might atone for a crime of this nature. But the high-commission, not thinking that sufficient, ordered those criminals to be brought before them. Accordingly, the four boys and this woman, with two brothers of hers of the name of Turnbull, were brought prisoners to Edinburgh. The four boys confessed, that, upon Scot's beating the woman, they had thrown each his stone. The commissioner told them that hanging was too good for them. However, the sentence of this merciless court only was, that they should be scourged through the city of Edinburgh, burnt in the face with a hot iron, and then sold as slaves to Barbadoes. The boys endured their punishment like men and Christians, to the admiration of multitudes. The two brothers were banished to Virginia; and the woman was ordered to be whipped through the town of Jedburgh. Burnet, bishop of Glasgow, when applied to that she might be spared lest she should be with child, mildly answered, That he would make them claw the itch out of her shoulders.’
335
They were invested with such immense power, that ‘the old set of bishops made by the parliament, 1612, were but pigmies to the present high and mighty lords.’ Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 262. See also, at p. 286, the remarks of Douglas: ‘It is no wonder then the complaint against their bishops be, that their little finger is thicker than the loins of the former.’
336
In 1663, Middleton was dismissed; and was succeeded by Lauderdale, who ‘was dependent upon the prelates, and was compelled to yield to their most furious demands.’ Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 33. ‘The influence, or rather the tyranny, which was thus at the discretion of the prelates, was unlimited; and they exercised it with an unsparing hand.’ Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 284.
337
‘Sir James Turner, that commanded them, was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk; and that was very often.’ Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 364. Kirkton (History of the Church, p. 221) says: ‘Sir James Turner hade made ane expedition to the west countrey to subdue it to the bishops, in the year 1664; another in the year 1665; and a third in the year 1666; and this was the worst.’ Full particulars will be found in Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 373–375, 411, vol. ii. pp. 8, 17, vol. iii. pp. 264, 265. ‘This method of dragooning people to the church, as it is contrary to the spirit of Christianity, so it was a stranger in Scotland, till Bishop Sharpe and the prelates brought it in.’ vol. i. p. 401.
Sir James Turner, whose Memoirs, written by himself, were not published till thirty years ago, relates an anecdote of his own drunkenness in a strain of maudlin piety well worthy of his career. Turner's Memoirs of his own Life, Edinburgh, 1829, 4to, pp. 42, 43. At p. 206, this impudent man writes: ‘And yet I confesse, my humour never was, nor is not yet, one of the calmest; when it will be, God onlie knoues; yet by many sad passages of my life, I know that it hath beene good for me to be afflicted.’ Perhaps, however, he may take the benefit of his assertion (p. 144), ‘that I was so farre from exceeding or transgressing my commission and instructions, that I never came the full length of them.’ Considering the cruelties he committed, what sort of instructions could his superiors have given to him?
338
‘Sir James Turner lately had forced Galloway to rise in arms, by his cruelty the last and former years; but he was an easy master, compared with General Dalziel, his ruffians, and Sir William Bannatyne, this year.’ Wodrow's Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 62. Dalziel ‘cruelly tortured whom he would.’ p. 63. One woman ‘is brought prisoner to Kilmarnock, where she was sentenced to be let down to a deep pit, under the house of the dean, full of toads and other vile creatures. Her shrieks thence were heard at a great distance.’ p. 64. Two countrymen were ‘bound together with cords, and hanged up by their thumbs to a tree, there to hang all night.’ Ibid. Sir William Bannatyne's soldiers seized a woman, ‘and bound her, and put lighted matches betwixt her fingers for several hours; the torture and pain made her almost distracted; she lost one of her hands, and in a few days she died.’ Ibid. ‘Oppressions, murders, robberies, rapes.’ p. 65. ‘He made great fires, and laid down men to roast before them, when they would not, or could not, give him the money he required, or the information he was seeking.’ p. 104. See also Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 204–207. The History is based upon Wodrow's great work, but contains many facts with which Wodrow was unacquainted. See Crookshank, vol. i. p. 11. Respecting the outrages in 1667, there are some horrible details in a book published in that very year, under the title of Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland. See, especially, the summary at p. 174: ‘wounding, beating, stripping and imprisoning mens persons, violent breaking of their houses both by day and night, and beating and wounding of wives and children, ravishing and deflowring of women, forcing wives and other persons by fired matches and other tortures to discover their husbands and nearest relations, although it be not within the compass of their knowledge, and driving and spoiling all their goods that can be carried away, without respect to guilt or innocency.’
339
‘That whosoever without licence or authoritie forsaid shall preach, expound Scripture, or pray at any of these meetings in the ffeild, or in any house wher ther be moe persons nor the house contains, so as some of them be without doors (which is hereby declared to be a feild conventicle), or who shall convocat any number of people to these meetings, shall be punished with death and confiscation of ther goods.’ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 9, edit. 1820, folio. This was on the 13th August 1670.
340
The immediate pretence being, to do away with appeals. See Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 72–74.
341
‘Savage hosts of Highlanders were sent down to depopulate the western shires, to the number of ten or eleven thousand, who acted most outrageous barbarities, even almost to the laying some counties desolate.’ A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ, edit. Glasgow, 1779, p. 18. But most authorities state the number to have been eight thousand. See Kirkton's History, p. 386; Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 154; Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. ii. p. 134; Denholm's History of Glasgow, p. 67; and Life and Sufferings of John Nisbet, in Select Biographies, published by the Wodrow Society, vol. ii. p. 381. Chalmers, however, in his Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 592, says 10,000.
342
‘They were indemnified against all pursuits, civil and criminal, on account of killing, wounding, apprehending, or imprisoning, such as should oppose them.’ Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 337, 338.
343
Short and imperfect notices of this ‘Highland Host,’ as it was called at the time, may be found in Kirkton's History, pp. 385–390, and in Crookshank's History, vol. i. pp. 354, 355. But the fullest account of the enormities committed by these barbarians, is in Wodrow's great work, collected from authentic and official documents. See his History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 375–413, 421–432, vol. iii. pp. 76, 79, 486. They were provided beforehand with implements of torture. ‘They had good store of iron shackles, as if they were to lead back vast numbers of slaves, and thumb-locks, as they call them’ (i. e. thumb-screws), ‘to make their examinations and trials with.’ vol. ii. p. 389. ‘In some places they tortured people, by scorching their bodies at vast fires, and other wise,’ vol. ii. p. 422. Compare Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 88. ‘Neither age nor sex was exempt from outrage, and torture was freely employed to extort a confession of hidden wealth.’ And, at p. 91, ‘The Highlanders, after exacting free quarters, and wasting the country for three months, were dismissed to their hills with impunity and wealth.’
344
‘Indeed, the whole of the severity, hardships, and bloodshed from this year’ (1661), ‘until the revolution, was either actually brought on by the bishops, procured by them, or done for their support.’ Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland,
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