Airds Moss and the Killing Time: Aftermath of the 1679 Covenanter Rebellion

With the defeat of the Covenanter army at Bothwell Bridge on June 22nd, 1679, the rebellion was broken, and the Covenanters themselves dispersed into small parties. The following day, a party of 140 of them made a stand against a troop of cavalry, but were dispersed on Cumlock Moor (Childs 203, see note 1). The clemency of the Duke of Monmouth allowed 1,200 prisoners to be taken, who were led to Edinburgh and detained in Greyfriars Kirkyard. This must have been disheartening to the Covenanters, to be held captive on the same grounds where the National Covenant had been signed by the people of Scotland in 1638. But Monmouth was determined to win the rebels over by fair means, and allowed the prisoners to sign a bond of release if they would only promise to live in peace. As many as 900 took this offer, but the 300 remaining were kept in custody (Aiton 74). However, this irenic stance by the government would not last.

Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh.

The Duke of Monmouth returned to London on July 6th, and two months later was removed from his office as commander in chief of the King's forces in Scotland. While Monmouth had been away in Scotland, King Charles had weathered the storm of the Exclusion Crisis, the attempt of the nascent Whig party to exclude his Roman Catholic brother James, the Duke of York, from the line of succession. There was talk amongst the Whigs of making Monmouth the King's heir, despite his illegitimacy, and Monmouth himself was not opposed to such a promotion. It was for this that his father, the King dissolved parliament and deprived Monmouth of his offices and ordered the would-be heir to leave the country, whose duties in Scotland were filled by Thomas Dalyell (Dalton 57-58, 60). The hated Duke of York in turn was sent away to Scotland to administrate the country until the furor of the Exclusion Crisis died down (Churchill 151).

This coincided with a change in the hitherto conciliatory policy pursued by the Duke of Monmouth. Two of the captured Covenanter preachers, King and Kid were publicly executed on August 18th. The 300 Covenanters held in Greyfriars Kirkyard were later transported to Barbados in November, to face a certain death on the sugar plantations. The pursuit of dispersing field conventicles increased, and the whole period was later known as the Killing Time. Sarah Churchill, who followed her husband to Scotland in the service of the Duke of York, later remarked:

"I saw it myself, and was much grieved at the Trials of several People that were hang’d for no Reason in the World, but because they would not disown what they had said, that King Charles the Second had broke his Covenant. I have cried at some of these Trials, to see the Cruelty that was done to these Men only for their choosing to die rather than tell a Lye." (Churchill 213).

However, this policy of brutality intermixed with another declaration of indulgence by the government whittled down the Covenanter movement until only a single faction remained in active resistance, the Cameronians. They were so named for their leader, Reverend Richard Cameron, who had returned to Scotland in 1679 after a long exile in Holland and began to foment renewed rebellion. On June 22nd, 1680, Cameron and a small party of armed men rode into Sanquhar in the heart of the Covenanting shires of southwestern Scotland, and published a declaration renouncing all allegiance to the forsworn King Charles II. Over the course of the next four weeks he would continue to preach at a number of field conventicles, raising the standard of his King in rebellion against tyranny and apostasy.

In Richard Cameron's mind, there could be no security ensured to the church unless the state was in covenant with Christ. The Christ of the Covenanters was not one who would only influence people's private opinions, their vision of Christ was one who would put all nations under His feet, whom the nations were bound to "kiss," in other words to obey "lest He be angry" (Psalm 2:12 and 110:1). A far cry from our modern sensibilities, where religion has almost no influence on public policy. But Richard Cameron was consciously raising a standard of rebellion, a justified rebellion in favor of the true King against the false king: 

It is a standard that shall overthrow the throne of Britain, and all the thrones in Europe, that will not kiss the Son lest he be angry, and in his anger they perish from the way. (See note 2)

If there was anyone who disliked talk of "overthrowing the throne of Britain," it was the Royal authorities in Edinburgh. Immediately, Claverhouse's horsemen were dispatched to hunt down the seditious Cameronians, and it was on July 22nd, 1680 that a troop of horse commanded by Andrew Bruce of Earlshall caught up with Cameron and his band on Airds Moss, near Auchinleck (Dalton 61). According to Bruce's report of the battle, "The dispute continued a quarter of an hour very hot; the rebels, refusing either to fly or take quarter, fought like madmen," until Richard Cameron was killed in the field and several of his followers captured. Captain Bruce was thorough enough to have Cameron's father identify his son's severed head and hands, and had his prisoners marched to Edinburgh (see note 2). One of the most prominent prisoners was David Hackston of Rathillet, who had participated in the murder of Archbishop Sharp and the rebellion of the summer previous. Hackston was brutally tortured and summarily executed on July 30th, followed by two other companions in the next month.

Over the years that followed, many more of the Cameronians were executed, decimating their leadership. Donald Cargill, who had helped Cameron publish the Sanquhar Declaration, was captured in July 1681 and executed in Edinburgh (Dalton 61). A new leader emerged in 1684, 22-year old James Renwick, who continued to promulgate rebellion against the crown. Claverhouse dispersed a party of Covenanters at the Bridge of Dee in December, 1684, capturing several of them, though Renwick eluded them. In February 1685, King Charles II died, and was succeeded by his brother James, the Duke of York without any immediate resistance. As James II of England he would pursue a policy of toleration towards dissenters in that country. However, as James VII of Scotland, the ministers ruling in his name renewed their persecution of the Covenanters, while within a few months a law was passed "making any acknowledgement of the Covenant an act of treason," (Dalton 64).

