The Church of the Covenant 1637-1651 by Walter Makey

Author:Walter Makey [Makey, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788854245
Publisher: Birlinn
Published: 2021-07-14T05:00:00+00:00

The sample is small and the conclusions are thus uncertain, but two points stand out. The proportion of sons of landed proprietors was much smaller than it was in the church as a whole; it was indeed only a third as great. By contrast, the ministers of burgess stock were much more prominent. The leading ministers, as distinct from the average minister, were much more likely to have come from an urban background. But these bare figures, relating as they do to broad categories, contrive to obscure the main issue. The two landed proprietors, one of whom was the father of James Guthrie, were almost certainly feuars and fairly small feuars at that; neither was valued at more than £500 per year for tax purposes. The burgess fathers have an only slightly different story to tell. The ‘active’ ministers included David Dickson and John Adamson, both – as we have seen – the sons of fairly wealthy fathers; but the other seven were at best of local significance. George Hamilton was the son of a bailie – but merely the Bailie of Anstruther Easter. Patrick Schiel and George Gladstanes were the sons of craftsmen in Glasgow and Aberdeen respectively. Bartholomew Fleming, father of James, a minister of Edinburgh, was a merchant in the capital with tax liabilities rather less than average (16) and no links with the burgh oligarchy. The remaining two – the fathers of Robert Baillie and James Hamilton – were obscure enough.

Two more of the ‘active’ ministers – Samuel Rutherford and Mungo Law – were the sons of tenant farmers and it is likely that several of the unidentified, or only partially identified, fathers were of similar status. Colin Adam, as we have seen, was the brother, and presumably the son, of a farmer. James Nasmyth – the radical who so tactlessly pursued the teinds in the Assembly of 1649 – belonged, on exactly the same sort of evidence, in exactly the same category. Zachary Boyd boasted a connection with the family of Pinkhill, but he was probably the son of a farmer or a feuar. Robert Douglas, perpetual moderator of the Commission and the greatest of them all, was the son of a natural son of Douglas of Lochleven. Two more were probably the sons of townsmen outwith the burgess community. Andrew Cant – ‘some men are born, if not to raise, yet continually to live in a fire’ (17) – is said to have been a native of Aberdeen; at least he roasted on his own spit. John Nevay, the wildest of the Whiggamores, was probably his nephew. The ancestry of the rest – seven in all – is totally unknown and likely to remain so. But one point stands out clearly enough: not one of the active ministers was the son of even a minor magnate.

There might in happier circumstances have been one exception; Andrew Ramsay, an ardent Engager who normally appeared regularly, was prevented from attending the later sessions of the Commission. He

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