June 25th 1652

Protesters vs Resolutioners

Though Charles 2nd had been proclaimed King the previous year, his armies had been defeated, partly through bad generalship and partly because of dissension among the Presbyterian ministers. There were still those who were not reconciled to the idea of Charles 2nd as King, the so-called Protesters, and at the General Assemblies of 1651 and 1652, they quarrelled violently with the more moderate ministers known as Resolutioners.

To begin with, Cromwell was disposed to co-operate with the Protesters as being anti-Royalists. But their rigid and fanatical views made co-operation very difficult and in the course of time he was able to reach a modus vivendi with the Royalist Resolutioners instead.

In Perth in 1652 the Protesters were in the majority and at the Synod meeting two ministers, George Muschet of Dunning and John Graham of Aberuthven were deposed from their charges for ‘malignancy', that is, supporting the cause of the King. However, the men concerned continued to preach and obviously enjoyed the support of their congregations. Another meeting of the Synod was called at Dunning to compel the two men to answer the charges made against them. As the ministers met, a large number of women armed with clubs arrived from Aberuthven. Some reports say that there were men among them dressed in women’s clothes.

The leader seems to have been John Graham’s wife and she and her followers prevented the ministers entering Dunning church. They decided to hold their Synod in a private house, but finding the place too small adjourned to the main street. This was the signal for the enraged supporters of Muschet and Graham to attack them. They beat them with their sticks, pursued them out of Dunning, took their cloaks from them and in some cases their horses too. Judge Whitelock records the incident in his diary, though with some variations from the official version.

June 25th 1652. “Letters of the Synod’s meeting at Perth (actually it was at Dunning) and citing the ministers and people who had expressed a dislike of their heavenly government, that the men being got out of the way their wives resolved to answer for them, and on the day of their appearance the women with good clubs in their hands came and besieged the hall where the ministers sat. The ministers sent one of their numbers to treat with the women and he very injudiciously threatening them with excommunication they seized him, thrashed him, kept him prisoner and sent a party of sixty who chased the rest of the clergy, bruised their bodies sorely, took all their baggage and twelve horses. One of the ministers who escaped and after a mile’s running taking every person for an enemy, meeting a soldier fell on his knees asking quarter. The soldier knowing nothing of the matter asked what he meant. The women having seized the Synod clerk beat him unmercifully with clubs until he forswore his office. Thirteen of the ministers rallied about four miles from the place of meeting, and voted that the place should never more have a Synod assembled in it but be accursed.”