Off to Scotland - Scottish Covenanter Memorials Association AGM

Next week I'm off to Fenwick in Ayrshire to speak at the annual meeting of the Scottish Covenanter Memorials Association. I had the pleasure of meeting Dane Love, Secretary of the SCMA, back in 2008 during the 'Covenanters in Ulster' project; last Autumn Dane asked me if I'd be willing to go across and give an outline of the story from our side of the water.

Below is the text of a poem entitled Kirk and Covenant, written down in Belfast in 1795 as one of a collection of 'Popular Ballads preserved in Memory'. I'm really looking forward to this, and will be doing one of my usual 45 minute heavily illustrated informal talks. There are plenty of others who can do these things in a more scholarly manner than I, so I hope that the audience won't be too disappointed.

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The Pikemen - A Romance of the Ards of Down, by S.R. Keightley (published 1903)

I recently got hold of a copy of 'The Pikemen - A Romance of the Ards of Down', published in 1903, written by Samuel Robert Keightley (1859-1949, pictured here) of Lisburn. I had been trying to get a copy of this for a while, and when it arrived I wasn't disappointed. It's a classic 'kailyard' format novel, set around the time of the Battle of Ballynahinch, and purports to be a first-hand account of the events as told by a Rev Patrick Stirling who had fled Ulster for the USA (Sangamon County, Illinois to be precise - click here to read the History of Early Settlers of Sangamon County published in 1876 and you'll find plenty of references to Ulster emigrants). Keightley had previously published 'The Crimson Sign', a novel about the Siege of Derry, and other books as well. You can read more about him here. Here are some excerpts:

"...there was a fever in my own blood. My hands were shaking and my heart was beating like a sea in storm. I hardly knew myself. My forefathers had marched to the lilt of the Psalms under the blue banner of the Covenant, and had laid down their lives like men at Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge on the other side of the narrow sea...

... he turned suddenly and stood staring up the road toward Kircubbin as you go to Newton... 'Archie Spence gave a hunted man twa nichts' lodgin' - his guid woman is a kin' ov cousin ov my ain - an' noo they're payin' him fur the kindness that he showed me - harberin' rebels they ca' it. The white-heidit bairns are oot on the roadside noo, an' the bonny roof-tree that shud be as sacred as the wa's ov a palace are jist a wheen ov charred sticks... before ye gang tae bed this nicht ye'll see how Britain trates the honest men ov Ards, shud I hae tae carry ye ivery fut ov the road mysel...

...Here on this night of June burned the watchfires of liberty where eight thousand men of Down were gathered... It was a great and inspiring sight - great not in the pomp and splendour of war, but in heroic courage and noble self-sacrifice. Here were men from Killyleagh and Strangford shore, from hilly Dromara and Rathfriland, and the sweet valley of the Lagan; hardy fishermen from Portavogie and Ardglass; weavers from Lisburn and Newtownards and Bangor, all dressed in decent Sunday wear like men going to the last communion of death... here and there a Psalm tune was being sung by many voices to the tune of 'Martyrdom' or the 'Old Hundred'..."

I'm looking forward to reading it. For a Belfast-born academic living in Lisburn, with a Bangor JP for a father, Keightley has a brave hannlin' of the hamely tongue throughout the book, and as the excerpts above show he also had a firm grasp of cultural identity and history. Ask any of his present-day equivalents what happened at Drumclog and they'll struggle to tell you. 'The Pikemen - A Romance of the Ards of Down' might be another wee indicator of just how widespread Ulster-Scots speech was a century ago.

The Ulster Journal of Archaeology review of the book said:

The Pikemen. A romance of the Ards of Down. By S. R. Keightly
London: Hutchinson & Co. 1903.
This is a story of the year '98 in the county of Down, written in vivid and telling language by one who has an excellent knowledge of the period of which he writes, and a thorough grasp of local circumstances and the common dialect of the people. There is not a dry or uninteresting chapter throughout the hook, and it will afford ample pleasure to the general reader of romance, and more especially to those who are residing in the county in which the principal scenes described in the book are laid. We heartily recommend to the cultured author the desirability of a cheaper and more popular issue of this work, so as to make its pages accessible to everyone. The principal characters are painted with a decisive brush, but if anything, we consider the scene in the old meeting-house at Greyabbey a little over-drawn. Here we have the Rev. James Porter balloting in the communion cup for the name of him who was to do away with the informer Newell. We doubt the accuracy of this incident, and even the death of Newell at this place ; nor do we think this wretched man was such a character as is so skilfully portrayed by the writer. Be this as it may, it is ill to cavil with dry historical details in a work that has many charms, a store of information, and the deepest interest to even the most casual reader.

