Biographies: Bishops and Ministers

Robert Blair (1593-1666) 
Presbyterian minister of Bangor and leader of the Ulster-Scots

Background in Scotland 
Blair, the youngest of four brothers, was born in 1593 in the small port of Irvine in Ayrshire. His father was a merchant. Robert had three older brothers. Around 1600 he was deeply moved by the preaching of an English minister who was passing through Irvine en route to Ulster; Blair recalled the sermon later in life in his autobiography. 

He went to Glasgow University and became a professor there; his students included his later Ulster colleagues, Rev. James Hamilton and Rev. John Livingstone. In 1623 
he left the university and, even though he considered an invitation to move to the French Huguenot capital of La Rochelle, he decided - reluctantly - to come to 
Bangor, having been invited by Sir James Hamilton.

Life in Ulster 
Blair met the Dean of Down, John Gibson, at Bangor; when Gibson died just a few weeks later Blair succeeded him at Bangor Abbey. He worked closely with Rev. Robert Cunningham of Holywood and both men trained young James Hamilton, who became the future minister of Ballywalter. All three were involved in the Sixmilewater Revival which swept through the Ulster-Scots communities of Antrim and Down in the 
late 1620s - and which occurred between two revivals in Scotland, at Stewarton in Ayrshire and at Kirk O’Shotts in Lanarkshire.

Blair recounts many fascinating stories in his autobiography - of how an accidental fire which started in his lodgings might have burned down a large part of Bangor, and of a demon-possessed man who arrived at the Abbey armed with a knife to murder Blair. Blair married Beatrix Hamilton, the daughter of an Edinburgh 
merchant - ‘a very gracious, modest, wise, prudent and beautiful woman, every way meet to be a minister’s spouse and helper’.

Through the early 1630s the opposition of the bishops to the Presbyterian ministers grew intense. Compounding this Blair suffered a personal tragedy in 1633 when his wife died, leaving three children motherless. He married again - his second wife was 
Katherine Montgomery.

Blair, along with Hamilton, John Livingstone and John MacLellan, sailed for America on the Eagle Wing from Groomsport on 9 September 1636. While at sea his baby son William fell seriously ill and died the very night the ship returned to Ulster. The family’s remaining stay was a short one; in early 1637 Blair returned to Irvine.

Return to Scotland 
Scotland was in turmoil and a series of dramatic events - including a riot in Edinburgh started by Jenny Geddes, reputed to have been the sister of Blair’s first wife - led to a huge popular rising in ‘Scotland’s National Covenant’. The Presbyterians took control of Scotland and Blair became Moderator of the General Assembly in 1648. He was later appointed Chaplain to the King.

Death and burial
The Presbyterians’ control of Scotland was shortlived and following the ‘Restoration’ of 1660 most of Scotland’s ministers, including Blair, were ejected from their pulpits. For a time Blair lived close to his old Ulster colleague, Rev. James Hamilton, at Inveresk in south Edinburgh. Hamilton died in March 1666 and Blair on 27 August that same year. He was buried at Aberdour in Fife where his old monument can still be seen on an outside wall of the church.

Associated sites: 
Bangor Abbey, including the memorial to Beatrix Blair, nee Hamilton
First Bangor Presbyterian - stained glass list of ministers
Groomsport from where the Eagle Wing sailed.

Robert Cunningham ( -1637)
The army chaplain who became the first Protestant minister of Holywood

Background in Scotland
Robert Cunningham was a chaplain to the Earl of Buccleuch’s regiment during the wars in Holland. He returned to Scotland with the regiment. 

Life in Ulster
Cunningham came across from Scotland in 1615 and was ordained by Bishop Robert Echlin on 9 November that year becoming the minister at Holywood and Craigavad. In the Ulster Visitation Book for 1622 he is described as ‘resident at Hollywood—serveth these cures, and maintained by a stipend from Sir James Hamilton—church repaired in part’. When Robert Blair arrived at Bangor in 1623 he and Cunningham ‘spent many hours - yea days - in prayer’. Rev. John Livingstone of Killinchy wrote that 
Cunningham was ‘the one man to my discerning, of all that ever I saw, who resembled most the meekness of Jesus Christ in all his carriage’. 

