Читать книгу Walking in the Southern Uplands. 44 best hill days in southern Scotland онлайн

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Covenanters were at their strongest in Galloway, Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire. In 1667 their small army of rebellion marched on Edinburgh and was defeated at Rullion Green in the Pentlands. This marked the start of the Killing Times, when redcoats recruited from the Highlands broke up conventicles with muskets, and arrested, interrogated and tortured locals. Anyone too slow in renouncing their Protestant extremism went to Edinburgh for hanging in Greyfriars kirkyard or, in less serious cases, for transportation to the plantations of the West Indies. The victims responded with what today would be called terrorist attacks, such as the murder in 1677 of the Archbishop of St Andrews. Both sides believed that any cruelties were entirely justified as they had God entirely on their side, while their opponents belonged to Satan.

In 1688 James II (James VII of Scotland) was thrown out of England. The replacement joint monarchs, William and Mary of Orange, were moderate Protestants, and the Killing Times thus came to an end. The Covenanters were in effect the winners – the Church of Scotland is still Presbyterian. Accordingly, the Covenanting victims of the persecution became ‘martyrs’, whose stone memorials are in churchyards and on hillsides all over the Southern Uplands.