I want to talk about a chasm that divided Scotland for centuries....
and to some extent continues to do so to this day...
We ll visit some significant locations, from beautiful Highland Perthshire
all the way down to Dumfries and Galloway...
and maybe we ll find that the two sides had more similarities than you might think
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In the meantime, let me tell you a story. Are you a Jacobite, or a Covenanter?
Who s side are you on? How much have you thought
about the connection between the two. Tell me in the comments section.
Have you heard about them? If so Which of the two elicits your sympathy?
Both groups thought that they were preserving what was divinely ordained.
Both had been the power wielding established order of things, before falling foul of persecution.
Both experienced that persecution in horrific brutality, punishment
and summary executions. In both cases their fall
was a result of a monarch coming from The Netherlands to take the throne in London.
In Scotland at least both pitted largely Presbyterians against Episcopalians
Both movements lasted for generations with bitterness passed from father to son...
both had a defining battle that was followed by brutal treatment of prisoners,
executions and transportation to the Americas...
and there was one character more than any other who connected them both...
Bonnie Dundee The song Bonnie Dundee focused on his actions
when the Lords of Convention in Edinburgh met to decide what to do in response to William
of Orange s arrival from Netherlands So began the Jacobites...
When James VII was ousted from the English throne by William of Orange arriving from Holland
lots of people remained dutifully loyal to the Stuart line and the rightful king,
but William s regime imposed itself throughout the British isles.
In Scotland there was an uprising of Highlanders led by John Graham of Claverhouse...
Bonnie Dundee, who died heroically at
the Battle of Killikrankie, supposedly on the spot marked by the Claverhouse Cairn here.
I made a video about it... There will be a link later.
There followed generations of suppression and persecution in the Highlands
including the Glencoe massacre, underground survival, hiding in remote places,
then the raising of Bonnie Prince Charlie s standard at Glenfinnan
and the horrors of post Culloden control then clearance.
I know, I know... you ve heard it already... You feel sympathy with the Highlanders,
you ve visited the sites, you ve sung the songs, you ve seen Outlander.
That s kind of my point. What about the Covenanters?
I ve made a video that ll give you the background to how the National Covenant came about.
Click the link top right to see that. I ve made a video explaining one of the most
famous and horrific martyrdoms.... also....
today I wanted to give you a broad sweep of
the times whilst taking you to key Covenanter and Jacobite locations.
The southwest of Scotland... Were the covenanter heartlands.
Since Charles I s demise covenanters had been at a high...
They had controlled church, and the church was Established in law
Then Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660
Almost in a parallel to what would happen to Jacobites thirty years later,
the covenanters fell from power when somebody came from Netherlands
to be crowned king of England.... Two laws were passed...
to overturn all that the covenanters had gained in the previous twenty years...
and require everyone to deny the National Covenant.
The government now controlled the church..., and bishops were the order of the day.
Covenanters had to hold their religious meetings hidden in the open air...
I get the oxymoron
The persecution had started. You ll find memorials all over the country to
people martyred in the following thirty years. Most are in the south and west.
This one in Dumfries is just one of them. Just as the Jacobites would, from time to time,
covenanters rose in violent rebellion. Where the Jacobites had Killikrankie,
Sherrifmuir and Culloden..., Covenanters had Drumclog,
Bothwell Brig and Ruillion Green. The suppression got heavier still....
This is Crichope Linn, it s just one of the places
that Covenanters were known to hide out as persecution reined from the throne above.
1679 was a year of uprisings and violence... It would lead to an even more severe crackdown.
By this stage you could be fined for not attending the official church services
run by the curates of the king. It was against the law to gather for
presbyterian services in homes or outdoor. To ensure compliance and to
enforce the royal will a Highland Host was sent
to the Covenanting lowlands.... If the reversal of roles isn t obvious
then let me put it more clearly. A highland army came south
to enforce the king s will on lowland Presbyterians,
They were billeted locally to suppress and police the people.
Covenanters would hide out in the hills to avoid capture.
Every nook, cranny and distant hideaway would be used as a refuge.
It s incredible to think that a place of beauty could be such a place of fear...
a bit like the Highlands would be later...
...but things were about to get worse. We re so familiar with the story of Bonnie
Prince Charlie raising his standard where the Glenfinnan Monumnet stands today.
Where, despite relatively small support he went forward with unshakeable belief in his cause...
and faithful followers who were prepared to die to see it achieved.
This place is a bit like that... Oh I know the monument s not quite as grand
and looking down Sanquhar High St isn t quite the same as the views down Loch Sheil...
But here on June 22nd 1680 a small group of men,
led by two Cameron brothers, gathered to hear the reading of what s
become known as The Sanquhar Delcaration..., that disowned Charles II and denounced
him as king. This meant trouble.
Fortunately, you wouldn t get arrested for saying not my king these days
would you? They had just declared war on the King.
Ironically it would be the Cameronian regiment they inspired
that would defeat Bonnie Dundee s forces at Dunkeld to end the first Jacobite uprising...
but we re not there yet.
This is The Black Bull in Moffat. Rev Richard Cameron, the minister,
who stood with his brother at Sanqhar didn t survive long after that declaration,
what s more it was a spur to even greater hights of persecution
We don t have time to summarise all the atrocities..., but, for a while,
John Graham of Claverhouse based himself here. Nowadays this is just a quaint provincial pub.
Back in the early 1680s it was the headquarters of a brutal repression.
The place from which Claverhouse masterminded the hunting down of Covenanters,
...and terrorised the southwest with summary executions.
So many of the graves and memorials to Covenanting martyrs peppered
around the countryside of Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway and more
are markers to What Claverhouse engineered.
Not Bonny Dundee in this neck of the woods... but Bloody Clavers.
If the resemblance to The Duke of Cumberland after Culloden seems as apt as it is ironic,
then let me take you back to Highland Perthshire for one even greater irony.
We re back in beautiful Highland Perthshire It s the focus of the first Jacobite uprising.
William of Orange arrived in 1688. The regime of Charles II followed by
his brother James VII had been overthrown. John Graham of Claverhouse raised a Highland
army and just south of here it barred the Killikrankie pass
as redcoats tried to come up the track below here to retake Blair castle.
Despite victory, Claverhouse was killed on these slopes.
When his highland troops attacked Dunkeld they were held off
by none other than the Cameronian regiment
who s genesis was that declaration read at Sanquhar.
Claverhouse was taken back to Blair Castle and is buried in the grounds
Inside that same castle is an original copy of the National Covenant.
Can t you just feel the weight of irony pressing down on you?
With the Presbyterian church re-established and freedom to practise religion...
unless you were Catholic...
there was no more need for Covenanters... but a copy of the covenant, and the fiercest
persecutor of those who followed it both rest here at Blair Castle...
where the first events of the Jacobite uprisings took place.
The era of the Covenanters was over. The Jacobite period had begun...
here in Athol, north Perthshire If you d like to see a video about
Claverhouse from the other point of view then click the video coming up on screen.
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