Cameron's party. There is no doubt,
however, that it expressed their doctrines, and it was
popularly styled ' The Cameron's Covenant.' Whatever
objections may have been taken to some of its statements,
and objections were taken by friends of Cameron's cause,
the Paper was the forerunner of the famous Sanquhar
Declaration, which was published a few days after Hall's
death. The Privy Council at once passed an Act for
the seizure of aU who helped Hall to escape from
the hands of the governor of Blackness ; but the affair
in itself was too insignificant to demand measures for
the prevention of a rebellion. None the less the pre-

t2o FAMOUS SCOTS
paration of this Paper pointed to the coming conflict
between the Stuarts and their subjects. It was the wit
ness that certain men, few in number, with meagre
influence, meditated renouncing aUegiance to Charles
Stuart. Hall, It is supposed, was endeavouring to pass from
Queensferry, or some other place on the Firth of Forth,
to Holland, where he intended to submit the Paper to the
friends of his party. CargiU escaped, as has been noted,
and pushed his way to the South to join Cameron, who
was in hiding with some companions. These two were
now left alone among the ministers to represent the ex
treme party of the Covenanters. The one was young
and in his strength : the other was an old man who
had suffered pain and endured privation for the cause
to which he had devoted his courage and zeal. Douglas
was said, In a Government proclamation, to be with them
at this time, but Wodrow doubts the fact. He had,
in any case, ceased to be active in the business of
their party.
On the 22nd of June, 1680, the first anniversary of
Bothwell Bridge, Richard Cameron with twenty men
entered the burgh of Sanquhar; and marching in
solemn procession, with drawn swords and pistols in
their hands, went to the market-cross. When they had
sung words from the psalms of Da-vid, Michael Cameron
stepped forward and read aloud a Declaration, which he
afterwards affixed to the market-cross. These men were
disowning Charles Stuart as their king. The Declaration
was framed in these words: — 'It is not amongst the
smallest of the Lord's mercies to this poor land, that

RICHARD CAMERON 121
there have been always some who have given their
testimony against every course of defection (that many
are guUty of), which is a token for good, that He doth
not as yet intend to cast us off altogether, but that He will
leave a remnant in whom He will be glorious, if they,
through His grace, keep themselves clean stiU, and walk
in His way and method, as it has been walked in and
owned by Him in our predecessors of truly worthy memory,
in their carrying on of our noble work of reformation in
the several steps thereof, from popery, prelacy, and like
wise erastian supremacy, so much usurped by him, who
(it is true so far as we know) is descended from the race
of our kings, yet he hath so far deborded from what he
ought to have been, by his perjury and usurpation in
Church matters, and tyranny in matters civil, as is known
by the whole land, that we have just reason to account it
one of the Lord's great controversies against us, that we
have not disowned him and the men of his practices
(whether inferior magistrates or any other), as enemies
to our Lord and His crown, and the true Protestant
and Presbyterian interest in their lands, our Lord's
espoused bride and Church. Therefore, although we
be for government and governors, such as the Word
of God and our Covenant allows, yet we for our
selves, and all that will adhere to us, as the repre
sentative of the true Presbyterian kirk, and covenanted
nation of Scotland, considering the great hazard of
lying under such a sin any longer, do by this present
disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning (or rather
tyrannizing, as we may say) on the throne of Britain
these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or

122 FAMOUS SCOTS
interest in the said crown of Scotland for government,
as forfeited several years since, by his perjury and
breach of covenant both to God and his Kirk, and
usurpation of his crown and royal prerogatives therein,
and many other breaches in matters ecclesiastic, and
by his tyranny and breach of the very leges regnandi
in matters civil. For which reason, we declare, that
several years since, he should have been denuded of
being king, ruler or magistrate, or of having any power
to act, or to be obeyed as such. As also, we, being
under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of
Salvation, do declare war with such a tyrant and usurper,
and all the men of his practices, as enemies to our
Lord Jesus Christ, and His cause and covenants;
and against all such as have strengthened him, sided
with, or anywise acknowledged him in his tyranny,
civil or ecclesiastic, yea, against all such as shall
strengthen, side with, or anywise acknowledge any
other in the hke usurpation and tyranny, far more
against such as would betray or deliver up our free re
formed mother-kirk unto the bondage of Antichrist the
pope of Rome. And by this we homologate that
testimony given at Rutherglen, the 29th of May, 1679,
and all the faithful testimonies of these who have
gone before, as also of these who have suffered of late.
And we do disclaim that declaration published at Hamil
ton, June, 1679, chiefly because it takes in the king's
interest, which we are several years since loosed from,
because of the foresaid reasons, and others, which may
after this (if the Lord will) be published. As also, we
disown, and by this resent the reception of the Duke of

RICHARD CAMERON 123
York, that professed papist, as repugnant to our principles
and vows to the most high God, and as that which is the
great, though not alone, just reproach of our kirk and
nation. We also, by this, protest against his succeeding
to the crown ; and whatever has been done, or any
are essaying to do in this land (given to the Lord),
in prejudice to our work of reformation. And to con
clude, we hope after this none wUl blame us for, or
offend at our rewarding these that are against us, as
they have done to us, as the Lord gives opportunity.
This is not to exclude any that have decUned, if they
be willing to give satisfaction according to the degree
of their offence.'
In Sanquhar, more than one protestation was publicly
made by rebels, but the reading of the Declaration at the
market-cross in 1680 was greatest in historic interest, as
being the first scene in the drama of the revolution in
which the reign of the Stuarts was brought to an end.
Twenty men raised the standard of rebeUion and threw
off allegiance to the king. Twenty men, out of a
whole nation, with the forces of the crown to crush
them, may appear ridiculous to the cynic smiling at
the excesses of political zeal or laughing at the vagaries
of religious bigotry. These men were traitors and
rebels ; but to what cause and to what person ? They
were traitors against the organized tyranny that styled
itself the Government of Scotland, rebels against the
king in whose name they had been persecuted for
abiding by that freedom which he had solemnly sworn
to preserve.
The scene at Sanquhar was the work of Richard

124 FAMOUS SCOTS
Cameron. His action was rash, if a deed be rash
when a man must die for it. Not many were joined
with him in it. The Covenanters were all but crushed
under the weight of despotism; and there were few
with strength and courage to resist. Yet twenty men
in Scotland in 1680 threw off Charles Stuart, as the
kingdoms threw off James Stuart in the year of the
Revolution. Many of the Presbyterian ministers openly condemned
the Declaration, and none had the boldness to join
Cameron after it was made. The king had him dis
owned, and the punishment of rebellion awaited anyone
who should affirm the Declaration. Cameron himself,
however, drew up a vindication, of which a manuscript
copy StiU exists. He claimed that the Declaration was in
accordance with Presbyterian principles, and asserted that
his party acted in regard to Charles II. as the Church in
1648 acted in regard to Charles I. He referred to the
teaching of Rutherfurd, of ' honest Lex Rex,' that people
are free when a king breaks the covenant made between
him and them. Pointing to what he styled the reforma
tion from Prelacy, he said that as a company of women
began it in 1637, so he and his friends might be the
means of securing a new reformation. In the j'ear 1685,
when events were ripening for the Revolution, an apology
for the Sanquhar Declaration appeared as part of the
' Vindication of the United Societies.' The attempt was
made to show that Cameron was not declaring a hostUe
war under martial insurrection, but merely a war of contra
diction and an opposition by testimonies. The twenty
men at Sanquhar did certainly not challenge to battle the

