CovenanterBooks.com

Christian Focus Publications SPECIAL OFFER at the Covenanter Bookshop while stocks last.

We are coming up to the anniversary of the Battle of Rullion Green. Currently on this day (18th November 1666) the Covenanters are in Dalmellington. They will shortly make their way towards Edinburgh.

But what caused them to rise in arms?

Well if you look at this proclamation from King Charles II and the Privy Council in Edinburgh the year before, you will see that people were forbidden to meet for worship unless it is to hear the King's Curates in their local church. Failure to do so was to go against "Our authority and government, ecclesiastic and civil" and made you punishable by "fining, confining and other corporal punishments....as our Privy Council sees fit."

On the 13th November 1666 an elderly man in St John's Town of Dalry would be attacked and severely beaten by soldiers for being unable to pay his fine for non attendance at the local church. A group of Covenanters would come to his aid, and the beginning of the first armed resistance to the persecution gets under way.

The 463rd anniversary of the Scottish Reformation.

Did you know that today, 17th August, has historically been known as the anniversary of Scotland's Reformation?

It was on this day, 17th August 1560, that the Scots Confession of Faith, produced by John Knox and five other men all named John, was read in the Scottish Parliament, and ratified and approved, "as wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the infallible word of God."

As Dr Thomas McCrie writes "This amounted, it will be observed, to a national establishment of the protestant religion. The nation, by its rulers and representatives, passed from Popery to Protestantism; and, in its civil capacity, ratified (not the gospel, indeed, which no acts of parliament can ratify, but) the profession of the gospel, which the people, in their religious capacities, had already embraced."

Dr James Begg at the 300th anniversary of this event spoke of the importance of remembering this date. He writes "It was remembered that the Reformation from Popery became a national event in Scotland on the 17th of August 1560, and it was obviously important that such a day should not pass unnoticed — that, in addition to all the sectional commemorations already referred to, something on a national scale should be attempted — that a wide platform should be erected at Edinburgh, upon which men of all parties could meet, along with expatriated Scotchmen and friends from other lands, to join their thanksgivings together for an event in which every Protestant in the world has an undoubted interest."

It was also noted at that anniversary, the many blessings Scotland has enjoyed as a result of that day. It was said "That Reformation was the source of all our present blessings. All the civil and religious privileges we enjoy; our schools, our churches, our purity and simplicity of worship, our peaceful Sabbaths, our happy homes; our prosperous cities and smiling villages; our agriculture, our manufactures, our commerce: In one word, all that has made us great and honourable and blessed amongst the nations of the earth, must be traced upward to this our greatest national deliverance. These blessings demand that we remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. God is, in this celebration, calling upon us to look to the hole of the pit whence we were digged, and, repenting of our guilty silence, to be stirred up by His gracious dealings, to pity, to labour, and to pray for those who — bearing the Christian name — are yet destitute of the knowledge of Christ, — holding the truth in unrighteousness."

So happy Scottish Reformation Day from Scottish Reformation Tours!

Important Notice
The Covenanter Bookshop will be closed tomorrow Tuesday 20th June 2023.

Tribute to Pastor Edward "Ted" Donnelly Thirty-five years ago this summer, I came to Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary for a preliminary class before my fall entrance into the Master of Divinity program. In those days, beginning pastoral students needed to have a year of Greek before entering seminary. So RPTS hosted an intensive...

Please note that on Wednesday 8th March the Covenanter Bookshop will be closed from 10am until 2pm when it will reopen.

Hey reformed young people! The Messenger is for you!

We are a team of young people dedicated to producing relevant and engaging articles to encourage and challenge you as you live for Christ. We regularly publish articles on theology, popular culture, global missions, church history, current issues, and much more.

Make sure you follow us on Facebook to keep up with our latest articles and all our exciting plans for 2023.

Spread the word and stay tuned!

https://www.messengermagazine.org/

"The archers have shot at thee my husband, but they could not reach thy soul."

David Steel was the tenant of Nether Skellyhill farm near Lesmahagow. He had fought at Bothwell Bridge and had attended many a Conventicle. Because of this he was a wanted man and often the soldiers would come to Nether Skellyhill looking for him, as a result he took to sleeping in a makeshift hut a few miles away.

However, on the 20th December 1686, Lieutenant Crichton came to the farm with some men and unfortunately David was at home on this occasion. David grabbed his musket and jumped through a window and ran, the dragoons in hot pursuit. He tried crossing the stream nearby but fell and got his powder wet. Unable to defend himself he continued running, but the dragoons were fast approaching and began firing on him. After going some distance he was becoming exhausted, having to stop he pulled his musket anyway and tried to keep the dragoons back. Crichton asked him to surrender and promised him quarter. Unable to do anything else, he surrendered. Having no intentions of ever keeping his promise of a fair trial for David, Lieutenent Crichton dragged him back to Nether Skellyhill farm where David's wife Mary was anxiously waiting, with her child in her arms.

David was taken to the field next to his home and shot through the head, not by the dragoons, who had refused to do the unlawful deed, but by a group of Roman catholic highlanders who were accompanying Crichton.

Chrichton and his men left, and when the neighbours arrived, they found Mary kneeling next to her dead husband, she was gathering up parts of his head and skull and wrapping them in a napkin.

As she kneeled there she said "The archers have shot at thee, my husband, but they could not reach thy soul; it has escaped like a dove far away, and is at rest." Then clasping her hands, she added, "Lord, give strength to thy handmaid that will prove she has waited for thee, even in the way of thy judgments."

David's body was taken and buried in Lesmahagow churchyard. At the farm where he was shot there stands an obelisk commemorating the Martyrs death. His grave in the churchyard reads:

HERE LYES
the Body of DAVID STEEL Martyr
who was Murdered by Crichton for his
Testimony to the Covenants and Work
of Reformation and because he durst
not own the Authority of the
Tyrant destroying the same. He was
shot at SKELLYHILL the 20th of Decr
1686 in the 33d year of his age

Be thou faithful unto Death and
I will give the a Crown of Life

David a shepherd first and then
Advanced to be King of Men
Had of his Graces in this Quarter
this Heir, a Wand'rer now a Martyr
Who for his Constancy and Zeal
Still to the Back did prove true Steel
Who for Christ's Royal Truth and Laws
And for the Covenanted Cause
Of SCOTLANDS famous Reformation
Declining Tyrant's Usurpation
By Cruel Crichton Murder'd lies
Whose Blood to Heaven for Vengeance cries

Auchencloich Farm, Sorn, Ayrshire. Well known Covenanter field preacher the Rev Alexander (Sandy) Peden was born here in 1626.

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Rullion Green, fought on the side of the Pentland Hills. 28th November 1666.

I came across this painting titled "The Martyrdom Of John Brown of Priesthill, 1685". It was painted by Scottish portrait and historical artist Thomas Duncan (1807–1845).

The artist has really captured the brutality and sadness of this event with John's body lying on the ground as his heartbroken wife Isobel and their children, who had to witness his death, sit at his side.
Claverhouse and his men can be seen riding of in the distance.

The painting reminded me of a poem I read a few years ago titled:

"John Brown of Priesthill’s Wife"

They shot him at his cottage door,
An’ his wife was standin’ near,
But never a word of grief said she,
Nor dimmed her e’e a tear.

They tied his hands ahint his back,
An’ bound his bonny e’en,
But her face was white, an still, an’ cauld
As a dead face it had been.

The heath, a’ purple i’ the sun,
Shone redder where he lay,
When they had worked their wicked will,
An’ turned to ride away.

“An’ what think ye o’ your guidman noo,
Guidwife?” quoth Clavers rude; -
A flash cam’ i’ the tearless e’e -
To the white cheek the bluid.

She walked wi’ steady step an’ prood,
To where her guidman lay,
She laid on her lap the shattered heed,
An, wiped the bluid away.

“Aye thocht I muckle o’ my guidman
An’ far mair think I noo;
He’s died for the Lord that died for him -
God forgi’e them that slew.”

“Twere nocht but just,” quoth Clavers cruel,
“Gin ye lay by his side?”
“Aye, wark your will,” she answered him,
“Was never gladder bride.”

She sat there still as the gloamin’ fell,
An’ they turned an’ rode away,
Still, when the heath grew dusk in nicht,
On her knees the dead head lay.

But when the first star glimmered oot
I’ the welkin quiet an’ blue,
Ae lang look took she o’ the e’en
She lo’ed, sae sichtless noo.

An’ syne she shut the eyelids white,
An’ kamed the clotted hair,
An’ rowed him in his shepherd’s plaid
Wi’s life-bluid reddened sair.

She laid him on the purple heath,
Gently as babe that slept;
Nae word said she till a’ was dune -
Syne sat her doun an’ wept.

The Rev Gilbert Rule (c. 1629–1701) was ejected from his church in 1662 and preached at many Conventicles in Scotland and even in England. His punishment was imprisonment on the Bass Rock (where he fell seriously ill) and banishment.

When the persecution ended he returned to Scotland and became the minister in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh.

After 1689 Rule produced several written works, mostly defences of Presbyterianism against its Episcopalian slanderers.

In one pamphlet called "A Vindication of the Presbyterians in Scotland" he defends the Covenanters actions during the time of persecution.
In this section he is defending the Covenanter field conventicles.

On 10 October 1681, five Covenanters were executed at the Gallowlee. Their names were Robert Garnock, Patrick Forman, David Farrie, James Stuart and Alexander Russell. After they were dead the hangman took their heads and hands and placed them on spikes at the Pleasance Port on the city walls.

A young James Renwick witnessed this gruesome event and conspired with some friends to take the bodies away from the foot of the gallows and give them a burial. Under cover of darkness they removed the corpses of the five Covenanters from the foot of the gallows and buried them in the West Kirkyard. They also bravely removed the heads and hands from the spikes on the Pleasance Port too and buried them in Lauriston Yards.
Years later in October 1726 the skulls and hands were dug up and taken to the Martyr's memorial in Greyfriars Kirkyard, when they were reburied.

"Gallowlee" was a small hill situated about halfway between Edinburgh and Leith.
An early description of it reads, "About half-way between Edinburgh and Leith, on the west side of the Walk, is the site of the Gallow-Lee, once a rising ground whose summit was decorated with the hideous aparatus of public ex*****on, permanently erected there for the exposure of mangled limbs".
It was in many ways even more grim than the Grassmarket as they often left the the bodies hanging there on chains.

Gallowlee no longer exists, in the mid 18th century the sand from the hill was sold to make mortar for the construction of the New Town. It was located roughly where the marker is on the photo, on the west side of Leith Walk at a place now known as Shrub Hill.

(The words in the image were part of the last testimony of Patrick Forman, one of the five martyrs.)

This is the old kirkyard in Moffat, a gable end wall being all that remains of the old Kirk. The information board on the gate tells us about Claverhouse and his men herding the locals into the kirkyard to force them to take the oath of allegiance in 1685. But the year before the Kirkyard again had seen many Covenanters herded into it.

On the 22nd of November 1684 around eighty men, women and some children were carried as prisoners from Dumfries to Moffat where they were forced to spend the night in freezing and wet conditions in the kirkyard. The next morning under guard of three troops of Dragoons they were marched all the way to Peebles, many of them nearly drowning as they crossed a fast flowing river. Once in Peebles some of them were badly beaten by the dragoons.

On the 24th they were moved onto the Tollbooth in Leith, being harassed all the way by the soldiers. Once in Leith they were all crammed into the cell with little room to sit and no sanitation. One of them by the name of James Muirhead died in the prison from illness and fatigue. A doctor had been sought for him but none were allowed to tend to him.

The prisoners were then dispersed to other prisons in Edinburgh and the Canongate and the following year with others were sent to the horrendous prison vault at Dunnottar Castle.

Please Note: The Covenanter Bookshop will be closed on Monday 19th September 2022.

Rather brutal proclamation made on this day, 1st August 1684, urging that several Tolbooths be checked and any Covenanters in them executed as quickly as possible.

On the 23rd of July 1637, in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Dean Hannay attempted to read from the prayer book for the first time. At this, a woman called Jenny Geddes picked up the stool she was sitting and threw it at his head, shouting “Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug? [in my hearing]”. Then a riot broke out, with more people shouting and throwing stools, before leaving the building.

the Book of Common Prayer (or ‘Laud’s liturgy’) was written by the Scottish bishops, Archbishop Laud and the king. The Scottish ministers were not allowed any involvement in it. They believed that it contained Roman Catholic errors, with its section on communion seeming to the people more like a description of the Catholic mass. It also instructed readings from the Apocrypha and celebration of saints’ days. It was the last of a long list of church reforms imposed on the Scottish Kirk since the reformation.

The next day, the privy council (which governed Scotland) forbade speaking against the government or prayer book on pain of death. However due to the opposition they ordered that the prayer book not be used until king Charles I, in London, had been told about the situation. Many protests and petitions against the prayer book were made to the privy council, condemning it as containing errors and being forced on the church without being the approval of a General Assembly or Parliament.

Within a few months the National Covenant was drawn up and signed at Greyfriars, Edinburgh and the Covenanters 50 years struggle would begin.

Today is the anniversary of one of the largest battles ever fought on British soil, the Battle of Marston Moor near York, and it involved many thousands of Scottish Covenanters.

The Battle of Marston Moor was fought just outside York on 2nd July 1644 and was part of the English Civil War. The army opposing Charles I's Royalist army was a combined force of English Parliamentarians and Scottish Covenanters, in fact the approximately 16,000 Covenanters made up the largest part of the Allied army. It was their involvement that tipped the battle in favour of Parliament and ended Charles I's control in the North of England. The battle lasted only two hours and resulted in around 4000 Royalist dead and 1500 captured. The Scots-Parliamentary army suffered only around 300 dead.

CovenanterBooks.com updated their address.

Assurance - am I or am I not a Christian? Do you, or someone you know, ever have doubts about saving faith? Even occasional ones? If so, this event is for you!