In May 1685, the Royal Government in Scotland faced two major crises, that of a rebellion raised by the whig Earl of Argyll, and James Renwick's republication of the Sanquhar Declaration (Dalton 64). However, even though Argyll's forces had come within a day's march of Glasgow, and the Covenanting shires to the south of it, his forces were crushed at Muirdykes and he was captured and executed before the end of June (Dalton 69). Yet even had Argyll raised rebellion in the troublesome southwest of Scotland, it was uncertain that he would have received much support from the Covenanters, as James Renwick had remained aloof, not wishing to support Argyll who was not himself one of their number. 

This refusal by Renwick and the other Cameronians to compromise on any part of their convictions continued in 1687, when King James VII finally granted toleration for Presbyterian worship in Scotland, with the exception of field conventicles. This failed to win over Renwick, who maintained that the King had no authority to regulate any part of worship, including toleration of certain practices, and defiantly continued to hold field conventicles, some as far away as Fifeshire. He was at last apprehended in Edinburgh on February 1st, 1688, and executed on the 17th after a trial. Renwick's death marked the last prominent judicial murder of the "Killing Times," and within a year saw the abdication of King James and the installation of a new administration in Scotland (Wikisource).

Coda

With the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the people of Scotland saw a complete reversal of the royal policy that had prevailed since the Restoration in 1660. The Killing Times were over. Once again, the Presbyterian Church became the established church of Scotland, while the Episcopalians became the minority. The Cameronians who had resisted royal authorities for almost a decade were pardoned, with many joining the Earl of Angus' Regiment of Foot to fight the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians who rose in rebellion in favor of King James in 1689. John Graham, laird of Claverhouse, who features so prominently in this story, had been promoted by King James to be Viscount Dundee, and dutifully raised an army in the Scottish Highlands. Dundee led his rebellion to battle at Killiekrankie in July, though he was killed in the hour of victory. Alexander Cannon took command of the army and led it south to attack Dunkeld, held only by the raw Cameronian Regiment. Commanding the regiment that day was 28-year old William Cleland, last seen pursuing the defeated royal troops at Drumclog in 1679. Cleland led a desperate house-to-house defense, but was soon killed in the first hour of fighting. Eventually the Cameronians were pushed back into the church in Dunkeld, where they held out until the Jacobite commander Cannon ordered a retreat. Another veteran of the 1679 Covenanter Rebellion who returns to the scene at this time is Sir Robert Hamilton, who led the Covenanter forces to the disaster at Bothwell Bridge. He proved as obstinate as ever, refusing to recognize the authority of King William and Queen Mary who had reversed his attainder. After taking up leadership again of the more radical Covenanters, he died in 1701, never having been restored to his family's estate.

Eventually this tale of rebellion and persecution was canonized by Reverend Robert Wodrow in his 1721 book, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution. It was he that first identified the period between 1679-1688 as the "Killing Times," though there had been many such killing times in the long and bloody history of the Reformation in Scotland. Roman Catholics had burnt Protestant preachers at the stake until Cardinal David Beaton was assassinated in 1546. Thereafter, the Protestants persecuted the Roman Catholics. King James VI then imposed Episcopalian government on the Scottish Kirk with the power of the sword, and thereafter whatever faction came to power persecuted their opposition with the same violence. When the Covenanters had been in power in the 1640s, the Marquis of Argyll had the Royalist General Montrose executed. Argyll himself was executed in 1661, and his son executed fighting for the same cause in 1685. In this period a politician could not safely "retire," he must hold onto power until he tumbled into prison or to his death on the scaffold. The monarchial constitution allowed no lawful dissent from anyone, and made all such demonstrations treason, and added to this were the strong impulses of religious bigotry and conviction. Before 1688, the government would not allow Covenanters to have any lawful political existence, but tolerated it thereafter, while it was the goal of the Covenanters at all times to impose their beliefs on not just Scotland, but all three kingdoms. It was this refusal to compromise on these goals that led to the demise of the movement overall.

But even if the "Killing Times" are not entirely unique, they are remarkable as the last sustained period of religious persecution in Britain, and the curtain rose on a era marked by a trend towards religious toleration, and separation of religious beliefs from political policy. 

Soli Deo Gloria! 

 

Notes

1. John Childs makes a historical error here, for he states that Richard Cameron was killed in this skirmish on June 23rd, 1679, conflating this action with the Battle of Airds Moss on July 22nd, 1680.
2. Quotes taken from Richard Cameron's page on Wikipedia, from the book "Lion of the Covenant" by Maurice Grant.

Works Cited

Aiton, William. A history of the rencounter at Drumclog, and battle at Bothwell Bridge, in the month of June, 1679, and reflections on political subjects. Hamilton: W. D. Borthwick and Co., 1821. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009722308.

Childs, John. The Army of Charles II. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976.

Churchill, Winston. Marlborough: His Life and Times, Volume 1. Rosetta Books, 2014. Kindle edition.

Dalton, Charles. The Scots Army, 1661-1688 : With Memoirs of the Commanders-in-chief. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, Ltd, 1909.

Wikisource contributors, "Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Renwick, James," Wikisource , https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Renwick,_James&oldid=10756061 (accessed November 16, 2022).