John Welsh, the Irongrav Covenanter. 07 



seemed involved in the Pentland Rising. At Ochiltree it was 

 planned that Welsh should preach, and some of the rebel 

 leaders sug;gested that Turner should hear " a fanatic 

 sermon " (for so they merrily called it) in hope that it might 

 convert him. His guards, too, wished to go to church and 

 did not like, as they politely put it, to leave him alone in his 

 lodg'ings. Sir James, who had also " a kindly wit and loved 

 a timely joke," replied that as to his con\ersion it would be 

 hard to turn a Turner. " But because I found them in a 

 merry humour, I said, if I did not come to hear Mr Welsh 

 preach, thev might fine me forty shillings Scots, which was 

 double the sum of what I had extracted from the fanatics." 

 There was, however, no sermon, \\'elsh having been called 

 away. 



Between Welsh and Turner there must have been a sort 

 of friendship, for he relates that Welsh allowed his servant to 

 carry an open letter from Sir James to Lady Turner at Glas- 

 gow. From Ochiltree the rebels moved to Muirkirk, and 

 from thence to Douglas and Lanark, where they passed the 

 Sabbath drilling and plundering-, according to Sir James, 

 " but did not bestow one hour or minute of it in the Lord's 

 service either in prayer, praise, or preaching." At night 

 they made amends for omitting the duties of the day by 

 passing an act for renewing the Covenant and another for 

 murdering me when they should think it fitting." Turner's 

 account of the spiritual condition of the rebels is gloomy. 

 " My guards neither prayed nor praised for anything I 

 heard." The only form of devotion was grace before and 

 after meat, " but I confess I was more overwearied with the 

 tediousness and impertinences of their graces than I was either 

 with the scarceness or badness of my meat and drink." 



The army struggled on towards Edinburgh, disappointed 

 by the cold reception they met with among the country people. 

 On the south of the Pentlands Dalziel, an old soldier in the 

 wars of Muscovy, fell upon them. During the battle Welsh 

 and Semple prayed for the success of their troops, like Moses 

 at the battle of Rephadim — " The God of Jacob, the God of 

 Jacob," they cried. Turner's guards echoed the words. 

 When he asked them what it meant, thev answered — " Can 