Cunningham endured the anti-Presbyterian policies of the bishops, including Echlin who had originally ordained him to Holywood. Throughout the early 1630s the opposition steadily intensified. When four of his colleague ministers decided to sail for America on Eagle Wing, Cunningham opted to remain in Ulster. Just before their departure Samuel Rutherford wrote to Cunningham saying ‘I know not, my dear brother, if our worthy brethren be gone to sea or not. They are on my heart and in my prayers … their remembrance breaketh my heart’. 

Return to Scotland
In February 1637 a Frank Hill of Castlereagh informed the anti-Presbyterian authorities of the whereabouts of many of the Presbyterian ministers, who then fled to 
Scotland and arrived at Irvine in Ayrshire. In just a few weeks there Cunningham ‘had many great experiences of God’s goodness, and much peace in his suffering. He 
spake much well to the Presbytery of Irvine who cameto see him …’. In his last moments he took his wife’s hand and prayed ‘Lord, I commend to thy care her who is now no more my wife’, and died. In a letter dated 7 March 1637 Rutherford wrote of ‘the dying servant of God, famous and faithful Mr Cunningham’.

Death and Burial 
He died at Irvine, Ayrshire, on 29th March 1637, saying on his death bed ‘I see Christ’. A memorial stone to Cunningham at Irvine Parish Church has the following 
inscription: 

‘Erected Anno Dom 1824 to the memory of The Rev Robert Cunningham Sometime Minister of the Gospel at Holywood in Ireland, who for his faithfulness to the cause of CHRIST, was expelled from his charge by the Bishops and died in exile at Irvine on the 27th of March 1637 He was eminently distinguished for meekness and 
patience and zeal in his ministry.’

Robert Blair composed the following memorial poem, a Latin translation of which is also on the stone at Irvine:

Here rests - O venerable name - 
The dust of Robert Cunninghame; 
Ah! What a mind was there concealed, 
By Christian loveliness reveal’d 
And what a soul of heavenly worth, 
Inspir’d that frame of fragile earth, 
None to the proud, with holier awe 
Thunder’d the terrors of the law; 
And none with more persuasive art 
Cheer’d the disconsolate in heart 
But, Oh! Intent his God to praise 
He shorten’d his terrestrial days; 
For, preaching Jesus Crucified 
He others and himself outdid. 

Associated sites:
Holywood Priory

Robert Echlin
One of the first Scottish bishops in Ireland

Background in Scotland
The Echlin family were ‘considerable barons and one of the chiefs of the ancient families in the shire of Fife’. In Scotland they can be traced back to 1296, when they 
signed the ‘ragman roll’ in opposition to Robert the Bruce at Berwick upon Tweed. Their family estate was at Echline near Linlithgow. They sold that estate to the 
Dundass family around 1449 and relocated to Pittadro in Fife.

Birth and early Life
Robert Echlin was born at Pittadro in 1576. His parents were Henry Echlin of Pittadro (1525-1594) and Grisell Colville (1546-1607, from Cleish in Kinross; the Colville family would also have important 17th century connections in Ulster). He had two older brothers, William and David. David Echlin became the personal physician of King James VI of Scotland and I of England and Ireland. William married Margaret Fordell-Henderson, who was arrested in July 1649 on suspicion of witchcraft and who mysteriously died by poisoning while in prison. Robert graduated from St Andrews 
University in 1596 and was appointed the minister of Inverkeithing near Edinburgh in 1601. 

Arrival in Ulster
In 1612 King James appointed a ‘fellow countryman’ of Echlin, James Dundass, Bishop of Down and Connor. However Dundass died just one year later. On 18 May 1613 the King made Robert Echlin a free denizen of Ireland and appointed him Dundass’ successor as Bishop. Echlin chose the ancient monastic site of Ardquin near Portaferry as the location for his manor house, which was completed in 1620. Ardquin was already an important site before Echlin’s arrival - on 4 July 1605 an ‘Inquisition’ was held there before William Parsons, the Surveyor General of King James I, to assess the ownership of lands in Ulster.