(PS - Here's another biography of Keightley - click here. A similarly-entitled novel about the events of 1798 in County Antrim is James McHenry's The Insurgent Chief, the Pikemen of '98 which you can read online here.)

How to dodge the law

Here's a great Covenanter story sent to me by a man in Ayrshire:

"...A government edict was put out that all would observe the fast days proclaimed by the government. The penalty for anyone caught working on a fast day would be the confiscation of all the oxen and horses belonging to the culprit. One old farmer in Nithsdale, Armstrong by name, who had a troop of redcoats stationed nearby, yoked his ten brawny sons to the plough and worked the full day without the least molestation by the troopers..."

Enough to start a riot in a Cathedral

(NB: If you're reading this on Facebook, the original post is from my blog). 1637 Book of Common Prayer, Scottish edition. As (not) recommended by Jenny Geddes. On eBay now for $900!

James Traill of Tullykin (Killyleagh)

(NB: If you're reading this on Facebook, the original post is from my blog) The Hamilton Manuscripts record a man called James Traill of Tullykin (1595 - 1663). There are lots of different spellings of the place, like Tallachin / Tolychin / Tullochin / Tullychin, and the name lives on today - there's a Tullykin Road just outside Killyleagh.

He was born in Scotland (probably Blebo in Fife, just 5 miles from St Andrews) on 15 October 1595. His brother Robert Traill (1603 - 1676) was the famous minister at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh. Here's an article about the family, called "The Covenanting Traills", some of which is in Scots. According to the article another member of the family, Colonel James Traill (possibly Robert and James' father) acquired 1000 acres in Knockninny in Co Fermanagh during the Plantation. The other major grantees in Knockninny were the Balfour brothers - second cousins of the Traills - who built Castle Balfour in Lisnaskea around 1620 (pic shown here, click to enlarge).

James Traill was no dozer. He had a degree in theology from Leiden University in the Netherlands, and spent time with the Ambassador to Paris. Robert Traill too was in France, joining James there in 1625 and staying until around 1630 - he was later described as a "Grim Geneva Minister".

Around 1633, Sir James Hamilton appointed Traill "...He choosed for him a very learned, discreet, and religious master, one Mr. James Trail..." to be tutor for his son. The son was "...to travel some years for his improvement, which he did the length of Rome, very safely and successfully, and returned with great improvements in such things whereunto his genius allowed..."

So James Traill showed young Hamilton jr, the ways of continental life. Traill wrote to Hamilton sr. from Paris in October 1633, summarising their trek around France. It wasn't a holiday - the letter says that young Hamilton started his day at 7am with two hours study of French or Latin, then classes in dancing and fencing, then oral French, followed by an hour of translation. Once he had a grasp of French he was going to move on to study "logic and mathematics". At the start of the day and at the end were his "duties of piety". Traill went on to outline a proposed "circuit of France", plus a trip to Geneva and Italy - Florence and Rome in particular.

When they came back, Traill joined Oliver Cromwell's army and rose to Lieutenant Colonel. It's not very PC, but Cromwell said of him "If only I had 10,000 James Traills, I would drive the Pope out of Italy" - a country that Traill was already very familiar with!

Traill married Mary Hamilton (daughter of James Hamilton's brother John - and therefore a cousin of Hamilton jr.) in 1647. However in 1649 James Traill had to leave Ulster "...on account of malignants..." and went to stay with his brother Robert in Edinburgh. Robert also knew the Hamiltons well - he and Rev James Hamilton (who was another cousin of Hamilton jr.) were both ministers in Edinburgh and signed the Solemn League and Covenant together on 11 April that same year. They also both accompanied their friend and coleague James Guthrie to the gallows in 1661 when he was executed by order of King Charles II.

