Handed Down From the Scaffold: The Cargill Bible

By Dr. Mark Jardine - Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs:

Image from Jardine's Book of Martyrs

One of Cargill’s last acts on the scaffold on 27 July, 1681, was to hand down his bible to a sympathizer and instruct them to pass it on to his sister. The incident is recorded in a handwritten entry in Cargill’s bible:

‘[Cargill] Bore this Bible to the Scaffold as his last best friend and handed it therefrom as his last sad legacy to be carried to his oldest sister Anne Cargill with these memorable words – ‘I am sure of my salvation being complete in Jesus Christ as I am of the truth of all that is contained in this holy this inestimable book of God!’ (Quoted in Crawford, Scotland’s Books, 214.)

Cargill had three sisters. His bible was handed down via the family of Anne Cargill, the eldest of them. A second sister, Grizel Cargill, was married to Donald Crockatt, a notary in Alyth parish, Perthshire.

A third sister may have been married to John Miller in Watershaugh in Shotts parish. Lanarkshire: ‘Mrs. Miller, the worthy spouse of the occupant of Watersaugh, was the sister of Donald Cargill, and Watersaugh thus became one of the haunts and hiding-places of Cargill.’ (Brown, Historical Sketches of the Parish of Cambusnethan, 147.)

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