Series 1 > Diary and general expenditure book of William Cunningham of Craigends ... kept chiefly from 1673 to 1680

XXX
INTRODUCTION
acquire significance, and show that Cuningham was no passive
spectator of the sufferings of his co-religionists. We find him
purchasing early copies of various Acts and Proclamations of
the Parliament and Council, and may be sure that these were
not only diligently perused at Craigends, but that their con¬
tents were speedily communicated, for warning and guidance,
to the tenants and others around who were in sympathy with
the cause against which these stern documents were directed.
We see that he was in correspondence with not a few of
the leading ejected ministers ; that he again and again assisted
in raising funds to procure comforts for Alexander Peden and
other prisoners who were exposed to great suffering in their
lonely prison on the Bass, and that he visited and cheered with
wine some who were imprisoned at Edinburgh in the Tolbooth,
a form of persecution to which he and his father were them¬
selves at a later period subjected.1 Such kindness was extended
not only to suffering ministers and other victims of the Govern¬
ment, but to their families when in distress. We find, too,
reference to the notorious ‘ Highland Host,’ the rough licen¬
tious soldiers sent to the West of Scotland by the authorities,
charged to harry and persecute all who were not ready to
accept the terms of a bond imposed by Lauderdale.2 They
were accompanied by a Committee of the Lords of Council,
not to prevent excesses, but to point out victims. The exac¬
tions and cruelties of these men were such that they are still
referred to with bated breath in the districts which they
ravaged. They were maintained at the expense of those whom
they were commissioned to persecute. Cuningham and others
had to provide the soldiers with quarters and food, and their
horses with stabling and forage.3 There is an interesting entry
1 See Woodrow’s History (Glasgow, 1829), vol. iv. pp. 136, et seq., for interest¬
ing details of the persecutions of which the Craigends family were victims, and
for information regarding several persons named in the Diary. At page 144 will
be found a narrative prepared by William Cuningham himself.
2 Law’s Memorials, 136 ; Woodrow’s History, ii. 421 et seq.
3 Pp. 20, 55, 107, 109.