Saints Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader, and Dativus, bishops, and their companions, part martyrs, and part confessors, 3d century. St Pulcheria, virgin and empress, 453. St Finian or Winin, bishop and confessor, 6th century. St Salvius, bishop of Albi, 6th century. St Nicholas of Tolentino, confessor, 1306.
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Born. – Mungo Park, African traveller, 1771, Fowlshields, Selkirkshire.
Died. – Louis d’Outremer, king of France, killed, 954; John, Duke of Burgundy, murdered at Montereau, 1419; Dr Thomas Sheridan, Irish scholar, translator of Persius, 1738; Ugo Foscolo, Italian republican and writer, 1827, London.
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THE CURFEW.
The lengthening evenings bring naturally to our minds their discomforts in the olden times, and the various customs and observations connected with them. Among these was the curfew-bell, which had been made well known to all ears by the frequent allusions to it in our poets, but which has been the subject of not a few ‘vulgar errors.’ In those old times, people in general, possessed nothing like clocks or watches; they learned, by the practice of observation, to judge roughly of the time of the day, but in cases where it was necessary to know the exact hour, they were entirely at a loss. Any implement for measuring time was rare, and belonged only to a pubic body, or institution, or to some very remarkable individual, and the only means of imparting to the public the knowledge gained from it, was by ringing a bell, or blowing a horn, at certain hours of the day. This practice was first introduced in the monastic establishments, where the inmates required to know the hours for celebrating the various services. It was probably adopted also in the great houses of the aristocracy, and in towns. There were, in fact, many customs to be observed at stated hours, besides the religious services, and some of these were required by public safety.
In the middle ages there was a very much larger proportion of society which lived by cheating, plundering, and ill treating the rest, than in modern times. Owing to the want of any effective police, there was no safety out of doors at night; and even people who, by daylight, appeared to live honestly, sallied forth after dark to rob and assassinate. It was attempted, in towns especially, to meet this evil, by making it criminal to be found out of doors after a certain hour; and, as otherwise offenders might plead ignorance, it was ordered that the hour should be publicly sounded, generally by the town-bell, and when that was heard, all people were compelled to shut the doors of their houses, put out their fires, and retire to bed, those who were out of bed after the sounding of the bell being liable to severe punishment. It was an efficacious way of clearing the streets. The bell sounded for this purpose was, in France, called popularly the couvre-feu, or cover-fire, which, in the Latin documents in which it was alluded to, was translated by ignitegium. It was apparently, a municipal and not a state institution, and the utility of a general covering of fires at a reasonable hour is obvious. In those days, most houses were constructed wholly or mostly of wood, and were extremely liable to take fire when fire was used carelessly. To cover up the fire was an important regulation for safety, and a utensil was employed for the purpose – here represented.
The curfew-bell was used in the monastic establishments as well as in the towns. In Scotland, the hour of curfew was similarly retarded, until it was fixed, not at nine, but at ten o’clock, and that seems to have been, in later times, the usual hour of the Scottish curfew.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that the curfew-bell was peculiar to this island – it was a natural expedient for serving a generally useful purpose, and was adopted in France, Italy, and Spain, and probably in all parts of continental Europe. Moreover, a corresponding bell was rung in the morning, to inform people of the hour at which it was customary to rise. In some instances, this is merely said to have taken place at daybreak, but a more usual hour appears to have been four o’clock in the morning.
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On this Day in Other Sources.
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The 10th of September, this same year [1508], a dreadful earthquake in Scotland and England, which lasted the 10th part of an hour, to the great terror and astonishment of all the inhabitants.
– Historical Works, pp.214-238.
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Considering the circumstances of the times, when every effort was made, by a too powerful neighbour, to obtain possession of the Queen’s person, either by force, or fraud: reflecting, also, that the whole power of Scotland had been worsted, on Pinkiefield, on the 10th of September 1547; it was deemed prudent, to remove the Queen, from Stirling castle, to an inaccessible isle, in the lake of Menteith, wherein were a castle, and a monastery. It was the dowager Queen, who inspired the Scotish councils, with persevering resolution, after so great a disaster, as a battle lost.
– Life of Mary, pp.9-15.
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Early in 1547 Henry VIII. died, but Hertford, now Duke of Somerset, and protector during the minority of Edward VI., continued to carry out the policy of aggression. He led 15,000 men into Scotland, and passed along the coast to Musselburgh. This army was supported by a powerful fleet. A Scottish force of about 30,000 men under the regent took up a strong position at Pinkie Cleugh, near Musselburgh, with the view of opposing the invaders, and protecting Edinburgh. The Scots, however, left their vantage-ground on the west bank of the Esk, and went to meet the English. The English cavalry charged the Scottish pikemen, and were repulsed. The Scots pursued, but were checked by a ditch, behind which the cavalry re-formed. The main body of the English army, hitherto concealed behind a ridge, now made a general charge on the Scots. The charge was a surprise, and as the bowmen on the flanks and the artillery on the ridge were at the same time making dreadful havoc among the thick clumps of the Scottish spearmen, it was very effective. The Scots fled in utter rout, and the slaughter was terrible. The defeat of Pinkie Cleuch on the 10th September, 1547, was the last great disaster sustained by the Scots in their contest for national independence. Somerset, after destroying the church of Holyrood Abbey, and doing other mischief in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, had to return to London to put down intrigues that were forming against him there.
– A History of Scotland, Chapter XIII.
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The insurgents did not apply to England, in vain, whatever treaties might exist, between that country, and France. Secretary Cecil, in considering that application, in August 1559, said: “If the Queen, and Dauphin will not grant certain points: then may the Estates commit the government to the next heir of the crown: If the Queen (Mary) will not comply; then it is apparent, God Almighty is pleased, to transfer from her the rule of the kingdom, for the weal of all.” Beyond this jacobinical reasoning, which defied the established law, Goodwin, and Knox, could not have gone, in their wildest ebullitions of zeal. Cecil, following up this policy of superceding the legitimate government of Scotland, by the presumptive heir, sent Randolph to France, in order to bring the Earl of Arran into Britain; and he directed Sadler, to repair to Scotland, with such instructions, as were analogous to his reasoning.
Incited by the favourable sentiments of the English court, the principal reformers again assembled, at Stirling, on the 10th of September 1559. They, immediately, obtained a great accession to their party, by the junction of the Duke of Chattelherault, the heir presumptive of the crown. This feeble statesman was now gained, by his son, Arran, who had imbibed Huguenoterie, while acting as a colonel, in the French guards. After these accessions, the chief reformers took higher ground. The duke, with other lords, sent remonstrances to the Regent, against fortifying Leith. They affected astonishment, that she should deviate thus early, after the late agreement, by planting a colony of foreigners, so near the metropolis: Wide is the distance, between popular topicks, and solid sense: The French were not foreigners, in Scotland, any more than Scotsmen were foreigners, in France: Neither were the two kingdoms foreign to each other: So it had been settled, in the year before, by the Estates of Scotland, in consequence of the Queen’s marriage. As the reformers were acting against established law; so were they acting against the will of the Estates, on this occasion. They intreated the Regent to desist, from her purpose, of averawing the country, into a tyrannical subjection, lest they should be driven, to seek the concurrence of their fellow subjects, for resisting force, by violence. A war of writing now began, in which the Regent had as much the superiority, as the insurgent lords had the advantage, in a war of tumult.
– Life of Mary, pp.15-41.
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[In Moray’s mansion, Ternway], was there held a privy council, on the 10th of September [1562]; wherein was there a proceeding against Sir John Gordon, who, as he had not entered himself a prisoner in Stirling castle, was charged to surrender into the Queen’s hands, his houses of Finlater, and Auchendown, on pain of treason. In the same council appeared the Earl of Mar, and producing his privy patent, for the earldom of Moray, now assumed the title.
– Life of Mary, pp.62-77.
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On the 10th of September [1565], Randolph wrote to Cecil, she had imprisoned several gentlemen of Fife: But, she could not find Murray’s lady, whom, she knew, had retired to Berwick, for her accouchement: She is offended with Dundee, and Perth, because they have assisted the lords.
– Life of Mary, pp.98-126.
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Sep. 10 [1583]. – The king having now escaped from his Ruthven councillors, and fallen once more under the influence of the Earl of Arran, Sir Francis Walsingham came as Elizabeth’s ambassador to express her concern about these movements, and see what could be done towards opposite effects. Coming to a king with an unwelcome message has never been a pleasant duty; but it must have been particularly disagreeable on this occasion, if it be true, as is alleged by a Presbyterian historian, that Arran – who, says he, within a few days after his return to court, ‘began to look braid’ – hounded out a low woman, called Kate the witch, to assail the ambassador with vile speeches as he passed to and from the king’s presence. – Cal.
– Domestic Annals, pp.81-98.
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What the Bank of England has often in modern times been to the British government, Thomas Foulis, the Edinburgh goldsmith, was in those days to King James – a ready resource when money was urgently required for state purposes. On the 10th of September 1594, the royal debt to Thomas was no less than £14,598; and as a security so far for this sum the king consigned to him ‘twa drinking pieces of gold, weighing in the haill fifteen pund and five unce,’ which the consignee was to be at liberty to coin into ‘five-pund pieces,’ if the debt should not be otherwise paid before the 1st of November next, ‘the superplus, gif oney beis,’ to be forthcoming for his majesty’s use. The value of the gold of these drinking-cups at the present day would be about £950, which shows that the debt in question was expressed in Scottish money. It may be remarked, that on the same day the king consigned another gold drinking-cup, weighing twelve pounds five ounces, in favour of John Arnott, burgess of Edinburgh, who had lent him £6000. It further appears that Thomas Foulis very soon after lent the king £12,000 more ‘for out-redding of sundry his hieness’ affairs.’
– Domestic Annals, pp.124-176.
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On the Leith Wynd Port, as on others, the quarters of criminals were displayed. In September, 1672, the Depute of Gilbert Earl of Errol (High Constable of Scotland) sentenced James Johnstone, violer, who had stabbed his wife, to be hanged, “and to have his right hand, which gave the stroak, cut off, and affixed upon Leith-wind Port, and ordained the magistrats of Edinburgh to cause put the sentence to execution upon the 9th of that month.”
– Old and New Edinburgh, pp.300-309.
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44. THOMAS PETER of Crossbasket.
Born about 1640; died, 1721.
Merchant in Glasgow Treasurer of the City, 1689; Bailie, 1701, 1712; Dean of Guild, 1707, 1708. “Mortified to this House 3000 merks. Died 10th September, 1721; 81 years of age. Ordered the interest of said sum for ye annual supply of a poor merchant.”
– Memorial Catalogue, Gallery 1.
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“HINTS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SCOTLAND,
AS A SEPARATE DIVISION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE,
BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, BART.
