page_title: Henry Hall (Covenanter)
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Hall (Covenanter) / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Cessford Castle near Morebattle, once stronghold of the Kerr family.
context_page_description: Henry Hall was a Covenanter and Church of Scotland elder. He had firm Presbyterian convictions. He tried but was prevented from joining the Pentland Rising. He fought as an officer at Drumclog and at Bothwell Bridge. He was part of a group, along with Richard Cameron and Donald Cargill, who were openly opposed to the government's religious policies. Hall was intercepted at South Queensferry where Robert Middleton, the governor of Blackness Castle, tried to arrest him along with Donald Cargill. Hall managed to hold off the governor but received a mortal headwound from the butt of a gun from a taxman after Cargill had escaped. An unsigned and probably unfinished work known as The Queensferry Paper was found on Hall which caused considerable disquiet when it was read by government supporters.
context_section_description: The son, Henry, of strong religious temperament, actively opposed the resolutions adopted by the moderate party in the church in 1651 and ceased to attend the church at Eckford. He went each week instead to Ancrum, then under the ministry of the John Livingstone. After the restoration of episcopacy by Charles II, Hall adhered to the presbyterian preachers, and became so obnoxious to the government that in 1665 he took refuge on the English side of the border, but within an easy riding distance of his estate. He left his retreat to join the Covenanters, who were in arms at the Pentland Hills in 1666, and was arrested and imprisoned in Cessford Castle, two or three miles from his own home. The Earl of Roxburghe, to whom the castle belonged, procured his release, and Hall returned to Northumberland. There he was present at a scuffle near Crookham, at which one of his friends, Thomas Ker of Hayhope, near Yetholm, was killed. On this account he was compelled to quit the locality, and, returning to Scotland, wandered up and down, often in company with Donald Cargill and other Covenanting ministers. Conventicles, or field meetings, were held on his estate. Its seclusion and proximity to the border hills, where refuge could easily be found in case of surprise by the dragoons, admirably adapted it for this purpose. There Richard Cameron was licensed to preach the gospel.
caption: Cessford Castle ruins
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