Memorial to Robert Nairn

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 30 Mar 2012

The recumbent (lying flat) stone just right of centre in the foreground is a memorial to Robert Nairn, a Covenanter. The picture was taken in the kirkyard of Bonhill Parish Church: Image ----- TO THE MEMORY of ROBERT NAIRN of Bonhill Who died 15th April, 1685, of illness occasioned by severe hardships and privations to which he was subjected for his steady adherence to the cause of Truth and Religious Liberty, and in token of respect for the piety, patience, and Christian fortitude for which he was distinguished in that period of peril and persecution. Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive good recompense; But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain and suffering, Yet few remember them. Erected 1826 Restored 1898 ----- Robert Nairn's story is recounted by Robert Wodrow in "The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution" (1722). I give the relevant passage below, after the inscriptions. The text on the adjacent stones may also be of interest. The first is on a gravestone that pre-dates the 1826 memorial stone: ▶ Here lye the remains of Robert Nairn in Napierston who died 1685 and of Catherine Lindsay his spouse and also his son John Nairn Tacksman of the Miln and Land of Milnburn who died 1729 and his spouse Ann MacIndoe and Likewise James Nairn Son of John and Tacksman of the Miln and Land of Milnburn who died 1770 aged 77 and Likewise John Nairn Son to James Nairn Portioner of Dalvait who died February 1790 aged 64 also Agnes Nairn Dumbarton died 24th dec 1817 ◀ Another stone beside it bears the following inscription (the final date, though it may be "18th Dec" with a very worn "1", appears to read "8th Dec"): ▶ Here Lies the Body of Isobell Brodie Spouse to James Nairn Farmer in Milnburn who died 1773 aged 64 and also James Nairn Son to James Nairn and Husband to Grizel McIntyre who died 1788 aged 47 years ALSO Thomas Nairn Bankhead died 8th Dec 1826 aged 96 ◀ The last-mentioned Thomas Nairn, of Bankhead, died in 1826, the year in which the memorial to Robert Nairn was created. - - • - - Wodrow's account of the hardships of Robert Nairn and his family is as follows. I have adopted the modernised spelling and capitalisation of the nineteenth-century reprintings of his book; in addition, I have broken the passage into paragraphs for ease of reading, and have changed the word "relic" (of the c19 printings) to the more usual "relict" (the spelling in the original 1722 text). Wodrow's account begins with events that took place in 1682: "July 7th, this year, Robert Nairn in the parish of Bonhill, in the shire of Dumbarton, fell under no small trouble, for nothing else but his not hearing of the episcopal incumbent. Last year, he had been fined for nonconformity, in twenty pounds Scots, at the regality court at the ferry of Bellach, and now it is wholly exacted. He was a shoemaker in Napierston, and was obliged, notwithstanding of his paying his fine, to leave his house and family, and dismiss his servants, and give over his employment. The sheriff-officers frequently came and searched his house for him, and they seldom came without carrying away somewhat or other with them." "February, 1685, the depute of the regality came at midnight to his house, with two officers. His wife with a sucking child was forced to flee to the open fields; the depute found none in the house but three children and a servant maid. Having, with their swords drawn, searched the house, they took the eldest boy, not fourteen years of age, and, with their swords over his head, threatened him to tell where his father was; but he could not. They inventared all that was in the house, except the cradle, which in their great mercy they left for the child, and arrested all in the hand of the landlord of the house, and gave him summons of forthcoming for them. The two infants, the eldest not above five years old, they turned out of their beds, and carried away the bed-clothes. The maid they would carry with them to prison, till she found bail to answer when called." "In April thereafter, being informed of some things belonging to Robert Nairn, in a neighbour's house, they seized upon them, and that night they searched Robert's house, took his wife out of her bed, and carried her to prison, where she lay till she found bail to keep the kirk. In the beginning of winter, Robert ventured home to his own house, but was not long there till his persecutors got notice, and one night, he hearing two men were near the house, made his escape; the men followed him, and both shot at him, and narrowly missed him." "He got into a wood about a mile from his house, and escaped them. But he contracted such a cold by lying there, that shortly after he fell very sick, and came again to his house, that he might have some little accommodation under his illness. Notice was quickly got of this, and, Saturday, December 26th, two officers came to carry him prisoner to Dumbarton, with orders to bring him on horse, if he was so sick as he could not go." "His landlord John Macallaster, who had done him many kindnesses, hearing of this, found means to detain the officers, till Robert was carried that night to a barn, where he lay till the morrow, when he was carried to a friend's house, about a mile's distance, where that night he got to his everlasting rest, beyond the persecutors' malice, except as to his body, which, it seems, they ceased not to show their malice at." "Upon Monday, to prevent trouble to the family where he died, his corpse was carried to his own house. His friends designing him a decent burial, which became them, he being a judicious Christian and saint of God, sent for the parish mort-cloth, but the curate having that in his custody, refused it; and when on Tuesday the beadle came to make his grave in his burial-place in the church-yard of Bonhill, the incumbent came out upon him and hindered him, and locked the gate, as if this good man had been unworthy of a Christian burial. However his friends afterwards prevailed to have the grave made, and he was buried." "But the defunct's relict and son were summoned for breach of the arrestment laid upon all that was in the house, and that immediately after the interment, before the company were dismissed, which process cost them twenty pounds Scots before they got rid of it." "About the same time, John Bredin, in the same parish, and at present one of the elders of Bonhill, fell under much the same steps of persecution. His house was frequently searched, his goods taken away to a considerable value, himself narrowly escaped, and forced to flee and hide himself, and all this merely for not keeping the kirk."

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