Some time in the 1650s, James Traill's payment for his military service was said to be "...land in lieu of his back pay and this land near Killyleagh he named Tullochin. The last portion of this property was sold in 1770, by his grt grandson, the Rev. Hamilton Trail, who died in 1795, aged 75." The land was part of the Killyleagh estate which was by now owned by his former protégé, James Hamilton jr. ( pic below of the church with Hamilton's Killyleagh castle in the distance - click to enlarge)



Hamilton jr. wrote his will on 18 June 1659, naming Lieut-Col Traill as one of his executors, and died just two days later on 20 June 1659. He was buried at Bangor Abbey. Traill himself died about four years later, on 18th May 1663 and was buried at Killyleagh. There is a large memorial to him inside Killyleagh Parish Church, just down the hill from James Hamilton's castle - and where the Rowan Hamiltons still live today. The inscription on the memorial reads:

"Heere lyeth the body of Lef. Col. Jam(es) Traille who having severall years faithfully served his mast. in ye warr against ye Irish Rebells departed th(is) life at Tollachin 18 May 1663, haveing had issue by his wife Mary Traille als Hamilton, daughter to John Hamilton of Hamiltons Baun in ye county of Ardmagh, Esqr., broth(er) to ye Right Honl. ye Lord Viscount Claneboys; 4 sons & 8 daughters, James, John, Hans, James, Jane, Ann, Mar(y), Mathelda, Sarah, Ellenor, Magdalen, Margaret. Here lieth the body of Elizabeth Trail alias Read of Hollypark who departed this life 10 Jan 1818. And also near to this lies the remains of her husband, the Revd. Archibald Hamilton Trail of Hollypark, Killinchy, who departed this life 16 Apr 1844 in the 89th year of his age."

There's a humourous, but derogatory, stereotype where the first generation of Ulster-Scots settlers are dismissed as "sheep stealers and cattle thieves" or (to use an often-abused mid 17th century source, Rev Andrew Stewart of Donaghadee, who wrote about the settlers from England and Scotland) "the scum of both nations". These might be amusing, but they're very far from the whole story. James Traill is a perfect example of a sophisticated Europhile who was as comfortable in his youth with the Ambassador in Paris as he was in later life in his wee townland outside Killyleagh in County Down.

And if you've got a spare £375,000, there's a very nice house for sale at Tullykin right now!

The Forgotten Holywood Revival, 1632-33

(NB: If you're reading this on Facebook, the original post is from my blog) In Crookshanks' History of the State and Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, there's an intriguing reference on page 129 to John Livingstone, one of the four Eagle Wing ministers, who had been the preacher at the famous Kirk O Shotts revival in 1630, where 500 people were converted in one day. The reference says:

"About two or three years after, such another, and a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit attended a sermon of his at a communion in Holywood in Ireland, where about a thousand were brought home to Christ..."

The story of the Ulster-Scots of the early 1600s is bound up in the lives of their ministers. Far more work needs to be done on this subject.

The Cromwellian "Scheme to Transplant the Scots from Ulster", 1653

(NB: If you're reading this on Facebook, the original post is from my blog)

Here's another example of why 1600s Ulster was not a "Plantation Paradise" for the Ulster Scots. Cromwell invaded Scotland following the defeat of the Covenanters at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. In 1652, his troops built a huge walled fort at Ayr (some sections are still visible today) in an effort to quell the troublesome Covenanter hotbed of south west Scotland. In 1654 Cromwell established a short-lived political union between Scotland and England.

On our side of the water, Cromwell's forces had also taken control, and a sizeable number of Ulster Scots were now under surveillance - because they would "neither promise nor give bond not to disturb the present Government". The Cromwellian authorities knew fine well that a fervent Ulster-Scots population, just across the narrow sea from their kinsfolk in Scotland ("...in two hours they may pass betwixt the headland of Cantyre and the coast of Ireland between Glenarm and Fair Foreland..."), spelled trouble.

The authorities decided that the coast was to be locked down, boats were to be seized, correspondence was to be intercepted. And people were to be rounded up.

KGB-like, they drew up a list of what might be called Ulster's most wanted, and proposed to arrest them and exile them to the farthest ends of Ireland - to Kilkenny, Tipperary or Waterford. The lists (at a glance I'm guessing probably 150 people, broken down into localities) are still available today. Many were men with military experience, others were leaders of their communities - and even the two great landowners of Co Down. Significant names include a Captain George Welch of Sixmilewater (perhaps a son of the minister Josias Welch, who was John Knox's grandson?), Hugh Montgomery III (Lord of the Ardes) and James Hamilton II (Lord Claneboy). I'll post more about the names sometime over the next few weeks.

