IT was in this week 340 years ago that the courageous Covenanting minister the Reverend Donald Cargill was brutally executed in Edinburgh.

He was hanged and decapitated for the crime of treason on July 27, 1681. Shortly before his date with the scaffold, he memorably said: “Death to the believer is just like putting off a worn suit of clothes, and putting on a new suit.”

Cargill was born at Rattray in Perthshire sometime around 1619 – we don’t know the exact date of his birth – to Presbyterian parents who encouraged him to study for the ministry which he did at Aberdeen and St Andrews Universities.

The Reformation History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland states: “He was a timid man, always very conscious of his own sinfulness and often felt inadequate, which hindered him from entering the ministry earlier despite his father’s desire for him to do so. Nonetheless he was licensed in 1653 and in 1655 he was ordained minister of Barony Church Glasgow at a time of much religious interest and spiritual mindedness with a third of Glasgow having been burned down three years previously.”

He married a widow who had three sons and two daughters but she died within a year of their marriage leaving him to bring up the children. He appears by all accounts to have been an inspirational preacher who ministered well to his flock, but all the time he was becoming braver in speaking out against those who did not adhere to a strict form of the Protestant religion.

Cargill’s natural inclination was to the Covenanting form of Presbyterianism and he was utterly dismayed when Charles II was restored to the throne and immediately set about imposing bishops and Anglican practices on the Church of Scotland.

Cargill set himself on a collision course with royalty and the Government of Scotland on May 29, 1662. It was supposed to be a day of thanksgiving to mark the Restoration of King Charles II, but Cargill refused to mark the occasion.

He was swiftly removed from his ministry and the Scottish Privy Council, Charles’s government in Scotland, banished him “beyond the Tay”. If they thought that by removing him to the country they would silence Cargill they were soon proved wrong. For he became famous across Scotland as an itinerant “field preacher”, going from place to place to preach wherever the Covenanting public gathered and having many narrow escapes from the Government forces.

After a spell in Holland, he teamed up with the de facto leader of the Covenanters, Richard Cameron, and was wounded at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. Cargill was instrumental in the Sanquhar Declaration in June, 1680, in which Cameron and his followers rejected the King’s authority and basically declared war on Charles II and his Government – Cameron and his brother Michael were killed in the Battle of Ayrsmoss a month later.

Cargill held conventicles in the Torwood near Stirling, and it was there that he preached his most famous sermon on September 12, 1680. His anti-royalist text was noted – Ezekiel 21, 25-27: “And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.”

We can but imagine his passion and fervour as he delivered these verses and his thoughts on them. But he was far from finished and his next words sealed his fate as he proceeded to excommunicate King Charles II from the church of which Charles claimed to be the head. Cargill spoke of excommunicating the King from the “true Church” and also accused the King of adultery and incest.

Cargill promptly went on to pronounce excommunication on James, Duke of York, the King’s brother; the Duke of Lauderdale, the King’s former commissioner in Scotland; the Duke of Rothes, Chancellor of Scotland and president of the Privy Council; Sir George Mackenzie, the King’s Advocate; and Sir Thomas Dalyell of the Binns, general of the king’s forces. He also excommunicated James Scott, the King’s illegitimate son who was the First Duke of Monmouth, who again was Anglican.

Such a tactic provoked the authorities into action, and Cargill had effectively “signed” a verbal death warrant for himself. A reward of 5000 merks was offered and a soldier, Irving of Bonshaw, tracked him down and arrested him – Bonshaw got the reward but one of his own friends killed him a year later.

Cargill’s trial and the death sentence were formalities. Four other Covenanters were to die alongside him. In his defence, Cargill would only say: “I do not say I am free of sin, but I am at peace with God through a slain Mediator; and I believe that there is no salvation but only in Christ.”

His last words were recorded: “Farewell, all relations and friends in Christ: farewell acquaintances and all earthly enjoyments: farewell reading and preaching, praying and believing, wanderings, reproaches, sufferings. Welcome joy unspeakable and full of glory. Welcome Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”

He was the first to be hanged, and afterwards the executioner chopped off all their heads. Cargill’s was put on a spike at the Netherbow.

There is a simple monument to Cargill near his birthplace at Rattray. It calls him by one word – Covenanter.