RICHARD CAMERON 125
regiments of the crown : they formally threw off allegiance
to Charles Stuart.
In the sermon, used by Sir Walter Scott for Kettle
drummle's harangue, which Cameron preached at Carluke
on the 8th of July, he made direct reference to the
Sanquhar Declaration, justifying it on religious grounds : —
'We often said in the fields that our king has been a
traitor to God, and when we go to a town to declare it in
paper the most part are offended in our Lord. At this
time I'll tell you, I do not desire to say it to take the
praise to myself, but I say it. If that testimony be ad
hered to, it shall give them a sore blow, even that paper
that hath accidentally fallen Into their hands and has been
left at crosses. If that testimony given at Rutherglen,
May 29th, 1679, had been adhered to, we had seen other
things than we have seen. The Lord would have counte
nanced his people and owned their testimony. I say, set
about giving of testimonies. Thus shall hasten God's
coming to save His Church, and His coming out of this
place to save His children.' In the same sermon he set
forth his principles regarding the government of the country,
and it may be seen that he had the idea of a Christian
Commonwealth. ' I desire not,' he said, ' to reflect upon
our fathers for bringing home Charles Stuart. . . . Yet
his actions since, and the connivance of these who had his
favour or any power under him, declare it to be impossible
to manifest the royal prerogative of Christ Jesus, and mani
festly avow so much as his civil rights. And since it is
so declared, we must either quit him as king or else quit
Christ, I am for this, to have no king but Christ since
they will have none but Csesar. And after Christ is

126 FAMOUS SCOTS
upon His throne, and His crown upon His head, let such
magistrates be appointed as will employ their power for
the advancement of the kingdom of Christ and destroying
the kingdom of darkness In this land, and In every place
where Christ shall reign.' If the Sanquhar Declaration be
reduced to a political proclamation it loses Its significance.
Cameron, when he published it, was no mere political
agitator, since he believed, as this sermon shows, that in
throwing off allegiance to Charles Stuart he was o-wning the
sovereignty of Christ. 'What he did, too, was more than
the assertion of the spiritual right of the Church. It was
a protestation on behalf of the headship of Christ over the
nation, a declaration in favour of Christ's kingdom estab
lished in Scotland. Rightly or wrongly, the Covenanters
were rebels to the king that they might be loyal to Christ as
subjects in His kingdom. They lived in an age when the
sovereign was not a man to draw forth the reverence of the
people, and when the government of the land did not make
for righteousness, and in refusing obedience to the sovereign
and acceptance of his laws they did as their reUgion in
spired them, and as their right to freedom entitled them.
Immediately after Cameron and his friends had
left Sanquhar on the 22 nd of June, one of the magis
trates of the burgh carried the Declaration to the Privy
Council and in legal fashion 'took instruments and pro
tested against it.' The CouncU at once communicated
with Lauderdale, who was in London with the king. They
intimated that there was a party of ' viUains ' in arms, about
seventy in number, most of them ' ruffians and the scum
of the people ' ; and at the same time forwarded the draft
of a proclamation they proposed to issue. Charles ap-

RICHARD CAMERON 127
proved the proceedings of the CouncU and authorized the
publication of the Queensferry Paper and the Sanquhar
Declaration. On the 30th of June a warrant was issued
for the apprehension of Richard and Michael Cameron,
Cargill, Douglas and others, who were styled traitors and
rebels. Five thousand merks were offered for Richard
Cameron, dead or alive; three thousand for Michael
Cameron, for Cargill and for Douglas; and a thousand
merks for any other one of the traitors.
The Privy Council were continually devising methods
of reaching the leaders of the Covenanters, and were con
tinually failing because of the loyalty of the people to these
leaders. On this occasion they demanded the aid of the
heritors of a district embracing seventeen parishes. Many
of these men were suspected of sympathy with the Cove
nanters, and the Government now sought to give them
work which would try them. They were required to call
on all men and women residing on their lands, from
sixteen years of age upwards, to declare on oath if they
had seen any of the rebels ; and also, that there might be
no pretence that the rebels could not be identified, if they
had seen any ' skulking or lurking persons.' Death was
the penalty for those who refused this oath. Active
measures were taken to secure the rebels, as the Govern
ment could not afford to overlook the Sanquhar Declara
tion, which was of more significance than the Queensferry
Paper. Troops were sent to GaUoway and neighbouring
places to search for Cameron and his associates, and
these troops were placed under the command of Claver
house and other officers who did not lack zeal for the
Government service.

128 FAMOUS SCOTS
When Claverhouse and his troopers were on their track,
it was little that Cameron and his party could do for their
own safety ; and it seems at this distance of time that a
bond of defence could have been of no use to them in
their danger. A bond, however, was prepared and was
signed by some thirty men, but it could not save them
from their fate. What was a mere handful of Covenanters,
with or without a bond, against a company of the soldiers
of the crown ?
' We underscribers,' so ran the bond, ' bind and obUge
ourselves to be faithful to God, and true to one another,
and to all others that shall join with us in adhering to
Rugland testimony, and disclaiming the Hamilton Declara
tion, chiefly because it takes in the king's interest, which
we are loosed from by reason of his perfidy, and covenant
breaking, both to the most high God, and the people over
whom he was set, upon the terms of his propagating the
main ends of the covenants, to wit, the reformation of
religion, and instead of that, usurping to himself the royal
prerogatives of Jesus Christ, and encroaching upon the
liberties of the Church, and so stating himself both in
opposition to Jesus Christ the Mediator, and the free
government of his house ; as also in disowning and pro
testing against the reception of the Duke of York, a pro
fessed papist, and whatsoever else hath been done in this
land (given to the Lord), in prejudice of our covenanted,
and universally sworn to reformation. And although as
the Lord, who searcheth the heart, knows we be for govern
ment and governors both civil and ecclesiastic, such as the
Word of God and our covenants allow, yet by this we
disown the present magistrates, who openly and avowedly

