Reformation Tours – On This Day

On this day 1666, seven Covenanters were all hanged at Ayr. They had all been captured at Rullion Green in November 1666. They were part of a group of twelve men brought from Edinburgh to Ayr to stand trial for their part in the rising. After the inevitable outcome, all were sentenced to death. Eight to to be hanged in Ayr, two in Irvine and two in Dumfries.

The local hangman at Ayr was unwilling to carry out the order to hang the eight Covenanters at Ayr and disappeared. Unable to find anyone to hang them, the council then came up with an idea. They would offer a free pardon to one of the Covenanters if he would hang the other seven. All refused but then one of them, a man named Cornelius Anderson, said he would do it only if he had the forgiveness of his fellow Covenanters. They all forgave him and he carried out the act on the 27th December 1666 to a huge crowd. After they were dead, their heads and hands were taken from their bodies and placed on spikes in the town.

Anderson was then marched to Irvine to execute the other two Covenanters being held there. Afterwards he was allowed to go free. Unable to remain in the area he fled to Ireland, where he suffered from depression, being unable to come to terms with what he had done. He eventually died in a house fire, some say of suicide.

The inscription on the Martyrs grave at Ayr reads:

“Here lies the Corpse

of

JAMES SMITH, ALEXR McMILLAN

JAMES McMILLAN, JOHN SHORT,

GEORGE McKERTNY, JN GRAHAM

and JOHN MUIRHEAD who

Suffered Martyrdom at AIR 27th

Decbr 1666 For their adherance

to the Word of GOD and Scotland’s

Covenanted work of Reformation

This Small Tribute to the Above

was done by the Incorporate

Trades of AIR Anno Domoni 1814

For the Righteous shall be Kept

in everlasting remembrance”

“HERE lie Seven Martyrs for our Covenants

A Sacred number of triumphant Saints

Pontius McAdam the unjust Sentence past

What is his own the world will know at last

AND Herod Drummond caus’d their Heads affix

Heav’n keeps a record of the sixty six

Boots, thumbkins, gibbets were in fashion then

LORD let us never see such Days again”