Presbyterian Ministers in Ulster
The blossoming Ulster-Scots settlements of Antrim and Down encouraged a wave of Presbyterian ministers to cross the water. In 1613 Echlin appointed the first Presbyterian minister in Ulster - Edward Brice from Drymen in Stirlingshire - to Templecorran near Islandmagee. Even though Echlin was a Church of Ireland bishop, he had studied at a famous Presbyterian university and in his early years in Ulster had shown sympathy towards Presbyterianism, ordaining many early Ulster-Scots ministers such as Robert Cunningham of Holywood. When Robert Blair arrived at Bangor in 1623 he warned Echlin that he was opposed to the Church of Ireland system. Echlin’s reply was ‘I hear good of you, and will impose no conditions upon you; I am old, and can teach you ceremonies, and you can teach me substance’. However in 1626 Echlin began to oppose these same ministers, ‘privily to lay snares’ and in 1631 (with the support of other bishops in Ireland) to suspend them.

Death and burial
Echlin followed the instructions of other bishops in Ireland in opposing the Presbyterian ministers. In November 1634 four of them were permanently 
deposed. However he was wracked with guilt for doing so; just eight months later, as he lay on his death bed, his doctor asked what was ailing him, to 
which the bishop replied ‘its my conscience, man!’. The doctor immediately exclaimed ‘I have no cure for that!’. Maxwell afterwards reported this at Newtown House and the first viscount, then an old man, advised the doctor not to repeat it to others. This prompted his daughter-in-law, Lady Jean Montgomery, nee Alexander, who was a ‘zealous presbyterian’, to cry out ‘No man shall get that report suppressed, for I shall bear witness of it to the glory of God, who hath smitten that man (Echlin) for suppressing Christ’s witnesses’.

The wider Echlin family
Many other Echlins came to Ulster. In 1628 Robert’s son John Echlin bought the neighbouring ancient church of Castleboy, just outside Cloughey, from Sir Henry Piers. It had been an important location for the Knights Hospitallers (the Knights of St John of Jerusalem) during the Crusades. John then leased it to a cousin, also called Robert Echlin. 

Charles Echlin, great-grandson of Bishop Robert Echlin, bought Rubane House outside Kircubbin in 1735/36 and changed the name of the house to ‘Echlinville’. In the late 1700s the family developed a variety of cooking apples of the same name. The Echlinville Volunteers were raised in 1779, commanded by Captain Charles 
Echlin. Rev. William Steele Dickson was their chaplain and later their captain. 

Associated sites: 
The Abbacy at Ardquin
Echlin vault and church ruins in Templecranny graveyard 
Rubane House/Echlinville
Castleboy ruins outside Cloughey

James Hamilton (1600-1666) 
Presbyterian minister of Ballywalter and overseer of the Solemn League and Covenant

Background in Scotland
James Hamilton was the nephew of his namesake, Sir James Hamilton. He was born in Ayrshire in 1600. His father, Gawin Hamilton, was drowned in a boating accident on the River Bann and buried at Coleraine. Young James went to live with relatives and attended Glasgow University where he graduated in 1620. One of his professors was Presbyterian firebrand Robert Blair.

Life in Ulster 
Blair continued at the University until 1623 when he was invited to Ulster to become minister at Bangor Abbey. Young Hamilton had beaten him to it, having been estate manager for his uncle, Sir James, since graduation. Friendship renewed, Blair (and Holywood minister Robert Cunningham) privately tutored young Hamilton for the ministry. One Sunday in 1625 Blair gave Hamilton the opportunity to make his preaching début at Bangor Abbey - much to the surprise of Sir James and his wife who were in the congregation. He was offered a full-time pulpit at Ballywalter, was 
ordained by Bishop Robert Echlin, and Sir James restored the ruined Whitechurch building there. In 1626 Hamilton took charge. 