RICHARD CAMERON 129
are doing what in them lies, for destroying utterly our
work of reformation from popery, prelacy, erastianism,
and other heresies and errors; and by this we declare
also that we are not any more to own ministers indulged,
and such as drive a sinful union with them ; nor are we
to join any more In this public cause with ministers or
professors of any rank, that are guilty of the defections
of this time, until they give satisfaction proportioned to the
scandal and offence they have given.'
Cameron, when he sent a list of queries to M'Ward,
asked what he should do if he had no time for a dying
testimony. While it has not appeared what answer was
given, it is probable that when he framed this bond he
intended it to be his last testimony. He knew that his
enemies were gathering in upon him, and that, though he
was safe from any betrayal, he could not escape the
vigilance of Claverhouse and other ofificers of the king.
To the last, then, he opposed the Indulged, but after
Sanquhar there was not to be the wrangling over the
Indulgence which helped to split the Presbyterians at
BothweU Bridge. Oppression had reduced the party of
the strictest Covenanters to a mere handful of men, and
there was no room and no cause for quarrel. The wonder
is, however, that these men, hiding for their lives, should
have taken time to testify to any cause or against any
persons. The king, the source of all the troubles in the
country and in the Church, was disowned as the enemy
of Christ; and whether the men who signed the bond
were fanatical or not they adhered with undivided loyalty
to their Master in heaven, and acted towards Charles
Stuart in just the same way as the whole country acted
I

130 FAMOUS SCOTS
toward his brother when a few more years of oppression
had passed. It is true that Charles Stuart was not the
religious bigot that his brother was, and it is true that he
had manners as of a gentleman even while he had the
vices of a profligate. None the less he was a tyrant who
had broken the most sacred promises, and no one with
sober mind and the vision for truth is able to gainsay one
single specific charge made against the king by Cameron
in this bond or in the Sanquhar Declaration. Voltaire,
with a cynical frankness, declared that there is an in
describable pleasure in speaking evil of dead kings,
because one cannot speak evil of them while they are
alive for fear of one's ears. The king was not dead when
Cameron uttered the evil against him which was the blunt
truth ; and what was uttered was spoken not in the temper
which counts no costs, but in the calm and deep passion
which can see consequences.
At the first 'General Meeting,' which was held on
December 15, 1681, when Cameron and Cargill were
both dead, the Sanquhar Declaration was avowed by the
men who held their principles and continued their work ;
and when it was published by these men as one of their
papers, it was styled : ' The Declaration and Testimony
of the true Presbyterian, anti-Prelatic, anti-Erastian per
secuted Party in Scotland, pubUshed at Sanquhar, June
22, 1680.' In the burgh of Sanquhar a granite obelisk,
eighteen or twenty feet high, was erected in the year
1864. It bears the inscription: 'In commemoration
OF the two famous Sanquhar Declarations which
were published on this spot, where stood the
Ancient Cross of the Burgh : the one by the

RICHARD CAMERON 131
Rev. Richard Cameron, on the 2 2nd of June,
1680 : THE OTHER BY THE REV. JaMES ReNWICK, ON
THE 25TH OF May, 1685. The Killing Time. If
YOU WOULD KNOW THE NATURE OF THEIR CRIME : ThEN
read the STORY OF THAT KILLING TIME.'

CHAPTER VIII
AYRSMOSS
Cameron's vindication of the Sanquhar Declaration
throws light on the motive of actions which meant death
to him. He was too brave to flee like one ashamed.
'What he did he did calmly and resolutely, sitting down
first and counting the cost. M'Ward had told him that
the standard of the Gospel had fallen in Scotiand, and
that it was for him to lift it. He returned from Holland
with the bold purpose of testifying against the outrage
done to freedom in Scotland, the land where victory had
so often followed forlorn hope. The people in the South
received him gladly, but their Presbyterian leaders kept
apart. He held fasts, when it was treason to speak
against the Duke of York ; and assembling conventicles
was a criminal breaking the law of the land. Constantly
he faced danger, and his opponents blamed him for lead
ing the people astray. Without fear he went on; and
when fasts and conventicles faUed to rouse the Presbyterian
leaders to their lost liberty, when the preacher's protesta
tions came to naught, and his prayers seemed to have no
answer, he saw need for new action, and he and his twenty
heroes marched into Sanquhar and there disowned the
king. Women in the church of St Giles, when the stool
13a

RICHARD CAMERON 133
was thrown at the Dean, had begun in riot the revolution
which overthrew Episcopacy ; and might not therefore
twenty men of strong will, ready for martyrdom, begin the
downfall of the king who had worked disaster to the
liberties of the land, and had wronged religion through
the injury of the Church ? After years of civil strife and
battle, Charles I. had been put to death. War was the
price to pay for freedom, and the plots and rebelUons in
England might yet swell into war ; and Scotland should
do her part. Cameron was no foolish schemer, plotting a
revolution in which his name might be first. He com
pared himself not with the national heroes, but with the
women of the St GUes fray; and he trusted that the
goodness of the cause would triumph, without the aid of
greatness in its martyrs. The twenty men who marched
into Sanquhar had neither social place nor honoured
name ; but their deed could not have been more daring
had the greatest done it. They had no superstitious fear
that it was sinful to disown the king, when they thought
of broken contracts and covenants. They made their
declaration, offering themselves for the cause of freedom ;
and a few days after Sanquhar, Richard Cameron was to
die. There is one picture of him in these days, of a man
who longed for the inheritance of heaven, and yet prayed
for patience. There is another, of a man who preached
to the last, finishing the work given him to do.
Though rewards had been offered for their capture,
Cameron and Cargill continued their meetings in the
fields. Napier, in the ' Memoirs of Dundee,' styled them
' brandy-saints,' having with childish or wilful careless
ness misread a record in 'Faithful Contendings' of certain

134 FAMOUS SCOTS
Covenanters who, to the sorrow of Cameron and CargiU,
made their mission easy by the help of large flasks of
brandy. Napier in his vulgarity tried to defame men
who, in their poUtical revolt, were seeking to be true to
religion. On the 4th of July, Cameron, preaching near Cum
nock, foretold his death, and prophesied of things to come.
According to Walker's account, he said : ' There are three
or four things that I have to tell you this day which I
must not omit, because I will be but a breakfast or four
hours to the enemies some day shortly, and my work wiU
be finished and my time both ; and the first is this, — As
for that unhappy man, Charles the IL, who is now upon
the throne of Britain, after him there shall not be a
crowned king in Scotland of the name of Stuart.
Secondly, there shall not be an old Covenanter's head
above the ground, that swore these covenants with uplifted
hands, ere ye get a right reformation in Scotland. Thirdly,
a man may ride a summer-day in Galloway, the Shire of
Air, and Clidsdale, and not see a reeking house, nor hear
a cock crow ; and several other shires shall be little better,
ere ye get a right and thorow reformation in Scotland.
Fourthly, the rod that the Lord will make use of shall be
the French and other foreigners, together with a wicked
party in this land joining with them ; but ye that stand to
the testimony in that day be not discouraged with the few
ness of your number ; for when Christ comes to raise up
his work in Scotland, he will not want men enough to
work for him ; yea, he may chap upon the greatest man
in Scotland, and he may be a great malignant, and say.
Sir, let alone this Babel-building of yours, for I have

