Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston. Some people seem to be born to follow a particular profession and so it was for Archibald Johnston born to a merchant father, a burgess of Edinburgh, in March 1611. His grandfather Sir Thomas Craig was a advocate of note and the author of a book on Feudal Law. An aunt […]
Sir Hugh Campbell of Cessnock The vagaries of the Privy Council included attempts to ruin and hang (if possible) members of several prominent families including Gordon of Earlston and Sir Hugh Campbell, the Laird of Cessnock. Both families were of Lollard sympathies and their ancestors had been friends of Alesius and other Reformers. With this […]
Augsburg Confession In 1529 – 30 The Emperor, Charles V, finally made his way to Germany having reconciled himself with Francis I of France, the Pope and seen the Turks turn back from the eastern borders. He now envisaged the completion of his work – the extirpation of Luther and Lutheranism decreed in the Edict […]
A Waldensian Time Line. Pope Event 2nd Century Manichean heresy – belief in two Gods; later attributed to Cathari or Albigenses. 314-316 Sylvester Break from Church of Rome. 364 Vigilantius preaching in Cottian Alps. 800 Waldensian forebears in the Valleys of Piedmont. 817- 839 Claude Bishop of Turin; opponent of images etc.Taught Justification by […]
Rev. Alexander Peden, Alexander Peden was born about 1626 in the house of Auchincloich in the northern part of the Parish of Sorn, Ayrshire. He was the eldest son and heir to his father a small proprietor of land who by the standards of the day was quite well off. Thus the young Alexander received […]
Witchcraft The occult and fear of the unknown has been with man from time immemorial and has bred many cults with strange practices that continue today. A feature picked on by critics of the Protestant Reformation is the allegation that it was responsible for witchcraft in the century and a half after the Reformation in […]
The monasteries and the people. The church organisation that prevailed in Scotland until the Reformation was essentially a monastic one. By virtue of their wealth, territorial possessions and their real or presumed sanctity, the monasteries exercised a predominating influence on the people. The system replaced the simple and selfless Celtic church of St Columba with […]
Local Taxation, an emerging fact of life in the burgeoning towns. One of the hard lessons that had to be learnt by the people from the seventeenth century onwards, was that everything has its price. They knew full well of old that taxes were necessary to pay for defence and war and had discharged their […]
The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland after the Reformation of 1560. Despite the stringent action against the Catholics, the abolition of the Pope`s authority, and dire penalties for hearing the Mass, there remained an influential core of its supporters. The nation had not been unanimous in its acceptance of Presbyterianism; the northern parts of Inverness, […]
Seventeenth century burials. In the sixteenth century the common man and woman was usually buried in an unmarked grave and without a coffin, the body perhaps wrapped in a shroud if one could be afforded. In some, but not all, areas, the shroud for the poor was provided by the Kirk Session , or by […]
Uniformity, Act of 19 May 1662 (England) An Act for the Uniformity of Public Prayer and Administration of Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies; and for Establishing the Form of Making, Ordaining and Consecrating, Bishops, Priests and Deacons in the Church of England. This Act was part of what has been called the Clarendon Code, […]
Presbyterians in Ireland – So many Oaths to take. Presbyterians were in Ireland before the Plantation period and, moreover, were in the south. The Rev Walter Travers, first Provost of Trinity College, Dublin was a Presbyterian minister as was his successor, the Rev. Henry Alvey who became the first Vice Chancellor. James Hamilton, later Lord […]
The Bass Rock The Bass Rock lies about two miles off the North Berwick coast although it looks closer, and is opposite the ancient castle of Tantallon. Today it is a well known sea bird sanctuary with a large colony of about 100,000 gannets, but it has a much darker past as a singularly desolate […]
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Thomas Wentworth was the second son ( and third of twelve children) of William Wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire and was born on Good Friday, 13 April 1593 at a house in Chancery Lane, London, owned by his father in law. His father was a wealthy […]