Depositions and Eagle Wing
Like his Presbyterian colleagues, Hamilton felt the full opposition of the bishops during the early 1630s. In August 1636 five of them were summoned to a public meeting in Belfast with Bishop Henry Leslie. They chose young Hamilton to speak on their behalf, which he did with such skill that the bishops were infuriated and stopped the meeting. Two days later the ministers were all ‘deposed’ from their churches. The day after Sir Hugh Montgomery’s funeral, the Eagle Wing set sail. Four ministers - Hamilton, Blair, Livingstone and McLellan - were onboard. They never reached America but returned to Ulster and subsequently all four went back to Scotland.

Dumfries
Hamilton became Minister of St Michael’s Kirk in Dumfries but was soon back in Ulster in 1644. His jobwas to ‘administer’ the Solemn League and Covenant across the entire populace - which, after about six weeks of a 12-week schedule, had attracted 16,000 signatures.

Kidnap and Imprisonment 
Following the completion of his task, he set sail from Donaghadee but his boat was taken by the MacDonnells and Hamilton found himself and his fellow passengers held hostage in remote Mingarry Castle on the west coast of Scotland. He was freed in May 1645 but was again seized, this time by Cromwellian forces, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for two years. 

Edinburgh, Psalter and Public executions 
Once again free, he became minister of Old Kirk in Edinburgh in 1648. Around this time he was involved in the production of the 1650 Scottish Psalter - a Psalms collection which remained as the standard in Presbyterian churches in Scotland and Ireland until the 1930s. In 1655 the people of Ballywalter asked for him to come back to them but he was unable to do so. When the monarchy was restored at the ‘Restoration’ in 1660 and with the introduction of renewed anti-Presbyterian persecution, Hamilton was again ‘deposed’ from his pulpit. The Crown began to arrest high profile Presbyterians, the first of whom was the Marquis of Argyll. He was publicly beheaded in Edinburgh on 27 May 1661 - Hamilton courageously prayed with him 
before his execution. 

Death and Burial
Hamilton lived out the rest of his life in south Edinburgh near Inveresk in poverty and died on 10 March 1666. He has no known grave. His son Archibald Hamilton 
became minister of Benburb, Armagh and Killinchy and welcomed King William III to Carrickfergus on 14 June 1690.

Associated Sites:
Bangor Abbey 
Whitechurch graveyard

Henry Leslie (c.1580-1661)
Bishop of Down and Connor and opponent of Presbyterianism

Background in Scotland
Henry Leslie was born around 1580, the son of James Leslie and grandson of the 4th Earl of Rothes. He was therefore one of a number of influential clergymen in early 17th-century Ulster with a Fife background. According to one pedigree of the Leslie family, Henry’s father married as his second wife a daughter of William Hamilton of Newcastle in the Ards, himself brother of Sir James Hamilton. If so, then he would have been related by marriage to one of the most powerful families in County Down.

Career in Ireland 
Leslie moved to Ireland in the 1610s. He was ordained a priest in 1617 and moved swiftly through a succession of increasingly important benefices. Henry’s brother 
George was also a minister in Ireland, serving as rector of Ahoghill, County Antrim. Henry was ambitious and prepared to use what could be described as rather underhand means to achieve clerical promotion, such as when he attempted to replace fellow Scot James Spottiswood as Bishop of Clogher. In 1625 he preached 
before the King at Windsor and was rewarded with a royal chaplaincy. His advance through the clerical ranks continued with his appointment as Dean of Down in 1627. 

Conflict with Presbyterians
Leslie was ‘High Church’ in his theology and a strong supporter of Episcopalianism. This naturally brought him into conflict with many of the ministers in his diocese who were Presbyterian in outlook. In fact it was not until after Leslie’s appointment as Dean of Down that pressure began to be brought to bear on the likes of Robert Blair in Bangor and Robert Cunningham in Holywood. Leslie pressurised the hitherto reluctant Bishop Robert Echlin to take action against Presbyterian ministers in his diocese. 

Leslie found a strong supporter in John Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, who in 1634 wrote that the clergy in Down diocese were ‘absolute irregulars, the very ebullition of Scotland’. In the autumn of 1635 Leslie succeeded Echlin as Bishop of Down and proceeded to tackle the issue of non-conformity in his diocese with even greater zeal. Eventually by using various means to deprive them of their livings, and after a great struggle, Leslie forced out the Presbyterian ministers. 

