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The Rev. Thomas Douglas was a Covenanting preacher. He studied in
Edinburgh, where he took a degree A.M. by 1655. he was ordained by Scots
ministers to a
charge in London which he seems to have left some time after the
Restoration (of the monarchy).
On 3rd August 1676, he and 14 others were denounced for not appearing,
in July 1674, to answer the charge of being present at a field
conventicle.
Thomas was part of the 'Council of War' in the lead up to
Battle of Bothwell Bridge - a
confused and conflicting series of events. After the battle, in 1679, he
returned to England(2).
He was party to the drawing up of the 'Declaration and testimony of the
true Presbyterian, anti-Prelatic, and-Eurastian persectuted party in
Scotland', published at Sanquhar on 22nd June 1980.
It was rumoured that Douglas had a drink problem in London.
In 1690, he was appointed minister of Wamphray, where he died in 1695.
He is buried in the churchyard, but his grave is not marked with a
headstone.
On 1 June, 1679 Reverend Thomas Douglas wis takin a conventicle, an
illegal open-air service, at a spot kent as Glaisser Law (1), nae far frae
Loudon Hill. Mair than 250 folk had turned up fur the occasion.
Unfortunately the Royalist commander, John Graham o Claverhoose, whae
became Bonnie Dundee, wis in the area. He’d been tipped aff aboot the
conventicle and set oot tae deal wi the rebels.
Reverend Douglas got news that mounted troopers were comin. He wis
defiant and tellt his congregation 'Ye hae the theory noo fur the
practice' They aw agreed, said a prayer then mairched across the moor
towards Stobieside at Drumclog and lined up tae wait for Claverhoose.
There wis aboot 50 horsemen, 50 infantry wi guns, the rest hud
pitchforks an halberds.
Whether he was actually present at
Drumclog is an open question, but the historical novelist John Galt
included him in his work
Ringan Gilhaize; Or, The Covenanters, Volume 2 in 1823, and this may
be the origin of the above.
The following is extracted from Memoirs of Helen Alexander and James
Currie:
And we were always speaking to them, and found them all yielding to
that Indemnity (though they did not so cordially embrace it as some did
that got the bond, as Mr. Johnston, and others), excepting Mr. Richard
Cameron, Mr. Donald Cargil, and Mr. Thomas Douglas, yet he left the
other two and went away after the firft Sanquhar Declaration.
After I recovered, and began to work, the enemy came again seeking me ;
and I, finding no safety, wandred from one place to another.
After Mr. Douglas came from Mr. Cameron, I rode south with him and heard
Mr. Hepburn preach; and that Sabbath there was a meeting at Mount Lowdon
; [Early July 1680] but there came a company of dragoons and
scattered the meeting. And there were several taken, but they did get
away again ; and the minifter 'escaped by hiding himself among the corn.
And so 1, being absent that day, escaped ; and all the preachings we had
were never scailled with troopers except that day. And for all this
while (as I said), I was ftill hearing the ministers, but with a sore
heart.
Thomas is commemorated at Shotts on the remote Darmead Muir, or Darmead
Linn, memorial. This was used as a site for Conventicles by the
Covenanters. Amongst ministers
who held conventicles here were Rev Donald Cargill, Rev Richard Cameron,
Rev Thomas Douglas and Rev James Renwick.
Historic Scotland records that this listed monument dates to 1836 and is
a tapered sandstone column on a square-plan plinth. The south-facing
shaft-face is inscribed ‘in memory of Cameron, Cargill, Renwick, and
their brethren, who worshipped, on this spot; In the time, of the last,
persecution. They jeopardised, their lives, unto the death, in the high
places of the field’. The south-facing plinth is inscribed: ‘erected, by
the proceeds, of, a collection, made at a sermon, preached here, by the,
rev. John Graham, Wishawtoun, August 7th 1836’.
A 2012 field survey recorded that the monument is as previously
described. It currently stands in open ground to the north of the
Darmead Linn.
Cambusnethan and the surrounding area of North Lanarkshire have a strong
historical connection with the 17th-century Covenanters and was again an
area of religious dissent in the 19th century, leading up to the
Disruption.
The Skirmish near Kirk O’ Shotts in June, 1679
In his account of the Bothwell Rising, James Russell, one of the
assassins of Archbishop Sharp, records a skirmish between the
Covenanters and the King’s forces near Kirk O’ Shotts prior to the
Battle of Bothwell Bridge.
The Covenanters ‘resting Thursday forenoon [19 June, 1679], in the
afternoon … they were alarmed with news of the enemy approaching in
parties towards them, whereupon they sent out parties first of some
volunteers, commanded by Robert Dick, and then John Balfour’s troop [of
horse]; next Mr Walter Smith and Andrew Turnbull. These rencountering a
party of the enemy in the dark of the night, fired upon other, upon
which the enemies fled (and, as was said, some of them killed) to the
body lying be-east the Shott kirk, strengthened with mosses on every
hand, that these parties durst not follow them, tho’ the enemies were in
great fear, but they wanting guides, and not knowing the way, returned
to the [Covenanter’s] army.’
Notes:
1. Elsewhere described as being 'on the moor in
Avondale'.
2. Or, more likely, after the Sanquhar
declaration.
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