Sketches of the Covenanters Part 22

3 How did they account for it?

4. What was the growth of their army?

6. Who introduced confusion into their ranks?

7. What was the subject of debate?

8. How did it terminate?

9. Describe the forces at the battle of Bothwell Bridge.

10. Describe the battle and its issue.

11. What lesson may we learn from this defeat?

x.x.xIV.

THE COVENANTERS' PRISONS.--A.D. 1680.

"They who profess Christ in this generation must suffer much or sin much," exclaimed one of the Scottish martyrs. The enemy was in power and every means was employed to compel the Covenanters to abandon their Covenant with G.o.d, break relation with Jesus Christ, and thus destroy their testimony. To accomplish this, the king and his courtiers subjected these inoffensive people to cruelties most shocking. While they remained steadfast in their Covenant, the violence increased; when any of them relaxed, one step of defection necessitated another, till they stood in the enemy's camp. The same process is ever true.

The ma.s.sacre at Bothwell Bridge brought upon the Covenanters extreme distress. Their sufferings. .h.i.therto had been as a continual dropping on a very rainy day, with fitful gusts striking here and there; now a hurricane sweeps the country, bringing ruin and desolation in its broad path. Every available force was put in operation for the utter annihilation of the Covenanters. Their ardor for Christ and His royal rights must be quenched in their blood, and their testimony to the truth must be silenced. The king, the courts, the army, the bishops--all were combined for the overthrow of the Presbyterian system of faith and the Covenant of G.o.d. Upon the ruins of the temple of liberty, erected by the Reformers, King Charles had determined to build his castle of absolute despotism. He knew that the glory of Christ's supremacy would never fade out of the skies of Scotland, while Covenanters preached, prayed, and sang Psalms; nor would his despotism flourish while there were Covenanters to challenge his impious claim of authority over the Church, and iniquitous attempt to rule man's conscience. Hence the desperate attempt to overawe and suppress them.

After the battle of Bothwell Bridge, the first stroke of excessive cruelty fell upon the 1,200 prisoners who had surrendered on the field.

They lay all night upon the cold ground huddled together like sheep, surrounded by a strong guard. It was a night of horror. The sentinels watched every motion, and shot at any hand or head that dared to stir.

In the morning they were marched from their mossy bivouac, leaving the green field dotted with crimson pools, and strewn with the dead who had received fatal shots; there they lay in garments rolled in blood.

The prisoners were tied together, two and two, and driven to Edinburgh, as cattle to the slaughter. The journey was dreary, during which they suffered from hunger, weariness, cruel mockings, and barbarous treatment. In the Greyfriars' churchyard, there yet remains the small enclosure, into which these prisoners were driven like so many dumb animals. Here they were kept to await their sentence. Twelve hundred men, with scarcely comfortable standing room, without decent clothing, without sanitary accommodations, without proper food, without shelter, detained for months within these stone walls under a merciless guard--who can conceive of their sufferings? They had been stripped, all but naked; the hard ground was their bed; the sky was their roof; they were exposed to the heat of day, and the chill of night; the rains of July drenched them; the snows of November blanketed them.

During these wearisome months the number of prisoners constantly grew less, and mostly by melancholy means. Some of them subscribed a bond confessing themselves to be rebels and promising unconditional obedience to the king. The hardships of their condition, the threats against their lives, and the entreaties of relatives overpowered conscience. They were released only to be reproached, distressed, tormented, and pillaged at home, by the soldiers who overran the country. Their unholy bond sacrificed their peace with G.o.d, and brought no protection from man.

Such is the effect of every compromise of G.o.d's people with the world.

Disease also reduced the number. Sickness arising from exposure, neglect, and ill fare, wrought havoc with their lives. The living watched carefully over their dying companions, as they lay on the cold hard ground, dest.i.tute of every earthly cordial and comfort. But the Balm of Gilead they had in plenty; the consolations of G.o.d were abundant; the promises distilled sweetness upon their lips; prayers filled the place with incense; the Psalms were as the music of heaven in their ears; the gates of glory opened wide for the dying; pain, sorrow, and darkness vanished from the soul, as it went forth from the earthly tabernacle to enter into the Eternal City.

Quite a few were condemned to death and executed on the scaffold.

Prominent among these, were John Kid and John King, two ministers of Christ. They received their sentence with serenity and went hand in hand, to the place of execution. Their conversation was cheerful. Their outlook was far beyond the scaffold, and the city towers, and the high hills outlined on the sky, and even beyond the glowing sun that was then smiling in the west. What magnificent scenery their eyes must have rested upon, as they now had come to Mount Zion, the city of the living G.o.d, the innumerable company of angels, the spirits of just men made perfect! Already in triumphant faith they were walking the golden streets, with palms in their hands crowns on their heads, and songs in their hearts. Kid was a witty man, usually overflowing with innocent mirth; even in sight of the gallows his humor was insuppressible.

Looking into King's face he made a pun on their own names, saying, "I have often heard and read of a kid sacrificed, but I seldom or never heard of a king made a sacrifice."

Four hundred of these Covenanters remained unmoved by threats, promises, sufferings, or protracted hardships. The painful weeks and months might wear them out, but they continued firm in the faith and testimony, resolved to honor their Lord and His Covenant while they had breath.

They remembered the promise, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." They were of the unbending type.

The king's council, hopeless in attempting to bring them to terms, resolved to finish the irksome task by shipping all to distant lands.

They placed 243 on a small sail-ship, which was tossed on the Atlantic ocean until engulfed amidst the waves. The remainder were never transported.

