From The Homes, Haunts, and Battlefields of the Covenanters. The martyrs in question, who were among many of that profession in these years, were executed by a condemned fellow-Covenanter who days before in Ayr had miserably consented to turn hangman in order to save his own life. We’ve previously covered that tragedy in these pages.
STOP PASSENGER
THOU TREADEST NEAR TWO MARTYRS
JAMES BLACKWOOD & JOHN M’COUL
who suffered at IRVINE
on the 31st of December 1666
REV xii. 11th
These honest Country-men whose Bones here lie
A Victim fell to Prelates Cruelty;
Condemn’d by bloody and unrighteous Laws
They died Martyrs for the good old cause
Which Balaams wicked Race in vain assail
For no Inchantments ‘gainst Israel prevail
Life and this evil World they did contemn
And dy’d for Christ who died first for them
‘They lived unknown
Till Persecution dragged them into fame
And chas’d them up to Heaven’ [Cowper lines -ed.]
Erected by Friends to Religious Liberty -31st Dec. 1823.
On this day..
- 1829: Thomas Maynard, the last hanged for forgery
- 1793: Armand Louis de Gontaut
- 2006: Gong Runbo, serial killer
- 1819: John Booth and Thomas Wildish, minor crooks
- 1460: Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury
- 1502: Vitellozzo Vitelli and Oliverotto da Fermo, Borgia casualties
- 1987: Seven Suriname Maroons
- 1942: Three Bialystok Jews
- 1905: Rebellious workers of the Red Presnia district
- 1960: The assassins of Hazza Majali
- 1900: En Hai, the murderer of von Ketteler
- 1898: Joseph Vacher