_____
It is well known, that the power of a country principally depends on the revenue which it possesses, and consequently, that the real value of any portion of it ought to be estimated, according to the clear income which it produces to the national treasury. In that respect it is proposed to make a comparison between Scotland and Ireland, as separate divisions of the Empire, and then to prove the immense advantages which, in point of revenue, England has derived from its Union with Scotland.
I. From the recent accounts which have been laid before Parliament, it appears that the population of Ireland and of Scotland, and the gross income and net revenue of the two kingdoms, for one year, ending on the 5th of April, 1822, were as follows:-
|
Population. Country – 1821. | Gross Revenue, for year ending 5th April, 1822. | Net Revenue, for year ending 5th April, 1822. |
| Ireland 6,846,949 | £5,181,208 | £4,059,373 |
| Scotland 2,092,014 | 4,292,567 | 3,456,642 |
| Difference 4,754,935 | £888,641 | £602,731 |
Hence it is evident that, comparing the population with the gross revenue, every Scotchman pays per head 2l. 1s. 0¾d. and every Irishman 15s. 1d.; but if a comparison is made according to the net revenue, every Scotchman pays 1l. 12s. 10¼d. and every Irishman but 11s. 9¼d. or little more than one-third.
From these facts, the following deductions are to be made:-
1. If the population of Ireland (6,846,949) gives a net revenue of 4,059,373l. what should the population of Scotland (2,092,614) produce in the same proportion?
Answer, 1,254,188l.; consequently Scotland pays 2,202,454l. per annum beyond its proportion, comparing the population of the two countries.
2. If the population of Scotland (2,092,014) produces a net revenue of 3,456,642l. what should the population of Ireland (6,846,949) produce at the same rate?
Answer, 11,295,500l. or Ireland pays 7,256,207l. less than its proportion, comparing its revenue and population with those of Scotland.
3. If Ireland, producing a net revenue of 4,059,373l. has 52 Peers and 100 Commoners, what number of Peers and Commoners ought Scotland to have, producing a net revenue of 3,456,642l.?
Answer, 27 Peers and 85 Commoners; consequently Scotland ought to have 11 Peers and 40 Commoners additional.
4. If Scotland, producing a net revenue of 3,456,642l. has only 16 Peers and 45 Commoners, how many Peers and Commoners ought Ireland to have, producing a net revenue of 4,059,373l.?
Answer, 19 Peers and 53 Commoners; consequently Ireland has 15 Peers and 47 Commoners beyond its proportion, according to the net revenue payable by the two countries.
This shews what a much better bargain the Irish made at their Union than the Scots did, when they were united to England, and it ought to make the Irish less hostile to that Union than many of them are inclined to be at present.
II. It is next proposed to give some idea of the immense advantages which, in point of revenue, the English have derived from the Union with Scotland.
The revenue of Scotland at the Union was only 110,694l., but in order that both nations, in the words of the Act of Treaty of Union, “might be put on equal footing,” an additional land tax was imposed, by means of which, with other resources, it was intended that the revenue of Scotland should be raised to 160,000l. per annum, which was then estimated to be its full proportion. The revenue which England produced at that time was 5,691,803l. Hence the following results may be drawn, which are calculated according to the gross revenue, the net income at the Union not being exactly ascertained:-
1. If Scotland at the Union produced 160,000l. of gross revenue per annum, when England produced 5,691,803l. now that England produces 54,564,910l., what should Scotland pay, according to the original proportion settled at the Union?
Answer, 575,191l., or 3,717,373l. less than it does at present.
2. If Scotland now produces 4,292,567l. of gross revenue, what should England now produce, if its revenue had increased since the Union, in the same proportion as Scotland?
Answer, 152,702,285l., or 98,137,875l. per annum more than it does at present.
There can hardly be a doubt, if Scotland had insisted that it should not be subjected in future to heavier payments than in proportion to those which it had agreed to pay at the Union, the stipulation, being a fair one, would have been acceded to, and it is evident that Scotland does now produce a revenue, in proportion, much larger than ever was contemplated at the Union.
It is likewise to be observed, that Scotland pays a larger revenue than what appears from the accounts laid before Parliament; for all the teas, groceries, porter, drugs, and a number of other articles consumed in Scotland, pay the taxes to which they are liable, previous to their being landed here; thus augmenting the revenue of England, and proportionably reducing that of Scotland.
No one wishes more than the person by whom this paper is drawn up, that the three kingdoms should be cordially united together on just and honourable principles; and he is anxious, therefore, that the claims of Scotland should be made known to the Ministers of the United Kingdom, and to the people of both England and Ireland, that these claims may be duly appreciated. He entertains indeed no doubt, that every candid and honourable man who peruses these statements, will be willing to acknowledge their justice, and will be ready to support any measures calculated for the honour or the advantage of Scotland, that may be submitted to the consideration of the Sovereign, or the Government, or the Legislature of the country.
N.B. The author has not been able to procure “The Public Expences” incurred on account of Scotland and Ireland respectively. He has hitherto only ascertained, that the civil expences of Ireland, for one year, ending on the 5th of January last (1822), amounted to 617,216l.; and those of Scotland only to 133,077l.; making a difference of no less a sum than 484,138l., or nearly half a million. The military and ordnance expences of Ireland, for the same period, came to 1,628,433l. 6s.; whereas those of Scotland cannot amount to even 100,000l., for there were in May last only two regiments of cavalry of about 290 men each, one regiment of infantry containing 568 men, and about 100 artillery.”
– Morning Chronicle, 10th September, 1822.
– Treaty of Union Articles, 1800-1850.
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“… As respects many other things names are of immense importance. Nations have gone to war about a name, and we believe the Scottish people are so proud of their name, that had the English Parliament previous to the Union stipulated that the United Kingdom was to be called England they would never have agreed to it on such a condition. To meet this feeling it was stipulated and agreed to that the two kingdoms of England and Scotland should be for ever united ‘into one realm, by the name of Great Britain and in the Treaty of Union the whole people are spoken of as ‘the subjects of Great Britain.’ Notwithstanding of all this care to prevent Scotland from being absorbed by England instead of being united to it upon equal terms and under a common name there has been a persistent determination exhibited by Englishmen to ignore both Scotland and Ireland, and to have everything national called English, and there are many weak renegade Scotsmen to aid them in this design. Small poets sing of the ‘Queen of merry England,’ great historians write of the victories achieved in the Peninsula at Waterloo, and in India by ‘the armies of England,’ and some of our representatives sometimes speak of ‘the English Parliament.’ When Scotsmen themselves exhibit so little respect for their own country it is less to be wondered at, that Englishmen should glorify their own nationality as they do, to the derogation of Scotland, but still it is annoying to find the leading newspapers in England and the leading public speakers keep with so much unanimity to the phraseology referred to that abroad even more than at home the style and title of ‘Great Britain’ is becoming, if it has not already become, quite obsolete. Thus, there, less than here, is anything else heard, and foreigners cannot be expected to think or call anything British which they see everlastingly termed English. As an instance of how far the wretched habit has grown at home we find not only that within these few days an English member of Parliament – Mr Roebuck – in addressing his constituency used ‘England’ and ‘English’ fifteen times, as ‘Government of England,’ ‘name of England,’ ‘influence of England,’ ‘people of England,’ ‘English colonies,’ ‘English House of Commons,’ ‘commerce of England,’ &c., instead of Britain and British, but at the recent review of the Rifle Volunteers belonging to the West of Scotland, Colonel McMurdo, himself a Scotsman, addressed them as ‘Volunteers of England.’ But whatever the English and the would-be English may do it is the unquestionable duty of every true Scotsman to maintain the national name. If we are not Britons we are Scotsmen, and we never can by any possibility become Englishmen. No doubt if we had been English, we would have been proud of the name, but being Scotsmen we are content with the honour which that confers, and want no other national character. Such is the power of names that when Scotland comes to be regarded at home and throughout the world as a province of England, Scotsmen will be no longer what they have hitherto been. It is impossible that Scotsmen in general could ever have the same aspirations in reference to anything merely English as in reference to something Scottish or British, for when the former word is used as applied to the whole of the United Kingdom it is an insult his own nationality. With a right to the name of Scotsmen or of Britons, but with none to that of Englishmen, they will be a people without a recognised name. Think of our Scottish soldiers and seamen being obliged to maintain amongst their English comrades that they are Englishmen as well as them! In every point of view there is evident degradation in this sinking of the name of Britain as well as that of Scotland, and unless the practice meets with uniform and determined opposition from every one who loves and honours his country, and who does not want the name of England and English imposed upon the United Kingdom and everything connected with it, the object, however slowly, will be surely and certainly accomplished.”
– Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire Advertiser, Saturday 10th September, 1864.
– Treaty of Union Articles, 1850-1875.
Queen Elizabeth I and her Protestant Government and followers The Church of England guilty of murder.
Researched by Frank Dougan May 2018.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Oaten Hill Martyrs (also known as the “Canterbury martyrs”) were Catholic Martyrs who were executed by hanging, drawing and quartering at Oaten Hill, Canterbury, on 1 October 1588. These four were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.[1]
Robert Wilcox was born in Chester, England in 1558 and entered the seminary at Rheims when he was twenty-five years old and was ordained on 20 April 1585. He was sent to England with other priests seeking to expand the Catholic faith and deal with the country’s expanding Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth I. Wilcox arrived in England on 7 June 1586 but was arrested almost immediately at Lydd in Kent, near to where he entered the country. As a captive, he was sent to the Marshalsea prison where he was examined on 15 August 1588. Here he admitted he was a Catholic priest and was sent for trial with the others to Canterbury, England.[2]
Wilcox was the first of the four to be executed. It is recorded that he told his companions to be of good heart. He was going to heaven before them, where he would carry the tidings of their coming after him.[3]
Gerard Edwards, a Catholic priest, was born at Ludlow, Shropshire, and studied at Jesus College, Oxford, but left without obtaining a degree.[2] On 22 February 1586 he left England to study for the priesthood in Rheims. He changed his name to “Edward Campion” in honour of St Edmund Campion. Because of his education he was ordained after just a year and returned to England at Easter 1587.[3] He was captured in Sittingbourne, Kent, just a few weeks later, however, and was imprisoned at the Newgate and the Marshalsea prisons in London following questioning by order of the Privy Council on 22 April 1587. Upon a second examination on 14 August 1588, he admitted to being a priest.[2] He was thirty-six years of age at the time of his execution.
Robert Widmerpool was arrested for giving aid to a Catholic priest.
Christopher Buxton was a Catholic priest, born in Derbyshire. He studied for the priesthood at Reims and Rome, and was ordained in 1586. He left Rome the next year, and soon after his arrival in England was apprehended and condemned to death for his priesthood. While in the Marshalsea Prison he wrote a Rituale, the manuscript of which is now preserved as a relic at Olney, Buckinghamshire. He sent this manuscript to a priest, as a last token of his friendship, the day before he was taken from the prison.