RICHARD CAMERON 135
another piece of work to put in your hand ; and he wiU
gar him work for him, whether he wUl or not. It may be
he'll convert the man, and give him his soul for a prey.
And there are some of you that are hearing me may live
for aye to see these things accomplished ; and after these
defections and judgments are over, ye may see the nettles
grow out of the bed-chambers of noblemen and gentle
men, and their names, memorials, and posterity to perish
from the earth.'
Without such prophecies the records of Cameron by
the Covenanters could not have been made perfect. He
was right about the Stuart king, at least, as James II. was
never crowned in Scotland. Another time he spoke of
his death ; and in the report of the incident. Walker goes
back to the promise alleged to have been made at Dun
score. Twelve days before his death he remained from
morning to night in the chamber he was occupying. The
mistress of the house tried again and again to enter, and
at last forcing the door, found him very melancholy. It
was the old promise, the ' weary ' promise not to preach
against the Indulged that troubled him ; and for making
it, he said, his carcass would be cast into the wUderness.
Immediately afterwards he preached at Crawfordjohn
that sermon in which he fell into the ' rap of calm weep
ing,' and moved his hearers to tears. The last Sunday
of his life he preached along with Cargill at a place in
Clydesdale, and his sermon was on the text, ' Be stiU and
know that I am God.' Walker's brief account points to
the preacher's fear of Roman Catholicism being estab
lished through the Duke of York : — ' He was assured the
Lord would lift up a standard against Antichrist, that

136 FAMOUS SCOTS
would go to the gates of Rome, and burn it with fire;
and that blood should be their sign, and no quarter their
word; and earnestly wished that it might first begin in
Scotland.' On that Sunday, the last day of their joint-
ministry, Cameron arranged with CargUl that they should
preach together a fortnight later, but before a fortnight, his
body was lying at Ayrsmoss. The night before he died
he slept at the house of William Mitchell in Meadowhead,
at the Water of Ayr. In the morning the daughter of the
house took water to him, and when he had washed and
dried his face and hands, he said : ' This is their last wash
ing, I have need to make them clean, for there are many
to see them.' To the girl's mother, who was weeping, he
turned with the words, ' weep not for me, but for yourself
and yours, and for the sins of a sinful land ; for you
have many melancholy, sorrowful, weary days before you.'
Whatever may be the truth of this record, there must have
been the certainty to Cameron that danger was near. He
had men with him to guard him, but they were few, and
the vigilance of the Government was great. His company
numbered twenty-three horse and forty foot ; and with him
were his brother Michael, Hackston of Rathillet, and James
Gray, younger of Christen. Hackston was at Magus Muir
when the Archbishop was kUled, and it was to him, ac
cording to one narrative, that Sharp cried : ' Sir, you are a
gentleman, you wiU protect me.' Hackston replied, ' Sir,
I shall never lay a hand on you ; ' and though he struck no
blow, he was afterwards under the ban of the Government
as if he had been one of the actual murderers. He had
been at Bothwell Bridge ; and now when he was in the
company of Cameron, he was sought for as a murderer

RICHARD CAMERON 137
and a rebel. He is the inscrutable figure whose part in
the murder of the Archbishop, at which he sat in the
saddle with his cloak about his mouth, ' revolving privately
a case of conscience,' so fascinated the romancer Steven
son. Gray is described as a young man of good parts, of
high courage and piety, with the fervour of Cameron
and all his bravery.
Among the wild hills and lonely valleys of the west and
south of Scotland, Cameron might have escaped for a time
the detection even of Claverhouse, had he not chosen to
preach and to move about with others. The reward on
his head would have tempted hardly a single peasant, as
the five thousand merks would have been the price of
blood. There were strange stories afterwards circulated
that Cameron and his friends were plotting murder ; and
Law, in his Memorials, noticed them, though he wrote as
one who had taken rumour for truth. Murders were not
uncommon in these lawless times, and bigotry, with its
uncharitableness, laid some of them to the charge of
Cameron. Row, the biographer of Blair, asserts that
Cameron's party were determined to murder the Indulged
ministers when opportunity occurred, and that they were
specially enraged against Mr Robert Millar of OchUtree
and Mr James Veitch of Mauchline. Veitch had been in
correspondence with Brown in Holland, and had given
offence by his words about Cameron. He was often in
trouble with the Government for breaking the terms of the
Indulgence, and a few years before the Revolution, had to
flee. Millar and Veitch, according to Row's story, lived
in terror of being murdered; but one of Cameron's fol
lowers, in a mood of repentance, told MUlar of an intended

138 FAMOUS SCOTS
attack on him, and revealed the place where his leader was
hiding. MUlar at once carried this information to Sir John
Cochran of Ochiltree, who in turn sent a communication
to General Dalziel. There is nothing to prove this story
true. The fact that Cameron and his friends were armed,
as they were for their own protection, accounts for the
rise of such stories. Had MUlar been involved in the
betrayal of Cameron, Walker would have assaulted his
name with the harshest words. One man, Robert Cameron
of Mardrogat, earned the rewards and reputation of an
informer by discovering the hiding-places of Covenanters.
In Edinburgh, he took money for leading some of the
royalists to Cameron, but he failed in his miserable search.
This man afterwards boasted, apparently in untruth, that
he had given the information which led to Cameron's
death. Sir John Cochran, a Covenanter, seems to have
been the informer ; and at a later time he was charged
by the ' Societies ' with a share of the guilt of the blood
shed at Ayrsmoss. The Covenanters believed that the
Government rewarded him with 10,000 merks, and also
that divine vengeance followed him when his house was
burned, to the destruction of charters and plate. His
son, it was rumoured among them, had declared, ' This
is the vengeance of Cameron's blood.' The legend grew
in graphic detaUs. In the early morning, before the fire
broke out, certain workmen saw a piUar of blood-red fire,
two yards long and one yard broad, resting over the
house, and one said : ' Yen's Cameron's blood, and those
with him, crying for vengeance upon that house, which
wUl fall down suddenly upon it.' Associated with Cochran
in the reward by the Government was Bruce of Earlshall,

RICHARD CAMERON 139
Fife, who commanded the men. Lord Airlie's troop and
Strachan's dragoons, who were sent out by Dalziel to
seek Cameron and his friends. Walker styled him that
'wicked and violent persecutor.' Whatever may have
been the violence of his persecution, the unpublished
register of the Presbytery of St Andrews has, under three
different dates, another form of wickedness charged against
his name. This man, licentious in his conduct, was the
instrument chosen by the Government to kill or seize the
rebel who had thrown off allegiance to Charles Stuart for
touching the Church of Christ.
The farm of Meadowhead, where Cameron slept the
last night of his life, lies some two miles to the north of
the village of Sorn. From the farm he proceeded east
ward up the valley of the Ayr towards Muirkirk ; and
four miles beyond this village he reached the spot on
Ayrsmoss where he was to die. A green knoll on the
farm of Lower Wellwood is shown as the place where
he fell. Ayrsmoss, as the name so far shows, is a dreary
mossy stretch of moorland lying in the three parishes
of Sorn, Auchinleck, and Muirkirk. Hackston, who had
mUitary charge of the small force, has left an account of
the engagement at Ayrsmoss, written when he was a
prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. He does not
relate the details of Cameron's last hours at Meadowhead,
but describes his own movements. On Wednesday
night, July 19th, according to this narrative, Hackston
and his associates, hearing that a company of soldiers
were seeking them, sent out two of their number to
watch. Those who remained slept throughout the night
on a slope of the moor, under the sky, and in the

