Scotland

Two young Scottish women were caught in the British wars of religion and executed for little more than being present at a Covenanter’s open-air revival meetings. Both women were uneducated. Marion Harvie was a servant to the wealthy, and so little is known of Isabel Alison that she is described simply as “living in Perth.” Their deaths signaled no victory for the British crown, no gain in the battle to suppress the Scottish spirit. Caught in events to which they were quiet observers, nonetheless they went to the gallows singing. The first of the Scottish covenant bands appeared in 1557, and fora century these religious dissenters preached a clear gospel, whilesimultaneously mounting a military campaign for independence fromEngland. A “killing time” followed the 1679 assassination of the king’sarchbishop, James Sharp. Charles II had restored the monarchy inEngland in 1662, and was not about to allow another rebellion like theone that severed the head of Charles I. The Covenanters must bestopped — annihilated. So in late 1680 the crown’s agents conductedraids against commoners who had any association with the likes ofDonald Cargill or Richard Cameron. Alison was taken from her home in Perth and Harvie from Borrowstounness. Each was interrogated concerning

Kill a martyr; make a follower. If only England had known what the deaths of Scottish Covenanter leaders would do for the movement, and how those courageous men and women would light a fire of faith among the next generation. So it was for nineteen-year-old James Renwick, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh despite his family’s humble means. Renwick had watched Donald Cargill die, had heard his stirring last words, and had seen his head and hands strung up on Netherbow Gate. That day Renwick determined to carry the mantle, to be a Covenanter preacher. He turned out to be a very good one. He was clear, sincere, and passionate. In the meetings he held along hillside heather and valley stream, hundreds would hear him preach about a gospel centered on Christ, a church free of state control, and a destiny of joy that God had prepared for each person who trusted the Savior. Cargill would have been proud to hear him and see him evade capture time and time again. One time, Renwick traveled to Newton Stewart for a series of outdoor meetings, called conventicles. During his stay at the town’s inn, anofficer of the king’s army, also

He was young and brave, a Scotsman who believed that nohuman, peasant or king, was head of Christ’s church, butChrist alone. Hugh McKail said so in the last sermon he preached, on the Sunday before all Presbyterian Covenanters were deposed in favor of Charles II’s episcopacy. His words that day were food to the people but poison to the state. Young Pastor McKail fled to Europe and safety. Virtually nothing is known of McKail’s birth and growing years.After studying at the University of Edinburgh, he was ordained at theage of twenty, only a year after Charles II had rejuvenated the monarchyfollowing Oliver Cromwell’s failed experiment in popular sovereignty. McKail was a Scotsman. He could neither travel forever nor ignorehis calling to the Scottish church. Four years in hiding was enough. Hereturned to Galloway to watch and wait. When his fellow Covenanterstook up swords and clubs against the British, he couldn’t be content sitting quietly at his hearth. Whether McKail became a fighter is uncertain, but certainly heknew the Covenanter captains and likely traveled with them. In November 1666 he was captured and tortured for information, which apparently he withheld despite a metal wedge being hammered into his leg,shattering the bone.

As he was about to be burned at the stake, Walter Mill confidently and courageously exclaimed: I marvel at your rage, ye hypocrites, who do so cruelly pursue the servants of God! As for me, I am now eighty-two years old, and cannot live long by course of nature; but a hundred shall rise out of my ashes, who shall scatter you, ye hypocrites and persecutors of God’s people; and such of you as now think yourselves the best, shall not die such an honest death as I do now. I trust in God, I shall be the last who shall suffer death in this fashion for the cause of this land! His words were prophetic because he was, in fact, the last martyr ofthe early reformation in Scotland. Born in 1476, Mill became a priest in Angus County, Scotland.Impressed by the teachings of the reformers, he questioned the churchhierarchy and theology and stopped saying Mass. So as a young man,he was condemned to death for his defiance of the church. Eventually,in 1538, Mill was arrested, but he escaped to Germany where he ministered for twenty years. At the age of eighty-two, he returned to teach the Protestant faithand live

John Nesbit was a fighter, a soldier in the Thirty Years War on theContinent, a warrior among the Scottish Covenanters. But hesuffered scars and wounds of the heart nearly more severe thanthose of the body. By the time he was captured and tried, he wasalready taking leave of the struggles he had seen on Earth and waseager for Heaven. When Nesbit returned from war in Europe, King Charles II hadbegun to impose his will on Scotland and the Scottish church, a willopposed by the determined free-church Covenanters. They resisted anyking as church-head and the king’s priests as intermediaries. The Covenanters believed with equal ferocity in Christ alone as head of thechurch and armed resistance as the right of all who seek to worshipthat way. The Covenanters would not bow to Charles without a fight. But Nesbit had other business, too. He married Margaret Lawand they raised a family. He kept a handwritten New Testamentpassed on to him from a great-grandfather who was one of the barefoot preachers sent to England in the fourteenth century by JohnWycliffe. He studied, learned, worked, prayed, and often hid fromCharles’s dragoons. But he couldn’t hide forever. Severely injured on the field at RullianGreen, Nesbit was