BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
(Continued from page 415.)
MARION HARVEY.
* This sketch, now somewhat altered, appeared in the Protestant Woman.
IN the account already given of Isabel Alison reference has been made to Marion Harvey, who suffered with her on the scaffold for the same cause. Both belonged to the followers of Richard Cameron, and to understand some of the references in regard to ecclesiastical matters, the reader is referred to the sketch given of Isabel Alison. Their stern Covenaning leader was, after a short service in the Lord’s vineyard, slain at Airsmoss. To quote the words of James Hyslop:—
“Though in mist and in darkness and fire they were shrouded,
Yet the souls of the righteous stood calm and unclouded;
Their dark eyes flashed lightning, as, proud and unbending,
They stood like the rock the thunder was rending.
The muskets were flashing, the blue swords were gleaming,
The helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming;
The heavens grew dark, and the thunder was rolling,
When in Wellwood’s dark moorlands the mighty were falling.
When the righteous had fallen, and the combat had ended,
A chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended;
The drivers were angels, on horses of whiteness,
And its burning wheels turned upon axles of brightness.
A seraph unfolded its doors, bright and shining,
All dazzling like gold of the seventh refining,
And the souls that came forth out of great tribulation
Have mounted the chariot and steeds of salvation.”
Marion Harvey was a humble servant girl who was enabled, by the grace given her, to bear witness, even to death, for the truths of the Gospel. She was in her fourteenth year when she was turned in good earnest to think about the matters that concerned her soul’s salvation. Prior to this, according to her own testimony, she was a “blasphemer and Sabbath breaker.” But, happening to attend the conventicles, where she heard the persecuted ministers preach, she was brought to a saving knowledge of Christ. Among the ministers she heard at these field preachings were the famous John Welsh, Donald Cargill, and Richard Cameron. When she was on trial prior to her condemnation, and in her dying testimony, she bore witness to the benefit she had received from the preaching of Cargill and Cameron. “I bless the Lord,” she says, “that ever I heard Mr. Cargill, that faithful servant of Jesus Christ. I bless the Lord that ever I heard Mr. Richard Cameron; my soul has been refreshed with the hearing of him, particularly at a Communion in Carrick, on these words in Psalm lxxxv. 8, ‘The Lord will speak peace unto his people and to his saints, but let them not turn again to folly.'”
Belonging, as she did, to the strictest section of the Covenanters—the section peculiarly hated by those in power—it need scarcely be said that in attending the conventicles she was taking her life into her hands. On her way to one of these meetings she was apprehended by Sergeant Warrock and a party of soldiers. She was taken to Edinburgh and there imprisoned. Her betrayer was James Henderson, of North Queensferry, who, according to her own description, was “the Judas that sold Archibald Stewart and Mr. Skene to the bloody soldiers for so much money.” Both of these men had been martyred. At the time of her apprehension she was only twenty years of age. She was summoned before the Lords of the Privy Council, who had no charge against her except that she attended the conventicles. Evidently they had made up their minds to mete out to her condign punishment, but ere doing so they showed their determination to get her as deeply involved in what the Government then reckoned crime as they possibly could. So after a series of questions they drew from her an expression of her approval of Cargill’s Covenant, the Sanquhar Declaration, the Torwood Excommunication, and the killing of Archbishop Sharp, in so far as the Lord raised up witnesses for that purpose. During her trial one of the Privy Councillors said that “a rock, a cod, and bobbins would set her better than these debates.” Dalziel, one of the most cruel of the persecutors, threatened her with the boot—an instrument of diabolical cruelty. This instrument, made of iron, was shaped like a boot, into which the foot of the victim was placed, and then wedges were driven in by a hammer until the victim made confession or was completely overcome by the excruciating pain. It may be interesting to give a brief account of some of the questions put to her by the Privy Councillors, and the answers the young girl of twenty years gave to her interrogators.
Privy Councillor: “The Covenant does not bind you to deny the King’s authority.”
