Covenanter Prisons. The Covenanter story is very much about imprisonment whether of the many ministers cast into prison for their beliefs and resistance to episcopacy; or the people who took up armed resistance and their life in their hands to attend conventicles. There was also the invidious open imprisonment of banishment to remote places within […]
The Covenanters, Who Were They ? A snapshot view. The history and the changes that occurred in Scotland – and subsequently in Ireland – through the 17th and early 18th centuries are highly charged by one word: Covenanters. So who were they and why were they so influential? It is easy to say that they […]
The Rye House Plot 1683 Monmouth The Ryehouse Plot was a scheme in 1683 with the object of assassinating King Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York (later James II ) in order to secure the succession of the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II and Lucy Walter. Born in […]
Trade memorials and gravestones. Throughout the 17th century there was increasing competition between the burgh merchants and the trade guilds. The merchants for a long time held the positions of authority and power, in part due to the fact that they also had money to spend and lend. The merchants of the City of London […]
The Lanthorn of Light. Articles contained in an English Book, entitled, ‘The Lanthorn of Light” printed and published by John Clayton (Claydon, or Clayborn) in 1415. The book was deemed heretical and burnt while John Clayton himself was declared a heretic by diktat of Henry Chichesley, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was committed to the secular […]
Burning at the stake Both Catholics and Protestants had their martyrs but execution by burning at the stake was a punishment normally inflicted for heresy and witchcraft. The method was first approved for use against heretics by the Synod of Verona in 1184 and subsequently confirmed by the Lateran Council of 1215 and the Synod […]
Title: Defender of the Faith. Extract : Acts & Monuments John Foxe, Ed Rev. Geo. Townsend. Vol IV p 294 fn. This might well be titled `good works rewarded` – a script for a 1920`s black and white silent film. It is of note that as late as 1521, the date of the title, the […]
The Papal Bull 23 March 1534. The Effect in English of Pope Clement’s Sentence definitive, against the Divorce of Queen Katherine. Translation from Foxes Monuments, Ed Rev Geo. Townsend,(1846) vol 5 p 658. The effect of this sentence is as much as to mean in English, that ” pope Clement VII. with the consent of […]
Military Orders. During the eleventh century Europe saw a resurgence of religious ardour led by the preaching of Peter the Hermit. This translated itself into chivalry and taking up of arms to secure the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the Moslems. The consequence was the formation of the monastic orders of the Trinitarians; Knights […]
Definition of Benefice from a modern Catholic Encyclopaedia. (Lat. Beneficium, a benefit) Popularly the term benefice is often understood to denote either certain property destined for the support of ministers of religion, or a spiritual office or function, such as the care of souls, but in the strict sense it signifies a right, i. e. […]
Blackness Castle Blackness Castle at Falkirk, stands on the tip of a headland jutting out into the Forth and was designed, in 1440, to protect the port of Blackness and the hinterland of Linlithgow . A former castle home it was strengthened and turned into a military fortification by Sir James Hamilton of Finnart in […]
Rev William Guthrie of Fenwick. Fenwick is a small village to the north of Kilmarnock in Ayrshire but it sits large in the annals of the Covenanters. A centre for resistance despite the close proximity of military garrisons at Kilmarnock and Newmilns. It was an area subject to repeated raids by the dragoons which is […]
Rev James Guthrie of Stirling It seems so easy to dismiss a persons life and efforts for whatever cause, in the hindsight of history. The return of King Charles to the throne in 1660 resulted in the restoration of the king to his throne, his privy council, the Scottish parliament and judiciary and the return […]
Copy of a Letter, [ allegedly ] written under the King’s authority, to restrain the Benefices of the Romans within the Realm, AD 1231 In consequence of sundry griefs and oppressions which this realm, as you know, hath sustained by the Romanists, and yet doth as well to the prejudice of the king himself, as […]