- Location: A803, Auchenreoch, Glasgow G66 8AG
- Opening times: 24 hours
- Entry: No charge
- Access: No onsite parking.
The Stuart kings, like many a monarch before them, believed in Divine Right, meaning they saw themselves anointed by God and therefore infallible, and that by God’s will they were the spiritual head of His church. Many in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland disagreed with this latter statement, believing instead that only Jesus Christ could be considered head of the church. As such they signed a National Covenant in 1638 stating their opposition to the monarchy’s dabbling in church affairs.
These people became known as Covenanters, and their beliefs brought them into armed conflict with the government forces of Charles II and James VII, such as at the Battle of Drumclog and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge (both 1679). It rarely ended well for the Covenanter forces, often ragtag groups with no military training or discipline up against career soldiers. Other Covenanters or suspected Covenanters were summarily executed without recourse to a trial. This period of Scottish history is known as the Killing Time, and lasted from 1679 until 1688, when James VII was deposed by his daughter Mary II and her husband William III. We first met five victims of the Killing Time down in Wigtown (see here).
Which brings us to a lonely field two miles east of Kirkintilloch on the A803 to Kilsyth, and a headstone-shaped slab bearing a lengthy inscription. After having recently visited some of Scotland’s major tourist attractions in the shape of Stirling Castle, the Wallace Monument, and Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, I fancied turning my attention to a smaller historical site, and this stone, which I have passed many times but never stopped at, fitted the bill.
Part of the inscription reads: “In this field lie the corps (sic) of John Wharry and James Smith, who suffered at Glasgow, 13th June 1683, for their adherence to the Word of God and Scotland’s Covenanted Work of Reformation”. Thanks to the all-seeing internet, I came across a tome from 1871, the snappily titled A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ: Being the Last Speeches and Testimonies of Those Who Have Suffered for the Truth in Scotland Since the Year 1680 by John Henderson Thomson, which explained why and how Wharry and Smith “suffered at Glasgow”.
In 1863, government troops were escorting a prisoner, one Alexander Smith who had fought on the side of the Covenanters at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, to prison in Edinburgh. As they passed the field at which I now stood they were ambushed by a gang intent on freeing Smith. In the ensuing melee one government soldier was killed and several on each side wounded but the raid was successful, and Smith escaped. Enraged at losing both their prisoner and one of their own, the soldiers searched the area for Smith and his accomplices.
They came across James Smith and John Wharry sitting in a secluded wooded area near Inchbelly Bridge, about one mile from the scene of the ambush. Neither man was armed with anything more than a walking stick, and nothing linked them to the escape except being found in the vicinity. Nonetheless, blood demanded blood, and the pair were carted back to Glasgow where after the most perfunctory of trials they were sentenced to death. They each first had their right hand cut off and were then hanged. The source cited by Thomson noted that “their carriage at their execution was cheerful and galland (sic)”, with Wharry holding his stump up before the crowd and crying “This and other blood will yet raise the buried covenants”. Their bodies were then returned to the scene of their supposed crime and suspended in chains for a time before finally being “buried coffinless in the moss”.
Destination or Diversion?
The Martyrs’ Stone is no more than a five-minute stop and is therefore a diversion.