BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
(Continued from page 219.)
MRS. RONALDSON (HELEN STIRK) OF PERTH.*
* Most of this sketch appeared already in the Protestant Woman.
IN the long list of names of men and women who have proved faithful unto death, Scotland, small among the nations of the world, recognises among them not a few of her own sons and daughters. Forgetful she may be of her priceless heritage, but the rehearsal of the noble deeds of these faithful martyrs can still touch a chord in the hearts of Scotsmen the wide world over. Are not her heather clad hills redolent with memories of her martyred dead? For
“On many a lonely mountain waste, by many a trackless way,
A cairn tells where a hero sleeps, to Scotland of to-day.”
But long ere the Covenant times, with its deeds of high heroism on the one hand, or of fiendish cruelty on the other, Scotland had its baptism of fire. True, in passing from the darkness of Popery to the light of the Gospel, she had not to pay such a price in blood as the sister kingdom. But if the faggots did not burn so fiercely in the Northern Kingdom, still there were not a few who passed through the fiery ordeal on the way to their everlasting rest. Among these were some women who, to use the Apostle’s words, “out of weakness were made strong.” There is something peculiarly ennobling in the sight of a frail woman standing on the scaffold or meeting courageously the advancing waves of the sea. To woman has been denied to a certain degree the high virtue of courage—at least she has it in a less degree than man. And, besides this, the tenderness of a woman’s feelings adds to the terrible ordeal. So when the awful crisis comes as to whether she will face the fire and break the ties, the strength of which only a woman’s heart can feel, who can tell how terrible the trial must be? Such examples, then, of noble womanhood are a precious inheritance to the Church of Christ. It is to some of these that we would seek to direct attention in this series of papers. Some of them were of lowly origin, but rich in faith; others, again, occupied high social positions in this world, but their chief ornament was a “meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” The first honoured name on the list of Scottish women martyrs is Mrs. Ronaldson nee Helen Stirke, of Perth, or St. Johnston, as it was then called. Froude, in his exquisite literary style, has done justice to her memory in his History of England (vol. iv., p. 17), and Alane or Alesius writing to Melanchthon makes the following reference to these martyrs—
“Three days ago,” he says, “there were several countrymen of mine, who declare that the Cardinal rules all things at his pleasure in Scotland, and governs the governor himself. In the town of St. Johnston (Perth) he hung up four respectable citizens for no other cause than because they had requested a monk, in the middle of his sermon, not to depart in his doctrine from the sacred text, and not to mix up notions of his own with the words of Christ. Along with these a most respectable matron, carrying a sucking child in her arms, was haled before the Tribunal and condemned to death by drowning. They report that the constancy of the woman was such that, when her husband was led to the scaffold and mounted the ladder, she followed and mounted along with him and entreated to be allowed to hang from the same beam. She encouraged him to be of good cheer, ‘for in a few hours,’ said she, ‘I shall be with Christ along with you.’ They declare that the governor was inclined to liberate them, but that the Cardinal suborned the nobles to threaten that they would leave him if the condemned were not put to death. When the Cardinal arrived with his army at Dundee, from which the monks had been expelled, all the citizens took to flight, and when he saw the town quite deserted, he laughed, and remarked that he had expected to find it full of Lutherans.”
Reference is made to the cruel event in Knox’s History of the Reformation, to which Dr. Laing, in his edition, has added corroborative evidence (Vol. i., p. 118). Foxe, in his Book of Martyrs, also speaks of the drowning of this brave woman, but we are chiefly indebted for our information to Calderwood’s History of the Kirk of Scotland, where a lengthened account is given of the events leading up to her martyrdom. He introduces us to the subject by the following remarks:—”Whether it was at this progress or another, that the bloody butcher, the Cardinal (Beaton), executed his cruelty upon the innocent persons of St. Johnston, Mr. Knox saith he cannot certainly affirm. Buchanan referreth this progress and the cruel butchery of the innocent men to the winter time of the year 1545. Yet Mr. Knox placeth them both in his History before the first burning of Edinburgh, which happened in the May following this year, 1544. So doth, also, Mr. Foxe, in the Book of Martyrs, refer this butchery to the end of the year 1543, according to the old reckoning, that is, the beginning of this year, 1544; and both he and Mr. Foxe relate that this cruelty was executed about St. Paul’s day. But not studying to be too curious for the time, we come to the matter itself” (Vol. i., p. 170). And following the wish of good Mr. Calderwood, let us come to the matter itself. In January, 1544, Cardinal Beaton, accompanied by the Bishops of Dunblane and Orkney, came to Perth, and their presence there meant an end to the liberty that the citizens of St. Johnston enjoyed under their hereditary Provost, Lord Ruthven, one of the few Scottish nobles who were favourable to the Reformation doctrines.
Robert Lamb, William Anderson, James Hunter, James Ronaldson, and his wife, Helen Stirk, and James Finlayson were among the first to be arrested. On the night of their apprehension they were cast into the Spey tower, and were brought forth on the morrow to be tried. We pass by the examination of the men, and confine our attention to the trial, condemnation, and sentence of Helen Stirk, the wife of James Ronaldson. She was charged with refusing to pray to the Virgin when her children were born. She had gone the length of saying that if she had lived in the time of the Virgin Mary, God might have looked to her humility and base estate, as He did to the Virgin’s, “thereby meaning,” adds Calderwood, “that there were no merits in the Virgin Mary, which procured that honour to be made the mother of Christ, and to be preferred before other women, but God’s only free mercy exalted her to that estate.” Both the men and the woman were condemned. When the sentence was passed upon the men they were bound together, “which thing the woman beholding desired likewise to be bound by the sergeants with her husband for Christ’s sake.” On the day the three men suffered, Helen Stirk desired that even in death both she and her husband might be united in bearing testimony to the faith; but on this being denied her she turned to her husband, kissed him, saying, “Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful days; but this day in which we must die ought to be most joyful to us both, because we must have joy for ever. Therefore, I will not bid you good-night, for we shall soon meet with joy in the kingdom of heaven.” Yet another farewell had to be taken, and keen and sharp it must have been to a mother’s heart. She was led away to her doom by her merciless persecutors. As she passed the house of the Grey Friars, where the Cardinal was, she said, “Ah! they sit in that place quietly who are the cause of our death this day; but He Who seeth this execution upon us shall shortly see their nest shaken.” When she came to the edge of the water she took her suckling child from her breast and gave it to a nurse, commending it and her other children to the care of her neighbours for God’s sake. Noble-hearted woman! All honour be to her, or, rather, to the grace that made her strong in the hour of trial! May the land that gave her birth ever honour the truths for which she and others laid down their lives!
“And never may the land whose flowers spring fresh from martyr graves
A moment’s parley hold with Rome, her minions, or her slaves,
A moment palter with the chains, whose scars are on her yet.”
(To be Continued.)