OF JAMES URE OF SHARGARTO THE lands of Shargarton lie in the pa Kippen, and are described sometimes as lingshire, and at other times as in Pert In 1485, king James III. granted the la "Easter Leckie and Shargarton" in S shire, to Andrew, Lord Evandale, in 1 and to Alexander Stewart, his nephew, i Robert, master of Mar, obtained from Ja in 1541, a charter to "the lands of Shirgar the stewartry of Monteith, and shire of The Earl of Mar disponed them in 1597, chanan of Arnprior, from whom they ca the family of Ure sometime between 16 1644. † In the last-mentioned year, * Crawfurd's Renfrew, 228. + Fountainhall's Decis. ii. 262, 263. Inquis. Retor. P 33, 316, 442. Inq. Valor. ii. De Tutela, 458. ment to be quoted, as her son, and James Ure of Shargarton. The la Elizabeth, daughter of William Mor Macbeth-hill, a descendant of Lord M An account of Ure's sufferings ha served in manuscript, which I shall in the way of adding to it other partic I have met with. It is introduced scription of the state of the parish of its neighbourhood before the rising at "From the year of our Lord 1670, (s ter of that paper) constant troubles and attended the preaching of the gospel by terian ministers about Kippen, Gargu Monteith, where Mr. John Law, M *Act. Parl. Scot. vi. 134, 278, 301. + Douglas, Baronage, 524. William Montgomer in-law of Ure) was served heir to his grandfather, A mery of Macbiehill, within the parish of Stewarton, of Cunninghame, July 27, 1655. (Inq. Retor. Ayr No. 658, and Gen. 3982.) This MS. was in the possession of Wodrow, wh ed the principal facts in it; (Hist. ii. 260, 261;) bu deserves publication. Forrester, (having now left the episcopal communion,) and several other ministers did preach to the people, and Mr. John King (who was executed) was clandestinely ordained minister at Port, Mr. Archibald Riddell at Kippen, and Mr. George Barclay at Gargunnock. A meeting was frequently kept at Arnmanwell in Kippen, where one John Knox (a man of the same family with the great reformer) did zealously manage and help forward the work of the Lord; but a party of soldiers are sent out to impede the conventicles (as they were then called) thereabouts, and the meetings in that country are by them frequently scattered, the people taken and harassed. A small party of soldiers are sent from Stirling disguised, to take Mr. King, then at Cardross, and bring him in, and having apprehended him, the alarm is raised through Monteith and Kippen; the people rise to rescue him; the soldiers find it unsafe for them to carry him through either of these straths,* therefore they take him east the mosses; the people see them, gather from the east side of Forth, and take him from the soldiers in the moss be→ south Boquhaple, in which action one Norrie is killed by the soldiers. The people, for attending these meetings, were apprehended, some sent to Stirling, Glasgow, &c. and thence sent abroad; among whom one Donald Connell in Buchlivie is * Valleys. taken, with several others, at a preaching by Mr. Riddell, at Lochleggan, carried to Stirling, where they lay some time in prison, and thence to Edinburgh, and shipped at Leith to be carried abroad, but providentially rescued at London. Others were fined; their horse, cows, and other goods poinded and carried to Doune, by Drummond of Denstone, who was then judge in that place. The people in that country being thus daily oppressed, and hearing of the rising of the people in the west on that same account, in the year 1679, many of them choose rather to join them, than live still under these pressures; which accordingly they did to the number of fourteen score and above. 66 Among whom was James Ure of Shargarton. Having left the Episcopal communion and joined the persecuted ministers, and baptized his children ́ with them, he was also exposed to the rage of the government; and soldiers are frequently sent to his house. The curate, Mr. Robert Young, at Kippen is much blamed as an intelligencer against him and others. And the said James Ure being thus driven from his house and family, he chooses to go and join the west country men, rather than be still in these sad circumstances. Coming to them some time before Bothwell Bridge, all his countrymen join themselves to him as their captain; and he and they are set to keep the bridge-end, where he stayed, maintaining the place courageously, till the army fled. Several of his men are killed, |