I40 FAMOUS SCOTS
morning sent other two to seek their companions. The
four men returned in the afternoon to tell that the enemy
were near at hand ; and Hackston, under the direction of
a countryman, chose a safe spot where he might place
his horse. Eight of these were set on his right, and
thirteen on his left ; and in their midst stood the small
band of forty foot. These men formed his regiment;
and, though ill armed, they each answered yes when asked
if they were willing and ready to meet the enemy. It
was to be an unequal fight ; but for them it must be a
struggle as heroes, or seizure as rebels. The enemy were
above an hundred and twelve, well armed and horsed,
and driUed as soldiers of the crown. They marched
rapidly, sending forward twenty dragoons, 'to take the
wind of them.' Hackston despatched some of his foot
to check the flank movement, and with his main body
attacked the enemy. The Covenanters fired first, and
some of the royalists fell. Soon the fight was with
broken lines. Hackston rode in and out tUl his horse
was trapped in a bog; and then springing to his feet
he engaged with David Ramsay, a man he knew. Using
their small swords they were finely matched ; but even in
this duel the victory was not for Hackston. He was
struck down from behind by three of the mounted
soldiers, and he fell to be saved from instant death
by his opponent. He had been fighting as if alone with
the enemy, and not as a commander, for no commanding
was possible. The day was lost to the Covenanters ; and
Hackston, bleeding and almost lifeless, knew not which
of his men had fallen. Nine of them lay dead, and one
was Richard Cameron.

RICHARD CAMERON 141
Wodrow's account of the fight is somewhat different
from Hackston's. The Covenanters, having posted them
selves at the entrance to a moss, charged the king's men.
Their horsemen, breaking the royalist line, were im
mediately surrounded ; and no quarter was asked or
given. The foot soldiers, firing at the first attack, did
not move. The battle was all with the horse, and when
nine of these had fallen, and the day was done, the men
on foot sought the safety of the moss. It was told that
they fled like cowards. Richard Cameron, so says
Walker, when he first saw the enemy advancing, gathered
the men around him; and, as was the wont of the
Roundheads and the Covenanters, they joined together
in a prayer. Cameron was the one minister there, and it
was for him to find the words. The prayer was brief:
there was no time for a multitude of words. Three times
he cried, ' Lord spare the green, and take the ripe ' ; and
when the prayer was ended, he looked to his brother,
saying : ' Michael, come let us fight it out to the last ; for
this is the day that I have longed for, and the death that
I have prayed for, to die fighting against our Lord's
enemies ; and this is the day that we wiU get the crown.'
Turning to the others, he cried : ' Be encouraged all of
you, to fight It out vaUantiy ; for aU of you that shaU faU
this day I see heaven's gates cast wide open to receive
them.' Then Cameron went to his death. He fought
as in the battie of the Lord. And, rumour had it, there
was the flashing of lightning and the rolling of thunder,
as if the skies were breaking that the gate of heaven
might be seen.
Michael Cameron died with his brother. Young Gray

142 FAMOUS SCOTS
of Christen was with them, and of him a royalist said,
' he was the person who mauled them most.' After the
fight, one of the soldiers, Robert Murray, for a guinea
from EarlshaU, it was said, cut off Richard Cameron's
head and hands, and also the head of John Fowler,
mistaken for Michael Cameron. All the bodies were
buried in the moss ; and no ceremony of worship pre
ceded the burial of men who in error or in truth had
died for religion and liberty. Earlshall marched towards
Edinburgh with his prisoners, and with him were carried
the severed heads and hands in a sack. At Lanark, some
of his men entered the house of John Arcle and enquired
of his wife, so says a ghastly story, if she would buy
calves' heads. They took the heads from the sacks and
kicked them as if they were footballs; and when the
woman fainted at the sight, one cried : ' Take up the old
damned whig bitch.' The room is still shown where this
incident occurred. Yet the details of this record of
barbarity are hardly to be credited If the story Is true
that, at Edinburgh, one of the Covenanters recognized
the head of Richard Cameron, and said that the face
was little changed from what it was in life. The face
was described as that of a man of fair complexion. That
is our one note of description of Cameron's personal
appearance. 'There's the head and hands that lived
praying and preaching, and died praying and fighting,'
Robert Murray is reported to have said, when he took
them from the sack. Hackston, when he reached Edin
burgh, was placed on a horse with his face to the tail,
after the fashion for traitors; the head was bared, the
hands were bound, and the feet were tied underneath the

RICHARD CAMERON 143
horse. The other prisoners were dragged behind him.
The hangman led the horse with the one hand, and with
the other carried the head of Richard Cameron on a halberd.
John Fowler's head was also exposed ; and as the tragic
procession, arranged by the order of the Privy Council,
moved to the Tolbooth, the hangman shouted, ' There's
the heads and hands of traitors, rebels.' At the Tol
booth, Allan Cameron, who was still a prisoner, was
asked if he recognised the head and hands of his son,
and taking them and kissing them, the old man cried : ' I
know them, I know them, they are my son's, my dear
son's. It is the Lord, good is the wiU of the Lord, who
cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and
mercy to follow us all our days.' Nothing is known of
the ultimate fate of Allan Cameron. He had been
wiUing to offer his son to the service of the Lord, and
the old man, when he kissed the head and the hands, re
ceived them as the remains of a martyr who had died for
Christ in that cause to which he himself was bearing
witness in his prison. The remains of the traitor or of
the martyr were placed on the Netherbow Port, with the
fingers pointing upwards.
Some of the Covenanters who engaged at Ayrsmoss
were instantly seized, and one or two were found after
dUigent search. William Manual and John VaUance died
of wounds ; John Malcolm, Archibald Alison, Archibald
Stuart, and John Potter who had not borne arms, were
executed. Malcolm, in his last testimony, declared :
' I shaU be a dying witness against ministers and pro
fessors that made it their work to brand and clothe that
faithful minister (Cameron) and martyr of Jesus Christ

144 FAMOUS SCOTS
with odious names and notorious lies, in calling him a
Jesuit, and saying that he received the pope's gold, and
that he was a great favourite of the Duke of York, a
declared Papist ; while I know, and many eminent Chris
tians know, that he hated him as a limb of Satan ; and
also they said, that the troopers had commission to pass
him by rather than any man, even after the declaration
came out to give 5000 merks for him dead or alive.'
Alison, in his testimony, while explaining his motive for
taking arms, recounted a speech of Cameron's to his
foUowers. ' My friends,' said Cameron, ' we are not to
compare ourselves with a Gideon's three hundred men.
No, not at all. Our design is to have you examined how
ye are, and what ye are ; to choose two or three of the
foot, and two or three of the horse, that are found fittest
qualified for elders ; to try your principles, to try your
life and conversation, and to have you being Christians.
Our number was more the last day, and we gave them
free leave to go home, and only but a few handful to
stay; for we design not to fall upon any party of the
forces, except they be few in number, and oppose us in
keeping up the Gospel in the fields ; for I am persuaded
that one meeting in the fields has been more owned and
countenanced by His presence with His people than
twenty house-meetings, as they are now bought (by
the Indulgences ?) ; and therefore make no strife among
yourselves about officers, because they are but men ; yea,
I think there is not a man amongst you all meet for it.
We are not meet to be a minister to you ; only we are
to wait tUl the Lord provide better ; and, ye that are not
satisfied to stay in defence of the Gospel, good-morrow

