Mark Jardine

Historian/TV researcher. Blogs on Killing Times. Worked on BBC A Life in Ten Pictures Freddie Mercury & Lennon, A History of Scotland, Rise/Blood of the Clans.

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@WildernessPeace You. KNOW. The. Difference. Vote for asset and sovereignty strippers and stand back and watch what goes on.

[ThunderPoint @ThunderPointLtd]

Published today!
The latest instalment from @ethylsmith of her #historical series that eloquently portrays the lives of ordinary men and women in 17th century #Scotland as they fought to survive in extraordinary times.
#Covenanters

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@WingsScotland Actual flood data in more than two inches. https://t.co/XWmTcGjAwD

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@WingsScotland Major, Brown and May. Doing dull well never seems to pay.

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@ChrisCree @JCRyle These two women in Wigtown refused to renounce a war of assassinations. That is what the Abjuration Oath was about.

[LaudablePractice @cath_cov]

A review of Ann Shukman's 'Bishops and Covenanters: The Church in Scotland 1688-1691' - and an elegy for the Restoration Church of Scotland.
https://t.co/anPcY48oSY

[CommunityActionLan @CommunityActLan]

Make Your Way Forth - Darmead Covenanters Memorial Walk

Starting at Black Law Windfarm entrance near Climpy, heading over to the remote Darmead Muir, or Darmead Linn as it is sometimes referred to.

https://t.co/HGtwHjmHUU #CommunityEngagement #nature #walking

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@PaisleyHeritage Interested in the evidence of Covenanters hiding at falls in a good way. What is the source of that, as I would like to know?

[Scottish Reformation Tours @ToursScottish]

Yesterday was the anniversary of two Covenanters who were executed just outside Edinburgh.

Robert Pollock and Robert Millar were tried on 19th January, found guilty and ordered to be hanged at the Gallowlee four days later.

Pollock was a shoemaker from East Kilbride and Millar was a Stonemason from Rutherglen. Being executed between 8 and 9 in the morning, they were the first Covenanters to die in 1685. That grim year would see many more Covenanters hunted down and killed across Scotland.

Both men died together and it was said with great peace and composure, both encouraging the other to stand strong in the faith.

The Gallowlee was a small hill formed of sand situated about halfway between Edinburgh and Leith on the west side of Leith Walk at a place now known as Shrub Hill.

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 apparatus of public execution, permanently erected there for the exposure of mangled limbs”.

It was in many ways even more grim than the Grassmarket and the Mercat Cross as there were often bodies left hanging there on chains. The sight would serve as a warning to those arriving at the docks in Leith and who were making their way up the road to the city.

(Maps reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. https://t.co/BrOoX6ieZb)

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@buckmasterlife @clintwfischer Yes, but not historial reallity.

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@ChrisCree @JCRyle They had also failed to renounce a "war of assassinations, apparently, before an inexperienced officer to Scotland. https://t.co/CG1p3H0qvV

[Scottish Reformation Tours @ToursScottish]

Skeoch Hill, where over three days in the summer of 1678, 14'000 Covenanters met for worship and around 3000 took communion.

The rows of stones they laid out for the communion are still in their exact locations after all these years.

On the hillside opposite the King's troops could do nothing but look on as the number of God's people were too large for them to attack!

The inscription on the memorial reads:
"TO MARK THE SPOT
WHERE A LARGE NUMBER
OF COVENANTERS
MET IN THE SUMMER OF 1678
TO WORSHIP GOD
AND WERE
ABOUT THREE THOUSAND COMMICANTS
ON THAT OCCASION
CELEBRATED THE SACRAMENT
OF THE LORDS SUPPER

THE FOLLOWING EJECTED MINISTERS
OFFICIATED
JOHN WELSH OF IRONGRAY
JOHN BLACKADDER OF TROQUEER
JOHN DICKSON OF RUTHERGLEN
AND SAMUEL AROT OF TONGLAND
THE ADJACENT STONES
BEING USED
AS THE COMMUNION TABLE

THESE STONES
ARE SIGNIFICANT MEMORIALS
OF THOSE TROUBLOUS TIMES
IN WHICH OUR FATHERS
AT THE PERIL OF THEIR LIVES
CONTENDED FOR GREAT PRINCIPLES
OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM"

[Scottish Reformation Tours @ToursScottish]

On this day 1666, seven Covenanters were all hanged at Ayr. They had all been captured at Rullion Green in November 1666. They were part of a group of twelve men brought from Edinburgh to Ayr to stand trial for their part in the rising. After the inevitable outcome, all were sentenced to death. Eight to to be hanged in Ayr, two in Irvine and two in Dumfries.

The local hangman at Ayr was unwilling to carry out the order to hang the eight Covenanters at Ayr and disappeared. Unable to find anyone to hang them, the council then came up with an idea. They would offer a free pardon to one of the Covenanters if he would hang the other seven. All refused but then one of them, a man named Cornelius Anderson, said he would do it only if he had the forgiveness of his fellow Covenanters. They all forgave him and after the he carried out the act on the 27th December 1666 to a huge crowd. After they were dead, there heads and hands were taken from their bodies and placed on spikes in the town.

Anderson was then marched to Irvine to execute the other two Covenanters being held there. Afterwards he was allowed to go free. Unable to remain in the area he fled to Ireland, where he suffered from depression, being unable to come to terms with what he had done. He eventually died in a house fire, some say of suicide.

The inscription on the Martyrs grave at Ayr reads:

"Here lies the Corpse
of
JAMES SMITH, ALEXR McMILLAN
JAMES McMILLAN, JOHN SHORT,
GEORGE McKERTNY, JN GRAHAM
and JOHN MUIRHEAD who
Suffered Martyrdom at AIR 27th
Decbr 1666 For their adherance
to the Word of GOD and Scotland's
Covenanted work of Reformation

This Small Tribute to the Above
was done by the Incorporate
Trades of AIR Anno Domoni 1814
For the Righteous shall be Kept
in everlasting remembrance"

"HERE lie Seven Martyrs for our Covenants
A Sacred number of triumphant Saints
Pontius McAdam the unjust Sentence past
What is his own the world will know at last
AND Herod Drummond caus'd their Heads affix
Heav'n keeps a record of the sixty six
Boots, thumbkins, gibbets were in fashion then
LORD let us never see such Days again"

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@WingsScotland Yes, in short, it is. I don't think humanity will achieve net zero, which is stasis at the point we have reached, without Carbon-capture technology/nature to reach a Carbon-negative state. The latter is what we actually need to achieve. The atmosphere under human control.

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@followwollof66 @MundayHugh Eleventh, this is probably his cave where he hid just before his death, but few have found it, It is tough to get to, waders etc, I failed. No geo location, but it appears to be there to be found again. https://t.co/MRD5Rap0Bm

[Mark Jardine @drmarkjardine]

@followwollof66 @MundayHugh Tenth, what we know is that Peden died, of natural causes and possibly fatigue, near his brother's house near Sorn.