Marion Harvey: “So long as the King held the truths of God which he swore, we were obliged to own him; but when he broke his oath, and robbed Christ of His kingly rights, which do not belong to him, we were bound to disown him and you also.”
“Do you know what you say?”
“Yes.”
“Were you ever mad?”
“I have all the wit God ever gave me. Do you see any mad act in me?”
“Where was you born?”
“In Borrowstounness [Bo’ness].”
“What was your occupation there?”
“I served.”
“Did you serve the woman that gave Mr. Donald Cargill quarters?”
“That is a question which I will not answer.”
This was a peculiarly artful question, and the refusal to answer it shows the foresight and shrewdness of Marion Harvey in detecting the bearing of the question. An answer in the affirmative would have seriously involved her mistress.
The examination continued:—
“Who grounded you in these principles?” asked a Privy Councillor.
“Christ, by His Word,” was the quick response.
“Did not ministers ground you in these?”
“When the ministers preached the Word the Spirit of God backed and confirmed it to me.”
“Did you ever see Mr. John Welsh?”
“Yes; my soul hath been refreshed by hearing him.”
“Have you ever heard Mr. Archibald Riddell?”
“Yes; and I bless the Lord that ever I heard him.”
“Did they ever preach to take up arms against the King?”
“I have heard them preach to defend the Gospel, which we are all sworn to do.”
Then she was asked if she approved of the killing of Archbishop Sharp. “In so far,” she said, “as the Lord raised up instruments to execute His just judgments upon him, I have nothing to say against it; for he was a perjured wretch, and a betrayer of the Kirk of Scotland.”
These answers all too surely showed to her judges that the inevitable end was the scaffold, so they made an appeal to her—”Will you cast away yourself so?” “I love my life as well as any of you do,” she replied, “but will not redeem it upon sinful terms, for Christ says, ‘He that seeks to save his life shall lose it.’”
The Clerk of the Justiciary Court thus sums up her confession: “EDINBURGH, 6th December, 1680.—In presence of the lord’s justice clerk and commissioners of justiciary, sitting in judgment, compeared Marion Harvey, prisoner, and being examined, adheres to the fourth article of the Fanatics’ New Covenant, the same being read to her, and disowns the King and his authority, and the authority of the lords of justiciary, and adheres and abides at the treasonable Declaration emitted at Sanquhar, and approves of the same, and says it was lawful to kill the Archbishop of St. Andrews, when the Lord raised up instruments for that effect, and that he was as miserable and perjured a wretch as ever betrayed the Kirk of Scotland: declares that ministers brought them up to these principles, and now they have left them, and that she has heard Mr. John Welsh and Mr. Riddell preach up these principles she now owns, and blesses God she ever heard them preach so, for her soul has been refreshed by them; she approves of Mr. Cargill’s excommunicating the King; declares she can write, but refuses to sign the same.” This document is signed by “Maitland, David Balfour, Ja. Falconer, Roger Hog.”
For the confessions made in the foregoing, Marion Harvey was to die. At her trial on the 17th January, 1681, her indictment was read, in which she was charged with the crimes enumerated in the above document. She was asked if she pleaded guilty to these charges. She replied in the affirmative. When the jury appointed to try her appeared, she said, “Now, beware what you are doing, for they have nothing to say against me, but only for owning Jesus Christ and His persecuted truths; for you will get my blood upon your heads.” The jury returned a verdict of guilty. The lords delayed pronouncing the sentence upon her until Friday, 21st January. On this being told to her, she said, “I charge you before the tribunal of God, as ye shall answer there! For ye have nothing to say against me but for my owning the persecuted Gospel.” On the 21st her sentence was read to her. She was to be “taken to the Grass-market of Edinburgh upon Wednesday next, the 26th instant, betwixt two and four o’clock in the afternoon, and there to be hanged on a gibbet till she be dead, and all her lands, heritages, goods, and gear whatsoever, to be escheat, and in-brought to our sovereign lord’s use, which was pronounced for doom.” She suffered along with Isabel Alison, of whom an account has already been given. Five women of bad fame were also put to death at the same time for the murder of their illegitimate children.