Many Primary sources are quoted by William Forbes-Leith, S.J. throughout his volume especially his search through Vatican Archives, he describes Buchanan as godless, with detailed analysis of the persecution of Catholics, along with first-hand letters. The copy of ( Narrative of Scottish Catholics ) that I have used was borrowed from Strathclyde University Andersonian Library. This book is a wealth of information for anyone interested in the period of the Reformation. Forbes-Leith informs his reader; ‘ There is preserved among the Cecil Papers a full list of all the ” fortresses, abbeys, friar houses, market towns,….burnt, razed, and cast down by the Earl of Hertford, between the 8th of September and the 23rd of the same, 1545. It chronicles the destruction of 7 monasteries, 16 castles, 5 market towns, 243 villages, 13 mills, and 3 hospitals.” ( “R.O. Scotland,” Henry V111., vol. viii. No. 86 ) ‘As many as ” 192 towns, parish churches, castle-houses, and 243 villages were cast down or burnt, and the country was reduced to a desert.” ( Haynes State Papers, 43 and 52, July-November 1544. Cf. Tytler, vol. v. p 310, footnote. ) Forbes-Leith points to the Earl of Lennox who was in command of English forces and the atrocities perpetuated by them; ‘ Dundee was taken and the Church destroyed, Dryfe’s Dale was laid waste, above five hundred Scots were taken, slain, or drowned in the Nith; the prisoners, priests and friars, were dragged along with halters round their necks.’ ( The Warden of the Grey Friars was executed. MS. letter from Lennox and Wharton to the Earl of Somerset, 25th Feb. 1547-8. — ” R.O. Scotland,” Edward V1., vol. iii. No 53, 25th Feb. 1548, fol. 939. ) I spoke with Peter Kearny the director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office in Glasgow, he kindly furnished me with a report entitled; ” Response by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland to ‘ Tackling Religious Hatred’. 10th. March 2003″. I will relate some of this Response such as; “The divisions and hatred which threaten to impoverish our society by distorting or suppressing the authentic spirit of religion must be overcome and we welcome the Scottish Executive’s willingness to face up to this issue.” The Catholic Bishops Response continues to highlight the discrimination in Scotland especially against the Roman Catholics by writing thus; “A historical understanding of religious intolerance however, is a fundamental pre-requisite to progress. Legislation which forms the constitution of the UK has traditionally discriminated against Catholics; e.g. the Act of Settlement. Once the State concedes that discrimination against a particular group (in this case Catholics) is acceptable, it is difficult to see how it can regain the moral authority needed to criticise religious hatred and intolerance wherever it is found”. They emphasise the currant sectarianism in Scotland. ” Education is a vital element in overcoming the resentment of those from different communities but on its own does not produce people free of resentment and hatred. The task of creating a harmonious society is always one requiring considerable effort. In responding to the friction’s which arise in society because of the different constituent ethnic or religious communities attempts to eradicate differences are counter-productive and often unjust; rather it is our view that religious tolerance should be pursued by fully promoting religious freedom. This right is an essential requirement of the dignity of every person and necessary for the personal fulfilment of each individual and as such is necessary for peaceful human co-existence. In recognising that religious intolerance is evident in Scotland (against Roman Catholics in particular) we propose the following principles as the foundation of understanding and practising religious tolerance”. The Bishops display a list of six proposals; ” 1. The right to religious freedom is grounded in respect for human dignity. 2. Individuals should not be forced to act in a manner contrary to their religious beliefs, nor should they be restrained from acting in accordance with their religious beliefs. 3. Religious bodies have a right to manifest and teach the social relevance of their religious beliefs. 4. Religious bodies have a right to establish and maintain corporate institutions and services and conduct them in accordance with their religious beliefs and values. 5. Because the right to religious freedom is exercised within society, it ought to be subject to the laws which ordinarily safeguard justice and civil order. 6. Civil authorities do not have the right to command or inhibit acts of religion which are outside their proper competence”. Concluding the Response by the Bishops’ Conference they note; “Promoting such principles contributes to the recognition of the dignity of each individual, which is a necessary condition for creating a free and just society”. These papers were written for the Scottish Executive in Edinburgh because of the present day sectarianism that still has a stranglehold over the nation. It’s a long and difficult process and as you have seen throughout this essay I have endeavoured to shed light on this evil. There are some more highlights from another book by the Open University, ( Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present Volume 4) Readings 1850 to the present, edited by, Anthony Cooke, Ian Donnachie, Ann MacSween and Christopher A. Whatley. Published by Tuckwell Press 1998. Article thirty-five. Protestant Extremism in urban Scotland 1930-1939. Its growth and contraction. By Tom Gallagher 1985. ” The Scottish Historical Review 64, 143-67″. Throughout this chapter Tom Gallagher brings an in-depth view on the hatred displayed and performed by Presbyterian leaders especially during the period dated above. He notes the victimisation against Irish and Scottish Catholics by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the report they produced entitled; The Menace of the Irish Race on Our Scottish Nationality. He writes; “George Malcolm Thomson (later a notable journalist and long-standing aide to Lord Beaverbrook) and Andrew Dewar Gibb, (Founder of the SNP) professor of Scots law at Glasgow University were two nationalists who by the end of the 1920s, were writing about the menace from within posed by the ‘Irish’ in Scotland”. He names Annie S. Swan and R. W. Campbell as amongst the worst by writing; “The arch-imperialist R. W. Campbell, of whom it has been said that he seemed to despise anyone who was not a white, Scottish, Boys Brigade member”. Tom Gallagher writes about Alexander Ratcliffe and the sectarian newspaper he produced The Vanguard and his viscous political party The Scottish Protestant League (SPL). Gallagher writes about Catholic schools and notes; The ‘religious’ matter which chiefly preoccupied the SPL was the fact that Catholic schools were now maintained by the state under Section 18 of the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act. Previously largely financed from the meagre resources of the 650,000 strong (and mainly working class) Catholic community”. Ratcliffe and his followers in the SPL were demanding the abolition of Catholic schools and crying that it was ” Rome on the rates”. Gallagher writes; “This slogan conveniently over looked the fact that up to 1918, Catholic ratepayers had been obliged to subsidise non-Catholic schools while having to make other provisions for their own”. These facts that Gallagher brings were these same scenario with Catholic Churches and properties robbed from the Scottish Catholics from 1560. Ratcliffe was also a contributor to the labour party weekly ‘The Forward’ which Gallagher claims was the premier paper of the Scottish left from 1906 to the 1950s. Tom Gallagher continues; “Ratcliffe belonged to the Scottish Fascists whose leader Weir Gilmour, maintained his anti-Catholicism well into the post-war years. Gallagher writes that Ratcliffe had close ties with militant Protestants in Northern Ireland and referrers to an incident at the newly opened ‘parliament’ at Stormont. “On 2nd of May 1933 when a picture depicting King William of Orange being blessed by an ecclesiastical figure resting on a cloud was attacked by an SPL contingent, The painting was daubed by in paint by Mrs. Mary Ratcliffe and then slashed by councillor Forrester”. Actually this has always been part and parcel of Presbyterian philosophy as we have seen in recent years the same crimes being committed by their followers, who carried out the slashing of Salvador Dali’s masterpiece St. John of the Cross in a Glasgow museum, not to forget the hundred of churches, monasteries and works of art that they have destroyed throughout the past four hundred and forty years, in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. Gallagher informs his reader that Lord Scone, Tory MP for Perth had been honorary president of the Scottish Protestant League. Tom Gallagher goes on about Ratcliffe’s visit to nazi-Germany in August 1939 and his support for the Hitler regime he wrote; “By 1940, the Jews had replaced Roman Catholics as his main bugbear and he contemptuously referred to the Gorbals district of Glasgow as ‘Jew-land’. Articles entitled in The Vanguard ‘Our Jewish Usurers’, ‘the Jews and crime’ and ‘Why Germany put out the Jews’ and a piece entitled ‘Britain’s Pro-Jew Menace’. He wrote in Vanguard ‘we are very kind to Roman Catholics in Scotland, of course the reason being that we have no Hitler in our midst to eject Popery. Ratcliffe, a Protestant iconoclast to the last, wanted to see the triumph of Hitler”. Gallagher introduces John Cormack a Protestant extremist who had been accused of stealing mail from the General Post Office where he worked in Edinburgh in 1932, details are listed by Gallagher of the sectarian violence and hatred by Cormack and his followers known as Protestant Action. The Hope Trust is pointed out by Gallagher as having given out anti-Catholic literature to Bible classes and the Boys’ Brigade for many years. During this period Cormack no doubt spurred on by John White the sectarian moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Protestant Action group were standing for elections and Tom Gallagher notes a bold black headline from the Edinburgh and Leith Observer stating; “Sectarianism Dominating Municipal Election, Wild Ward Meetings, Protestant Storm Troops Adopt Un-Christian Tactics.” Cormack represented South Leith without interruption from 1938 till 1962. Gallagher wrote that Cormack formed ‘Kormack’s Kaledonian Klan’ he notes; “A paramilitary body derived from the Ku Klux Klan.” He continues to inform his reader; “At the 1935 general election William Fullerton, the leader of the Protestant ‘Billy Boy’ gang came from this part of Glasgow and was a section leader in the British Union of Fascists.” Gallagher points out the evil in these organisations; “On two separate occasions at the Mound (Edinburgh) in June 1940 he (Cormack) was reported as saying that ‘ when Protestants went “over the top”(as in the war) with Roman Catholics, the Protestants should shoot them’, but no action was taken (by the authorities). Cormack was elected as a baillie 1955 by his fellow councillors”. I would like to know the statistics about any Roman Catholics who had the mis-fortune to be tried in a court with Cormack as the magistrate, though this only lends ammunition to my argument that these types of religious maniacs should not be empowered to decide the fate of the proletariat. Gallagher wrote; “The Rev. D. M. McGregor spoke out against the linking of Protestantism with mob violence: “If Protestantism can only be vindicated in such crude ways, its day is nearly done.” From volume 5 of the Open University book ( University of Dundee ) entitled “Major Documents”, published by Tuckwell Press Ltd. 1998. Edited by Anthony Cooke, Ian Donnachie, Ann MacSween and Christopher A. Whatley. I will highlight some of their findings on Document 24 ‘Lord Kames’ Statute Law abridged’. “All seminary priests found in the realm, all receptors of these if found a third time in fault, all sayers of mass, and all wilful hearers of mass and concealers of the same, are subjected to the pains of death, and the confiscation of their moveables. A Protestant servant, if he became a Papist, is to be punished, and must be dismissed his service. If a Papist purchase land, the deed of sale is declared null, and the seller is entitled to retain both the land and the price. No professed Papist shall be capable of succeeding to an estate; and if a Protestant becomes a Papist he forfeits his estate. Neither shall it be allowed to any professed, or even suspected Papist, to teach any art, science, or exercise of any sort, under pain of 500 merks; and the above penalties may be sued for by any Protestant subject for his own behoof as his reward. That no adjudication or real diligence shall be competent at the instance of a Papist; neither shall a Papist be capable of becoming tutor, curator, or factor; and if any person or persons presume to employ a Papist, or such as are suspected of Popery, in any of the above trusts, they must purge themselves of Popery, under the penalty of a year’s valued rent, or a fine of 1000 merks. No Papist past the age of 15 shall be capable to succeed as heir, nor bruik, nor enjoy any estate by disposition or conveyance from any person to whom the said Papist is apparent heir, until he purge himself of Popery. The heir under 15 must purge himself of Popery before succeeding as heir, and if he refuse to do so his right shall go to the next Protestant heir. Presbyterians are appointed to summon before them all Papists, and those suspected of Papistry, in order to satisfy the Kirk; and if Papists do not produce sufficient certificates of their having given due satisfaction to the Kirk, they shall be declared rebels, put to the horn, and both their single and life-rent escheated. Further, that whoever receipts, supplies or entertains, such persons after denunciation aforesaid, shall incur the penalty of single and life-rent escheat.” Source: Lord Kames, Statute Law Abridged, quoted in Senex (psued) 1884 Glasgow Past and Present Vol. 11, Glasgow, 163-4. On the same page of this document listed as Notes 2, ( Scots Magazine 1756, 100 ) it states; “On the 1st of March, 1756, Hugh M’Donald, brother of M’Donald of Morra, was tried at Edinburgh before the High Court of Judiciary, at the instance of the Lord Advocate, for refusing to purge himself of Popery. Being asked ‘whether he was willing to take the formula prescribed by Act 1700-3’ he declared, ‘that he was not at freedom of conscience to do it.’ He was then found guilty in terms of libel, and sentenced to be banished from the kingdom, never to return under pain of death.’ From the same book Document 25, Religion, entitled (The Encrease of Popery in the Highlands) the writer examines the Church of Scotland documents from ministers; “This is one of a number of reports written by groups of Highland ministers of the Church of Scotland concerning the growth of Roman Catholicism in the Highlands. In much of the area, Presbyterianism had never been fully established, but during the first half of the eighteenth century the attempt to Presbyterianise the people was seen as the key to the ‘hearts and minds’ element of suppressing Jacobitism. These accounts show how Catholicism was relatively flourishing and how the work of the Presbyterian clergy was difficult. Dated 19 May, 1714. I will show some of the findings of this document such as; “Priest Frazer is entertained in The Duke of Gordon’s family.” “There are above six hundred Papists in the paroch of Bellie, & in Kinnore & Dumbennan the Papists are equal in numbers to the Protestants.” “The Papists in the said bounds have of late set up private schools which are taught bt Popish women.” ” There are in the paroch of Inveraven two hundred and seventy Papists.” “In the paroch of Lochaber the priests swarm like Locusts.” “There are four large tracts of ground in the presbytery of Lorne upon the continent vizt: Muirdart, Arasaig, Morhirr & Knoidart contiguous to one another, which are altogether Popish.” “The Isles of Rum, Egg & Canna are all Popish. The Isle of South Uist is all Popish.” “These Countreys and Islands were never Reformed from Popery. And generally all the relations followers & tennants of Clanronald, through all his Lands both in the Continent & Isles are all Papists.” “In these countreys there are to the number of two thousand Papists.” One must take into account how many Scottish historians have claimed that the Reformation was an overnight success yet we see from this document that there were thousands of Catholics and many priests, this was over 150 years after the Reformation. Today in the 21st-century Scotland still has desperate problems, especially when a man such as Pope John Paul II accused the nation of being non-Christian. I cannot recall recent Pope’s describing Scotland in a manner that the present Pope has made, however this declaration is of no great surprise considering the atrocities and abuses that have been performed by Protestant/Presbyterian’s over the past centuries. Written and researched by; Frank J Dougan
Scottish Catholic Bishops condemn the persecution and intolerance in Scotland against Scottish Catholics. The founders of the Scottish Nationalist Party helped to create this hatred present to this day 2019
In “BBC”
Written and researched by Francesco Josepa Dougan
I would like to draw your attention to The Lindisfarne Gospels that have been displayed at Durham Cathedral until 30 September, 2013 and have now been returned to the British Library in London.
The Lindisfarne Gospels were stolen by the thugs of Satan, King Henry VIII and sold to a book dealer around c1613.
They were translated and written by Saint Eadfrith, Prior of Lindisfarne circa 690ad.
Source Eadfrith; Reverend Canon Kate Tristram
“Eadfrith is of special importance to us here, as he was the artist and calligrapher of the Lindisfarne Gospels. We know nothing about his place of birth or his family, or where he got his early training as a scribe. Nor do we know of any other work or writing from his pen. But is that surprising? We admire the art of this period, but what has survived is only a tiny fraction of all that was made. Perhaps Eadfrith wrote other texts equally beautiful, but an immense amount has perished and we shall never know.
The Lindisfarne gospels were written during the years between 687, when St. Cuthbert died, and 721, when Eadfrith died. They were made in honour of St. Cuthbert. Perhaps they were used for the first time at the ceremony of ‘elevation’ when his body was found to be undecayed, or else during the following years when his cult was growing. Modern scholars have worked out that the whole book was the work of one man, and that it might have taken him as much as ten years to produce it.
It was in many ways an adventurous piece of work. Eadfrith introduced features, such as the human portraits of the evangelists, which had not previously been in the artistic tradition of these islands.
But Eadfrith himself probably did not think his artistic work was the most important thing he did. For his last 23 years he was Bishop of Lindisfarne, and actively promoted the cult of St. Cuthbert. At this time the monastery here was very friendly with the monastery of Wearmouth/Jarrow, where Bede was just making his reputation as a great scholar. A Life of Cuthbert had already been written here on the Island by an anonymous monk, but Eadfrith asked Bede to write the ‘official’ life of Cuthbert, and it is through Bede’s writings that we know most about him. Eadfrith also restored the hermitage on the Inner Farne which had been Cuthbert’s, so that another hermit, Felgild, could take up residence there.
When Eadfrith died his body was buried near St.Cuthbert’s tomb and when the monks of Lindisfarne finally left the Island in 875 his relics travelled with those of others in St. Cuthbert’s coffin, to find a permanent home in Durham.”
Approximately 100,000 people visited The Gospels, however many people such as myself who are pensioners and others on a low budget could not afford to pay £7-£9 to view these Holy Gospels that were written by the Apostles of Our Lord Jesus Christ and translated by Eadfrith for everyone to read free of charge.
I wrote to the British Library in London and asked where did the £900,000 go they replied they did not know?
Saint Bede-Venerable Bede who’s sarcophagus is in the Cathedral was present at the period Eadfrith wrote these translations from Latin into Anglo-Saxon or Old English, in fact St. Bede wrote ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ and as his death approached he was translating The Gospel of St. John from Latin into English.
Previously St. Bede had written about the life of St. Cuthbert the great saint of Lindisfarne who was born in the Lothian Hills.
St. Bede was regarded as one of the greatest scholars of his age and generations of monks and teachers were trained by the use of his writings he is a Doctor of the Catholic Church.
He wrote on the reasons for the Leap Year the equinox and dating events such as BC and AD and worked out how Easter should be dated each year and even calculated that the world was round he was born in Sunderland he wrote over 74 books relating to Jesus.
Today BC and AD have been forced to change in schools to BCE and CE the people that changed this are bonkers.
In my opinion and that of many others The Lindisfarne Gospels to be returned to the Catholic Church in North East England permanently and for everyone to see them free of charge forever and may I suggest they could be taken to every Cathedral in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales of all Christian faiths to be shown as this would revitalize our faith as is badly needed.
Good morning, that’s very interesting information you have there. A little outside of our remit, being English history in the main. I’d have to disagree with your feelings regarding the “bonkers” use of BCE and CE. We’ve had a multi-faith society for a few centuries at least now, yet the authorities were set on having everyone use the christian “Before Christ” and “Anno Domini” denominations for era. I’d say this probably has irked those non-christians for the longest time. In the compromise of “Before Common Era” and “Common Era,” this suits everyone no matter their belief and I, for one, was relieved when I began my uni course and was advised these were what was to be used from now on. It made sense to me.
Thank you very much for your extremely informative comment to the site. We appreciate your input.
Scotland in a 1560 time warp.
A. D. M. Barrell a Lecturer in Later Medieval History at Queen’s University Belfast writes in his book ‘ Medieval Scotland’. Published by Cambridge University Press ( 2000 ) The road to the Reformation.
‘ Although parishioners were encouraged to confess their sins, the church demanded this only at Easter’.
If we are to take his word as truth on this statement then one must assume that the Catholic Church was not so harsh as we are led to believe.
Barrell has conducted an in-depth search of Vatican Archives and he reveals a totally different picture of the political and ecumenical outline of pre-Reformation Scotland that has been covered up by most so-called ‘eminent’ Scottish Historians who have described the nation as though it had been a jungle of misery, yet with Barrell’s short chapter he describes Scotland as a nation that held her own with its European neighbours, though there are points that have to be properly investigated that I have endeavoured to examine.
He continues;
‘ And while some lay people had a deep vein of piety and reverence even for things they did not fully understand, were struck by the awe-inspiring mystery of the sacraments, others were doubtless very bored and restless during services’.
Over one billion people are still today awe-struck by the mysteries in the Mass, and I am sure that some may feel bored and restless, as with any form of lecture or service that requires an hour-ormore of contemplation as I am sure happens within Protestant congregations.
Barrell goes on;
‘Whoever the legal rector or vicar might be, the clerk who officiated was probably usually drawn,if not from the local community, at least from the same social stratum as the majority of the parishioners, a fact which may have made some members of the congregation, familiar with his past and character, skeptical that he really could act as mediator between them and God’.
Throughout my research most historians are of one conclusion that the parish priests were not condemned as a body that did not conform to decency towards their congregations.
No doubt there were some clerics who went astray in some aspects as corruption is not exclusive, particularly as we have seen in recent years people who are elected to positions of trust especially atWestminster and the Civil Service which is particularly prone to nepotism and an inbuilt devotion to distort the truth, which has caused all of these islands to be in constant turmoil and in a state of war at sometime or another, with almost every nation in the world, not for the reward of the proletariat, but for the greed and lust for power of the Whitehall Mandarins.
Clerics would not have lasted five minuets in the job as the congregations of their parishes would not have allowed them in if the had such a distasteful character as Barrell suggests, and as we see intoday’s world any priest that steps out of line is drummed out by his parishioners, as is the same for all the major religious institutions.
The Belfast lecturer continues;
‘ The medieval church placed considerable emphasis on the idea of judgment, both after death and, ultimately, at the end of the world’.
Surely this is what the Christianity is based on behave in this world and you’ll be looked after in thenext one.