The documents of the time (dated 24 April 1653) say "...we have some thoughts of transplanting some of the Scotch inhabitants into some of the towns of the South, if we can find the grounds to hold out for their removal, their number being at present almost equal with the English, which we judge very dangerous to be allowed..."

However, the deportations never happened.

But when Cromwell was replaced by the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, far worse was ahead for the Presbyterian Scots and Ulster-Scots - a 28 year period of overt and murderous state persecution. It began with almost every Presbyterian minister in Ulster being driven from his pulpit by armed troops, public executions in Edinburgh - and culminated in a period which would be later known in Scotland as "The Killing Times" when 18,000 would be killed, imprisoned or sent as slaves to the colonies. In its scant description of the period, a big local museum describes this as a time when "Ulster in particular recovered and prospered to a remarkable degree".

Aye right.

Book Launch - Alexander Peden - Kellswater

(NB: If you're reading this on Facebook, the original post is from my blog) It's taken a bit of time to organise, but the Alexander Peden book will be launched at the end of Feb at Kellswater Reformed Presbyterian Church in Co Antrim. Poster below (click to enlarge) as well as GoogleMap link for any of you who want to go but aren't sure of how to find the church. I contributed one chapter to the book - may well be saying a few words at the launch on Saturday - I'm very sure that Rev David Silversides will be worth hearing.




View Covenanters Heritage Trail - Ulster in a larger map

Andrew Melville and the Ulster Scots

In the course of various things I've been reading recently, there's an emerging strain that connects some of the most influential early lowland Scots in Ulster right back to the Reformation, and in particular via Glasgow University.

• Andrew Melville (photo of his statue in Stirling shown above, taken back in 2008) was John Knox's successor and a giant of his times, a Scot who spent time in France and Geneva as the Reformation soared. He "acquired European fame as an outstanding scholar in the literary world". By the time Melville reached the continent, John Calvin was dead, but Melville developed a close friendship with one of Calvin's closest associates, Theodore Beza. Andrew Melville came back to Scotland in 1574, becoming the Principal of Glasgow University. Melville blended his intellectual genius with spiritual leadership when he became the Moderator of the (Presbyterian) General Assembly in 1582. He famously humiliated King James VI by saying "Sirrah, ye are God's silly vassal; there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is king James, the head of the commonwealth; and there is Christ Jesus, the king of the Church, whose subject James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, not a lord, not a head, but a member." James never forgave him.

• 1605: Two of Andrew Melville's students were the architects of the first big Ulster-Scots settlement: - two Ayrshire Scots, Sir James Fullerton and Sir James Hamilton were at the centre of the land-deal with Irish Gaelic chieftain Con O'Neill of Clandeboye. Fullerton had been a student of Melville's at Glasgow University (described in McCrie's Life of Andrew Melville as "one of his most intimate and steady friends") and Hamilton was believed to have been one of Melville's students at St Andrews.

• Hamilton and Fullerton had arrived at Dublin in 1587 and set up a school. A few years later they were both made fellows of Trinity College Dublin where they influenced and educated the young James Ussher*, the future Archbishop of Armagh. It has been said of Ussher that "in his earlier life he held rigidly the opinions of Calvin" (reference here), no doubt passed down to him by Hamilton and Fullerton, both of whom had been trained by Andrew Melville.

• 1606: Melville imprisoned / the settlement begins - By this stage King James VI of Scotland had become even more powerful, having also become King of England and Ireland in 1603. In 1606 he summoned Melville and some other Scottish ministers to London, where Melville vigourously protested against the King's ambitions to become head of the Church. Melville argued that a free General Assembly was essential - so the king had him arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London for four years. It is hard to imagine the effect that the loss and vindictive persecution of a man like Melville would have had on Presbyterian Scotland. That same year the General Assembly had its first experience of what was described as 32 years of "kingly interference". 1606 was of course also the year that the aforementioned James Hamilton, and Hamilton's Ayrshire neighbour and rival Hugh Montgomery, began the large-scale permanent lowland Scots settlement of east Ulster. And as increasingly anti-Presbyterian laws were being regularly passed in Scotland in the early 1600s, the migration of Scots to Ulster grew stronger and stronger. A flow of young ministers followed the flow of people.

