Sir W. Elliot on Denholm and its Vicinity. 318 



Dame Rachel Skene * He took the part of the ministers 

 ejected from their livings in 1662, and declined to counte- 

 nance the curate sent to replace Mr. Gillon the deprived in- 

 cumbent of Cavers parish. The presbytery of Jedburgh 

 having in vain tried to gain admittance to the church, were 

 obliged to institute Mr. Somerville, grandfather of the late 

 minister of Jedburgh, the newly appointed clergyman, at the 

 kirk-style. They complained to the Archbishop of Glasgow 

 that not only had Sir William and Lady Douglas refused to 

 see them or to deliver up the keys of the church, but that a 

 number of women had assembled in the kirkyard with their 

 laj)s full of stones, threatening violence and abusing them as 

 soul-murderers and servants of the devil ! He also refused 

 to sign the declaration abjuring the covenant, for which he 

 was deprived of his office of Sheriff. In 1676 he was cited 

 to appear before the Privy Council for contravening the pro- 

 clamation of the 1st March of that year, which forbids, under 

 heavy penalties, the entertainment by private individuals of 

 any chaplain or schoolmaster, not licensed by the bishop of 

 the diocese. Sir William had engaged a Mr. Osberne, a 

 young clergyman, not so qualified, as tutor to his children, 

 and failing to appear in compliance with the citation he Avas 

 outlawed, and died shortly afterwards. His widow. Dame 

 Katherine Rigg, followed even more resolutely in her hus- 

 band's footsteps. She steadfastly refused to give up her 

 children to be educated in the episcopalian form of worship; 

 but her eldest son, William, was forcibly taken from her and 

 placed under tutors appointed by the Privy Council.f She 

 also befriended and sheltered the ejected ministers, and at- 

 tended the conventicles at which they preached, which met 

 in the most secluded places in order to elude the vigilance of 

 the soldiers, who were spread over the country to put them 

 down. Many of the spots which were used for these wild 

 preachings are still pointed out in the neighbourhood, and 

 numerous anecdotes are current in the district of the adven- 

 tures and hair-breadth escapes of the devoted men who daily 

 perilled their lives for the spiritual good of their scattered 

 flocks. :|: 



* Crawford's Genealogical Colleelions in the Ladies of the Covenant, p. 309. 



■f- 'J'hese were men of unexceptiou ib!e character, save thatthey had confirmed to 

 the innovations introduced by the government. Among them were Sir William 

 Eliot of Stobhs, Mr. 'L'homas Douglas, brother of Sir William, and two others of 

 the same name and probably relatives also. 



X Peden's pulpit on the summit and Hagburn on the western slope of Ruhers- 

 law ; Peden's vale in the Dean, a little below the cottage; and the Little Dean 

 where the Stoney burn flows into the main stream, are some of tlie best known 

 of these conventicle places ol meeting. 