Barrell writes;
‘ By stressing the eternal consequences of misbehaviour on earth, the church hoped to impose some discipline on a society which, even if not senselessly violent and brutish, was not exactly subtle in sorting out it’s problems’.
These words are difficult to swallow written by a lecturer in Belfast indicating that 16th century Scots didn’t have a senseless violent streak in their lives, especially when we must consider the horrendous brutality at the murder of the Scottish Cardinal Beaton ( stabbed dozens of times and hung outside his house window until his flesh rotted ) and Rizzio (stabbed many times in front of Mary and her friends ) and the queen’s husband Lord Darnley and his servant ( both strangled ) then two or three Regents ( shot to death ) and to suggest that the Catholic Church was wrong in trying to impose discipline on society was wrong, then he should take a trip outside the ivory tower he lives in a have a look at the devastation that his neighbours of both persuasion are living in Belfast and Derry then perhaps review his thoughts on discipline and his condemnation of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church.
The next part that he writes is hilarious considering that Christianity is a spiritual blessing, Barrell say’s;‘ The message was brought home partly through wall paintings, stained glass windows and other visual aids, because themes such as the end of the world and the pains of hell could be depicted in such media more effectively than could more abstract concepts such as love and redemption’.
Hell-Fire and Brimstone have been the backbone of Protestantism since it began so how on earth can anyone complain that Catholics used the same rhetoric, and as for the other visual aids I presume he means paintings by the great Masters, on the subject of love and redemption that is hardly an appropriate item for believers in a philosophy that has enslaved and subjugated a third of the world’s population, and created genocide and concentration camps.
Barrell writes;
‘ Pilgrimages can be regarded as excuses for holidays, the medieval equivalent of a trip to the seaside, and they were sometimes encouraged by offering indulgences as incentives to pilgrims, but it would be too cynical simply to dismiss the spiritual side of the practice on these grounds’.
These last words are very kind of him but lets face the facts, if the Church was telling its parishioners to go for a holiday while visiting a shrine I’m sure that the people that lived pre-1560 would have jumped at the chance of a ‘wee trip’ away from their hum-drum lives as do people today.
As for indulgences these are common practice in every walk of life in present talk we call them favours, someone does you a favour you do it back, and sometimes we have to pay some dosh.
On a beach in Hong Kong where I worked in 1983-84, there is an ornamental bridge with a legend written on it that states;‘ Everytime you walk over this bridge you will add another day onto your life’.
I don’t know if it’s a true statement but I can tell you that every time I went to that beach I made sure I walked over that bridge a few times.
Countless billions of people go to Rome, Lourdes, Fatima, Mecca, Bethlehem, Jerusalem and many other places on a pilgrimage are they all stupid as A. D. M. Barrell would have you believe, or perhaps they have a deep trust in the faith that beckons them there ?
He writes; ‘ There is no evidence that sixteenth-century parish priests were appreciably more ignorant than their predecessors’.
Barrell writes that many Protestant writers condemned monasteries as lax and dens of vice he elabourates on his challenge by writing;‘ At Kinloss in Moray two abbots, Thomas Crystal and Robert Reid, increased the number of monks, built up the monastic library, and attracted the services of Giovanni Ferrerio, a Renaissance scholar from Piedmont who settled at Kinloss and taught the young monks.
At Cambuskenneth near Stirling Alexander Myelin, who became abbot in 1518, improved the academic standing of the monastery and attempted to introduce strict observance of the Augustinian rule, and efforts towards reform and a greater emphasis on university attendance are found at several other Scottish houses.. A Carthusian monastery was established at Perth as late as James 1’s reign.
( Such examples provide a necessary corrective to the image of decadence and decline.)’
The above passage clearly highlights the evidence of a great emphasis that was undertaken by the Catholic Church on education rather than the lies that Protestant Historians and writers would have people believe with their consistent denouncement of the Catholic Institutions that had been flourishing before 1560.
He continues;
‘ William Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen, has been described as remarkably unselfseeking and indifferent to power and a genuine patriot ( who ) strove constantly to make the community of the realm a workable reality.’
From the far north of Scotland to the Central Belt there was a lot of progress being made by intellects for the benefit of the Scottish society.
Barrell wrote; ‘ In great churches and cathedrals and abbeys there was an almost constant succession of services through the day and night; even in lesser churches, the proliferation of private alters in the later Middle Ages meant that divine offices were being celebrated almost continuously.’
When one looks at the churches of today both Catholic and Protestant and we see how few people attend services, the question that I pose would churches have been opened day and night with a constant succession of masses if there were no people interested, and especially as the Protestant Historians constantly have blasted out that the Catholic clerics were too busy doing other things and were not dedicated to their congregations.
Who performed these constant successions of services, as they only lasted about one hour so there must have been many priests that were fulfilling their obligations, and this evidence of devotion to the Roman Catholic Faith could never be equaled by the Protestant Churches even though they had Church Police demanding that men must bring their wife and family to church or suffer severe consequences.
This puts paid to the illicit propaganda that the Reformation was an overnight sensational success as is still being preached by Harry Reid in his recent book ( Outside Verdict ) and many of his fellow blinkerd Presbyterian writers.
Barrell goes on; ‘ In an age of ignorance, with scientific knowledge virtually non-existent, the hand of supernatural powers was visible everywhere.’
Fan-me-with-a-kipper !
Has anything changed in the 21st century which is bursting with scientific knowledge and most of the world’s population still believes in some-sort of supernatural powers, and superstitions that are
involved in everyday life which includes the majority of members of all religions and non-religions.
The world has always been filled with ideologies and cults and devotion to a greater being and a place in the spiritual world.
Therefore the Catholic Church cannot exclusively be blamed though Barrell seems to think otherwise as he writes;‘ In some respects, the religion of medieval Christians was based on terror of the hereafter, on superstition, on a blind, unquestioning faith in the saints and in churchmen as intercessors, even on a baleful and suffocating ignorance.’
Churchmen of all faiths have always been believed to be intercessors and have always been paid by people for some favour be it baptism, marriage, sick visits, funerals as a thanks for performing a service, and the hereafter ‘terror’ wasn’t invented by Roman Catholics, and if one is to face the facts….if we did not have a supernatural ‘terror’ to challenge mankind we would all be living in a state of mayhem and madness, such as Scotland and Ireland has lived through since Henry V111 and John Knox and their deviants tried to destroy the Roman Catholic Faith on these islands.
This beast created by these monsters has kept Scotland and Ireland living in a medieval time warp politically, economically, intellectually and culturally.
One only as to look at recent Westminster History, in 1972 the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath allowed plans to be drawn up to deport hundreds-of-thousands of Irish Catholics from their homes in Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland and create an all Protestant State in the north.
These are exactly the same plans that the British used in South Africa, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and many other nations around the world it’s called ethnic cleansing, unfortunately for many British colonists the policy that they invented is now backfiring on them as the indigenous inhabitants of their former empire are demanding that their heritage be returned to the hands of the rightful owners such as is happening in Zimbabwe while the British bourgeoisie are claiming that the whites are being denied their human rights, which to me sounds hypocritical as they stole the land in the first place, and as for human rights these are only now being allowed at this moment in time in Britain because membership of the European Union demands that everyone has freedom to live in an equal society. One must realize that in Britain the aristocracy still legally have possession of lands taken from the British people by force over 1000 years ago, therefor would it not be reasonable to assume that the aristocracy from nations colonized by Britain should not have the same rights to reclaim their own lands back from foreign invaders.
Barrell writes;
‘ Post-Reformation writers castigated James V for failing to follow the example of his uncle, Henry V111, in breaking with Rome’. Should James have broke with Rome because a murdering madman was desperate to take over Scotland while he had plans to destroy all the places of higher education and worship which he did and left the nation in a state of economic and ecclesiastical desperation.
He proceeded to note; ‘ In 1525 parliament promulgated a statute against the import of Lutheran works, threatening with imprisonment and escheat those who brought such literature through Scottish seaports.’
Most writers on the Reformation usually refer to this incident as though it was only the Catholic Government of Scotland who employed this tactic.
I would like to know how many books have been banned by law in ‘ democratic’ Protestant Britain possibly thousands and many in recent years, one in particular springs to mind that was banned from 1928 till 1960, ( Lady Chatterley’s Lover) by D. H. Lawrence published by Penguin Books, the Government used sexual content as the excuse, actually the real reason behind the book being banned was because D.H. Lawrence exposed the inadequacies and corruption of the then ruling classes, and as I have mentioned about Harry Reid he advocates that you should not read Edwin Muir’s condemnation of John Knox.
A. D. M. Barrell informs his reader that Bible study in the vernacular became lawful by act of
parliament in 1543. This was seventeen years before the Scottish Reformation.
He continues;‘ The parliamentary measures of 1560 were negative rather than positive. They abolished the Mass and rejected papal jurisdiction, but did not create fresh administrative structures for the church. The reformers faced the thorny problem of how Protestant ministers were to be endowed’.
Over one thousand Catholic churches had been closed in Scotland at that date and as I have previously written there were only over 200 ministers seven years later, this lets one see clearly thatthe Reformation was forced upon a nation that had previously had churches open day and night with continuous services.
Ian D. White was Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Lancaster. He was author of numerous books and articles including; ( Scotland Before the Industrial Revolution: An Economic and Social History 1050-1750 ) In his book ( Scotland’s Society and Economy in Transition, 1560-1760 ) Published by Macmillan Press Ltd. 1997 he writes;
“ There is some evidence that tensions in Scottish society, from the magnates to the tenants, may have been greater than was once thought. Religion undoubtedly played a part, triggering off the revolution crisis, but it is hard to believe that religious discontent alone motivated the rebellion.
By closing down all the Catholic Churches in Scotland in 1560 this gave the traitors who would eventually hand the liberty of the nation over to England, the opportunity to seize power without any struggle as the local churches were the center point of life in those days and most news from other towns and villages was brought there, therefor by closing the main gathering places the churches, and disposing of the priests as you cannot have Mass without a priest, and we have seen this same policy in the former Eastern Block countries where all the churches were closed, but the proletariat won their freedom to open them.
The Scottish Protestant Reformation was an ideology imposed by force on an unwilling people in Scotland and it was only by terrorist tactics and draconian laws which still exist, has Protestantism been the scourge of the Celtic nations.
Ian D. Whyte continues;
‘ In some ways the Reformation strengthened the position of the aristocracy. Protestantism also gave the nobles an ideological justification for their position in the state, as godly magistrates, and they benefited more tangibly from the acquisition of church lands.
The development of the Calvinist church with its kirk sessions gave a greater role locally to lairdsand feuars as church elders’.