In her dying testimony, dated from the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, 21st January, 1681, she says:—“Christian friends and acquaintances,—I being to lay down my life on Wednesday next, 26th January, I thought fit to let it be known to the world wherefore I lay down my life, and to let it be seen that I die not as a fool, or an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. No; it is for adhering to the truths of Jesus Christ, and avowing Him to be King in Zion and Head of His Church; and the testimony against ungodly laws of men, and their robbing Christ of His rights and usurping His prerogative royal, which I durst not but testify against.”
In the same document she writes:—”I desire to bless and magnify the Lord for my lot, and may say He hath brought me to the wilderness to allure me there and speak comfortably to my soul. It was but little of Him I knew when I came to prison; but now He has said to me because He lives I shall live also. And He has told me, I am He that blotteth out thine iniquity for my own name’s sake. Kind has He been to me since He brought me out to witness for Him. I have never sought anything from Him that was for His glory, since I came to prison, but He granted my desire. For the most part I have found Him, in everything that hath come in my way, ordering it Himself for His own glory. And now I bless Him that thoughts of death are not terrible to me. He hath made me as willing to lay down my life for Him as ever I was willing to live in the world. . . . Now, farewell, lovely and sweet Scriptures, which were aye my comfort in the midst of all my difficulties! farewell, faith! farewell, hope! farewell, wanderers [the persecuted ministers], who have been comfortable to my soul in the hearing of them commend Christ’s love! Farewell, brethren! farewell, sisters! farewell, Christian acquaintances! farewell, sun, moon, and stars! And now, welcome, my lovely and heartsome Christ Jesus, into whose hands I commit my spirit throughout all eternity. I may say few and evil have the days of the years of my pilgrimage been, I being about twenty years of age.”
THE DUCHESS OF ROTHES.
* This sketch, now somewhat altered, appeared in the Protestant Woman.
IT is one of the remarkable features of the persecuting times in Scotland that there were many connected with families of high birth who were willing to risk all their wealth for the sake of the truths of the Gospel. Among these was the Duchess of Rothes, the wife of the licentious and profligate persecutor of the Covenanters. It is but bare justice to the Duke of Rothes to acknowledge that, by nature, he was not cruel, and there are stories told how he warned the Duchess when there were any of the emissaries of the Government at hand in search of Covenanters; but at the same time it is likewise to be admitted that the Duke, as the powerful representative of a persecuting Government, had much to answer for. She was called upon, in the position she occupied, to exercise uncommon wisdom and prudence. Her husband was not only a persecutor but was also unprincipled and profligate. His licentiousness was the common talk of the country, and his intemperance in the use of strong drink ultimately hurried him to an unhonoured grave. It is said that his constitution was so strong that he could out-drink two or three sets of drunkards in succession, and, after the greatest excesses, an hour or two of sleep so completely recruited him that he could go about business without any apparent disorder either in body or mind.
The Duchess of Rothes, who had the misfortune to be united in marriage to this wretch, was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Crawford. Her maternal grandmother was Duchess of Hamilton, and her grandmother on her father’s side was Lady Boyd—both of whom showed warm attachment to the Covenanting cause in Scotland. Her father, who was Lord High Treasurer, on refusing to take the Declaration abjuring the National Covenants as unlawful oaths, was deprived of his office, notwithstanding the respect entertained for him by Charles II. On being asked by the king to take this Declaration, he courageously replied, “As I have suffered much for your majesty—even nine years’ imprisonment, forfeiture, and the ruin of my fortune—so I am resolved to continue your majesty’s loyal and faithful subject, and to serve you in whatever I can with a good conscience; but as for renouncing the Covenant and taking the Declaration, that I cannot do with a safe and good conscience.” His wife, the mother of the Duchess, is referred to by Row as “the Earl of Crawford’s most religious lady, who was most deservedly praised of all that knew her.” After her husband’s resignation, he tells us that “when all about her, and all Crawford’s friends in Scotland, were lamenting the loss of his place, she heartily rejoiced and blessed God that he had kept a good conscience and himself free of perjury and Covenant-breaking, etc., trusting in God that He would provide for him and his.” Robert Blair, on his death-bed, bore this remarkable testimony concerning this good lady: “My Lady Crawford, set her alone, set her alone among women.”