RICHARD CAMERON 145
to you, whatsoever ye be.' Potter, when dying, declared
his adherence to all the doctrines he ever heard preached
by CargiU and Cameron, and his soul blessed God that
he ever heard either of these men, for it had been re
freshed ' to hear the voice and shouting of a king among
these field-meetings.'
The most tragic sentence was reserved for Hackston.
The minutes of the Privy Council give exact information
regarding it, and witness indirectly to the character of
the Government which he and Cameron so steadfastly
opposed. On the 29th of July, the day before his trial,
the manner of his execution was arranged. The ofificial
record in the minutes is : ' That his body be drawn back
ward on a hurdle to the Cross of Edinburgh ; that there
be an high scaffold erected a little above the Cross,
where, in the first place, his right hand is to be struck
off, and after some time, his left hand ; then he is to be
hanged up, and cut down alive, his bowels to be taken
out, and his heart shown to the people by the hangman ;
then his heart and his bowels to be burned in a fire
prepared for that purpose on the scaffold ; that afterwards
his head be cut off, and his body divided into four
quarters ; his head to be fixed on the Netherbow, one of
his quarters with both his hands to be affixed at St
Andrews, another quarter at Glasgow, a thud at Leith, a
fourth at Burntisland; that none presume to be in
mourning for him, or any coffin brought ; that no person
be suffered to be on the scaffold with him, save the two
bailies, the executioner and his servants ; that he be
allowed to pray to God Almighty, but not to speak to
the people; that the heads of Cameron and John Fowler

146 FAMOUS SCOTS
be affixed on the Netherbow; that Hackston's and
Cameron's heads be fixed on higher poles than the rest.'
The permission to pray to Almighty God was the one
human thing in this deviUsh sentence, devised by the
Privy Council that governed Scotland in the name of
Charles Stuart, king by the grace of God, defender of
the faith. On the 30th of July, the trial took place.
Hackston was indicted for being at BothweU Bridge, for
drawing with Cameron and Cargill the Queensferry Paper
and the Sanquhar Declaration, for fighting against his
Majesty's forces at Ayrsmoss, and for murdering James,
Archbishop of St Andrews. A form of examination of
witnesses was gone through ; the verdict was one of
guilty ; and the sentence of death was carried out on the
day when the verdict was pronounced. The executioner,
if Walker is to be believed, made additions of his own
contriving to the hideous cruelties prescribed for Hackston
by the ingenuity of the Privy Council.
The Sunday after Ayrsmoss, Cargill, preaching in the
parish of Shotts, chose for his text, 'Know ye not that there
is a great man and prince fallen this day in Israel ? ' It
was Cameron's funeral sermon he preached, the lament
for the friend he trusted, for the young man on whom he
leant. ' As for Richard Cameron,' he wrote to the lady
of Earlston, ' I never heard anything from him, in the
Lord's truth, but I am both ready and wUling to confirm
it.' Another wanderer "and old man, Peden the 'prophet'
they called him, who suffered many things for his reUgion,
sat one day by Cameron's grave, and in his weariness
sighed 'O to be wi' Ritchie.' His body was soon to rest
not far from Ritchie's, as he named Richard Cameron.

RICHARD CAMERON 147
Over the remains of those who fell at Ayrsmoss, there
was placed a large gravestone set upon four pUlars. The
names of the men were engraved upon it, and, as Robert
Hamilton described it, ' The stone is curiously wrought
on our Lord's servant at Airdsmoss, with a pleasant
epitaph, the Bible open, a hand, arm, and shabble.' The
epitaph is, 'Here lyes the corps of that famous and
faithful preacher of the Gospell, Mr Richard Cameron,
who with several others feU here in an encounter with
the bloody enemies of truth and godliness, July 20, Anno
1680.' Besides these words there is the verse :
' Halt, curious passenger, come here and read.
Our souls triumph with Christ our glorious head ;
In self-defence we murder'd here do ly,
To witness against this nation's perjury.'
In 1832 the old gravestone was set upon a platform,
three feet in height and ten feet square. From the centre
of this platform rises a conspicuous obelisk, on which is
a conventional inscription beginning, 'Sacred to the
memory.' A more enduring monument is the poem of Hyslop,
the shepherd lad :
' In a dream of the night I was wafted away,
To the muirlands of mist, where the martyrs lay ;
Where Cameron's sword and his Bible are seen,
Engraved on the stone where the heather grows green.
The hills with the deep mournful music were ringing,
The curlew and plover in concert were singing ;
But the melody died 'mid derision and laughter.
As the host of ungodly cush'd on to the slaughter.

148 FAMOUS SCOTS
The muskets were flashing, the blue swords were gleaming,
The helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming ;
The heavens grew dark, and the thunder was rolling,
'When in Wellwood's dark muirlands the mighty were falling.
When the righteous had fallen, and the combat was ended,
A chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended ;
Its drivers were angels, on horses of whiteness,
And its burning wheels turned on axles of brightness.
A seraph unfolded its doors bright and shining.
All dazzling like gold of the seventh refining ;
And the souls that came forth out of great tribulation.
Have mounted the chariot and steeds of salvation.
On the arch of the rainbow the chariot is gliding,
Through the path of the thunder the horsemen are riding ;
Glide swiftly, bright spirits ! the prize is before you,
A crown never fading, a kingdom of glory.'
' The Vision ' shows, by its subdued passion and mourn
ful beauty, the awful impression which the testimony
and the fate of Richard Cameron made upon the Scot
tish peasantry in the district where he fell. In graphic
prose, the author of the modern romance, ' The Men
of the Moss-Hags,' has shown us the death of the Lion
of the Covenant : " ' God of battles, receive my sinful
soul,' he cried, and with that he joined his hands like a
man that dives for swimming; and, unwounded, unhurt,
yet fighting to the last, Richard Cameron sprang upon a
hundred sword-points. Thus died the bravest man in
broad Scotland, whom men called, and called well, the
Lion of the Covenant."
Stevenson, from his exUe in Vailima, wrote : ' If I could
only be buried in the hiUs, under the heather, and a table
tombstone like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers

