For Christ's Crown & Covenant!

By Dr. Mark Jardine - Posted at Jardine's Book of Martyrs: After the Covenanters were defeated in the battle of Bothwell Brig on 22 June, 1679, at least 1,184 prisoners were delivered to Edinburgh. They were held in Inner Greyfriars’ Yard. What is today called The Covenanters’ Prison in Greyfriars’ churchyard only covers a small portion of the area where the prisoners were actually held. At that time, The Covenanters’ Prison was not part of the graveyard, but part of a considerably larger enclosure – the Inner Yard – which ran east from the Covenanters’ Prison through the houses, across Forest Road and through the buildings there, to Bristo Place. Today, the pub called Sandy Bell’s lies approximately in the centre of what was the Inner Yard. It was a grass park of over three acres surrounded on all sides by high walls and accessed via a single gate by the Society Port. There was no access via the present-day gate to the Covenanters’ Prison. Instead, a continuous dyke ran across t...

By David T. Myers - Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : The story of the Covenanters defeated at Bothwell Bridge and sent aboard the Crown of London as slaves is a sobering story. There are pictures on the web of the monument on the coast of Orkney near the sea as well as the Covenanter Fountain in Kirkland. Covenanters in the Crown of London Following the disastrous Battle at Bothwell Bridge on June 22, 1679, in which Covenanters were defeated in the battle, close to 1200 Covenanter prisoners were taken to Edinburgh and imprisoned in a make shift, open air prison next to Greyfriars Kirk (church). Some were tortured and killed immediately. Others died of natural conditions due to the harsh conditions of the site. Others were pardoned and set free under the August 14th Act of Indemnity that same year. But our attention today focuses in on the approximately 257 alleged ringleaders, including Covenanter ministers, who were sentenced to be shipped to the West Indies or Virginia as...