John Welsh, the Irongrav Covenanter. 85 



to represent the cause of the Covenant. He passed quietly 

 into England, where he lived for over a year, dying on January 

 9th, 1681. In a note of Miss Foxcroft to the supplement to 

 Burnet's History (p. 103) I find it stated that he lived prin- 

 cipally with Shaftesbury after Bothwell Bridge, and may thus 

 have supplied Burnet with materials for his History. 



His death caused no small stir in London. Lord Foun- 

 tainhall mentions it in his Diary, adding : — " He was not so 

 gross as to disown the King, as the Cameronians did : his 

 grandfather, Mr John Welsh, was a great enemy of the 

 bishops, and died in France, temp. Jas. VL" Wodrow, on 

 the authority of a son of Hamilton of Kinkell, says that Mr 

 Welsh's burial was the greatest that for many years had been 

 seen in London ; that most of the Dissenters changed their 

 text that Sabbath he was buried ; that their congregations 

 were invited to the burial, at which there was a vast number 

 of ministers, persons of fashion, and, if my memory fails me 

 not, some hundreds of coaches " (Ana., iv., 12-13). 



His statement that Welsh died at the house of Mrs 

 Fraser, the laird of Breca's wife, in London, 1679, is certainly 

 wrong. The date is wrong, and Mrs Frazer was dead three 

 years in 1679. But what follows bears the marks of pro- 

 bability. " The next morning after his death Lauderdale 

 went in to the King and told him. His Majesty owed him 

 five hundred pounds ! He asked. For what? He told him 

 one of the greatest disturbers of the peace in Scotland, upon 

 whom five hundred pounds was set, was now dead. The King 

 said, ' If he be dead, it saves so much to me ' " (Ana., iv., 17). 



To Charles and Lauderdale Welsh's death was a joke; it 

 was no joke to the people of Irongray and his friends in Dum- 

 fries. In January, 1681, Blackader visited his old parish of 

 Troqueer. " There had been some report of worthy Mr 

 Welsh's removal come to the country (though not certain), 

 but when the people saw the minister entering with a mourn- 

 ing band about his hat they raised a heavy groan, and several 

 cried out of sorrow for some time, which did also much affect 

 him, and did occasion a very moving discourse on Jer. viii., 6, 

 by way of preface putting them to reflect on the great days of 

 the Gospel they had, both of old and also under the by past 