• 1606 - 1623: Glasgow University after Melville: Melville never returned to Scotland (after being released from the Tower he was forced into exile in France for the rest of his life) but his intellectual and spiritual legacy lived on. He was succeeded at Glasgow University by Thomas Smeaton (who had been in Geneva with Melville in the 1570s) and later by Robert Boyd. Boyd appointed a young Ayrshire graduate called Robert Blair to be Regent of the University. Blair would later become renowned in Ulster-Scots history as the minister at Bangor and the effective leader of the Ulster-Scots. At Glasgow, Blair's students included a James Hamilton (future minister at Ballywalter) and John Livingstone (future minister at Killinchy). During Blair's time at the University, one of his professorial colleagues was David Dickson, who later became minister at Blair's home town of Irvine in Ayrshire, and who was involved in the famous revival at nearby Stewarton. At exactly the same time Blair, Hamilton (and later) Livingstone were at the centre of the simultaneous Ulster revival just across the North Channel, centred around Sixmilewater.

• 1623 to the 1660s: The three young ministers and Glasgow graduates Blair, Hamilton and Livingstone became three of the most important figures in Ulster-Scots / Scots struggle of the Covenanters against the interference and opposition of the state against the will of the people - an experience which forged a Scottish migration into a solid Ulster-Scots community. All three stood against the increasingly tyrannical crown, all three were onboard Eagle Wing, after which all three returned to Scotland - where they played a central role in church and community life until their deaths.

• Melvilles in Ulster: According to the Montgomery Manuscripts, Melvilles who were descended from Andrew's brother James began to arrive in County Down, from Fife, around 1610 - in fact, a Jane Melville married William Hamilton of Newcastle in the Ards Peninsula, a younger brother of Sir James Hamilton.

Perhaps these Melvilles were just following the path which their ancestor Andrew Melville had laid the foundations for.

(* for more information about James Ussher, Crawford Gribben's book is hard to beat!)

The Ulster fingerprints on the 1650 Scottish Psalter

A Psalter is a book of Psalms to be sung in churches, arranged in meter to suit particular tunes. Growing up in the gospel hall and mission hall world - where there was a fair bit of time spent speculating about the future rather than understanding the past - we didn't use a Psalter, we used the Believers Hymnbook on Sunday morning and Redemption Songs the rest of the time, both of which were full of centuries-old hymns, as well as other more recent ones from the late 1800s and early 1900s. However I was struck to discover that the 1650 edition of the Psalter remained as the standard until it was revised in 1929.

When the 1650 edition was being prepared, the Church of Scotland appointed a group of six ministers to review the work. First on the list (recorded on p 288 of Treasury of the Scottish Covenant) is James Hamilton of Ballywalter, who at this time was ministering in Edinburgh. Also among the six were Robert Trail (whose brother William was a minister at Ballindrait in Donegal) and Hew McKail (whose father Matthew had been in Ulster in early 1644 - but I can't find my reference to this at the moment).

The critics of Ulster-Scots usually focus on the Plantation of Ulster of 1610 and infer it was a one-way single event from which all of the subsequent ills of Ireland have grown, usually with the subtext of alleged invasion and dispossession of the native Irish. In the Plantation (in addition to other allocations to "servitors", the church and the London companies) 59 Scots were granted 81,000 acres / 51 Englishmen were granted 81,500 acres / 280 Irishmen were granted 94,000 acres.

However, the reality is that there has been an ongoing two-way flow for (at least) four centuries between Scotland and Ulster. Even today, a quick spin down my Facebook friends list shows that a lot of people I went to school with ended up settling in Scotland. The 1650 Psalter is another example of this exchange, with clear Ulster fingerprints on its' production.

PS: There's a chronology of the Psalter here on Wikipedia and an excellent in-depth article here by Rev David Silversides of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Loughbrickland, County Down

James Hamilton, William Veitch, John Welsh, Alexander Peden, Robert Blair and William Adair