Many Covenanters were confined in places even more intolerable than this. Dunnottar Castle became one of these notable spots. The castle stands on a rock that projects into the sea. Here still exists a deep dark room, called the "Whigs' Vault," where 167 Covenanters were crowded together. Forty-five of these were women. The room is 56 feet long, 16 wide, and 12 high, having two small windows. This outrageous disregard for s.e.x, decency, health, and every natural right, aroused even the indignation of the governor's wife, at whose request the women, after some days, were removed to another vault. The prisoners suffered the horrors of these dark foul pits three months. But the Lord Jesus Christ did not forsake them; they were sustained by His abundant grace. He heard their mournful cries and upheld their faith. Some breathed out their lives on the hard stone floor, with no pillow on which to rest their aching heads. Blessed termination of the horrid cruelty! Even there the "pearl gate" opened wide, and the ransomed soul arose in power, and walked forth into the marvelous light of the world above.

They who survived death were offered liberty on condition of taking the king's oath, and acknowledging his supremacy over Church and conscience.

They persistently refused to do this. How great the loyalty of these men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ! Imprisonment with all its bitterness was sweeter to them than liberty with a defiled conscience.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUNNOTTAR CASTLE.

The castle rock projects into the sea, on the east coast of Scotland, and rises with rugged sides out of the water to the height of 160 feet.

It is connected with the mainland by a narrow neck. Here is the "Whigs'

Vault," a dismal underground room, hewn out of the rock, where many Covenanters suffered imprisonment.]

The Ba.s.s Rock, too, was a penitentiary for the Covenanters. This is a lofty green rock arising boldly out of the sea near Edinburgh, having steep rugged sides, being accessible only at one point. Thither they brought, in the latter years of the persecution, the overflow of prisoners after the inland jails had been crowded. The rock is very desolate. This was the Covenanters' Patmos. Here Alexander Peden, John Blackader, and many others spent months and years, walking round and round over the storm-battered cliffs, or sitting on the ledges looking landward thinking of the desolated home, the broken family, the wasted Church, and the guilty land. When the waves dashed against the rock, and the breakers leaped high; when storms darkened the land, and billows whitened the sea; when nothing was heard but the noise of the waters, the roar of the tempest, and the scream of the sea-fowl, even then was the Holy Spirit there to illuminate these prisoners of hope. They held communion with G.o.d; visions of glory lighted up their dreary home; they moved amidst the scenery of heaven; the Ba.s.s rock was peopled with angels. Blackader has left on record some rich experiences he there enjoyed.

We are free to worship G.o.d according to conscience and the Word. But let us not forget that our liberty is the blossom, and our privileges the fruit, of the rough black root of persecution suffered by our forefathers. Had they not been faithful, we would have had to fight the battles they fought, and suffer as they suffered, or have perished in darkness. Will not we, for the sake of coming generations, be likewise faithful? The Lord Jesus grant us strength and success.

POINTS FOR THE CLa.s.s.

1. What was done with, the prisoners taken at Bothwell Bridge?

2. How did they suffer in Edinburgh?

3. Describe their prison, and their hardships.

4. What two of their ministers were executed?

5. Describe Dunnottar Castle.

7. Describe the Ba.s.s Rock.

8. For what was it used in those times?

9. How may we meet the obligations descending from the fathers?

x.x.xV.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.--A.D. 1680.

The persecution of the Covenanters under King Charles II. had now continued twenty years. These were years of slaughter, and the horrors were still deepening.

The battle of Bothwell Bridge was followed by a climax of suffering and sacrifice. The wrath of the king, vented through the dragoons, fell upon every district where the Covenanters were located and followed them into their hiding-places. They were required to take the oath of loyalty, or suffer the direful consequence. Some were haled to the judges to be sentenced, others were shot like game where they were found. Like a fire that breaks out in a city and mercilessly devours while the flames find fuel, so this fire seemed destined to spread and devour till the last drop of Covenanted blood would sizzle on the coals.

The persecutors were in degree successful. Four hundred ministers, in 1662, had refused to receive orders from the king for the exercise of their ministry; they gave up home and all its comforts, rather than admit the king's claim of supremacy over the Church of Christ. These were now reduced to less than one hundred. Some were martyred, some were banished, some had died of old age and some of exposure; but many, if not most, had been constrained to accept the Indulgence and were gone back home. Their first love had been chilled by the wintry blasts. Their zeal for the Lord Jesus and His testimony abated as the hardships increased. Worn with suffering, emaciated with hunger, exposed to danger, grey with sorrows, and the darkness deepening with no relief in prospect, they weakened and accepted the terms of a false peace. But let them not be judged with harshness. Our Lord has said of such, "The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak." The struggle lasted eight more years, during which time there were sixty ministers standing by their Covenant instead of four hundred, and even these sixty, almost to a man, counted it expedient to suspend their testimony and keep silence.

The real Covenanters however were not conquered. Death had slain thousands, and defection tens of thousands, yet the faithful had not lost heart. There was still a vigorous force of loyal men and women, earnest quiet people, who stood fearlessly by the Covenant and Testimony of Jesus Christ. They were called, "The remnant." With these the Holy Spirit was pleased to clothe Himself, for the good fight of faith which they continued with unabated ardor. They stepped into the firing line where the shock of war was heaviest, and became the aggressive party, demanding from the king their Covenanted rights. The Lord was ever with them; they heard Him saying, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Their zeal and energy were but the crested waves of Omnipotence, the Lord's own strength surging along the strand of time, and dashing against the rocks of wickedness and misrule--waves of Divine energy that must yet overflow every land, overcome the whole world, and cover the earth with glory, as the waters cover the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLAVERHOUSE.