Viscount Dundee

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Louis Auguste Barbé. Viscount Dundee

I. FAMILY, BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE

II. THE COVENANT AND THE COVENANTERS

III. DISPERSING THE CONVENTICLERS

IV. REJECTED ADDRESSES

V. MATTERS CIVIL, MILITARY AND MATRIMONIAL

VI. THE KILLING TIME

VII. UNDER KING JAMES

VIII. BEFORE THE STRUGGLE

IX. THE HIGHLAND CAMPAIGN

Отрывок из книги

On the 14th of May 1678, a letter addressed to the King by his Privy Council in Scotland, contained a suggestion of which the adoption was destined to exercise an important influence on Claverhouse’s career. It was written in answer to a prior communication, which it sufficiently explains, and ran as follows: —

‘We have of late had divers informations of numerous field-conventicles kept in several places of the kingdom, who, with armed men, have in many places resisted your authority, and which by your letter, we find has reached your ears, and seeing these insolences are daily iterated, and are still upon the growing hand, and that your Majesty is graciously pleased to ask our advice, for raising of more forces, – It’s our humble opinion that, for the present exigent, there may be two company of dragoons, each consisting of one hundred, presently raised, whose constant employment may be for dissipating and interrupting those rendezvouses of rebellion; and therefore we have recommended to the Major-General, the speedy raising of them; and your Majesty may be pleased to give commissions to such qualified persons as the Major-General hath, at our desire, given in a list, to command these two companies; or to what other persons your Majesty shall think fit.’

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In many cases the ejection of the ministers and the loss of their stipends did not prevent them from continuing the duties of their office. Secret meetings, either in private houses or in secluded localities, replaced the ordinary services of the Church. For the purpose of checking this violation of the law, the Council, on the 13th of August 1663, again intervened with an Act. It commanded and charged all ministers appointed in, or since, the year 1649, who had not subsequently obtained presentations from the patrons, and yet continued to preach or to exercise any duty proper to the functions of the ministry, either at the parish churches or in any other place, to remove themselves, their families and their goods, within twenty days, out of their respective parishes, and not to reside within twenty miles of them, nor within six miles of Edinburgh or any cathedral church, or three miles of any burgh within the kingdom.

In 1665, this Act was extended so as to include the older ministers, that is, those who had obtained their livings prior to the year 1649; and, on the same day, a proclamation against conventicles and meetings for religious exercises was published. It warned all such as should be present at these unlawful gatherings, that they would be looked upon as seditious persons, and should be punished by fining, confining and other corporal punishments, according to the judgment of the Privy Council, or any having the King’s authority.

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