Special service to mark their place in history
JONATHAN GEDDES
A church service will take place this Sunday to mark an event in the Royal Burgh that changed Scottish history.
The Declaration of Rutherglen on May 29, 1679, saw around 70 Covenanters ride into the town and effectively declare themselves to be enemies of King Charles II, and opposed to interference by the Stuart kings in the affairs of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
Now, the Old Parish Church will host a service to commemorate the protest.
Piper David Stark will play a lament, the church’s locum minister Katie Morrison will begin the service and there will be readings from the Bible and hymns. Rutherglen man Brian Keenan is a member of the Scottish Covenanter Memorials Association and was keen to mark the occasion.
He told the Reformer: “I had been thinking about the declaration for a while, and I have always been interested in the history of the Covenanters.
“It seemed fitting to do something to commemorate this anniversary. What happened in 1679 was very important. The Covenanters rode into the area and extinguished the bonfires that had been lit to celebrate King Charles II.
“They then read a declaration which condemned the acts which made conventicles and support for the Covenant illegal, before a copy of the declaration was fixed to a marked cross. The King’s edicts were removed from the cross and burned. They were directly challenging the edicts of Charles II.”
The dispute saw many ministers ousted from their positions, including Rutherglen man Rev John Dickson, who refused to go along with the Stuart kings’ belief in the divine right of the monarch.
This meant that they believed that they were also the spiritual heads of the church.
Rev Dickson was later captured and spent several years imprisoned on the Bass Rock.
After the Declaration, the Covenanters defeated government forces at Drumclog, but then suffered a heavy defeat a few weeks later at Bothwell Bridge.
A replica of the original Mercat Cross still sits on Rutherglen Main Street.