Elroy's Scottish History

McDonald Tartan
(for Machen family)

Scottish History
of the Seventeenth Century
Covenanters Risings / Civil War / Jacobite Rebellion

by Elroy Christenson

"In Scotland the sterile, roadless Highlands encouraged feudalism and discouraged culture, while the green and fertile Lowlands invited invasion after invasion by Englishmen who could not understand why Scotland should not receive their overflow and their Kings. The Scots, anciently Celtic, medievally mingled with Irish, Norse, Angles, Saxons, and Normans, had by 1500 merged into a people narrow as their peninsula in feelings and ideas, deep as their mists in superstition and mythology, proud as their promotories, rough as their terrain, impetuous as their torrents; at once ferocious and tender, cruel and brave, and always invincible. Poverty seemed rooted in geography, and manners in poverty; so parsimony grew out of the grudging soil. The peasants were too burdened with toil to have time for letters, and the nobles who kept them in bondage prided themselves on illiteracy, finding no use for the alphabet in their feuds or wars. The mountains and clans divided the spars population into passionate jealousies that gave no quarter in war, no security in peace."

[Will Durant, Story of Civilization/ the Reformation. p. 602 ]

Auld Bridge on the Nith River, Dumfries, Scotland . photo by Elroy Christenson 1999

Scottish immigration to America was sporadic but continuous depending largely on the political climate in Scotland and England. Large scale immigration usually took place at a time of the Scottish peoples attempts to establish independent colonies in Nova Scotia, New Jersey, and South Carolina. Other emgration came with Scottish government attempts to get rid of political unrest resulting in the expulsion to the colonies of a large number of political prisoners. T he Scottish attempts at independent colonies failed or were forced to merge with the English efforts. This resulted in rather disproportionately large numbers of Scots in the early colonial efforts. H. E. Egerton estimated that by 1762 about one-third of the European inhabitants were Scots in his book on British Colonial Policy.

Banishment to the colonies was originally only possible if convicted of a major crime by the Scottish Privy Council. In 1671 the Court of Justiciary was given the same power. Several events brought great numbers of banish persons to the colonies. The aftermath of the Scottish Civil War sent thousands of soldiers as prisoners to Virginia, New England, and the West Indies. In May of 1656 some 1200 were shipped out of Scotland by Cromwell rule.

Calvinism made great inroads into the souls of the Scots under the preachings of John Knox in the late 1500's. He believed as John Calvin that the world was divided into the elect and the damned. The Roman Church was to him, a "harlot .. altogether polluted with all kinds of spiritual fornication." He also detested women rulers of Europe, and in particular, Mary Queen of Scots. By 1638 Protestantism had taken a firm hold with Scottish ministry and laity signed the National Covenant. This Covenant reaffirmed the Presbyterian faith and ritual which was counter to the new canon being imposed by the English King Charles. The new Covenant urged that the local church was separate from the state. It enforced an auster rule of church law centered around the maintaining of the sabbath. Church members were publicly reprimanded for such actions as working, even carrying water on the sabbath. They also believed that oaths of loyalty should only be given to God not to man or government, and especially not to an English king. Charles ordered the dispersal of the Glasgow Assembly which was charged with treason and sent a 21,000 man army to Scotland. The so called "Covenanters" raised an army of 26,000 men of nationalistic and religious fervor. The Covenanter Risings ended in many being killed and some 1700 men and women were banished to the plantations of the colonies.

The Covenanter Uprising became part of the larger Civil War which involved three nations and four faiths. The conference to resolve the religious differences between the Scottish Presbyterians and the Anglican Epicopalians was dragged out for six years. Attempts were made to restore the Roman church in London. Oliver Cromwell took charge of the army and the rebellion. The king and the Royalist supporter put up their own army. Cromwell proved to be the superior general and won several major battles and the frightened king took flight and was taken prisoner by the Scots that he mistakenly thought would still take obey him as their king. He was ransomed for £400,000 by Parliament but felt betrayed and powerless.

After his release the king returns to England where his armies are again overwhelmed by Cromwell's. The king is taken prisoner again, this time by Cromwell's army but he escapes again. In the meantime the English Parliament makes peace with Cromwell and he is persuaded to turn his army against the rebellious Scots and Irish in order to save England. The Scots sent countering forces to Liverpool but each force was overwhelmed by Cromwell's army. Cromwell now dealt severely with the rebels as he did with the monarchy that he was also battling. King Charles I is eventually taken prisoner again and with a "Rump Parliament" Cromwell tries and convicts the king of high treason. Charles dies under the executioner's ax on January 30, 1649 to moans of the watching populous.