The descendants of these people mentioned by Professor Whyte still hold the balance of power in most cities, towns and villages in Scotland today in positions as councilors, JPs, MPs, lawyers and judges and civil servants and tax collectors, is it any wonder that the nation is still subservient to Westminster to whom the above mentioned hold allegiance to keep them in positions of power and wealth, while they allow the resources of Scotland to be drained away and squandered on military technology and imperialist ambitions.
Professor Whyte writes;
‘ There was certainly a major expansion of credit following the Reformation, especially after 1587 when Parliament allowed interest at up to 10 per cent to be charged’.
A. D. M . Barrell notes in his book ( Medieval Scotland, The road to Reformation )
‘ Popes sometimes allowed bishops to borrow money, despite the church’s objection to the
charging of interest on loans’. The value of the Scottish pound had shrunk from 1560 inflation was out of control in the 1580s and 90s there were famine conditions according to Ian D. Whyte who writes; ‘ Taxation had been infrequent before 1600 ( The Reformation ) It became more regular after 1607 and virtually annual from 1612.
200,000 Scots pounds was levied between 1600 and 1609 but this rose to 507,000 pounds between 1610 and 1619.
The tax of 1621, designed to raise 1.2 million pounds over four years, was greater than the entire bill for the previous 50 years. ( Before 1560 )
The total taxation imposed between 1620 and 1629, 2.4 million pounds, seemed vast compared with earlier levies but…. between 1630 and 1639 the figure rose to 4 million pounds’.
This money was being robbed from the Scots proletariat to build a Protestant state, Barrell writes;‘ Clashes between papal and local jurisdiction were much less frequent than the postReformation notion of interfering popes might suggest’.
Do these figures indicate that the Reformation was good for Scotland as Protestant historians insist ?
Prior to the Reformation Scotland had been quite steady economically and solid trade links had been established within Europe, over a hundred collages were under construction the Scottish Queen was the most celebrated personality in Europe and what happened, the country was ravished and impoverished by Knoxites and has remained so through his disciples.
One does not need a degree in economics to see the state of Scotland before and after the Reformation and the nation has never ventured into a state of wealth and prosperity such as it enjoyed before 1560, and in relation to other European nations Scotland is a poor relation, and to the Westminster government the Scottish nation is treated with contempt as beggars. The road between Glasgow and Edinburgh is laughable as a major transport artery and it’s worse between Stirling, Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen Scotland’s oil capital.
A ferry service between Scotland and Europe has only started in 2002, hospitals, schools, jobs, council housing and policing are worse than in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Italy, Austria though I could say that they are not far away from the standards in Russia.
In almost every country in the world one can have a leisurely drink outside a street cafe but not in Scotland which still enforces draconian Presbyterian laws, and one must remember that the weather has nothing to do with this pastime as they have dreadful winters all over Europe also.
A. D. M. Barrell narrates;
‘ Until 1558 at the earliest the Scottish political community had been indecisive, neither wholeheartedly embracing Protestantism’.
I love this next line that so many historians have written such as Barrell has here;‘ But even those who had little interest in doctrinal change must have felt apprehensive at the prospect of Scotland becoming little more than a satellite of the French kingdom, and this may have fostered a sense of national identity which proved a fertile ground for the ( illegal ) legislation of the Reformation Parliament’.
Scotland is today a satellite of the English and Scots traitors at Westminster and as for national identity Protestantism has all but wiped out the language and cultures of all the Celtic Scots. It was never the French who invaded and plundered Scotland and deported the men, women and children it was the English who have tried since Roman times to dominate the nation, Scotland would have been a greater country if she would have been linked with France perhaps the finest democracy and Republic in Europe today.
Barrell writes briefly about Mary Stuart’s return to Scotland he notes;
‘ The queen’s behaviour served to discredit the old church, throughout these momentous events, however, political expediency played at least as great a part as religious convictions’.
The Catholic Church had been banned before she came back to Scotland and she knew this but it did not stop her returning to her home-land, so how could her behaviour discredit something that was not there anymore, she was never charged or convicted of any crime, though she was murdered for staying a Catholic she could have pretended to embrace Protestantism as all around her had done, though Mary had real bottle to the very end, especially when she was martyred under the blows of an axe that needed three strikes to dispose of one of Scotland’s greatest ever children.
He continues; ‘ The ( Catholic ) Scottish church stemmed from inappropriate relaxation’s of canon law, for instance to allow the king’s illegitimate children to hold bishoprics and abbeys’.This has always been a sore point with writers on Scottish history the children of the king holding these minor posts within the Catholic Church, this is another of the great Protestant hypocrisies as the queen that Knox and his gangsters adhered to was illegitimate Elizabeth 1, and the Regent that the Protestants set up to run Scotland after they forced Mary to abdicate, was the illegitimate brother of Mary Stuart, Lord Moray ( James Stuart ) who was once a commendator at St. Andrews when he was a Catholic.
His mother stood gloating over Mary while she was miss-carrying twin babies along with John Knox and George Buchanan as they were venemously forcing her to sign the abdication paper covered in her dead children’s blood.
Ian D. Whyte comments;
‘ Greater contact with the English nobility after 1603 may have helped to generate an identity crisis and inferiority complex among Scottish magnates as they moved from being the leaders of society in an independent nation to a poor, provincial nobility, this generating envy, frustration and ultimately aggression.
Scottish nobles were characteristically informal with their followers and inferiors, just as Scottish monarchs had been with their magnates, in a manner similar to that of France.
The Scottish and French courts were designed to allow relatively free access to the monarch. The
English court from the reign of Henry V111 onwards, had been structured to preserve distance
between monarchs and their subjects. Scottish society was strongly hierarchical and status
conscious but because in the sixteenth century that hierarchy was universally recognised and
was seen to be stable, men of different ranks could treat each other in an informal way’.
He continues on the faults of Presbyterianism;
‘ The power of puritanical Presbyterianism has been portrayed as a negative and ruthlessly
repressive force, which impoverished popular culture and turned seventeenth-century Scotland
into a cultural wilderness’.
Professor Whyte goes on;
‘ The new church appealed particularly to middling groups in society: lairds, feuars, larger
tenants and burgesses. It was from their ranks that many of the new ministers were drawn. The
ministers came to form a new social elite that identified with the middle ranks of society rather
than with its traditional feudal leaders. By the middle of the seventeenth century ministers had
started to become a self-perpetuating caste, with son following father into the church. They were
also an increasingly wealthy group. Edinburgh’s ministers were paid £1, 200 a year. This along
with income from glebe lands, often made them the wealthiest men in their parishes after the
major landowner, on a par with, or better off than, many lairds’.
I have previously pointed out that ministers took the lead from their mentor John Knox who
siphoned off money for his money lending activities, prior to 1560 parish priests were so
impoverished that the relied desperately on their parishioners to fund them.
Professor Whyte has already written that the period in question noted above 1629, £2.4 million were
raised in taxes in Scotland, assuming that 1000 former Catholic churches had been re-opened by
then and the ministers were paid approximately the same, then half of all Scottish tax revenues were
paid to the Church of Scotland ministers which equals £1,200,000 this lets one see clearly why the
ministers were better off financially than many landowners.
Whyte notes;
‘ It thus became the business of the church to regulate the lives of everyone, sometimes to an
obsessive and unhealthy degree’.
One can clearly distinguish the similarities that have scourged Scotland with these regulations not
unlike a friend of mine from Germany once told me that when he was at school during World War
2, he said the children were taught that British and Americans were demons, and we have seen
Cambodia, and some former Communist states that committed the same extremes in brainwashing
their populations.
Actually the demons that the Germans feared are the strange breed of creatures that run Britain and
USA mostly life long Civil Servants and Permanent Secretaries who are mostly from the aristocracy
and Free-Masons.
Professor Whyte continues;
‘ They ( Presbyterians ) were a strong agent of social control and regulation. They developed
what has sometimes been seen as a moral and spiritual tyranny over everyday life. By about 1620
most parishes, except those in more remote parts of the Highlands, had active kirk sessions
enforcing strict moral discipline.
Kirk sessions comprised the minister and the elected elders of a parish sitting, often weekly, as a
tribunal, before which people were called and interrogated. The elders were chosen from the
most prominent men in the community and more prosperous tenants in rural parishes.
Kirk sessions’ procedures resembled those of the High Court of Justiciary and because of this
evidence was acceptable to the central criminal court.
People were presumed guilty until proven innocent.
Remorseless interrogation of witnesses and defendants proceeded until a session was sure that
the truth had been reached.
They might deny a midwife to a woman in labour until she named the father, or the child might
be refused baptism.’
This was the act carried out against Mary Stuart when she almost bled to death during her
miscarriage.
Professor Whyte’s statement comes as no surprise that Knox’s policy of torture had been approved
by his disciples and has been adhered to for generations.
Whyte goes on to inform his reader;
‘ Elders usually had defined areas of their parish to keep under observation, acting as a kind of
moral police force. Their powers within their community were sweeping.
Accompanied by a witness, elders could enter people’s houses if they suspected that an offense
was being committed or a fugitive from ( Presbyterian ) discipline harboured.
People could be accused of crimes in the street.’
Today in the 21st century Presbyterian elders and their off-springs still hold considerable power in
the Scottish Parliament and the Justiciary and councils all over Scotland that have all been
indoctrinated by the same policies.
These are the times that Harry Reid advocates to return to in his appraisal of the Church of Scotland
and he longs for a return to and more sectarianism and less democracy and no doubt censorship
against writers who wish to expose this demented ideology.
There are Protestant ministers today such as Jack Glass in Glasgow and Ian Paisley in Northern
Ireland who still enjoy power over many people.
Professor Whyte tells us that ministers used presbytery meetings to obtain information about
parishioners he writes;
‘It was not unknown for kirk sessions to advertise in newspapers for information about
absconders. ( from Presbyterianism ) The system of issuing certificates of good moral conduct,
given to people leaving a parish and ‘ required’ before settlement elsewhere was allowed,
represented a further element of control, as did the sessions’ management of poor relief.’
Presbyterianism is based on total control of every aspect of the proletariat’s life not only the mind in
spiritual matters but every function of life, unlike Catholicism which takes hundreds of years to
come to a major conclusion and it is visibly clear in today’s modern world the so-called Catholic
nations seem to enjoy the most liberal regimes, other than the nations who are still being plagued by
interference from Protestant Britain and USA.
Through out the world sex is the most important part of every society, and I have always believed
that people that shout the most loud against this issue of nature seem to have some problems within
their lives. I am not referring to people who choose to be celibate for religious beliefs.
Professor Whyte writes;
‘In St. Andrews between 1560 and 1600 about 1,000 cases of sexual misconduct were dealt with
in a town whose population can only have been around 4,000.
The most frequent types of cases that they dealt with were sexual, especially fornication and
adultery’.
Now I realise why so many Scots have emigrated and why politicians loved to escape to
Westminster where if these rules applied today most MPs would be in Presbyterian jails in fact
most of the world’s population would be under lock and key.