RICHARD CAMERON 149
are crying.' Over the grave of Richard Cameron in the
muirland the whaups and the plovers are crying.
The position of Richard Cameron in Scottish history is
that of a man whose fame was born at his death. WhUe
he remains at Falkland he is but as a name ; and not
even the date of his birth can be determined. At Harden,
and in years before and after, he is hardly more than a
shadow. In clearer light, through a brief period, he is
seen as a preacher with another gospel than unity and
peace, turning friends into enemies, and getting their
reproaches ; and when he escapes from the petty domain
of sectarianism to a larger world, and attacks almost
single-handed a king and his Government, he is slain
before age has given him a title to authority, and varied
experience a reputation for wisdom. It is known that
in his youth he assented to Episcopacy, and that later he
accepted Presbyterianism with its burdens, listening first
to the moderate men, and then foUowing the persecuted.
The stages of his career may be traced, but not the de
velopment of the man himself What power turned him
from Episcopacy, and what force moved the Presbyterian
to renounce the ease of compromise with the Government
for the hardship of their oppression ? The Declaration
which he made at Sanquhar, though only a score of men
openly joined him, was the voice, if not of a nation at
least of a multitude, who felt their degradation by the loss
of freedom, and who in the coming years were resolutely
though quietly to resent the tyranny of the king. His
death touched their hearts ; the fall of a brave man seeking
freedom for his country. They treasured his name, as
they honoured his cause ; and, at the Revolution Settle-

150 FAMOUS SCOTS
ment, civil freedom and religious liberty, for which he had
died, if he had not always lived, were established in Scot
land. When Episcopacy ceased to be the national form
of ecclesiastical government, a great majority of the Cove
nanters were found in the Church of Scotland ; but
through scrupulous regard for principles in the Covenants,
especially the Solemn League and Covenant, many of
those who had formed the United Societies, as the strictest
Presbyterians had styled themselves, refused to acknow
ledge the arrangement which WiUiam III. effected in
ecclesiastical affairs. Afterwards associated as the Re
formed Presbyterian Church, these men have been widely
known as Cameronians. This name they refused from
the first ; they would not have the name of any man, they
who jealously cherished the idea of the Headship of
Christ in His Church. Cameron himself has received
but scant attention from our historians, and they have left
unexplained this significant fact that he so touched the
memory of the people of Scotland that they gave his name
to a religious sect. It is of less import, though it is of
historic interest, that the Cameronian regiment, the 26th
regiment of British infantry, was called by his name.
From among the Cameronians, after many words and the
removing of many scruples. Colonel Cleland formed the
company which made at Dunkeld a beginning of the many
brave traditions of this regiment. It is of noteworthy sig
nificance, however, that for over two hundred years
Cameron's name has been associated with a set of men
marked by the strictest adherence to Calvinism, and by a
genuine, even though severe, profession of piety. It was
a remarkable testimony to their religious earnestness when

RICHARD CAMERON 151
Norman Macleod, referring to the parish of Loudoun, wrote :
' I am eagerly desirous to get family worship established —
of that there seems not to be a vestige, except among the
Cameronians, and there every family has it.' In this testi
mony stands the name of Cameron, who, by the genuine
ness of his religion, his uncompromising devotion, to prin
ciple, and the greatness of his cause, touched the nation
and fixed himself in its memory. Right though he was
when he opposed the Indulged, his was then but the war
fare of a sectarian, the championship of logical strictness,
without greatness to win admiration. But when he
entered Sanquhar to make his Declaration, he was the ad
vocate of the best cause ; and at Ayrsmoss he died for
freedom. When tyranny was rampant in Scotland, and
courage had all but failed, Richard Cameron offered his
life, hopeful that the oppressed people would take heart ;
and after his death, though tyranny abated none of its
cruelties, the Covenanters struggled manfully till the faU
of the Stuarts brought them peace.
" The Solemn League and Covenant
Now brings a smile, now brings a tear ;
But sacred Freedom, too, was theirs :
If thou'rt a slave, indulge thy sneer."
A space of two hundred years has removed us from the
thought and custom of the Covenanters. They ultimately
gained their cause, and justified their rebellion, and to
them is due the reverence of those who prize liberty.
Claverhouse, with his clear-cut face, his beautiful hands,
and his graceful manners, with his military splendour, and
with his loyalty to the king, is the type of the cavaliers who
take captive the hearts of those who love the things in

152 FAMOUS SCOTS
common life which are seemly and decorous. And Mon
trose and Claverhouse, by the fascination of their vivid
careers, have won a glory for the cause for which they
fought, and under their spell many have forgotten the
better cause of patriotism, of civil freedom, and religious
liberty, to which these men, as servants of the king, were
enemies. But others remember the men who fought
under the blue banner of the Covenant, and the martyrs
who died as for Christ's sake. The glittering show of
noble names did not give justice to the conduct of the
royalists ; nor did the oddities of the Covenanters detract
from the high worth of their fight for freedom, or make
Presbyterianism unfit for a gentleman. The Covenanters
were rebels, but they were men good or bad, as one values
allegiance to kings like Charles IL, as one weighs the free
dom of the people with loyalty to a sovereign who is the
symbol of a government which may be the most bar
barous cruelty. ' It little skills what faith men vaunt.
If loyal men they be,
To Christ's ain kirk and Covenant,
Or the king that's over the sea.'
Some will accept the creed of this charming verse ;
others will set a value upon the faith men hold, and will
praise those who take the noblest cause for their service.
Unless the great Revolution was a mistake, the Covenan
ters chose the better part, which has not been taken away
from their land.

Post %vo, on antique laid paper, cloth extra. Price 2s. (id.

The
Life and Letters of James Renwick,
the Last Scottish Martyr.
By the Rev. W. H. CARSLAW, M.A., Helensburgh.
With Facsimile of one of his Letters.
" Renwick was a strange and interesting figure in the
annals of the Scottish Church, and this tribute to his memory
will find many willing readers." — Scottish Leader.
"The first complete edition of Renwick's letters," — North
British Daily Mail.
" The letters reveal a singularly religious and devout spirit,
and give us a striking insight into the sweetness and light that
existed in the rugged depths of these stern and uncompromising
pillars of the Covenant. " — Scottish Weekly.
"James Renwick's letters were greatly in need of re-editing,
and Mr. Carslaw has proved himself the man to do it. He has
spared no pains, for he is enthusiastic in the subject. And his
pains have been well rewarded. An enormous number of
disfiguring errors have been removed ; and now the letters are
offered to us in a shape and condition that is worthy. The story
of the life is interwoven with them, so that one may read the
history of time as well as the spiritual history of the man who
lived in it. The volume is very handsomely produced, and
there is an excellent facsimile of one of Renwick's letters." —
Expository Times.
"The biographical portions are written in a perspicuous,
energetic, and graceful style, and Mr. Carslaw has not allowed
his enthusiasm for Renwick to interfere to any extent with the
requirements of historical accuracy." — Aberdeen foumal.
"The most complete yet published of the correspondence of
this noble and manly Scotchman. " — Govan Press.
"The Rev. Mr. Carslaw has skilfully interweaved the
martyr's letters with the details of his life, and produced a
thrilling picture of bloody and bygone days." — Dumfries
Courier.

EDINBURGH AND LONDON
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER
And all Booksellers.

Post %vo, on antique laid paper, cloth extra. Price 2s. 6J.