Just back from two very busy and enjoyable days in south west Scotland. After playing at Carryduff Presbyterian Church hall on Saturday evening (with the mighty Risin Stour and the Clan Davidson Highland Dancers) I headed for the last ferry, arrived in Stranraer about 1.30am, and drove through the night to the Station Hotel in Dumfries, getting there about 3.10am. The next morning I spoke at the annual Covenanter Memorial Service at St Michael's Kirk. I was invited by Jack Dodds, who spoke about their former minister William Veitch (a Covenanter who survived the carnage of Rullion Green in 1666), and I spoke about the general Ulster links and also about Rev James Hamilton of Ballywalter, who was minister of St Michaels from 1638 - 1648. I shared in a simple communion beside Veitch's grave, and then enjoyed lunch with Jack and his wife Avril. Also met some folk originally from Newtownards and Millisle who are members of the congregation, and another man who lives in Dumfries but is across in Northern Ireland regularly with his work. Drove up into Ayrshire past Irongray (where Ulster-born John Welsh was the minister), then to Alexander Peden's grave at Cumnock, before meeting up with Dane and Hazel Love at their home outside Auchinleck. Dane's hot-off-the-presses Covenanter Encyclopedia is excellent - get a copy! On Monday morning I spent time in the Carnegie Library in Ayr, and managed to locate the surviving tower of former Bangor minister Robert Blair's church in Ayr - and also a memorial to William Adair at the Auld Kirk (Adair was one of the four ministers who brought the Solemn League and Covenant to Ulster in 1644). An exahusting few days, but very worthwhile in pinning down yet more Ulster-Scots history, and in making connections with good people on the other side of the Sheugh.

New Alexander Peden (Covenanter) book - just £6.99!

I'll be advertising a few Covenanter related things over the next week or so. First up is the new 108 page book "Some Remarkable Passages of the Life and Death of Alexander Peden, Prophet and Covenanter, in Scotland and Ulster". It's a reprint of a 1755 Belfast edition, and has a new Foreword, Biography, selection of Historical Poems, an article entitled "The Unforetold Legacy" and an article entitled "Publishing Peden". It contains 26 photographs and illustrations. Put this on your Christmas list!

It's hot off the presses - copies are already available here from the Ulster-Scots Language Society - you can either buy online or from their premises. Alternatively, phone Derek on 028 9043 6716.

A big thank you to everyone who helped so willingly in its production - Jack, William, Glen, Alastair, Dane, Derek and the folk at the Ullans Press. (It's mostly in English, with just the historical poems and one quotation in light Scots). Click the photos to enlarge.



From the back cover:
Alexander Peden - the man whose prophecies enthralled the rebels of 1798, who lived the life of a fugitive on the Glenwhirry moors, and whose memory is perpetuated by a faithful band of Covenanters who still gather at the Mistyburn in his memory. In the era of the “chapmen”, the door-to-door pedlars who sold cheap and popular literature, Alexander Peden fascinated readers in Scotland, Ulster and America for centuries after his death. This reprint of the 1755 Belfast edition contains many stories of Peden’s life in Ulster, and gives Peden his rightful place as one of the most important figures in Ulster-Scots history.

The Covenanters in Ulster - coming soon to BBC Radio Ulster

Last Saturday, Dr William Roulston and I spent most of the day with Laura Spence of BBC Northern Ireland, and Elizabeth Rice and David Walker of Blackthorn Productions. We recorded a special edition of Radio Ulster's "A Kist o Wurds" about the Covenanters in Ulster - it will be broadcast in three weeks' time at 4pm on Sunday 1st November and repeated at 7.30pm on Wednesday 4th November.

It comes hot on the heels of an edition of Kist where Laura, Elizabeth and I did a lengthy but fairly informal piece about Newtownards Priory, and a shorter piece about very rare edition of the Montgomery Manuscripts, which had been discovered by my old friend Jim Tollerton of Stacks Bookshop in Dundonald. That programme was broadcast on 20 September, and I had lots of positive comments about from folk who heard it.

• BBC Radio Scotland have also recently made a programme about the Covenanter "prophet" Alexander Peden which will be broadcast over the coming weeks too. I understand it will be presented by Richard Holloway, Chair of the Scottish Arts Council. He presented the tv series "The Sword and the Cross" a few years ago which also touched on the Covenanters.

• I'm told that BBC Scotland television have also completed an hour-long episode of their mega series A History of Scotland about the Covenanters. The first five episodes in the series dealt with ancient and medieval Scotland and were originally broadcast this time last year (they've recently been repeated on BBC Four). The second five episodes begin in the late 1500s and will be broadcast starting on 8th November, with the last of the original five programmes, "Project Britain" currently viewable online on BBC iPlayer. The series is presented by Neil Oliver.

The Covenanters' story deserves a wider Ulster stage than just 30 minutes on radio - and sadly I expect that the BBC Scotland programmes will reduce Ulster to a footnote - but hopefully the programme will be a first step to something bigger. With thanks to everyone for the enormous graft that's gone into making the programme happen.