Some of the Burn, Wood and Clyde families apparently fought on the same side and were martyred for their cause on November 25, 1681. A grave stone that lay buried in a corn field near Magus-muir was the gravestone of Thomas Burn, James Wood, Andrew Sword, John Waddel and John Clyde. It reads as follows

'Cause we at Bothwell did appear,

Perjurious oaths refused to swear;
'Cause we Christ's cause would not condemn,
We were sentence'd to death my men,
Who rag'd against us in such fury,
Our dead bodies they did not bury;
But upon poles did hing us high,
Triumph of Babel's victory.
Our lives we feared not to the death,

But constant prov'd to the last breath.

James Renwick,
statue on his tombstone
photo courtesy of Brian Orr

When the grave-stone was set up on Oct 1728, the chains were taken out of their graves, and some of their bones and clothes were found unconsummed, now 47 years after their death." [Scot-Irish Families. Vol. II, p. 271]

One of my own ancestors, the Reverend John Renwick who came to South Carolina in 1750, came from Scotland by way of Ireland where his father or grandfather, James Renwick, had been the last Covenanter leader to be executed. He was hanged in Grassmarket Square in Edinburgh on 17 February 1688. His head was then cut off along with hands, they were tied together in a praying pose and hung over Netherbow Gate, one of six gates into Edinburgh.

The records of Scots Banished to the American Plantations list:

Marshall, John - * Smith. Glasgow. Covenanter. Banished to the Plantations in the Indies 13 June 1767.	Marshall, John* Shotts. Covenanter. Prisoner in Glasgow Tolbooth. Banished to the Plantations, at Glasgow June 1684. Transported from the Clyde to America on the Pelican by Walter Gibson, merchant in Glasgow, June 1684	Marshall, Thomas* Shotts. Covenanter. Prisoner in Glasgow Tolbooth. Banished to the Plantations, at Glasgow June 1684. Transported from the Clyde to America on the Pelican, by Walter Gibson, merchant in Glasgow, June 1684	Marshall, William* Prisoner at Edinburgh, Canongate and Leith to East New Jersey by George Scott of Pitlochie on the Henry and Francis, master Richard Hutton, 5 Sept. 1685
Renwick, John Covenanter, res. Barsallock Wigtonshire, tr. 1684 . *	Burn, John, Jacobite, tr. 21 Apr 1716, fr. liverpool to S. C. , in Wakefield. #	Burne, John,# Jacobite, tr. 29 June 1716, fr. Liverpool to Jamaica or VA, in Elizabeth & Anne, arr. VA - unindentured	*

*from the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland.
#Calendar of Sate Papers , America and the West Indies, London 1880

The failure of the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745 brought another 1,600 Scottish men, women, and children to America. Also great numbers were banished to Northern Ireland which I have treated under another history page on Ireland. Ireland History

There is a family history of the Reverend Renwick was, at least, an ancestor of the last Convenanter martyred in Scotland, Rev. James Renwick. I have no evidence that the Kirkland, Marshall, Burn, Campbell, Bothwell, McDowell, Camp, or Clyde families that came here were forced out of Scotland but they were of Scottish ancestory and did come here about the same time. There are individuals that I listed above which definitely were Covenanters but there is little way of knowing if these are relatives. Great numbers of Scots from these tortured times came to North and South Carolina where settlements of both Scottish and Irish peoples dominated.

More on the Covenanter history can be see in the writings of Brian Orr who has done extensive research on the Orr name and the Covenanters

sources:

Story of Civilization/ the Reformation.

Scot-Irish Families.

Directory of Scots Banished to American Plantations,

my Burns family | Clyde Family

Robert Burns "the bard"

Cheryl's Family Index || Ancestor Chart #1 || Regional History || Surname Index || Occupations

All information and photos included within these pages are here for the express purpose of personal genealogical research and may not be included or used for any commercial purpose or included in any commercial site without the express permission of Cheryl and Elroy Christenson. Copyright Elroy Christenson 1998-2018.

web pages created by Elroy Christenson- elroy@next1000.com - last updated 7/15/18