The Covenanters of the Merse,
their History and Sufferings, as found
in the Records of that Time.
By the Rev. J. WOOD BROWN, M.A.
" Mr. Brown has not been content to chronicle still surviving
traditions of the Covenanting period. He has gone to the
historical records of the time, and his researches have been
abundantly rewarded ; so much so that the volume he has
written, modest though it be in size and scope, forms a not
unimportant addition to the interesting Border literature of
the period. " — Scotsman.
"¦Wherever the heroic witness of the Covenanters is ap
preciated this book will be warmly welcomed." — Sword and
Trowel. " Mr. Wood Brown has gathered the scattered records ofthe
district with a loving hand." — British Weekly.
" A book which treats of the Covenanters is always sure to
gain a respectful hearing. -When to the merits of its subject
such a volume adds clearness of style and an orderly presenta
tion of facts, it is safe of a fair popularity. Mr. Brown writes
well and clearly, not without a certain picturesqueness, which
should recommend his book." — Glasgow Herald,
" Mr. Brown has rendered a service to the student of history
which deserves grateful acknowledgment." — Aberdeen Journal.

EDINBURGH AND LONDON
OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER
And all Booksellers,

A New Edition, Demy 8vo, Cloth Extra, with
upwards of 1 50 Illustrations, Price 5s.

" The Scots Worthies!'
By John Howik of Lochgoin,
Revised from the Author's Original Edition
By the Rev. W. H. CARSLAW, M.A.
The Landscapes and Ornaments by various Artists,
engraved under the superintendence of
Mr. Williamson;
the Historical Portraits by Mr. Hector Chalmers,
engraved by Messrs. Schenck &• M'Farlane.

" It has all the quaintness of the original volume in a
condensed form. It abounds in illustrations of well-
executed views of Covenanter localities, firom the Com
munion stones of Irongray to Dunnottar; of Scottish
palaces — Falkland, Holyrood, &c. ; of Scottish abbeys and
churches — indeed it might almost be called an Illustrated
Gazetteer of Scotland. It likewise contains views of
places in England, Ireland, and the Continent connected
with Covenanting story, such as Westminster, Rotterdam,
and Londonderry. It gives, moreover, a gallery of por
traits, firom George Wishart to Robert "Traill; from Mary,
Queen of Scots to William III. ; and from Archbishop
Sharpe to Claverhouse. It is in every way elegantly and
quaintly got up, the illustrations having old-fashioned
elaborately-decorated borders. We know of no book
more calculated to quicken the pulse of modern Protest
antism, or to give in an attractively biographical form the
history of the Church of Scotland, through the lives, and
doings, and deaths of her noblest sons. We therefore
commend it to all who wish to remember the days of
former generations, or to understand the glorious work
done for Scotland in his chief book by the old farmer of
Lochgoin." — Christian Leader.

EDINBURGH AND LONDON
OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER,
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS,

New Edition, Demy 8vo, Cloth Extra, with
numerous Illustrations, and fac-simUe of
Original Title and Frontispiece, Price 53,

''A Cloud of Witnesses^'
For the Royal Prerogatives of
fesus Christ.
Being the Last Speeches and Testimonies of
those who have Suffered for the Truth
IN Scotland since the year 1680,
Reprinted from the Original Editions, with
Explanatory and Historical Notes.
By the Rev. John H. Thomson.

EDINBURGH AND LONDON
OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER,
AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

FAMOUS 'SCOTS*
« SERIES-

A/TESSRS OLIPHANT, ANDERSON &
FERRIER have much pleasure in an
nouncing the arrangements they have made for
the continuation of this Series.
The very favourable reception given to the
early volumes, not only at home but in America
and the Colonies, has encouraged them to take
advantage of valuable suggestions made by
friends who have expressed a warm interest in
their scheme, and as a result they have decided
to considerably widen its scope. With help
that has been promised to the Editors they
foresee the possibility of a series of most valu
able volumes on many men and women who
have made their mark not only on the Literature,
Religion, Science and Art of the country, but
who have been famous in Politics, Arms, Com
merce and Social Life.
Variety of interest and freshness of presenta
tion, along with accuracy and finish of detail
will be carefully studied, so that these little
books may form a library in which the History
of their Country wiU be available for the Scottish
people, glowing with the personal interest which
gathers round the biographies of those who have
made that history.
PUBLISHED BY W
OLIPHANT ANDERSON
V FERRIER- EDINBVRGH
AND LONDON <% -vS,

FAMOUS
•SCOTS- •SERIES^
The foUowing is a List of the volumes aheady
published, and of those for which arrangements
have been made: —
THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. [Ready.
ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. [Peady.
HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask. [Ready.
JOHN KNOX. By A. Tavlor Innes. [Ready.
ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. [Ready.
THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie. [Ready.
RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless.
[Ready.
SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON.
By Eve Blantvre Simpson.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
By Professor Saintsbury.
NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood.
THE BLACKWOOD GROUP.
By Sir George Douglas.

SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton.
GEORGE BUCHANAN. By Robert Wallace, M.P,
THOMAS CHALMERS, By Professor W, Garden Blaikie,
JEFFREY AND THE EDINBURGH
REVIEWERS. By Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid.
ADAM SMITH. By Hector C. Macpherson.
KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louis BarbI
BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask.
FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By George W. T. Omond.
MUNGO PARK. By T. Banks Maclachlan.
ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A B. Grosart.
JAMES THOMSON. By William Bavne.

Edinburgh and London
Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier
Send your name as a Subscriber
to your Bookseller

opinions of the Press on the
" Famous Scots " Series.
Of THOMAS CARLYLE, by H. C. Macpherson, the
British Weekly says : —
" We congratulate the Publishers on the in every way
attractive appearance of the first volume of their new
series. The typography is everything that could be
wished, and the binding is most tasteful. . . . We
heartily congratulate author and publishers on the happy
commencement of this admirable enterprise."
Of ALLAN RAMSAY, by Oliphant Smeaton, the
Scotsman says : —
"It is not a patchwork picture, but one in which the
viriter, taking genuine interest in his subject, and be
stowing conscientious pains on his task, has his materials
well in hand, and has used them to produce a portrait that
is both lifelike and well balanced. "
Of HUGH MILLER, by W. Keith Leask, the £'*?5<7«-
tory Times says r —
" It is a right good book and a right true biography. . . .
There is a very fine sense of Hugh Miller's greatness as a
man and a Scotsman ; there is also a fine choice of language
in making it ours."
Of JOHN KNOX, by A. TAYLOR iNNES, Mr Hay
Fleming, in the Bookman, says : —
" A masterly delineation of those stirring times in Scotland,
and of that Yimous Scot who helped so much to shape
them."
Of ROBERT BURNS, by Gabriel Setoun, the New
Age says : —
" It is the best thing on Bums we have yet had, almost as
good as Carlyle's Essay and the pamphlet published by Dr
Nichol of Glasgow."
Of THE BALLADISTS, by JOHN Geddie, the
Birmingham Daily Gazette says : —
" As a popular sketch of an intensely popular theme, Mr
Geddie's contribution to the Famous Scots Series is most
excellent. "

OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER
EDINBURGH & LONDON