In September 1636 Leslie preached at the funeral of Sir Hugh Montgomery, 1st Viscount Ards, one of the biggest events in the early 17th-century settlement in the Ards and north Down. William Montgomery of Rosemount later wrote that the sermon was ‘learned, pious and elegant’. 

In 1637 Leslie claimed to have ‘fought with beasts’ in reference to his disputes with the Presbyterian ministers. However fleeting his achievement had been, he had succeeded in removing the non-conformist clergymen in his diocese. In 1638 he condemned the National Covenant as well as the Presbyterian practice of meeting in simple, unadorned meeting houses. Leslie held to the view that churches should be places of beauty as this would provoke true reverence. 

Despite his achievement in stamping out non-conformity among his clergy, as well as his success in improving the finances of his diocese, Leslie failed to 
realise his ambition of restoring Down Cathedral. After the outbreak of the 1641 rising he was one of the first to flee to England for safety. He later claimed that he and his son had suffered losses of at least £8,000. Many of his horses, he said, had been taken by followers of Viscount Ards and Sir James Montgomery. Throughout his exile he remained a committed Royalist. At the Restoration he was appointed Bishop of Meath, a rather less troublesome diocese than Down. By then he was in his 80s and he died in April 1661; he was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. 

Associated sites:
Newtownards Priory where Leslie preached at the 
funeral of Sir Hugh Montgomery. 

John Livingstone (1603-1672)
Revivalist preacher and minister of Killinchy

Background in Scotland 
John Livingstone was born at Monyabroch/Monieburgh near Kilsyth, Scotland, on 21 July 1603. His father William was a minister. John was a student of Robert Blair at Glasgow University - Blair later became the minister of Bangor Abbey. Livingstone’s first church role was as assistant minister in Torphichen between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but in 1627 he was ‘silenced’ for his Presbyterian views. He became a chaplain to Sarah Maxwell, the Countess of Wigtown, who not long after became Sir Hugh Montgomery’s second wife. 

Kirk O’ Shotts Revival - Life in Ulster 
Livingstone became well-known following a famous religious revival which began at Kirk O’Shotts on 30 June 1630. The preacher had fallen ill and at short notice Livingstone stood in. 500 people were converted. In August he accepted an invitation from Sir James Hamilton to become minister of Killinchy, having been encouraged by Rev. Robert Cunningham of Holywood. At Killinchy Livingstone wrote that the local people ‘were generally very ignorant, and I saw no appearance of doing any good among them; yet it pleased the Lord that in a short time some of them began to understand somewhat of their condition’. He became involved in the ‘Antrim Meeting’ which had begun around 1625 and which had also seen major religious revival in Ulster.

Opposition, Holywood Revival, Deposition and Eagle Wing
Throughout the early 1630s the bishops began to oppose the Presbyterian ministers - first in 1632, then in 1634 and finally in 1636. Regardless of opposition, revival was felt again. Referring back to the Kirk O’ Shotts experience, a later writer recorded that ‘About two or three years after, such another, and a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit attended a sermon of his at a communion in Holywood in Ireland, where about a 
thousand were brought home to Christ’. 

Livingstone began to explore the possibility of emigrating to America. In July 1634 he wrote to John Winthrop, the Governor of Massachussetts, to see if Ulster-Scots Presbyterians would be welcome there. In January of the following year Winthrop’s son visited Ulster and encouraged them to emigrate. A few months later Livingstone married Janet Fleming in Edinburgh on 23 June 1635. 

On 9th September 1636, the day after the grand funeral of Sir Hugh Montgomery, Livingstone boarded the Eagle Wing, bound for America, with three other ministers - 
Blair of Bangor, McLellan of Newtownards and Hamilton of Ballywalter. Also on board from Killinchy were Michael Colvert and his pregnant wife, who gave birth at sea. Livingstone conducted the baptism and the child was named Seaborn. The Eagle Wing did not reach America but returned to Ulster and the ministers then returned to Scotland where they each played critical roles around the time of Scotland’s National Covenant. Livingstone rode through the night to take copies of the Covenant to London. 