Whyte persists;
‘ Of the sexual misdemeanour fornication formed the bulk, followed by adultery, with a handful
of cases of incest’.
Professor Whyte informs his reader of some of the punishments handed down by the Presbyterian
dictators by writing;
‘ They also included a ritual of public humiliation, this usually consisted of sitting on a stool of
repentance in church on Sundays, more serious cases might involve the culprit being forced to
wear sackcloth or being placed in the jougs, an iron neck collar fastened to the outside wall of
the church or churchyard, prior to sitting on the stool’.
One must be aware of the fact that this was the Presbyterian Kirk that was carrying out these
tortures not the legal institutions, though they were inseparably entwined together as they still are to
this very day.
These punishments were barbaric in comparison to Roman Catholic penance that priests handed out
at confession, which were mostly prayer and self-assessment and humility within one’s self and to
repay anything that had been stolen.
This horrendous form of religion replaced churches that were open day and night and where one’s
misdemeanours were kept in private with the priest the same applies to the present.
White proceeds;
‘ Punishments for fornication usually involved a fine and three appearances on the stool of
repentance- six times for a relapse. Adulterers might be on the stool weekly for up to nine
months.’
Don’t forget that the man or woman who sat on the ‘church stool’ had also been chained by-the
neck like an animal outside in sub-zero temperatures and all weather, and obviously have been
shunned by everyone where they lived by order of the Kirk’s ministers and elders.
It was the Irish famine that changed the lives of Protestants in Britain because of the influx of over
1 million Catholics who could not be controlled by the deviant Presbyterian brainwashers, or
otherwise we would all be still under the jackboot of ministers and elders and their associates.
Most sensible Protestants don’t regard Roman Catholics as their enemy and one can clearly see
both persuasions living and working in harmony despite the discrimination that The Kirk and its
sects preach.
Dr. Whyte goes on about punishments;
‘ People who showed no contrition or who could not pay a fine might be imprisoned in the
church steeple for up to two weeks and those considered beyond redemption banished from the
community.’
These tortures were carried out not against criminals who had broken the legal statutes of the
country these were for Kirk ‘crimes’.
He goes on;
‘ Slander cases also appeared on the stool’.
This would possibly have always been women ?
‘Sabbath breaking included selling and drinking ale.’
No doubt what broke the back of these rules can be attributed to the Irish emigrants who were
inclined to enjoy a tipple everyday of the week.
Whyte continued;
‘ With the rise of the kirk sessions the practice of handfasting, or sleeping together after
betrothal, died out.’
This was after 1560.
‘ Something as minor as a young man and woman being seen together in the wrong place at the
wrong time could result in a charge of ‘ scandalous carriage’, a term which seemed to have
included much of what would have been accepted in England as normal courtship.
Professor Whyte highlights something that is still practised in Scotland.
‘ The success of the kirk sessions was partly due to their co-operation with the secular courts.
There was sometimes an overlap in the kinds of cases tried by kirk sessions and baron courts but
the same people were often involved in running each court, with elders acting as the baillies and
officers of baron courts. There was no clear-cut division between crimes and sins’.
During the late 1990s the chief Law-Lord in Britain was a member of one of the ( serious )
Presbyterian sects.
Are people who belong to these 16th century throwbacks of sound mind and are they rational
enough to be leaders of a society that is multi-religious and cultural, especially when the very
essence of the demented ideology that they adhere to is one of unquestionable domination from the
cradle to the crypt within their ranks.
It is quite obvious that members of these sects cannot hold respect for anyone other than their own
zombie like families and there are many other groups of people around the world that are entangled
in excessive ideologies so this affliction is not unique to Presbyterianism, the thought provoking
questions is are they mentally stable enough to hold any positions of Government and Justiciary
because of intensive indoctrination that they must have had to undertake to be a member of cults
that are holding the proletariat within their ranks to theologies based on condemnation of freedom
loving people and the majority of the world’s population who want to live in a more liberal, happy
and equal society.
The 1745 rebellion was a cry of desperation for freedom from the tyranny that was being imposed
upon the people by the Presbyterians and 50 years afterwards Robert Burns was still crying for the
same.
The men and boys at Cullodon faced terrifying canons and rifles, armed only with swords and
rushed defiantly into the jaws of death not because they knew they could have won on the day, but
to prove that they could not be defeated over the passage of time….. and now the flowers are
blooming in the ground fertilised with the blood of free men at Culloden.
Refer to the statement by the Kirk on that horrendous day that I have previously written and on
Professor Gordon Donaldson’s dismissal of Scottish heroes, which kept him in his highly paid job
for the boys and allowed him access to corrupt the minds of Scottish children with Protestant
propaganda.
Wallace played the same cards as did Mary Stuart they may have been martyred by the English but
their names are carved into the soul of Scotland.
Professor Whyte examined the situation of funds for the poor and needy he writes about
Presbyterian parishes;
‘ Others loaned out much of their money in order to maximise income from interest. Kirk
sessions continued to exert a strong influence over communities throughout the first three
quarters of the eighteenth century’.
I mentioned earlier in this investigation about D. H. Lawrence’s book ( Lady Chatterley’s Lover )
by Penguin Books on the pen-ultimate pages he writes about socialism not sex, though the
proletariat understand these factors more than anything else and no doubt this was Lawrence’s
method of bringing attention to the most important issues of his time at the climax of his superb
classic he wrote;
‘ I sometimes sit in the Wellington ( bar ) and talk to the men. They grumble a lot, but they’re not
going to alter anything. As everybody says, the Notts-Derby miners have got their hearts in the
right place. But the rest of their anatomy must be in the wrong place, in a world that has no use
for them. I like them, but they don’t cheer me much; not enough of the old fighting-cock in
them. They talk a lot about nationalisation, nationalisation of royalties, nationalisation of the
whole industry.
But you can’t nationalise coal and leave all the other industries as they are. The men are very
apathetic. They feel the whole damned thing is doomed, and I believe it is. Some of the young
ones spout about a Soviet, but there’s not much conviction about anything.
We’ve got this great industrial population, and they’ve got to be fed. The young ones get mad
because they’ve no money to spend. Their whole life depends on spending money, and now
they’ve got none to spend. That’s our civilisation and our education: bring up the masses to
depend entirely on spending money, and then the money gives out. Money poisons you when
you’ve got it, and starves you when you haven’t.
I feel great grasping white hands in the air, wanting to get hold of the throat of anybody who
tries to live, to live beyond money, and squeeze the life out’.
D. H. Lawrence wrote these sentiments during the 1920s and the Depression its easy to see clearly
why the Government and National Churches clamoured to get this book banned as it was just over a
decade from the Irish, Russian, and German revolutions and Lawrence’s writing exposed the gap
between the rich and the poor millions of whom had lost their loved ones in the barbaric 1914-18
war that served to make the rich even more wealthy and the poor in worse conditions, which led to
the next 1939-45 war and the rich got richer, and the poor are still living in manufactured housing
projects that are modern slums because they were so badly and cheaply constructed that it is not
financially feasible to redevelop these dwellings so they are allowed to deteriorate into ghost towns.
From a book by Cecil Sinclair ( Tracing Scottish Local History ) Published by the Scottish
Record Office, Edinburgh HMSO. ( 1994 ) Parishes Church records are recorded;
No. 6.7
‘ Until the beginning of this century ( 20th ) most kirk sessions seemed to spend most of their
time checking on the moral behaviour of the parishioners, particularly rebuking those who had
engaged in extra-marital fornication.
The offenders might have to confess before the congregation or sit on a public stool of
repentance. Other offences which concerned the kirk sessions were working or gaming on the
Sabbath, defamation, swearing, drunkenness and other anti-social behaviour’.
No. 6.12
‘ The highest court of the Church of Scotland is the General Assembly. The General Assembly’s
records are referenced CH.1. In the CH.1 repertory, you should look particularly for references
to your parish in the separate catalogue of General Assembly papers ( CH.1/2 ).
These papers which are bound into volumes are listed chronologically and in detail up to 1777.
Round about 1710, you will find lists of papists and states of popery in various parishes, e.g. in
the parish of Crathie and Braemar:
“ The papists…arrived at that height of insolence as not only to erect houses for their meetings
and worship but also to travell on the Lords day by the very kirk doores in troops as people were
conveening by way of Contempt Yea at their meetings they made publick proclamatione of banns
their priests avowedly married the persons they proclaimed they had penny briddells ( weddings )
to quhich people assembled in great numbers they had at them Musick and Dancing and all this
in View of the Kirk”. ( CH.1/2/29/3, f. 219 )
As can be clearly seen from Church of Scotland records there were great numbers of Scottish
Catholics over 150 years after the Reformation had started and like Mary Stuart on her first day
back in her homeland, they also suffered from condemnation for enjoying Musick and Dancing.
No. 6.15.
‘ Not all parishioners worshipped in the Church of Scotland’.
Alexander Broadie Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at Glasgow University writes in his book
( The Scottish Enlightenment ) ;
‘ Thomas Aikenhead matriculated at Edinburgh University in 1693, and proceeded to the study
of arts. In November 1696 he was charged with blasphemy. On Christmas Eve 1696 he was
found guilty and sentenced to death’.
Christmas had been banned by Presbyterian’s as a time of love and peace.
Broadie goes on;
‘ On 6th of January 1697 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland encouraged the king (
William of Orange ) to execute vigorously the laws restraining ‘ the abounding of impiety and
profanity in this land’
( Hunter, ‘Aikenhead the Atheist, p.237 ) and just two days later Aikenhead was hanged.
It was a bad decade for Scotland ( under Presbyterian tyranny ) ; a year after Aikenhead’s death
six were found guilty in Paisley ( at Kirk sessions ) of the charge of witchcraft….. and five were
hanged’.
These criminals who follow this horrendous ideology should not be allowed to participate in the
lives of decent people and as I have reported from the Scottish Records Office that many acts of
cruelty have been carried out by the Kirk until recent times.
Professor Broadie continues;
‘ In the 1740s, and therefore well into the Age of Enlightenment in Scotland, there were many in
the Kirk whose attitude resembled that of Aikenhead’s accusers.
William Leechman, elected professor of divinity at Glasgow in 1743, with the support of the
university’s moral philosophy professor, Francis Hutcheson, was charged with heresy almost
immediately upon his appointment.
Yet Leechman was a deeply religious man, this not withstanding Hume’s description of him as
an atheist.
Hume read Leechman’s sermon; ‘ on the nature, reasonableness, and advantages of prayer; with
an attempt to answer the objections against it. A sermon ( 1743 ) and declared to his close friend
William Mure of Caldwell, a former student of Leechman’s at Edinburgh….. ‘ I am sorry to find
the Author to be a rank Atheist’.
‘Hume would say that all of the elders in the Presbytery of Glasgow were atheists’.