“Lady Anne,” says Anderson in his Ladies of the Covenant, “thus descended from godly parents, enjoyed the inestimable benefit of a religious education; and her parents had the satisfaction of witnessing the fruits of their instructions and example in the eminence of her piety, which she exemplified throughout life by a conversation becoming the Gospel. The fervour of her devotion, the benevolence of her disposition, the humility of her demeanour, and the sanctity of her deportment, are all honourably mentioned by her contemporaries. Law describes her as a ‘discreet, wise, virtuous, and good lady.’ And others who knew her speak in the highest terms of her Christian excellence. In her youth, which was contemporaneous with the best days of the Covenant, she was strictly educated in the Presbyterian faith, to which she continued to adhere in its every variety of fortune—in its adversity as well as in its prosperity.”
It was natural that one with such forbears, and brought up in such a home, should have strong attachment to the truths for which the Covenanters contended. But the godly example at home—priceless privilege though it be to the offspring who enjoy it—is in itself unavailing to work that change of heart that gives steadfastness of purpose when the call comes to make sacrifices for religion. This change had evidently taken place in Lady Anne, and her after life showed that with her, as with many others of those days, the principles and truths for which they were willing to sell all that they had, were matters to them of life and death. When the Restoration was ushered in, her husband became a member of the persecuting Government of Charles II. One can well understand how difficult her position must have been. Her sympathies were with the Covenanters, yet owing to that position she was called upon to mix in the society of their bitter persecutors. She used her influence, however, on the behalf of the Covenanters, and was instrumental, through her advocacy, in retaining some of the faithful ministers in their charges after they had been marked out for ejectment. She also showed her interest in them by her unbounded hospitality. The Duke was not unaware of these attentions paid to those who were, in the eyes of the Government of which he was a member, scarcely worthy to live, and it is said that, when in a humorous mood, he used to remark to the Duchess, “My Lady, I would advise you to keep your chickens in about, else I may pick up some of them.” Mr. Anderson, in his Ladies of the Covenant, quoting from Miss Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England, gives the following interesting extract: “The Duke . . . never sent out his officers to apprehend any of these persons without previously endeavouring to provide for their escape by giving a significant hint to his compassionate Duchess in these words, ‘My hawks will be out to-night, my Lady, so you had better take care of your blackbirds!'” The local traditions of Leslie add “that the signal by which her Grace warned her spiritual protégés of their danger was a white sheet suspended from one of the trees on the brow of the hill behind the house, which could be seen from a considerable distance. Other telegraphic signs the good lady had to intimate the absence of her spouse, when they might safely come forth and preach to their hillside congregation.” The Duchess was in the habit of attending the field preachings, notwithstanding the heavy penalties attached, but whether from her relation to the Duke of Rothes, or from some other cause, she was never prosecuted. It was probably for her sake that the Duke—evidently a humane man by nature, though driven to deeds of violence and cruelty by his political principles—took such a lenient view of the conventicles held in Fifeshire.
There is an interesting anecdote told of an interview Archbishop Sharp had with the Duke while sitting at dinner, in which Sharp told the Duke that two of his tenants were keepers of conventicles. Rothes promised the Archbishop that “he should take an effectual course with them, and see them both stringed.” The Duchess was present, and was filled with consternation at the doom pronounced upon the men, for whom she had the deepest respect. The two men came down to the Castle in obedience to the summons sent them by the Duke, and as he accompanied Sharp to his coach, he gave him the assurance that he would handle the delinquents severely. Whether he dissembled to Sharp, of whom he stood in awe because of the extraordinary influence he had at Court, or whether his better feelings gained the ascendency, we cannot say, but what looked like a tragedy ended very pleasantly. On the men appearing before him he asked “about the prices of the markets, what grain it was best for him to sow in such and such parts of his lands about Leslie, and such-like questions, after which he dismissed them without any mark of displeasure or asking them a single question in reference to the subject as to which he had professedly brought them to his house.” The Duchess meantime was patiently waiting in another room, and expecting nothing but the worst. Wodrow shall tell how the matter ended. “The Duchess,” he says, “returned from the dinner in deep concern for the men, and gave orders to a servant to bring them in to her, when the Duke parted with them, by a back gallery. Accordingly they came. The Duchess was all in tears, and, almost trembling, asked what had passed. They told her, ‘Nothing but kindness.’ Whether this was to be attributed to the Duchess’s prayers in their behalf, or to the Duke’s natural temper, who was not inclined to violence, I am not to determine, but the fact is certain.”
