Crimes and
sufferings of the Scottish Clergy from 1560 – 1690
Cited as an appendix in
Hewisons The Covenanters Vol.1 (1908)

  1560-1638 1638-1660 1660-1690
Executed 2 2 8 (laity
197)
Murdered 2 4 2
Killed 1 2 3

Imprisoned
31 21 78
Banished
or made fugitive
18 13 17
Deposed 35 126 46
Deprived 14 12 548

Suspended
3 7 4
Outed
and rabbled
1 3 142
  107 190 848


Offences for which they suffered.


Immorality
11 11 21

Scandalous irregularity, ministerial insufficiency
18 15 15
Murder 2 1 1
Petty
offences
16 15 13

Witchcraft
  3  

Political offences
40 80 22

Drunkeness
2 12 32

Nonconformity to Episcopacy (Presbyterianism)
34 5 275

Nonconformity to Presbytery (Episcopacy) none
adoption of the Liturgy
14 70 345
The Test     45

J K Hewison,
who compiled these figures from a multiplicity of sources,
rightly warns that it is impossible to be definitive.
Ministers were frequently charged with several offences
and it is sometimes difficult to assess which offence was
the most incriminating, and to differentiate between
political and ecclesiastical offences. What the numbers do
show is a steady ramping up of the pressure on the
Presbyterians by Charles I and for a short while by
Charles II. But after the Restoration of Charles II in
1660 the iron fist was a major part of the King`s
increasingly tyrannical policies.