[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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THE BATTLE OF PENTLAND HILLS.
remitt it to yor. Lop.'s consideration whither the Law or gospill does most
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warand this practiss ; and shall Avish more tender usadge towards the re- ;•
lations off,
"My Lord, &c.'*
" Montgomeriestoun, <
« 17th August, 1664,"
}
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The remainder of the correspondence refers chiefly to the presentation of
incumbents, in which the Earl shows considerable judgment in selecting
suitable parties.
All the efforts, however, of the dignitaries of the Church,
j
or the patrons, could not overcome the deep-rooted principle of presby- ;
terianism. Writing to his Lordship on the 29th September, 1666, the ;
Bishop says— " Our ministers meet with so many discouragements and I
difficulties that many of them begin to despaire of remedy." At length
the persecution to which the non-complying clergy were subjected, and
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i
the heavy fines levied from their adherents, produced open resistance, i
Though the rising had its origin in Kirkcudbrightshire and Dumfriesj
shire, where Sir James Turner, a soldier of fortune, was employed in levy-
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ing the fines imposed on the non-conformists, yet the greater portion of
the men and money iiltimately engaged in it were fm'nished by Ayrshire.
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" At Mauohline Muir, where they were reviewed,
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Ten thousand men in armour showed."
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So says the ballad of Rullien Green, as given in the " Minstrelsy of the \
Border." But the rhymster was no friend to the Whigs ; and he seems
to have taken a poet's license as to facts. The insurgent force never
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amounted to more than three thousand men, in place of ten thousand
and the host of the Covenanters was not reviewed at all on Mauchline
>
Muir. Colonel Wallace, who commanded it, halted there, to be sure, on \
his way from Edinburgh—where he was residing when the rising com- \
menced—to the west country, with a small party he had collected in his
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progress, to put himself at the head of the main body. On arriving at
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Ayr, Colonel Wallace found the Covenanters, who had previously been
j
billeted in the town, encamped near the Bridge of Doon. Neither his-
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tory nor tradition mentions the precise spot of encampment ; but it was,'
',
in all likelihood, upon the rising
ground at the east end of Newark Hill,
where a large flat stone lies as a memorial, it is said, of the people having
there assembled to witness the destruction of one of the ships of the Span-
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