Minister of Stranraer and the returns to Ulster 
Livingstone became Minister of Stranraer in July 1638 and many of his Killinchy congregation travelled across the water to hear him preach. He wrote that: ‘Some of 
our friends out of Ireland came and dwelt at Stranraer; and at our communions, twice in the year, great numbers used to come - at one time 500 persons - and at one time I baptised 28 children brought out of Ireland’. Following the 1641 Rebellion and the arrival of the Scottish army in 1642, Livingstone returned to Ulster in May 1643 for three months, preaching every day. He was back again in 1645 and finally in 1656 when he stayed for around 10 weeks. 

Later life 
He became minister of Ancrum in 1648, where he remained until the ‘Restoration’. Livingstone wrote a series of biographies of his fellow Ulster-Scots ministers 
which were published as Memorable Characteristics and Remarkable Passages of Divine Providence, exemplified in the lives of some of the most eminent ministers and 
professors in the Church of Scotland. Collected by Mr John Livingstone, late Minister of Ancrum. 

The ministers he wrote of included Robert Blair of Bangor, Robert Cunningham of Holywood and James Hamilton of Ballywalter. John Howie wrote in The Scots Worthies: ‘Since our Reformation commenced in Scotland, there have been none whose labours in the Gospel have been more remarkably blessed with the downpouring of the Spirit in conversion work than John Livingstone’.

The anti-Presbyterian persecution which was immediately introduced by King Charles II caused Livingstone to leave Scotland for Holland, where he died in Rotterdam on 9 August 1672. 

Associated sites: 
Killinchy
Groomsport
Holywood

David McGill
One of the first chaplains at Newtownards Priory and the first curate at Grey Abbey

Background in Scotland 
David McGill was a son of David McGill of Nisbet, the Lord Advocate of Scotland during the reign of King James VI. McGill’s wife, Elizabeth Linsday, was a niece of Hugh Montgomery’s wife Elizabeth. 

Life in Ulster 
He became a chaplain to Sir Hugh Montgomery, who had invited McGill to Ulster to be a chaplain at the restored Priory in Newtownards along with a relative, Rev. James Montgomery. Sir Hugh repaired the nave of ruined Grey Abbey for use as a parish church around 1626 and that same year installed David McGill as its Curate. 

Death and Burial
David McGill died on 14 October 1633. He was buried at Grey Abbey, where his memorial stone is set high on the south wall of the Abbey. McGill was succeeded 
there by Rev. James Montgomery, who married his widow. In The Montgomery Manuscripts it is written ‘Mr James succeeding to Mr David aforesaid in his bed… he also filled the said Mr David’s pulpit as Curate in Grayabby’. Montgomery remained as curate until 1643.

David McGill’s son, James McGill, married Jean Bailie of Inishargy - they lived both at Kirkistown Castle and Ballynester, Greyabbey. James McGill bought Kirkistown Castle from James Savage around 1660 and ‘improved the place very much’, also building a nearby windmill, the stump of which still survives. He died on 26 July 1683. 

Two of the McGills were killed in King William III’s army - Captain James McGill on 7 April 1689 at Portglenone bridge and Captain Hugh McGill at Athlone on 19 July 1690. Captain Hugh McGill had been recorded as an overseer of Henry Savage’s will, dated 31 August 1655. Hugh McGill’s daughter, Lucy McGill, was born on 3 November 1685 at Castle Balfour in County Fermanagh. She married William Savage of Audleystowne and Kirkistone, who died in 1733. In 1744 Lucy was recorded as still living at Kirkistown Castle, where she remained until her death. 

Associated sites:
Newtownards Priory
Grey Abbey including memorial to David McGill
Kirkistown Castle

John MacLellan 
Principal of Montgomery’s school in Newtownards and lay preacher

Background in Scotland
The McClellands/MacLellans were based at Kirkcudbright in south-west Scotland with various branches across Galloway. At one point there were 14 different knights in the family. Sir Robert MacLellan owned Kirkcudbright in the early 1600s; MacLellan’s 
Castle still stands today in Kirkcudbright town centre. 