These people represented everything that was opposed to the true meaning of Christianity and I
have pointed out from Harry Reid’s ( Outside Verdict ) he consulted many atheists during recent
years who believe in Presbyterianism but not in the mystery of God.
The problem that still exists with those who rule Scottish society is that universities, schools and
collages and the civil service are staffed by many with similar views who all play the Protestant
card which keeps them in their highly paid and influential jobs.
When someone declares that they are an atheist that should be for them to face the consequences of
their own conscience but they should not be allowed to pretend that they are also Christians, I am
sure there are many atheists who don’t mind their children being taught or being ruled by people
who hold the same ideas, as is their rights in a free society, but there are millions who don’t wish to
be deceived, though I can understand why so many Protestants adhere to atheism as an escape from
the distorted propaganda that they have been brainwashed with especially against their fellow
human beings who adhere to Catholicism.
Presbyterian-ism is synonymous with class distinction take this example from a book by The Open
University in Scotland and Dundee University, edited by Anthony Cooke, Ian Donnachie, Ann
MacSween and Christopher A. Whatley ( Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present. Volume 1 :
The Transformation of Scotland, 1707-1850 ) Published by Tuckwell Press 1998.
‘ Where there was one large landowner in the parish, he ( rarely she ) and his family sat in a ‘
laird’s loft ’ constructed inside the churches, whilst in royal burghs the provost and town council
( mostly church elders ) often had their own loft or reserved pews. In this way the parish church
on a Sunday increasingly mirrored the sharpening social gradations in the parish at large.
The minister supervised the schoolmaster ( the ‘dominie’ ) who conducted the parish school,
whilst the beadle had a variety of functions – including renting out a mortcloth for covering the
dead at funerals in the kirkyard’.
The Kirk was a structure of tiers with its reserved pews for the rich and as for the renting of death
covers from the Kirk this was no different from the Catholic’s plenary indulgences which has
always been condemned by Protestant historians.
The Open University book continues to highlight the problems that Professor Whyte describes thus;
‘ The kirk sessions was the local court for the trying of cases against parishioners accused of
ecclesiastical offences, but many of these were also civil offences. Discovery of a pregnant
spinster was usually the starting point for such cases, with the result that women were, by
modern standards, rather harshly treated.
The Kirk above all sought acknowledgement of guilt and submission to its authority: failure to
do so could cause a variety of problems to an accused person, including the refusal of the
minister to provide a ‘ testificate’ ( or testimonial ) to a parishioner wishing to move to another
parish. Punishment usually came in two forms: a fine, and the ‘ purging of the scandal’ by
standing or sitting in a prominent place in church ( in some places on a punishment stool )
whilst the minister ‘ ranted’ at the offender’.
The Open University writers narrate on the Patronage of ministers and the chaos that it caused;
‘ Objecting parishioners would seek to physically prevent the clergymen from entering his
church. Human barricades would be formed, the church would be locked and the key
conveniently ‘ lost’ and many induction’s were postponed for a week or more ( decaying bodies
would be unburied ) it became common for a detachment of troops or cavalry (English ) to attend
the next attempt ( to get in the church ).
These occasions became standard in Scottish parishes after 1740’.
The Scottish Protestant Church had been reduced to a laughing stock considering that pre-1560
Catholic Churches had been functioning night and day seven days per week without the proletariat
being dragged from the streets and subjected to all forms of despicable methods of degradation and
humiliation in front of friends and family for months on end…… the Open University goes on;
‘ All over Scotland churches fell into severe disrepair, and by the 1790s clergy were complaining
openly about dampness, falling roofs, lack of ventilation or heating, and
unsurfaced floors where the rubbing of worshippers’ feet was unearthing skeletons.
The device of using the poor fund to install fixed pews which, after the allocation of a portion of
their family ( of heriditors, ministers, elders ) friends and tenants, ( the rest of the pews ) were
rented out to parishioners at ‘ economic ’ rates, and all felt cheated at having to pay more to
worship in their parish church whilst having no say in who their minister should be.’
The OU’s book editors describe the divisions that were inevitable within the ranks of the
bourgeoisie Protestant brainwashers;
‘ They became subject to internal rancour, and they split into different churches repeatedly
between the 1740s and the 1800s. Moreover, a large number of denominations and sects emerged
as a result of opposition to patronage in the Church of Scotland, including the Relief Church
( formed 1756 ), the Glasites and the Old Scots Independents’.
One must consider that members of these sects have been ruling Scotland for over 400 years is it
little wonder that so many Scots are still living below the European levels of poverty because the
nation has been so divided in so many aspects of normal life.
This has not changed as only recently in 2003 Protestant Church sects in Scotland are still
continuously talking and arguing about uniting.
They cannot unite for very long as they are so divided in degrees of hate against true Christians and
other faiths.
The Open University records;
‘ When in 1842, the government ( Westminster ) refused to abolish patronage and accede to
Chalmers’ demands that the Church of Scotland should be permitted sovereignty within the state,
church schism loomed immediately. Chalmers orchestrated the spectacular walk-out of the
Evangelicals from the General Assembly in St. Andrew’s Church in Edinburgh’s George Street
on 18th May 1843’.
Chalmers wrote in 1821;
‘ The Religious spirit, once so characteristic of our nation ( pre-1560 ) has been rapidly
subsiding…more particularly in our great towns, the population have so outgrown the old
ecclesiastical system, as to have accumulated there into so many masses of practical
heathenism’.
This statement was made before Irish Catholics arrived in Scotland due to the famine that was to
blight Ireland therefore one must realise that the people Chalmers refers to are mostly Protestants
who couldn’t stomach the bile and distortions that had been fed to them.
The Open University writers go on;
‘ The principal biographer of Chalmers, Stewart J. Brown, has argued ( 1982 ) that the
Disruption was a ‘ failure’ for Chalmers, and was also a ‘tragedy for organised religion in
Scotland’.
Presbyterian-ism is the tragedy that has afflicted Scotland with its vice-grip hold over the minds of
the proletariat.
Stewart J. Brown wrote in the Open University book;
‘ The Disruption of the Church of Scotland was the most important event in the history of
nineteenth-century Scotland. The events of 1843 shattered one of the major institutional
foundations of Scottish identity, divided the Scottish nation ( again ) and contributed
significantly to the process of assimilation into a larger British parliamentary state that was
increasingly secular in orientation.
The Disruption was not only the break-up of the national religious Establishment; it was also a
disruption in Scottish identity.’
I must intervene on this point as a national identity requires a longer time span than the 300 years
that Protestant apologists make claims over.
Brown continues;
‘ It was a radical break from its Reformation and Covenanting past, and a turning-away from
the vision of the unified godly commonwealth. The Disruption undermined the Presbyterian
nationalism that had shaped early modern Scotland.’
The only nationalism that I can attribute to Presbyterian-ism is to be linked to Westminster which
upholds their constitution otherwise they will become as impotent as their ideology which is total
domination over the hearts and souls of the proletariat not only of Scotland, but the world.
Clough ( quoted in Storrar 1990 ) asserted that;
‘ What might have developed into a declaration of independence…merely turned into the
Disruption of the Kirk, and not the rupture of the ( English colony ) state’.
The Open University editors go on;
‘ The city of Glasgow became the focus of the Catholic community in Scotland; from reputedly
only 30 Catholics in the city in 1778’.
Please note the Declaration of Arbroath that only 100 were needed but in Glasgow only 30 were
required more that two hundred years after Mary Stuart’s martyrdom and the March 10th 1615 St.
John Ogilvy’s brutal murder at Glasgow Cross by Presbyterian Knoxites who’s followers submitted
and invited English domination.
The Open University’s editors examine the evil of Protestantism and present a vivid description of
attacks on Scottish Catholics during 1778 that still exist today in many places and Northern Ireland;
‘ The Catholic Church and practice of the Catholic faith were subjected to extensive legal
impediments. Eighteenth-century Scotland inherited a battery of measures from the previous
century ( over two centuries ): Catholic mass was illegal, Catholics could not inherit or sell
property or become teachers, and even being a Catholic was illegal, with kirk presbyteries having
the power to declare them rebels.
The Protestant host society was extremely hostile to Catholicism’.
The OU editors fall into the same trap as many Scottish history writers by claiming the Protestants
were the hosts of Catholics contrary to the fact that Scottish Catholics had formed and created the
once independent nation.
They write on;
‘ This hostility was institutionalised within all echelons of the Presbyterian establishment. When,
in the late 1770s, an attempt was made in Parliament ( Westminster ) to provide relief ( or
freedom ) for British Catholics, the urban elite of Edinburgh ( ministers, elders etc. ) and
Glasgow helped organise the artisanal mob to sack property owned by Catholics’.
A newspaper recounted one disturbance in Glasgow in October 1778: ( The Scots Magazine. )
‘ During the time of morning service, a mob gathered round a house just by the Collage Church,
where they understood that a few Catholics assembled for worship. The mob not only insulted,
but terrified the poor people to the highest degree.
Some poor Highland woman had their caps and cloaks torn off them, and were pelted with dirt
and stones. In short, the rabble continued their outrages till night, when they broke all the
windows of the house, breathing blood and slaughter to all Papists, and in every respect
profaning the Lord’s day in a grosser manner than was ever known to be done in Britain’.
This passage could equally describe the 20th century, actually its a fairly accurate interpretation of
what has gone on in Scotland since 1560 not only against Catholics but also includes the Protestant
proletariat who were trying to escape the jaws of the beast.
The O.U. editors wrote;
‘ Presbyterian’s viewed Catholics as ill-educated and superstitious peasants, whether from the
western Highlands or from Ireland. Catholicism threatened Scotland by undermining the
Presbyterian Church of Scotland ( especially including ministers’ income ), by promoting ‘
delusion’, and ‘perverting’ the people.’
I am sure that many Protestant indoctrinates are happy that Catholics fought for the freedom that
they only now partially have as the Kirk would still have their own people chained by-the-neck and
sitting on punishment stools, and one can view these same antics of hatred and sectarianism by
Orange-men, women and children, politicians, ministers and teachers on the streets of 21st century
Scotland.
The O. U. writer continues;
‘ In 1689 support for William of Orange was far from universal and subsequent events – the
Glencoe massacre of 1692 and the failure of the Darian venture, for which King William 111
was held responsible – made it more likely that they would seek an accommodation with the
French monarch and thereby threaten England’s security on her northern frontier.
Anglo-Scottish Protestant culture could help to integrate the English and the Scots but it could
not forge a new multinational British state’.
Written and researched by Francis Joseph Dougan AKA Frank Dougan
Interesting to know the origin of curfew.
Agreed love. It hadn’t occurred to me to question it’s origins. A little like the ‘Quarantine’ article of the 22nd of may – https://randomscottishhistory.com/2019/05/22/22nd-of-may/
Yes, I remember that one. And the post after yours I learned the origins of silhouette – blogging is so educational!
Reblogged this on Maryqueenofscots1587's Blog.