page_title: Alexander Shields
section_title: Early life and student days
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Shields / Early life and student days
context_page_description: Alexander Shields or Sheilds or Sheills was a Scottish, Presbyterian, nonconformist minister, activist, and author. He was imprisoned in London, in Edinburgh and on the Bass Rock for holding private worship services. After his escape from prison he wrote A Hind Let Loose which amongst other things argues for the rights of people to resist tyrants including the bearing of arms and the resistance of taxes. It even argues that assassination, in extreme cases, is sometimes justified. Shields was one of the ministers who supported the Cameronians who disowned the king. They were brutally put down. All three of the Cameronian field-preachers, of which Shields was one, rejoined the church after the Revolution. Shields served as a chaplain to King William's armies in the Low Countries. Shields was later called to be a minister at St Andrews but did not stay there long as he joined the second Darien Expedition. After its failure he died on Jamaica under 40 years of age.
context_section_description: Alexanders Shields was born in 1661, the son of James Shields, a miller, from Haughhead in the parish of Earlston, Berwickshire. His mother was Helen Brown. He was the brother of Michael Shields, author of Faithful Contendings Displayed. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A., "with no small applause," whilst in his fifteenth year (7 April 1675), writing his surname Sheils. He later wrote it Sheilds; it is often printed "Shields". He began the study of divinity under Lawrence Charteris, but his opposition to prelacy led him, with others, to migrate in 1679 to Holland. He studied theology at the University of Utrecht, entering in 1680 as "Sheill".
caption: Map of Utrecht, where Shields studied in 1680. Joan Blaeu, 1652
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