Life in Ulster
Around 1620 John MacLellan arrived from Kirkcudbright to become the schoolmaster at Montgomery’s ‘great school’ in Newtownards. He was the son of Michael  MacLellan, burgess of Kirkcudbright. John McLellan was a Presbyterian and was a lay preacher who ‘occasionally officiated in the pulpits of Presbyterian ministers in the district’. Like the other Presbyterian ministers the bishops opposed him. After one of the ‘depositions’ which drove the ministers from their pulpits, MacLellan went to Strabane where he lodged in the home of a William Kennah and his wife. They were fined £5 for giving MacLellan shelter. 

Eagle Wing
On 9 September 1636 John MacLellan sailed on the Eagle Wing to America. He was described by his colleague and fellow passenger John Livingstone as ‘a most streight and zealous man; he knew not what it was to be afraid in the cause of God, and was early acquainted with God and his ways’. After the return of the Eagle Wing, MacLellan returned to Kirkcudbright where he was appointed minister in 1638. He ‘became an eminent minister of Christ, and so lived for a considerable time; yet died before the sad revolution’. This ‘sad revolution’ was the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

MacLellan is known to have returned to Ulster for a time in 1644. It is recorded that ‘he was endued with a more than ordinary spirit, not only of ministerial authority and 
boldness in his Master’s work, but of a singular sagacity, whereby from Scripture he did frequently foretell events anent the church and particular persons who were enemies to the church of God; insomuch that his ordinary hearers, observing his warnings coming to pass, would declare it was dangerous to provoke McClelland to speak against them’. 

The Montgomery Manuscripts record of MacLellan that: 
‘the pastor of Kirkcudbright, together with Mr Samuel Rutherford and Mr John Livingstone, were denounced by a commissioner from Galloway at the meeting of 
Assembly in 1640, as being great encouragers of private gatherings at night for the purpose of reading scripture and engaging in prayer … without the allowance of minister or elders, the people had begun to convene themselves confusedly about bed-time in private houses, where for the greater part of the night, they would expound scripture, pray, and sing psalms, besides discussing questions of divinity, whereof some sae curious that they do not understand, and some sae ridiculous that they cannot be edified by them… Mr Henry Guthrie brought in a formal complaint against these practices, which, it was charged, had become very general throughout the west and south of Scotland’. 

Associated sites:
Newtownards Priory
Groomsport 

Andrew Stewart
Presbyterian minister in Donaghadee and the first historian of the Ulster-Scots 

Early life
Rev. Andrew Stewart, perhaps the earliest historian of the Ulster-Scots, was minister of Donaghadee from 1645/46 to his death in 1671. He was the son of Rev. Andrew Stewart senior who had been minister of Donegore and who died in 1634. Stewart junior was educated at St Andrews where he was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 1644. 

Ministry in Donaghadee
His period as minister of Donaghadee was eventful. In 1661 he was ejected for refusing to conform to the episcopal form of church government. He remained in the area, ministering to those who dissented from the established church. In 1663 he was imprisoned in Carlingford Castle for suspected complicity in Thomas Blood’s plot to overthrow the government. He died in 1671 and was buried in Donaghadee churchyard.

Stewart was the author of an unfinished ‘History of the Church of Ireland as the gospel began, was continued and spread in this island under our Lord Jesus Christ, after the Scots were naturalised’. In it he made his oft-quoted remark that the early settlers from England and Scotland were the ‘scum of both nations’. This comment must be understood in the context in which it was made, for Stewart was more concerned with 
demonstrating how much things had improved since the earliest days of the settlement than damning the original settlers.

The missing memorial
A memorial to Stewart once existed in Donaghadee churchyard though its present whereabouts are something of a mystery. It was included in Walter Harris’ Antient and present state of the county of Down in 1744, but seems to have been missing by the middle of the 19th century. The inscription read:
‘Here lyeth that pious and faithful servant of Jesus Christ Mr Andrew Stewart, late minister of Donaghadee, who died the 2nd of January 1671 and of his age the 46.’

It also included a coat of arms and a verse in Latin.

Associated sites:
Donaghadee