1 May
1685 A.D. Scottish Covenanter,
John Brown, murdered. Murdered with premeditation, cool
malice aforethought, and with the specific and developed formation of
"intent," all the essential elements to satisfy the legal
requirements for homicide in the first degree.
Dr. Rusten tells the story this way.
The story is told by
Dr. Rusten. Rusten, E.
Michael and Rusten, Sharon. The One Year
Christian History. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2003. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Christian-History-Books/dp/0842355073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393302630&sr=8-1&keywords=rusten+church+history
John Bacon was shot point-blank in the head by
an English officer, an officer of the Crown.
Mr. Bacon’s wife and infant were present. The wife laid the child on the ground, bound
up the head, and prepared him. A poem by
Henry Inglis captures the story:
The child on the moss
she laid
And she stretched the
cold limbs of the dead,
And drew the eyelid’s
shade,
And bound the corpse’s
shattered head,
And shrouded the martyr
in his plaid;
And where the dead and
living slept,
Sat in the wilderness
and wept.
The backstory.
Scottish Covenanters were Presbyterians who
resisted English Prelacy from 1637-1690, imposed variously by King Charles 1,
Charles II, and James VI. The
Covenanters opposed the idea of the “divine right of kings” with a limitless
and unbounded sovereignty. Christ,
directly and sovereignly, was the Head and Lord of the Church, not an English
King. During Charle II’s reign, Scottish
Covenanters were hunted, jailed and killed in large numbers.
John Brown was a poor farmer in Priesthill,
Scotland. He aspired to be a Covenanter
minister, but he stuttered. But, he was
intelligent. He loved the English Bible
and taught it to local youths in his barn. Students were inspired by him and he
had a reputation for being a Covenanter.
In 1682, a Covenanting Presbyterian minister,
Alexander Peden, married John Bacon and Isabel Weir. After the ceremony, the Pastor told Isabel,
“Isabel, you have a good man; but you will not enjoy him long. Prize his company and keep his linen by you
to be his winding sheet; for you will need it when you are not looking for it,
and it will be a bloody one.”
On 1 May
1685, the king’s troops came to Priesthill looking for Pastor Peden, but
they found John Bacon in the field. They
took him back to his house, ransacked the place, and found Covenanter
literature. An interrogation ensued and
John Bacon spoke clearly and without his usual impediment. His strong answers induced the officer to
ask, “Are you a preacher?” He answered
in the negative. The officer replied,
“Well, if he has never preached, much has he prayed in his time. God to your prayers, for you shall
immediately die.”
Bacon fell to his knees. He implored the officers for mercy on the
Covenanters.
Brown said to his wife, “Now, Isabel, the day
is come that I told you would come when I spoke to you first of marrying me.”
Isabel responded, “Indeed, John, I can
willingly part with you.”
Brown said, “That is all I desire. I have no more to do but die. I have been ready to meet death for years
past.”
Brown was allowed to kiss his wife and
baby. The troops were ordered to shoot
Brown, but the officer broke in, pulled his pistol, walked over, and shot John
Brown in the head.
The officer brusquely asked, “What do you think
of your find husband now?
Through tears, she answered, “I have ever
thought much good of him, and more now than ever.”
As the poem tells, Isabel lad her baby on the
ground, bound up her husband’s head, straightened out his body, covered him
with a plaid blanket,
sat down and wept.
The poem is worth repeating: The child on the moss
she laid
And she stretched the
cold limbs of the dead,
And drew the eyelid’s
shade,
And bound the corpse’s
shattered head,
And shrouded the martyr
in his plaid;
And where the dead and
living slept,
Sat in the wilderness
and wept.
On 1 May
1685 the Scottish Covenanter, John Brown, was
murdered. Lest we forget.
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