The original stones of James Kirko or Kirka of Sundaywell

 The stones of James Kirko or Kirka of Sundaywell, Dunscore.

James Kirk , also spelt Kirko, was one of two elders present with Rev John Guthrie of Stirling, who made a petition to Charles II on his restoration in 1660. The second elder, Andrew Hay of Craignethan, escaped , but Kirk and Guthrie were imprisoned for several months. He was suspected of taking part in the Pentland Rising and at Rullion Green in 1666. He was much vexed by the military and for three years he left the country to escape them. His house was a well used resting place by the coventicling ministers Blackadder, Welsh and Semple. He became an intercommuned person forced to wander in the moors and hills for nearly twenty years. He was betrayed by an informer and shot on the Whitesands, Dumfries for refusing to take the Abjuration Oath. The story is that he asked for more time to make his peace with God but Captain Andrew Bruce, his captor, rebuked him  thus ” Devil a peace ye get more made up “, and had him shot on the spot. There is a modern memorial on the Whitesands, Dumfries, next the river, with a St Andrews cross of stones set in the pavement.

This fragment  reads:

BY BLOODY BRUCE AND WRETCHED WRIGHT I LOST MY LIFE IN GREAT DESPIGHT SHOT DEAD, WITHOUT DUE TIME TO TRY AND FIT ME FOR ETERNITY, A WITNESS OF PRELATICK RAGE

AS EVER WAS IN ANIE AGE.

 Back to Old Mortality stones.

The stones of William Welsh.