The death-bed scene, when the dying Duke, confronted with the misdeeds of his past life, called for some of the ministers he had been persecuting, is one of the most striking incidents in Scottish history. Death made matters to appear in a different light, and, heavily oppressed with the terrors of an accusing conscience, he asked that the Duchess would bring some of the Covenanter ministers to see him. In obedience to his request, George Johnston and John Carstares came. Mr. Carstares prayed, and so affecting were his petitions for the dying man that they brought tears to the eyes of those present. But evidently they had no effect on the Duke; his eye was fixed on the dread judgment seat, and away from that it could not be moved. They told of God’s boundless mercy in Christ, that even for the chief of sinners there was mercy, but no peace came. Scripture was being fulfilled, and for the man who made light of the precious privileges of heaven there was nothing but a fearful looking forward for the fiery indignation that was to be revealed. Then turning to Carstares, he said, “We all thought little of what that man Cargill did in excommunicating us, but I find that sentence binding upon me now, and it will bind to eternity.” The Duke of Hamilton, who was present, and was evidently impressed by the strange transactions taking place around that death-bed, so hopeless in its outlook, gave utterance to his feelings in the words, “When in health we hunt and persecute these men, but when dying we call for them: this is melancholy work.”
Contrast this scene, with its darkness and despair, its utter hopelessness and dread forebodings, and that which Edinburgh witnessed after the Duke’s death. Here is Anderson’s description of it: “His funeral obsequies were performed with unusual pomp. His body was first privately brought up from Holyrood house to the High Church of St. Giles, accompanied with a train of coaches; thence it was conducted, with the greatest magnificence, to the Royal Chapel of Holyrood house by a numerous procession, the order of which is given by Arnot in his History of Edinburgh. From the Chapel of Holyrood house it was next conveyed, with the same funeral pomp, to Leith, thence it was transported to Burntisland; and the day after it was met by the gentlemen of the county of Fife (of which he was High Sheriff), by whom it was accompanied to the family burying-place at Leslie. The body was laid in the grave with sound of open trumpets, and the honours placed above the grave.”
It is interesting to notice that the Duchess’s eldest daughter, the Countess of Rothes, and her son, the seventh Duke of Rothes, were noted for their piety, illustrating the truth that the promise is to children’s children. Wodrow, in his Analecta, has the following reference to the Countess:—“I am told that the late Duchess or Countess of Rothes was one of the most extraordinary persons for religion, and good sense, and eminent acts of charity that was in the last age; that her life, could it be recovered, would make a beautiful figure in our biography. I have little hope of recovering it. In the late dear years, 1697 and 1698, she was remarkable for her charity. She distributed many bolls of meal among the poor every week, and it was calculated that she dealt out most of the yearly rent of the estate that way. She had a day in the week—Friday, I think—when sick and indisposed persons came to her, and she spoke with them, and gave them medicines gratis; and some cheats, pretending to be objects of charity, she discovered, and severely punished them. She was most intimate with John Archer, Alexander’s father, and many eminent Christians in that neighbourhood. She was eminent in prayer and wrestling, and had many singular answers of prayer. It’s a pity so little about her can now be recovered.”
The good Duchess of Rothes ended her days honourably, for more to her was the crown of life than the coronet that adorned her brow in the high position she occupied on earth. Her mother, her daughter, and grandson, along with herself, gave evidence of being heirs of the hope of eternal life.
(To be Continued.)