I have Scottish ancestors. \u00a0This is no surprise; so do at least 30 million Americans.<\/p>\n
Most are\u00a0Scots-Irish, descended from people who emigrated from Western Scotland, especially the Lowlands, to Northern Ireland, after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, ruling both nations. \u00a0From Ireland many immigrated to America, especially Pennsylvania and Appalachia as far south as the Carolinas. \u00a0My sister Ellen recently spat in a tube and had her genome typed by ancestry.com. \u00a0It showed 29 percent of her ancestry, and mine, from Great Britain. \u00a0(And 2 percent from the Caucasus!)<\/p>\n
As it turns out, I have an ancestor who was a Scots martyr, John Brown of Priesthill, Ayrshire, in the Lowlands. \u00a0He was a Covenanter, a Presbyterian who subscribed to two agreements (one drawn up in 1638, the other in 1643) resisting the establishment of the Episcopal church in Scotland. \u00a0They were persecuted mightily, as described in a book, “Matthew Brown, Ancestry and Descendants” (Brooklyn, N.Y.: \u00a01900):<\/p>\n
“Hunted down like wild beasts, tortured, imprisoned by the hundreds, hanged by the scores, exposed at one time to the license of the English soldiers, abandoned at another time to the mercy of bands of marauders from the highlands, they still stood at bay in a mood so savage that the boldest and mightiest oppressor could not but dread the audacity of their despair.”<\/p>\n
” . \u00a0. \u00a0. \u00a0the audacity of their despair.” \u00a0This is different from “the audacity of hope.” \u00a0Interestingly, however, the sentence means pretty much the same thing with one substituted for the other.<\/p>\n
John Brown was a pack-horse carrier who didn’t take part in Covenanter uprisings, according to the book. \u00a0Nevertheless, his martyrdom had been\u00a0foretold. \u00a0At his wedding in 1682, the minister took his wife, Isabel, aside and told her: \u00a0“You have got a good husband, value him highly; keep linen for a winding sheet beside you . \u00a0. \u00a0. \u00a0He follows his Lord too fully to be passed over by those who drive the chariot of persecution so furiously over the length and breadth of poor, bleeding Scotland.” \u00a0(How this affected the honeymoon isn’t recorded).<\/p>\n
On May 1, 1685, a band of soldiers led by John Graham of Claverhouse, a Scots nobleman, officer in the English \u00a0army and notorious enforcer, came to John Brown’s house. \u00a0Brown was asked why he didn’t attend the English church and if he would pray for the king. \u00a0His answers did not satisfy. \u00a0He knelt, prayed for his soul and then said goodbye to his pregnant wife and two children. \u00a0Graham ordered the soldiers to shoot him. \u00a0They refused, so he pulled out his pistol and did it himself.<\/p>\n
“Turning to the newly-made widow he asked her what she then thought of her husband. \u00a0‘I always thought much of him, but now far more than ever,’ was her brave reply.”<\/p>\n
Isabel moved with her children to Ireland and married again. \u00a0Some of her descendants came to America.<\/p>\n
I am descended from Jean Brown (b. 1770 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania), Isabel and John’s great-granddaughter. \u00a0Curiously, this line of descent is through my mother, not my father. \u00a0(Consanguinity? \u00a0Does that explain anything?) There’s a monument to Brown’s martyrdom at his grave on a moor outside Priesthill. \u00a0A local man took my parents to it years ago when they visited Scotland.<\/p>\n
In September, Scots will vote whether to separate from the United Kingdom and become a sovereign nation. \u00a0I guess this means I’m in favor of Scottish independence.<\/p>\n
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