Civil War

There was to be further grief and distress as the seventeenth century progressed. During the Civil War between King and Parliament, the Duke of Montrose had gathered together a mixed host of Irishmen and Highlanders to fight in the cause of Charles I. The Lairds of Glenorchy, being stout Presbyterians, called the men of Breadalbane to defend the district against Montrose’s men. The Isle of Loch Tay was put into a state of defence, as was, of course, the House of Balloch. In spite of their preparation, however, the raid was a disaster to Loch Tayside. There were many of the Highland clans, notably the Macdonalds and the Macgregors, who held grudges against the Campbells
and were only too glad of a chance to take revenge. Breadalbane was put to the fire and the sword. It is said that on the south side of the loch only one house escaped. There was great hardship everywhere. The minister of the Parish at this time was William Menzies who had followed the brothers Neil and John Malcolm. William Menzies, who came in 1636, was the first minister to bring some order to the life of the Church. He began a Baptismal Register and divided the Parish into districts, each under the supervision of an elder. The elders were exhorted “to be diligent and to set a good example”.
The rule of the Kirk Session was stern. People were fined for ignorance of the Creed or the Ten Commandments, and for absence, without cause, from compulsory communion. Drunkards and “profaners of the Sabbath”
were punished and the Elders went out on Autumn Sundays to prevent people “going to the woods for hazel nuts”. The Parish records show that there were 35 baptisms in 1638 and those who are over-anxious about the state of sabbath observance today may find comfort in the fact that in the “good old days” of 1645 the
brewsters were ordered to church every Sunday”, and ordered “to sell no drink in time of the service under paine of £5”. There was, however, a compassionate side to the rule of the Session. The Church collections and fines went into the Poor’s Box, an iron-bound chest still to be seen in the chancel of Kenmore Church. The Kirk Session records tell of sums of money given to the needy, or lent, as a Bank does today, to those who could be expected to repay. Such a one was Patrick Beg MacKerchar who, in 1645, promised that the money “be payit before last of August next under paine of doubling”.
It is interesting to note that the collections taken even in these hard times were for the relief of the poor, as on 3rd July, 1697, when: — “The Sacrament was celebrated, collection, 241b. 6s. 8d The poore of the paroch were convened and, according to their exigencies, every one
got part of the collections”.

Not all the Christian charity was parochial. Collections were sent, in 1652, to Glasgow; in 1656 to the “distressed in Edinburgh, which were impoverished by fyre”, and, in 1687, to Anstruther to help build the
harbour. This interest in the East Coast continues in 1728 when a collection amounting to 12 shillings Scots and 2 pence was taken “for the harbur at St. Andrews”.
Locally, a special collection was taken for Duncan McGrigor. The nine shillings collected was augmented by twelve shillings from the Box to enable him to go to London to be cured of the King’s Evil. What a journey
in 1673, from Loch Tayside to London, through country where he could not make himself understood, sick in body and, doubtless, homesick as well, yet hopeful that the touch of the King would cure him! Unfortunately there is no record to tell how he got on. The Church did not escape the attention of Montrose’s men. The Church door was broken down and the baptismal basin and the Poor’s Box taken. On learning of this the Royalist leader made restitution and the Box was returned. The Baptismal font, however, was lost. There is a note in the
Kirk Session records of £3 being given from the box to help those who had been “spoiled and burned”.

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