page_title: Battle of Rullion Green
section_title: Historic context
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Rullion Green / Historic context
caption_attribution_description: English: map of Pentland Rising from Terry
context_page_description: The Battle of Rullion Green in the Pentland Hills, in Midlothian, Scotland on 28 November 1666 was the culmination of the brief Pentland Rising. At least 3000 men of the Scottish Royal Army led by Tam Dalyell of the Binns opposed about 900 armed Covenanter insurgents.
  The Pentland Rising was in the context of the long-running government campaign to impose episcopalianism upon Scotland. The spontaneous uprising began in St. John’s Town of Dalry, where troops were beating an elderly man who had defaulted on a fine for not attending the government's mandatory episcopal services. The troops were interrupted by four Covenanters and then supported by the local populace, who disarmed the soldiers. Robert McClellan of Barscobe led the Rising; he gathered some men in Dalry, led them to Balmaclellan, where after a skirmish with other troops, he raised more men. McClellan led them to Dumfries, and there they captured the local commander, General James Turner, at 5.30 in the morning, still in his nightshirt, in his lodgings on the Whitesands.
context_section_description: A Court of High Commission was again established under the auspices of Sharp, consisting of nine prelates and thirty-five other members. But a bishop with four others constituted a quorum, and the times and places of meeting were left entirely to the discretion of the judge. The method of proceeding was altogether arbitrary, disdaining all the usual formalities and maxims of law. The persons brought before it were generally seized without being informed for what cause; they were often prosecuted without any written indictment, and when a specific accusation was brought against them, the judges did not think it necessary to adhere to it, but admitted new matter at the time of the trial. Witnesses were sometimes suborned by the judges; and in many cases no witnesses were called at all. Ensnaring and captious questions 
  were put, and if these were answered satisfactorily, or if the allegations of their adversaries were disproved, the accused might still be condemned for refusing to take the oath of allegiance, or for hesitating to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the King. In many cases the questions were such as could not be answered to the satisfaction of the judges 
  by any honest man, "What think you of the government?" was one of these puzzling interrogations. No person was allowed to offer any defence till he took the oath of supremacy, or some other engagement which his conscience disapproved. The consequence of refusal was either imprisonment or banishment, or a heavy pecuniary fine. Conviction of the offence libelled was invariably followed with the utmost severity of punishment, even when the accused was induced to confess by the promise of being dismissed with impunity.
  Some of the parishioners of Ancrum, after the banishment of their minister, because he declined taking the oath of supremacy, except with an explanation, remonstrated against the admission of a curate of infamous character, who at the same time enjoyed two other livings. They were brought before the High Commission, and confessed that they had expressed their dissatisfaction at the intrusion of a man whom they thought unworthy of the charge. The Commission immediately sentenced them, as contemners of the ordinances, to be scourged through the town, stigmatised (that is, branded with a red-hot iron), and thereafter imprisoned, and with the first ship conveyed to Barbadoes. For the same opposition to the entry of the curate of Ancrum, two brothers were soon afterwards transported to Barbadoes, and their sister barbarously scourged through the town of Jedburgh. This is but a slight instance of their procedure at an early period, during which this Court of High Commission and the Privy Council divided the exercise of illegal oppression. At length the lay commissioners, shocked at the excessive cruelty of the bishops, refused to take any part in the proceedings; the people, preferring the risk of being outlawed, refused to obey the summons of the judges; and the Commission, in the course of two years, was allowed to expire. From one point of view these 'interesting times' might be regarded as the "teething troubles" of Charles II's new regime.
  The abolition of this court, however, was not the dawn of better times. The western part of Scotland was exposed to all the fury of military violence. Sir James Turner, an Englishman, was sent with a considerable body of troops into Dumfriesshire, Galloway, and Ayrshire. Wherever the people deserted their parish churches, they were fined, imprisoned, plundered, beaten, wounded, and hunted through the mountains like wild beasts. The clergy stimulated the soldiers to all these acts of oppression and inhumanity; and the soldiers were allowed to act both as judges and executioners. Though innumerable families were dispersed and ruined, though the prisons were crowded with the victims of clerical jealousy, and though comfort and peace was banished from the whole country, Turner declared afterwards that he 
  was never able to satisfy the bishops that his severities were sufficient.
  After a time the peasantry, drive
caption: map of Pentland Rising[7]
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