314 Sir W. Elliot 07i Denholm and its Vicinity. 



The determined bearing of " the gude leddie of Cavers," 

 the name by which she is aifectionately remembered, speedily 

 subjected her to persecution. Charges were framed against 

 her by Sir John Nisbet, the king's advocate, in 1680, and 

 again by his successor Sir George Mackenzie in 1682. On 

 the latter occasion she was summoned before the Privy Coun- 

 cil on the 13th November, and on the 16th having refused, 

 in the absence of other proof, to clear herself by oath, she was 

 pronounced guilty, sentenced to pay a fine of 9000 merks 

 Scots (about £500, which was more than three times the 

 amount of her jointure), and to find security for her future 

 good behaviour. Unable to comply with these exorbitant 

 conditions she was committed to the tolbooth of Edinburgh, 

 and thence transferred to Stirling castle where she remained 

 in prison for two years. Meantime the infamous Urquhart 

 of Meldrum, one of the commissioners appointed by the coun- 

 cil for carrying out their iniquitous decrees against the cove- 

 nanters, not only arrested the whole rents of the Caver's estate in 

 satisfaction of the fine, but even required the tenants to pay 

 again those of 1683, Avhich had already been discharged and 

 acquittances granted. These unjust and oppressive proceed- 

 ings were checked by the return of her son Sir William from 

 the continent. He proved of a more compliant disposition 

 than his parents, and signed the test required by the council, on 

 which he was restored to his hereditary office of sheriff". He 

 also procured his mother's liberation on condition of paying 

 the fine and engaging that she should quit the kingdom. 

 She retired into England, but seems to have returned to 

 Cavers after the expulsion of the Stuarts, and to have died 

 there. The exact date is not known; but an account of her 

 funeral expenses is still extant in the charter room at Cavers. 

 The rigour of persecution gradually subdued the zeal of 

 the covenanters, till few except the sterner Cameronians 

 persevered in open resistance to the policy of the government. 

 These, after the proclamation, formed themselves into a con- 

 gregation at Denholm, where Sir William assigned them a 

 site for a chapel. One of their ministers, Mr. John Arnot, 

 died in 1774, and is buried at Cavers old churchyard. He 

 was succeeded by Mr. James Duncan, who kept the congre- 

 gation together till his death in 1830, after which the Camero- 

 nians ceased to worship as a distinct body. About this time 

 a community of Independents was formed by a somewhat 

 remarkable character named Francis Dick, originally a fisher- 

 man of Broughty-ferry. He was led to address a religious 



