page_title: John Blackadder (preacher)
section_title: Fugitive preacher
hierarchical_section_title: John Blackadder (preacher) / Fugitive preacher
caption_attribution_description: English: Sheriff confronted by his sister at a Blackadder conventicle. From James Aikman's Annals of the Persecution. Robert Bennet of Chesters was in the crowd.
context_page_description: John Blackadder was an eminent Presbyterian Covenanter preacher in Scotland during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Of the times MacPherson said that "after the first rejoicings of the Restoration were over, the Covenanters — Resolutioners as well as Protesters — were speedily disillusioned, and it became evident that the aim of Charles II and the junta of self-seeking noblemen who were in control of the affairs of Scotland was to establish in Scotland something approximating to an oriental despotism. The Presbyterian system, in which an Assembly of ministers and elders controlled the affairs of the Kirk, had to be supplanted by an Episcopal, with a hierarchy controlled by the Crown and easily manipulated in the interests of tyrannical rule." Despite a government ban he continued to preach in the fields. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1681 and died in jail on the Bass Rock.
context_section_description: During the first three months of the year in which he came to Glencairn, he did not preach publicly, though he did so privately in his own house, to many of the neighbours who assembled. But after that he preached publicly at his own house, sometimes twice, sometimes thrice on the Sabbath, to great multitudes who flocked to hear him, not only from that parish, which was the largest in that part of the country, but out of eight or nine surrounding parishes in Nithsdale and Galloway.
  He lived for a time at Caitloch, Ingleston, and Bardennoch, all in Glencairn, and at other places, and up to 1678 preached repeatedly at conventicles in the fields and in private houses. Numerous warrants were issued for his arrest, but he contrived to escape imprisonment. When the authorities heard about his activities, he moved again, and began a wandering life. On 25 January 1666 letters of Council were directed against Blackadder and other ministers who were preaching, praying and baptizing without authority.
  Finding that his whereabouts in Glencairn were too well known, and being harassed by Turner's troopers, he decided to leave the South-west and settle for the time being in Edinburgh, of all places. He felt he was safer in a crowded city than in a remote country district. On the very night of his departure, Turner and a party of soldiers went to apprehend him, and finding him gone, made a great commotion at his house. The home was broken up, and the family dispersed all over the district.
  Blackadder preached in Dumfriesshire and Galloway and in most other counties of southern Scotland, and was often joined in these conventicles by other preachers. He participated in meetings of the Covenanters at Hill of Beath in Fife and at East Nisbet in what is now Berwickshire. The meeting at Beath Hill on 18 June 1670 was one of the first where the attendees brought arms to protect themselves against the military, who had been ordered to enforce a court ban on conventicles.
  After exaggerated stories of this conventicle had spread, he was called to appear before the privy council, but instead went into hiding. He later resumed preaching.
  On one occasion Blackadder preached at a conventicle on the crag beside Balcarres House in Fife. There was "a great confluence of people, and many of distinction". Blackadder took for his text "O that I knew where I might find Him" (Job 23:3).
  At the meeting, a notorious sinner was converted. Blackadder said that instances of the power and irresistible grace of God such as this rejoiced his heart, and did him more good than twenty years’ stipend. On another occasion Blackadder preached to a large crowd at Kinkell, near St Andrews. When Archbishop Sharp asked the provost to call out the militia to disperse the crowd, the provost said he could not do so, since the militia had joined the worshipers.
  In 1674 Blackadder was made an outlaw, with a heavy reward for his capture, but continued to preach. In 1678 the Battle of Bothwell Bridge was fought between militant covenanters and government troops, in which the latter were victorious. Blackadder was not involved.
  He fled to Rotterdam in 1678, and returned to Scotland by June 1679. He went again to Holland in May 1680, taking his eldest son, who was to study medicine. After placing his son at Leyden, and: visiting the Hague, Amsterdam, and some other cities, he returned to Rotterdam, where he remained for fifteen weeks preaching every Sabbath. Towards the end of September, he returned in a vessel belonging to Prestonpans, and arrived in Edinburgh on the same day that Mr John Dickson was sent to the Bass. During his stay at Rotterdam, Blackadder appears to have been very useful in allaying the animosities which prevailed among his banished countrymen resident in that city, among whom he found that the same divisions had taken place in consequence of the indulgence, as existed in Scotland. He is said, in particular, to have been instrumental in bringing about a better understanding between Robert M'Ward and Robert Fleming.
  He returned to Scotland in September that year. B
caption: Sheriff confronted by his sister at a Blackadder conventicle on Lilliesleaf moor. Robert Bennet of Chesters was in the crowd.[12][13]
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