John Welsh, the Irongrav Covenanter. 73 



Memoir, 168). Falkland was Richard Cameron's parish, and 

 his biographer, Professor Herl<less, tells us the curate was 

 Mr John Hay, who was deposed at the Revolution Settlement 

 for refusing' to read a proclamation issued by the estates. 

 (Herkless, Cameron, 44.) 



Field preaching was an expensive entertainment for the 

 hearers. The Council put into operation the Scottish form of 

 " boycott," known as " Letters of Intercommuning, which 

 forbade all subjects to hold intercourse with the persons 

 denoted, under the penalty of being guilty of their crimes " 

 (Hume Brown, Hist, of Scot., ii., 405). Many persons were 

 fined for resetting Welsh. There was a price of 2000 merks 

 set on his head, a distinction he shared with his co-presbyter, 

 Gabriel Semple of Kirkpatrick-Durham, and Arnott of Tong- 

 land, twice that of the other field preachers. (W'odrow, ii., 

 236-7.) In 1679 the price of Welsh's head rose to 9000 merks, 

 while Semple and Arnott only were \alued at 3000, and an 

 ordinary forfeited preacher at 2000. (Wodrow, iii., 15.) 

 Soldiers were sent to apprehend Welsh, and marched to Duna- 

 quier, but the people got notice of it and escorted him to 

 Largs, where he hired a boat, which took him to Aberlady, 

 from whence he made his way to his own house in Edinburgh. 

 (Blackader, 170.) From the Registers of the Privy Council 

 we learn that it was Alexander Durham who conveyed him 

 from Fife to the Lothians, for which good deed he was fined. 

 (P.C, 1675.) 



The bishops tried to blacken Welsh's character, saying 

 that during his stay in Fife he got great sums of money — 

 some 40,000 merks. Blackader asked Welsh if this were so, 

 and he told him : — " I never made it a practice, and none did 

 who tendered the credit of the Gospel." He had once 

 accepted of a small gold coin as a token of friendship from 

 a gentleman. (Blackader, 170.) He certainly cost his Fife 

 friends enough in fines. It is an unsolved problem how Welsh 

 lived : he had no stipend, his goods were forfeited. He kept 

 a house in Edinburgh, he rode a horse, he had a servant, " the 

 polygamous tinker," John Scarlett, who declared " he was to 

 have 12 pound in the half year and clothes " (he, however, 

 only stayed with Welsh a fortnight). His friends might pro- 