(The photo above is of the Alexander Peden memorial at Glenwherry, County Antrim - just up the Douglas Road at Mistyburn. Click to enlarge)

Bothwell Bridge, 20 June 1903

(click to enlarge)

This photo is from the "Bothwell Bridge National Memorial" book, which was produced following the installation of the monument to the many Covenanters who fought and died on this spot in 1679. 224 years after the battle, 25,000 - 30,000 spectators gathered for the installation event.

Of the many dignatories on the Committee which organised the monument and event was Lord Rosebery. He had been Prime Minister from 1894 - 1895, and in a speech in Edinburgh in November 1911 (where he shared the platform with Whitelaw Reid, the US Ambassador to Britain who was of Co Tyrone Covenanter descent) Rosebery famously said:

"I love Highlanders and I love Lowlanders, but when I come to that branch of our race that has been grafted on to the Ulster stem, I take off my hat in veneration and in awe. They are, I believe, without exception the toughest, the most dominant, the most irresistible race that exists in the universe at this moment."

Alexander Peden and Alex Salmond

What might these two have in common, apart from their first names? Well, back in 2007 when Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, visited Stormont he gave a speech with a very emotive reference in it. In reference to the links between Scotland and Ulster, he said:

"...You are the blood of our blood and the bone of our bone..."

That made a quite few people really sit up and take notice. He had used the same figure of speech a few days previously on BBC Northern Ireland's "Hearts and Minds" programme in preparation for his visit.

It's not the kind of thing most people say in daily speech. So I was amazed to find when I was reading Alexander Peden's The exact Copy of a Letter from Mr. Alexander Peden to the Prisoners in Dunnottar Castle, in the Month of July 1685, pretty much the same terminology, but in a different context:

"...to send all the Elect into the world, and to deliver them all fairly to CHRIST; and also to give him a Body, Flesh of their Flesh and Bone of their Bone; and to carry CHRIST through in all his Undertaking in that Work, and to hold him by the Hand..."

Now it could be coincidental (can I suggest coincidence with a Calvinist Covenanter?!) but it is very interesting...

The view to Scotland from the Copeland Islands

We took a boat trip this afternoon out to the Copeland Islands just off Donaghadee. It was a beautiful clear day - here's a photo of Scotland taken from the Copelands this afternoon. You can see wind turbines on the hilltop - probably at Artfield, Drumphail - close to the Covenanter Alexander Peden's old home kirk of New Luce. Click to enlarge:



And it wasn't due to some enormous zoom lens - here's another pic with the shoreline of the island in the foreground, so you get a real sense of the distance. Again, click to enlarge:



From Cloughey to Coleraine, everybody who has ever lived along the coastline will know how close Scotland is, and how natural Ulster-Scots is. Shame that the hostile media talking heads all live in suburbia around greater Belfast...

Finally, as we neared the Islands, the boat stopped at a nearby seal colony to feed the seals with fresh mackerel. Short video clip is below. You could fly to SeaWorld in Florida for a similar experience at a cost of many thousands of pounds - but why bother when you can get the same for £6 a head at Donaghadee?!

The General Assembly of 1638

Following the tumultous scenes in Scotland with the signing of Scotland's National Covenant on 28th February 1638, a General Assembly was held on 21 November of the same year, at Glasgow Cathedral. It was a revolutionary meeting which saw the Covenanters take control of the Kirk and effectively seize power in Scotland. Of the 204 men gathered there to represent every Presbytery in Scotland were some of Ulster interest:

Eagle Wing passengers:
James Hamilton, Minister at Dumfries (ex Ballywalter)
John Mackleland, Minister at Kirkcudbright (ex Newtownards)
John Livingstone, Minister at Stranraer (ex Killinchy)
Robert Blair, Minister at Ayr (ex Bangor)
John Stewart, former Provost of Ayr

Eagle Wing had returned in failure to Ulster in November 1636. But exactly two years later these five men were at the very centre of the new political power in Scotland.

also of interest are:
James Blair, Minister at Portmontgomerie (the era when Portpatrick was renamed by Hugh Montgomery in honour of himself)
The Earl of Eglinton (Sir Hugh Montgomery's cousin)

The full list is extensive and includes great men such as Samuel Rutherford (Minister at Anwoth) David Dickson (Irvine), Archibald Campbell, James Sharp (later to be assassinated when he switched sides) and Alexander Henderson. With thanks to Stephen Gregory at Union College for his assistance last week, which led to me getting the full list of attendees.